THE EYES HAVE IT

A Case Note for Liminal

Neil Gow
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THE EYES HAVE IT

A case for the Worshipful Company of
Investigators or any crew who gets involved with
‘the authorities’

Writing: Neil Gow

Art: Jason Behnke
Editing and Layout: Paul Mitchener

(C) 2020 Jason Behnke and Neil Gow

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Introduction
An MP has been murdered, and the crew must investigate. This brings involves them in
secretive matters of great political importance, in both the mundane world and Hidden
World. This adventure is a sequel to ‘One Boggart’s Rubbish’ but it can be played inde-
pendently without any changes.

The Hook
The Worshipful Company of Investigators or the player character crew – London’s premier
collection of Hidden World problem solvers – are asked to investigate a matter of the
highest delicacy. An MP has been found dead, with his eyes cleanly removed and replaced
by something …wrong!

Background
A high-ranking MP has been murdered in mysterious circumstances. Due to his posi-
tion as a member of the Joint Committee on Internal Security Strategy (the P Division
Oversight Committee), P Division are helpless to investigate because of the conflict of
interests. Therefore they are forced to call in some amateur help - the crew. Matters are
complicated more as the MP has been working on a matter of Liminal national security
and if his plans have been compromised, it could spell disaster for the city.

The Characters

Rt. Hon. John Richardson MP

John Richardson is a sitting member of the Joint Committee of Internal Security Strategy
– the committee that has oversight of P Division. Richardson enjoys the ‘magical’ side of
London’s night life.

Holda and the Haule Mannerchen

Holda is a powerful Germanic fae, and the Haule Mannerchen is aher seeress who accom-
panies her everywhere. Holda is on the same power level as the Winter King and any
alliance with her would potentially tip the balance of power between Britain’s two courts.
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Argus the Eye Thief

Argus is a talented changeling mage with a very particular set of skills. He can implant
fake eyes, and later retrieve information that those with the artificial eyes have seen.

Drive: Complete the contract and get out alive!

Focus: Magician
Physical Skills: Awareness 1, Melee 1, Stealth 2
Mental Skills: Art 3 (Fake Eyes), Lore 1, Medicine 3 (Eyes)
Social Skills: Charm 2, Streetwise 3 (Mortals)
Traits: Artefact (Spirit Scalpel), Night Sight, Silver Tongue,
Divination (Scrying – only through his fake eyes)
Limitation: Marked (Casts no shadow)
Endurance: 8
Will: 8
Damage: d6+1 (Scalpel)

Argus’ Spirit Scalpel gives him +2 to Medicine when he is operating using it, and the cuts
leave no scars, healing magically when the surgery is complete.
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The Opening Scene

The crew are approached for an urgent meeting by top ranking representatives of P Divi-
sion and the civil service. The meeting takes place discreetly, using a small magic charm
to prevent any scrying or mundane surveillance. After being reminded of their respon-
sibilities under the Official Secrets Act, and as a matter of the utmost national security,
the crew are engaged by the pair to investigate the murder. In return, they will be paid
whatever they request, within reason. However, the main carrot to the crew will be the
promise that ‘Her Majesty’s Government will look favourably on your future endeavours.
Very favourably…’

Why are P Division Not Involved?

It would seem logical to have London’s premier paranormal police unit involved in
a murder like this, but due to the nature of the victim they cannot be engaged. P
Division investigating the murder of one of their own Oversight Committee may
be seen as being too close to corruption and cover-up. They need an independent
investigative body to do the job for them and the crew are either trustworthy or
disposable. If the crew have completed One Boggart’s Rubbish or another case in
London, their competence may have been communicated to P Division.

The Murder Scene

Due to the nature of the murder, P Division have given the PCs twelve hours grace to
investigate the crime scene. After that, they will be forced to insert the mundane police
into the investigation. So when the PCs arrive, the scene is left untouched and more
importantly, not cordoned off. Therefore gaining access to the flat will be easy.
The flat is in a very well-to-do area of Islington and is part of a luxury renovation of some
old properties. The other residents in the area are all either highly well-paid executives or
the properties are kept empty as ‘investments’ by foreign financiers.
Inside, the flat is clearly the working residence for a professional. It is a smart, well-
maintained place and there is certainly nothing out of the ordinary about it – apart from
the dead body, of course.
After an investigation, the following clues are available.

• There was no sign of forced entry into the property and it is safe to assume that
the murderer either knew the victim or the victim was well-disposed towards them.
• Similarly, in the flat itself, there is no sign of a struggle. Everything is as expected.
The house is very clean and tidy.
• The body of the victim is spreadeagled on the bed. He is naked. The bed itself is
unmade and there are signs that more than one person may have been sleeping in
it.
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• There is some clothing discarded around the room - smart casual wear of the sort
worn by older men when they frequent clubs meant for younger people. The
clothing smells of alcohol and marijuana.
• The balcony window from the bedroom is ajar and the plants on the balcony are
undisturbed.
• The victim is a man in his late 50s, around 5’10”, weighing around 180lb. He is
clean shaven, has a small aged tattoo of an anchor on his shoulder, an appendix
scar, and no other clear identifying marks.
• He has two entrance stamps on his right hand. One is just a number (135) whilst
the other is an Ouroboros serpent. This is the common symbol associated with the
Locus, a club night organised by New Aeon Bookshop for the ‘magical people’ in
London. It is not usually frequented by Liminals, but usually by mortal wannabees.
• He also has no eyeballs in his eye sockets. Closer examination will show residue
around his eyelids of what appears to be melted gold. Closer examination will be
able to retrieve small fragments of gold filigree from within the eye sockets.
• The sockets themselves have no scar tissue within them and appear to have healed
perfectly. This is highly unlikely from a mundane injury and therefore some form
of magic may have been used.
• There is no blood around the eyes or anywhere in the flat.
• Accessing CCTV of the street outside will show that the victim entered the flat at
01.13 with a companion (see description below). No-one has been seen leaving the
flat.
• Asking the neighbours, no-one saw or heard anything out of the ordinary, but they
will confirm that the flat was not always occupied and was almost certainly a pied
a terre for someone rich and/or famous.

Who is the victim?

After some searching around the flat, enough ID can be gathered to discover that the
owner is Rt. Hon John Richardson, MP for New Forest East and, amongst other things,
a member of the Joint Committee on Internal Security Strategy - which is known in the
Liminal community as the P Division Oversight Committee.

What was he working on?

Richardson’s most recent piece of work for the Committee was the security arrange-
ments for the arrival of Holda, a powerful Germanic fae and her companion, the Haule
Mannerchen - a seer of some kind. Holda represents a faction of the European fae that
seek to align themselves with the Queen of Hyde Park. The Germanic fae is a powerful
being of snow, water and winter.
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Holda is to present a shawl of woven dreams to the Queen to seal the pact between the
traditions. Security for the visit is tight, as there have been fae both in the British Isles
(almost certainly allied to the Winter King) and on the Continent, who do not want to see
this happen.

And the companion?

The man Richardson was seen entering with on the CCTV is tall and slender, with long
dark hair and a painfully complete old school goth ensemble; skin tight black jeans, winkle
picker boots, a faded band t-shirt from the 80s, a black leather waistcoat and a long black
leather overcoat. In the darkness of the morning, he wears round black glasses.
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The Locus
Hosted in a small, independent club in the back streets of Camden, The Locus is funded
and promoted by New Aeon Publishing. It promotes itself - through a healthy social media
presence - as a place where the arcane and the mundane are one and the same. As such
it attracts a huge number of wannabee ‘warlocks’ and ‘mystics’ and hirsute overweight
students convinced they are ‘touched by the Wyld’ (sic). A cabal of goth faux-wizards
hold court in one corner of the bar and more than one ‘faerie queen’ demands fealty from
the crowd. There are also a number of ‘mundane’ attendees who come to gaup at the
delusional regulars and ‘take the piss’. It is rare that an actual Liminal being comes to the
Locus. ,
Asking around the Locus with the attendees is a painful experience. Almost all of them
will claim to be able to do some sort of magical intervention to track the person, but it is a
load of rubbish. Once all of the obfuscation has been dealt with, it becomes clear that the
regulars are so obsessed by their magical play acting that they never really notice anyone
else. It’s all beneath them.
However they do remember a man matching the description of the companion. He is
Argus, a regular at the club - attending almost every night - and someone who has been
known to take himself a little too seriously. Some think he really believes he has fae blood!
He has also taken some of the regulars as his lovers and they recall that he never took them
back to his place, always theirs, and that he was never there in the morning. It was all part
of the mystique.
With this identification, it is easy to find Argus as he returns to the club that evening, to
celebrate with his payment. He comes with an entourage of hangers-on and looks to party
hard into the night. If he is approached in a way that scares him, he will run and will have
to be pursued across the city. Resourceful crews should have no problem catching him
though!

Information from the Eye Thief

Argus is naturally reluctant to speak to the crew, but he would rather confess to the mortal
authorities than be handed over to the Queen of Hyde Park. He will plead an arrangement
where he is protected from her wrath, in exchange for the following information. When
it is divulged, the crew will realise why!

What did Argus do?

Argus has had two liaisons with the MP. During the first one, he enchanted the man and
replaced his eyeballs with his magical facsimiles. On the second recent one, he removed
the eyeballs to harvest their contents. The operation was too much for the man’s system
and he died. Regardless, Argus had to have the information and he made his escape.
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Argus’ Eyes

The magical eyes are crafted from the finest fae gold, into shifting patterns of glittering
filigree. Within the balls is held a tiny mote of magical energy. This serves two purposes–
to transform the eye into a passable facsimile of a real eyeball and to store whatever the
eye sees. Argus is a skilled surgeon and using a combination of skill, magic and enchanted
implements, he can deftly remove the eyes from an unconscious victim and insert his
magical globes.
Sadly for the victim - who remains oblivious to the change in their anatomy - Argus has yet
to perfect a way of extracting the stored information without fully removing the magical
mote. This leaves the sockets full of golden fragments and well, no eyes. Argus takes
some pleasure in seeing the melted gold run down from the empty sockets, like the most
beautiful tears in the world … and then he leaves.

What information did he want?

The eyes recorded the negotiation about the security for the Holda’s visit, as well as a huge
amount of P Division information including the identity of agents across the country.

Who hired him to do this?

Argus identifies his employer as a mortal called Myers Adnis, who claimed to represent
‘a power who would not see the Queen of Hyde Park gain more influence on this island’.
Adnis was working with fae from continental Europe who would act against Holda and
her entourage. An alliance with Holda would just be the start, and it has to be stopped.
Argus has no idea who the man is, but he has heard the phrase ‘Aigle à deux têtes’- the
two-headed eagle. A common symbol in heraldry, a Lore test will also reveal that it is
associated in Arthurian myth with Mordred.

You might want to give the crew a Lore test to realise that Myers Adnis is an anagram
of Dinas Emyrs, Vortigern’s castle in Wales, which is intrinsically linked to the Red
and White Dragons and all manner of things Arthurian. What this has to do with
anything is for the future.

Has the information been handed over?

Yes, but literally just a few hours ago. It was left in a dead drop– a locker at St Pancras
International. He believes that the continental fae may pick up the contents of the locker
and then head off on the Eurostar to return to Paris and from there, onward to whatever
nefarious plot they had up their sleeves.
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Plot Twist
At this point, it may seem that the case has been closed. The crew can hand over Argus and
let P Division know what has happened. Job done. However, when they do, they receive
more disturbing news. The connection of the death with the MP’s membership on the
Oversight Committee is troublesome. Membership of the committee is a highly guarded
secret, and no-one outside the upper echelons of Government should know. There is a
mole in either P Division or the Government.
As this is the case, the official channels cannot be trusted to foil the plot - the crew are
asked to once again intervene for the Government and retrieve the information.
What happens next depends on how long the crew has taken to convey the information.
If they have moved quickly, especially as they have captured Argus at night, they will have
a chance to stop the fae before they escape the city.
If they have waited too long, the fae will have left and the crew will be left to deal with
their attempts to stop Holda and her entourage.
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Interception at St Pancras Station

If they are early enough, the crew can stake out the locker where the eyes have been left
and intercept the infiltrating fae. If they are a little later, they will have to catch them
before they get onto the Eurostar.
This should be a tense pursuit through the crowds of one of the busiest stations in the city.
There are only two fae infiltrators, but they will use every trick that they have to hide and
confuse the crew. If they can get onto the train, they will almost certainly be lost unless
the crew can board as well and corner them as it pulls out of the station!

Continental Fae Infiltrators

Drive: Retrieve the information on Holda for The Two Headed Eagle
Physical Skills: Athletics 2, Awareness 2, Melee 1, Stealth 3
Mental Skills: Lore 2
Social Skills: Charm 2, Conviction 2, Streetwise 3
Traits: Appear Human, Forgettable, Night Sight, The Sight, Sneaky
Limitation: Vulnerability (Bronze), Obliged (‘Aigle à deux têtes’)
Endurance: 10
Will: 10
Damage: d6 (fists)

Protecting Holda
The continental fae are determined to stop the summit between Holda and the Queen of
Hyde Park. They have planted agents in London who will try to ambush Holda as she
makes her way through the city.
The crew will have to call in all of their resources to discover the plan that the agents
have and to intercept them successfully - especially doing it without alerting the mundane
world to their actions. Holda will have her own guards, and the Queen of Hyde Park will
have allocated one her own fae knights too.

Continental Fae Assassins (6)

Drive: Stop the summit between The Queen of Hyde Park and Holda
Physical Skills: Athletics 2, Awareness 2, Melee 2, Shoot 2
Mental Skills: Lore 2, Medicine 2, Technology 2
Social Skills: Conviction 2, Taunt 2
Traits: Night Sight, The Sight, Quick Reflexes, Sharpshooter
Limitation: Vulnerability (Bronze), Obliged (The Two Headed Eagle)
Endurance: 10
Will: 10
Damage: d6+1 (Bronze fae dagger), d6+3 (automatic pistols)
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The Queen’s guard is Briarthorn, a representative of the Winter King in the Court of the
Queen of Hyde Park - if you intend to run ‘One Boggart’s Rubbish’ when he needs help,
he will know a crew that fits the bill and has history dealing with fae matters …
Of course, if you have already run ‘One Boggart’s Rubbish’ the crew will have already met
Briarthorn and he will have his own opinion of their trutworthiness…
If they failed in that mission, Briarthorn will not be available as he will be banished, dead
or imprisoned - create a new fae knight and use Briarthorn’ stats as a guideline.

Briarthorn, Fae Knight of the Court of the Winter King

Drive: Protect the Queen of Hyde Park’s honoured guest

Physical Skills: Athletics 3, Awareness 2, Melee 4
Mental Skills: Art 2, Lore 3, Medicine 2
Social Skills: Conviction 2, High Society 2, Taunt 3
Traits: Graceful, Frightening, The Sight, Brawny, Quick Reflexes
Limitation: Vulnerability (Bronze), Obliged (The Winter King)
Endurance: 11
Will: 10
Damage: d6+4 (Enchanted Knight’s Sword)

Aftermath
Alongside the promised compensation from P Division and the Government, should the
crew be successful, they will receive a gift from Holda, as a thank you.

The Thread of Winter

The Thread of Winter is a blue-white flax, wrapped around a spindle of clear
unmelting ice. The thread has three uses. When it is twisted around a wounded
area, the wound freezes and no longer bleeds, stabilising it until medical treatment
can be administered.

There are a number of questions that arise from this venture.

There is almost certainly a mole within P Division or the Government who is in league
with this Myers Adnis and the Aigle à deux têtes or whatever they are called. Who are they
and why are they so set against the Queen of Hyde Park?
The names of a number of agents of P Division may have been leaked, either through the
continental fae or Argus. What are the ramifications?
What is the fate of Argus? If he is kept by P Division, what do they do with him? If he is
handed over to The Queen of Hyde Park, how will she punish him?