Reference (hold your hat and hang on to your soul)

[This page contains spoilers through the end of 'if we fight it we've still got a chance.']

Great Old Ones

Nyarlathotep: The Big Bad. Also known as The Liar, The Liar From Beyond, The Crawling Chaos, Nephren Ka, the Black Pharaoh, the God with a Thousand Forms, the Mouth, the Thing With A Thousand Mouths, and the Herald of Azathoth. Nyarlathotep is a trickster god with thousands of forms, called Masks. 

In his Mask as the Thing With A Thousand Mouths, Nyarlathotep is a god of power, dominance, and control over others. He manifests in the form of mouths. Minor Mouths are the side of an ordinary mouth and appear on walls, floors, or the bodies of his followers; they can hiss and spit acid. Major Mouths appear on walls and are larger than a human being; they drool Nectar. Nectar is a drug which makes you sharper and cleverer and harder working and more ambitious and more insightful and generally on top of the world. It is addictive, and if used to excess it destroys your goals, so that the only thing you want is to accumulate power so that you are stronger so that you can accumulate more power so that you are stronger so that you can accumulate more power...

The Mouths are fed by dominance over other people, such as in the form of torture. To destroy a Minor Mouth, you must throw in a symbol purified through a process of self-denial, self-abnegation, and self-sacrifice; to destroy a Major Mouth, you must throw in yourself after a similar process of purification.

The Mouths and some cultists speak the Tongue of Lies, a nonhuman language that rends the sanity of those who hear it. 

In His Mask as Nephren Ka, Nyarlathotep has been regularly visiting Zoe's acrobatics performances and making cryptic, ominous, and plausibly hallucinatory visitations. 

Dagon: Sumerian fish-god with a strange connection to the Orkney Islands in Scotland and Innsmouth in Massachusetts. Imprisoning someone who may or may not be Nyarlathotep but who definitely has a Mouth Theme. A book called Revelations of Dagon is about him. Probably has no relationship whatsoever to Mordred Orkney whose family is from Scotland and who grew up near Innsmouth. 

Gol-Goroth: Also known as The Forgotten God. Really into giant stone monoliths, which exist in Ethiopia (Axum) and Hungary. Some connection to the Children of the Night, who are possibly his worshipers and live in Mexico. Ramon Echavarria told the outer circle of the cult that they worshiped Gol-Goroth, but this is probably wrong. 

Azathoth: Also known as The Watcher (only by the PCs) or the Blind Idiot God. A giant terrifying Eye that Zoe had a vision of; Nyarlathotep is his Herald. Possibly worshiped by the Order of St. Frumentius, who believe "Azathoth" to be a secret name of God. 

Cult Leaders and Second-In-Commands

Samson Trammel. Former leader of the Los Angeles cult and current corpse. Smug, condescending, and the walking human embodiment of Dunning-Kreuger. Abusive foster father of Lacie and Oswald Ferrier. Has achieved the dubious honor of having raped every single person that Oswald cares about even if you make the implausible assumption that he cares about himself. Voted "most deserving of being devoured by a Mouth" fourteen years running. Allegedly died of cancer. 

Captain Walker. Former second-in-command and current leader of the Los Angeles cult. The anti-investigators think he is significantly more competent than Samson Trammel; the anti-investigators also believe the investigators to be a team in Captain Walker's employ. Knows Mordred's name. 

Savitree Sirikhan. Current head of the Bangkok cult. Terrifyingly good at her job. Funding the anti-investigators. Mordred has a quixotic quest to try to convince her not to destroy the world. 

Daniel Lowman. Second-in-command of the Bangkok cult. Best known for paying the cult's network of informers and anti-investigators. Savitree's boyfriend, who is from Lev's perspective both unfairly pretty and unfairly monogamous. 

JB. Current head of the Mexico City cult, which has been producing too little Nectar but has been producing some very interesting mind-control music. ABSOLUTELY going to do his job AS SOON AS his band gets their big break. You just don't BELIEVE IN HIM. He is FOLLOWING HIS DREAMS. 100% has ADHD. 

Cristobal de la Luz. Birth name Cristobal Vega. Like all Chrises in a cosmic horror setting, absolutely up to something extremely normal and good that 100% does not involve destroying the world even one little bit. JB's boyfriend. Weirdly short and has a high voice? Who knows what's up with that. 

Montgomery Donovan. Head of the Malta cult. Nectar production spiked in February 1934. Apparently "understands with the bitter black dregs of wisdom" that "with magic, the greater the sacrifice the greater the reward," which is literally zero percent ominous. 

Anti-Investigators

Mariam Soliman. The face. Does not so much "lie constantly" as "say whatever series of words best advances her goals in this conversation," which may or may not bear any relationship to the truth. A determined social climber whose primary objection to the British empire is that she hasn't married a lord yet. Has many people with favors she can call in and absolutely no one she wouldn't stab in the back to stay alive. Wears heavy makeup; animals dislike her. 

Louise Fauche. Oxford-educated archaeologist, polyglot, and general Very Smart Person. Enjoys infodumping about languages.

Inaaya Khadpo. Convicted rationalist and skeptic in a way that is not at all altered by her psychic powers. If magic exists, well then, that is another fact that has to be approached with an empirical mindset and a refusal to believe anything that hasn't been proven. Her political beliefs include women's liberation, free love, pacifism, anti-imperialism, socialism, and anti-Stalinism. She enjoys proving theorems and reading works of popular nonfiction.

Joan Kramer. A woman of many guns and few words, Joan's primary interest is in her continued survival in this horrific world; her secondary interest is in the survival of the rest of the team. Her cynicism and belief that she is inevitably doomed leave her well-suited to the cosmic horror world that she finds herself in. If pressed, she will give her life expectancy as six months and her most likely cause of death as Anchisa. 

Anchisa Sirikhan. Savitree Sirikhan's niece, who has been FORCED to join the anti-investigators AGAINST HER WILL just because her aunt was afraid that she was going to mess around with boys and get into trouble. Everything would be FINE. Everyone keeps talking about boring things all the time and going to boring places with lots of rocks and Anchisa is TIRED OF IT. They went to America and there were not ANY skyscrapers or ANY cowboys. It was terrible. No person has ever suffered as Anchisa has suffered. Currently sleeping with Oswald, whom she sincerely believes is a cool American who can introduce her to jazz musicians. 

Significant People of Investigators

Oswald Ferrier

Lacie Ferrier. Sister who was kidnapped by Samson Trammel and convinced to join the cult as his second-in-command/lover/daughter. Her current whereabouts and fate, given Samson's death, are unknown and Oswald prefers not to think about it.  

Lev Aarons. His boyfriend, with whom he shares certain otherwise unique experiences like being abused by Samson Trammel and having a loved one who has joined the cult because it is so beautiful, and with whom he is vaguely groping towards some concepts such as "it is bad when people rape me."

Mordred Orkney

Gale Dulac. His best friend, who is a devout Catholic and Known Very Good Person. Mordred is a little bit in love with him and will never admit this to anyone.

Agravaine Orkney. His older half-brother, known best person to help you hide the bodies while complaining that really you should not be murdering anyone in the first place. Their relationship is strained due to Agravaine's constant nightmares about Mordred dying and Mordred's refusal to quit investigating. 

Morgan Marsh. His aunt, who told him the occult existed and immediately vanished without a trace. 

Lev Aarons. Mordred rescued him from an asylum and considers himself responsible for his well-being. Fortunately, Lev is also really cute and enjoys infodumping about anthropology. Mordred has some conflicted feelings about this fact.  

Zoe Aletheia

Ralph Haas. Her best friend, an antiquarian who collects strange and unusual items. When she's in New York she swings by his place to do erotic photography. She feels like she has to stay away from him to keep him safe.

Anemone Silverstring. An investigator who died of malaria in Ethiopia. Her memory reminds Zoe that the story isn't over yet. 

Magnificence. Zoe feels she promised Anemone to take full responsibility for Magnificence's wellbeing, and has worked on communicating with him. 

Sister Araari Jeyna

Her abusive father. Araari's father was careless at best and abusive at worst, and she worries that she's following in his footsteps.

Her mother. Araari has a few positive memories of her mother, who died when she was young. Araari wants to make her proud when she's watching from Heaven.  

Anita Teller

Catherine Teller, her sister, an Imrainai.

Connor Teller. Her son, a Connor. 

Her daughter. She is two years old and a Ves.

Other Important Characters

George Ayers. Former boyfriend of Lev and current corpse. Member of the Inner Circle of the 1924 cult. In 1924, went to Dallol for a dig to find out more information about the Mouth. After his dig was destroyed by a nun-induced volcano, he withdrew from Nectar, reconsidered his life choices, and spent the next eight years an increasingly pissy desert hermit. Survived long enough to deliver an exposition dump before he was mercy-killed by his metamour Oswald Ferrier. 

Ramon Echavarria. Former abusive boyfriend of Lev and current corpse. Film producer and original founder of the cult, who died tragically in 1924 when his ritual to summon Nyarlathotep was interrupted by a crew of meddling investigators. Fascinated by the beauty of the Mythos.

Janet Winston-Rogers: The funder of the expedition. Daughter of one of the men who attempted unsuccessfully to stop the cult from summoning Nyarlathotep.