Code of Honor
Operational Log:
in Zero Point Achtung Cthulhu
Scene One: Welcome to Istanbul
Friday, May 15th 1942
Istanbul Time : 19:19 Late Evening’s Twilight
Scene One:
Friday May 15th: Istanbul Turkey
The players fly in on a USN PBY from the Indian Ocean via Persia, a dangerous and bumpy flight because Persia is currently being overrun by Rommel’s Panzers corps.
The plane lands Istanbul’s harbor.
From there they are transported by awaiting taxi to the
PERA PALACE Hotel in the "European" quarter.
The team settles into their new quarters, a suite of Rooms with a private elevator.
They are briefed by 3 people,
Mr. Sorenson: Marlborough executive (USN Intelligence agent)
Mr. Barker, British professional backgammon champion (MI6)
Ms Carter (OSS agent, and Delta Green Operative)
Their cover is "American tobacco salesmen" working for Marlborough.
Mission background:
An American social light
Lilly Warner is missing. She disappeared last Friday, the 8th of May.
She is a beautiful 30 year old peroxide blonde, and an heiress to the Warner Brothers film empire. She was also an OSS agent.
Her last message was a telegraph to Nathan Chance. She found the Marble Emperor.
It’s critical that she is found.
The Axis is winning the war. It’s critical to keep
Turkey and Russia off the Axis side, it would be even better to get them to join the Allies.
Starting Clues
Hitler, Himmler and their SS members of the Ahnenerbe (the NAZI Occult Division) have a fixation with the ancient relicts that boarders on Obsession. This is actually believed by Allied command to have benefited the Allies on several occasions by syphoning away German intelligence resources to chase after irrelevant artifacts while the Allies concentrate on winning the war.
There are at least 17 different intelligence agencies from different countries currently operating in Istanbul.
The Germans have 3.
Abwehr: German Military Intelligence
SD: The NAZI SS own Intelligence agency
Ahnenerbe: The NAZI Occult Division
“What we Know”
A secret Ahnenerbe dig in Istanbul has uncovered what may be the lost tomb of Constantine Palaeologus, the “Marble Emperor”.
The Ahnenerbe tried to keep their discoveries secret. In Istanbul, however, an Allied spy, Lily Warner (codename: ARDENT), Only a week ago, broke into the lost tomb dig site and stole several artifacts that seem to be VERY valuable to Hitler and Himmler, killing an Ahnenerbe operative in the process and then disappeared.
Allied Intelligence sources in Berlin report that Himmler and Hitler have gone BALLISTIC and are diverting intelligence resources from all over Europe to Istanbul to retrieve the items.
The Allied agent hasn’t reported in in 7 days and is considered dead. Normally, Allied command would have posthumously given agent ARDENT a medal and closed the case except for three things:
One: The havoc currently going through the NAZI’s command structure over what is going on in Istanbul. The AXIS powers may be preparing to Invade Turkey OR force them to join their ranks politically. Allied Intelligence can’t tell.
Two: ARDENT, aka Lilly Warner is the daughter of Jack Warner, a very powerful man in Hollywood, and Allied High command thinks it’s a “Good Idea” to try to at least find his daughter’s body, dead or alive.
Three: The artifacts, if real are of major historical value. Even if they are not real, the NAZIs seem to believe they are, thus they have a great deal of value as “Leverage” with them.
Scene Three:
Time Noon Sunday to 7pm May 17th 1942: Istanbul
The team searches for more clues in the daytime venues like the bazar and libraries of Istanbul.
Q at the Pera Palace Hotel has a picture for Lt Fleming from an intercepted SD(Sicherheitsdienst) diplomatic bag. A picture of the, including the baton-like Akakia. The team now knows what it looks like.
Scene Four :
Time 7+pm May 17th 1942: Istanbul
The team searches for more clues in the shadows of nighttime Istanbul.
Sunday night is pretty quiet, with a few major exceptions.
Shadow of Hastur is seen around the Hagia Sophia
The team is approached by a well-dressed man in a white suite that almost seems made of “Silver” in the moon/star light.
“Nice night….” He asks for a cigarette in accented English.
Seems friendly if the team is friendly to him. If offered a cigarette he offers this information.
“You Americans can be nice, there is a nice, though a bit wild American at the Varangian Club. Silver hair with chestnut roots. I believe she is being held against her will. You may want to go fetch her.”
Scene Five :
Time 7+pm May 17th to 28th 1942: Istanbul
The Five prostitutes in the street offer to help retrieve “Lilly” if they can have the Akakia.
Scene Six:
Time 7+pm May 17th to 28th 1942: Istanbul
Raid on the Varangian Club.
Sanity checks for being in the presence of Tiamat.
Save Lilly?
Get the Akakia? (If so the one they get is a fake)
Scene Seven:
Time May18th to 28th 1942: Istanbul
Day after Raid on the Varangian Club.
Ann DeViress arranges to get agent ARDENT out of Istanbul. Your USN PBY has been repainted as a VICHY float plane and will leaving for Tunis tomorrow. From there she can travel to Casablanca, then for Lisbon and finally the USA. All together will take about a week.
The Five prostitutes (Tiamat) and complains that the Akakia they retrieved is a fake. She/they remind the team that on the 29th there is a distinct possibility that Hastur’s greater avatar will be set free on the planet, and that would will be BAD news for the enemies of the one that holds his leash.
Scene Eight:
Time 7+pm May 17th to 28th 1942: Istanbul
PARK Hotel and the SNAKE PIT
Many offers of traded information will be available there.
3 people offer to buy you drinks.
The Abwehr Agent:
The KGB Agent:
The Japanese N.I. Agent:
Scene Nine:
Time 7+pm May 29th 1942: Istanbul
Party at the Taksim Casino
Scene Ten:
Time before Midnight May 29th 1942: Istanbul
The chase to the Hagias Sophia and below.
Scene Eleven:
Time before Midnight May 29th 1942: Istanbul
The team enters a vortex in the Hagias Sophia and are deposited "Below" in a cavern under the great Mosque/Church. They are now living Marble statues unable to move, only able to watch.
Scene Twleve:
Time before Midnight May 29th 1942: Istanbul
Introductions & Ritual below Hagias Sophia.
The team enters the cavern by spell, but they are also frozen like statues. Sanity check
Tiamat and Hastur argue over who should get this world.
Nyarlathotep suggests they toss a coin.
The Coin toss by NARL, Hastur wins.
The Ritual begins. The Empress of Purple appears, devours the “Lady in Waiting” and then has “Sex magic” with Nazi Super Soldier and SS-SD agent Gottfried Meier while Ion Gleseu with his SS thugs and the Varangian guard, and the team watches
Scene Thirteen:
Time before Midnight May 29th 1942: Istanbul
Barham appears with the Ghouls of Mehmet, frees the team and helps interrupt the ritual.
Scene Fourteen:
May 30th 1942: Istanbul to Madagascar
BThe team retreives the Akakia and Dr Jong uses it to open a gate to the Temple they protected in operation ORIENT, Madagascar. They are returned to the FFN Cruiser Submarine Surcouf.
The
Team is now Level 11
Graph McCallister and Annette D'Vries
Scene Two:
The team now discovers what is really going on.
Which is:
A secret Ahnenerbe dig in Istanbul has uncovered what may be the lost tomb of Constantine Palaeologus, the “Marble Emperor”. The tomb contained not only a body, but also what appears to be the Imperial regalia, including the baton-like Akakia (“ah-kah-keeya”), with its serpentine symbolism, and writings referencing “St Azel’s Bell” and the “Gates of Micklegard”. Ahnenerbe archaeologist Professor Ion Golescu of the Istanbul dig isn’t sure what it all means yet, but one of his intercepted reports back to Himmler speaks of hidden entrances to the hollow earth and the powerful occult rituals of a prehistoric snake cults in the Mediterranean basin, which he believes may still exist beneath Istanbul.
The Ahnenerbe tried to keep their discoveries secret. In Istanbul, however, an Allied spy, Lily Warner (codename: ARDENT), Only days ago, broke into the lost tomb and stole the Akakia from the Ahnenerbe, killing an Ahnenerbe operative and then disappeared.
So in their first days days in the city they have discovered that
A group based on the descends of Emperor Constantine Palaeologus body guard is still around, and they are planning on using the newly found baton-like Akakia to bring the great old one “Hastur”; the “King in Yellow” into the world to conquer it for a new “Byzantine Empire”.
Which will happen on May 29th.
Although they now know the WHEN, they dont know the WHERE in the city this will occur, or the details on the HOW. They do know it involves the baton-like Akakia artifact. They also now know that the original "Marble Emperor" was found and removed from Istanbul and taken to France almost 200 years ago and then destroyed (OR at least broken into many pieces) during the French Revolution Sooooo a new
Emperor will be needed for the Ritual.
They have 12 DAYS to figure it out.
To make matters worse, the German DAK has now conquered the Persian coast line and the Imperial Japanese military have taken all the the Indian coast so they are now trapped in Turkey. The AXIS now control around 70% of the worlds population.
Things are looking grime indeed...
