The Villa Tranquillitatis is a stone mansion that was build nearly 100 years ago but has been greatly extended at least three four times since then, which has given it an two boarded up stairwells and several corridors that turns abruptly and in several cases then ends in a blind wall or narrow stairs that gives the impression they transcend more than the Euclidian three dimensions to get to the destination.
The Villa Tranquillitatis is a large villa in the older part of the city, which up until thirty or forty years ago was on the outskirts of the city. It is surrounded by a three meters high stonewall with broken glass on the top, old but still in good repair.
The garden has been several generations of gardeners and fashion, as has the house itself, and is now a mix of styles, but all neglected and taken over by weed, brambles and the general effect of nature left to its own devices.
On the back of the villa a veranda extends ten meters from the house and then merges via a three step stair with an illkept but serviceable lawn. The lawn is irregular in form due to several hedges that defines its borders. At the furthest right corner, as seen from the veranda, a greenhouse can be seen in a bamboo and fruit tree grove.
The greenhouse is in bad disrepair and several of the panes are overrun by moss. About thirty years ago a gas line was installed into the then twenty years old greenhouse, both for heating as well as for light. There is a valve on a wooden cabinet to the right of the door together with the ignition system for the lamp above the door. The individual lamps needs to lighted and there are five of them in total, including the one above the door. The lamps are for lighting of the pathways and not for the plants, and which have to rely on the sun. There is also a main valve up in the house, in a cupboard in the kitchen. This valve is, like all the valves in that cupboard unmarked.
The pipes are in some disrepair and turning on the gas will definitely turn into a safety hazard. The lamps will splutter and the pipes will whine so an inattentive Investigator might miss the sound of escaping gas.
The heating of the greenhouse runs under the floor, a set of water filled pipes runs in big loops and are connected to a gas heated boiler, about 30 litre in size, in the corner to the left of the door. The ignition system is in a wooden cabinet under the boiler, where there is several valves and pipe connection, quite jury rigged. There is no water left in the system.
Along the short ends there are planting beds on ground level for bush-sized plants, a complete tangled skein of dead and living twigs and branches. Past years’ leafs still dangle from the branches.
Along the long walls as and in the middle, intersectioned by paths in a cross, are tables at waist height for smaller plants. Beneath the tables are scattered a mixture of disused pots, various gardening tools, decomposing cloth bags with plant soil and sand, and a quite some windblown dead leaves. The raised planting beds are filled with dead and living plants, both those that are planted intentionally and the result of seeds spreading.
Mathilda is quite found of playing gardener so there are many attempts at either clearing up parts of the beds or planting new plants or things (like a old rag doll, that has been planted to its knees and kept erect by string around its neck up to the dead stalks of some kind of flower).
A botanist can identify nearly all plants, but there are a few that are hard to place. These also has a tendency to move in the dark as if som strong wind were rustling the leaves. These are all brought here from the Dreamlands by wierd magic wielded by Mathilda’s mother.
In a tree, now long gone but which stood close to where the greenhouse now stands, three black slaves was lynched two decades before the villa was built.
The three slaves, one female and two males, all in their twenties, were accused of stealing from their master. The truth was that the master wanted to sacrifice the woman to a Mythos entity, but was thwarted when the two men intervened and all three fled. The master and his compatriots were in pursuit and caught them all close to here the villa stands today. Others, upstanding citizens, had joined the hunt and the master had to choose between bring the slaves back to his mansion, or accuse them of some crime and have them quickly silenced forever. He reaslised that bringing them back would be very risky as they all probably would accuse him of black magic. The accusation of a slave did not hold much weight, but he already had a tarnished reputation and did not need neighbours that took an unnecessary interest in the content of some locked sheds on his farm.
Thus he accused them of stealing and lynched them before there would be unwelcome interest and questions. There would always be more female slaves to use instead, even if he believed the power in this one to be very strong.
A mandrake grows on the spot of where someone died and there is a patch of manrake growing where once the Hanging Tree stood. Out of sheer coincidence, Danain Mirabeau burried his murdered wife Iraa on this spot. The grave is properly dug, deep and there are several large stones hewn over her corpse, so it is unlikely that the grave is discovered out of luck.
Should Iraa be exhumed, they will find a skeleton and in its vicinity jewellery that, with some investigation, be identified as belonging to Mathilda’s mother. Anyone that investigates the skeleton and has the proper knowledge will find that there are some oddities with the skeleton. There are no photographs in the house or anywhere else that shows either Mathilda’s parents or any relative, so it is not possible to validate if the conclusions using a photograph or something.
The main oddities are:
Should one take the opportunity to study Mathilda, and Mama Li does not prevent it, they will notice the same oddness with the lack of canine teeth and delicacy of the skeleton.
The reading room, or the library, contains under dust sheets several comfortable arm chairs for reading as well as a large table with suitable chairs for advanced study of the books. Large dust sheets covers the book cases that lines all the walls in the room; on the shelves an inquiring bookworm might find several Mythos tomes together with both common and rare occult books. An accounts book on one of the shelf lists most of the books, but not all since Danain Mirabeau was not that neat, and when he bought them and at what price. In total, seven Mythos tomes are listed (eleven are on the shelves), and 229 occult books (from trivial, including The Prophecies by Nostradamus, to advancedthat includes working spells) are also listed (283 are on the shelves). The seller is stated in 70-80 % of the cases, and usally quite brief (e.g. ”Will’s” for Will’s Shelf, see Miscellaneous Places , or ”J. Andersen, N.Y.”). About fifteen occult books are missing, currently in the possession of Elmer Caton. Of these 15, six are not listed in the accounts book but the gaps can be seen in the line of books.
The kitchen is well equipped and large enough to cook for a full family and all the necessary servants, but only a portion of it is now used by Mama Li and Mathilda. They usually eat in the kitchen rather than in the dining room.
A large room dominated by the large dining table and its twelve high backed chairs, reminiscent of a distant era. The big windows at the short end of the room overlooks the garden. Everything, including the heavy curtains, are now below dustsheets.
Back to Table of Contents
Back to Gamemaster’s Refuge