Perilous Island - Chapter 6: The Forbidden City

The insurmountable walls of the ancient Enochean city loom high over the mutated jungle plants. Amazingly advanced for an ancient civilization, the obvious influence of technology beyond their time, adding more to the mystery.  

Our adventurers have the inescapable and unsettling feeling of being watched.  An inhuman cry ripped through the  silence, shattering hardened nerves like glass. What manner of creature could make such a savage sound?  

Having put together the clues and pages of Darrow's journal they had discovered our heroes see that he described a weird ritual for unlocking the cyclopean gates. If in fact he made it this far, Lord Darrow must now be inside the city... 

Having completed the ritual a pale greenish-blue light is emitted from what our explorers had thought was simply a statue.  With a terrible creaking and grinding this apparent Guardian begins to move and our heroes must defeat it or evade it in order to get beyond the gate.

Slipping past the Guardian Dick O’Donnell is first through the gate with his companions swiftly followed by Biggles and his friends leaving General Zorn at the hands of the Guardian and their shouts and screams fade behind our heroes as the great gate slams shut. The once majestic city lies in ruins. At the end of the grand thoroughfare an unholy temple pulses with an evil glow.  Reading the journal reveals that this must be the Temple of Ba’al Enoch! 

Suddenly Lord Darrow stumbles from the entrance of the Temple. In his arms, he clutches a glowing orb.  It must be the substance used and worshipped by the ancient Enocheans, the stone glows and pulses with unimaginable power. 

Strange ghostly vapors lash out from the stone and are absorbed into Lord Darrow's being, each wracking his body with crackling energy.  Once a man of proud stature and reputation, the twisted form that staggers towards you is a mocking parody of Darrow's human existence. The air swirls about him crackling and gaining substance, whilst it remains visible, his face contorts with rage, fear, and pain as he screams. 

“You should not have come. It is too late for me.   Go now! You all shall be destroyed...” With each word Darrow's body gradually dissolves into the swirling form. In mere seconds, the horrific transformation is complete. “I am the Thrice-Damned Wanderer!”, he bellows in a strangely ethereal but deafening voice. 

Everywhere around our heroes the very elements of nature are being torn asunder, as they bend to the Wanderer's will. Now is the time to act and there is not a second to spare... 

With most of our heroes being showered in a veritable deluge of flying masonry or being struck by bolt of strange lightning from the heart of the Wanderer only a couple managed to struggle to the top of the Temple to confront the horror.

In the end Biggles manages to wrench the orb from the heart of the maelstrom, the reverse-transformation is almost instantaneous. Lord Darrow collapses into a heap, crippled by the ordeal. The sight of his daughter, Elaine, brings a human quality back to his eyes as he breathes his final breath. 

With Lord Darrow's passing, the orb ceases to glow and within seconds crumbles to dust. As if the crumbling orb were a death rattle, the island shakes violently, and ashen smoke billowed from the volcano! Our heroes flee for the shore and finally sail for safety as the island disappears beneath a rain of flaming rock into a boiling sea.

And so ends the Perilous Island - will our heroes have a taste for more adventure? Only time will tell...

Perilous Island - Chapter 5: Blood Sacrifice

After surviving the terror from the deep in the lagoon and securing clues from the wrecked steamer, our explorers know for certain that Lord Darrow made it this far, but his ultimate fate is still unknown. The only solution was to continue searching for more clues.  They all made camp in the jungle near the shore but their sleep was interrupted by the bellowing cry of a strange beast echoing through the jungle canopy, reverberating off the leaves and through their ribs as if the beast were within each of their tents. A distant scream drew them to their feet. Was that Lady Elaine Darrow or someone else in distress?  

The prints of bare feet about our heroes’ camp indicated the local Natives are involved. The beastly cry, this time much closer, is answered again by a blood chilling scream...

Perilous Island - Chapter 4: Lagoon of Terror

After tracking a package from Lord Darrow to Hai Phong and locating the old sailor, the leagues made their way to the legendary Perilous Island. Located deep within the Indian Ocean, Perilous Island rises from the sea, surrounded by sharp rocks, sheer cliffs, and enshrouding fogs.  

The more scientific amongst our adventurers speculated that combined with an active volcano and numerous lava flows dividing the island, Perilous Island and the surrounding seas are able to maintain tropical temperatures. And that it was quite possible that the island had survived the Ice Age intact and may have predated the Jurassic period. They wondered what mysteries remained preserved in the strange isle. 

As our intrepid adventurers sailed towards shore across the rocks, anxious to explore the island, a monstrous beast burst from the depths, rending metal, splintering wood and capsizing their various craft. The vessels either capsized immediately or took on water rapidly.  Most were thrown into the water and desperately swam for shore, the screams of crew echoing behind. Sputtering and exhausted, they saw the wreckage of a steamer within the lagoon itself. It could only have belonged to the Darrow Expedition! 

All could see that the deadly terror from the deep could arrive at anytime; could they defeat the beast, recover any clues, and unlock the secrets of Perilous Island?...

Perilous Island - Chapter 3: Hai Phong Manhunt

The package our adventurers daringly recovered in Hong Kong contained a grotesque stone idol and a  dozen photographs of strange ruins and strange beasts. How could such things exist? The package offers no clues to Lord Darrow's current whereabouts; however, the smeared label lists the originating location as the city of Hai Phong. Our heroes continue to follow the trail to determine the whereabouts of Lord Darrow and what magnificent discoveries he has uncovered. 

Reaching Hai Phong and making inquiries into Lord Darrow's activities reveals that he had befriended an old sailor, who most of the locals consider quite mad, mainly due to his outlandish tales of a lost island inhabited by man-eating lizards, tribes of flesh hungry cannibals, and unfathomable terrors.  

Lord Darrow spent many weeks alone with the old sailor before departing on his expedition to locations unknown. Although the old sailor departed with Lord Darrow, he mysteriously reappeared with two other members of the Darrow Expedition in a local hospital, the old sailor nearly blinded by, they assumed, exposure from the sun. 

After the other two survivors died in mysterious circumstances, the old sailor escaped the hospital and is rumored to be hiding in the back alleys of Hai Phong. Can our explorers find the crazy old sailor and find out what he knows? 

After plenty of high jinks, including Dick O’Donnell commandeering a motor boat and some impressive diving antics from Tarzan, the old sailor is located.

“Listen and listen well. The road before you is beset with many perils… Others turned back but Darrow went on… some died… we ran away… the monster... the monster protects the godless isle… Genesis… they died… the doctor tortured the others... they died… I got away... stay away from the hospital… 4:17... he lives in death...” 

Peace washes over the old sailor's leather cracked face. With his last breath, he reveals several important pages of Darrow's personal journal, one containing the coordinates of this Perilous Island! 

Do our heroes dare to journey there and can they find anyone mad enough to help them?

Perilous Island - Chapter 2: At Death's Door

Lady Darrow’s correspondence starts a trail to one of Lord Darrow’s follow explorers, Jonathan Carnahan.  After arriving in Hong Kong, our intrepid explorers find Carnahan tortured and unconscious body inside his ransacked apartment. Any clues here would have been taken by his vicious attackers. Unexpectedly, a messenger arrives from the local Customs Authority regarding a package from Hai Phong — addressed from none other than Lord Darrow!

With Carnahan unconscious in hospital, Lord Darrow still missing, and Customs unwilling to relinquish the package leaves our adventurers little choice but to take matters into their own hands. Learning the package has been moved to a long term storage facility, they formulated plans for a daring night raid on the building.

Each of the groups approached the facility from different directions, seeking to avoid the attention of the armed guards.

After sneaking through the shadows and various scuffles with the guards they began to search the yard and the warehouse.

After a shoot out and some fisticuffs the package was found and with a daring leap from the upper floor of the warehouse over the heads of their frustrated opposition one of our leagues dashed off with another lead to Lord Darrow!

Perilous Island - Chapter 1: Tonkin Troubles

And so started the intro to the players for our Pulp Alley campaign. This was many moons ago and certainly BCE (Before the Covid Era) but I thought I would set out something of an account now - of course I don’t doubt each of the players will have their own vivid, and no doubt entirely contradictory, recollections of the games!

We had a variety of famous and infamous characters bringing their own ‘leagues’ to pursue the search for the relics of the Enocheans.  These included Biggles and friends; Tarzan, Dick O’Donnell (any resemblance to a character from the Mummy movies is entirely co-incidental) and comrades; the sinister Doctor Koo and the Wing Tong; and finally, General Zorn with his Zeppelintruppen.

Our adventure started with the various leagues stumbling across information about Lord Darrow’s daughter, who might have information regarding her father, undertaking an archeological dig somewhere in the jungles of Tonkin.  Our heroes set off to find her and protect her from the attentions of our less principled leagues.

Lady Darrow’s dig was finally located but things immediately got interesting: