ALTAR
You find yourself back at the altar, only now the candle in the center has sprang to life with a dark, foreboding flame! Smoke from the flame wisps up into the air, and from that smoke forms the dark shape of a brooding man, hunched over the photos, staring intently at the flame. All at once you feel this entity’s sorrow, confusion, and anger. He pains to know who murdered his daughter! He begs you to let him have peace! You must help. Once you’ve solved the murder, you can choose a photo to ID the culprit.
Are you sure? You wouldn’t want to damn the wrong spirit! If you’re sure, enter the special codeword here to proceed:
The candle at the center of the photos has come alight, yet the flame is like nothing you’ve seen before. Unlike the natural yellow-orange burn of a homely candle, this one is supernaturally dark. Staring into the flame is not unlike staring into a black hole, and you find your thoughts and conscious being sucked into the void. You struggle to breathe. Your train of thought collapses as your mind drowns in confusion. Your senses darken save the one sense of taste – your palette overwhelmed by the unmistakable tang of metal. You open your eyes. You’re okay. You must have collapsed onto the floor by the altar. You brush yourself off, and continue.
The candle at the center of the photos has come alight, yet the flame is like nothing you’ve seen before. Unlike the natural yellow-orange burn of a homely candle, this one is supernaturally dark. Staring into the flame is not unlike staring into a black hole, and you find your thoughts and conscious being sucked into the void. You struggle to breathe. Your train of thought collapses as your mind drowns in confusion. Your senses darken save the one sense of taste – your palette overwhelmed by the unmistakable tang of metal. You open your eyes. You’re okay. You must have collapsed onto the floor by the altar. You brush yourself off, and continue.
You scan the six photos on the altar, straining to determine which one of them could have committed this heinous deed.
This gentleman was a traveling salesman who called himself Otto. Police have long suspected that the name “Otto” was simply an alias, but based on your research he had simply changed the spelling from its original German of “Audo”, a name meaning wealth or prosperity, to something more recognizable for potential customers. He sold toys, notably dolls, and even more notably dolls made to resemble a popular brand of the time. His presence in the house the night of the deaths can be chalked up to one of two circumstances. One – as witness reports at the time suggest, he had stumbled upon the McDermotts’ broken down vehicle and had offered them a ride back to their house, being invited in afterwards to shelter from the impending storm. Or two – his presence in the house was planned, and his intentions more devious and sinister than what most believe. Both could be true, and both could result in the night’s conclusion – death by poison.
One doesn’t often come across a description of Jane, the Aunt, without being bombarded with preposterous claims of what’s known as the McDermott Curse. A “curse” can rather be read as a feeble-minded attempt at explaining that which some find difficult to explain. In Jane’s case, it was the incessant happening of incidents, or rather the improbability of such incidents happening to a single person, which led to the belief of a family “curse”. What happened to Jane? Her husband died, her daughter was kidnapped, and she was poisoned to death. Not all at once, of course, but rather over the span of a few years. The crux, of course, being the taking of her daughter, an event that inevitably led to her being “adopted” into the family home by her brother, Charles McDermott, and therefore placing her in the house in which she would be poisoned one year later. The kidnapping? While never proven, your research has led you to believe the culprit was a man by the name of Bruno Hauptmann, a criminal who would later be executed for the kidnapping of the son of a couple of famous aviators. Of course, the two cases have never been officially linked.
Virgil Weber, aged 14, was the son of Vera McDermott (formerly Vera Weber.) Being a child, not much was known to the public about Virgil outside of his school records, which indicated a highly troubled youth with a penchant for trouble. Personal research, however, recently uncovered a different side to the stepson of Charles McDermott, that of a creative. It was well enough known that young Virgil liked to write, having been keen on keeping a daily journal, but personal effects collected from the house over the years reveal that he had quite a knack for storytelling, having authored several short stories depicting a variety of characters, circumstances, and events. Following the kidnapping of Jane’s daughter, a tragedy that occurred in the presence of Virgil, his writings took on a darker tone up until the night he died, poisoned along with the others.
The neighbor is believed to have been an unexpected guest at the house the night of the deaths, and therefore an unfortunate consequence of the events that transpired, leading to her poisoning along with the others. Her name was Birdie, and she lived alone a couple of minutes down the road. Her father had originally built the McDermott House, and Birdie had resided there until selling it to Charles several years before the incident. Birdie had a habit of showing up to the McDermott’s home to lodge complaints against the children of the house, most often accusing them of stealing. Her incessant complaints led many to believe that she held a great grudge against Charles and his family for having taken up residence in her childhood home, but your own research into Birdie leads you to believe that was simply her personality and perhaps the result of having lived alone for too long – the McDermott house being a sort of bridge to companionship, even at the cost of being a bad neighbor.
Sources always seemed torn as to how to present the figure of Emmett, surname unknown, the man renting out a spare room of the McDermott House. It was relatively common for those with larger-than-needed households to bring in a little extra income by letting spare rooms to those who couldn’t afford much else, which it seems Charles McDermott had done. By all accounts, Emmett was the perfect tenant: quiet, clean, respectful, and even willing to help tend the children and the house. You’ve read papers wishing to show him in a favorable light, which tend to focus on how Elsie and her playmates would be endlessly entertained by Emmett’s vast repository of riddles, word games, and puzzles. You’ve also read things that cast him in an unfavorable light by focusing on the sheer multitude of answerable questions about him. Who was Emmett? How did he come to reside in the McDermott House? Why did Mrs. McDermott dislike him so? Why did he seem to be packing to leave abruptly when he was struck down by the same poison that claimed the others in the house?
Many sources spent quite a bit of time focused on Vera McDermott, formerly Vera Webber, and you suspect unfortunately baser motivations for this, looking at her photo. She was a widow with a young son when she met and married the widower McDermott. Though the average person might not realize it, second and even third marriages were fairly common at this time of higher death rates, between the Great War and the Great Depression. However, many sources seem to indicate that this particular marriage caused waves in the small town. Vera McDermott was a contentious figure amongst town residents for her forceful personality. Though everyone agreed she adored Charles, you wonder, could this have been a classic case of the “evil stepmother” archetype? Or was Vera just too self-possessed in a small town fueled by gossip? Your sources seem to place her character all across the spectrum. Either way, poison cut her second attempt at building a family short that night.
This gentleman was a traveling salesman who called himself Otto. Police have long suspected that the name “Otto” was simply an alias, but based on your research he had simply changed the spelling from its original German of “Audo”, a name meaning wealth or prosperity, to something more recognizable for potential customers. He sold toys, notably dolls, and even more notably dolls made to resemble a popular brand of the time. His presence in the house the night of the deaths can be chalked up to one of two circumstances. One – as witness reports at the time suggest, he had stumbled upon the McDermotts’ broken down vehicle and had offered them a ride back to their house, being invited in afterwards to shelter from the impending storm. Or two – his presence in the house was planned, and his intentions more devious and sinister than what most believe. Both could be true, and both could result in the night’s conclusion – death by poison.
One doesn’t often come across a description of Jane, the Aunt, without being bombarded with preposterous claims of what’s known as the McDermott Curse. A “curse” can rather be read as a feeble-minded attempt at explaining that which some find difficult to explain. In Jane’s case, it was the incessant happening of incidents, or rather the improbability of such incidents happening to a single person, which led to the belief of a family “curse”. What happened to Jane? Her husband died, her daughter was kidnapped, and she was poisoned to death. Not all at once, of course, but rather over the span of a few years. The crux, of course, being the taking of her daughter, an event that inevitably led to her being “adopted” into the family home by her brother, Charles McDermott, and therefore placing her in the house in which she would be poisoned one year later. The kidnapping? While never proven, your research has led you to believe the culprit was a man by the name of Bruno Hauptmann, a criminal who would later be executed for the kidnapping of the son of a couple of famous aviators. Of course, the two cases have never been officially linked.
Virgil Weber, aged 14, was the son of Vera McDermott (formerly Vera Weber.) Being a child, not much was known to the public about Virgil outside of his school records, which indicated a highly troubled youth with a penchant for trouble. Personal research, however, recently uncovered a different side to the stepson of Charles McDermott, that of a creative. It was well enough known that young Virgil liked to write, having been keen on keeping a daily journal, but personal effects collected from the house over the years reveal that he had quite a knack for storytelling, having authored several short stories depicting a variety of characters, circumstances, and events. Following the kidnapping of Jane’s daughter, a tragedy that occurred in the presence of Virgil, his writings took on a darker tone up until the night he died, poisoned along with the others.
The neighbor is believed to have been an unexpected guest at the house the night of the deaths, and therefore an unfortunate consequence of the events that transpired, leading to her poisoning along with the others. Her name was Birdie, and she lived alone a couple of minutes down the road. Her father had originally built the McDermott House, and Birdie had resided there until selling it to Charles several years before the incident. Birdie had a habit of showing up to the McDermott’s home to lodge complaints against the children of the house, most often accusing them of stealing. Her incessant complaints led many to believe that she held a great grudge against Charles and his family for having taken up residence in her childhood home, but your own research into Birdie leads you to believe that was simply her personality and perhaps the result of having lived alone for too long – the McDermott house being a sort of bridge to companionship, even at the cost of being a bad neighbor.
Sources always seemed torn as to how to present the figure of Emmett, surname unknown, the man renting out a spare room of the McDermott House. It was relatively common for those with larger-than-needed households to bring in a little extra income by letting spare rooms to those who couldn’t afford much else, which it seems Charles McDermott had done. By all accounts, Emmett was the perfect tenant: quiet, clean, respectful, and even willing to help tend the children and the house. You’ve read papers wishing to show him in a favorable light, which tend to focus on how Elsie and her playmates would be endlessly entertained by Emmett’s vast repository of riddles, word games, and puzzles. You’ve also read things that cast him in an unfavorable light by focusing on the sheer multitude of answerable questions about him. Who was Emmett? How did he come to reside in the McDermott House? Why did Mrs. McDermott dislike him so? Why did he seem to be packing to leave abruptly when he was struck down by the same poison that claimed the others in the house?
Many sources spent quite a bit of time focused on Vera McDermott, formerly Vera Webber, and you suspect unfortunately baser motivations for this, looking at her photo. She was a widow with a young son when she met and married the widower McDermott. Though the average person might not realize it, second and even third marriages were fairly common at this time of higher death rates, between the Great War and the Great Depression. However, many sources seem to indicate that this particular marriage caused waves in the small town. Vera McDermott was a contentious figure amongst town residents for her forceful personality. Though everyone agreed she adored Charles, you wonder, could this have been a classic case of the “evil stepmother” archetype? Or was Vera just too self-possessed in a small town fueled by gossip? Your sources seem to place her character all across the spectrum. Either way, poison cut her second attempt at building a family short that night.