A Grave Situation
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Author: cc@acca.nmsu.edu
Homepage: http://www.flar.demon.co.uk/terror/welcome.htm
System: Call of Cthulhu
Type: Hook
Category: Horror
Requirements:

(This one can be pretty deadly.) After going to bed one night in the hotel of a sleepy rural town, one of the investigators wakes up to find himself lying inside a padded coffin with air running out!

Possibilities

1 The investigator has been contacted by a Great Old One or Outer God (Nyarlathotep would work well), who has constructed a dream-trap for him in order to extract a service. As the investigator's last gasps shudder through his body, he hears a whispering in his mind: 'Serve me or die.' If the investigator agrees, he awakens in his bed, covered in sweat, with a mind-numbing certainty that he will be contacted soon, and he won't be able to refuse. If the investigator declines, he awakens in a similar manner, but certain that he has been marked for death by the god's cult. Either way, its time to prepare for a brush with a god.

2 The investigator was drugged and kidnapped by a degenerate cult that worships ghouls. As an offering to the flesh-eaters, they have buried the investigator as a meal for their 'underground gods.' As the investigator begins to suffocate, a scratching noise occurs and great claws rend through the wood of the coffin and drag him down into a faintly lit cavern where he is surrounded by six hungry ghouls. Hopefully, his fellow investigators have figured out what is going on and are on their way.

3 The investigator died during the night from natural (or were they?) causes, and has been resurrected by a local sorcerer to serve as his undead servant. Within moments after awakening, the coffin lid is pried open by the sorcerer. At first, the investigator is unable to do much except obey the sorcerer's commands, but over time, when the sorcerer's mind is on other things, the investigator can act on his own. He needs to break free soon, because the sorcerer is laying a deadly trap for the rest of the investigators, and his new servant is the bait.