My name is Roland Banks..

(Preview) The story telling will be the choices and the progress i made throught the scenarios (act and agenda decks - ingame progress) and the resolutions. I hope you 'll enjoy the story of Roland Banks in solo campaign. I 'll update this story everytime i finish a scenario.

The Gathering - R2 / 7 xp.My House is still standing. 2x Laboratory Assistant --> 2x Beat Cop, 1x Evidence! --> 1x Elder Sign Amulet.

The Midnight Masks - R1 / 5xp. Ruth Turner, Peter Warren, The Masked Hunter interrogated. "Wolf-Man" Drew, Victoria Devereux, Herman Collins got away. 1x Evidence! --> 1x "I've had worse…", 1x Working a Hunch --> 1x Extra Ammunition.

The Devourer Below - ( 3 times defeated/4th time success) R2 / 10 xp. Roland repelled Umordhoth. Suffers 2 physical/2 mental trauma. 1x .45 Automatic --> 1x Lightning Gun, 1x Working a Hunch --> 1x Extra Ammunition, 1x Dynamite Blast --> 1x "I've had worse…".

(The Story) Friday, September 18,1925. Arkham, Massachusetts. It is the end of a long and abnormally hot summer. The first hints of autumn beckon, but a heavy heat persists, relentless. A silent, unspoken anger grips the town. Tempers are short and in the last week alone there have been numerous reports of townspeople coming to heated, violent blows with one another over simple misunderstandings.

And now a call from James Hankerson. He claims to have found a dismembered body in his barn.

Blaming the weather would be too easy. There is something wrong with this town, and not a whole lot this old soothsayer can do to stop the slide. My auguries indicate a small group of investigators will soon take note of these strange happenings and set forth to make things right. I'll be watching their progress...but i wont't be holding my breath.

Roland had always taken comfort in procedure and rules. As an agent in the Bureau, he was relieved to have guidelines to follow in any given situation. But lately, his Federal Agent's Handbook had been entirely unhelpful given the cases he'd been assigned. Try as he might, Roland could find no mention of what to do when confronted with strange creatures, gates through time and space,or magic spells.If he hadn't seen it with his own eyes he would never have believed it...and there's no way his superiors woud understand. Roland knew he would have to handle this one himself.

Roland and his partners have been investigating strange events taking in his home city of Arkham, Massachusetts. Over the past few weeks, several townspeople have mysteriously gone missing. Recently their corpses turned up in the woods, savaged and half-eaten. The police and newpapers have stated that wild animals are responsible, but Roland believes there is something else going on. He's at his home taking notes of these bizarre events.

(The Gathering) It is late at night. Roland's holed up in his study, researching the bloody disappearances that have been taking place in the region. A few hours into his research, he hears a sound of strange chanting coming from his parlor down the hall. At the same time, he hears dirt churning, as if something were digging beneath the floor.

As he leaps to investigate, the door to his study vanishes before his eyes, leaving behind only solid wall. He's trapped inside his study until he can find another way out.

He notice that the edges of his newly purchased rug are tattered and mud-stained. Finding this odd, he shifts the furniture aside and pulls back the rug. To his suprise, he sees the door leading out of his study. He slowly turns the knob and the door swings open, revealing his hallway below.

He jumps through the doorway, landing on his feet on soft dirt. The door to the studt slams shut above him. The smell of burning wood fills the narrow hall, intermingled with the scent of rot and decay.

A glowing barrier blocks the path to his parlor. As he moves toward it, intense heat forces him to back away. Picking up a handful of dirt, he toss it at the barrier and watch in horror as the dirt incinerates. Perhaps there's something in the cellar or attic that can help.

His house continues to change before his very eyes. The walls have decayed, and the ground in many rooms has turned to dirt. It is almost as if he has been transported somewhere else entirely, although every now and again he recognizes elements of his former home. The floor beneath him is giving way, and he sees a vast network of tunnels twisting into the darkness below. Shapes and silhouettes of strange creatures move swiftly through the tunnels, trying to find a way up. He probably don't want to be here when they do...

Using the barrel from the attic,he carries ice and snow from the cellar and hurl it at the barrier. The barrier sparks and shudders as it consumes the ice, then hisses and fades out of existence.

A woman with a torch stands in his parlor, a glimmer of hatred in her eyes. "What have you done to my barrier?" she screams, furious. Before he can answer, a ghastly wail sounds behind him, and a creature wearing robes and a deer-skull mask tears through the wall, advancing towards him.

When the robed creature falls, the fiendish swarm burrow back into the ground, and the chaos of the house quiets. But the stranger in his parlor doesn't seem relieved. "You broke my seal that was set to trap the ghouls within." She raises her torch. "Now, we must take more direct measures and burn this hell-pit to the ground!"

He refuses to follow the overzealous woman's order and kick her out of his home for fear that she will set it ablaze without his permission. "Fool! You are making a grave mistake!" she warns. "You do not understand the threat that lurks below...the grave danger we are all in!". Still shaken by the night's events, he decides to hear the woman out. Perhaps she can shed some light one these bizarre events... but she doesn't seem to trust him very much.

(Τhe Midnight Masks) In the wake of the disaster at his home, Lita Chantler, the red-haired woman from his parlor, lays out a tale that-even in light of what he has just witnessed-strains the limits of his belief. "The creatures in your home" she claims, "are called ghouls-cruel beeings who plague the crypts,caverns,and tunnels beneath the city of Arkham..."

"These creatures feed on the corpses of humans, and they served by a dark cult within Arkham whose members have inexplicably come to worship the ancient master of the ghouls. This cult has been killing innocent people and feeding them to the ghouls, satiating a monstrous hunger. A dark balance was maintained. Until now. Recently, "Lita continues," one of their lairs, where the corpses were stored, was destroyed. Since then, the ghouls have been more active than usual. I have tracked their movements and tried my best to stop them from running amok throughout the city. But i think there is something worse going on. The cult has been planning something darker, and more ominous, than anything i have yet observed. Indications are that this plan shall come to fruition tonight, shortly after midnight. Beyond that, I cannot fathom what to expect.

"Many of the cultists, "Lita continues,"will seem like everyday people, despite their foul intentions. Whenever the cult meets, its members don masks shaped like the skulls of various animals to protect their identities from one another. These masks are our mark. Symbols of death and decay. We must unmask the cultists to expose and derail their plans. We have but a few hours. The more cultists we find before midnight,the better."

Lita seems convinced of a conspiracy within the city of Arkham. She believes that a secret cult serves the ghouls that live in the crypts beneath the city, and that several of the cult's prominent members are scattered throughout Arkham. As he begins searching for them, he can't shake the feeling that he, too, is being hunted.

He has one night to find the members of this cult and unveil their plan. The more members of the cult he can find and interrogate before midnight, the better.

The minutes pass quickly as Roland continues investigating.

He has managed to obtain some useful information about the cult and its plans. He can only hope it's enough.

(The Devourer Below) After a frantic nighttime search throughout Arkham, he has tracked down and questioned several members of the cult. His findings are disturbing: they claim to workship a being known as Umordhoth, a monstrous entity from another realm.

He is able to confirm much of Lita's story: the cult is agitated over the destruction of a ghoul lair. However, a suprising detail also turns up: the one who invaded the lair and set this night's events in motion was none other than Lita Chantler herself! He is not sure why this important detail was omitted from Lita's story - did she tell him only as much as was necessary to draw him into her conflict? But in another light, she seems to be fighting to protect the city of Arkham from a terrible menace.

The final piece of the puzzle was found written in a journal possesed by one of the cultists. It describes a dark ritual to be performed deep within the woods south of Arkham, this very night. According to the journal, the ritual's completion will open a gate and bring forth the cult's dark master into this world. "If the cult is not stopped," Lita warns, "there is a possibility that Umordhoth's vengeance will consume all in its path." Frightened but determined to stop the ritual, he heads into the woods...

From interrogating members of the conspiracy within Arkham, he has learned that they are perfoming a rite of vengeance in response to the destruction of one of their master's lairs. He has entered the woods outside Arkham to try to stop them. The woods seem unnaturally cold and filled with a deathly silence.

The evidence he has gathered has led him to the woods south of Arkham, where he believes a ritual to summon a being "Umordhoth" is about to take place. Steeling his resolve, he sets forth deeper into the woods, hoping to find the site of this ritual.

Throughout the woods, a shrieking cry echoes. From somewhere deeper in the forest, a score of hideous voices answer the call, inhuman as the baying of hounds anad yet articulate, repeating a singular name: "Umordhoth... Umordhoth... Umordhoth..."

"Umordhoth...Umordhoth...Umordhoth..." The chanting builds in intensity, echoing into the cold air of the night. The sparse clouds in the sky coalesce above the Arkham woods, blotting out the faint light of the stars.

A dark presence approaches, and he is assaulted by invisible pressures that brings him to his knees. A terrible force threatens to invade his mind and soul. His throat clenches and his eyes water as the sensation burns through him.

The world begins to shift and change as the ritual nears its conclusion. The air grows chilly, and the entire forest is covered in a layer of rime. The trees bend unnaturally, and their shadows lengthen into weird shapes.

Through force of arms and strength of will, he is somehow able to harm Umordhoth enough to send it reeling back to the dimension from which it emerged. Warmth and light return to the woodsas the void-like mass is sucked in upon itself, vanishing in an instant. He isn't sure if a being such as this can be killed, but for the time being it seems to have retreated. As their master vanishes, the ghouls nearby climb into the open pit below, fleeing with terrible cries and shrieks. He has stopped an evil plot, but the fight has taken its toll on his body and mind. Worse, he can't help but feel insignificant in the face of the world's mysteries. What other terrors exist in the deep, dark corners of reality?