Adventure Idea- Mrs. Feldmans Tea and Automatic Handwriting Club

Originally, I was fooling around with today’s scenario idea for a different setting (1950’s alien conspiracy), but after a little research I discovered a similar occurrence was reported in the late 1800s. Naturally, if it’s good enough for Hélène Smith it’s good enough for Victoriana.

A visiting circle of upper middleclass wives all experience strange fits, with spasms in their off hands. When given a pencil and paper the motions write strange otherworldly symbols. None of the wives can understand the symbols beyond a few confusing mental pictures. 

Worried for  their reputations, the ladies repress their fits all week until they meet on Tuesday afternoons to experience their “spiritual telegraphy” together and to try and make sense of their messages.

What is going on really:
1. During a trip to the British Museum, the ladies were  present for a mummy unwrapping ceremony. In life the mummy was a half alien priest with tremendous powers of Magnetism. During the unwrapping, the mummies eyes flashed open for a moment, forming a connection between the ancient priest and the women.
The automatic writing is a symptom of the mummies influence. It is trying to control the women like psychic puppets to make them collect the alien artifacts from his burial site, now strew through the British museum and private collections. Using the items he can be revitalized and regain his unearthly powers.

Mesmerized, the housewives sneak out at night and commit burglaries imbued with alien energy giving them superhuman abilities and hypnotic powers.

Player Hooks:
A worried husband asks the players to keep an eye on his strange acting wife
If a player character has a medical background, the wife may consult him about her somnambulism.
Player characters may be interested in a string of Egyptian art thefts or a player may own a piece of mysterious Egyptian art, and will soon experience a burglary.

2. The ladies all live on the same street. Throughout history, the street has a reputation as the birthplace of witches.

Deep beneath their houses is a long forgotten prehistoric asteroid. Residual spiritual radiation from the object spread to their subconscious, and is now released through their fits. Their writing is the language of an alien presence in the asteroid, in a nonrandom pattern describing hidden truths of the cosmos.
Over time the ladies subconscious will be altered by the intruding alien presence, and strange abilities and reactions could manifest leading to the opening of a portal to whatever part of space the asteroid came from.

Player Hooks:

A worried husband asks the players to keep an eye on his strange acting wife.
Rumors of many strange occurrences and appearance on  a single London street will pull players in.

One of ladies asked an expert of linguistics to look at her writing, but she would not tell him where it came from. The expert  asks the player character’s to investigate for him.

3. The housewives are all being physically abused by their husbands. During a lecture on spiritualism and a séance demonstration, an archon, known as Diana to the ancient Greeks was summoned, and came into contact with the women.

She planted the knowledge of a ritual in their minds. The automatic handwriting sessions are letting the ritual come to light, and if the ladies ever translate the writing, their abusive marriages could be taken care of very quickly.
During each automatic writing session, latent magical energy floods the area around their houses causing mysterious brutal attacks on local men.

Player Hooks:

A worried husband asks the players to keep an eye on his strange acting wife.
Terrified locals call the player character’s in to investigate the attacks that occur every Tuesday afternoon.

An expert at the inciting lecture noticed something odd during the séance and would like help looking into it.

This adventure is of an admittedly weird scifi/spiritualism bent, but if that fits your campaign, feel free to use it. I still want to use this in my original 1950s’ Alien conspiracy game, but for now the trappings of Victorian Mysticism fit it well.