Merry Christmas Everybody! This season is a time of tradition, and we here at Skullduggery in the Smoke uphold that most Victorian of holiday pageantry: Ghost Stories for Christmas. As in years past, we examine the fanciful and dolorous haunting of the British Isles for adventures ideas suitable for your holly-and-ivy-trimmed gaming table. All our haunting are selected from Peter Underwood’s “Gazetteer of British, Scottish, & Irish Ghosts”. So bring a torch Jeannette Isabella, we’re telling Ghost Stories for Christmas!
The small farming town of West Drayton sits only 16 miles from London. A section of the Great Western Railway connects the idyllic village of only 900 people to the great metropolis. The river Colne transports wheat, oats, and fruit grown in West Drayton’s fields and orchards into the heart of London. Even as industry and modern transportation pull West Drayton into greater modernity, stories of a strange 100-year-old haunting still cause congregants of St. Martin’s church to glance nervously about their place of worship and listen for flapping wings.
St. Martins is a very old wonderfully medieval church. The majority of the exterior made of flint rubble dates to the 1400s, although some section may have been built as long ago as the 1200s. A single tower rises from the church on the west end capped by a cupola. Roughly twenty marble plaques commemorating important figures in the village’s history line the walls at the end of the pews and high-arched ceilings loom over the congregation. For a century, the specter of a giant black bird disturbed the sanctity of St. Martin’s church. The majority of the encounters with the black bird date back to the late 1700s. The spirit manifests in a number of ways.
Three parishioners heard knocking echoing up from the vaults below the church containing the noble dead of the Paget and De Burgh families. When they peeked into the vault through the grate, they all saw a monstrous bird single-mindedly pecking at a coffin. The bird’s knocking became a regular disturbance on Friday evenings. The parish clerk, his wife, and daughter all repeatedly saw or heard the bird in the church, as did the sexton, a practical man without fear of the unnatural. Most bizarre of all, a group of bell ringers arrived at the church to practice and saw the black bird flying through the chancel. They chased the ghostly bird, shouting and pelting it with stones until a lucky throw smashed a wing and brought it down. When the bell ringers approached to smash it with clubs, the big black bird vanished! After that encounter, the bird often appeared perched on the communion rail or fluttering through the vaults.
The only explanation brought forth for the ghostly bird’s origin is the belief that it’s the soul of a murderer who killed himself and was buried in the churchyard instead of at a crossroads with a stake through its body as was customary.
Adventure Ideas
Although the majority of the Black Bird sightings occurred in the late 1700s, the interior of St. Martins was restored in 1850. All sorts of holy and historical furnishings were added, moved, removed or destroyed. Nothing stirs up a ghost like the refurbishing of its haunt.
One great thing about this haunting is that the black bird manifests audibly (heard fluttering, knocking, and squawking), visually (seen perched or flying through the church), and physically (can be fought and harmed). Giving another sensation to a ghost beside a spooky appearance can give the haunting extra tension. Having the player characters hear the ghost (or worse feeling the ghost) before they see it should add some menace.
The physicality of this ghost is very strange. If it can be harmed it probably isn’t a ghost. For example, it could be undead birds sent by a necromancer that instantly decays when wounded or a bird-like imp that returns to their infernal realm after being defeated, or harpies who sneak back to their lives in West Drayton when their plans are foiled again.
In an interesting historical footnote, an unnamed vicar of St. Martin’s church was excommunicated in 1373. Another record identifies an excommunication at the tame time for a Nicholas of Drayton for publishing heresies. It could be two different men or two accounts of the same man with extra details in each. If a vicar of St. Martin’s church published heretical texts, might that be connected to the black bird? Is it his sacrilegious coffin wrongfully placed in the vault getting pecked?
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