Mu Hsien, 63, scholar

Mu has seen many changes in his lifetime, and has learned to observe carefully before speaking. He is an old man, and certainly not up to fighting mad cultists and monsters. Yet he is so shocked by what Brady has taught him that he cannot turn his back and could prove to be a valuable ally if the investigators convince him of their trustworthiness.

Description: short with a shaven head, he retains his robes even though he has abandoned his queue (the traditional ponytail worn by Chinese scholars and officials during the Imperial period). 

Traits: watchful and reserved

Lin Yenyu, 65, wealthy aesthete and madam

Madam Lin is a powerful woman. Although her family was poor, she worked her way up through her profession (prostitution), determined to lift herself and her family out of poverty. Along the way, she found that she had a skill for encouraging people to share their secrets; a talent which also helped her meteoric rise through the ranks to become a famous courtesan and then, Madam, with high-class flower girl houses in each of the major treaty ports, as well as the capital, Peking.

Description: slightly taller than the average Chinese woman, with a good figure for a lady of her age. Her dark hair is elaborately styled, and she dresses in traditional clothing. She always wears a jade brooch of a swallow (a play on the literal translation of her name “swallow jade”).

Traits: cunning, intelligent, determined.

Anthony Chang (Chang Pao), 24, inexperienced editor and spy

Chang has recently returned to Shanghai from Britain and has taken on the Shanghai Courier at his wealthy father’s behest in order to revive the newspaper’s flagging fortunes. Well, that’s the official story, at least. A graduate of Oxford University recruited to the British Secret Service, Chang keeps a discreet eye on Shanghai’s expat community and those they do business with. He is a reporter and editor of sorts, having worked on a variety of student newspapers during his undergraduate days. He is very young and inexperienced, both as a journalist and as a spy.

Description: smartly dressed in Western-style clothing, with neat, slicked-back hair and an inquiring gaze.

Traits: curious, intelligent, polite.

Isoge Taro, 34, undercover agent of the Imperial Japanese Navy

Captain Isoge, a captain in the Imperial Japanese Navy, was participating in the systematic survey of Chinese ports when he heard rumors of a terrifying new weapon being developed by an unknown Chinese faction. A member of the right-wing Kochisha association and a protégé of Okawa Shumei (a nationalist and anti-capitalist scholar), Isoge used his powerful connections to be assigned to investigate the matter. He has spent the last two months undercover, and has recruited several Shanghai-area Chinese as agents.

Description: close-cut, black hair, dressed in workman’s clothing.

Traits: dedicated, honorable, and formidable.

Fergus “McChum” Chum, 40, bar owner

The Chinese-Scotsman owns and runs the Stumbling Tiger Bar on Lantern Street. To the occidentals among his clientele, he is known as “McChum” in honor of his Scottish ancestry. A native of Shanghai, McChum keeps his eyes open and his mouth closed. He speaks English with a thick accent, and the clarity depends on how quickly he talks—if he gets excited, he has a tendency to miss words out, almost lapsing into pidgin.

Description: squat Eurasian chain-smoker, with nicotinestained fingers and a thin, unconvincing smile.

Traits: taciturn, loyal, and guarded.

Jeremy Grogan, 36, insane miner and dreamer

Once a mineworker, Grogan lost his sanity when witnessing Robert Huston (who he called Carver) summon a monster. Since that time, he has lived alone in the desert (the Death Camp), accompanied by a pack of dingoes.

Grogan is a sun-beaten, wild-eyed fellow, dressed in little more than a few rags. Quite how he survives in such an inhospitable environment is hard to say. He appears to defy even the sun at times, staring straight at it, though it should blind him.

Grogan will never return to humanity now, living out his days with his canine companions in the desert.

Description: a gaunt, sun-weathered individual, with straggly, matted hair.

Traits: he talks in bursts, separated by seconds or minutes of silence. He is a sly man.

Robert B.F. Mackenzie, 40, mining engineer

Based in Port Hedland, Mackenzie is a former friend and confidant of Arthur MacWhirr, as well as the executor of his estate, and knew of MacWhirr’s desert discovery. The pair had planned to survey the site back in 1921 but, with MacWhirr’s death, the scheme never got any further.

Description: a well-dressed gentleman; his face and arms are heavily tanned.

Traits: charming when addressing those he considers his peers, and condescending to those he considers beneath him.

M’Weru, 26, high priestess

M'Weru possesses a dangerous, noble beauty that few can fail to be impressed by. Her braided hair lies upon the shoulders of her long, flowing robes.

Traits: beautiful and bloodthirsty. All who know her power fear her, and this makes her imperiously proud.

Okomu, 23, assistant to Bundari

Okomu is the devoted acolyte to Old Bundari. He sees to all of Bundari’s needs, and it is assumed that he will one day inherit the old magician’s role.

Description: a young, delicate-looking man dressed in a simple robe.

Traits: despite his excellent English, Okomu is irritatingly rude, constantly pressing the investigators for details, reasons, and rationales behind their statements, then sneering at their answers.

Old Bundari, 80, great tribal magician

Bundari is a wise man and knows something of the Cthulhu Mythos and magic. He spends much of his time shut away in his hut in a meditative state. He is attended and cared for by Okomu.

Description: a small, frail-looking individual. Naked from the waist up, he bears many piercings and ornamentations of rings and feathers.

Traits: has a tendency to speak in metaphors and riddles.

Natalie Smythe-Forbes, 48, publisher of the Nairobi Star

Mrs. Smythe-Forbes is a brisk woman. She’s concerned about politics in Kenya, but in a distinctly oblivious manner. Though she has a kind demeanor, she’s rather blind about black African affairs, and unengaged in the fate of the country’s native populations. She’s also a secret spiritualist, sometimes participating in seances.

Description: tall and slender, she wears her hair in a bun.

Traits: she is kind, but may appear brusque because of her workload.

Johnstone Kenyatta, 32, political activist and future president of Kenya

Born 1891, Johnstone is a Kikuyu. Later known as Jomo Kenyatta, he was an important figure in the East African Association, and later the Kikuyu Central Association, campaigning for African nationalism. He would later lead Kenya to independence and become its first president.

Kenyatta lives in Swahili Town, on Marianna Street, in Nairobi, though most of the time he can be found in the office of the Kikuyu Central Association, a black African organization devoted to gaining representation in the colonial government.

Description: dressed in a suit. His beard is short and tidy.

Traits: possesses a sharp intellect and is insightful about people. His English is excellent.

Sharifa Rawash, appears 29, the revivified Queen Nitocris

Having spent several millennia traversing the Duat (the Ancient Egyptian underworld), Sharifa/Nitocris is unfamiliar with much of what the modern world has to offer, but she is a quick learner. Even after all this time, humanity’s driving passions— lust, greed, jealousy, and fear, to name but a few—haven’t really changed and she has lost none of her ability to manipulate those around her to get what she most desires: power.

Description: with high cheekbones set in a heart-shaped face, an aquiline nose, and unsettlingly pale gray-green eyes, Sharifa is a most attractive woman. She wears her long brunette hair coiled and flowing in the latest European fashion, held in place by numerous jeweled pins. On her left arm she wears the Circlet of Nata Haje.

Traits: proud, scheming, and vivacious.

Nessim Efti, age 90, bearer of the Sword of Akmallah

Wizened and old, Efti still retains a strength and determination to carry out his duties, even if his movements are now slowed with age. A devout alim and fearsome guardian of the Girdle of Nitocris, Efti wields the Sword of Akmallah, a marvelous scimitar made many centuries ago to mete out punishment to mundane and extradimensional creatures alike.

Description: a bald head, usually hidden beneath his taqiyah, with a neatly groomed white beard. There is a lively sparkle in the old man’s eye.

Traits: brave, determined, and intelligent; a good judge of character.

Nuri of El Wasta, age unknown, Guardian of the Eye of Light and Darkness

Hideously scarred in punishment for defying the Brotherhood of the Black Pharaoh one too many times, Nuri and her son, Ubaid, live in abject poverty in the town of El Wasta.

Description: prematurely aged beyond her years. Both of her hands and most of her jaw have been burned away.

Traits: insane, but determined to protect the Eye of Light and Darkness until those she knows are destined to seek her out come to claim it.

Omar al-Shakti, appears 55, wealthy plantation owner and high priest

This powerful sorcerer controls the Brotherhood of the Black Pharaoh—throughout Egypt, at least—and has the direct aid and advice of Nyarlathotep. Though Egyptian, British, and French dispatches occasionally mention al-Shakti, in every such instance pertinent files and their cross-references have been destroyed by fire within a few months. Incidental tax records and property deeds exist, but no dossier ever compiled on Omar al-Shakti has survived for very long.

The Cairo underworld occasionally whispers of him, but no more so than it refers to hundreds of other Cairo-area businessmen. Publicly, Mr. al-Shakti is an honest citizen, an astute businessman of impeccable manners, and reputedly a lesser son of a fine family long powerful in Egypt. He speaks English fluently, as well as many other languages, including Mandarin Chinese.

Description: physically, al-Shakti is rotund and genial. He looks to be a robust 55 years old but is much, much older—by several thousand years. 

Traits: cunning, ruthless, and as powerful as a minor god.

Ahmed al-Dhahabi, age 73, nazir of Ibn Tulun

Ahmed al-Dhahabi is currently acting both as an alim (learned Islamic scholar; plural: ulama) to the residents of the Ibn Tulun asylum, and as nazir (caretaker) for the waqf (Islamic endowment council) responsible for the former mosque. He is deeply upset about recent attempts to break into the former mosque to steal the Girdle of Nitocris, a critical element in the Brotherhood’s plans to resurrect the ancient queen. al-Dhahabi is aware of the Mythos gods and their minions, but perceives them as instances of the demonic menaces mentioned in the Qur’an.

He has zealously arranged the defense of the Girdle but, in the purity of his faith, he does not understand the danger to the world to be as pervasive and all-threatening as it really is.

Description: al-Dhahabi has a lined and careworn face framed by a long, white beard. He wears a traditional white taqiyah (skull cap).

Traits: patient, gentle, and devout.

Warren Besart, 35, near-mad hashish addict

Besart was once a calm, collected man with a taste for smart, expensive suits; a man who knew how to find things for his various employers, no matter how rare, expensive, or illegal such items might be. Those days are long gone, all thanks to his association with the Carlyle Expedition. Besart now spends his time smoking hashish in order to dispel the terrible sights he witnessed while working for Carlyle.

Description: tall, with a sunken, pale face fringed with a scruffy blond beard. He insists on wearing a filthy djellaba, with the hood pulled over his face at all times which, he believes, allows him to blend in with the crowd. But his height (far greater than most Egyptians), along with his rather distinctive gait, clearly mark him out as a foreigner.

Traits: drug-addled and querulous.

Faraz Najjar, 45, antiquities dealer

A Cairene antiques dealer, Najjar’s current shop on the Street of Potters sells mostly tourist garbage. Najjar found himself on the wrong side of the Brotherhood of the Black Pharaoh after stealing certain artifacts from Omar al-Shakti, then selling them to Warren Besart, Roger Carlyle’s agent in Cairo.

Description: portly, and badly scarred on one side of his face as a result of the terrible fire which destroyed his former shop in the Street of Jackals. He wears a traditional Arab djellaba and a turban. 

Traits: nervous and ill tempered (through fear).

Dr. Ali Kafour, 63, curator of the occult and ritual magician

Dr. Kafour is a respected Egyptian scholar based at Cairo’s foremost museum. He is also a ritual magician of some capacity, though he wants no one to know that he dabbles in sorcery.

Description: a short and thin older man, who has never lost his love for the occult. When he grows excited in conversation, his excess energy spills out as a characteristic set of fidgety movements.

Traits: alert, able, and intelligent.