On April 20th, 1877 a woman was discovered dead in Golden Gate Park. Her body was eviscerated and her eyes removed. She lay in a resting position, hands folded calmly over the ravages of her chest. A small, handless pocket watch lay open at her throat.

Thus began a wave of terror that left fifteen women brutally slain and San Francisco paralyzed for three months.

The first murder was shocking, but it was the second and third that truly brought fear to the city. They were found five days later, also in Golden Gate Park, at opposite ends within minutes of their deaths and each other.

More murders occurred as often as two a night and the police had neither clues nor motive. All the corpses were women of various disposition; whores, housewives, nuns. All had the telltale signs; missing eyes and a handless watch at the throat.

A young alienist and a mage from the Grand Chamber of the Eleusinian Mysteries assisted the investigation, but little progress was made. The speed and cunning of the killer, and the inability of both the alienist and Eleusinian mage to track down or even determine a solid lead soon gave rise to the theory that magick was involved in the slayings.

How else could someone move so swiftly and escape without detection from a trained investigator mage? The papers were pressured to quash such rumours by the police, but the damage had been done.

The murders gave rise to an anti-magick hysteria that still haunts the Imperial capital. Wizards were tracked down in a literal witch hunt. Angry mobs burned down chapterhouses, slit the throats of any suspected of magickal dealings.

And throughout all this the murders continued.

What was the signifigance of the eyes, or the blank watchface that adorned each corpse? And had there been an unraveling at each brutal encounter? And if so, for what dark spell?

As the reign of terror came to a close and anti-magick sentiment calmed down a note came to the San Francisco Police Department.

"Gentlemen," it said. "It has come to my attention that you have discerned neither my name nor my intentions. My faith in the intelligence and fortitude of the local constabulary has been given a serious turn. From such a trail as I have left can no one find me? Am I as elusive as all that?" The letter goes on for several more sentences in that same condescending tone. This soon gives way to a more rambling nature, as if the writer's mind is untying like a frayed cord.

"The eyes like Oedipus, torn from sockets that have seen the face of their sins. Spirits quieted from their unrest. Their souls cut like the binds of the Gordian Knot giving forth sweet nectar. Mothers, fathers, hide your daughters. Gods and devils beware. Pray for my soul gentlemen and give me not your hatred and loathing, your fear or spite. Love me for I am infinity. When next we meet you will be as dust and my immortality will carry me through the ravages of time and ecstasy."

"Forever and Always Your Servant,"

"Kronos"

Modern investigators of the crimes unanimously agree that it is these last few sentences that are the keys to the killer's nature, though few agree as to what they mean.

Many believe that the toll of magick in sanity and substance drove a wizard into a severe dementia. Others feel that no true evidence of magick exists and that Kronos was merely a deluded schizophrenic.

And others have a more disturbing theory.

In 1947 a series of murders occurred in Los Angeles. The murders began with a woman cut in two. Her hair had been meticulously shampooed and she had been scrubbed clean, as though with steel bristles. Her body displayed the crisscrossed map of torture; cuts, bruises and cigarette burns. At her throat was an open, handless pocketwatch, with the letter K carved crudely into the crystal.

The Black Dahlia murder, as it came to be known, was the beginning of a new wave of killings, which ended as abruptly as they had begun.

What if Kronos were immortal as he claimed? Or could travel through time? Modern practitioners of the Art have studied the murders in a search for the magick that Kronos was weaving. Could the answers to these long buried secrets still be attainable? Only time will show.

Adventure Ideas

Kronos's height in San Francisco was during the months of April, May and June of 1877. The player characters could be mounting a campaign to defeat this newfound evil. Or perhaps they are sucked into it as mages, accused of the murders themselves. What secrets and mysteries does Kronos hold? Perhaps the players will find out the hard way.