Roanoke Island, North Carolina.

Characters

Player Characters	Non-Player Characters
Notting, Dr Alexander – intense middle-aged archaeologist, Harvard University (Ben)	Buckinghamshire, Sir Andrew – Oxford University
Occultree, Professor Edwin – Yale University (Simon)	van Buren, Charles
	van Buren, Sarah Ann
	Patterson, Matthew and Ninian – Sarah’s Aunt and Uncle

Involvement

Charles was furthering his bootlegging interests off the coast of North Carolina when the Silk Scorpion crossed paths with a party of academic researchers investigating the disappearance of the first British colony on Roanoke Island.

Highlights

Sir Andrew Buckinghamshire encouraged Dr Notting and Professor Occultree to investigate the mystery of the first British colony in the United States – Roanoke Island. Sir Buckinghamshire wanted to find out what caused the failure of the colony, what happened to the missing settlers, whether there were any descendants and whether a major investigation was warranted.

Dr Notting and Professor Occultree learnt that Sir Buckinghamshire had been involved in an occult symposium at Harvard the previous year. Some weird things had reportedly occurred, but nothing definitive had been determined.

The climate around Roanoke Island was sub-tropical and extremely humid in May. Investigations were planned so that the investigators would not suffer heatstroke.

Initial research indicated that on Mar 25, 1581, Sir Walter Raleigh discovered Roanoke Island, and then convinced others to settle there. In 1586 ships led by Grenville and the Royal Governor, Ralph Lane, anchored near the island.

The Indians were friendly initially with the settlers, but the settlers weren’t friendly with the Indians. At the end of that summer, Lane led the settlers in a pre-emptive attack against the Indians, who subsequently weren’t so friendly.

The settlement was unsuccessful without the support of the Indians, so Grenville took the settlers back to England. He left behind 15 men and a little boat.

In 1587, 125 new colonists arrived under the leadership of Governor White. They were supposed to pick up the 15 men stranded/left behind and then settle on the Chesapeake Bay, but their ship left them on Roanoke Island. These new settlers only found the remains of one of the 15 men.

It was assumed that the mainland Indians had come and killed some of the men while the rest of the 15 fled to another island and vanished. Governor White sailed back to England for more supplies, but the Spanish Armada delayed his return to Roanoke Island for three years.

In 1590 Governor White returned with two ships, but they found no one. The houses built previously had all been torn down and palisades had been raised. “CRO” in Roman letters had been scratched in the gate of the palisade. White supposed that the settlers had been attacked and fled north or south, but there was no proof either way. Apparently, no one asked the Indians.

Rumours of buried treasure on the island arose during Drake and Grenville’s privateer activities.

In recent times a couple had reported seeing the ghost of a little girl on the island.

The natives of the area had been Powhatan Indians, but there are no known descendants of this tribe. Not unexpected, as they wouldn’t have been happy with the Chesapeake settlements.

Additional research via the University of Indiana garnered the fact that “CRO” meant “Sound/Voice With Power Behind It” in the Powhatan language.

Dr Notting and Professor Occultree travelled to Elizabeth Town with some student assistants and tried to find out some of the local tales of yore. The few locals who did know something of the past didn’t have much information on the time before Elizabeth Town was founded.

The party chartered a boat to Roanoke Island. A local fishing boat captain named Mack agreed to take them there.

As the party approached the island they passed a rich yacht that Mack told them was the Silk Scorpion, owned by the Van Buren’s, prominent citizens of Elizabeth Town and elsewhere.

Mack dropped the party off on the southern part of the island, where they set up camp. The first days were nothing out of the ordinary, but eventually, all suffered violent and graphic nightmares.

They explored the island, including the lighthouse. It was only 12 years old, but it had been abandoned and the light panel boarded up. They found the Civil War settlement on the north-western end of the island and a shack on the eastern side. A little breaking and entering later and they found some illegal hooch.

A little further on they saw the Silk Scorpion at anchor. Visiting the yacht, the party met Charles van Buren and his wife, Sarah Bateman van Buren. Sarah’s Uncle and Aunt, Matthew and Ninian Patterson from Cornwall, were also on board.

In a more relaxed environment, the party learned that the fabulously rich van Buren’s had had some strange encounters themselves. They and the Pattersons seemed quite knowledgeable about esoteric things.

Back at the dig site, the party found a bone by the remains of the original settlement’s palisade. The bone itself didn’t excite them, but the fact that it had been gnawed on by something larger than a dog concerned them. The word cannibalism was thrown about most injudiciously. They decided that the Indians placed the bone as a curse.

The party subsequently found a large piece of Indian sealed pottery. It looked like it a major find. Then animals of all sorts and all sizes from the surrounding forest attacked the party. Everyone ran via the creek into the sea, where the Silk Scorpion was at anchor. The party lost two student assistants to their animal assailants.

As the party sailed back to Elizabeth Town, they decided to destroy the offending piece of Indian pottery. Although reluctant to destroy something they were trained to search for, everybody felt that it had to be done.

The students were reported as lost in a boating accident – no report was made of the vicious attack by crazed animals. The children’s bones found inside the Indian pottery were interred respectfully, without being included in the official report.

Roanoke Island was no longer haunted and the party was proud to be involved, but that was not in the official report. Officially, Sir Andrew Buckinghamshire was told that the party was unable to find out what happened to the settlers, and that a major investigation would not shed any further light on the matter. He was also told that strange events would not happen again.