Things Man Was Not Meant to Know, In A Jar

This label-less coffee can is bashed and dented, and symbols that defy understanding have been etched into its tin surface with a penknife or nail.

Its last owner was one Lucien Blouin, a university dropout who was well on his way to a very expensive anthropology degree. In his last monthes, he began to report to his friends that he was having trouble sleeping, and was seeing things out of the corners of his eyes. After a few weeks, he stopped sleeping entirely, and became cross with his friends and family, reportedly blowing up at them for no reason.

Soon after, people around him began to dissapear without a trace. First a few of the local homeless dissapeared, and then his neighbour, and one week after, his best friend, who was last reported heading to Luciens apartment to try and patch up their friendship.

When the police finally broke into his apartment, there was no furniture, no food, no clothes, just Lucien, who had used his blood to write incomprehensible things all over the walls, and the coffee can. He had also drawn several pictures of masses of what can best be described as tentacles. He was muttering to himself in french (his first language) and rocking back and forth. All the metal in the apartment (lightswitch casing, doorknobs, and the like) had been turned green, although apparently none of it was brass or copper.

He was put into a sanitarium, as no questioning regarding the whereabouts of his friend or neighbour was able to elicit coherent scentances from him.

He spent six weeks in the sanitarium in a catatonic state before he escaped. He apparently ran half-way across Montreal stark naked, somehow stole the coffee can from a police evidence locker and witnesses reported him breaking into an ironworks, where the found the coffee can sitting on a catwalk above several thousand gallons of molten metal.

Mechanics: The coffee can, in addition to being described above, feels about as heavy as a full coffee can ought to. Those in the possesion of the can almost instantly begin to become covetous of it (Self 8 check to let it out of their immediate presence or let anyone else handle it). Chance also conspires to make sure whoever posses the can does not open it, at least for a week or so. Distractions often present themselves to prevent the opening, such as the stove catching fire or a nearby car-crash.

The owner of the can also cannot sleep, but instead spends his night beginning to hear whispering of a language wrought not of human tongues. After about two weeks of this, the victim begins to understand, and quickly becomes a pawn to the can. They must pass a Self 10 check to do contrary to what the can wants.

The can wants to horrify, drive insane, and above all, consume. It wants to consume everything, but wants most to consume people. The person looking into the opened coffee can must make an Unnatural 10 check, if he passes that, a Helplessness 10 check. If he passes that, a Self 10 check. If he passes that, an Isolation 10 check. Almost all failed tests result in the freeze response. Approximatly five seconds after the can has been opened, whatever it was facing when it opened is consumed. A mass of tentacles snaking out to pull in a victim is a good way to go about this, but gamemasters should get creative in this regard. The can can also eat inanimate objects, and does so quite eagerly. It has eaten things as large as a small car, and has no problems eating a couch or fridge.

The person who owns the can is driven to feed it. The can taunts, cajoles, and maddens its slave until the slave feeds it things, much like a less-amusing carnivorous plan a la Little Shop of Horrors. Inanimate objects satisfy it for much less time than living things or people do. A person will quiet the can just long enough for its slave to get a full nights worth of sleep. The can is protective of its slaves, and won’t eat them unless they are trying to cause it harm.

Currently, the can is sitting on the dashboard of an iron foundry worker who found the symbols on in interesting.