For such a short adventure there was quite a bit in “The Case of the Black Pharaoh” that looked familiar.
As much of the information about The Great Pyramid, The Temple of Horus at Edfu and The Sphinx was accurate (with the obverse exception of a labyrinth of tunnels beneath the Sphinx and a hidden chamber under The Temple of Horus).
Prof. Francois Mariette was the founder of the world famous Museum of Egyptian Antiquities. The field of Egyptology was dominated by the English and the Germans at the time, Prof. Mariette (being a patriot) used all his influence to secure the best arrangements that he could for his fellow countrymen. In the real world he lived for another eight years, dying at the age of sixty.
Nephran-Ka, was created by H.P. Lovecraft and is first mentioned in “The Haunter of the Dark”. He “did that which caused his name to be stricken from all monuments and records”, earning him the name “The Black Pharaoh”.
Mr. Lovecraft also gave us The Crawling Chaos, Nyarlthotep, first mentioned in a poem of the same name. I got the idea of inserting a hyphen and a second “h” into his name to create the pseudo-Egyptian sounding “Nyarloth-Hotep” from one of Matt’s Call of Cthulhu adventures.
While it was never identified as such the opium-like substance that had such a profound effect on Poppy was Taduki, the drug that allowed H Ryder Haggard’s famed adventurer Allen Quantermain to re-live a past life in human prehistory. A few lungs-fulls were enough to allow the good Prof. McPherson to see beyond the boundaries of time and space and catch a glimpse of Frank Belknap Long’s Hounds of Tindalos (lets hope they didn’t catch a glimpse of the professor).
Finally Prince Khufu and Princess Chay-ara are the creations of writer Gardner Fox and artist Denise Neville, and are tied-in closely with the backgrounds of the classic Golden Age superheroes Hawkman and Hawkgirl.

I was wondering how much CoC you were going go put in CF!

First Hastur in Edd's D&D and now this!

While HPL's works don't quite fall into the bracket of Victorain-literature, The Mythos does present too rich a source of ideas to ignore completely.
I'll don't intend to over use them but well...just be wary of any experditions to the South-Pole.

“The Case of Lunar Lunacy” was adapted from the Space 1889 adventure “River of Life” by Frank Chadwick. If, by some quirk of fate, this post should ever come to Mr. Chadwick’s notice may I pass on my thanks and apologises.

Doctor Hesselius, who helped Poppy with her investigations into reincarnation, is the creation of J.S. Le Fanu and appeared in several horror stories including “Green Tea” and the pre-Dracula vampire story “Carmilla”.

Adam von Richten is an “official” Falkenstien character and is mentioned in a couple of sourcebooks. From one throw away line it seems likely that he supposed to be a villain but for the purpose of my adventure I made him a good guy (even if he showed bad judgment at times).

Impey Barbicane, president of the Baltimore Gun Club, is the creation of Jules Verne and appeared in “From the Earth to the Moon” and it’s sequel “Round the Moon”.

Two of von Richten’s crew, Dr. Joseph Pancoast (the expedition’s doctor) and Prof. Paul Gussfeldt (geologist and noted mountaineer), are historical figures. Of course in the real world they didn’t die in 1873 nor can I find any indication that they travelled to the moon.

It will be 126 years before the mysterious black slab that Dr. Pancoast catches a glimpse of as the Lunar Capsule orbits the moon is rediscovered, as recorded in Arthur C. Clarke’s “2001, A Space Odyssey”.

The cute, frog-like creatures that befriend Poppy while she is marooned on the island are Froglets from the BBC TV series “The Clangers”.

Given their similarity in colouration it is possible that the “human” natives of the moon are the ancestors of the people that Captain Julian the Fifth discovers in “The Moon Maid”, one of the more obscure stories of Edgar Rice Burroughs (of “Tarzan” fame).

The monstrous “Others” that threatened the Heroes at the end of the adventure are “Selenites” from H.G. Wells “The First Men in the Moon”. It wasn’t until I re-read parts of the novel before the adventure that I realised that they weren’t “ant men” as they are depicted in the 1964 film adaptation, although plenty of insect images are used to describe them and their society.

I KNEW IT!!

aha! that McCullough instinct proven right

It was the handwriting that gave it away...

Oh, and the 'Von' in his name!

“The Case of the Rain of Terror” had a number of people and places that “looked familiar”.
Poppy’s new husband Arthur Holmwood (the new Lord Godalming by the end of the adventure) is the creation of Bram Stoker and appears in “Dracula“.
It almost goes without saying that Dr. Jekyll is the creation of Robert Louis Stephenson and appears in “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde”.
Similarly both Mycroft Holmes and The Diogenes Club (“a club for “the most unsociable and unclubbable men in town”) are of course the creations of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, first appearing in the Sherlock Holmes story “The Greek Interpreter“.
Albion Hospital appears in three Christopher Eccleston-era episodes of Dr. Who, “Aliens of London”, “The Hollow Child” and “The Doctor Dances”.
The World Crime League is an official power-group within the world of Castle Falkenstien. It’s agent Ruth is the eponymous anti-heroine of “Ruth the Betrayer” (also known as “The Female Spy”), a penny dreadful by Edward Ellis.
The London Necropolis, more correctly called Brookwood Crematory, was (is?) a real place as is the dedicated train service that ran between it and London.
The two, fear inducing ingredients of Dr. Tempest’s “Rain of Terror”, a blue flower from the Himalayas and the root of the devil’s foot, come from the film “Batman Begins” and the Sherlock Holmes story “The Devil’s Foot” respectively.
Can I just end by saying that for such as short adventure I thoroughly enjoyed myself, mainly due to the wit and good humour of the players. So let me take a moment to say “thank you” to Matt, Traycie, Ed and Roy.

Just to throw a few bits into Nick's comments...

The Black Slab from 2001, or Tycho Magnetic Anomaly 1, is located in the moon's Tycho crater, hence the name. This is the on the lower quarter of the face of the moon, just to the left of the north/south centre line. The crater with the "blast marks" radiating from it.

http://www.lunarrepublic.com/atlas/index.shtml


The Doctor Who episode is The Empty Child, rather than Hollow.

Brookwood Cemetary does still exist.
http://www.brookwoodcemetery.com/

Though the railway has, mostly, gone.
http://www.tbcs.org.uk/railway.htm

I have a feeling that it was used as a Tube station in London Below.. mind you its a long time since I've watched Neverwhere.

Thanks for the correction of the Doctor Who episode Darrell, I always like to get my sources right.
"Neverwhere" and "London-Below", I haven't thought about them in years. You know there may be a plot there...

and as Emily pointed out the second episode of that story is called 'the doctor dances'

The one night adventure that I ran a few weeks ago now, and which I have rather unimaginatively entitled "The Case of the Darlington Manor Mystery” was based on an adventure I found on-line called “The Mystery of Darlington Manor” by Thibaut Hair.
To make sure that it fitted into one night I cut out a sub-plot/red-herring involving a book of spells hidden somewhere in the manor and a couple of “undercover sorcerers” who were looking for it. In the original adventure the bad-guys are Prussians but that didn’t really make sense to me so I substituted a band of anarchists instead. This gave me the opportunity to bring back “The Black Cat”, the anarchist villainess who featured in the very first Castle Falkenstien adventure I wrote.

The adventure we finished yesterday is also based on one I found on-line called “Once Upon A Time in Hong Kong” by Mark Baker. Pretty much the only alteration I made was to substitute The Heroes’ old college Elizabeth D’ainse for another Second Compact agent.
I hadn’t foreseen (but who could have?) the involvement of “C. Gerard Depardieu” and his tactful manservant “John”, who brought the game to a halt as we laughed at their exploits (and Ed’s French accent). And let’s not forget the enigmatic “Mr. T Stigg”.
I haven’t thought of what I will record this case as. “The Case of the Hong Kong Conspiracy” perhaps? Can anyone think of anything better?

The most recent case, which I have tentatively entitled “The Case of the Demon Drink” is pretty much a direct lift of the Deadlands adventure “Trouble a’brewin” which came as part of the “River o’blood” boxed set (both written by one John Goff, many thanks if you are out there). I really wanted to set a Castle Falkenstien adventure in the US of A and looked through and rejected several on-line scenarios until I found one that I thought would work.
The only real change that I made was that, for an adventure about dark Voodoo magic, there wasn’t a single zombie to be seen so I added some to the final encounter.
The character of John Greaux, or “Doctor John” is worth some note. A fictionalised version of a historical figure he was a practicing voodoo priest who lived in New Orleans in the early 1800s. He claimed to have been a Senegalian prince. How he is still relativly young and fit seventy years latter is, of course, a mystery.
What this adventure did remind me is how much more dangerous guns are then other weapons. Of course that is really to be expected and guns do have there place. It is still very welcome ,however, that most of our Heroes and Heroines rely on swords, fists and their wits rather then just lugging around artillery.

It was twenty adventures ago, in ”The Case of the Amateur Archaeologist” that Our Heroes first met Heinrich Schliemann and his family so I have saddled our latest case with the (rather long) title of “The Case of the Amateur Archaeologist 2: The Road to Atlantis” in tribute.
Buried deep, deep within the DNA of the adventure you will find traces of two other adventures; “The Island of Terror” by Paul Wade-Williams (PCs going to a mysterious island to rescue a missing expedition) and “The Scuttling” by Todd Woods and Kevin Ross (The Christabel and her crew).
The adventure gave me a chance to bring to the fore-ground the Prussians, who are supposed to be one of the great threats of the Falkenstien world (second only to The Unseelie Court) but for one reason or another I have neglected over the years.
The name “Department of Occult Armaments” or “DOA” comes from a short-lived Marvel Comic from the 90s called “Nightstalkers”. I thought the name was pretty cool so I have been looking for a chance to use it. I hope they will be reappearing in the future.
Another comic reference is Colonel Deiter Strucker and his “nephew” Lt. Hans Strucker. Perhaps there is a family connection to Nazi super-criminal Colonel Wolfgang von Strucker who will bedeviled the Free World from the 1940s up to the present day?

Now that my run-of-three is over I’ve got to say that I am, on balance, pleased with the way they went. Hong Kong, New York, New Orleans and Atlantis (not forgetting The Isle of Mann) can be added to the list of far-off and exotic places to which Our Heroes have journeyed. Each of the adventures had their own theme, one a political mystery, another a dark/supernatural horror and the third a “Lost World” tale of exploration.
If I had the chance to do another run-of-three I think I’d try harder to create a single, three-part storyline, something with far-reaching ramifications.