The secretive "London Necromancy Conference" of 1906 brought together eleven of the top minds of the day to investigate the Guinness Device, found earlier that year at the bottom of Scotland's Loch Finn. Roughly two feet in height and three in width, it had unusual air filled bladders and crude hydraulic arms and levers. The Guinness Device was covered in strange glyphs immediately identified as the Codex Necronomous, by linguist C. M. Guinness (for whom the device is named.) The Codex was a language long thought forgotten, practiced only by Aztec priests in pre-Christian times. Codex incantations were reputed to be used for just one purpose: Re-animation of the deceased. Guinness spirited away with the machine, keeping it secret even from the government, and immediately sent out invitations to the world's top investigators of the occult.
The eleven discretely gathered in the White Chapel district of London to investigate the discovery in October. Among the group was the noted American eccentric, N. D. Piekos, whose family fortune had funded a lifetime of globe trekking in search of the bizarre. Retired Colonel Shane Clarke, who after a glorious service record in the American Civil War had devoted his time to reclusively investigating the ghost sightings on the battlefields he'd once commanded over. Finally there was Stuart Robertson, a Canadian philanthropist rumored to have been an untouchable cat burglar. Some said he'd retired to a life of paranormal investigation after one of the many priceless paintings he'd stolen had predicted the entire future of mankind to him over tea one afternoon.
