Memories of the Orient Express part 2: Strangeness on a Train

When my Junior year of college began I discovered that a number of my residents were gamers; one had even worked on the English translation of the Swedish horror game ‘Kult‘. While I had run a Star Wars campaign the previous year (much to my delight) I had never run a Call of Cthulhu game before, let alone a campaign. Nevertheless, I’d had the baleful eye of Nyarlathotep-in-train-form staring down from my shelf for two years. Throwing caution to the wind, I decided to run Horror on the Orient Express.

We had four or five players, as I recall (and I should add, my memories of the game are in places rather hazy, it has been almost twenty year) and we played roughly once per week for about twenty sessions, wrapping up in the Spring just before finals. While I can’t remember ever character or session, a few points have remained with me (and here be many spoilers):

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Books! Books! Books! (updated)

(Just after I posted this… accidentally mind you… I heard that the Unspeakable Oath released a new issue.  I’ve updated to reflect new info and fix my many typos.)

February has turned out to be very productive month for Lovecraftian gaming.  We’ve had some books-

• Cubicle 7’s long-awaited Folklore has finally escaped from the electronic world into the medium of print and is now sitting on my night stand.
• Chaosium also unleashed Atomic Age Cthulhu.
• The newest issue of the Unspeakable Oath is now available. My reflections on all three shall be shared once I’ve had the chance to read them.

We also have had some podcast news and other odds and ends-

• The gents at the Miskatonic University Podcast released another episode, this time covering prop making, problem players, and psychics (among other topics).  I want to kindly point out to my readers that they’re having a fund raiser and that for a scant $25 you can pick a topic for the crew to discuss (and for $50 you pick the main topic of an episode)… any topic.  That’s some cheap fun for the creative.
• I’ve also been listening to Role Playing Public Radio a bit of late.  While they don’t always talk about Call of Cthulhu or other Lovecraftian games, it is hard to beat their summary of the straight to the dumpster 90s action ‘classic’ McBain.  Plus, loads of CoC actual plays are there for the listening.
• Dean Englehart has also expanded his State of the Tentacle interviews with Graham Walmsley and Oscar Rios.
• 

  Medieval LARPers

  Finally, while doing some research I came across this fine site- the Medieval Macabre Gallery.  If you need something to punch up your bogus page from that 1588 Blackletter edition of the Necronomicon, here you go.  There are also links to all sorts of more mundane woodcuts

Memories of the Orient Express, part 1

I’ve been enjoying the frequent updates to the Orient Express Writers’ Blog, where Mark Morrison and Penelope Love have been providing all kinds of interesting news about the forthcoming second edition of Horror on the Orient Express.  They were even nice enough to include a link to ‘Tomes’, which might be a first.

While I’ve spent more (much, much more) time thinking about Masks of Nyarlathotep, HotOE was actually the first campaign I ever ran for Call of Cthulhu and was, in fact, the first game I ever ran of CoC.  I have a lot of fond memories of the campaign and the group I ran it for and I thought I might share a few memories with my readers.

Mixed Links

The Missing Link, like Rubik’s Cube but I could solve this one

Not much new to report on my own writings (sorry Dean, still inching forward on that what I owes ye) but I wanted to pass on a few links that may be of interest:

For those patiently awaiting the Masks of Nyarlathotep Companion, Dennis Detwiller has posted some helpful advice for Keepers running that storied campaign.

The roster of interviews at Cthulhu Reborn has grown by 1, this time with Cthulhu Mythos Encyclopedia author and friend of Tomes in Progress Dan Harms.

The merry Keepers of the Miskatonic University Podcast have released a new episode all about prop-making in CoC, including some advice on how to make your own faux documents.  The secret ingredient is coffee.

 

Win some (contests), lose some (podcast)

Tsathoggua… he’s the Mythos version of Puxatawny Phil, right?

Ah, Groundhog’s Day… the time when everyone catches up on their blog with a news roundup…

• I’m happy to announce that my submission to this winter’s Shotgun Scenario Contest, Holding Cell, was the top vote getter in the poll of members… granted the poll only had 28 votes, but I’ll take that as a win.
• I’m sad to announce that News from Pnakotus is ending its run.  I have greatly enjoyed NfP (and Yog Radio, which came before it) and, while I understand Paul’s reasons (lack of time, for example), I’m still sad to see it go.   It was a good run.
• I’m happy to announce (my, what mood swings I’m having) that Dean Englehart has released his mock newspaper article generator Mutable Deceptions.  Now you too can have high quality newspaper articles to use as handouts in your game, Call of Cthulhu or otherwise.  It is such a great idea I’m stunned no one has done this before.  I cannot wait to use it.