News bonanza

Sorry for the lack of updates recently; real life has kept me otherwise engaged, stealing away those free moments when I might be blogging, instead insisting I deal with ailing family members, logistical luggage arranging, and (most recently) snow removal.  Note to past self – budget more time for everything.

This is, however, a blog about Lovecraftian RPGs (and my occasional involvement therein) with a dash of my other hobbies, not a chat about the mundane adversities that strike anyone who is not a sociopathic millionaire orphan.  Let us instead turn to the world of polyhedral die and polymorphic nightmares…

Podcasts – Despite some technical glitches with the feed on iTunes, the Good Friends of Jackson Elias have released another episode covering all the best game master techniques they’ve cribbed from other Keepers.  (They’ve also set up a Patreon page to cover some of the show’s costs, so far netting them a princely $15 a show).

The muttering miscreant mavens of multi-sided mayhem at the Miskatonic University podcast had some technical issues of their own with episode 67.  The audio for their first try was so poor they scrapped nearly the whole thing, save for the news from the Campus Crier section – including a lovely summary of the October-ganza on the Sentinel Hill Press blog; listen to that preserved fragment here.  The redo attempt turned out a far better piece (in audio terms a least – who knows what bon mots were lost in the sonic catastrophe that was ep 67 mark I ?!?), covering the delayed release of CoC 7th ed, one player/one Keeper games, and Science Fiction (mostly gadgets) in Lovecraftian RPGs.  It’s also that rare beast when all four hosts are (eventually) in attendance.  But what of Keepers Shemp and Murphy-Joe?

Kickstarter offers an abundance of news, large and small, so let’s bullet point these:

• Call of Cthulhu 7th Edition – delays continue, backer displeasure increasing; Spring of 2014, maybe for the print versions.  PDF of the players’ book and the Keeper’s guide are now available.
• Horror on the Orient Express – PDF out to backers, print materials being collated; maybe out by Christmas.  Buy the PDF here.
• Horrors of War – They’ve picked the 8 scenarios for the first book.
• Puppetland – Funded, slowly creeping up
• the Dracula Dossier – (these two not strictly Lovecraftian, of course…) Jugular-deep in cash; I’m disappointed they’ve not taken up my idea for the Blackula Dossier.  Prince Mamuwalde needs love (and blood) too!M
• The Strange Aeons Sci-fi meets Cthulhu Kickstarter has been cancelled.  May be relaunched later.
• My friend Matt Madigan’s  dark Noir book crime novel is still in need of some backers.
• There’s a new Kickstarter for very smart looking prop handouts for Masks of Nyarlathotep – already at 170% three days in.  I hope they turn out well, because they’d make a nice match with…
• The Masks of Nyarlathotep Companion will be having a Kickstarter to cover printing costs in January!!!!!!  (Joyful dancing)

In other news, Dreamhounds of Paris is now available for pre-order.  Awesome!

That’s plenty for now, isn’t it?

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Over the Garden Wall, a recommendation

While not strictly Lovecraftian, I’d like to offer my strong recommendation of the recently released animated mini-series “Over the Garden Wall” on the Cartoon Network.  Here’s the wikipedia summary of the plot –

The series centers around two brothers, Wirt and Greg, who become lost in a strange forest called the Unknown. In order to find their way home, the two must travel across the forest, adrift in time, with the help of the {suspicious} Woodsman and Beatrice, an irritable bluebird who travels with the boys in order to undo a curse that has affected her whole family.

I fear you will read this and think it hopelessly twee, but in reality it draws from a deep wellspring of folklore and especially 19th century Americana, foregrounding the some of the more macabre and terrible undercurrents of that era, and packaging it in a beautifully animated world of perpetual Autumn.  (Avoid the episode descriptions on wikipedia as they give away major plot points!)  Call of Cthulhu aficionados should take special note of episode 2 – Hard Time at the Huskin’ Bee for a particularly New England horror.  Likewise, the Beast is a genuinely eerie and malevolent force that should inspire all manner of ideas in presenting certain Mythos entities.  Keepers looking for Dreamlands inspiration might find some help here as well.  The whole of the series (all ten 12 minute episodes) is available on iTunes and likely elsewhere.  I enjoyed it immensely.

The Gales of November

Where does the time go?

Sentinel Hill Press

I’ll start things off with some personal news – Sentinel Hill Press, the imprint of the Arkham Gazette, is now a Chaosium licensee.  We’ll be launching a Kickstarter soon for issue #3.  I’ll be sure to announce it here as well as the Arkham Gazette blog.  We also wrapped up our 31 day October-ganza project on the blog there; here’s an overview.

There are, as ever, loads of Kickstarter projects on-going

• Cthulhu: Strange Aeons, the sixth or seventh (?) different near-future sci-fi Lovecraftian setting RPG I’ve seen, is raising money.  Not my cup of tea, but might be yours. (For the records they are End Time,  Once Men [possibly those two are the same setting), Cthulhu Rising, Cthulhu Tech, and Cthulhu Adventus.  I probably missed some though…)
• It may not be overtly Lovecraftian, but it did spring from the warped mind of John Tynes and the gents at Arc Dream – Puppetland, an updated version of the groundbreaking indie game where you played puppets in a nightmare world.  I should correct that name to John Scott Tynes, but if I learned anything from Shadows of Yog-Sothoth, is that you should avoid a John Scott…
• Finally, Golden Goblin Press have provided a rather hard-on-themselves update for De Horrore Cosmico.

The crew at Protodimension magazine have released issue #21.  Check it out.

Good Friends of Jackson Elias completed their discussion of The Thing on the Doorstep.

The Unspeakable Oath podcast has released audio version of two of Dennis Detwiller stories: The Thing in the Pit & Drowning in Sand.

Let us close with a Mythos (and more) potpouri:

• The Necronomicon (Evil Dead version) showed up on The Amazing World of Gumball.
• Chaosium is having a sale.
• Need found footage of unexplainable lights in the sky?
• There’s a day left in a rather Bundle of Tentacles sale.
• Ken and Robin continue to talk about stuff of all kinds: Episode 112 – The Dracula Dossier, writing on food, Dr. Margaret Murray, etc. & Episode 113 – Bram Stoker (but sadly not Stroker Ace), archetype vs. customized PCs, Marie Antoinette, and recommendations of all sorts.
• Skirmisher (of Cthulhu Live fame) has put out The Mythos Society Guide to New England; sounds interesting but I’m waiting for more reviews.
• Finally my friend Matt Madigan is Kickstarting his next ‘dark noire’ crime book Down.  If you like your detective fiction jet black, give it a look.