Tag Archives: London Boxed Set

May gaming news, podcast updates, and the Double Shadow of Clark Ashton Smith

Let’s dig in…

Cubicle 7 have released a cover image preview of their next book in the World War Cthulhu series – the SOE Handbook (that’s it to the right)- and received the first advanced copies of their London Box Set (of which I had a very small part in creating).  Oooohhh pretty…

Golden Goblin Press have previewed the scenario titles for their forthcoming CoC scenario collection Tales of the Caribbean.  Their Kickstarter is planned to launch September 9th.

Yog-Sothoth.com’s Kickstater for the Cthulhu Breakfast Club podcast is at 81% with just over two weeks to go.  Tick tock people.

We’ve had a few new Lovecraftian podcast episodes and related projects:

Finally I wanted to note that recently I’ve been enjoying The Double Shadow: A Clark Ashton Smith podcast.  I’d not read much (any perhaps?) of Clark Ashton Smith’s fiction, Mythos-related or otherwise, and I’ve found the show to be a great introduction to CAS and his stories.  My only regret is that real-world concerns have of late greatly slowed down their release schedule.  Come for three hosts’ jovial banter, stay for them struggling to pronounce CAS’ alphabet-salad like names and absurd adjectives.  Avoosl Woothoqquan?  Quinquangular?  I’m sold!

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A return to abnormalcy

The downside of a just-for-kicks blog is that when those times arise when you are kick deprived or even kick deficient, you have to let things slide a while. I’m hoping no one was too badly put out that my updates have been quasi-monthly of late.

Autoduel!!!In a nutshell – the whole of the the Tomes in Progress crew (i.e. me, the homunculus, and the mother of the homunculus) have moved westward, in a manner not wholly unlike the narrator of “The Shadow Over Innsmouth” (i.e. from New England to the Midwest, though thankfully no ichthyoid transformations have occurred). This took a couple of months to arrange, enact, and recover from. Leaving behind friends and family, as well as a home you’ve lived in for close to a decade is trying. It is only now that we have that wonderful conjunction of technology and time which allows me to, hopefully, restart blogging on a more regular basis. I fear though that the black squirrels that control my lawn are not my friends…

A bit of my gaming work has suffered, as is to be expected with a low (or no) pay sideline. My scenario for the forthcoming London Boxed Set had to be dropped. While I’m happy I got to make a small submission to that really excellent looking project, I wish I’d been able to wrap that up. I want to offer my thanks to Cubicle 7 and the magnanimous Stuart Boon in particular for being more than understanding. It may see the light of day somewhere, someday. Keep your fingers crossed.

The Arkham Gazette has been slowed but not stopped. The nice thing about working on a magazine is that there are lots of little projects that can be done, even in very short bursts. I’ve posted about the next issue’s status and sincerely hope to finish it up before the month is out. We’re still taking submissions for future issues, of course, with issue 3 most likely going to be focused on witches and witchcraft in Lovecraft Country.  I may talk the Miskatonic University Podcast crew into interviewing me about the next issue as well.  (By the way – their new ;yearbook’ Cephalophobia is beautiful.)

As for near term gaming news, aside from the Arkham Gazette I’ve got a couple pieces submitted to the Unspeakable Oath so I hope to have something in the next issue, which is supposed to be released shortly. A recent Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff episode spurred me to start yet another piece for the Oath as well. I hope to have news about the Masks of Nyarlathotep Companion print release soon as well. Watch this space… and Yog-Sothoth.com, since they get several order of magnitude more readers than I. There are one or two other long-dormant projects that have begun to quicken recently as well, though I cannot say more… yet.

I think the list of new Lovecraftian RPG products is up to date, at least it will be once I sort out the PDF dump the Modiphius crew put out recently. If I’ve missed something, let me know.

Speaking of which, if I owe you an email or a call, bear with me a little while longer or feel free to remind me to do so. Hopefully the stars will remain rights for a while.

Still generally occupied, but if I don’t post about these now, they’ll get lost in the shuffle…

Here’s the podcast round-up:

The Delta Green Mailing List has held its annual Shotgun Scenario contest and are voting to pick the winner.

Cubicle 7’s London Box Set’s Kickstarter wrapped up at 600% of its funding target.

Did I mention Secrets of Tibet has been released, at least as a PDF?

We’re still looking for submissions for the next issue of the Arkham Gazette, as is Protodimension Magazine.

London Kingstarter endgame; also, Dean Engelhardt is nuts

Sorry for the lack of updates.  Things have been busy around TiP HQ with the holidays, and scenario writing (sorry Stuart!), and homunculus wrangling.  Rest assured gentle reader(s?), I’ll have more to say when I wring more time from the fabric of reality, or after Christmas, whichever comes first.

First off, we’ve entered the final few hours of the Cubicle 7 Kickstarter for their London Boxed set.  With nearly 700 backers and over £80,000  pledged, I suspect those of your who were thinking of joining, have already done so, but just in case you missed it, give it a look.

That’s just a tiny part of the thing.

Meanwhile, Dean Engelhardt, who is clearly a lunatic, graphed the evolution of the skills of the various editions of Call of Cthulhu.  It’s huge (and fascinating, frankly) and definitely worth a look.  I’m really amazed how much the skills have been winnowed down in 7th Ed.  I hope they’ve cut down the skill points.

London Boxed Set news, a Kickstarter, and the Good Friends keep busy

As always seems to happen, just as soon as I post an update, yet another podcast appears.  In this case it was the rather prolific Good Friends of Jackson Elias, who talk this time about how to emulate various horror genres at the table, both mechanically and by GM action.  It is a pretty thorough rundown though I wish they’d talked about the Blood Brothers series from Chaosium since, though dated, that pair of books does a great job of capturing all sorts of horror types (albeit cinematic variations) within the Call of Cthulhu rules, from Hammer Film to Black and White expressionism, with zombies, beach-party hating monsters, and midget Nazi shaman for good measure.

On a personal note, I’ve been cleared by the editor of the London Boxed Set to reveal that I will have a scenario in the scenario book (aka book 3) for the set.  I don’t want to say more than that at this point, in part because I have yet to submit a finished draft of the scenario to Cubicle 7.  If you run into me or spot me on line and I don’t seem to be working on getting that done, give me a kick.  I have already turned in another short piece for the project, what I will for now only describe as a tool for Keepers.  No, not a corkscrew.

I am very honored to be a small part of this enormous project.  I ran a year-long campaign set in 1920s London more than a decade ago and it was enormous fun.  This London guide has been a project I have long hoped for and to be a part of it, even in a small way, is a tremendous honor… err… honour.

Lastly, my friend Matt Madigan has launched his own Kickstarter to publish his first novel “Her Name is Violence”, which he describes as ‘Hard Boiled Noir’.  He’s got a week to go and has already made his initial funding goal but would really like to hit a few more stretch goals. If you like mystery fiction or Noir, give it a look.

Random Encounter – 1d3 podcasts

We’ve got a couple of new blog episodes and some other minor bits to note:

Kidney!

(Confidential to {Kidney Disease Symptoms} When you said “Person.. I am not a lot into studying, but by some means I got to learn lots of content on your blog. Its wonderful how fascinating it is that i can visit a person very often. –” I had a few thoughts:

  • People respond to personal greetings, not being called ‘person’.
  • Your first sentence is awkward – try “I don’t enjoy studying but I did learn something from your blog.”
  • Try “I plan to visit your blog often.” for sentence #2.
  • If you’re going to randomly pick a name for your fake account ‘Kidney Disease Symptoms’ kinda sucks.

I hope that helps.)

Cubicle 7 Kickstart’s their London Boxed Set

A project I have been eagerly anticipating has finally reached the Kickstarter stage- Cubicle 7 have launched their Kickstarter for the London Boxed Set.  I’ll let them explain it:

While London has been covered in previous books* (and most recently most ably by Anthony Warren in the Masks of Nyarlathotep Companion) this will be the most comprehensive (and best looking) treatment of London for Call of Cthulhu ever.  If you’re interested, give the Kickstarter a look.

*Off the top of my head, Green and Pleasant Land, the London Guidebook, Kingdom of the Blind, Masks of Nyarlathotep, Day of the Beast… and of course Trail of Cthulhu’s masterful Bookhounds of London.

London (Boxed Set) Calling (Soon) and more

It’s a grab bag here at TiP… some day I’ll finish up my NecronomiCon comments, but until then, here’s the news:

There’s a new episode of the Good Friends of Jackson Elias, concluding their discussion of “The Haunter of the Dark”.

Also for your listening pleasure, How Stuff Works podcast talks about the phenomena of the “New England Vampire Panic”

Chaosium has released two(!) new books: Canis Mysterium and Horror Stories from the Red Room.

Cubicle 7 has released a teaser for the soon-to-launch Kickstarter for their London box set.  Awesome…

London teasers, gravestone news, etc.

A few odds and ends have been piling up here at Tomes in Progress central- lets clear out the inbox, shall we?

The London Boxed Set cover?

Stuart Boon at Cubicle 7 has been dropping ‘hints’ of a less-than-subtle nature that a kickstarter for the long-awaited London Boxed set is close at hand.  This is a mockup of the cover.  Awesome.

Time to start setting aside a few pence so I can afford whatever deluxe edition they offer.  A pre-bloodied tube map?  A pass for the reading room at the British Museum?  A genuine brass hackney medal?  The mind boggles and the wallet cowers in fear.

I’ve done a little research regarding the subject of the gravestone photo I posted recently.  I can’t wholly confirm it, but it seems likely that it was the footstone for one James Hayward, killed in a duel just after the Battle of Concord on April 19, 1775.  Oh, that little dust-up…  His remains were moved to Acton center and buried at the monument there.  Nifty.

I’ve also updated my RPG CV, updated the list of 2013 Lovecraftian RPGs, and added some entries to the Yog Wiki about privately published CoC books.  Next time, I hope to have more to say about my playthrough of Horror on the Orient Express.

A boon from Boon, Stuart; FoCoLoCo news

That was easy; when asked about the status of Cubicle 7’s other Call of Cthulhu products, Mr. Boon replied:

I can tell you that I have received the completed manuscript for Cthulhu Britannica: London, yes. So watch this space!

I have also received the layout proof for ‘The Ballad of Bass Rock’, the seventh scenario from Shadows Over Scotland which had to be cut when the book ran long. I’ll be able to say more about this soon.

We also have writers working on two other projects, but those will have to remain secret for the moment.

To which I say, “Excellent!”  I hope at least one of those in development secrecy is the hinted at new unspecified Northern British County sourcebook.

In other news, while I can’t say anything more on the topic, at least not until the publisher does so, known serpent (owning) man Dan Harms has mentioned the following regard Forgotten Corners of Lovecraft Country Vol. 1 (aka “The Aylesbury Book”):

It’s moving homes. More on this as it develops.

More indeed.  No matter what happens, my scenario “Shadow Alchemy” will see the light, ha ha, of day somewhere.