NecronomiCon Providence 2019. Part II Panels

As I mentioned in my previous post, this time round, I didn't get as to participate in as wide a range of activities at the Con as I had on my previous visit. Mostly due to me participating in more games, but also due to the timing of these games, and what I think was a bit of a change in scheduling of the gaming panels. In 2017, all the gaming panels were in the morning, leaving time for games or other things afterward. Also last time, I don't recall as many games being scheduled over the lunch period. This meant that I missed out on the MUP/Good Friends podcast on the Friday (due to Extra Life), and most of the H.P.Lovecraft Literary podcast due to my game with Mike Mason. Mike said the game was originally slated for a 2pm start, but when the schedule was released, this had changed to a 12.30 start.

I'm okay with missing these, as they were recorded, and will be released, so in the end, I am not missing out on anything.

Another thing that I did not do this time, was tour the town. I had already done the bus tour, and most of the walking tour by myself last time, and our visit to the Athanaeum on our way back from Cape Cod last summer scratched that particular itch too. The only place left on my list to visit is the Library at Brown University, which holds much of Lovecraft's papers, but that will have to wait for the next visit.

The only thing I am a little sad about missing out on was the Ars Necronomica exhibition, as I enjoyed that last time.

But let us not dwell on what I could not do, and more on what I did manage to squeeze in. First the panels that I made it to, either wholly, or in part.

Sermons From the Hill of Dreams: Arthur Machen (Non gaming). My first panel was a non-gaming panel. There were some discussions and introduction to who Machen was, and his relationship to Lovecraft in terms of writing. My favourite quote from the panel was that: "The Dunwich Horror was Uncle Lovecraft covering Arthur Machen's greatest hits!"

The topics also covered were Machen's personal relationships with other authors, and occultists, including the mystic A.E. Waite, and Aleister Crowley. There was also much information on Machen's stories on Grail-lore, which is a vein that I feel should be mined more for scenario ideas, and I will be looking into.

Creating Historical Settings for Call of Cthulhu. with Oscar Rios, Lynne Hardy, Christopher Smith Adair & Mike Mason (M). This was a great seminar in terms of ideas for what to do to research Historical places and eras, and mining them for your games. This was chock full of resources and strategies, and was so good it may even be a post to itself later.

The Cosmic Horror of the Warhammer Universe. with Mike Mason, Molly Tanzer, Mike Goodrich, Meils Hobbs (M), Nicholas Kaufmann.
I missed the bulk of the panel, but arrived in time to listen to the questions. My game had finished in time for me to be there for most of it, but I didn't look at my schedule, and forgot that this panel was on. Still, there were some good conversations on the relationships between the Chaos Gods of the Warhammer universe, and the Lovecraftian Mythos.

One thing that did come out of it that I had not thought of was that there is the suggestion in the Warhammer universe that the Chaos Gods are the only gods that exist in the Universe, and all the others are just the misinterpretation of magic. There was also the hypothesis that all the individual chaos gods are just different manifestations of the one entity that is chaos, which, if you think about the nature of chaos, makes complete sense. Shame I missed the rest of the panel really.

I also hadn't realised Molly Tanzer was on the panel, so afterwards, I went to get one of her books I had brought with me for her to sign, but I was too long in getting back to the room, and everyone had gone. Ah well.

The King in Yellow: Origins, Influences & Lineage. (Non gaming). With Ken Hite, Shane Ivey (M), James Lowder, Silvia Moreno-Garcia, and Nicole someone whose surname I did not catch.
A great 'Guerilla Panel' that was not on the con programme, but Ken and Shane really wanted to run, while Ken is still the foremost scholar on Chambers (said whilst looking at his watch). The panel game me some insight into other Hastur mythos to track down, and of some of the other less obvious themes in the books.

How to Game the Weird. With Sandy Peterson, Ken Hite, Shane Ivey, and Nicola Maeve Geist, Dan Harms (M), Badger McInnes.
I have mixed feeling about this panel. For one, the title said weird, but the panel said Horror. Not a big change, granted, but there are lots of tools out there on how to run horror, but really very little on keeping it weird. Secondly, the great Sandy Peterson was there in the flesh, which I hadn't realised would be the case, but also, he kind of repeated a lot of what he has said in videos on his Youtube channel. There were some tit-bits of information that were useful, but I was left with not a great impression of Sandy. He gave the impression he didn't really want to be there. I may be mistaken. Like I said, mixed feelings.

Favourite CoC Scenarios. With Mike Mason (M), Jon Hook, Paul Fricker, Mattew Sanderson, and Sean Branney.
This was again a great panel full of suggestions for scenarios to play, as suggested by some of the CoC authors, including their reasons for their suggestions, whether that be the way the scenario is written, or the subject of the scenario. I won't go into too much details, cos spoilers!

I had also planned to go to Victory at Home and Beyond. Investigators for Social Equality. But that just didn't happen.

NecronomiCon PVD Wrap-up Panel. Not as controversial as previous years. A nice, and surprisingly emotional wrap-up to a great event.