Mysteries of Montreal

Today's Google Doodle is to celebrate the 16th Birthday of Henrietta Edwards , a Montreal native who went on to have a huge impact on Canadian Politics, and Woman's Suffrage in general. Not to steal the thunder of the Watch House , who usually takes the Google Doodle as a starting point for gaming inspiration, but I felt I could not allow this one to pass, due to direct link of this personage to Montreal, and the 1920s. Henrietta came to be known around Canada as one of the Famous Five . For those outside Canada, that is not from the books by Enid Blyton, but a group of 5 women who fought for, and won, the right of Canadian women to be considered as persons in 1929. Amongst her other life works, she was also an author, and the founder member of the Victorian Order of Nurses . She was born in Montreal in 1849, and lived there until she moved with her family to Saskatchewan in 1883. From there she lived in various parts of Canada (the Famous Five all met and worked in...

Inspirational Artefacts artefact / ˈɑːtɪˌfækt / noun: something   made   or   given   shape   by   man,   such   as   a   tool   or   a   work   of art,   esp   an   object   of   archaeological   interest. On my daily trolling of the internet, A Tumblr site has been brought to my attention that has some wonderful artefacts, that just scream out to be used in scenarios. With this in mind, I am starting what will be a new semi-regular feature on the blog, Inspirational Artefacts. Artefacts in your game. There are a number of ways these artefacts can be dropped into a game. It maybe that the item has been brought to a local museum on a tour, or maybe the investigators are the actual archaeologists who discover them. It could be that the item is found in the lair of the cultists the investigators raid, or even up for sale in the local occult store/jumble sale/auction. The gr...

Just as I get an email from Chaosium saying that the Horror on the Orient Express Kickstarter has been shipped, and other details released for the 7th ed. Kickstarter suggest an early 2015 delivery, I am sorely tempted by another Kickstarter that is just about to close. This time, for wonderful reproduction handouts and props for the Masks of Nyarlathotep Campaign . Helpfully, they have recently posted a summary of what you get for each funding level. Click to enlarge, and read what each level currently offers. This Kickstarter has been fully licenced by Chaosium. Ok, so I am swithering whether to enter at the $65 or $85 mark. The difference being a few photos and the soundtrack. I have not been one for using soundtracks in game, but with modern technology, it becomes easier to manage, and therefore I am considering in as an option, plus of course the $10 international shipping... and maybe an eye of Light and Darkness for another $75...

Montreal Standard, 12 January 1907, page 16. HATCHET HOBOS OF CHINATOWN REGARD NEW POLICEMAN AS A TRAITOR TO HIS RACE Montreal’s Chinatown accepts the installation of the new Chinese policeman as an official recognition of the dignity and importance of the district. It is as great a matter to crow over as if a Celestial had been elected alderman in the City Council. “Oh, yeth, we have policeman now. He” – with a swell of pride – “he carry revolver and baton, too!” Chinatown is having much to play with the new toy. Fan-tan has for the nonce lost a little of its absorbing interest. All sorts of tiny troubles are taken to the policeman for arbitration, and he is expected to be a library of miscellaneous information, while if some Chinamen are having a little wordy spar at 3 am, another Chinaman will bolt round, waken up the policeman, and gravely inform him that there is a stupendous case on hand, and that it would be wisdom to telephone for the patrol wagon and a detachment of ...

Want to know where the criminals live in Montréal? Where are the hoods? Well now you can find out. Stats have been taken from three correctional institutions in Québec, Bordeaux Prison, Rivière-des-Prairie Institution, and Centre de Detention Tanguay. The data shows us where those convicted originate from. In terms of Montréal, this can give an insight into the origins of the criminal element in terms of which parts of Montréal they live in. This is not a map of where crimes are commited, that's a completely different map. The three hot-spots, or hoods, on the Island of Montreal are Montréal-Nord, Saint-Michel and Hochelaga. To those that live in town, that will come as no great surprise. The other hot-spots in the province not around the town of Montreal (which considering the percentage of the population of Quebec that live in the area, it's no surprise the majority come from in or near the city) are in the north of the Province, which, considering the economics of th...

I would very much like to draw your attention to American History Too , a thirty minute podcast, coming very much from an academic stand point, being of direct use to students studying history at University, particularly Edinburgh University, but of course, learning and discussion are by no means the preserve of mere students, some may even say they're even wasted on students. As a further gaming link, as if one was needed, you may have heard of one of the podcasters before in gaming circles. Dr Malcolm Craig, is a real renaissance man, as he is also the Writer/Creator of both Cold City and Hot War , two excellent indie mythos RPGs  that I can thoroughly recommend to readers of this blog (if they don't already know about them that is). One criticism I would make, they need to work on their logo, but hey, I'll let them off since they're just setting out. Go check them out, they now have a whole two episodes for you to listen to.

In the run up to Halloween, Friday's Gazette had this nice article on ghosts in Montreal . Montreal has been called a city of words, a city of design, a city of neighbourhoods, the city of Mary.A few years ago Gilbert Rozon, founder of the Just for Laughs Festival, suggested it should rebrand itself as a city of creativity. Good slogans, all of them; nice phrases. But the more you look at the long and tangled history of our mountainous island, the more it seems clear that at heart, Montreal is a city of ghosts. It's rather a long article, and mostly from the modern day, but it has some great spooky stories in there, perfect for investigators to look into, and many of which can be easily ported to any other era, and used either as non-mythos stories, or as intros into something deeper.

That little phrase in the title has become a meme unto itself, as a way of expressing that something that is idiotic, or stupid on the internet (that covers a lot of said internet). What is not so well know, is that good ol' HPL himself was the originator of said meme, as this neat little essay claims to prove. Go read it, then read some Lovecraft, it'll give you a whole host of new ways to express your emotions at online idiocy.

We took a bit of a last minute decision to go and visit Quebec City this week, so I went and looked out the travel books I have for the city: I'll stick them both in my bag to take with me, but even though I have just finished my last book (One Summer by Bill Bryson, but more on that later) I doubt I'll actually get through reading HPL's travelogue of Quebec City , which is apparently the longest written work he ever produced, and the trip to Quebec was the only time he ever came to Canada. However, there are some nice little observations in there, and some great drawings the man himself drew to accompany the work, so I will at least skim through it, and compare my trip to his. Unfortunately, we're only going for the weekend, so I won't be able to visit all the places he did, but fingers crossed I'll find some of them.

Upworthy has a lot to answer for in the way it has influenced internet article headlines. The number of superlatives used is extraordinary and unbelievable. You'll never read another headline like it again! Sorry, I got a little carried away. Still, these fabulous pictures of places in Canada are more than a little cool, and Investigators to the great Canadian outdoors in any era can come across these places whilst trekking North to explore the unknown and unexplained. Or indeed, they may be the end point, and place of interest they are out to explore/investigate. Two of the places mentioned are in Quebec, and I intend to write more about them at some point. Indeed, both the places pictured in Quebec are of craters. One, the Manicouagan crater , is of particular interest, as I had never heard much about it, till I was on Google maps one day, and it struck me as somethign of interest, and wondered why I had never heard more about it. I plan to do a whole post dedica...

What it says in the title really, the MTL Blog has posted a scan of an old tourist flyer from 1925 . The original pdf can be downloaded from the Archives de Montréal  here . A great little handout for gamers from out of town, as well as a source of local information for players and Keepers alike.

Got a group of Gaslight investigators looking for work? Put an advert in the paper, that's sure to bring in the clowns! Source Mosher's Detective Agency: The only office where ladies are employed! In fact, each line of these ads is so well written, there's a great number of adventure seeds tightly packed into this short clipping.

  There was a haunted house for sale in Montreal . The original sales post has long gone, as indeed has the estate agent's website, but the text was saved in the article linked above, suggests it was on the market for over a year with no buyers. (original CTV article from 2012 here). Why the interest in the house? well, some visitors said the place was eerie and emits a ghostly aura, and that's about it. However, the house was built in the 1910-20s, but the decor inside had not been changed since. The images supplied by the realator were an amazing look into a time capsule of a house. If this were still on the market, I would be looking to go have a nosey around and take some pictures of my own. The four bedroom house in Rosemont can be found on google maps here . I post here the pictures of the interiors, as they are exactly right to be used in a Montreal based game as props for interiors.  Backyard Den Den Dining Room Dining Room...

Two years after the Titanic was sunk, the Empress of Ireand sunk in the St Lawrence river (29th of May 1914). 1,012 people were killed, as the ship went down in just 14 minutes, after colliding with a Norwegian freighter, the SS Sorstad Near Rimouski . 465 of the original 1477 people on board survived. It seems the story of the Empress has been lost, as it's death-toll was overshadowed by that of the Titanic two years earlier, and the story in international news at the time was pushed aside weeks later by the outbreak of the Great War. Not to lessen the tragedy of such a wreck, but to ignore it's gaming potential, especially for Call of Cthulhu, would be to deny the reason for this blog's existence. My first thought on this, was to use the Titanic as a starting point. As a more famous wreck, in the same time frame and with a very similar passenger list, it would be foolish not to see what was already out there. Pelgrane Press's RMS Titanic: The Millionaire’s Sp...

You may notice I have a new header image. I had been on the lookout for an image of the skyline of Montreal fro the 1920s or there abouts. I found what I have been looking for in a flickr stream of pictures on Montreal from the air between 1925 and 1935 . Photos aériennes prises pour la Ville de Montréal par la Fairchild Serial Surveys Co. (of Canada) Ltd de Grand-Mère, Québec., entre 1925 et 1935. Ces images nous offrent un aperçu exceptionnel d’un Montréal en pleine expansion, entre 1925 et 1935. La vague d’annexions qui s’est terminée en 1918 confère à la cité agrandie une allure parfois rurale, du fait du grand nombre d’espaces non construits. Les nouveaux quartiers vont se remplir peu à peu de nouveaux habitats, parmi lesquelles le multiplex domine. Les terrains cultivés cèdent progressivement la place à ces constructions, aux installations industrielles ou aux infrastructures routières. Ce lot de photos sur plaque de verre montre notamment les secteurs des usines Angus, du cen...

I came across this whilst on another google search of all things Lovecraft and Mthos in Montreal. Indeed, I am surprised I haven't chanced acros it before. Based in Montreal is The Miskatonic Institute of Horror Studies. The Miskatonic Institute of Horror Studies is a non-profit, community-based curriculum through which established horror writers, directors, scholars and programmers/curators celebrate horror history and culture while helping enthusiastic fans of the genre to gain a critical perspective. One reason I may not have come across them previously is that my recent searches on the Montreal Mythos have not been concerned solely with the 1920-30s. The second reason is that the Institute itself has only existed since 2010. Mostly it seems to be a forum for discussion of the Horror genre in film, however, there is an uncoming course/event running for 5 weeks called H.P. Lovecraft – From Cosmic Horror to Heavy Metal  that I am seriously considering going along to. So w...