Mysteries of Montreal

This WikiHow is lots of fun, but more importantly, can save your Investigator's life. Read it. Memorise it. Use it. And remember kids, if the Keeper just allowed you to tool up with automatic weapons and explosives, it's because she knows it's going to make no difference at all.

The GNDN blog posted this post containing various newspaper articles from US newspapers from the era 1924-29. These are sold as filler articles, but to be honest, if you put one of these beside another article, the Investigators are likely to assume they are plot hooks, not filler. Though in that case, they make great red herrings. via .

This real life tome of forbidden knowledge is one that has been capturing the imaginations of occultists, historians, and of course gamers for centuries. If you have never heard of it, then, first off, why are you here? and secondly, go look it up (you can listen to podcasts on it here and here , or just read the Wikipedia page ) then come back! Ok, so now you are up to speed on this very cool but unique document, great, you can go online, loft some images and away you go, instant tome of awesomeness. But wait! Now, you can have your very own paper copy of this document. It is available for sale on amazon.ca  or at Yale University . At $50, it's not at all an unreasonable price for a hardback book. If only I had more space on my bookshelves. There are many options as to how this can be used. As a reference for the occult. Handouts can be easily made from it's pages, either as red herrings, or as clues for Investigators to follow. The real life history of the book is ...

What a wonderful title to a games supplement. I've just backed the Hudson and Brand Kickstater . It looks like it's going to be a very well put together supplement Hudson & Brand: Inquiry Agents of the Obscureis the first in our ‘Safe House’ series where players of the Call of Cthulhu roleplaying game (published by Chaosium, Inc), have a home-base for their characters to work out of. At hand, they will have resources, a gun range, a collection of monographs on various subjects, a small library, three members of staff, and property consisting of offices and lodgings in the very heart of London. One of the new options in 7th edition Call of Cthulhu that I have yet to use, but I see great promise in is the Organisations from the Player's handbook. Groups of researchers with a common goal, that provides an infrastructure for the Investigators to fall back on, and a means of easily introducing new Investigators without too much trouble. This has not been an issue for ...

We all know what a Blue Moon is, right? A second full moon in a month. A rare, but not unknown event. But a Black Moon? A Black Moon is the opposite of a Blue Moon if you will. A second New Moon in a month. Why am I telling you this? Well for those of us in the western hemisphere, we can see one this week, on the 30th of September . They are not that rare, coming along every 32 months or so, but as the New Moon is not visible, then a second one in a month is almost literaly an event that cannot be seen. The name, however is so evokative that it is just screaming to be used in a scenario. Here are some seeds that come to mind. The Black Moon, being an astrological/astronomical event, is a time where certain rituals or spells have a greater effect. The Black Moon, being a type of New Moon, means the sky is darker, allowing for a better view of the stars. what stars are visible now that are not always so? What does this mean for rituals, or alien visitors? The Black Moon is not...

An interview with Horror on the Orient Express (amongst other things) author Mark Morrison is up on YSDC , to mark the 25th anniversary of the release of the campaign. Also included, some spoilers on an upcoming project, with HotOE links!

Frontenac Beer A photograph of a group of men and women drinking Frontenac Beer . This was taken by Rice Studio in Montreal. Brassiere Frontenac was located in the Mile End of Montreal from 1913 until 1926. This image was possibly used in an advertising campaign. James Bedford (Jimmy) Rice of Rice Studio was reknown for his work photographing the hockey players of the Montreal Canadiens, the Wanderers and the Maroons. Likely this was taken as part of an advertising campaign to show the men and women of The U.S. that coming north of the border to drink Frontenac Beer was one civilised way to get around prohibition. This makes a great 'before' photograph for a group of adventurers. Especially the guy in the turban!

In a moment of brash spending, I spent a whole $1.25 in the dollar store on a set of little glass bottles. Why? Well, after the failure of the Masks Props Kickstarter, I was looking to make little Fog-Spawn Larvae or something like it as a prop for a game. I have recently got back into running games through the Cult of Chaos, but I'm a long way from running Masks again. Still, the idea stuck, and the bottles themselves look like they wouldn't take much to make them look realistic for the era. I've looked up a couple of tutorials for aging the bottles, and they seem really easy. The hard part would be making the larvae, but I have some ideas based another tutorial I found on making maggots from liquid latex. This will be my first foray into propmaking beyond paper handouts, and I'm quite looking forward to it. It seems that no-one has actually made this as a prop yet, as they're such a small part of the campaign, and only briefly mentioned as a bit of a sidebar...

A second Lovecraftian short from the Lackey Johnson coupling. Enjoy!

There's a great timeline of the city of Montreal, prepared by the MtlBlog . Covering the last 500 years history of the city. Very useful to get an idea of what else is going on whilst running a game here in this city, complete with Wikipedia links on many of the entries. All in time for the city's 375th anniversary. I for one will be going back to this resource, maybe I'll even steal it and add to it with more mythos/gameable events.

Another short film, this time as mentioned on the Miskatonic University Podcast ( MUP ).

Short film/skit, the Ordeal of Randolph Carter, by many of the people involved in the HP Podcraft . I'm pretty sure the inspiration for this came when Chris and Chad were discussing The Statement of Randolph Carter . Based on 'The Statement of Randolph Carter' by H.P. Lovecraft. Written, directed and produced by Chris Lackey and Greig Johnson . Starring Greig Johnson and Chris Lackey, with a special appearance by Andrew Leman of The H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society . Music by Reber Clark and title design by Kristyna Baczynski .

I didn't know that Edgar Allen Poe was a Bostonian, although, after a little research, it isn't all that surprising that the information is not wiespread, as he refered to the city as “Frogpondium,” 'a disparaging reference to a frog pond on its common and what he believed to be a parochial view of the world on the part of its literary set. ( source )'. However, as I am just returned from the city, I thought I would share my snaps of the building and the plaque where he is said to have been born, now a burrito restaurant. The plaque is situated on a building at 176 Boylston Street, on the corner of Edgar Allen Poe way, the small alleyway running to the left of the building in this photograph. The plaque was installed by the Boston's Authors Club in 1925, to mark the supposed approximate location of the house in which the author was born.

Through this article , I found out that the Vatican Library is uploading many of their manuscripts and books, and are putting them online for us all to see! Of course, this is a project that will take time to finish, and as of the writing of this post, they have only done 4,200 or so of their 82,000 documents, but still, that's a lot of manuscripts to go for for gaming inspiration and handouts. Even if most of them are in Italian or Latin, some of the illuminations alone are worth the effort of digging through. Which does raise one issue, the means for searching through the documents leaves a lot to be desired. The other issue is of course the surroundings are nowhere near the same as if you were in the actual Vatican Library, but a google image search will soon fix that. Also, there's no mention of when they're going to get round to their secret archives , as lets be honest, that's what we're really all interested in!

As a signal boost for my friend Jason, I present to you The Hunter of the Dark. A short film "created for the 48 hour Tasploitation Challenge 2016. A Lovecraftian styled horror set in a remote Tasmanian Cabin The Hunter of the Dark from jasonmacqueen on Vimeo . Make sure to leave an appreciative comment on the Vimeo page, that way he will be sure to make more!

The last in this trilogy of posts on the Sedefkar Simulacrum Kickstarter that arrived last week, and this time, it is less to do with the Horror on the Orient Express, and all to do with that other stupendous campaign, Masks of Nyarlathotep. Initially, when the box came through, I had completely forgotten that I had added this prop, so it was genuinely surprised when I opened the envelope. Contents of the envelope Inside, was a well wrapped resin prop in two parts. The two halves of the Eye were individually wrapped in foam paper, so that they did not chip against each other in transit. That is some well thought out packaging! There was also a signed certificate of authenticity for the eye. Of course I will do my best to heed the warning about reading of spells in close proximity to the Eye, so as ot to cause any unnecessary trans-dimensional disturbances.  I found the line below to be very cool. If you can't get the first off the production line, at least ...

As my last post was rather long-winded and ranty , I decided to cut it off before getting round to what I had planned as the main event, that is the unboxing of the Sedefkar Simulacrum, as delivered to me last week. Each set came with a letter from Delphes, the campaign organiser and artist, as well as a certificate of authenticity. A packing error meant I got two copies of the letter and certificate, but as the certificates are not numbered, this isn't an issue. The Box First off, the box itself. Aged to look like it has sat on a shelf for some time (even the hinges are rusted), and labelled on the outside as part of the Miskatonic University collection. Inside, the Simulacrum is hidden in wood shavings/straw, and on the inside of the lid is a faded and slightly warped insignia for the Simplon Orient Express. As was mentioned by Delphes on the KS page, the box is a touch too short to lie the Simulacrum flat, due to a later change in the positioning of the leg mag...