Mysteries of Montreal

She walks in Shadows is an all female collection of short stories, poetry and artwork, edited by Silvia Moreno-Garcia and Paula R. Stiles, and published by Innsmouth Free Press. I got a pre-order copy for my birthday back when it was released in October and finally got round to reading it over the xmas break, and have just finished reading it (2015, I take a long time to write and finish these posts sometimes). As with all collections of short stories, there are some that resonate with you and draw you in, making you wish they were longer, and others that just don't catch your imagination. With this collection, I am glad to say there were more of the former than the latter. Without going into an in depth analysis of each story, I'll just pick out a couple of the stories I really liked. Violet is the Colour of your Energy by Nadia Bulkin , was a particularly creepy one. Essentially a modern retelling of the The Colour out of Space . What was unnerving about this was t...

Now, this is what I call a Call of Cthulhu gaming room ! I am extremely jealous. Looks more like a film set. I can imagine getting creeped out rather easily playing in this place. It's also a great way to put all your props on display too, as well as a great excuse to buy more. Unfortunately, we do not have anywhere near the space to put aside for something like this. Maybe in the next life, but it would be one reason to move to the suburbs. Great use of flickering tea-lights, as we all know we want  neither wax nor open flame beside all our lovely books and props, as I learned at a recent game, where a poster I had put on the wall beside the gaming table fell onto a tealight candle holder on the table. Fortunately, no props were harmed, and i managed to save the poster.

Note from my future self (Montreal, 26th August 2024). As I have come back to this blog as a means to rejuvenate my writing, and get back into the rhythm of blogging, I've been going through my old draft posts for inspiration on topics. One such post is this one. This post was written back on the 23rd of April, 2018, and was all but complete. In fact, I'm not sure why it wasn't posted back then. The date and time were even set I have since then started to run Masks this year, and as such, many of the props mentioned below have actually seen use.  I post this with no further edits except for spelling and typos, just this note from the 'future' to place things in context. I have also set the publication date to the year in question .oOo. As previously mentioned , I received the results of the Props of Nyarlathotep: New York and Kenya Kickstarter . This is less an unboxing, and more a post showing off the shiny. I had the light-box out for another reason, so threw th...

I had a rather large box arrive in the post last week, much to the chagrin of my better half. Inside was contained some beautifully horrendous artefacts of power. In that it was the resutls of the Props Of Nyarlathotep New York and Kenya Kickstarter . I'll write up an "unboxing" post up in the near future, once I've taken some pictures of the props that do them justice. They are worth getting the light box out for! These have been squirrelled away beside the Eye of Light and Darkness  for future use in a Masks of Nyarlathotep campaign. That campaign might be a little ways away, as we have just left Sophia in our current Horror on the Orient Express game, where the Simulacrum, also made by Delphes has been a beautiful centrepiece throughout.

Not the author himself of course, that would be weird, but the works of HPL as a Mastermind subject.  How many answers did you get right?

A couple of weeks ago now, we played our first game as a family. Seemed to go really well. The Big 'un got really into it, the Lil 'un, took a little more convincing to interact with the game, but I think she'll come round to this way of playing with a little practice. In terms of a review of the system, and book, I am very happy. The game system is simple enough to be easy to understand and play. The rules are clearly written out, and easy to follow. The book has plenty of colour illustrations to make it fun, to give inspiration. Also, the character sheets have a nice large space for you to draw and colour your pony, which was a real draw for all the players round the table, and is a good way to help with the immersion. Glitter is a must. For the adventure supplied at the back of the book, it gets players right into the lore, and gives plenty of points of reference to the show's mythos. It also has a cliffhanger ending that slots right into the next written adv...

Want to earn HPLHS dollars? Go do this survey , it's fun, and you might win a prize.