Mysteries of Montreal

RPG a Day 2024, day 24: Acclaimed advice ? Over the years, I have amalgamated a great amount of GM advice, from the books themselves, from playing with others and seeing different styles, from reading books of advice, be it Robin's Laws of Good Games Mastering , the little book of Keeper Tips , or the Ultimate RPG Guide series by James D'Amato. All of which I recommend, and have taken things from. If there is once piece of advice that I can remember clearly when and where It sunk in, it was back with MERP. One thing that the rulebook tries hard to get across was game balance . Now I do not pretend to believe that what I thought of as game balance back then and what I believe now are the same thing at all, but that concept of game balance was required for a game as swingy as MERP, and it meant that even back then, I wasn't throwing things at players that they couldn't handle. This was a game that was really trying to tell the GM that in a case of GM vs Player, the GM ca...

As mentioned previously , Games Workshop are re-releasing older books in their back-catalogue. I really enjoyed " Drachenfels ",  so this was a great opportnity to increase my Old World lore, get my oldhammer fix, and read some good stories. As I mentioned in my last post on the subject, there is " Drachenfels " and " Genevieve Undead ", to which I have now added " Beasts in Velvet " and " Silver Nails ". If you only read one of these four books, make it Beasts in Velvet. There is so much going on in this book in terms of plot threads and characters for you to mine for your game, you could get a whole campaign out of it. This book makes the Old World come alive in your mind. Silver Nails is a great follow up, where the author shows us other little vignettes for the characters we have come to know and love, showing their further adventures. There is also pay-off in the final book that explains what was a non-sequitous plot thread in one...

I recently read " Drachenfels ", by Jack Yeovil (aka Kim Newman). I was aware of the existence of this book back when it came out in 1989, but I never read it. I was wary of fiction lines based on games, as I still am. However on reading it now with the release of the 30 year anniversary edition I did enjoy it immensely. One thing that surprised me about was that there is something of the Discworld in this book in that the integration of the undead, and especially Vampires into the cities of the Old World smacks more of Terry Pratchett than it does of my reading of the original WFRP canon from the game books. In the book there is a monastic retreat for vampires, and the undead have their own bar that they frequent in Nuln. There is also a lighthearted tone to much of the novel that also makes me think of Pratchett, even though there is not the same level of humor. Of course WFRP is known for its humour, but in general it comes in a darker more satyrical form in the game m...

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...

Who? That was my question, up until quite recently, but I have been schoolong myself in Pontine lore. Pontine, what a great word! Though I must admit, I keep reading it as Poutine. I have my collections of Mythos Tomes, by various authors (which is by no means complete), and of course my Sherlockian works, but I quite recently discovered the series of tales that could in some ways be seen as the original point of contact of these two universes, the Solar Pons stories. Solar Pons was a character created by Lovecraft's friend, correspondant, and later publisher through his company Arkham House, August Derleth . Derleth of course wrote his own, much maligned, mythos tales, but let's not go down that rabbit hole here. Derleth also wanted to write Holmes tales. Indeed he contacted Doyle, to ask if he could take oer the series aftr Doyle had finished with Holmes, but Doyle declined (no doubt Derleth was not the only young author to contact Doyle about this, so I'm not p...

Ok, so there were many reasons for going to a Con like this, but one of them is surely to pick up on products that you can't get elsewhere, or without spending too much on postage. With this in mind, I think I was actually quite restrained in my purchases. First off, I had a list of books to buy at the Chaosium stand (although I did spend my Cult of Chaos credit, and won one of these through the Extra Life Charity event prize draw). I was able to get the following: Pulp Cthulhu Two Headed Serpent Grand Grimoire of Cthulhu Mythos Magic Doors To Darkness Dead Light Another tip to the vendors hall led me to find a couple of second hand book stores, who had all the kinds of books you'd want to find at a Con like this, including: H P Lovecraft : The Shadow over Innsmouth and other Stories of Horror, as well as a copy of August Derleth's: The Reminiscences of Solar Pons. The Necronomicon Press stand was there, where I hooked up with a copy of TED Klein's: The ...

What's that? Three posts in as many days? Why yes, I am being rather productive over here, though it as, as it must be, at the detriment to my other areas of hobby interest. I have been on the lookout for a paper copy of Kenneth Hite's book, Tour de Lovecraft: The Tales , for some time now, but it is out of print, and I am not looking for it so much that I'm willing for pay over the odds for a copy. yes, I could buy an eBook, but quyite frankly, I never get round to reading those. This has now been remedied, in spades, with the launch of a new Kickstarter my Atomic Overmind Press . Where they are looking to print the second volume of Tour de Lovecraft: The Destinations. With this, the first stretch goal is the re-release of The first volume: the Tales. Problem solved! Needless to say, I have backed this Kickstarter, and look forward to it's success. This also means that I now have the pdf version of the original book, to read through before Neconomicon in Aug...

The Adventuress Arthur B Reeve  (1880-1936) First published in 1917, 220 pages. I found this little hardback book, and was initially attracted to the cover. The reason being that they book is published with the original 1930s cover. The original 1917 cover is on the back. I had never heard of Arthur B Reeve before, but the inside cover of the book describes him as: a New York author and criminologist, whose creation, the scientific detective Craig Kennedy, became famous as "the American Sherlock Holmes". Reeve's cutting edge stories, newspaper serials and movies about Craig Kennedy made him the most popular detective writer of the era, and The Adventuress was his first full-length novel. I was interested by that description on many counts, and the foreword expanded upon this by suggesting that his use of cutting edge technology was what made him so well loved at the time, but may also have counted against his longevity, as it has not aged well....

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 ...

I think I was quite late along to the party, as I first picked up one of the Discworld novels when at University. " Faust Eric" was the first one I read I think, then I went back to the start and read all the Discworld novels, and continued to do so, as soon as a new one was available in paperback (hard back books take up so much space). There are a lot of funny authors out there, but I can list on one finger the number who could so consistently make me snigger and laugh out loud when reading his books. He had such a great way of looking at the world, then mirroring it back to us in a way that made the mundane seems absurd. Add to this the fact that it was not unknown for me to shed a few tears when reading his work to, and we have the sign, IMHO, of a truly great author. The fact that he was always a genre writer always worked against his credibility, especially at the start, but the sheer number of people who read his work, and the way in which he spoke on the subje...

Holmes statue in Edinburgh. I know this is outwith the normal bounds of my blog, but it is covered by the general mystery theme. There has been a new Sherlock Holmes Story discovered. I post the transcript here, as I'm pretty sure that the copyright on Holmes has long ago passed into the public domain. The story is less mystery, and more a peculiar little coversation between Holmes and Watson, clearly written to appeal to the guid-folks o' Selkirk. Anyway without too many spoilers, here is the full transcript of 'Sherlock Holmes: Discovering the Border Burghs and, by deduction, the Brig Bazaar'. The story of how it was found can be read here : 'We've had enough of old romancists and the men of travel, said the Editor, as he blue-pencilled his copy, and made arrangements for the great Saturday edition of the Bazaar Book. 'We want something up-to-date. Why not have a word from "Sherlock Holmes"?' Editors have only to speak and it is don...

The wonders of the modern day publishing system, allowing new authors to be easily published is something I really treasure of this internet age. The barriers to self publishing have been lowered, and the advent of crowd sourcing makes projects of many kinds even more attainable. To this end, I bring to your attention " Baby Teeth ". What a great name for a collection of horror short stories by fledling authors.  Based on the chills and shivers of the creepy things children have been heard to say at the most unexpected times, this collection is an assortment of unexpected frights, nervous giggles and often poignant reflections on life, childhood, and the terrors of growing up. Mostly horror, you'll also find stories in this book of fantasy, science fiction, crime and even comedy, from a wide range of established and emerging writers (36 stories from 26 authors!). I must admit, I have only heard of one of the authors, and he is a friend of mine , but I like the set...

From the Internet Archive, via the Californai Digital Library (by way of the Yog-Sothoth forums, as per usual) I bring to you The Dominion of Canada, with Newfoundland and an excursion to Alaska. Handbook for travellers (1922)  by the Karl Baedeker of the Baedeker company who then, as now, specialise on travel books. All major formats are available, including, the most useful for me, pdfs and kindle files. There are detailed inventories and travel routes to reach Montreal from both New York, and Boston, both the main east coast U.S. headquatrers for PCs. Also, there are travel options from both New York and Boston to Quebec City, and Portland Oregan to Montreal and Quebec. There are also possible routes mentioned from Europe, with entry to the ports of Montreal and Quebec. The section on Quebec runs to about 50 pages, but most of the details included are how to get from one place to another within the province. The pages on Montreal and it's env...