Mysteries of Montreal

From 1925, this catalogue is the perfect player handout for their shopping trip for an excursion out of town.

Captain C. Holliwell. Montreal. Okay, so this image is from the gaslight era, but I am totally going to use this as my next investigator protrait, no matter which era. This guy has seen something. I've tried to find out who this genleman was, but other than finding other portrais of him, I'm at a loss as to who he was.

I saw this, and had to post it. As a relic/artefact. Who was Montcalm ? Preserved as a relic by the Ursuline Order. Find a grave link . The skull was finally buried in 2001. ( link1 )( link2 ) A skull as such doesn't make such a great Call of Cthulhu artefact, as it is human in origin, not mythos related. It would make a great item to be used in Unknown Armies . Of course, in a Call of Cthulhu game, it may be on show, labelled as Montcalm's skull, but the cultists know, or at least believe it to actually be the skull of a great shaman and cult leader. The skull itself may not actually have power, but the possession of it can be used as an identifier, or bargaining tool with a being of power, thereby allowing the cult access to something they do not yet have. The investigators could be hired to find the stolen skull, and thereby are in a race against time to find it before the cult accesses what it wants. Otherwise, the cult succeeds in it's plan, unlea...

In 1911 Montreal Syrians tried to open a mosque, the locals thought this so strange that they attacked and beat the participants and destroyed the Mosque. With the recent happenings in Quebec City , I will refrain form gamifying this one. It's literally too soon. It is an example of what can be used to mirror current events in your game. Allowing you to link players to the past in a real way. I am looking for more info on this event, but resources are scarce. Edit: The Gazette ran the same story.

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.

This link is relevant to my interests . Great source of inspiration for 20s and 30s architecture around town. On the same theme, here's a recent report by CTV on one such gem, the restaurant on the 9th floor of the Eaton's department store .

Very... euchlidian !?

  Montréal 1917 A seasonally appropriate Photo of the Day. The Zamboni is an iconic Canadian vehicle, of course, ice had to be groomed before the invention of such an icon, and here we are with the way it was done back then.

Dominion Square, Montreal. Winter 1926. Winter is late in coming this year, but come it will, and it will look like this. No matter what else may change with progress, the seasons still come in order, and leave us to deal with the same problems and hardships.

This is old news now, of course, but this great interactive map gives an insight into homicides in Montreal in the modern era. The CBC interactive map , with points for all the 28 homicides in Montreal for the year of 201. If you want to now more, each of the map pins has a link to the story of the death on the CBC website.  These are only those related to deaths on the island of Montreal. I was a little surprised it was only 28. Not that I feel Montreal is a dangerous town, but that just doesn't seem like much. This is of course a good thing. Another thing to note, in game terms, is that they are spread around the city, making no one borough more dangerous than any other.

Way Back in 2012, I wrote a post that was intended to be one of a series. A short series, but a series none the less. That was on sourcebooks for various games that were describing Montreal in terms of the game setting. Montreal as a background for your game. In an attempt to go through my own backlog of  drafts of posts, to get these posts out into the wild, I am reviving this series with the second instalment of Montreal Sourebooks. This one came across my radar more than a few years ago now, back when the storyteller system was all the rage. Black Dog Games, the darker, more adult daughter company of White Wolf publishing, released " Montreal by Night: Litany of Blood ". A  sourcebook for Vampire the Masquerade, based in the city of Montreal. Welcome to Montreal, City of Black Miracles and unhallowed shrine of our most glorious Sabbat. Yes, we're so glad you came, n'est ce pas? Walk our catacombs in search of blasphemous knowledge, enjoy all manner of tit...

I read recently, with some sadness, of the closing, or moving of an establishment, that seems to me at least, to be as old as Montreal itself. In a recent Gazette column, I read of the relocation of L. Berson & Fils off of the Main. To those from out of town, the Main is the name given by locals to Rue St Lauren, or St Lawrence Street (of all the names the street has, that last one is never used). As the article states, the business was established on the Main in 1922, and it was indeed a landmark. I remember seeing it on my first visit to the city, and at the time, I did find it a bit of an eyesore, if at least one that clearly had history, it was what looked like a builder's yard in the middle of a busy main shopping street, but the sign hanging above it made it obvious it was just part of the fittings and fixtures of the town, and that it hearkened back to an earlier era. It was this obvious recalling to an earlier age that meant when I came to running Co...

We hear much these days about the big brother state. Back in the 80s and before, it was a thing to be feared. These days, with the prevalence of the internet in out lives, and the amount of our own selves we share online, either voluntarily or not, means that for better or worse, we are much more at ease with the ability of others to watch us from afar. Maybe because we just don't think about it, or we don't want to think about it. So when I came across this website , I was less annoyed by the intrusion as I may have been back in the day, but I see it as a great In a modern game of Call of Cthulhu, or, even better, the Laundry, The uses for this kind of surveillance are multiple, and creepy

  A simple, yet eye catching image, taken in the Montreal docks, in the 1930s. Straight from a film noir, and very evocative. I'm not sure what use it would be in game, other than setting the mood, but worth trying to find a place for it in game I feel. source .

I have found a wonderful Facebook page Montreal then and now , full of photos, images and other interesting links, that is an inspiration for Montreal of any era since the founding of the city, but there are frequently photos from the era pertinent to our interest, the 1920-30s. I had through to make a larger post with a few of these images, but I think I'll spread them out, and maybe have a little post for each one, with some game uses for the image, a bit like the Inspirational Artefacts series of posts. This is the first of these images. Roman catholic nuns, Bleury St., Montreal, 1924 I can easily imagine these two getting the wrong idea about the motives of the Investigators, and following them around town, getting in the way of their investigations, and otherwise being a nuisance. Otherwise, they could be a contact for the Investigators, within the Catholic church, who had a very strong presence in the city at that time, and may be working with the Investigators, m...

Sir William Dawson 1884 My eye was drawn to this article as it passed my facebook feed the other day, as one that certainly requires more study, and fits well within the remit for this blog, so lets have a look at it then! Of course, the title of this article suggests a burial ground , but the reality is both more mundane, and, in other ways more exciting than that. This story is about the Dawson Site . Found in 1860, the Dawson site, so named due to the work there by John William Dawson ; it was an Iroquoian village and thousands of artefacts were found there, as listed in the link above for the site, most of which were concurrent with a village. Yes, 25 burials were also found, with a possibility of over 100 still in place.  Hochelaga, circa 1535 I heard an interview with a local  archaeologist on the radio yesterday evening, (so no source to link to, but it was likely the same one quoted in the above article) that suggested that, yes, there was the possibility o...

The weather here over the last week has been atrocious. First a heavy snow fall, followed by a thaw, freezing rain, then the temperature plummeted to -24 o C. Yesterday, everything was frozen solid, then today, we're having another couple of feet of beautiful powder, which is great for the skiers amongst us, but loathsome to the drivers. One thing to come out of this, was my learning of this wonderfully strange phenomenon, frost quakes , or cryoseisms , or as I now rename it, Ithaqua's footprints. Or maybe even ice shoggoths on the move. Ice shoggoths, now there's an idea...

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...