Mysteries of Montreal

Another Tales from the Loop blog post? In such quick succession after the last? What is going on here? The short answer might be that GMing in Face to face sessions leaves me with time in from of a computer with energy to share things. When GMing online, screen time is prep on Roll20 and in Discord.  Another answer might be that in preparing offline handouts, I have artefacts I wish to share, whereas online games are just images snagged from the pdfs. Whatever the answer is, I came here to share this pdf . This is a trifold pamphlet style handout I game my players at the start of out Tales from the Loop campaign, "They Grow up so Fast". I doubles as a quick introduction to what the Loop is, MAFF, and also gives them access to the map that is in the book, as an in game artefact. Of course, strip out the MAFF logo, and change the map, and you can use it for any of the three cannon settings for Tales from the Loop. Or indeed your very own setting. Enjoy, and let me know if you

After Covid, it has taken us quite a while to return to a fully offline gaming group. Mainly because at the end of the lockdown, we were playing a game of Witchlight for 5e that required us to stay online, as the GM of that particular game was much more available online than off.  That campaign ran for what was basically 2 years, but is now completed.  Now that we are back to a face to face set-up, there are games that I did not want to run online that have now moved up to the front of the line. Some were because I didn't think online was the best interface to use: like Kids on Bikes; or Masks of Nyarlathotep (I have far to many props to waste on an online game), and some were because there were players that stepped back from online play that I wanted to include in the game.  One game that I was putting off was Tales from the Loop, and that was because of both above reasons. Now we have started a campaign of this game, the UK based set of mysteries " They Grow up so Fast "

A great little video and tutorial on how to use the Scar of the Bloody Tongue that came in the last Props of Nyarlathotep Kickstarter.

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.

Question 26: Which RPG has the most useful resources? The resources that imediately comes to mind here, are props and handouts. I love props and handouts. Physical items that help with play, advance the game, and increase immersion are things I look for. Maybe I should be a LARPer. Of course, one game excels in this, Call of Cthulhu (seeing a pattern here yet?, this is a Lovecraftian blog after all). This excellence is not through the company who make the game. Yes most adventures come with handouts to copy and give out at the back of the book, but other games companies make/made more effort than Chaosium (the handouts for the Empire in Flames campaign by GW come to mind). No, it is not through the efforts of Chaosium that Call fo Cthulhu makes it's name, but through the efforts of fans. It would take forever to list all the ways in which the support of the fan community help the game, and indeed all lovecraftian games, but here, for those amongst you who are neophytes to t

One of the great things about the Call of Cthulhu community is the gusto with which they enter in their prop making. From the print outs of newspaper handouts to full blown resin props. I was a backer of the Kickstarter by Delphes Desvoivres to make the Sedefkar Simulacrum , and am eagerly waiting to use it in the Horror on the Orient Express Campaign which I intend to start this year (after finishing the Time to Harvest Campaign I am currently running) I already have the Eye of Light and Darkness that is pictured in the video, but I really like the look of the other props. The necklace is a nice touch, and it is nice to see that not all the props will be made out of resin. The Mirror is larger than I thought it would be, which means all in these are going to take up a lot of storage space in my gaming cupboard, but how can I not be tempted? The Kickstarter will go live this Sunday (the 22nd), at 10pm GMT.

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

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

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