Mysteries of Montreal

That little phrase in the title has become a meme unto itself, as a way of expressing that something that is idiotic, or stupid on the internet (that covers a lot of said internet). What is not so well know, is that good ol' HPL himself was the originator of said meme, as this neat little essay claims to prove. Go read it, then read some Lovecraft, it'll give you a whole host of new ways to express your emotions at online idiocy.

We took a bit of a last minute decision to go and visit Quebec City this week, so I went and looked out the travel books I have for the city: I'll stick them both in my bag to take with me, but even though I have just finished my last book (One Summer by Bill Bryson, but more on that later) I doubt I'll actually get through reading HPL's travelogue of Quebec City , which is apparently the longest written work he ever produced, and the trip to Quebec was the only time he ever came to Canada. However, there are some nice little observations in there, and some great drawings the man himself drew to accompany the work, so I will at least skim through it, and compare my trip to his. Unfortunately, we're only going for the weekend, so I won't be able to visit all the places he did, but fingers crossed I'll find some of them.

Upworthy has a lot to answer for in the way it has influenced internet article headlines. The number of superlatives used is extraordinary and unbelievable. You'll never read another headline like it again! Sorry, I got a little carried away. Still, these fabulous pictures of places in Canada are more than a little cool, and Investigators to the great Canadian outdoors in any era can come across these places whilst trekking North to explore the unknown and unexplained. Or indeed, they may be the end point, and place of interest they are out to explore/investigate. Two of the places mentioned are in Quebec, and I intend to write more about them at some point. Indeed, both the places pictured in Quebec are of craters. One, the Manicouagan crater , is of particular interest, as I had never heard much about it, till I was on Google maps one day, and it struck me as somethign of interest, and wondered why I had never heard more about it. I plan to do a whole post dedica...

What it says in the title really, the MTL Blog has posted a scan of an old tourist flyer from 1925 . The original pdf can be downloaded from the Archives de Montréal  here . A great little handout for gamers from out of town, as well as a source of local information for players and Keepers alike.

Got a group of Gaslight investigators looking for work? Put an advert in the paper, that's sure to bring in the clowns! Source Mosher's Detective Agency: The only office where ladies are employed! In fact, each line of these ads is so well written, there's a great number of adventure seeds tightly packed into this short clipping.

  There was a haunted house for sale in Montreal . The original sales post has long gone, as indeed has the estate agent's website, but the text was saved in the article linked above, suggests it was on the market for over a year with no buyers. (original CTV article from 2012 here). Why the interest in the house? well, some visitors said the place was eerie and emits a ghostly aura, and that's about it. However, the house was built in the 1910-20s, but the decor inside had not been changed since. The images supplied by the realator were an amazing look into a time capsule of a house. If this were still on the market, I would be looking to go have a nosey around and take some pictures of my own. The four bedroom house in Rosemont can be found on google maps here . I post here the pictures of the interiors, as they are exactly right to be used in a Montreal based game as props for interiors.  Backyard Den Den Dining Room Dining Room...

Two years after the Titanic was sunk, the Empress of Ireand sunk in the St Lawrence river (29th of May 1914). 1,012 people were killed, as the ship went down in just 14 minutes, after colliding with a Norwegian freighter, the SS Sorstad Near Rimouski . 465 of the original 1477 people on board survived. It seems the story of the Empress has been lost, as it's death-toll was overshadowed by that of the Titanic two years earlier, and the story in international news at the time was pushed aside weeks later by the outbreak of the Great War. Not to lessen the tragedy of such a wreck, but to ignore it's gaming potential, especially for Call of Cthulhu, would be to deny the reason for this blog's existence. My first thought on this, was to use the Titanic as a starting point. As a more famous wreck, in the same time frame and with a very similar passenger list, it would be foolish not to see what was already out there. Pelgrane Press's RMS Titanic: The Millionaire’s Sp...