Moe Lane

Sort of: it’s actually Call of Cthulhu: The Musical webcomic.  It’s a work in progress, and I am so far enjoying it; absolutely impossible to stage though, alas.  Not to mention, probably wouldn’t get past the lawyers even under the rules for parody.

Horror on the Orient Express: Call of Cthulhu by Chaosium.  This one is almost done; and it came to my attention because it has a bunch of Mythos writers that I like doing stories for an associated anthology.  In fact, I’m wondering whether to skip the game and just get the book…

Essentially, what they’re changing, what they’re not, what the updated version is going to look like, that sort of thing.  Features most of the DG heavy hitters, plus Ken Hite.

It’s going to take me forever to listen to the whole thing, though.  Kids.

OK, background:

• John Tynes is the author of Delta Green: Strange Authorities, which is a compilation of John’s Delta Green-themed fiction for the last several years (the publisher is Arc Dream, which puts out a good deal of nice gaming material generally).  He is also one of the Names involved with Delta Green generally.
• Delta Green (DG) is an extended supplement/setting/mutant, rugose appendage to the Call of Cthulhu roleplaying game generally.  DG combines Cthulhu Mythos cosmic horror with government conspiracy, and it is dearly loved for that.
• …I’m not going to explain the Cthulhu Mythos.  Go read Cthulhu 101 if you don’t know what the Mythos is; in fact, go read it even if you do know what the Mythos is.

Seeing as I am a roleplaying game geek AND a Cthulhu Mythos fan AND a Delta Green enthusiast… as you can imagine, I was more than happy to interview John about the book, get his thoughts on What Delta Green and the Mythos Means To Us, and tease out a hint or two about the planned update of the game setting.  Plus, some hard truths about the gaming industry! – Which believe me, I kind of already knew.

MP3 interview at the link below.  I’d like to do more of these, I think: they’re kind of refreshing.

John Tynes Interview – 04/20/2012

Moe Lane

THIS IS NIGHTMARE FUEL.

OK?  OK? Something very much like this showed up in Delta Green: Targets of Opportunity*.  Which is a roleplaying supplement for the game Call of Cthulhu.  Which is a game that explores mind-destroying cosmic horror, and the best way to futilely delay its inevitable final victory over our weak human concepts of ‘logic’ and ‘sanity.’  They put that in there to freak out the people playing the game, because it takes a lot to freak out your average Call of Cthulhu player, these days.

(pause)

No, I don’t know why this freaked me out, either.  Maybe because I wasn’t expecting it.

Moe Lane

*Look it up.  Page 183.

…sorry about the TLAs, but if you don’t get ‘em right off of the bat you probably won’t be interested in this post anyway.

Anybody, if you’re like me you’ve looked at the prices for the legendary – and inexplicably out of print* – Beyond the Mountains of Madness: An Epic Campaign and Sourcebook (Call of Cthulhu Horror Roleplaying, #2380), which starts at sixty bucks and rapidly gets worse.  Fortunately, the invention of the PDF format was a positive boon to the roleplaying game industry (and its customers, most of whom don’t have the room for many new books) – so somebody had a rush of oxygen to the brain and made a digital version available for about one-third off.

Mind you, forty-two bucks for a digital download is a hell of a lot in absolute terms, which is why it’s on a wish list..

Moe Lane

*IIRC, GURPS Imperial Rome got a second edition precisely because somebody went onto Steve Jackson Games’ old forums and started bragging about how he found a copy of the first edition for only a hundred bucks. It wasn’t the brag so much as it was the way that people kept congratulating the guy that made the company take notice.

Targets of Opportunity: includes stuff on the Cult of Transcendence, which Ken Hite’s only been teasing us about for years and years and years…

…OK, real quick: Delta Green is a Call of Cthulhu supplement about a secret and illegal government conspiracy to fight the Mythos, and it’s some of the best damn horror roleplaying supplements you’re ever going to find…

…and, in about a month, I should be able to afford it.

The sequels were… well, there are people who like them. But Tremors was fun, so we’ll replace The Call of Cthulhu with it. It’s all Mythos anyway.

It being Wednesday, we say goodbye to Coraline as Movie of the Week. A judicious amount of luck, patience, and willingness to give a new Amazon bookseller a shot allowed me to acquire Thomas Harlan’s Land of the Dead at enough of a discount for me to actually afford it, so we’ll celebrate the occasion by declaring The Call of Cthulhu to replace it.

Yeah, Harlan’s writing Mythos books. I’m also starting to suspect that so is Charlie Stross, with his Merchant Princes series.

As you may remember, I had a choice between two Cthulhu indy films, and based on reader input I went with The Call of Cthulhu: The Celebrated Story by H.P. Lovecraft. It came in the mail Saturday; I got my mail today; and I have just now watched it.

I suspect that I had ended up choosing… wisely. It’s clever in its format; it works well as a silent, black-and-white short movie – better than it would as a bloated SF extravaganza. The music was well chosen, the plot is surprisingly close to the original, and while it did not scare the devil out of me it would have been hard to, seeing as I know the story so well by now. I do wonder how an impressionable nine year old would approach this movie. Or possibly a twelve year old.

The HPLHS website is here – and, spookily, they have just now decided to explain to the world what the heck is going on with their new project. Well, old project.

Something to look forward to.

So, I have a Lovecraftian quandary.

There’s a little extra cash available right now – enough to pick up a movie. So I went looking for that Tori Spelling Cthulhu that I’ve been thinking of picking up… and found this: The Call of Cthulhu: The Celebrated Story by H.P. Lovecraft

It’s a tough call. I do actually like stupid, which is a draw for the former; but the latter has better reviews, even though it’s apparently a silent film. Does anyone who has seen either or both have an opinion?
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Having read this on Cracked, it immediately became obvious that what it was starkly necessary for someone to look at the “6 Insane Discoveries That Science Can’t Explain” and explain them using the tools designed for such things: ie, roleplaying games.

Well, it was obvious to me. This is going to go unapologetic gaming geek now, so I’m giving the rest of you the courtesy of a page break. (more…)