Coming Soon: Geoff Gillan’s “Machine King”

When Cthulhu Reborn was created — way back in the mists of time (well, 2011 to be exact) — it’s principal mission was to be a vehicle for publishing high-quality, professionally-designed, and above all FREE material for Lovecraftian tabletop gaming. And while we’ve done a reasonable job at creating a few highly-regarded titles (see our downloads page for the full list), we would have to admit that it HAS been a while since we last released a freebie title. This isn’t a deliberate decision … lots of other stuff has kept the Cthulhu Reborn minions fully occupied for quite some time. It has always been our goal, though, to release more free stuff under the Cthulhu Reborn imprint.

Today we are incredibly, INCREDIBLY happy to be announcing the next title in our line of free scenarios for Call of Cthulhu, Geoff Gillan’s incredible “almost lost work”, The Machine King.

The story behind this scenario’s long journey to publication is almost as convoluted as the tale itself. Originally commisioned in the mid 1990s by Lynn Willis for an abandoned Chaosium book of “alternative dreamlands” scenarios, Geoff’s sole copy of its typescript has certainly been through the wringer over the intervening years. Most notably it was believed for many years to have been destroyed when Geoff’s home in Wollongong was one of many inundated by damaging floodwaters in 1998. But you can’t kill a truly horrific Lovecraftian tale that easily … and thanks to some detective work worthy of a Spot Hidden check (or maybe a Rummage Through Garbage Bags check), the manuscript was rediscovered a year or so ago. Since then, Cthulhu Reborn has been working closely with Geoff to polish the original text, put it through several more rounds of editing, and finally commission some brand new custom art to do justice to the insane world described in Geoff’s scenario.

All that work is now mostly finished: the text is locked down and proofed, the layout is complete and we are just waiting on a couple of pieces of final art … and then we will unleash “The Machine King” upon the world as a free, fully-illustrated, deluxe 64 page PDF. Fingers crossed for a late August or early September release date! We will be offering a few sneak peaks at the wonderful custom artwork (by long-time Cthulhu Reborn art department stalwart Cinthya A.) and page layouts … so … watch this space 🙂