Dateline Lovecraft: Another Review

As mentioned here previously, one of the most awesome things to happen this year was when our humble Dateline: Lovecraft newspaper prop/gaming-aide got picked up by the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society to sell via their online store.

Recently Craig Burnett, one of the purchasers took the time to post a review on the HPLHS product page. Here it is in full (both praise and criticism):

This prop comes in the form of a broadsheet newspaper (dated Monday, 15th October, 1928) called the Arkham Advertiser, accompanied by a 98 page guidebook and all safely contained in a secure, zip-lock folder.

The broadsheet contains 12 pages (with 8 columns per page) of dense material. This includes standard newspaper reports, adverts, announcements, weather forecast – all the things you’d expect to get in a real newspaper. The layout, fonts, masthead, illustrations are of the highest quality and the creators have demonstrated a similar attention to detail with the content of the articles.

The guidebook explains how to use the broadsheet. There is a simple Clipping ID system to help you find relevant material, a useful set of indices and some excellent suggestions for how to incorporate the broadsheet/clippings into your game. The description of the Arkham Advertiser business is a nice touch. The three adventures included in the booklet make great use of the broadsheet clippings and are well considered, well presented scenarios. The electronic newspaper is a fine resource and a great option if you don’t want to cut up your physical prop.

The artwork is excellent but spartan and oft repeated. There are a few typos (see rear cover) that I found annoying and the 12 page breakdown of the broadsheet by ID is wholly unnecessary, but these are minor grumbles.

Clear Credit have produced an excellent resource and I highly recommend it as a game prop or tool for all GMs.

 

DNA of a Cthulhu Sourcebook

It’s funny what you find lying around on your hard drive when you go back and “tidy up” some old folders.

Back in 2013 I was asked to take on the job as project leader/coordinator for what would eventually become Chaosium’s “Terror Australis” Revised Edition. This was an exciting, if somewhat daunting, task to take on. The hardest choices that needed to be made were around what types of contents make for a truly great Cthulhuoid sourcebook — sure there are many examples out there, some much better than others. But there doesn’t really seem to be an accepted “template” for what people want so see.

After re-reading virtually every geographical-based sourcebook previously published, I came away with some thoughts about the utility of different types of contents and also about the categories of readers who buy Cthulhu sourcebooks. To try to make sense of all this information (and also apply it to planning for the Australian sourcebook) I wrote a short “discussion paper” on the topic. It was titled: “Call of Cthulhu Sourcebooks: What they contain and how people use them.” I only ever shared this paper with a few people on the project team … but re-reading it now I wonder whether it might be of interest to a broader community of game designers and writers. So I figure I’d release it here.

Call of Cthulhu Sourcebooks: What they contain and how people use them.

Before anyone comments that the final Terror Australis Revised Edition doesn’t exactly match the template described in this paper … that is (to some extent) true. The plan outlined here was, however, the starting point for that book (which went on to eventually take out the 2019 ENnie for “Best Setting”). Obviously much editing and selection of written content from the full original manuscript — about half of which didn’t end up in the final book — took place between the start and finish of that long, LONG process. All of which skewed the DNA of that book to a lesser or greater degree.

As a kind of summary of what’s in the discussion paper (for the TL;DR crew), here’s a quote from the conclusions section of the discussion paper:

This paper proposes that there are four classes of readers for a Cthulhoid RPG sourcebook:

• • Players,
  • Keepers who just want to play the scenarios,
  • Keepers who want to build “homebrew” scenarios, and
  • Keepers who like to tweak existing scenarios, ad lib around existing scenarios or who otherwise want to adopt a “plug & play” approach to creating something original.

All four of these groups have different information needs, although their needs clearly overlap.

A range of ten different forms of information need have been described (four for players, six for Keepers), which is admittedly an entirely arbitrary system of categorisation based mainly on what has been published previously and what people (claim to) want from books.

Using this very simple modelling tool it is conceivable that one could guide the design of a sourcebook by assigning proportions of different types of information based its utility to a specific target audience. An example of this process, undertaken for “Secrets of Australia” is included.

Upcoming Titles & Search for Artists

It’s been a while since I have posted any updates on the several projects that are currently being worked on here at Cthulhu Reborn, so I thought I should correct that with a quick news update.

One of the thing you’ll notice in several of the project notes below is that we’re lacking illustrators. For the last several years we have almost exclusively relied on Reuben Dodd (of Sorrowking Studios) to fill our needs for custom artwork. Unfortunately due to family circumstances Reuben is taking some time away from illustrating, which means that several things we had hoped to get drawn by him will now need to get done by someone else. If you know of an artist who is currently working, has some track record with Cthulhu Mythos stuff, and has a style that fits with the kind of thing we do, please drop us a note using the feedback form at the bottom of this post! While we are a micro-publisher who gives vast amounts of content away for free, we do pay a reasonable rate for artwork — even the stuff we give away.

Anyway, on to the updates.

Ticket of Leave #16 is currently being written by Geoff, aiming for release some time early in 2020. The theme for this new supplement will be Theatre in the early days of the Australian penal settlements. As difficult as it is to imagine, there were actually plays performed in convict-era Sydney, and a crude theatre building existed.

The scenario portion of ToL#16 will also feature a theatrical-themed scenario.

 

As mentioned here previously, our income from sales of the core Dateline: Lovecraft supplement have now tipped over the threshold which allows us to create a fourth free PDF scenario supplement. The good news on this release is that the scenario is already written — it was written for us by a very talented and enthusiastic newcomer to our writing line-up, Rachael Randolph. (Welcome aboard, Rachael!) Her scenario will be called “Bottoms Up!” and revolves around some odd goings-on at the Bolton Brewery plant (which gets a few mentions in the Dateline: Lovecraft newspaper).

The bad news about this release is that we will need to commission at least one piece of custom art, and will need to find a new illustrator to create that for us (for reasons described above). That will probably delay things a little, but we’re still hopeful of getting the new PDF out early in the new year.

 

Quite a long time back we made a small announcement about the existence of APOCTHULHU, a large-ish project that we have been working on for some time. Basically this will be a book which aims to provide GMs with a range of different types of “Mythos Apocalypses” that they could either run as one-shots or use as campaign-closers or massive-changes-of-gear for an ongoing game. So far seven different writers (many well-known names) have been commissioned to write their idea for a post-Apocalyptic scenario and setting that has a Mythos vibe to it. All of those scenarios are now back with us awaiting editing. System-wise we have been using the DG:RPG core mechanics (aka the “Misery Engine”) as the starting point, but some tweaks have been written to make those mechanics work a bit better in a world where laws and civilization are a rarity rather than the norm.

About a quarter of the interior illustration work for this book has already been done (by our great mate Reuben) but we are likely to need to bring on someone new to finish up the artwork for the rest of the book.

This book will still take some time to finish, as it will end up being quite a beast (probably 250+ pages I am guessing). It’s on our radar for mid-2020.

 

Feedback

As mentioned above, if you have a great suggestion for an illustrator who would be good for Cthulhu Reborn projects, we would love it if you’d drop us a note using the form below. If you can give us a link to an online portfolio of their work, that would be even better.

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Openness is a Warm Pseudopod

It’s a weird thing, but of all the things I have posted to the Cthulhu Reborn blog in the past year, the #1 most read article — by far — has been my dissection of the Open Cthulhu SRD. I’m not sure how to interpret that: maybe it means that people just like reading about controversial topics, or that my own humble publishing efforts are too niche to be exciting to most.

Regardless, it is still great that so many people have taken the time to read through my analysis. Several readers have also asked me whether I could write a more detailed overview as well … and I’m still thinking about whether I really have the spare time to do that, although I’d like to.

Anyway, my own analytical skills aside, there are a couple of small pieces of news/observation that I’d like to share here since they’re related to Open Licensing, the complications of Mythos IP, or both.

Open Cthulhu Has A Website

An announcement was made today to those on the Open Cthulhu beta-testers email list that the Open Cthulhu team have created a website to host material related to their game. This is a bit of a surprise to me, since things seem to have been pretty quiet on that front for a couple of months.

Looking through their website (www.opencthulhu.org), it currently seems to have not much more than just an open link to download the Open Cthulhu SRD (i.e., a way of getting the PDF without signing up to their beta scheme; something a few folks have asked me about). There does seem to be a suggestion that the site will be used to host original scenarios for Open Cthulhu and translation notes for running pre-existing scenarios with their system. I guess this suggests that beta testers are still running games of Open Cthulhu somewhere … I guess I will keep a watching brief on the site to see whether anything new materializes. I’m not holding my breath, but who knows?

[BTW: it’s worth reiterating again that the Open Cthulhu RPG team has nothing *at all* to do with the closed online Cthulhu community which is at http://www.opencthulhu.com. It’s an unfortunate confusion of two separate things.]

 

A Horror By Any Other Name …

One of the significant points that came up in the conversation about whether it is even possible to have a truly “open” Cthulhu Mythos game is the hideously complex state of actual (and purported) IP ownership of different Mythos names/books/creatures/gods. This has already been discussed here previously.

Recently I have been reading Pelgrane Press’ ENnie Award Winning Fall of Delta Green which hybridizes the Mythos-infused-conspiracy setting of Delta Green with the game mechanics of Gumshoe and then rewinds the clock to the 1960s. It’s a great book, but when I was reading through the section describing Mythos gods and creatures I noticed there are some obvious substitutions of different names for familiar critters and Mythos powers. Then I remembered that something similar occurs in the Delta Green Handler’s Guide. Clearly, when Arc Dream was preparing Delta Green and when Ken Hite was porting bits of it over to Fall, some effort was made to “skirt around” some of the contentious names. Or maybe names that people *thought* might be contentious.

If you haven’t noticed this in either book … an example of what I’m talking about is that neither DG or FoDG seems to want to mention “Ithaqua” or “Cthugha” by name, presumably since both are literary creations of August Derleth. So, a somewhat similar entity is described but given a different name. Hence the god of ultimate coldness is Itla-Shua, and the mindless ball of flame is Qu-tugkwa (also referred to in some places as Kheshthogha).

The table below summarises all the various substitutions that I was able to notice (along with my speculation as to why they may have been seen as necessary). Since the whole topic has been raised as important to future game designers, I figure it’s worth getting the DG/FoDG approach summarised as one data point on a convoluted mandala of misery. I do find it a bit ironic that the RPG hobby is once again moving into an era when euphemistic renaming of horrors seem necessary to get around the voracious appetites of an outside community — only this time it’s not AD&D renaming demons an devils to avoid the ire of 1980s Televangelists, it’s Mythos publishers doing much the same to dodge the complexity of IP ownership in the “shared” universe launched by HPL.

Table 1: Name Substitutions in the Delta Green Handlers Guide (DGHG, Arc Dream) and Fall of Delta Green (FoDG, Pelgrane).

Possibly “Unsafe” Name	Why Possibly Unsafe?	Delta Green / FoDG Rename
Abhoth	Abhoth is a literary creation of Clark Ashton Smith	A-Abhi and Obhoth
Atlach-Nacha	Atlach-Nacha is a literary creation of Clark Ashton Smith	Tleche-Naka
Avatars of Y’Golonac	Y’Golonac is a literary creation of Ramsay Campbell	Avatars of the Headless One
Byakhee	Although Byakhee are based on a description by Lovecraft (in The Festival) it is generally considered that Chaosium/ Sandy Petersen invented the name Byakhee	Winged Servitors (DGHG), possibly Ai-Apa (FoDG)
Cthugha	Cthugha is a literary creation of August Derleth	Qu-tugkwa and Kheshthogha
Dark Young of Shub-Niggurath	Although Lovecraft’s stories speak of Shub-Niggurath as being the “Goat with a Thousand Young” some believe that the name Dark Young was a Call of Cthulhu / Sandy Petersen invention	Haedi Nigritiae (Latin for Young Goats of Darkness)
Fire Vampires	Fire Vampires (at least as they appear in Call of Cthulhu) are the servitors of Cthugha invented by August Derleth. There is a separate invention of Donald Wandrei that uses the name “Fire Vampires” but in a different sense.	Ifrits
Flying Polyps	Although Lovecraft’s description of the enemies of the Great Race specifically describes their ability to fly and also their “half-polypous” nature, it is conceivable that the name “Flying Polyp” was a Call of Cthulhu / Sandy Petersen invention	Muuruup (FoDG, an Australian Aboriginal word) and Spectral Polyps (DGHG)
Formless Spawn of Tsathoggua	The Formless Spawn are a literary creation of Clark Ashton Smith	Kythamila (FoDG, referencing a planet mentioned in Lovecraft’s collaboration “Through the Gates of the Silver Key”) Slime of Tsathoggua (DGHG)
Gla’aki	Gla’aki is a literary creation of Ramsay Campbell	Giliszta (FoDG) although DGHG uses the Gla’aki name unchanged as well as Eihort and Insects from Shagghai which are omitted from FoDG
Hounds of Tindalos	Hounds of Tindalos are a literary invention of Frank Belknap Long	Hounds of the Angles (DGHG) although FoDG uses the Hounds of Tindalos name
Ithaqua	Ithaqua is a name coined by August Derleth	Itla-Shua
Lloigor	The Lloigor are a literary creation of Colin Wilson	Xin and Lung-Xin (FoDG) although DGHG uses the Lloigor name unchanged
Star Vampires	Star Vampires are a literary creation of Robert Bloch	Feaster from the Stars
Tulzscha	Although Tulzcha is based on a description by Lovecraft (in The Festival) it is generally considered that the name Tulzcha was invented for Chaosium’s “Kingsport” sourcebook	Qu-Tugkwa (DGHG)
Y’Golonac	Y’Golonac is a literary creation of Ramsay Campbell	The Headless One