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Please note the ship bringing the Grand Grimoire and Two-Headed Serpent to the UK docked at Southhampton late last week (as memorabily captured by Nigel Clark). We do not know for certain when the books will be delivered to the Kixto warehouse in Exeter. If they get there prior to UK Game Expo we will try our best to get them to the show. At this point it is all down to how long it takes to clear Customs. Also note, we'll have copies of The Guide to Glorantha, but we won't have the empty slipcases. However, you can order the empty slipcases directly from Chaosium.com.

UK Games Expo 2017 is fast approaching! Chaosium will be there, with seminars, designers, and the Cult of Chaos running games. Here a list of the stock we'll have available at our booth - Stand C5 NEC Hall 1. Lots of Call of Cthulhu, RuneQuest, and Glorantha stuff, including The Guide to Glorantha. And don't worry, if you buy at the booth, we'll also send you the PDF! All prices are in UK Pounds. CALL OF CTHULHU 7TH EDITION 7th edition Quickstart 5 Alone Against the Flames 5 Slipcase set – hardcover 99 Slipcase set – leatherette 199 Cthulhu by Gaslight 15 Deadlight 5 Doors to Darkness 25 Grand Grimoire 30* Horror Orient Express (+GM screen) 99 Investigator Handbook 35 Keeper Rulebook 35 Keeper Screen Pack 25 Keeper Deck (set of 4) 20 Masks of Nyarlathotep Companion 60 Nameless Horrors 15 Petersen Field Guide 20 Pulp Cthulhu 35 Ripples from Carcosa 10 Two-headed Serpent 35* CTHULHU FICTION & MISC. Cassilda's Song 10 Edge of Sundown 10 Eldritch Chrome 10 Legacy of the Reanimator 10 Steampunk Cthulhu 10 HPL's CoC for Beginning Readers 10 Call of Cthulhu - The Coloring Book (Convention Special: 50% off!) 5 GLORANTHA Guide to Glorantha Slipcase set 120 Heroquest Glorantha 20 The Coming Storm 20 RuneQuest 2 Classic Hardcover 20 RQ OSR (pack of 5) 25 King of Sartar 15 *the ship bringing these particular items to the UK docked at Southhampton late last week. We do not know for certain when the books will be delivered to the Kixto warehouse in Exeter. If they get there prior to UK Game Expo we will try our best to get them to the show. At this point it is all down to how long it takes to clear Customs. Come see us at Stand C5 NEC Hall 1

#ShipsOfCthulhu update: many thanks to Nigel Clarke who was on hand to capture the arrival of the Al Muraykh at Southampton on today's high tide. Somewhere deep in its bowels its precious cargo includes The Grand Grimoire and The Two-Headed Serpent.

That is a poster for the book that RJ Ivankovic did for us (riffing off the cover of Call of Cthulhu 1st Ed). The cover of Beginning Readers is the same as before.

BTW Andrey Fetisov is currently working on an awesome full-page color pic of the Monkey Ruins, for the 13th Age in Glorantha book. Looking forward to sharing it!

An opportunity to play Call of Cthulhu for a worthy cause at Gen Con! Your Keeper is award-winning author and editor (and Chaosium executive editor for fiction) James Lowder: http://www.chaosium.com/blog/play-call-of-cthulhu-for-a-worthy-cause-at-gen-con-with-james-lowder-as-your-keeper/

A new 13th Age in Glorantha update—we're adding Dragon Pass' most dangerous mercenaries to the Enemies chapter! (Who should you be more scared of, the horse or its rider?)

For Free RPG Day (June 17) we are seeking Gamemasters to run "The Broken Tower", the new adventure that comes as part of the RuneQuest Quickstart. We'd like you to pair up with a participating Friendly Local Game Store, or if there isn't one near you, any FLGS that's willing to let you run a game that weekend. You need to run at least one table of the adventure (runs 4-5 hours). In return, we'll grant you access to a PDF of the rules and adventure in the week before Free RPG Day, which you need to study and absorb in order to run a great game at the game store. Familiarity with any previous version of RuneQuest or BRP-based system would be helpful, but our 48 page booklet has everything you need to GM the session, including 5 pregen characters. Note: rules for Free RPG Day prohibit playing the game before that date, Saturday June 17th 2018 2017 (oops) Here's What To Do If You Want To Take Part! Find a retailer, preferably a participating FLGS, but you can play the game at any game store or similar venue. Contact them about running this adventure that weekend (June 17-18). Email Todd Gardiner, Chaosium's Director of Organized Play with the store details. While your at it, if you haven't done so already join the Cult of Chaos, our organized play and GM program (it's free). Todd will contact the store to confirm your table reservation and then add you to our GM team! The week before Free RPG Day you'll get sent the RuneQuest Quickstart PDF

But in order to stick around, they need to be nourished. A fire elemental is going to need combustable fuel of some sort, or it will diminish and eventually go out. Once the summon spell wears off, an Undine turns into a puddle, etc.

I was looking at the document again to dig out the stuff about the put-put boats, and was kinda shocked to see my Casino Town/God Forgot write-up is nearly 15K words, and I'd written it with HeroQuest Glorantha in mind.

From 1 July you'll be able to download the Quickstart for free at Chaosium.com, or order a copy in print. The cost will be similar to that of the Call of Cthulhu Quickstart.

The "fire-spouting Zistorite Bronze Turtle Galleys" mentioned in that Second Age document are now part of the scrap metal that litters the archipelago, wreckage from the Machine War. It's from these the twisted remains that the God Forgot folk make their more innocuous barges. It is rumoured though, that Leonardo the Scientist has a fire-breathing metallic turtle to scare away the curious from his tower at Crab Key, a small islet off the westernmost point of Thoxos Island. (He's probably built a air-elemental-powered hovercraft as you've described too at some point—as with many of Leonardo's inventions, it's not that difficult for him to make something that works, but making something efficient, effective or scalable is an entirely different matter. Rarely would he get 3/3).

And to show that not everything has a proximate RW Ancient times analogue, here's what I reckon the God Forgot Navy, such as it is, deploys: The Put-Put Barges of God Forgot The flat-bottomed barges of God Forgot are commonly made of tin (or other metals) scrounged from the twisted remains of Zistorite war machines scattered across the archipelago. They make a distinctive “put-put” sound, due to their unique propulsion system which is unknown elsewhere in Glorantha. Though ignorant foreigners might think demons have been chained to the bottom of the barges, neither spirits nor magic is involved. The craft are actually driven by extremely rudimentary engines. Heating an internal tank causes water to be alternately sucked in and then expelled through the pipes at the stern (hence the “put-put” sound). It is difficult to regulate the speed, and the bargemen know the initial priming of the steam chamber is the trickiest part of the process. Nevertheless, once going the barges can putter along indefinitely, provided the heat is maintained. Wood is scare in God Forgot, so the bargemen often use mutton-bird oil extract or rendered puffin fat for fuel. The put-put barges are one of the few overt technological items still in common use by the former adherents of the Machine God. Though the Clanking City fell over 700 years ago, the powers of the world fear any sign of a Zistorite resurgence. Perhaps the Ingareens were excused in the case of their barges due to the utter simplicity of the design, which has no moving parts. c.f. pop-pop boat

I think the corvus, the movable boarding bridge with a big spike on the end of it, would work well for aquatic warfare on the Mirrorsea Bay, given the bay's propensity to be calm (ships that had them were dangerously top-heavy, especially in choppy waters). I like the idea that the corvus is a Lunar innovation though, when they finally get to the Holy Country and need to contest for supremacy on the water. They are not a maritime empire, and don't have cadres of skilled rowers. But if they can get their infantry on board opposing ships they stand a chance. The Esrolian navy rams to sink, the Lunars board. I suspect the God Forgot Navy, such as it is, uses the Gloranthan equivalent of Greek Fire.

We don't have a Snake Pipe Hollow map on Redbubble (yet). We have the three different covers of the supplement: http://www.redbubble.com/shop/snake+pipe+hollow

Excellent stuff. Substitute 'Bedu' for 'Esrolian' and 'Sheikhs' for 'Grandmothers' and the Hadith for the four virtues, and this aptly describes how traditional Bedouin society operated - well, to my experience, still operates to a large extent.

Cult of Chaos members who are running the adventure somewhere* on the Free RPG Day weekend will receive the PDF beforehand. If you're interested in doing so, get in touch with Todd, our OP Director: todd@chaosium.com. NB your FLGS doesn't necessarily have to be taking part in the Free RPG Day for you to get the PDF, just as long as you run it somewhere where interested members of the public can play.

Here's a sneak peek inside the RQ Quickstart Rules, which will be released on Free RPG Day 2017 (Jun 17) and available at Chaosium.com from July 1st. The 48 page Quickstart Rules feature everything you need to start playing, and includes a new adventure "The Broken Tower" and five pre-gen characters. http://www.freerpgday.com

We've added 'what the critics say', reviews, and video to our product page for our 102 page picture story book H.P. Lovecraft's The Call of Cthulhu for Beginning Readers. And a FAQ: Q. How different is this from H.P. Lovecraft's 1928 original story? A. This is Lovecraft's original 1928 story rewritten in anapestic tetrameter and with entirely original art. Q. Is his book suitable for 'beginning readers'? A. This book could certainly be read to a 6 or 7 year old - they will enjoy the cadence. Capable 8 or 9 year olds should be able to read the story themselves. A great way to introduce your kids to the Mythos - or your nieces and nephews: be that beloved, exceedingly strange relative! Q. What is anapestic tetrameter? A: Anapestic tetrameter is a poetic rhythm often used in children's stories. Each line consists of four units of rhythm, known as 'feet'. Each foot has two unstressed syllables followed by a stressed syllable. A well-known example is the beginning line of Clement Clarke Moore's poem "Twas the Night Before Christmas" (aka "A Visit from St. Nicholas"): "Twas the night beforeChristmas, when all thro' the house / not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse." Q. Is this book copying Dr Seuss? A. H.P. Lovecraft's The Call of Cthulhu for Beginning Readers is not a reskinning of a Dr. Seuss story, nor does it use any Dr Seuss characters, storylines or images. It contains entirely original art, and the storyline comes directly from H.P. Lovecraft. Of course R.J. Ivankovic was influenced by Theodor Geisel's amazing artwork (his use of non-Euclidian geometry was visually second to nobody!) But we acknowledge the influence of Shel Silverstein, Jules Feiffer, Maurice Sendak, and every other sanity-damaging children's book illustrator of our youth, and also Clement Clarke Moore for his popularization of anapestic tetrameter. Q. Aren't there some problematic racial aspersions in H.P. Lovecraft's original 1928 story? A. In this version, H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu cultists do not belong to any identifiable race - they are depicted as funky malicious-looking humanoids with ponytails atop their heads.

We've given the Chaosium.com website a bit of a spruce-up. There's a few kinks to sort out, but we're pretty happy with the new look. www.chaosium.com

The latest RQ Classic release is Rune Masters, and this new version restores material previously cut from the original (after Chaosium "decided to compact the material into a $5 size book instead of an $8 size book"). Only 36 years later, Rune Masters is published as the original author William Keyes intended it to be, with the colorful biographical notes he'd written for each of the 45 characters described in the book! Available in PDF now from Chaosium: http://www.chaosium.com/rune-masters-pdf

"It's not often that you find academic papers about the possibility of alien civilisations that cite H.P.Lovecraft. But that's exactly what you'll find in a new article authored by Oxford University researchers, "That is not dead which can eternal lie: the aestivation hypothesis for resolving Fermi’s paradox..." http://dailygrail.com/Alien-Nation/2017/5/Solving-the-Fermi-Paradox-Could-Advanced-Aliens-Be-Lovecraftian-Old-Ones

As commercial licensees, they'll be able to use our logos on their products.

http://www.chaosium.com/blog/the-results-are-in-cult-of-chaos-call-of-cthulhu-scenario-writing-2017/ From Mike Mason, Call of Cthulhu line editor Earlier this year Chaosium invited members of the Cult of Chaos, our cadre of volunteer game masters, to submit pitches for short scenarios that could be played in a single 4-hour time slot at games conventions. We received over 100 pitches and from these 11 were picked to go through to the second round, where they would be written up into full scenarios. At the final deadline, all 11 were submitted, and for the last few days we have been reading over these entries. We’d like to thank everyone who pitched and those who went through the process of writing the final set of scenarios. Of the 11 finalist scenarios, we have picked 6 that we would like to further develop into fully laid out convention scenarios, that we hope to make available at key conventions in 2017 and 2018. These winning entries are: Weekend in the Woods by Matt Ryan The Kids are Alright by Jason and Ann D’Angelo Those Within by Freddie Folds Midnight Masquerade by Ed Possing Searching for the Rhinegold by Benjaim Constantineau and Jean-Sébastien Boisvert Dansereau As the Leaf Withers on the Vine by Charles Perryman Congratulations to those entrants! We’d also like to thank the runners up: Mark Platt, Morgan Hua, Jay Jong, Aaron Eskenazi, and Jason Michal. Whether winner or runner up, we expect to be seeing more from these people in the future! We’ve emailed all of the finalists to personally thank them for taking part, and to provide some feedback, which we hope will help in further developing the entrant’s scenario writing skills. While not everyone could win this time, we hope that the experience is a learning one and are keen to see everyone who took part continue to write and hone their skills so they can join the ranks of the next generation of professional scenario writers. In addition, all of the 11 finalists who submitted a complete scenario will receive a $40 Chaosium web store voucher in thanks for their participation. So, look out for these winning Call of Cthulhu scenarios at future conventions like Origins, GenCon, and others! If you are interested in joining our volunteer game masters program, you can find out more and register at www.chaosium.com/organized-play

It's been exactly the opposite problem with minies in the past, offering an exclusive contract and then having the licensee not live up to expectations, which means no one is happy.