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In his latest 'Out of the Suitcase' post, Chaosium president president Rick Meints goes back to the founding of the company and earlier to try to discover why our iconic dragon logo, usually facing left, sometimes faces to the right... https://www.chaosium.com/blogout-of-the-suitcase-23-facing-the-facts-of-a-chaotic-past

Discussed here: https://support.drivethrurpg.com/hc/en-us/articles/209936943-What-is-the-difference-between-B-W-Premium-Color-and-Standard-Color-

*** UPDATE 12 OCT 2021 *** Large public events are still not possible in Australia due to restrictions on gatherings and travel, and regretfully we have had to shelve the idea of an Australian Chaosium Con indefinitely.

AN INITIAL FAQ ABOUT CHAOSIUM CON Why In Ann Arbor, and not X or Y? We know the area, it is close to several of our team, and is near a major international airport (DTW) and several major highways. Sure, there are MANY other places we could host this event at, including many overseas locations, but we have to start somewhere. What about future Cons in other places? That's certainly possible. This first con is sort of a proof of concept. Based on the success of the event and what we learn from it, we may have similar cons at different times and places, including overseas*. Why April, 2022? It's a decent time of year weather-wise in Michigan and not during peak travel season, so hotel rooms are more available and flights aren't as expensive. It also isn't competing with too many other cons. Will a lot of the Chaosium team be there? Yes, many of us already have it on our calendars. We are still working on the Guest of Honor list, but it will certainly include a number of people you think of when you think of Chaosium. What kind of events will the con feature? The focus will be on all of Chaosium's games, past, present, and future! Lots of games, freeforms, and seminars. It's your chance to meet many of our authors, artists, and editors. Feel free to contact us with event suggestions, especially if you want to help run them. Will Chaosium be selling products and merch there? YES. Rick is saving up POW to create a Great Market, as well as a special Chaosium collectables auction hosted by Mason & Meints. More than that? Other vendors? We'll see. Badge and Hotel Costs? Transportation? More on this soon. How can I find out more? Please sign up for our con mailing list: http://eepurl.com/hKCjgr *What happened to Chaosium Con Down Under? We intended to hold Chaosium Con Down Under in Sydney, Australia in May 2020 but unfortunately it had to be cancelled due to the Covid-19 pandemic. That event was going to be our first 'proof of concept' for a Chaosium convention, but we've now shifted that focus to Ann Arbor. Large public events are still not possible in Australia due to restrictions on gatherings and travel, and regretfully we have had to shelve the idea of an Australian Chaosium Con indefinitely.

The Stars will align next year: that's when the inaugural Chaosium Con is happening: 8-9 April 2022. Save the date! The location for Chaosium Con 1 is the Ann Arbor Marriot Ypsilanti at the Eaglecrest Golf Resort and Convention Centre, 17 miles west of Detroit Metro Airport (DTW). More information to come! Sign up here to receive updates about Chaosium Con: http://eepurl.com/hKCjgr

Miskatonic Repository Con starts this Friday (Oct 15th)! Whether you share your content for free or put it up for sale, our thriving independent creator program at DriveThruRPG is a digital home for terror that joins the dreamscapes of all who peruse it. Learn all about the Miskatonic Repository at this online event! Game Slots You will have the chance to play Miskatonic Repository scenarios prepared by their actual author! Panels Miskatonic Repository Con includes panels where you will be able to ask questions from some of the best creatives in Call of Cthulhu, who want to help you make your own scenarios! Respect in Writing When: Friday, October 15, 2021 @ 5P-6P EDT Panelists: Lynne Hardy (Chaosium), Helen Gould, Oscar Rios, and Sam Riordin. Topics include sensitivity, respect in writing, research, and steps that creators can take when presenting communities outside of their own with respect and consideration. Moderator: Chairperson Heinrich Moore Agents of Chaos: The Chaosium Ambassadors Panel When: Saturday, October 16, 2021 @ 6P-7P EDT Panelists: Allan Carey, Nick Brooke, and Bridgett Jeffries. Topics include Print on Demand, branding, creative and most effective marketing methods, compliance, community resources, pricing, etc. Moderator: Chairperson Heinrich Moore Dramatic Structure in Scenario Writing When: Sunday, October 17, 2021 @ 11A-Noon EDT Panelists: Sean Branney (HPLHS), Michael Fryda (RPG Imaginings), Lynne Hardy (Chaosium), Mike Mason (Chaosium) Topics: Elements of a plot, building tension, developing strong characters, etc. Moderator: Chairperson Heinrich Moore For more information and registration details: https://tabletop.events/conventions/call-of-cthulhu-miskatonic-repository-con-2021

This year's Miskatonic Repository Halloween Collection is live! 480 pages of Call of Cthulhu community content goodness. What's more, the bundle is 60% off until Halloween! This year's bundle features Allan Carey's ENNIE Award-winning Hand of Glory, and scenarios and supplements by independent creators William Adcock, C.M. Arnold, Pierre-Olivier Gagnon, Marek Golonka, Elizabeth Hildick, Bridgett Jeffries, Philip G. Orth, Leopoldo Rueda, Chris Stewart, and David Wright. Bundles from 2020 and 2019 are back on sale at 60% off too, until Halloween!: Miskatonic Repository Halloween Bundle 2021 $45.28 $19.95 Miskatonic Repository Halloween Bundle 2020 $51.73 $19.95 Miskatonic Repository Halloween Bundle 2019 $36.89 $14.95 Under The Miskatonic Repository community content license, Call of Cthulhu fans can make their own work for use with the game line available to the public, using guidelines, templates, and art provided by Chaosium. Whether you share your content for free or put it up for sale, this program is a digital home for terror that joins the dreamscapes of all who peruse it. Miskatonic Repository Guidelines for Content Creators Additional Guidelines

Award-winning Chaosium licensee Type 40 has announced the first wave of a range of Digital Gamer Props designed to enhance your Call of Cthulhu gaming experience, whether in-person or online in your favourite virtual tabletop. These props can also be experienced with Augmented Reality by scanning a QR code: no software or app required! The first set will be a collection for the Masks of Nyarlathotep campaign. Sign up today for the launch on October 19th!

Call of Cthulhu creative director Mike Mason talks about the process he and Paul Fricker went through when updating the game to its current 7th edition. Part of our Chaosium Interviews series with James Coquillat.

Capture the Spirit of Arthurian Legend! Greg Stafford's masterpiece King Arthur Pendragon 5.2 Core Rulebook is now available in Print-On-Demand format at DriveThruRPG. This 272 page, beautifully illustrated full color hardback comes in Standard Print and Premium Print versions. Also available as PDF, and Print + PDF. Relive the grandeur, romance and adventure of the greatest of all legends — the story of King Arthur. Assume the role of a knight starting his career in the time of Uther Pendragon, undertaking quests and perilous adventures for your lord, for your lady-love, for the Church, or for your own glory. Win great renown with your laudable deeds and feats of arms, perhaps even winning the right to carve your name into the Round Table itself as the story of Arthur and Camelot unfolds around you. With its innovative rules, including the distinctive traits and passions system designed to help you in determining your character's behavior under any circumstances, King Arthur Pendragon provides a unique roleplaying experience laid out against the richest tapestry in Western literature. "The mythical roleplaying game from the co-creator of RuneQuest is a legend in its own right, and continues to define epic adventure decades after its release. Pendragon is a fantasy RPG like no other... it represents a master of roleplaying and worldbuilding at the height of his powers."—Tabletop Gaming Magazine (UK), May 2019. Note: Limited copies of King Arthur Pendragon 5.2 Core Rulebook offset printed edition are also available at Chaosium.com from our Australian and Canadian warehouses only. A new edition of Pendragon is coming! Follow its development in line editor David Larkins's new series of Design Journals: Pendragon Design Journal #1: Where It All Began Pendragon Design Journal #2: Bringing the Light in Sixth Edition

Our friends at Type 40 are releasing a limited series of hand-crafted leather document wallets with the Call of Cthulhu 40th anniversary logo! A perfect addition to the collection of any cosmic-horror enthusiast or gamer. There are only 40 - so don't miss out! Sign up here to get notified when preorders open.

In the lead up to the release of the RuneQuest Starter Set, Chaosium's Glorantha guru Jeff Richard gives newcomers an introduction to the gods of RuneQuest. Part of our 'Chaosium Interviews' with James Coquillat.

The 1981 release Thieves' World is the topic of Rick's latest 'Out of the Suitcase' post, where he shares stories from a life-time as a collector of all things Chaosium. Although Call of Cthulhu debuted in late 1981, this boxed set - based on Robert Asprin's shared world fantasy series, and which featured game rules from seven(!) different RPG systems - was actually Chaosium's biggest seller that year. https://www.chaosium.com/blogout-of-suitcase-22-thieves-world-a-classic-case-of-being-the-chaosium-not-the-orderium

Forty years ago Sandy's roleplaying game Call of Cthulhu was published by Chaosium. It changed the world of gaming and also made the then-obscure writer Lovecraft and his creations (such as Cthulhu) both cultural phenomena. Now Sandy Petersen is back with a new board game inspired by the Call of Cthulhu RPG, and produced under license from Chaosium Inc. "It’s terrific to re-activate my old connections with Chaosium and work closely with them once more. I look forward to introducing new players to the horror of Lovecraft’s tales with a fast and easy to play board game. It also has the depth and detail to fascinate even the most experienced gamer. It provides an authentic and unique Call of Cthulhu experience. The game design is done and I consider Call of Cthulhu Terror Paths my personal contribution to the 40th anniversary of Call of Cthulhu!" — Sandy Petersen Expected release will be in 2022. Terror crawls beneath the surface of our world. Secret passages lead to hideous destinations that bear witness to unspeakable deeds. Hidden in the shadows THEY want to bring about events to shatter the minds of mankind and tear asunder the cosmos itself. More information about Call of Cthulhu Terror Paths can be found at the Petersen Games website: https://petersengames.com/terror

Becca Scott and The Calyx return this week with new Call of Cthulhu actual play! Catch "The Sorority of the Unordinary!"as the next chapter premieres on Twitch at 5PM Pacific / 8pm Eastern on Tuesday October 5th! With Becca Scott as Keeper, and Investigators Gina DeVivo, Paul Deeming, and Chaosium's own Bridgett Jeffries. Reintroduce yourself to the Sorority here: This wonderful character art is by @art_and_audio!

There's a TTRPG Charity Bundle for Afghan Support on Itch.io! Until the end of October, you can get 73 RPG products in a whole swathe of genres and systems for a mere $20 and support vulnerable people in Afghanistan! And one of the products included in the bundle is our RPG-adjacent print-and-play board game Last Faction Hero, set in the RuneQuest RPG's world of Glorantha. Last Faction Hero is the perfect solution for the Gloranthan enthusiast with 45 minutes or so to spare. You are set up in no time and can then start exploring the world of Glorantha, looking for artefacts and allies to reach your goal, meanwhile defeating and eliminating all the other heroes. This Print And Play version has all the game elements needed to play except the dice and markers (pennies or euro cent coins will work just fine).The game was created by Gianni Vacca, with artwork by Dario Corallo. The charity bundle will be live until the end of October 2021, and all proceeds will be donated to the Justgiving appeal. Help save lives and get $270-worth of games and related products for just $20 all in one go!

This is what I love about Black Spear. Nick has taken some of the most "disappearing up its own bottomness" of Gloranthan mythology and - very reverently to the sources as it turns out - turned it into something so utterly gameable and fun! Another thing he has accomplished magnificently is inserting the player characters into the Hero Wars metaplot with agency. When you have a metaplot e.g. The Great Pendragon Campaign, there's always the challenge of ensuring the player characters don't end up just standing around watching in awe as King Argrath or Argrath et al do amazing things. Greg managed that for the GPC and Nick has done so here. And of course the other thing to be gobsmacked about is Mike O'Connor's art! His glorious style embodies Greg's dictum that Glorantha is the technicolour cure for bland pseudo-medieval fantasy. And there's lots and lots of it! One of my favourite pics:

We are pleased to welcome two new members to the Chaosium team: Mike Curry (above left) as a line editor, and Lee Carnell (above right) as an in-house software developer. Mike has designed or aided in the design of card games, board games, and tabletop RPGs, mostly in the world of 7th Sea, and was Mechanics Lead for 7th Sea 2nd Edition. This was his first published work, winning the 2017 Gold ENNIE for 'Best Rules', and Silver ENNIEs for 'Best Game' and 'Product of the Year'. Before becoming involved in the design aspect of the industry, Mike was a host for a long-running gaming podcast with his best friend, Rob Justice, called “BearSwarm!” Lee's first introduction to the Call of Cthulhu RPG was via the hardback 3rd edition he bought after reading an anthology of HPL stories borrowed from his local library. Inspired by the Call of Cthulhu 7th Edition rules, in his spare time Lee developed The Dhole’s House website, an 'online toolkit' for both Keepers and players of Call of Cthulhu where users can create and save Investigators and Keeper Handouts in a matter of minutes. "We're delighted to have Mike and Lee join us. As his first major project, Mike will take a leading role in seeing the 7th Sea Khitai Kickstarter project through to completion. Lee will continue improving on The Dhole's House's utility as a resource for Call of Cthulhu Keepers and players," said Chaosium vice president Michael O'Brien.

Chaosium, publisher of the Call of Cthulhu tabletop roleplaying game, has acquired The Dhole's House website, a free 'online toolkit' for both Keepers and players of Call of Cthulhu. Users of The Dhole's House are able to create Investigators that are fully compatible with Call of Cthulhu 7th edition and print off a PDF character sheet, all in a matter of minutes. All Investigators are saved and can be updated via the 'Character Control Panel' as the campaign unfolds. Users can also contribute to a Character Library, allowing anyone to download PDF character sheets for Call of Cthulhu investigators for use as PCs or NPC's. The Keeper section of the Library includes a handout generator for quick creation of in-game artefacts including three different types of telegram, visiting/business cards, newspaper clippings and calendars. The Dhole's House was created as a fan site by Lee Carnell in 2016, and has become a popular resource for Call of Cthulhu Keepers and players world-wide, with many thousands of Investigators and handouts created every month. As part of the acquisition, Lee has joined Chaosium as an in-house software developer. "The fact that Chaosium nows owns The Dhole's House will make no noticeable difference for existing users of the site. With Lee, we plan to keep improving the features and functionality of the resource for the benefit of Call of Cthulhu gamers," said Chaosium vice president Michael O'Brien.

Marquee event coming up for PAX Aus Online! This Thursday at 7:45pm Pacific/Friday 1:45pm AEDT The Call of Cthulhu tabletop roleplaying game with Mark Meer (AKA Commander Shepard from Mass Effect), Chaosium's Bridgett Jefferies, Australian streamers Jess McDonell and Alex Caton, and Chaosium's own Brian Holland as Keeper. A group of investigators set out to search for their missing friend, but all is not as it seems at the Squatter's Lake Motel. Watch on twitchtv/PAX

Call of Cthulhu creative director Mike Mason talks creating and running the best Villains for the Call of Cthulhu RPG. He's with James Coquillat as part of our Chaosium Interviews series. Catch them all at the Chaosium YouTube channel!

Pendragon line editor David Larkins is part of The Myths of King Arthur Roundtable Discussion at Steam Digital Tabletop Fest: RPG Edition, a celebration of tabletop-inspired games on Steam from October 21 - 25. Swirling up from the mists of time are the enduring stories of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table. In many ways these stories of adventure epitomize many key elements of RPGs; a band of heroes, questing, the search for glory, advancement and magical artifacts plus the mix of a spiritual and physical conflict. In this session we explore all this and more! The one hour panel will be livestreamed on Saturday October 23 at 3:00pm EDT.

On his eponymous Exploring the Otherworlds of Fiction, Magic, and Gaming blog, reviewer, commentator, long-time resident of Japan, and best-selling Jonstown Compendium creator Andrew Logan Montgomery (right) has written an appreciation of the Call of Cthulhu RPG on the occasion of its 40th birthday. Andrew talks about first encountering the game when he was eleven, and how "It is easy to forget, sitting here four decades after the game was first released, how iconic a thing it is and was." His piece concludes by noting that "...the entire Cthulhu line since 2015 has been extraordinary.": "I am not just talking about the superior production values, but the products themselves. Berlin: The Wicked City has to be the all-time finest setting book Chaosium has ever produced for the game, and its treatment of LGBTQ+ Investigators was not only appropriate to any book set in Weimar Germany, it also showed that Chaosium was no longer going to shy away from controversial topics at the game table. They seemed to double down on this in publishing the 2nd edition of Chris Spivey's Harlem Unbound, which if Berlin is not Call of Cthulhu's best setting book this would have to be. Harlem is authentic, scary as hell, and brutally honest. I could go on. The reissues of Malleus Monstrorum and Masks of Nyarlathotep were both clear exercises in taking the good and making it better. Pulp Cthulhu added a twist people had been waiting decades for. There was a new energy at Chaosium, a new level of ambition. And it showed. So here we are in year forty. Some of us have spent nearly our entire lives playing the game. I have the 20th anniversary edition on my shelf and hope to put the 40th right next to it. While I might live to see the 60th, the prospect of the 80th seems like a long shot. Regardless, I am fairly confident they will exist. The 7th edition line demonstrates that the game can change, adapt, grow, and still remain true to the qualities that have given Call of Cthulhu its extraordinary longevity. At forty, Cthulhu is stronger than ever and I am sure that some day, someone will be holding the 100th anniversary edition. Unless, of course, by that time Great Cthulhu has arisen from his ages-long slumber.." Read Andrew Logan Montgomery's Call of Cthulhu at 40 post in full on his blog here.

The Call of Cthulhu Starter Set is "the best starter set for any roleplaying game currently available" says Reviews from R'lyeh. And this month, to mark the game's 40th birthday, the PDF version of the Call of Cthulhu Starter Set is 40% off! Everything you need to play the world’s best roleplaying game of horror, mystery and investigation! Look at all you get for just $9.99 $5.99: Inside This 156 Page Download Package Book 1: Introduction and Alone Against The Flames—a solo introductory adventure, teaching you the basics of Call of Cthulhu as you play through a mystery. Book 2: Call of Cthulhu Starter Rules—the essential rules, everything needed for starting play. Book 3: Adventures—three starter adventures for your players to explore. Ready to Play Investigators—five ready to play game characters. Blank Investigator Sheets—ready for creating your own investigators. Player Handouts—a set of ready to use props. Adventures! The Call of Cthulhu Starter Set comes packed with four classic adventures for over twenty hours of game play. Alone Against The Flames Paper Chase Edge of Darkness Dead Man Stomp So what are you waiting for? Embrace the Horror today! Download your copy of the Call of Cthulhu Starter Set PDF from: $5.99 Chaosium.com (we'll deduct the cost of the PDF if you later decide to upgrade to the physical Call of Cthulhu Starter Set Box!) or $5.99 DriveThruRPG

Way back in 1981 Chaosium had a wild idea. Using the skill system first seen in RuneQuest, it could be possible to run a horror story in which investigators fought against the uncaring cosmic horror of the H.P. Lovecraft's fevered imagination, just like the story The Dunwich Horror. And so the game Call of Cthulhu was released upon the world! This month, October 2021, we invite you to celebrate the 40th Anniversary of Call of Cthulhu. Run a game in a game store, online, or even a night of changing it up with your home group. Maybe take a few hours to show players who haven't tried it yet, the fun (and insanity loss!) of a horror-based roleplaying game. We have created a helpful free guide to running such a game in PDF form! Which you can download from here: Call of Cthulhu 40th Anniversary event Also available at Itch.io. Here you can find our 40th Anniversary Game Organization Guide with tips on: Getting a game together Running an online game Running a game at a store or public venue Convincing your home game to try something new Resources for running a game for new players We also have a handy sign up sheet that you can post online or stick on a game store's cork board to recruit players: