SentinelHillPress

There’s was also ‘Spirits and Dreams of the Viking Age’ (#0390)

Additionally there were Dark Ages scenarios in Halloween Horrors 2 (0333), Strange Tales of Dread and Wonder (0329), Bride of Halloween Horror (0364), and Ripples from Carcosa (0312 - later a regular release)

The time again has come to keep Festival and it seem appropriate to have a special Yule-time sale on issue 4 of the Arkham Gazette, our Kingsport issue.

For the next 48 hours we’ve slashed the price -$9.99 for PDF; $12.99 for print & PDF (regularly $14.99 and $19.99 respectively).

This issue is all about the misty village of Kingsport, from the summit of Kingsport Head, through its crooked lanes, down to the dockside… and into the darkness in the waters beyond. This issue’s articles cover Kingsport’s whispered ghostly legends, plumbs the secrets of De Vermis Mysteriis, uncover hidden truths about the Hall School and Neil’s Curiosity Shop, and much, much more… including a scenario by Kingsport: City in the Mist author Kevin Ross.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/240767/The-Arkham-Gazette-4

Today only Sentinel Hill Press is offering as a special Halloween Treat issue 2 of the Arkham Gazette.

Issue 2 is all about Innsmouth, with articles about the town's burying grounds, the secrets of Innsmouth gold, a guide to the Ponape Scripture, a full scenario, and more. There's even an index to all scenarios set in Innsmouth & to all Deep Ones scenarios.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/browse.php?discount=9cdd0259dc

One of the challenges in creating such a list - and I've helped with the one on Yog-Sothoth.com - is that you usually need someone familiar with the local community's gaming community, many of which were rather small in the 80s and 90s. The difference between "fanzine" and "magazine" are also very permeable, so you can have the first issue of Dagon or the Unspeakable Oath, being literally run off at a copy shop while the later issues had regular print runs. Most RPG magazines, especially those dedicated to a single game like Call of Cthulhu, only had a handful of issues with very small (a few hundred at most) print runs.

As part of my research (with the help of several much-appreciated collaborators) for an update/expansion of our guide to Miskatonic Country scenarios, I can add two more magazine to that list above (which I'll go do to that wiki after I post this):

• Grey Ooze (Sweedish; 1991-?); at least one scenario
• Role & Roll (Japanese; 2003-present); multiple scenarios. Here's a blog post discussing one sample issue - https://entropicdreams.com/2018/07/10/role-and-roll-magazine/\

One quick note - that list is of "Cthulhu" magazines. Most are RPG but a few are just for fiction (Weird Tales, for example).

If I might editorialize for a second, I'd love to see more Call of Cthulhu fanzines, especially something dedicated to a particular era or location. If someone has a real passion for Cthulhu by Gaslight, or Down Darker Trails, or Pulp Cthulhu (for example), I think something like a fanzine is a great way to build up a community of like-minded people, which in turn adds more resources for people who want to run a game of that sort, hopefully creating a virtuous cycle.

Sure. We usually put together a corrections list for whenever an issue is updated. Message me here or email them to ArkhamGazetteMagazine@gmail.com 

i hope you enjoyed the issue. 

Now available in print as well. POD and print/PDF combo for $19.99 (US). 

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/240767/The-Arkham-Gazette-4

Then beyond the hill’s crest I saw Kingsport outspread frostily in the gloaming; snowy Kingsport with its ancient vanes and steeples, ridgepoles and chimney-pots, wharves and small bridges, willow-trees and graveyards; endless labyrinths of steep, narrow, crooked streets, and dizzy church-crowned central peak that time durst not touch; ceaseless mazes of colonial houses piled and scattered at all angles and levels like a child’s disordered blocks... 

Welcome to Kingsport! Our long-promised fourth full issue, which we have dubbed "Kingsport: Dreams" has arrived at last. Within these pages we explore some of the mysteries of this fog-draped sleepy village of legend. From the wave-lapped rocks of Pilot Island, to the barnacle-crusted pilings of the dockside, through the crooked lanes and alleys, and spiraling up to the summit of Kingsport Head, Kingsport beckons you.

This issue includes the following thirteen articles:

• Locations in Greater Kingsport: New places to explore in Kingsport, drawn from earlier scenarios and the minds of our writers.
• Hooper's Pond and the Old Brick Powderhouse: Two strange spots west of Kingsport, where odd things have been seen.
• The Hall School: Only girls from the finest families in the Miskatonic Valley attend this boarding school, like noted alumna Miss Asenath Waite...
• Neil's Curiosity Shop and Other Oddities: The collection (and collector) of Kingsport's strangest tourist attraction is examined.
• Kingsport Curios: Seven strange artifacts one might find in Kingsport, from a ship in a bottle to a collection of prothetic hands.
• 13 Kingsport Ghosts: An extended prop document, exploring the many ghost stories of Kingsport, with more scenario hooks than you can shake a harpoon at.
• Alton Blackington: A historical journalist, photographer, and storyteller, presented as an NPC for your game.
• Franklin Waite Price: A fictional folk-artist whose favorite subject is Kingsport's past, descibed as an NPC.
• De Vermiis Mysteris: A deep-dive into Robert Bloch's most famed Cthulhu Mythos creation, the nightmarish tome written by the wizard Ludwig Prinn.
• Visions from Yaddith: An unearthly book of poems, as created by Lin Carter, that laments the doom of an alien world.
• Dr. Goddard's Rocket Test: Modern science is coming to Kingsport; this scene allows your investigators to play a role in the famed researcher's latest attempts in rocketry.
• Bones of Contention: A scenario of secrets long buried, from the mind of the author of Kingsport: the City in the Mists, himself Kevin Ross.
• A Kingsport Bibliography: For Keepers who want to explore the stories behind the setting; an annotated list of every Cthulhu Mythos story that includes Kingsport and what details (if any) it provides about the town.

`120 pages, $14.99 PDF. POD available soon.

On 11/28/2021 at 3:05 PM, rsanford said:

My Russian wife is a go for all things Soviet. I will check out Prisoner’s Dilemma!

If I might recommend then "Machine Tractor Station Kharkov-37". Technically it is set at the end of the winter of 1933, but I can't imagine that's a deal breaker.  Here's a very recent actual play of it (4 1-hour segments released so far) - - https://www.apocalypseplayers.com/e/machine-tractor-station-kharkov-37-ep-01-the-rabbit/

Even if you’ve not read his stories, he has been posting (on Twitter) real-life (?) strange stories every day of October. Great ideals for spooky moments - 

The New England regional map inset (page 2 of map pack) showing distances omits MA-2 (formerly NE-7) and/or the Aylesbury Pike which would be the likelier route between Arkham & Brattleboro/Cobb’s Corners. Distance is about 120 miles. 

“The Queen of Night” in Arkham Gazette 3 is a very open-structured scenario, though it is also about Arkham witches. Otherwise “The Bosworth House” in issue 1 might fit the bill. 
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/browse/pub/7573/Sentinel-Hill-Press

3 hours ago, MOB said:

 

Cthulhu Britannica was produced under license from Chaosium from 2009-2017. Cubicle 7 released twelve titles that explored the Cthulhu Mythos in the British Isles. 

The World War Cthulhu line was also published under license, from 2013 - 2017. Eight titles were released focussing on the Cthulhu Mythos in conflicts of the 20th Century including World War 2 and the Cold War.

 

I am very glad that these worthy books won't be lost only to collectors and completists.

But speaking as one of those types however... are you including some of the ephemera like the Cards from the Smoke and the Journal of Neve Selcibuc in your count of "Britannica" books? Even with those I can only get to eleven titles (unless the World War Cthulhu: London guidebook is included)

• Cthulhu Britannica
• Avalon: the County of Somerset
• Shadows Over Scotland
• Ballad of Bass Rock (PDF only)
• Cthulhu Britannica: Folklore
• Cthulhu Britannica: London
• Cards from the Smoke (Cards)
• CB: London - The Journal of Neve Selcibuc
• CB: London - The Journal of Reginald Campbell Thompson
• CB: London - Postcards
• The Curse of Nineveh

Also, while I realized you probably cannot say, is there any chance manuscripts for some of their announced-but-never-published books (like guides to Liverpool, Nottingham, and Oxford/Cambridge or an Elizabethan era sourcebook) were included?

As discussed in Arkham Gazette 2 (and the Keeper’s Guide to Miskatonic Country Scenarios), “Children of the Deep” was never much more than a book outline, cancelled during the post-Magic bust in the late 90s. Fred Behrendt, the author, has no plans to return to the project. 
 

Many works of fiction have examined a post-Raid Innsmouth but nothing for CoC. The Delta Green RPG has offered their take on it, focusing more on the imprisoned inhabitants rather than the town. 

As some who, very fortunately, has a pretty good collection of older CoC books, I'd love to see some genuine rarities included in this reprint drive - for example Australia's Cthulhu Conglomerate produced some great tournament scenarios in the mid 80s to early 90s (a few of which, like "Taterdamalion" were published in Chaosium books). I've only managed to ever pick up one and I've looked (though I found a few outside my budget). On the plus side, most of the people involved are still around (and like Mark Morrison, still making things for Call of Cthulhu).

There was even a list of them in Dagon #25

• Crack'd and Crook'd Manse [already in Mansions of Madness]
• Plague Dogs
• The Bride of Abhoth
• Black as Coal [published in an Australian gaming magazine]
• The Dark Continent
• Haitian Horror [published in Australian gaming magazine]
• Better Dead
• His Master's Voice
• Abhoth Omnipotens
• In Memory Yet Green
• Who Mourns for Adonis?
• Untimely Ripped

Plus a few more from after that article was published...

• Tatterdamalion [published in Fatal Experiments]
• The Devil's Children [published by Pagan Publishing]
• Persons Unknown
• The Secret of Smuggler's Cove

3 hours ago, glassneedles said:

Is one of those Gaslight books the one with the weird shark like thing on the cover? I wouldn't say no to more of Gaslights or Dreamlands to support those eventual lines but are there only 2 Gaslights and 1 Dreamlands supplements of note? What about anything at all for Dark Ages that could be reprinted?

The "weird shark thing" covered book is Dark Designs, which was a 3-scenario collection for Gaslight (that is a

by the way.)

There was one other regular release Gaslight scenario collect - Sacraments of Evil - that had six scenarios.  There are a scattering of Gaslight scenarios in others books (most recently in Nameless Horrors, which had 2 I believe) plus licensee materials like The Golden Dawn (very very unlikely to ever be reprinted) and several projects from Stygian Fox (Hudson and Brand, several stand alone scenarios), and a handful of magazine scenarios. Fan-materials add more scenarios, either in older MULA monographs or more recently for the Miskatonic Repository. There was even an all Gaslight issue of the fanzine The Whisperer.

Cthulhu Dark Ages came out during a period of very few products being released in any given year by Chaosium (and the 1st edition was a translation of a German book called 1000AD) so there weren't any regular releases for CDA. Instead there were some monographs (sourcebooks like The Abbey), a couple scenario collections (all Viking-related I think), and a scattering of individual scenarios in monographs and magazines - first in Worlds of Cthulhu and then again more recently in Bayt al Azif. There are only one or two Misk Rep. Dark Ages releases.

For the past several days I have tried several times to reply to a private message on the site or to send a new one. I can compose a message (and fortunately they are still autosaved) but when I hit send nothing happens. This is also true of newly created messages. I have tried this on my desktop computer and using a smart phone.

UPDATE - Another user sent me a message successfully and, for reasons beyond my ken, I was able to finally reply to other messages again.  Thanks!

The Dagon of Innsmouth ≠ the Canaanite Dagon. It was more a New England Puritan  shorthand for “Paganism” (in the sense of not being Christian, not the Gardnerian Wiccan variations).
 

See - https://sentinelhillpress.com/2015/10/23/october-ganza-day-23-dagon-in-new-england/

(or issue 2 of the Arkham Gazette for a revised and expanded take.)

One thing to remember is that contemporary ideas of Hastur, with the King in Yellow being an avatar of that being, has a complicated evolution

• Chambers references Hastur as a place or a character in some of his stories mentioning the King in Yellow (Hastur being first mentioned by Ambrose Bierce)
• Lovecraft reads Chambers and name-drops Hastur and the Yellow Sign in "The Whisperer in Darkness" and a few other places
• August Derleth, trying to create his own Cthulhu Mythos god, latches onto Hastur and makes it a rival of Cthulhu. Derleth often blurs the line between his fiction and Lovecraft's, creating the impression that some of Derleth's ideas are Lovecraft's.
• Call of Cthulhu writers weave these elements together so we have both the creepy play of Chambers and the squishy octopus/corpse thing (we get the "don't say Hastur 3 times or it appears" meme from AD&D by the way)
• John Tynes rolls back most of the Derlethian elements in his article "Road to Hali" (as mentioned above) and later Delta Green products build off this. He describes the King in Yellow as being personification of Entropy.
• True Detective (season 1) sparks an expanding interest in all things King in Yellow (as part of a general rise in informational and memetic horror in genre fiction and related hobbies), so we get KiY-like horrors such as The Hanged King in the shared-SCP Foundation.

So you can have three different versions of the same horror in Call of Cthulhu (and related games) - the very Derlethian horrors of "The Evil Stars" (in Cthulhu Now), the hybrid King in Yellow with Derlethian elements of The Tatters of the King campaign, or the "there's no such thing as Hastur" tone of the Delta Green campaign Impossible Landscapes. All start with much of the same inspiration but have very different interpretations

While @krossknows far better, I can add some information about Escape from Innsmouth 

It was the only “core” Lovecraft Country book that wasn’t updated in the d20 reprints (“HP Lovecraft’s...”) from 2003. Instead its second edition was in 1997(? Working from memory here). That 2nd edition includes a new raid objective - the Marsh Refinery - as well as another scenario by Kevin Ross, “The Crawford Inheritance”. I think the 2nd ed lacks the fine fold-out map but that might just be my used copy. 

The Raid mega-scenario was divided into sections, each with a different author. I may have misunderstood your comments, but they were not meant to be 1-on-1 scenarios between a Keeper and one investigator; instead, the regular investigators are divided between raiding parties. Anyone whose investigator is not in that party takes on other raiders - Marines or Federal Agents. I assume this was run as a convention event at some point, but don’t for certain know. 

Here is the list - last updated April 30 - for all of the products submitted: https://ennie-awards.com/2021-submissions/

They only have cross-sections but this site has just about every other detail about U-boats one might need. 
 

https://www.uboat.net/wwi/

I think it is of similar quality to BB1; some of the scenarios are excellent, and almost all are adequate and provide a fun emulation of various horror genres. Wasn’t a 3rd volume in the works?

58 minutes ago, stadi said:

The 80s is definitely more modern than the 20s 🙂 And as I was born in the 80s, I can relate at least from stories. And also don't forget Stranger Things and a lot of other TV shows with an 80s setting the last couple of years...

Happy to cater to your nostalgia:)

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/220315/The-Dare

13 hours ago, Spence said:

Never heard of this one and it does not seem to exist on Chaosiums website.

Where can I find it?

It is out of print and you’d have to find a copy on eBay or another secondary retailer. 

Uttati Asfet (set in 1991) is available on DriveThru - https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/1656/Utatti-Asfet

A Resction of Time (a two part short modern campaign) is likewise there https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/1656/Utatti-Asfet

Finally, Unseen Masters (it won a Stoker award!) is there too: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/82500/Unseen-Masters

On 1/24/2021 at 12:33 PM, Tranquillitas Ordinis said:

Finally, may I ask you, representing devoted and thirsty fans of Deep Ones, whether Escape from Innsmouth was put in one of the three "categories" ("let it eternal lie", "make it available POD", "wait for it to be updated")?

Edit: I think I found my answer here, apologize for trouble.

 

It's not Escape from Innsmouth, but you may find our list of Deep One scenarios (and guide to all Innsmouth-set scenarios) from Arkham Gazette #2 of interest. It covered everything I could find as of time of publication in 2018. The whole issue is about Innsmouth and related topics, so ideally there would be some other articles of interest too.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/172264/The-Arkham-Gazette-2