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Some amazing feedback and comments on one attendee’s day at Glorantha Games. Thanks to Che Webster for recording this (we had no idea, so this was a fantastic surprise). https://anchor.fm/rpgrescue/episodes/GMs-Journal-7-Glorantha-Games-2019-e3jput/a-aci0um

This is a better image of the trophy.

This was the top prize in the charity raffle at Glorantha Games this last weekend on Saturday, March 30th, 2019 here in Birmingham. Made by Niamh Brewer and won by Jane Williams (who provided the photos).

With just two days to go, there are still spaces left for Glorantha Games, the one-day gaming event in Birmingham dedicated to RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha, HeroQuest, and 13th Age Glorantha. Suitable for both dedicated Gloranthaphiles and those new to the world of Glorantha, we are running twenty games and a charity raffle with all monies going to Shelter. Now with added helmet (and some really great raffle prizes). https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/gloranthan-games-2019-tickets-51814039186

It is where Forbidden Planet used to be. Forbidden Planet moved three or four years ago to much nicer premises. Anyway, register on the Event Brite page, pay on the day, and we will have announcements with regard to the games available next month.

Glorantha Games 2019 is just two months away. Taking place on Saturday, March 30th, 2019, this is a one-day roleplaying convention dedicated to the world of Glorantha. We currently have games of HeroQuest Glorantha, 13th Age Glorantha, and of course, RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha, on offer on the day, all set in the fantastical, myth-infused world created by Greg Stafford. Many will be run by the RuneMasters, the team of Game Masters who debuted at Continuum 2018. Held at the Geek Retreat cafe in Birmingham city centre, less than ten minutes’ walk from each of Birmingham’s three train stations, the event starts at 10 am and finishes at 8:00 pm and will include two four-hour gaming sessions, a charity raffle with some great prizes (all proceeds will go to Shelter), and good company. We are looking for Glorantha-themed games, but most of all, we are looking players! Please sign up to one of our groups to keep up to date about the event and if you are planning to attend please register on the Event Brite page. Event Brite Page: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/gloranthan-games-2019-tickets-51814039186 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1131792383646493/ MeWe: https://mewe.com/group/5bfd1eabe03c6911de99f1c6 Venue: Geek Retreat gaming café (come play, order lunch, and have it delivered to your table) Just search for Glorantha Games 2019.

I am hoping that given my players' grumbling about their crappy accommodation (to borrow their phrase), they will take the hint about the rain.

In the middle of day three, Robert Blaine abandons the geologists to be taken by the mi-go in the midst of a deluge, going off to see if the anthropologists have arrived back at the farmhouse. What happens if the investigators say no? Further what excuse does he give for not returning? I am planning to say that he got lost and then was picked up by the sheriff on the way to pick up the anthropologists at the farmhouse.

The original can be found here.

Mike, Thank you. That helps. Doctor Perry has agreed to take the Investigator out to where Boyd's body was found after lunchtime on Day 3. Fortunately the weather will have taken a turn for the worse by then and he will not think it safe to drive anywhere.

On the second day, both Constance Lynch (the Anthropology student) and Ephraim Patterson (the Classics students) were shocked to learn that they had shared the same dream. Both wondered once more about the flowerbed behind the farmhouse and Ephraim dragged the botany student, Louis Gibbons, to examine the flowerbed. He said that there was nothing remarkable about the flowerbed, except that it was obviously well-tended. After breakfast, Everett Smith is shocked by the strange dagger-wielding rat-thing’s stabbing of the hare out behind the farm. He does not know what to make of it and is slightly shocked, though none of his fellow students spots his unnerved state. Out on the survey, the geologists have a quiet day. Everett Smith finds an Indian arrow head and Orson Swanson attempts to persuade Joe Harlow to sell him some moonshine. Joe turns him down, saying that Sherriff Spenser takes a dim view of drinking and moonshine. Especially in young folks… Meanwhile, the anthropologists begin their interviews, hearing tales of devils, a missing Braithwaite girl, a strange thing in the river, and more. At lunchtime, they drive into Cobb’s Corners and get lunch at Jim’s Grill. Afterwards, Ephraim Patterson goes back to the offices of the Cobb’s Corners Gazette where the editor, Richard Wendell, has a copy of the previous year’s newspaper for him. Patterson is disappointed at the lack of information in the article, but promises to return for an interview with Wendell. Wanting more information about the death of his cousin, Boyd Patterson, Ephraim visits Doctor Perry. The doctor seems pleased to see him and when asked, explains that Boyd suffered from injuries consistent with those caused by a fall or slip. Ephraim arranges with the Doctor to take him out to where Boyd was found (Note: this unfortunately will not happen due to the forthcoming poor weather). With Boyd having abandoned Jason Trent to read in Jim’s Grill, Constance Lynch decides to walk out with William Noakes (a possibly wealthy suitor in her eyes) and arm-in-arm they walk up towards the wharves on the river. They are admonished by Reverend Wilson for being too familiar, but continue on undaunted. On their way back towards Jim’s Grill, Noakes suggests that they visit the library where they find a clutter of books, Mable Carruthers, a helpful librarian, and her surly niece, Amanda Wells. Constance and William are surprised to learn that there are no books on folklore or occult in the library, but decide to have a look anyway. Unfortunately Constance knocks over a stack of books, including one that catches her with a glancing blow (1 Hit Point after failing the Library Use roll and critically failing the Luck roll). As William helps her up, she comments about the clumsiness of youth and their accidents, she spots that Amanda seems to start her Constance’s comment (a successful Psychology roll). The teenager is less than forthcoming when Constance follows up her comment, merely replying with a dismissive grunt. Back in Jim’s Grill, Ephraim sees Jason Trent stuffing a book back into his pocket, but not what it was… When questioned, Trent explains that he is simply reading a history book about Massachusetts. More tales of folklore are gathered in the afternoon and then everyone returns to the Maclearan Farm where they share their experiences. Still concerned about the flowerbed, the investigators take another look not long before they retire for the night. When asked again, Louis Gibbons confirms that there is nothing odd about the flowerbed and identifies the flowers as pansies, daisies, and others. Both Everett Smith and Orson Swanson spot a boot print in the earth and think it is probably belongs to that of a man given its size and depth, but cannot determine if it is a left or right boot. Intrigued at the thought that there might be a body under the flowerbed, Swanson, as the palaeontologist, decides to take a sample of the earth from the flowerbed and digs down. Unfortunately he fails to find anything (he critically failed a Luck roll!). Nobody gets a comfortable night and Everett Smith hears a buzzing at some point in his sleep... Both Constance Lynch and Ephraim Patterson awake in the morning to find that they have had the same dream as each other, and this morning they find out that Orson Swanson has also had the same dream! [Played Thursday, May 19th, 2016]

My players appreciated having access to the newspaper cutting, but grumbled that it did not contain anything that they did not already know. They thought that the article about the 'Moose Count' was hilarious.

I am having to work very hard to avoid this coming to pass. One Investigator, a cousin to the late Boyd Patterson, is determined to get more information on his death and that includes visiting the location where his body was found.

No, rather that the on-line newspaper generator that I used did not have the capacity to alter the date. Whilst another I could have used did have that capacity, it did not have room enough to post the whole article.

Jon, those are both great. Thank you.

Unfortunately they come as standard with the article text that you enter. I plan to cut those parts out.

I could say that the getting Jeffrey John's wrong name was intentional, but that would not be true. Put it down as Welland's fervor to get a fantastic story out.

STUDENT DEATH HORROR – One student dead, two missing In a terrible tragedy that has shocked Cobb’s Corners, the body of Boyd Patterson, a student from Miskatonic University in Arkham, Massachusetts, was found dead in the mountains on Wednesday, 21st August. The fate of two fellow students, Daphne Devine and Jeffrey John, remains unknown. The students, visiting Cobb’s Corners on a second field trip this summer, were last seen the previous weekend. Boyd’s body was discovered by Mr. Bret Kramer, a resident of Waltham, Massachusetts, who was on a walking holiday with his wife. “I was rightly shocked to the see the young man lying at the base of the hills, all twisted up like that.” Mrs Kramer was unavailable for comment. During the few days they were in town, both Boyd Patterson and Jeffrey John were seen in the company of Daphne Devine. Mrs. Ann Haggerty, whose husband is the proprietor of Jim’s Grill, said that all three were in high spirits when they ate at the diner. Could these high spirits have led to the disaster? Could there have been a falling out between the three? Sheriff Dan Spenser refused all attempts at an interview by this paper, but sources suggest that he believes the cause of death to be foolish tomfoolery upon the part of the students. The Sheriff is known to have a low tolerance of city folks and their intemperate natures. He has launched search parties to look for the missing students, Daphne Devine and Jeffrey John, but so far without success. The Cobb’s Corners Gazette has approached Mr. and Mrs. Hiram Patterson but both declined to make a statement. This paper wishes to extend its deepest sympathies to the Patterson family and its sincerest hopes to the Devine and John families respectively that their daughter and son will be found safe and sound. ======================================================================== Since the Cobb's Corners Gazette would have reported on the death of Boyd Patterson, I decided that an actual copy of the article was needed. I have included a PDF of the actual handout (I could not create anything better in the time I had) as well as the text that people can copy and adapt. newspaper.pdf

Mike, it was an option, but the group are avowed users of Apple electronics and loath Adobe products with a passion. I even gave them the choice of pre-generated characters, but they all wanted to create their own. Which meant that they all busy using the calculators on their iPhones...

For my playing group, A Time to Harvest will be their introduction to Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition. Some have played earlier iterations, but not in some while. So our first session (April 14th, 2016) involved their creating their investigators and this was the source of their first complaint—too much mathematics! Nevertheless, they persevered and even wanted to roll up their names and background elements from the tables in the Call of Cthulhu Handbook. In particular, the Classics student shares the same surname as Boyd Patterson, one of the missing students. So they became cousins. The Palaeontology student managed to roll up the name ‘Orson Swanson’, so had to come from Pawnee, Indiana. In the second session (April 28th, 2016) , the four managed to make their way through Day One of the first part of A Time to Harvest in just single two-and-a-half hours. Their investigators consisted of Constance Lynch (a socialite from New Orleans who has been sent to Miskatonic to avoid a scandal and is going on the field trip because she has missed so many classes—I had to advise her player that as a student anthropologist she should have points in the Anthropology skill), Orson Swanson (paleontologist from Pawnee, Indiana who likes cars, boxing, and booze and is really going on the field trip for the moonshine), Ephraim Patterson (Classics student who wants to know what happened to his cousin), and Everett Smith (Metallurgy student whose family owns a pawnbrokers in Arkham). They all rolled randomly on the names table in the Call of Cthulhu Handbook and this is what set up Ephraim’s relationship with the dead Boyd Patterson. I also linked John Jeffrey to Constance Lynch with a romantic relationship. From the start there were lots of questions and they were suspicious of everything. Why are anthropologists and geologists going on a field trip together? Why are we staying in this crappy dump of a farmhouse? (They were really, really unhappy with the accommodation!) Who owns this farmhouse? Are we squatting? (I could not remember who did and in the end, I simply told them that it was not important and to move on… I did tell them afterwards when I was telling them the tale of poor Jim Maclearan that it was actually owned by the bank.) Why isn’t anyone telling us what happened to Maclearan, what are they hiding from us? (Eventually Deputy Cutter did tell them later that day, but up until that point everyone just said that it was sad story and did not want to say any more.) In the meantime, Ephraim Patterson’s player was determined to get all of the information he could about his late cousin and badgered Robert Blaine quite a lot, whilst in comparison, Constance Lynch was resolutely uninterested in the fate of John Jeffrey. They noted the presence of the working cannon in the centre of Cobb's Corners and according to the maxim of Chekhov's Gun this meant that they would get to fire it at some point. After their encounter with the Sherrif, Orson Swanson's player wanted to know if the Sherrif's Office was in shooting sight and distance... Everett's player has already suggested that there is a body under the flower bed. Nevertheless, I managed to get them to the end of the first day and through the night and the first of the scenario’s various dreams. Having something odd happen and their having to make their first SAN rolls seemed to get their interest. I hope that it will be enough to carry on this week.

Not only is there no reason to take dynamite on the field trip, neither Robert Blaine or either of the professors involved would allow it. Certainly Professor Learmont woud d say no as I would expect that handling demolitions would at least be supervised by teaching staff, even if demolitions is taught at Miskatonic University. There is also the possibility that you might need a permit and whilst Professor Learmont might be able to get one, I doubt that any student could.

My players being my players, I am pretty sure that once they start talking to people and especially when they begin the interviews will want to know who they are talking to. Which means that the various quotes accorded to the locals in part 1 will need names. So I did a quick search on New England surnames and added some Christian names from the Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition Handbook. Female Names: Marguerite, Clarissa, Wilhelmina, Ivy, Cecilia, Constance, Frieda, Ursula, Violet, Adele, Joyce Male Names: Moses, Ernest, Zadok, Leland, Dayton, Elijah, Howard, Sidney, Walter, Aaron, Manford Surnames: Bicknell, Brewster, Cloyes, Eames, Fales, Hewes, Minthorn, Norkutt, Rouse, Shattuck, Topley

The other scenario by David Hargrave is 'The Dark Carnival'. It appears in Curse of the Cthonians (reviewed here).

Rather than start my own thread, I thought it best to add my own player handouts here. The first is of the expedition members and what the investigators know of them. Harrold-Learmont Vermont Fieldtrip 1930.docx

These are all great, thank you. That said, I cannot use the portraits of members of the Rat Pack. My players would think it absurd and it would mean that they would refer to members of the Rat Pack rather than the students. I know my players... I had enough problems explaining to them that the female sports teams at Miskatonic University are called the Lady Badgers.