The Dark

As an example of one of those rather more expensive guns, a 1900 catalog page for a Lancaster 4-barrel pepperbox pistol in .455 centerfire has a price of 8 pounds for the basic pistol, with 11/- extra for nickel plating, a price of 9.1.0 for an engraved pistol (10/- more for nickel plating), and a stunning 18.0.0 price for a presentation-grade pistol that was electro gilt with ivory stock. Ball rounds were 6/6 per 100, while buckshot (the Lancaster had oval rifling and could fire shot rounds) were 8/- per 100.

As an aside, I have a digitized copy of Francis Bannerman's 1903 catalog, and one of the items listed for sale to anyone who'd buy them was a half-dozen Gatling guns "shooting the standard government center fire cartridge" (which would be .50-70 in this case). There were also a pair of 100-pdr Parrott rifles from the Civil War for $1250 each, with shot and shell available at $6 per round. The early 1900s were wild with surplus arms. With regards to double-barrels being more common than pump shotguns, my impression is a lot of that was cost. The 1922 Sears catalog had double-barrel 12-gauge shotguns at price from $18.90 to $46.00 (with the high-end being A.H. Fox and L.C. Smith). A Winchester 1897 was $42.50, a Remington 10A was $60.92, a Remington 11A was $75.50 to $86.83 depending on options, and a Stevens 520 was $47.50. Single-barrels were even cheaper than doubles, at $8.45 to $11.40 for a 12-gauge, but didn't have the quick follow-up shot.

It may also be worth looking at firearms laws for the time and place of the adventure. Particularly if they're centered around Lovecraft Country in the 1920s, Massachusetts' laws are going to require investigators to associate with authorities in order to carry firearms other than rifles or full-length shotguns. Chapter 172 of the Acts of 1906 required authorization from a justice, mayor, or board of police for a person to carry a loaded handgun (either semi-automatic or revolver). Carrying one without a permit was punishable by a year in jail. In 1911, "loaded" was removed, so carrying any handgun without a permit was worth a year in jail. In 1922, "unnaturalized foreign born" were legally ineligible for permits. By 1927, the penalty for possession of a handgun, machine gun, or sawed-off shotgun, loaded or unloaded, without a permit could be as high as five years in state prison.

This is going to be a bit of a different request than usual, since it's about the past ownership of books rather than the game itself. I recently acquired a pair of books inscribed by Greg Stafford, one being a copy of Knights Adventurous and the other a copy of The Boy King. The former is simply inscribed "To Jon - Greg Stafford." The latter has an inscription that might give a better clue as to the previous ownership. It's inscribed "To Jon - The Champion at Origins '91 Greg Stafford." Not having been at that Origins, I don't know who or what it's referring to. Is there anyone on the boards that could shed some light on who owned these books before me?

I don't think anyone's put forth a solid hypothesis on when it left secular use, but for ecclesiastical use, somewhere around 800CE, based on the most recent known Gothic Bibles from the Iberian peninsula. It started to decline after the conversion of Visigothic Spain from Arianism to Catholicism in the late 500s.

This is good news. Given the prices on the secondary market for prior editions' Lovecraft Country sourcebooks, new editions of those will be very welcome for hardcopy aficionados.

A bit more overt with magic (and probably hard to find now) would be Pinnacle's Weird War II, which was a series of D20 sourcebooks detailing an occult World War 2. The main book is Blood on the Rhine, with Africa covered in Afrika Korpse, aerial monsters in Dead From Above, the Normandy invasion in Hell in the Hedgerows, the Eastern Front in Hell Freezes Over, and the Pacific Theater in Land of the Rising Dead. All of its magic is based on runes instead of old musty tomes, but that can either be ignored or integrated into a CoC campaign. There's also a Savage Worlds version, and I'm not sure how much of the D20 series it repeats or what's new in it.

They also did World of Tales of the Crypt and World of Species for Masterbook in the licensed horror genre. According to Lumley's website, there were four supplements for World of Necroscope: Deadspeak Dossier, E-Branch Guide to Psionics, Wamphyri, and Operation: Nightside. One I've only heard about but never seen a copy of was Leading Edge Games' RPG for Bram Stoker's Dracula.