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Just how big is Massachusetts, anyway?


Aldaron

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9 minutes ago, André Roy said:

Sweet thank you, that's pretty handy. 

It's an idea for a small forgotten community about midway  between Dunwich and Arkham, between a small river and forested escarpment with a quarry where most of them work since the early 1800s.

How about Bolton? Lovecraft even used a Bolton in some of his stories. Population is about 5,000 today and there was a Lime Quarry that is on a river near a conservation area. They have a bunch of trails you can walk, and there are maps available online that you could use and adapt for CoC. Basically the whole area is so hilly that the terrain isn't tough to find.  The tough bit is the isolation. We have the 15th highest population crammed into the 44th largest state. 

9 minutes ago, André Roy said:

Old Megalith and cave system under the quarry are part of it too.

Pity you can't use downtown Fitchburg where there were six quarries around Rollstone Hill, that used to have this big rock on top that they moved,   or go out of your way to Beckett, where there is an abandoned quarries that's now owned by a group of locals. Both are ripe for Mythos stories.  

Chaos stalks my world, but she's a big girl and can take of herself.

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9 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

I can't swing an elder sign without hitting a Dunkin' Donuts now. I think there are at least a dozen in Worcester.

Exit 9 off Route 6 in South Dennis. Three within sight of each other. One full on each side of the road and a mini-store inside a gas station.

And on quarries, leaving aside where there actually were functioning quarries, I'm not sure how many places you couldn't put a marble quarry and have it be plausible to someone who isn't a geologist.

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10 hours ago, Numtini said:

And on quarries, leaving aside where there actually were functioning quarries, I'm not sure how many places you couldn't put a marble quarry and have it be plausible to someone who isn't a geologist

Actually, I wasn't even thinking of marble (or granite), I was thinking more either like for cement or just crushed stone.

Lots of possibilities is always good. And your right, I can pretty much put it anywhere we want and most people wont be the wiser.

Edited by André Roy
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6 hours ago, André Roy said:

Actually, I wasn't even thinking of marble (or granite), I was thinking more either like for cement or just crushed stone.

Oh, lots of those around. I didn't even bother to include them. WJ Graves has two sites along the Dunwich-Arkam route. In addition to the thematic nae, they also subdivided and sold off some of their land for houses (great way to hide some cultists, right). Check out their website. And there are quite a few construction companies too.  But I think many of them buy the stone from someone else. Say a company is putting in a marble floor in a government building and a slab drops from a crane or something and breaks. They collect the broken stone and sell it off to a crusher. 

6 hours ago, André Roy said:

Lot's of possibilities is always good. And your right, I can pretty much put it anywhere we want and most dpeople wont be the wiser.

Pretty much. Better still, if you pick a town in Mass. that you like and  just goggle it with  quarry or cement or crushed stone and you will probably get some hits. Back before we had the infrastructure to transport tons of rock, if you wanted stone, you had to get it locally. So there was probably a quarry or three in every town in New England. Its just that most were either "used up" or went out of business as things advanced. But there are still some small ones 

Chaos stalks my world, but she's a big girl and can take of herself.

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1922 Road map of Massachusetts if that is of any use.

https://www.loc.gov/item/76692306/

 

Something else to consider is the state of the roads and lighting in 1925. Road lighting would be rare outside of city limits and automobile headlights were about as effective as driving with a large cheap flashlight. Headlight bulbs had quite a short life expectancy measured in 10s of hours.

 

 

I had a much longer reply, but I'm going to move most of it to a new post.

 

 

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On 7/13/2018 at 1:31 PM, Atgxtg said:

Pretty much. Better still, if you pick a town in Mass. that you like and  just goggle it with  quarry or cement or crushed stone and you will probably get some hits. Back before we had the infrastructure to transport tons of rock, if you wanted stone, you had to get it locally. So there was probably a quarry or three in every town in New England. Its just that most were either "used up" or went out of business as things advanced. But there are still some small ones 

Thanks To Toadmaster's map of 1920's Massachusetts, I've decided to put Jameson's Creek Northwest of Dunstable, near the New-Hampshire's border. Now to flesh that little sucker of mine.

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2 hours ago, André Roy said:

That's something I didn,t know (not a native English speaker) and that's good to know.

Jameson's Brook it is than. :)

It's not so much an English thing as it is New England/Massachusetts. You hear "creek" more in the south and midwest. New England it's usually brook or river. We like to be a little weird.

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Actually, slightly tangential to this topic, I'm looking at starting some long-term prep for MoN (probably starting some time next year - I want to get proficient with a few one-shots first), and I'm wondering about the best way for the characters to travel from the USA to Peru. My instinct says a train to El Paso, change to a Mexican train at the border and down to Mexico City, then a bus to Acapulco, followed by a steamship to Lima. 

Am I missing something obvious with this? While there are great maps of the USA from that era, finding maps of other countries is not as easy.

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45 minutes ago, Numtini said:

It's not so much an English thing as it is New England/Massachusetts. You hear "creek" more in the south and midwest. New England it's usually brook or river. We like to be a little weird.

Oh I see. Better this way then for immersion purpose.

30 minutes ago, Aldaron said:

Am I missing something obvious with this? While there are great maps of the USA from that era, finding maps of other countries is not as easy.

You could do San Francisco to Panama City or Valparaiso (Chile)  by ship in the 1920s. And from there go to Lima. It would be simpler.

Or New York to Colon (Panama). Take the canal to Panana City and onto Lima.. 

Edited by André Roy
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On 7/15/2018 at 2:26 PM, Numtini said:

It's not so much an English thing as it is New England/Massachusetts. You hear "creek" more in the south and midwest. New England it's usually brook or river. We like to be a little weird.

 Agree on local usage, creek would be much more common place name in California. You see brook occasionally, but tends to be sort of a highfalutin word, more likely to be used for a swanky country club than a one time mining town.

 

 

On 7/15/2018 at 2:41 PM, Aldaron said:

Actually, slightly tangential to this topic, I'm looking at starting some long-term prep for MoN (probably starting some time next year - I want to get proficient with a few one-shots first), and I'm wondering about the best way for the characters to travel from the USA to Peru. My instinct says a train to El Paso, change to a Mexican train at the border and down to Mexico City, then a bus to Acapulco, followed by a steamship to Lima. 

Am I missing something obvious with this? While there are great maps of the USA from that era, finding maps of other countries is not as easy.

 

I think steam ship from San Francisco would be the most direct. 1920s Mexico was a pretty unstable place, and an overland route would cross through several small lightly developed nations. Tramp steamers were a common form of transportation into the 1950s. Figure an average speed of 10-12 mph, 4500 miles it would be a journey of 15-20 days. Taking a train through Central America would probably take longer and be more eventful. If money is tight they might be able to sign on as deck hands or even find a sailing ship making the run. Sail remained a viable means of commercial transport into the 1930s. Surprisingly the average speed of a sailing ship was about the same as a steam cargo ship and could be faster with a favorable wind. 

Edited by Toadmaster
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5 hours ago, Toadmaster said:

 You see brook occasionally, but tends to be sort of a highfalutin word, more likely to be used for a swanky country club than a one time mining town.

It can be. It depends on how "high profile" it is. If there are signs about such and such Brook, then yeah, there is probably a country club, historical site, or resort area nearby. If it's just a stream a few yards long that doesn't come up to your ankles, and that you could easily have missed, it could be the other type of New England brook.  They are actually one and the same. It's just that most people don't know or care about the names of the old brooks in out of the way places,or that have been covered over. When somebody decides to redevelop an area they find the name of the brook and (over)use it's name for recognition.  Some times they do it without any redevelopment. And it's not just for brooks.

That's how Water Street, Worcester,  suddenly became the "Blackstone Canal District" despite the fact that there is no canal, and the Blackstone (River)  was covered over years ago, and can't be seen in that area. 

 

Chaos stalks my world, but she's a big girl and can take of herself.

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18 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

It can be. It depends on how "high profile" it is. If there are signs about such and such Brook, then yeah, there is probably a country club, historical site, or resort area nearby. If it's just a stream a few yards long that doesn't come up to your ankles, and that you could easily have missed, it could be the other type of New England brook.  They are actually one and the same. It's just that most people don't know or care about the names of the old brooks in out of the way places,or that have been covered over. When somebody decides to redevelop an area they find the name of the brook and (over)use it's name for recognition.  Some times they do it without any redevelopment. And it's not just for brooks.

That's how Water Street, Worcester,  suddenly became the "Blackstone Canal District" despite the fact that there is no canal, and the Blackstone (River)  was covered over years ago, and can't be seen in that area. 

 

 

I was just commenting on the local dialect issue. I have little experience with the northeast, but out here creek is a more common place name.

By definition creek and brook are synonyms for a small flowing body of water, aka stream, rivulet, freshet, runnel. 😃

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1 hour ago, Toadmaster said:

I was just commenting on the local dialect issue. I have little experience with the northeast, but out here creek is a more common place name.

 

Sure, and you're quite correct. 

Chaos stalks my world, but she's a big girl and can take of herself.

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On ‎7‎/‎15‎/‎2018 at 5:41 PM, Aldaron said:

My instinct says a train to El Paso, change to a Mexican train at the border and down to Mexico City, then a bus to Acapulco, followed by a steamship to Lima. 

Ship from a US port, through the Panama Canal, then on to Lima.  

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On ‎7‎/‎18‎/‎2018 at 3:39 PM, Toadmaster said:

Agree on local usage, creek would be much more common place name in California. You see brook occasionally, but tends to be sort of a highfalutin word, more likely to be used for a swanky country club than a one time mining town.

Most are called rivers around us, e.g. the Parker River, the Ipswich River, the Little River in Haverhill.  However, just south in Boxford, MA, you can find Fish Brook and Mosquito Brook and in Topsfield there are Boston Brook and Nichols Brook.  What I haven't seen in New England is Creek or Fork, which are definitely in the Midwest and South.  

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On 7/9/2018 at 10:53 AM, Roko Joko said:

Overnight for 5 miles can happen, but it's less obvious nowadays since most of the warp nexus points are occupied by Dunkin' Donuts.

 

On 7/12/2018 at 8:23 PM, Atgxtg said:

I can't swing an elder sign without hitting a Dunkin' Donuts now. I think there are at least a dozen in Worcester.

Guys, I think we've missed something here.  It ain't the rock quarries that are the hotbeds of Mythos activity in the region.  It's the doughnut shops.  How better to hide your cultists in plain sight than to have them staff a ubiquitous franchise?

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30 minutes ago, seneschal said:

 

Guys, I think we've missed something here.  It ain't the rock quarries that are the hotbeds of Mythos activity in the region.  It's the doughnut shops.  How better to hide your cultists in plain sight than to have them staff a ubiquitous franchise?

Are they all cops, then?

Simon Phipp - Caldmore Chameleon - Wallowing in my elitism since 1982. Many Systems, One Family. Just a fanboy. 

www.soltakss.com/index.html

Jonstown Compendium author. Find my contributions here

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6 hours ago, Jeff said:

Well I know of at least a dozen Dunkin' Donuts here in Berlin.

The Ruhrgebiet isn't dunkin' at all. Then, there aren't any US bases here either and we are also shy of any seizable number of American ex-pats. That is most likely the answer. Don't think that you find any in Brandenburg either.

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27 minutes ago, Der Rote Baron said:

The Ruhrgebiet isn't dunkin' at all. Then, there aren't any US bases here either and we are also shy of any seizable number of American ex-pats. That is most likely the answer. Don't think that you find any in Brandenburg either.

If I recall there is a Dunkin' Donuts at the Essen Hauptbahnhof. And several in München and Hamburg. They are everywhere!

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3 hours ago, seneschal said:

Guys, I think we've missed something here.  It ain't the rock quarries that are the hotbeds of Mythos activity in the region.  It's the doughnut shops.  How better to hide your cultists in plain sight than to have them staff a ubiquitous franchise?

Makes sense. People can't all be going there for the donuts. I just goggled and discovered there are thirty six DD's in the city of Worcesterand if you draw lines to connect them you could get an elder sign. Now I'm scared.

I live near a Starbucks though, so Dagon might protect me-or at least help face the apocalypse properly caffeinated. Beware the Berliner, the unholiest of donuts.

 

3 hours ago, soltakss said:

Are they all cops, then?

No, it's just how they control them.

Chaos stalks my world, but she's a big girl and can take of herself.

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