This episode we’ve got Christopher Smith Adair in the guest chair to discuss sundry projects, including a newly released (to PDF) Pulp Cthulhu campaign, a scenario for Golden Goblin Press’s An Inner Darkness, and much more. This episode was recorded on June 6, 2019.

Yog-Sothoth.com is “going deep.” After 21 years, the site will now be available only by direct access to the 20,000+ members. In the announcement, founder Paul Maclean said the move would mean “we will have less of an issue with spammers and bots and more importantly it may also help foster a more “club-like” atmosphere (which remains open to all new members). We are far from the first to do this, but we’re probably one of the largest in what we cover. A natural concern is that by becoming part of the “Deep Web” we may miss potential members, however it’s become clear over the past year that this should not be the case. The most powerful form of promotion is word of mouth.”

Our own Jon Hook has a new adventure available on the Miskatonic Repository. It’s called “Spark of Life,” and it’s designed to be played with the Keeper and one player. He is coining a term for this style of game: “An Isolated Investigator Adventure.”

Mark Morrison is releasing on Drivethru RPG his second-ever scenario for Call of Cthulhu, called “The Saltwater Inheritance,” which was for a competition in White Dwarf Magazine around, and though it was a runner-up in the contest, the adventure never saw print.

We have wrapped up our first contest on the MUP Discord Server. The prize was a brand new copy of the Miskatonic University: Restricted Collection board game. Participants had to write a Lovecraftian or Cthulhueque haiku in the Contest_1 channel. There were a ton of great entries, so thank you to everyone who participated. The winner of the board game is… Tic! And his winning haiku goes like this…

The cold void yawns wide. Breaking my feeble mind on, Dread reality.

Jon was recently a guest on the amazing literary and gaming podcast, The Appendix N Book Club. This podcast is dedicated to reading all of the literature referenced by Gary Gygax in Appendix N of the Dungeon Master’s Guide, (old school AD&D). Jon was invited to read and speak about The Lurker at the Threshold, by August Derleth and H. P. Lovecraft, on Episode 48.

Want to check out the Discord server? Here an invite link: https://discord.gg/vNjEv9D

Thank you to Max for editing this episode!

Episode 2 of “The Journals of Laura Logan.” By the way, the reader, Kerrie TC, is available for voice-over work if anyone has leads, please send them to [email protected].

From Danial: I was thinking of this topic with regards to video games, which typically prevent you from killing NPCs, and in the ones that don’t, you’ll usually be killed in retaliation in pretty short order. The “You Died” scenario could be resolved in CoC with the flashback technique you guys mentioned, but perhaps we could take a page from the games that prevent you from doing bad things in the first place.  Say the guy wants to shoot the kid in the street. You could have an NPC run out screaming at them to stop, and the distraction then adds a Penalty Die to their shot. It’s not stopping them from doing it, but it’s making it a lot harder.

Christopher runs down a number of projects he’s embroiled with: Cold Fire Within – the Pulp campaign is now in the wild.

Arkham Gazette #4 – a scenario in Kingsport based details from a WH Pugmire story. Adair visited Marblehead while writing it and used some real-world inspiration.

“Dreams of Silk” for GGP in the Inner Darkness book – covering labor rights.

And “A Dread Gift of Flame,” a scenario set in Samoa that he is publishing with Stygian Fox for charity.

Also, a short-story collection that he is editing with a new small press, Stay Strange Publishing.

Check out the announcement for Too Many Eyes by Patrick Loveland.

Some other mentions during the discussion: Marblehead Museum, home of the J.O.J. Frost Gallery. Adair’s tribute to Wilum H. Pugmire. The announcement of the splitting of the Kingsport issue of the Arkham Gazette.