Miskatonic University Podcast MUP 192 – Classic Monster Mash!
Campus Crier
The Campus Crier is where we keep all the mythos related news and info for the podcast, this episode was recorded on August 16, 2021.
I want to personally congratulate each of the Alumni of the Storytelling Collective’s Write Your First Adventure Workshop last month. The market has been flooded with over 50+ titles on the MR, Chaosium’s Community Creator Content hub. Ya’ll, I’m so proud of each and every one of you. These scenarios look amazing, the cover arts are BOSS, the Miskatonic Repository Creator’s Circle is buzzing, you’re being featured in Chaosium newsletters, and you’re making your first sales. I’m just– I’m just so proud of you guys. Congrats! Head over to the Miskatonic Repository and make someone’s day by checking out their newest creations!
Annnd speaking of the Miskatonic Repository, Miskatonic Repository Con GM Signups just opened up! This virtual con will be hosted October 15th – October 17th. We have 3 awesome panels and over 16 events already submitted! So, come play some 7th Edition Call of Cthulhu with us! A link to the TTE will be in the show notes… and you can email MisktatonicRepositoryCon@gmail.com to get in touch!
Innsmouth The Missing Child: A Gamebook is a choose your own adventure styled solo game book where you are an investigator brought in to find the whereabouts of a missing child amongst the odd and terrible inhabitants of Innsmouth. It has funded with $23k of a $1300 goal and still has 23 days left at the time of recording. The art looks sparse, but that’s what I would expect from a product of this type. You can get a PDF for as little as $9 and a physical starting at $17. Overall it looks pretty neat, and I’m trying to not back it.
Free League has another Kickstarter out for two new products in their Forbidden Lands line, this time a bestiary of sorts called Forbidden Lands: Book of Beasts and a campaign called The Blood March. As we have come to expect from Free League, the art on display is absolutely gorgeous. And this seems to be a no brainer for any fan of the weird fantasy setting. You can get a pdf of both books for $35 or either individual book in print for $35. If you want both in print it will cost you $69. The project has already funded with $285k of a $12k goal, and will have another three days left at the time of this release.
Good friend of the show and proprietor of The Old Ways Podcast, Mike Diamond, has officially announced a third campaign for their excellent live play series, but this time with a twist! They are currently accepting GM pitches for a new campaign run by a new Storyteller. So if you have a campaign in mind and have it well thought out put in your submission at the link in the show notes. You can also find Mike on our own Discord, where he is a mod, or over at The Old Ones Discord, or you can just email him at theoldwayspodcast@gmail.com
And finally, it is with great sadness that we have to say a final goodbye to RPG Legend Steve Perrin, who passed away earlier this month. Goodbye Steve, safe travels.
https://www.chaosium.com/blogvale-and-farewell-steve-perrin-1946-2021/
The Discord Plug
We have our MUP Discord and we are all there! We invite all of our listeners to come and enjoy the community of horror gaming and cute pet pics.
A big birthday shout out to Zelda, the pup of patreon backer, Al Smith, who if you’re lucky enough to get a seat at this table, she’ll probably make an appearance. Also, good luck to the kitties, Spaghetti and Meatball, who are currently in foster care with one of our awesome listeners.
MU Discord server invite link: https://discord.gg/vNjEv9D
And thank you beaucoup to Murph for editing this episode.
Patreon Plug
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Brolin Graham
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Recent Gaming
Bridgett – Pale Rider Playtest 2
MepaCon Man’s Best Friend by Jazmin Ospa
Main Topic
We create a monster from scratch!
In this episode Keepers Murph and Jon are joined by our Discord friend, Ambermancer to talk about using classic monsters in your Lovecraftian games. This episode was recorded on January 30th, 2020.
Campus Crier
Black Star Magic! Investigators in the Yellow King RPG, from Pelgrane Press, gain the use of mind-bending spells! Playtesting is set to begin soon on the new QuickShock Gumshoe supplement. The book is said to contain 144 spells and 4 scenarios.
Close friend of the show and all around awesome guy Jason McKittrick is bringing back the Cryptocurium Inner Sanctum after five long years of laying dormant. The new offering has a preview of what is included in the three different tiers, with more info coming out on the 31st. Right now they are priced at $100, $200, & $300 dollars. And they look amazing.
Mike Mason is playtesting the new campaign from Tim Wiseman, Dead of Winter on Twitch.tv and then on YouTube starting on February 4th at 8pm. If you haven’t had a chance to watch Mike in action, then this is the spot to watch a great GM at work.
“The Dead of Winter is an epic story of intrigue, love, and horror set in 1929 across London and Russia. The strange reappearance of people long gone from the investigators’ lives precedes the arrival of two curious letters, both asking for help from unexpected sources. The investigators are drawn into a series of events taking them far from home and into the unfamiliar and potentially dangerous landscape of Soviet Russia where friends may be enemies and enemies might be friends.”
Speaking of the Chaosium YouTube channel, Mike Mason has been doing some interviews there the latest is with friends of the show and a good friends of mine, Christopher Smith Adair, Paul Fricker, and Brian Courtemanche!
This month is New Gamemaster Month! If you know someone who would like to run a game, or perhaps you yourself would like to, then there are a number of resources at the links below to help you out! The NewGmaeMasterMonth website has a series of posts that help to start and plan out your first session and each post is specifically geared towards Numenera, Unknown Armies, Trail of Cthulhu, and 7th Sea.
Monte Cook Games is releasing a horror game add-on for the new Cypher System RPG, called Stay Alive. You can pre-order the game now at their website for $44.95 and it ships in February. The art in this looks awesome, it’s Monte Cook Games written by Charles Ryan who has done writing for just about everything, and I’ve got a growing interest in the Cypher system so this looks pretty cool!
And for your meat-space games there is a new Kickstarter offering a solution to the lack of space at the gaming table. The Level Up is a raised gaming platform for miniatures that provides a 24”x36” tiled base that is lifted 6 inches from the tabletop. This project has funded already with 28 days left as of recording. It’s a novel and useful idea to provide more space and sort of acts like a shield as well.
Call of Cthulhu – the story illustrated by French artist François Baranger, available from Free League Publishing. It is an amazing collectible that is a must-have for any fan of Lovecraft or Baranger.
Discord Invitation:
Please come join the community on the MUP Discord channels: https://discord.gg/vNjEv9D
MUP Patreon
If you haven’t heard yet, we have redesigned our Patreon and so far the feedback has been all positive! We are greatly appreciative of you, our listeners, and would ask that if you can please back us! Our next goal in funding will pay our worthy editors for their time! Also all backers, regardless of level will have access to the outtakes reel that we are going to put out on a special RSS feed from Patreon! To back us you can click the button on the sidebar of our website, mu-podcast.com or head over to Patreon directly at www.patreon.com/mup!
Graham’s Card Catalog
And in line with today’s topic, it’s Ask a Mortician! Ask a Mortician is a YouTube series that covers everything you could ever, (and maybe never), wanted to know about what happens to us after death. Aside from the purely practical information about embalming and body preparations, there is a lot of history covering death and strange murders that have involved funeral homes and funeral directors. Some of this stuff is ready made for a scenario!
Main Topic — Vampires, Zombies, and Ghosts… oh my!
Listen to the episode to hear Keeper Jon, Keeper Murph, and Keeper Amber talk about the wide range of uses for vampires, ghosts, zombies, skeletons, werewolves, and mummies.
Keeper Jon’s classic monster ideas:
Ghosts – echoes of past lives that do not directly interact with the investigators, but the investigators need to observe and interpret the ghosts to gain certain clues. As seen in the Netflix series, The Haunting of Hill House.
Vampires – the creature eats something other than blood, like salt, or emotions. A good example of a salt vampire can be seen in the classic Star Trek episode, The Man Trap. As for emotional vampires, it could be a coven of goth kids running a heron den. They feed other kids the drugs, and they “drink” the depression that flows out of them as they get high.
Zombies – a perfect example was illustrated by Lovecraft in his story, Cool Air. In it, Dr. Munoz (dead 18 years) is an intelligent undead creature, not driven to consume human flesh, but to further his life and pursuit of science.
Skeletons – they can be used as oracles and source of information, similar to the Library of Skulls in the classic Saturday morning TV show, Land of the Lost.
Werewolf – bend this classic monster to become a Mythos creature; use the lycanthropy of a human so it transforms into a dimensional shambler.
Mummy – long dead wizards with their spells written onto their wrappings. Also, since it was only a very few who were mummified, and their vital organs were removed and put into canopic jars, then they are immortal as long as at least one of their canopic jars is whole with its enclosed contents.
Listen to the episode to hear Keeper Murph’s and Keeper Amber’s recommendations.