Miskatonic University Podcast

Miskatonic University Podcast Actual Play Presents a Call of Cthulhu 7th Edition Scenario: The Derelict by Sandy Petersen with Mike Mason, released by Chaosium for RPG Day 2016     Boston, MA Wednesday, July 16, 2008 Dramatis Personnae: Andrew as professional football player, Matthew “Dodge” Grantham Magnus as writer Charles “Mac” McQuinlan Mark as lawyer Daniel von Hollisander Pam as actor Ashley May Bethell Cory as the Keeper of Arcane Lore The investigators accompany Mac McQuinlan on a summer cruise from Boston to Liverpool in the lap of luxury. “Evening of Chaos” and “Floating Cities” by Kevin MacLeod, incompetech.com Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0]]>

In this episode, the whole cavalcade of MU keepers is back for news updates and a Festival of Audio Horrors. We listen to all of the submissions from last year’s One Minute of Horror contest, and riff on ideas to make them game-able. This episode was recorded on January 24, 2017. Apologies for the lateness of this release. Illness, work schedule, and crappy audio files work together well to kill one’s enthusiasm for editing. Given how long it was to get this out, I hope you can forgive no show art for this one. We want to hear from you! By email: mup.feedback@gmail.com By phone: (401) 400-0MUP (0687) By Twitter: @MU_Podcast By Speakpipe: (Click the floating tab on the far right of this page) On our forum: mu-podcast.com/campus. Like what you hear? Please become a Patron! >> mu-podcast.com/patron << Campus Crier Yog Radio’s News from Pnakotus coming back! Another Kickstarter for Props of Nyarlathotep, you say? Yes, props are in production for the London and Cairo chapters of the Masks of Nyarlathotep. Update on the The Star on the Shore Kickstarter: The Star on the Shore is a Call of Cthulhu sandbox style adventure for the classic 1920s era. It’s already reached the funding goal of $4,000, but there are only a couple of weeks left to pledge! New CALL OF CTHULHU Game Trailer Embraces Lovecraftian Madness – review by Nerdist. Direct link to the trailer: here. Shout Factory is making an animated ‘Lovecraft’ film with Mark Hamill, Jeffrey Combs and Doug Bradley! The Sans-Detour edition has been released for Goodman Games’ Age of Cthulhu #6, #7, #8, and a couple of smaller adventures. The material in the book was written by Jon Hook and Branden LaSalle. Someone posted a data experiment on YSDC to collate info about the “Most Recommended Scenarios Evar.” Chaosium makes a call for convention scenario pitches! Call of Cthulhu is in massive demand at gaming conventions and we seek more scenarios to offer at these events to meet that demand. A wide-release version of this message went out, so join the Cult of Chaos and submit! Card Catalog From the Graham wing of the Orne Library: A YouTube channel that hosts old public domain/declassified films. though there are a few such channels, this one stands out for the host’s efforts to clean-up the footage and sound wherever possible. The time period covered is 1918 – 2000s and includes old TV adverts, documentaries, and also some 1970s CIA/FBI training films. The Channel is linked here. And here are a selection of videos: Colt 45 Malt Liquor Commercial (Skydiving Waiter) 1970s CIA Training Film (Made by MI5) ‘Land of the Giants’ 1935 California Travel Documentary And a little something for laughs… Topic Here’s some randomness inspired by the 2016 One Minute of Horror Audio Contest, plus credit for public domain or Creative Commons sound files used in the pieces: “3-Messages,” Keeper Ant All original. No audio files were harmed in the making of this submission. “Daughter of Horror Hotel,” Will S. Audio from this piece was pulled from a film called Horror Hotel or The City of the Dead. City of the Dead/Horror Hotel by John Llewellyn Moxey, Published 1960, Usage Public Domain: https://archive.org/details/Horror_Hotel Daughter of Horror aka Dementia: Published September 1, 2014, Usage Public Domain Mark 1.0, https://archive.org/details/daughter_of_horror_201701 Some quotes from the film that were cut from the US version in 1960: “I have made my pact with thee O Lucifer! Hear me, hear me! I will do thy bidding for all eternity. For all eternity shall I practice the ritual of Black Mass. For all eternity shall I sacrifice unto thee. I give thee my soul, take me into thy service.” “O Lucifer, listen to thy servant, grant her this pact for all eternity and I with her, and if we fail thee but once, you may do with our souls what you will.” “Make this city an example of thy vengeance. Curse it, curse it for all eternity! Let me be the instrument of thy curse. Hear me O Lucifer, hear me!” Flutes of Azathoth,” Cole Y All original. No audio files were harmed in the making of this submission. “EAS_Activation,” Canageek  All original. No audio files were harmed in the making of this submission. “Lymerics,” Max All original. No audio files were harmed in the making of this submission. “WXXT,” Will S. Voiceover: Will S. reading from Matthew M. Bartlett’s “Gateways To Abomination” Thunderstorm sound effect: Recorded by Mike Koenig | License: Attribution 3.0 – http://soundbible.com/1908-2-Minute-Storm.html Sony Battery AM Radio Tuning: License: Public Domain | Recorded by SailorMoonFan – http://soundbible.com/2099-AM-Radio-Tuning.html Radio Tuning: License: Personal Use Only – http://soundbible.com/722-Radio-Tune.html Thunder: License: Attribution 3.0 | Recorded by Mike Koenig – http://soundbible.com/1907-Thunder.html Scary And Eerie: License: Attribution 3.0 | Recorded by Mark DiAngelo – http://soundbible.com/1801-Scary-And-Eerie.html “Straight-to-Voicemail,” John R. All original. No audio files were harmed in the making of this submission. “The Festival,” Ian MacLean Audio used in this piece includes: Spooky Ambiance #1 by KRISTIANKULTA | License: Attribution windy winter day, wind in trees, from distance.wav by lwdickens | License: Creative Commons 0 The Tick-Tock Man,” Cole Y “Playtime_Daddy,” Trevlix Audio used in this piece includes: Hammering-J_Blow-2014925903.mp3 | License: Public Domain | Recorded by J Blow | http://soundbible.com/2028-Hammering.html Creaking Door Spooky-SoundBible.com-1909842345.mp3 | License: Public Domain | Recorded by stephan | http://soundbible.com/1717-Creaking-Door-Spooky.html 50725__rutgermuller__footsteps-on-tiles.wav | License: Creative Commons | Recorded by RutgerMuller | https://www.freesound.org/people/RutgerMuller/sounds/50725/ 320376__yadronoff__axe-chopping.wav | License: Creative Commons | Recorded by yadronoff | https://www.freesound.org/people/yadronoff/sounds/320376/ “Cohesion5,” Ben aka Spiggy All original. No audio files were harmed in the making of this submission. “This is Delta Green,” Bret (Submission disqualified for reasons of copyright anxiety, but YouTube link provided below because you’re welcome). https://youtu.be/FTQbiNvZqaY   Discuss this “episode” on the Campus Forum.]]>

This is a special roundup episode with four Cthulhu newsmakers who have ongoing projects right now. We’ve got short interviews coming up with Oscar Rios of Golden Goblin Press on the live Cthulhu Invictus 7th Edition Kickstarter, Jeff Moeller from Stygian Fox talks about the short scenario collection Fear’s Sharp Little Needles – that Kickstarter only has a few days left – Scott Dorward talks to Murph about Chaosium’s Two Headed Serpent Pulp campaign and other projects, and finally Bret Kramer of Sentinel Hill Press talks about the status of the refurbished Arkham Gazette issues and other stuff coming down the old Aylsebury Pike. This episode was cobbled together from interviews during the week of February 13 to 17, 2o17. Check out the links below for more info on these projects… Golden Goblin Press: The 7th Edition Guide to Cthulhu Invictus Stygian Fox: Fear’s Sharp Little Needles Chaosium: The Two Headed Serpent Sentinel Hill Press: Buy Arkham Gazette issues on DriveThruRPG… The Arkham Gazette #0 The Arkham Gazette #1 The Arkham Gazette #3   Check out the SHP Website Support Bret via Patreon  ]]>

In this first MUP episode of 2017, we have all four members of the crew in to go over the news that’s happened since last time, as well as to put down some gaming resolutions for this year! This episode was recorded on January 9, 2017. We want to hear from you! By email: mup.feedback@gmail.com By phone: (401) 400-0MUP (0687) By Twitter: @MU_Podcast By Speakpipe: (Click the floating tab on the far right of this page) On our forum: mu-podcast.com/campus. Like what you hear? Please become a Patron! >> mu-podcast.com/patron << Campus Crier Professor Grownup: Cthulhu Album For Kids Support the creation of a full-length children’s album based on the works of 1920s horror and science fiction writer H.P. Lovecraft. $4,000+ pledged of $10,000 goal 2 days to go (from this posting)   The Star on the Shore – A Call of Cthulhu RPG Module The Star on the Shore is a Call of Cthulhu sandbox style adventure module for the classic 1920s era adventure, licensed by Chaosium. $16,000+ pledged of $4,000 goal 16 days to go (from this posting)   Cyanide’s Call of Cthulhu teases eerie new screens The locals and locales of Darkwater Island. Miskatonic River Press’ CoC titles have been acquired by Stygian Fox, making these MRP books available into the future, updated and reformatted. “From today, Stygian Fox will be the owner of New Tales of the Miskatonic Valley, More Tales of the Miskatonic Valley, Our Ladies of Sorrow, and Tales of the Sleepless City. We intend to update them to 7th edition Call of Cthulhu rules, add new art, make them colour, and release them in PDF, softcover, and hardcover formats over the next year.”     Call of Cthulhu 7th Edition has come to Fantasy Grounds, the popular virtual tabletop where you can play your favorite RPGs with your friends online! Harlem Unbound, a Cthulhu roleplaying game sourcebook RPG sourcebook set in 1920s NYC, the Harlem Renaissance, delving into Mythos mysteries for either Call of Cthulhu or Gumshoe system. Chris Spivey, Darker Hue Studios The campaign ended with $38,698 pledged of $5,000 goal. Congratulations Chris! Swords Against Cthulhu By Rogue Planet Press Price: $6.16 Swords against Cthulhu, an anthology of sword and sorcery/Cthulhu Mythos crossovers. Mighty thewed barbarians battle alien wizardry and cosmic terror in a blind, unreasoning universe where only the strong survive.   Video review of Sans-Detour Edition of Goodman Games’ Age of Cthulhu #6, #7, #8, and a couple of smaller adventures. The material in the book was written by Jon Hook and Branden LaSalle.   Cold War Cthulhu Kickstarter has shipped! It is also available for PreOrder on the Cubicle 7 website.   Chaosium makes the call for convention scenarios! Call of Cthulhu is in massive demand at gaming conventions and we seek more scenarios to offer at these events to meet that demand. Cult of Chaos Convention Scenario Competition 2017 Each year Chaosium is attending more and more conventions and Call of Cthulhu convention games have never been more popular. To help meet the demand for good Call of Cthulhu games we are launching the Cult of Chaos Convention Scenario Competition 2017. We are looking for engaging and dramatic convention scenarios dreamt up by the mind of the Cult of Chaos. This is your opportunity to share your experience and writing skills, and get your scenario played around the world as official Chaosium convention games. What are we looking for? We are seeking pitches for writing a full Call of Cthulhu 7th edition convention scenario with a running time of 3.5 to 4 hours maximum, playable by up to 6 players. Ideally, scenarios should be set in the 1920s, 1930s, or modern day, but we are happy to see other time periods too. Pre-generated investigators should also be included with the scenario. Length wise, each scenario should plan on approximately 8,000-12,000 words maximum. The deadline for submitting pitches is February 3rd, 2017. What do the selected pitches get? First, after submitting the full scenario you get the credit for writing an official Chaosium convention scenario. Second, your scenario would be eligible to be part of a professionally published Call of Cthulhu book or PDF, if selected the author will be offered a standard publishing contract.Third, each pitch that becomes a fully written scenario submitted to Chaosium will receive a $40 voucher for the Chaosium webstore. The deadline for submitting full scenarios is April 28th, 2017. What do you need to do? Write a short (no more than 300 words) pitch and post it to the Cult of Chaos forum at BRP Central. The pitch should outline the scenario, describe the nature of the mystery and/or threat, and how the investigators become involved (whether it starts in media res or more traditionally). Do not consider the pitch to be a spoiler-free zone. In judging these scenarios, we need to know what actually occurs during the scenario from the GMs perspective. What happens next? Chaosium will review the pitches and then draw up a short list of the pitches we’d like to see developed into full convention scenarios. Chaosium will contact shortlisted authors to invite them to write up their pitches. Once written and submitted to Chaosium, we will review the final scenarios and pick which ones will become official Chaosium convention scenarios for future events. Non-winning shortlisted scenarios will made available via the Chaos Library to Cult of Chaos members for general use.   Arkham Gazette #1 is available for sale. This is a reworking of our 2013 version; many of the articles have been revised and expanded and there are three additional articles.  All told, this version of issue #1 is about 50% longer than the original. The focus of this issue is the legendary city of Arkham itself, home of Miskatonic University. 8$ for PDF 13$ for print. And print gets you free PDF   Scenario Creation – Call of Cthulhu RPG Game Masters Forum (Mason, Sanderson and Rios)   NonHumanUser has been a busy person/entity. His/Her/Its website nonhumanuser.com has been gaining a lot more content since we first mentioned it a while back. Here is the Campus Forum topic on the site to talk to NonHumanUser about it. Listener Feedback!- Voicemail from Ritterton, back on December 10: Hey good afternoon from the far reaches of the Pacific Northwest just wanted to call and say the Invictus discussion with oscar was just awesome. I have been really enjoying that reading that rule said I picked up a while back, and then clean it online that play by host or play by email man. It’s been a really good thing there ended up with the two campaigns from Osprey since it was mentioned. Thanks, and my son ended up with the pathfinder strange eons cuz you know it’s for the kids. So you just have to make that happen, right? So that’s the ctHulhu you know damage done to my wallet with a sanity damage will come. I’m sure at a later date. Go Pods. Sorry about that that northwest screening as for me Ritterton. I forgot to mention. My name it must have been the excitement of the new books. Take care go Pods.   Discussion Topic – The Hosts give their 2017 Gaming Resolutions! Chad– Write on the projects that are lined up for publication. Jon– Do more writing. Try to produce more work than I had previously done in a calendar year. And, I want to try and get to Gary Con this year. Murf– Play more. Record more stuff. Get to NecronomiCon. Dan– Pick up the MAPS game with chapter 3. Get to NecronomiCon. Continue in my biweekly game. Discuss this episode on the Campus Forums.]]>

For this special report, Keeper Chad, Keeper Jon and Christopher Smith Adair dig in to a topic that has been simmering in the background for a year and a half. The conversation was recorded on July 27, 2016. The airing of this episode was delayed for reasons explained in the introduction, which was recorded on January 7, 2017.   On the opening night of NecronomiCon in August 2015, Mythos scholar and editor Robert M. Price delivered a keynote speech. It included comments that were controversial, provocative, and offensive to many audience members, including the convention organizers. In Episode 104 of the MU Podcast, Oscar Rios mentioned those comments as part of the inspiration for his Heroes of Red Hook fiction anthology, which focuses on characters from underrepresented backgrounds including people of color, women, LGBTQ people, intellectual disability (among others) in Mythos fiction. We thought this would be a good opportunity to explain a little more about what Oscar was talking about. Thank you to those who have been asking for a discussion about this for so many months. There’s no good excuse for taking so long to get around to this, but thank you for your patience. We did try to handle it with sensitivity and depth, and it took us a long time to get there. Please note that none of us on the show imagine that we have the final word on what Price meant or how it should be taken. Please do share your thoughts on the subject in the forum thread. Below is a transcript of Robert Price’s comments and a video clip, as well as links to some of the material we discuss during the show. “If we can manage to look past [Lovecraft’s] racism, we will manage to see something deeper and quite valid. Lovecraft envisioned not only the threat that science posed to our anthropomorphic smugness, but also the ineluctable advance of the hordes on non-western anti-rationalism to consume a decadent, euro-centric west. “Superstition, barbarism and fanaticism would sooner or later devour us. It appears now that we’re in the midst of this very assault. The blood lust of jihadists threatens Western Civilization and the effete senescent West seems all too eager to go gently into that endless night. Our centers of learning have converted to power politics and an affirmative action epistemology cynically redefining truth as ideology. Logic is undermined by the new axiom of the ad hominem. If white males formulated logic, then logic must be regarded as an instrument of oppression. “Lovecraft was wrong about many things, but not, I think, this one. It’s the real life horror of Red Hook.” Three blog posts from Christopher on Lovecraft’s racism: Lovecraft in His Grave, Pondering Race A Brief Addendum Digging Up Lovecraft and Sifting Through His Remains A 2012 blog post from Robert Price seems to be lay the foundation for his comments in 2015: Rock the Kasbah >> A blog post (date unknown) from Price entitled “Affirmative Action Comics” >> Price writes about creationism and fundamentalist Christians >> Reactions Here is a round up of various reactions to – and coverage of – Price’s comments at the convention. Price’s Facebook thread >> RI Future: Lovecraft’s racism a tough issue at NecronomiCon Providence >> ST Joshi’s blog >> (I’m posting ST’s relevant reaction paragraph below, because it’s not so easy to find on the archive page) Well, NecronomiCon Providence (August 20–23) has come and gone, and it was a tremendous event. I fear, however, that it didn’t get off on a very good start, as the opening ceremonies featured a surprisingly lifeless and mechanical summary by Leslie Klinger of the basic facts of Lovecraft’s biography (do we really need such a recitation at such an event?), followed by a rather windy and confused polemic by Robert M. Price in which he suggested that Lovecraft would by some miracle be aligned with contemporary conservative thought and be opposed to affirmative action and political correctness! Whatever the validity of Price’s remarks (and to my mind they don’t have much validity, given that Lovecraft had become a socialist by the end of his life), this was surely the wrong place and time to air them. Silvia Moreno Garcia >> Post Scripts to Darkness >> Discuss this topic on the Campus Forums. This episode’s theme music is “Spy Glass” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License]]>

In this episode, Dan, Jon and Chad are joined by Oscar Rios from the Goblin Lair to talk about the future of Cthulhu Invictus — and other mysteries! This episode was recorded on November 28, 2016. We want to hear from you! By email: mup.feedback@gmail.com By phone: (401) 400-0MUP (0687) By Twitter: @MU_Podcast By Speakpipe: (Click the floating tab on the far right of this page) On our forum: mu-podcast.com/campus. Like what you hear? Please become a Patron! >> mu-podcast.com/patron << Campus Crier Badger is now offering a Feed the Shoggoth turn counter via the game’s website! It was previously only available to Kickstarter backers, but he has made available to the public the extra copies left over from the KS. It’s $5 (plus $1 shipping), you can get one of these turn counters, minted by Campaign Coins. There are also rumors of a mini mini-shoggoth in the works by Jason McKittrick. Smaller than the one in the Kickstarter, will retail for about $10 plus shipping. Also, Badger has generously offered a special code for MU Podcast listeners – if you want to buy a copy of Feed the Shoggoth at a $5 discount, you can use the code shoggydec16 to buy the game for $15 instead of $20. Website here: http://www.feedtheshoggoth.com HP Lovecraft : Cthulhu Mythos, the Great Old Ones II – a Kickstarter for cool sculptures And by the same artist as the above campaign, comes Adventure Heroes – miniatures in 30mm inspired by Robert E Howard, including the man himself! Osprey books – the nerdy history for miniatures company – has come out with a new book for their Cthulhu Wars line – Roman-era Mythos! Pelgrane’s Fear Itself 2nd Edition is now available, as is Ken Hite’s The Thrill of Dracula. That Poppy is freaking creepy. Check out these hypnotically disturbing videos here, here, here and here. Adam Scott Glancy GM’ing a live-stream Call of Cthulhu game along with Cody Goodfellow and Ken Hite via Legends of Tabletop!  – The Last Flight of the L58 NICTONOMICON Bestiario sobre Lovecraft / a Lovecraft bestiary Tales from The Loop Edwin cooked up tables to demonstrate the variable effect of penalty dice as used in CoC. Thank you Edwin! “Graphs based on Monte Carlo simulations with 50,000 rolls with each level of penalty.  It’s interesting that the max penalty is at a different skill level with one die (at 47%) than with two (at 62%). Your 15% is about right. The average penalty over all skill levels based on this simulation is 17%. Two dice provide a 25% average penalty. The analysis ignores fumbles.” MUP News Just a reminder, we’re using mup.feedback@gmail.com for…feedback. Card Catalog A hat tip to David Jacobs, who posted this thing on Google Plus, learned about on the 99% Invisible podcast… The Roaring ‘Twenties – an interactive exploration of the historical soundscape of New York City Using Municipal Archives of the City of New York, cataloging over 600 unique complaints about noise around 1930 while reproducing over 350 pages of these materials. It also includes fifty-four excerpts of Fox Movietone newsreels, early sound experiments that at once captured and technologically remediated the sounds of New York City, as well as hundreds of other photographs and print materials. http://vectors.usc.edu/projects/index.php?project=98&thread=AuthorsStatement It’s at this point where we lost Keeper Jon, as he was feeling under the weather and just couldn’t stay up any longer. Topics – CTHULHU INVICTUS! 7th edition guide to Cthulhu Invictus. New KS starts on Feb, with a March 15 end, the ides of March This is a new book from the ground up, not just a rules update to the existing Invictus core book. GGP is allowed to re-issue and update all existing Invictus books with author permission. There will be three regional Invictus books: North Africa; Britannia & Beyond; and The East. They are not dropping their Jazz-era projects though. There is a Pacific sourcebook being worked out, and other projects coming down the line. Discuss this episode on the Campus Forums.]]>

In this episode, all four hosts convene to share more thoughts on investigator groups. Plus, we announce the winners of our One Minute of Horror Audio Contest! This episode was recorded on, November 14, 2016. We want to hear from you! By email: mup.feedback@gmail.com By phone: (401) 400-0MUP (0687) By Twitter: @MU_Podcast By Speakpipe: (Click the floating tab on the far right of this page) On our forum: mu-podcast.com/campus. Like what you hear? Please become a Patron! >> mu-podcast.com/patron << Campus Crier Someone called nonhumanuser on the MU forums launched a website on Halloween that purports to be a trove of stories, articles, resources and actual plays focusing on horror and the Cthulhu Mythos. It’ll be “weekly additions for your reading pleasure and resources for the Call of Cthulhu RPG.” The 2016 Shotgun Scenario contest has been announced. That’s a contest for short Delta Scenario seed ideas. Entries can be of any length, but entries longer than 1500 words will only get half a vote during the judging. Deadline is Saturday, December 10. MU thread on the Shotgun Scenario Contest >>  Previous examples here >> One of Chaosium’s old-school supplements — Keith Herber’s The Fungi From Yuggoth — has been adapted into a fully dramatized 1930s-style radio drama. And, inspired by the game upon which it is based, this production features four different endings! Dark Adventure Radio Theatre’s THE BROTHERHOOD OF THE BEAST is available now as a 3 CD set or digital download. And there’s the incredible Deluxe Edition, featuring six pounds (!) of props… Experimental music maker Brian Lavelle is offering a special code for MUP listeners to get a 50% discount off of his downloads – check out his website and use the code “gopods” to redeem this offer at checkout.                 Chad unleashed “Mayor McPain” and his pet conch “Tickles” to Edwin Nagy (see photo below) and a group of unsuspecting players as part of an Extra Life charity event (along with a donation from MUP) at CarnageCon in Vermont. See the block at the end of these notes for full Dungeon Crawl Classics stats from Jon.   Chaosium News A Call of Cthulhu 7th Ed update on Kickstarter—TLDR summary: – Pulp Cthulhu and Doors to Darkness will start shipping *soon! – The 4 Keeper Decks (phobias, characters, events, and weapons) will also start shipping to backers this week. Depending on location, they will come with Pulp and Doors, or separately. – Pulp Cthulhu, Doors to Darkness and the Keeper Decks will be available to order on Chaosium.com later this week (NOTE: backers will get their rewards shipped to them before we ship any regular new sales.). Call of Cthulhu 7e 1000% Backer T-Shirt MUP News After a huge kerflustersnafu with the MU email system, we have launched two new show email addresses. For feedback, please send everything to: mup.feedback@gmail.com. And for future contest entries, we’ll be using: mup.contests@gmail.com. Card Catalog From the Graham Special Collections Wing of the Orne Library: “Airplane Photography by Herbert Eugene Ives” (1920) Topics One Minute of Horror Audio Contest Results: 1st Place — “Straight To Voicemail” by  John F Rauchert (Credits: voice generated by CWSpeak) 2nd Place — “Playtime Daddy” by Trevlix (Credits: Hammering-J_Blow-2014925903.mp3 | License: Public Domain | Recorded by J Blow | http://soundbible.com/2028-Hammering.html Creaking Door Spooky-SoundBible.com-1909842345.mp3 | License: Public Domain | Recorded by stephan | http://soundbible.com/1717-Creaking-Door-Spooky.html 50725__rutgermuller__footsteps-on-tiles.wav | License: Creative Commons | Recorded by RutgerMuller | https://www.freesound.org/people/RutgerMuller/sounds/50725/ 320376__yadronoff__axe-chopping.wav | License: Creative Commons | Recorded by yadronoff | https://www.freesound.org/people/yadronoff/sounds/320376/) 3rd Place — Cohesion5 by Ben, a.k.a. “Spiggy” (Credits: all sounds are original.) Amazing work. We’ll be in touch soon about prizes! And thank you to all of our contestants! This was an amazing pool of submissions, which made judging a blast and yet extremely difficult. We are well aware of how much work went into these pieces, so thank you for all of your efforts! We plan to play them all, festival-style, in an upcoming special side episode. Investigator Groups, Part II Here’s a good thread on YSDC with some general categories for investigator groups. The 7e rulebook also outlines some categories and examples. A few groups from RL history surfaced during the discussion, including the Priory of Sion, Thule Society, the Black Hand, Knights of Pythias, Independent Order of Foresters and the Galleanists.   Discuss this episode on the Campus Forums.   Girl with knife photo by Gabriela Camerotti. Use granted by Creative Commons.   MAYOR MCPAIN Mayor McPain: Init +0; Atk weapon +2 melee (1d6+2) or prattle (special); AC 14; HD 3d10+4; MV 12’ or 20’ leaping; Act 1d20, 1d16; SP food motivated; SV Fort +0, Ref +1, Will +2; AL C. It is widely believed that Mayor McPain is an errant demon whose sole purpose is to spread chaos across the land, but the actual details of his origins are not known. Mayor McPain is a huge creature; he carries a wide variety of instruments that he wields with a fury only the truly heroic dare to face. Mayor McPain cackles with laughter wherever he goes, so no one needs to worry about being ambushed by the mayor. Should Mayor McPain take enough damage to kill him, he is instead banished to the plane of chaos where he recoups from his wounds. Mayor McPain has a pet chaos conch named Tickles. Prattle – Mayor McPain is constantly giggling and chuckling at voices telling him jokes that only he can hear. Mayor McPain can make two attacks per round, and one of them can be a prattle attack. When Mayor McPain prattles, he spews several lines of nonsense at his target in an effort to bamboozle his foe. Similar to a spell attack, Mayor McPain must succeed against a DC 12 attack roll against a single target within 10′. If successful, the victim must make a successful Will Save against the value rolled in the prattle attack. If the victim’s save fails, the victim is overwhelmed by vertigo for 1d3 rounds; victims suffering from vertigo cannot attack, move, or cast spells. Food Motivated – Mayor McPain’s weakness is food. If adventurers throw food-stuff at or near Mayor McPain he immeditately stops all of his actions to collect and devour the discarded food. Mayor McPain is only attracted to solid foods and food-stuff clearly recognized as food; he is not attracted to liquids. It takes Mayor McPain 1d3 rounds to collect and eat a single reasonable serving of food. Mayor McPain will even ignore attacks against his person in his quest to collect and gobble the food; even it if results in his banishment from this plane. TICKLES THE CHAOS CONCH Tickles the Chaos Conch: Init +1; Atk tentacles +4 melee (1d8 + rot); AC 12; HD 2d8+2; MV 10’; Act 1d20; SP tough; SV Fort +2, Ref +0, Will -1; AL C. Chaos conchs are nasty little domesticated creatures from the plane of chaos. This particular creature is Mayor McPain’s loyal companion. Chaos conchs can stretch their tentacles to attack a target up to 10′ away. With a successful hit from its tentacles, the chaos conch also inflicts the target with rot. The victim must make a Reflex Save against DC 15, or suffer additional 1d10 points of damage against an unarmored victim, otherwise a victim’s armor value is permanently reduced by two, (AC minus 2). Each successful hit by the chaos conchs tentacles can inflict more rot damage, (if the saving throw fails). Tough – Due to the creature’s chaotic biology, all non-magical attacks deal minimal damage. Magical weapons and spells inflict their normal damage. ]]>

Chad, Murf and Dan have a chat with Chris Spivey, experienced Call of Cthulhu Keeper, a writer on Gumshoe One-2-One, and his numerous other projects. We also have a Bestiary about the Dimensional Shambler. This episode was recorded on November 1, 2016. Campus Crier An update on the MUP 2016 “One Minute of Horror” contest: The mu-podcast.com email address was not bringing in contest submissions, so we reached out to anyone who has submitted to re-send them to Dan’s gmail account. If you did not hear back from us, let us know!   The final PDF for The Masks of Nyarlathotep Companion has been released to backers.  (This fan-driven project has been in the works for nearly a decade.) Chad got his copy of Mythos Tales in the mail. And it’s amazing. (KS Mentioned way back in Episode 96, kind of an RPG in a box.) On the less connected, but still geeky-cool, is Manos, the cards of Fate, a card game based on the terrible movie Manos: The Hands of Fate. (Now on Blu-Ray!) There is a Kickstarter for Leagues of Cthulhu, a Victorian Mythos RPG sourcebook powered by Ubiquity (Hollow Earth Expedition)   Chaosium News- Chaosium has announced a new licensing arrangement with Golden Goblin Press for Cthulhu Invictus. This is a multi-year deal that will see Golden Goblin Press producing a number of Cthulhu Invictus releases annually, including a Cthulhu Invictus 7th Edition guide, a series of setting books for regions of the Roman Empire, at least two more collections of scenarios (De Horrore Ulteriorie and De Horrore Ultimo), and a new Cthulhu Invictus campaign. The Dhole’s House: a free ‘online toolkit’ for Keepers and players of Call of Cthulhu 7th Edition, developed by long-time fan Lee Carnell. Members can create investigators that are fully compatible with Call of Cthulhu 7th edition and print off a PDF character sheet, all in a matter of minutes. All Investigators are saved and can be updated via the ‘Character Control Panel’ as the campaign unfolds. Site members can also contribute to a Character Library, allowing anyone to download PDF character sheets for Call of Cthulhu investigators for use as PCs or NPC’s. The Library is searchable by occupation and gender.   Card Catalog Gleaned from the Graham Special Collections Wing: The blog ‘Whispers from the Ghooric Zone‘ whose creator has decided to count down “Lovecraftian Thing A Day” for all of 2016. There is a wealth of material on display. And don’t forget about the Sentinel Hill Press Octoberganza, with an entry related to last show’s investigator groups topic- The Watch and Ward Society.   Listener Feedback (Hilarious transcription courtesy of Google Voice!) From Canageek– Hello, Kennedy care. I was listening to emphasize 1:11 on my way to work and something stretch me about your discussion of carnivals back in my dungeons & Dragons live in Gray Hawk organized play campaign in Ontario, Ontario the cat region. We’d often have what we know as interactive sort of tabletop our begin, but with a little bit of like mixed in so we’d have for the first half of it every all the players were gathering a big room and all the dm to take on the roles of Mp. C’s and they’re be very stations. You could go around 2 and participant the activities there and carnivals was a comma 1 if you could go to the archery contest 9th Roller the strong man interact with each MPC and game favors or Advantages or insight into what was to come and then in the second part every with divine off in the tables by mission, so the carnival was at. Dora portal opened or something because the there was no call just at the carnival one group might try and go into the portal one group would deal with the monsters coming out and the third one would go evacuate the refugees and living gray hawk. This would be sorted by level, but include could Sorted by remaining sanity, or just randomly or whatever so I gave you serve a collective experience, and you could hear reports so cajun someone would come over to a table and say you know we really need reinforcements over here is can you spare anybody or you know you’d here yeah, there’s a giant explosion over there, and you can see a smoking crater, and you know Dave was real good for when you went out to the bar afterwards cuz you don’t participate in the same adventure, but all seem different things and by talking to each other you guys greater sense of you know. What was going on. Why did we see 100 magic missile strike a flying guy over that way, and I thought you know. It’d be cool if you did. Something similar for that for Costco hulu where you know one really connected MPC calls and everybody he knows answer your convention is a big invested it invested of things 30 people it after be on more of the pool side, but I thought it might be an interesting experience anyway, that’s all so if there’s pompano is ranking I’m calling from my laboratory so yeah with regards to sports have all of you pots and consider taking buddy since court like curling for example. From Ritterton– Good evening to the Miska Tonic University Pod casters. This is Riverton from the forms, and you were talking about radium and the items that we’re radiate in 1920 you might find it. Fascinating and I’m a cop way to hear the story of the radium girls who were the painters of radium products it. There’s a great podcast buy stuff stuff. You missed in history and about them and most of them ended up dying of pretty terrible cancers because they would use radium paint the paint watches and dials, and I’m glass working all and they tended to lick their brushes to keep their brushes pointed invoiced as they were using the product and it was a series of losses in litigation for the women who had survived that effort, so it give you a sense of the type of thing the long term effects you were talking about again ritter jen from the forms and go pods.     Topics We talk with Chris about his contribution to Pelgrane Press’s Cthulhu Confidential project. How Gumshow One-2-One works, and why he chose the setting and player character he did for his part of the game; an African-American WWII Veteran  in Washington D.C. He’s also working on a modern sourcebook for Chaosium, which he can’t talk about (NDA). And he’s working on tank combat rules for Godlike, which he can’t talk about (NDA). And a number of other cool things he can’t go into details about. He’s collecting Non-Disclosure Agreements like they’re Pokemon.   There’s also some talk about Dimensional Shamblers: A nice piece of art depicting a DimSham. Other things discussed in this segment are- Last Rites, a modern day book of four Call of Cthulhu scenarios. The origin stories that feature the creature, The Horror in the Museum and The Hunters from Beyond. Here is the Yog-Sothoth Wiki article about them.   Discuss this episode on the Campus Forum.]]>

The MUP had a great interview with Whitney “Strix” Beltrán, one of the three designers of Bluebeard’s Bride, a horror tabletop RPG in which you play aspects of the Bride’s psyche investigating your husband’s haunted manor.   Chad, Murf, and Dan have a great talk with Strix about the game, how it plays, and some of the other aspects of life that contributed to the design of this new take on the roleplaying game. During the conversation, other topics and game are referenced. Among them are an RPG called Witch: The Road To Lindisfarne. Another game Whitney brings up is called DEAD SCARE – An RPG of blood-splattered white picket fences. Also explained is the Tulsa Race Riot, an event that was not in any of the Tulsa historical records for a long while.                ]]>

In this episode, a skeleton crew of Dan and Chad talk about a couple of our favorite investigator groups and how to use them. This episode was recorded on October 17, 2016. Campus Crier An update on the MUP 2016 “One Minute of Horror” contest: No submissions yet. Sad trombone. (Actually, since recording we have gotten one submission.) Send yours in now! Announcing prizes: 1st Place: Print copies of Island of Ignorance and Nameless Horrors (equivalents negotiable). 2nd Place: Print copies of Arkham Gazette #3 and an Age of Cthulhu book of your choice. 3rd: A print copy of The Things We Leave Behind (any previous offer to give away Murph’s Unwashed Fez is retracted and / or never happened and you can’t prove it). All three places will get cool swag including MUP dice AND a Dropbox link that will include downloadable copies of old history segments, some re-mixed, along with other audio terrors. Five Points is available for purchase – Five Points is a game of urban horror in America’s first melting pot, the Five Points neighborhood of New York City. Set in the 1840s and 50s against a backdrop of the Cthulhu Mythos, Five Points is powered by Dark Streets from Cakebread & Walton. Players take on the roles of runners or advisors for the Bowery Street Runners, an homage to the Bow Street Runners from London’s past, fighting against the terrors of the night. Can you stop them before the stars are right? Hudson & Brand, Inquiry Agents of the Obscure – Kiskstarter has only a few days to go! Sun Spots Kickstarter is done, reaching all stretch goals! $15,972 pledged of $5,000 goal Canageek sent in this cool arcticle from Nerdist: Watercolor Horror Movie Posters Are a Nightmare of Awesome Extra Life 24-hr game-a-thon interview – check it out if you haven’t already. Chaosium News: The license was cancelled for the ill-fated Masks of Nyarlathotep Prop Set Kickstarter. There is also a mention of the failed Cthulhu for FATE campaign. Plans to fulfill the rest of the 7e Kickstarter have been announced, with apologies. Backers will not receive several of the items originally promised, including dice and dicebag, bookmarks, backer pins and t-shirts and Innsmouth Gold coins. A PDF copy of Doors to Darkness has been offered instead. Chaosium has learned the difficult and painful lesson of straying from its core strengths. We are a game company, and need to focus on the games we make, not producing t-shirts, jewelry, mugs, and other similar items.     Card Catalog From The Graham Special Collections wing of the Orne Library: Stumbled across a site that covers Radioactive Quack cures of the Classic era, all the pills, potions, water ‘energizers’ and toothpaste(!) that’s good for what ails you. Topics Investigator Groups – or how to manufacture plausible reasons for characters to do all this crazy stuff! Investigator companion- page 122 of the 7th Edition rulebook. Here is an excellent thread on YSDC about general classes of investigator groups. Here’s a bit about “Humbug,” the X-files circus episode mentioned during the show. The circus off-season towns of Peru, Indiana and Gibsonton, Florida are mentioned.   Discuss this episode on the Campus Forum.]]>