I used to play C of C until I scared myself.
And they say Lovecraft wasn't nuts.
My husband runs CoC for some of our friends and myself, after the kids have gone to bed every other Tuesday night. 
Good times, good times.
Thanks for the book recommendation! My 2 yr old is about old enough for it... Start the nerd-warping early, I say.
The joke among us nerdy icosahedron slingers was, "Call of Cthulu: Last one to go insane wins."
I'm still trying to get my son a plush Cthulu doll...
My family and I were at Gencon last week and many of the distributors had cthulhu items on display. This being an election year Cthulhu political items had pride of place including the traditional: Cthulhu for President: Why Settle for the Lesser Evil?
I had to resist buying this at the convention:
http://dreamlandtoyworks.com/
my_...le_cthulhu.html
???
A sanity roll? Does that come with egg and bacon for breakfast, or do I have to go to the local sushi shop?
Great moments in RPG history: the sudden realization to the investigators (including Dale's Mike Hammer/Rambo crossbreed) that the monster they were chasing wasn't somewhere IN the house they were searching... it WAS the house.
I almost fell out of my seat laughing, which didn't make for great GMing but we all have to have our fun.
CoC was an absolutely GREAT game... even if reading the scenarios did keep me up gibbering some nights.
Jamie:
That's right! As I recall, my character's next action was "find nearest window and exit screaming."
That was an awesome bit of refereeing on your part, because I couldn't have kept a straight face as long as you did. Then again, I was always a bit more of an evil chuckler in the GM seat.
And give us credit--we did a pretty good job of pretending to be wowed by teflon-coated frying pans coming over from the extradimensional time portal in that other adventure.
Wow, I am completely lost. I own nary a 12-sided die.
I always lost my sanity rolls.
Always.
Wow, I just read those articles and they are freaking me out. I hate demonic crap. Hate it. I believe that there are certain entities that can be local to a place...wouldn't surprise me if there's something to this Windigo legend.
Sure there's something to it. It shows that serial killers aren't an exclusively Caucasian phenomenon, like the FBI likes to think. (Which anybody who reads history would already know.)
I mean, sure, every demon has his day. But the thing about Wendigo legends is the whole suggestive symptoms thing. I mean, women are quite familiar with the anxious illusion that bits of you are getting fatter. Plenty of people feel cold, and anybody feeling scared and nervous is going to feel colder. And so on. It's a legend designed to convince to suggestive people that they're getting possessed.
So here's some poor guy, living alone in a foreign country, who reads a scary story that has certain similarities to certain Chinese legends about creepy stuff. Maybe there's ties to stuff in his past, too. But he doesn't have anybody to creep out with it, or to laugh away his fears, or to hang out with and make him feel better. Probably he's got some anger in him; we all do. The whole thing preys on his mind, and he goes crazy violent.
When people get ideas in their heads, you never know what they'll do with them.
Dale, you have no idea just how hard it was for me to keep a straight face in that adventure. You and Steven kept looking at me with that quizzical look of "huh? what the hell?"
I normally have the poker face of a labrador retriever on speed with a tennis ball throwing machine in front of him, but somehow I was able to keep it up for that adventure.
Donald, those items have been around for years... absolutely great stuff. One of my favorite Lovecraftian novelty items was the "Miskatonic University" window sticker that I had on the back of my old car (Dale, that would be the Jazz Odyssey if you're keeping track).
I recommend that everyone check out Calls for Cthulhu. Funny stuff. Check out the episodes especially.
"Donald, those items have been around for years... absolutely great stuff. One of my favorite Lovecraftian novelty items was the "Miskatonic University" window sticker that I had on the back of my old car (Dale, that would be the Jazz Odyssey if you're keeping track)."
Oh yeah. We've been going to GenCon since 86 and Cthulhu items were in evidence then.
One of the best of the non-Lovecraft mythos books I've read in the past few years is Shadows Over Bakers Street which is an excellent melding of the worlds of Holmes and the Tentacled One.
http://www.amazon.com/Shadows-Ov...19370697&sr=8-
7
Maureen,
If you have ever been to an authentic Catholic deliverance (more common than full-on exorcisims) performed by a priest, your creepdar tends to go up a little more on these things.
I have been personally present at several, once when the subject was someone whom I had known for some time.
Verbal Kint had it right: "The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was to convince the world he didn't exist...and then, just like that, he was gone."
A sanity roll? Does that come with egg and bacon for breakfast, or do I have to go to the local sushi shop?
Well...I would avoid any place with the name "Dagon's Fish & Chips".
"There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. They themselves are equally pleased by both errors…."
Re: Dagon's Fish and Chips
Howsabout Cthulhu Calamari?
Randolph Carter's Dreamland Mattress Outlet?
While we are strolling down Amnesia Lane, did anyone play Chaosium's other major RPG Runequest? I remember it had hit locations (arm, leg, chest, etc.) and that the elves were restricted to bronze weapons because they could not handle iron for some reason.
Then Avalon Hill bought it, kicked the mythology to supplement which annoyed alot of fans, and then Avalon Hill took a dive and we never heard of it again.
The Lair of Great Cthulhu
words © 1979 by Larry Press & David Geller
music: Chattanooga Choo-Choo
Pardon me boy -- is this the lair of Great Cthulhu?
In the City of Sli~me, / where it is night all the ti~me?
Bob Hope never went / along the Road to Great Cthulhu,
And Triple-A has no maps, / and all the Tcho-tchos lay traps.
You'll see an ancient sunken city / where the angles are wrong.
You'll see the fourth dimension / if you're there very long.
Come to the conventicle, / bring along your pentacle --
Otherwise you'll be dragged off / by a tentacle.
A mountain's in the middle / with a house on the peak;
A gnashin' and a thrashin' / and a clackin' of beak.
Your soul you will be lackin' / when you see that mighty kraken.
Oo-oo! Great Cthulhu's / startin' to speak!
So come on aboard, / along the road to Great Cthulhu.
Wendigoes and dholes / will make Big Macs of our souls.
Under the sea, / down in the ancient City of R'lyeh,
In the lair of Great Cthulhu, / they'll suck your soul away!
Great Cthulhu, / Great Cthulhu / suck your soul --
Great Cthulhu, / Great Cthulhu --
In the lair of Great Cthulu, / they'll suck your soul away!
[Obliggato saxaphone solo, ala Tex Beneke.]
In the lair of Great Cthulhu, / they'll suck your soul away!
Dah-dah-dah-dah-dah / schlurp-schlurp!
Wow. This is wonderful. I didn't realize there were so many other gamers hanging at Dale's Place.
Very cool.
So it's you guys who are the ones who Neil Gaiman keeps writing funny Lovecraft pastiches for, eh?
He's written a half dozen at this point, which kind runs the joke thin to my mind. Alan Moore wrote the best one IMO in "the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: the Black Dossier" where its a mashup of Cthulu and Jeeves and Wooster.
And yeah, Dale, I'm really glad I decided to visit your blog and click on creepy Canadian links just after midnight last night. I heard creepy Wendigo story or two growing up in the U.P. At least I wasn't actually in the north woods, but that freaked me out. The dog must I have thought I was very happy with something he'd done as I kept convincing him to stay in the computer room with me.
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