Cthulhu Rises after BP Disaster in South Park

BP are at it again! Disaster in the Gulf has unleashed Cthulhu on the world and only the Guys at South Park can stop him.

 

 

I've had a strange and sudden upsurge in hits on this blog (up 300%!!) over the last six days and I've been trying to figure out why. Then I stumbled upon this clip on YouTube and now I understand why the Cthulhu keyword keeps coming up in search engine hits. This episode of South Park aired in the US on Thursday 28th October... right when my hit counter started to go mad. Far be it for me to ignore the gift horse... here are some more of my Cthulhu related posts.

• Cthulhu killed Paul the Octopus - My own personal conspiracy theory about the late football loving Psychic Octopus.
• Artifact from R'lyeh - Relics of R'lyeh turn up all over the place, including the British Museum.
• Hollywood Schmollywood - One of my favorite H.P.Lovecraft stories is going to turned into a big budget movie. I just hope they get it right.
• Mi-go Dreams - My daughters artwork can sometimes be a little disturbing!
• Cthulhu Fhtagn - I have troubled dreams. Maybe the prelude to insanity?

iä iä Cthulhu fhtagn iä iä Cthulhu fhtagn iä iä Cthulhu fhtagn!

Cthulhu killed Paul the Octopus

Paul, the supposedly psychic octopus who rose to fame during the World Cup earlier in the year, died a few days ago. Some comentators believe he died under mysterious circumstances. Murder has even been suggested. One story I read suggested that Paul died before the end of the competition and an elaborate cover up had been put in place to conceal the fact.

The world of sport is in shock.

I love the explanation given by the German aquarium where Paul passed away "We can absolutely assure you that he died last night. He was about two and a half, which is the average age for an octopus. He died of simple and straightforward death". Well... erm, death will do that to you.

Personally I have my own theory. A certain eldritch being didn't like another tentacled celebrity muscling in on his act and had his cultists kill the upstart Cephelopod. Its so obvious I'm amazed no one else has realised this. Or maybe they have, and then been silenced....

I must use the power of the Internet to get my message out. I had to write about this, before they come for me as well !! I can hear strange footsteps outside my room and now and again the smell of rotting fish wafts through the air. My dreams have become troubled and I have a strange longing to visit the ocean. If this is my last blog post, make sure my story gets out. People will believe it, after all it's published on the Internet!

iä iä Cthulhu fhtagn iä iä Cthulhu fhtagn iä iä Cthulhu fhtagn!

Big Picture : Artifact from R'lyeh

This strange artifact is in the British Museum and is listed as a Minoan Amphorae made about 1600 BC. But the Mythos investigator in me see's a stylised image of Cthulhu in his house at R'lyah! Note the strangely 'aboriginal' style of artwork ... clearly this isn't Mediterranean but instead hails from the southern Pacific near the sunken city itself!!!


Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtan!!!

Ahem. Sorry. Must have failed my sanity check dice roll.

Mi-go dreams

My youngest daughter drew me some pictures yesterday. Most were the usual sort of thing you would expect from a 5 year old; pictures of the family standing outside the house; images of flowers and animals; a nice seaside picture... and then there was this.

Its a great drawing with lots of colour and a big helping of imagination. But is anyone else a little freaked out by the passing resemblance to a Mi-Go from the Cthulhu Mythos? I may be stretching the resemblance a bit but that was the first thing I thought of when I pulled this picture out of the pile. It sent a palpable shiver down my spine. Maybe I'm reading too much H.P.Lovecraft at the moment...

Talking of which I recently read an article that suggests that James Cameron is set to collaborate on a movie version of At the Mountains of Madness. Apparently Guollermo del Toro is teaming up with the Aliens and Abyss director to make what will arguable be a very challenging film adaption. Whatever you think of their previous work (and I'm thinking of Titanic Mr Cameron...shudder) its good to see Lovecraft's work given such a high profile.

Watchers in the Sky

I've just read about this new adventure by Graham Walmsley and I may get myself a copy for some light Easter reading. The Adventure may be bleak but boring it clearly isn't. Various reviewers have described this as a cross between Lovecraft and Hitchcock.The tag line says all you need to know about this story "Your friends cannot be trusted, your knowledge means nothing, and everything you hold dear turns to dust." (Source: RPGNews.com)

Sold as a PDF download from various online retailers this new scenario for Call of Cthulhu looks to be truly creepy. There is an interesting review and discussion of this scenario on the Yog-Sothoth forum.

Mythos Investigator

I've finally finished a painting project! I'm working on several models at once just to get me back into the swing of painting. Once I've cleared these I'll pick another Flames of War project to paint. This is an old model that I found a while back. I'm in the process of painting several models for a possible Call of Cthulhu game later in the year and this guy is the latest. I made a tentacle for the base from some Greenstuff left over from another project. Ordinarily I would have used Milliput which would have cured faster but this did the job eventually. Once I had it made and painted I stuck it on the base. Other than that I decided to leave the base empty, painting it to look like a concrete floor. I'm happy with the overall effect.

The pictures aren't my best, I really need to think about getting a new camera or at least more lights. But that's a big investment for another year I think.

Showcase 2009

I started this Blog back in January with the intention to use it to showcase my painting & encourage me to paint more. So with the first year almost at an end, I thought I'd review the projects that have been completed and determine the success (or not) of my blog in achieving its aim.

First off its worth mentioning (for the benefit of newer readers) that the emphasis of the blog has shifted a little as the year has progressed. While it is still a showcase for my miniatures it has also developed into a wider creative outlet for my passion for gaming in general. I have found the daily discipline of writing a blog very enjoyable and its something I will definitely continue, hopefully for years to come. But I'm ready to admit that sometimes I have spent an evening writing something for my blog when I probably should have been painting.

My tally of completed projects for the year is woefully low. But having said that I do think this blog has inspired me to paint more than maybe I would have otherwise.

28mm Fantasy/Foot - 9
28mm Fantasy/Mounted - 1
28mm Fantasy/Creature - 1
28mm Fantasy/Terrain - 1
28mm Call of Cthulhu - 1
28mm Warhammer 40k - 1
15mm WWII/Infantry - 0
15mm WWII/Vehicles - 13
15mm WWII/Terrain - 8

One of my proudest achievements was taking part in the painting competition at this years Salute show. I was never going to win anything (the standard of entries is very high) but it was great fun to take part and see my model on display. I've also started painting a Flames of War army in 15mm which is a significant development away from purely 28mm Fantasy themed figures. For the benefit of newbies, here's a slide show on my completed miniatures including these two projects.

BigLee's Mini Gallery

I'll be revealing my New Year Resolution tomorrow but it shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone. Until then, wishing you all a very happy New Year and thanks for everything in 2009.

The Golden Age of Gaming

This post is inspired directly from an article in the gaming magazine Flagship (Issue 128) written by Shannon Appelcline. She asked when was your Golden Age... and have you had more than one?

"The Golden Age of Science Fiction is twelve" this doesn't mean the age 12 specifically but rather describes the age at which the author of that quote (David Hartwell) first encountered Sci-Fi. This idea of the Golden Age neatly encapsulates the sense of wonder and excitement we have when we encounter something for the first time. In future years we invariably look back at this time through rose tinted glasses. With each passing year the mythical proportions of this time grow and settle deeper into our consciousness. That's why our childhood is always described as the "Best Years of our Lives", even if they were actually horrible... given enough time they really do become the best years.

My Golden Age of D&D would be 14 and is forever 1983. This was when I encountered D&D (in the Red Box) for the first time. I'd discovered the Fighting Fantasy books a few months earlier and it was a small step for my friends and I to progress to a proper roleplaying game. Our first ever game will always stick in my mind, especially the moment when my character (a Barbarian that bore a not unsurprising resemblance to Conan) killed the Carrion Crawler outside the dungeon entrance. To quote John Kovalic, "I THACO'ed and I liked it!"

Of course before D&D I had a different Golden Age and it was my discovery of the so called 'Pulp' writers of the 1920's and 30's such as Robert E. Howard and H.P. Lovecraft. I was about 12 (so this is 1981) and I had discovered the Fantasy or Sword & Sorcery genre. Some of the forewords in the books I read mentioned other authors and the magazines they write for such as Weird Tales and Amazing Stories. It didn't take long before I encountered the Cthulhu Mythos and the works of writers like H.P. Lovecraft, Robert Bloch and August Derleth. Ironically It was my love of these so called 'Pulp' authors that lead me to the more scholarly work of Tolkien and

The Lord of the Rings.

Going back still further (way back to 1977) was my Golden Age of Science Fiction. This was the time when I - and pretty much every kid my age - was transfixed by films like Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. In fact I'd suggest I've actually had two golden ages of Sci-Fi, the first in the Movies and the second many years later in the printed works of Philip K. Dick and Isaac Asimov. I still love Sci-Fi but nothing will ever match the moment I first saw a huge Star Destroyer gliding onto the screen and first heard the music of John Williams.

I've been lucky to have several Golden Ages covering a wide range of genre's, and each will remain special to me. They shaped me into the Gamer I am today and for that I will be ever grateful. So what is your Golden Age and have you, like me, had more than one?

Finding Players

I recently stumbled upon a new website specifically designed to help you find new players. Game, Setup, Match! which aims to establish a nationwide gaming community in the UK. I recently discussed how to introduce new players to an established group but of course that depends on you being able to find a new player in the first place! Often word of mouth is all you need but if that fails there are several 'player finders' on the Internet. Here's a selection of my favorites.

• ENWorld.com also has a Gamers seeking Gamers section.
• If your a member of The Miniatures Page there is also a Player Finder option available.
• If Flames of War is your game then you can use the Battlefront websites Club Finder to locate a nearby game.
• Similarly if your a Roleplayer then go no further than UK Roleplayers and their club finder.
• Pen and Paper Games has an excellent Player Finder as part of its forum. You can search by proximity, genres and whether they are a player or GM. The best bit is the use of a navigable map that makes identifying local players easy.
• For Call of Cthulhu gamers Yog-Sothoth.com's Players Directory is an excellent searchable database of players.

This is by no means an exhaustive list but they represent sites that I have either used myself or had recommended to me at one time or another.

Cthulhu fhtagn

I've had an awful nights sleep. In fact I had one of the most bizarre nights of my life with lovecraftian mythos inspired nightmares filling my mind for most of the night. My dreams consisted of mist shrouded coastlines, lonely clifftop paths, dark moonless nights, deserted lighthouses, decaying wharfs and warehouses and the vague outline of some massive cyclopean creature just out of view through foggy seas. I woke several times shaken and confused only to drift back off to sleep and return to this decaying New England dreamworld.

Dreams fascinated H.P.Lovecraft, indeed he often claimed that his writing was inspired by nocturnal visions he had had. Several stories featured strange and vaguely horrifying nightmares like mine. Usually as the dreamer slowly descended into madness! Eek!!

The Plans of Mice and Men

I've not been very active on the painting/modeling front recently. Family life (and death) have been occupying most of my free time for the last few months. Most evenings have consisted of a round of phone calls and other chores and frankly by the time I'm finished, I'm finished, if you know what I mean. The final straw came when I sat down and made an accurate tally of the models I have painted so far this year. Here it is:

28mm Fantasy/Foot - 9
28mm Fantasy/Mounted - 1
28mm Fantasy/Creature - 1
28mm Fantasy/Terrain - 1

28mm Call of Cthulhu - 1
28mm Warhammer 40k - 1

15mm WWII/Infantry - 0
15mm WWII/Vehicles - 13
15mm WWII/Terrain - 8

That's a grand total of 35 models in a year. Pathetic! So this week I was determined to get back on track and do some painting.... I got as far as undercoating some models before the plan fell apart. Sigh.

Here's a link to my painted mini gallery, most of which date from this year. I'm making an early new years resolution to significantly add to this gallery over the next 13 months. After all the original reason for starting this blog was to encourage me to paint more. If I am to achieve that goal I need to pull my finger out and get busy.

Scary Pictures

This is 'The Croglin Vampire' painted by Les Edwards and its probably one of the scariest vampire pictures I have ever seen. I was first acquainted with this picture from the pages of the Call of Cthulhu RPG (2nd edition I think) and it gave me the creeps just as much back then as it does now. Like many great pieces of art there is a story behind this work.

The Vampire of Croglin Grange is one of the best known vampire stories in England and first appeared in print in a book by Augustus Hare in 1896. The story goes that just after the English Civil War (about 1650 ish) the Grange was let to 2 brothers and a sister (the Cranswells) and at first they loved their new home. However during the hot summer the sister took to sleeping with her shuttered window open, whereupon she was attacked and bitten by the Vampire. Her screams roused her brothers who chased the apparition away.

The next summer the incident was repeated and this time one of the brothers shot the creature in the leg and then tracked it back to a crypt in a nearby churchyard. Upon investigation a single undisturbed coffin was found to contain a corpse with a fresh bullet wound to the leg! The body was duly buried and the incident never repeated.

The story bears an uncanny resemblance to the first chapter of Varney the Vampyre the popular story by Montague Summers and originally published in 1847. Its possible that Hare 'borrowed' the story from the earlier work by Summers but as is the way with these things the story of the Croglin vampire has become woven into local myth and folklore. Either way it makes a good story and proved the inspiration for one of Les Edwards scariest paintings.

Web Comics

I like web comics. I follow dozens of them, not all game related although most are. There is some great humor out there and here is a selection of my current favorites (the list is growing all the time).

The Unspeakable Vault of Doom is a quirky but very very funny Cthulhu Mythos inspired comic. True, stories of cosmic horror and tales of the old ones seem like a strange subject for comedy. But if you like your humor in five dimensions, this is the comic for you. If H.P.Lovecraft were still alive I think he would definatly approve of this tribute to his work.

The Order of the Stick is probably one of the longest running story arcs in comic form on the net. There are plenty of in-jokes about the rules and contradictions inherent in D&D that will make any player chuckle. There are also some great moments of slapstick guaranteed to make you guffaw - embarrassing if you're reading the strip at your desk in work. OOTS strips have been collected together into a series of excellent books (each with bonus material) which would sit nicely on any gamers shelves.

XKCD isn't a 'gaming' comic at all. Its mostly about maths and science but you'd have to be dead from the neck up not to enjoy the humor. One of my favorite strips has to be this tribute to Gary Gygax. As well as some great visual gags this strip is also full of excellent observational humor about the absurdity that is the human condition.

Billed as the Gamers comic strip it features the hapless Wargamer Larry Leadhead. Written with an insiders understanding of wargaming humor and sympathy for our poor dice rolls & shaky grasp of the rules. One of my favorites is why painters should never paint their last miniature. As with OOTS there are several book compendiums of Larry strips that you can purchase online. I feature a Larry Leadhead strip at the foot of this blog.

Another favorite of mine, and a web comic I have been following for years, is Dork Tower by John Kovalik, a fellow Brit now living in the US. John describes his comic thus "DORK TOWER is for anybody who’s ever played Dungeons and Dragons, who’s ever gone to a Star Trek convention, anyone who suspects that Anime is more than just a passing fad, or anyone who KNOWS one of these people." John has a large web presence with a Blog, a twitter page, and a Facebook page! He's also a very nice chap and not only signed my copies of his books but drew me a personal Igor portrait (my favorite character from the strip).

Last but not least are two comics, Nodwick and Full Frontal Nerdity, by Aaron Williams. Both have been around for a long time and, in the case of Nodwick, debuted in Dragon Magazine (issue #246 - April 1998). Nodwick is the long suffering Henchman in a disfunctional group of adventurers that most gamers will instantly recognise. Capable of carrying the huge ammounts of loot aquired by his companions nodwick is also employed to find (read 'trigger') traps. He spends a lot of his time being put back together again by the party cleric, Piffany, with the aid of large rolls of Duct tape.

There are lots of great webcomics that I also read (such as PVP and The Legend of Bill) but these ones are my personal favorites and keep me ammused (and sane) during the long dull work day!

10 Portents of Doom

List ten 'signs' the world is about to end or something really bad is about to happen.

1. An eclipse of the sun - This is a classic sign of chaotic upheaval from ancient times.
2. Unusual plagues - Never fun at the best of times but a series of plagues means someone has it in for you.
3. Unseasonal migrations of epic scale - Like the birds fleeing New York in The Day After Tomorrow
4. Rain of frogs/animals - This type of event has been recorded several times and the origin still remains a mystery.
5. Blood Moon - This can be a natural phenomenon (sand blown into the upper atmosphere) but to the ancient mind it was a reason to cower in your hovel and start praying.
6. Comet in the Sky - Another astronomical sign that this is going to be a really bad day.
7. Swarms of Insects – The odd spider in the house is fine but turn this into ten thousand spiders (or beetles, or locusts...you get the picture) and you have a real infestation problem.
8. Dogs behaving strangely of barking at unseen threat– Animals can often sense danger before we can. Handy if you live in an earthquake zone.
9. Dead fish wash up in harbour - Great Cthulhu will need a snack when he wades ashore
10. Milk Sours - So nobody can relax with a cup of tea when everything goes to pot.

You also need someone to doom say, an old crone for instance... "It’s a bad omen I tell ya…The signs are not good…” just in case the players haven't picked up on the signs (or weren't listening, again!).

Cthulhu Gunman

Here are a few pictures of a recently finished project, a Gunman for a Cthulhu game. I'm working on a set of character models and this is the first. These are not being painted to display standard, just good enough to game with. The first two pictures are development pictures and the final is the completed model.Not my best work but certainly good enough for a game.

Progress at last

I had a really good painting session last night. I haven't got a lot done recently for various reasons (mostly too much to do and too little time) but last night I was able to sit down and get a solid two hours painting done. I've finished a Call of Cthulhu figure I started weeks ago and got all the base coating done on a Space Marine display model. Pictures of both projects will follow as soon as I get a chance to download them. Hopefully tonight will also be fruitful, after today things pick up and get busy again into the weekend.

Once I have these models done I will be turning my attention to some Flames of War miniatures and my first 15mm painting project. A US M10 tank destroyer platoon.

How many rules do you need for non-combat roleplaying?

Today I'm featuring the first of what I hope will be an series of occasional Guest Posts from members of my gaming group, the Dagenham Dungeon Delvers. Peter has been playing D&D and other games as long as me and has run several successful campaigns. He is our current GM running his own campaign setting, The Sunless Citadels, using the 4th Edition rules.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Evolving from Wargaming, the earliest editions of D&D were heavily into combat capabilities first and everything else second. There were rules for picking locks etc, but initially at least they were a totally different mechanic and felt tacked on. Spells were the primary means of giving non-combat powers and abilities, but skills were [subsequently] greatly expanded and better graduated. But it still fell well short of all the other roleplaying systems based around a vast array of skills and capabilities - Call of Cthulhu, Runequest, Dr Who, Traveller, and so on.

But does having a raft of skills and capabilities reduce or enhance roleplaying? In some games, particularly Sci-fi or Modern games, you need these skills. How good your PC is at piloting a spaceship or his skill at hacking government computers is critical to the story, so you will need structured rules for these situations. You also need a way to differentiate [for example] an expert pilot from a merely good one. But in a pseudo medieval world the challenges you are overcoming are [on the whole] physical ones requiring combat.

At its core I guess every game needs challenges to overcome and it's the nature of those challenges that dictate whether you use skills and abilities or combat rules to overcome them. In a game such as Call of Cthulhu where combat is definitely a last resort you need a raft of skills to give your players the ability to overcome obstacles. In the more combat orientated D&D world you utilise detailed combat rules to progress.

A good game is one where you are not [relying solely on] die rolls to determine your success. Similarly in a combat-based RPG you want a game that allows you to select tactics and weapons to enhance your success rather than a never ending series of to-hit and damage rolls.

All of which raises another, possibly more important question. Is it better to resolve social interactions with dice rolls or should they be role-played? Do you allow your players to use their social skills, or limit them according to the stats their characters possess?

Secret Squirrel

Apparently I'm a Secret Squirrel. Or at least that was an accusation that has recently been laid at my door. Well if the Fedora fits....


Maybe this could form the basis of a Cthulhu/Sylvania crossover game? Sanity loss assured.

I'll post again later but right now I think I need to lay down in a darkened room... or drink lots of black coffee, I'm not sure which.

The Splatter Gun Effect

It has been said (be me in fact) that I lack focus. That's not an entirely accurate observation but it does convey the broad range of my interests. As one of my favorite Cartoonists said, "My Fandom, Is Random". So it shouldn't come as a surprise that I'm often juggling multiple projects at the same time. So what am I working on right now.

• Well the blog keeps me busy most days, and this is something I have enjoyed a great deal since its inception back in January. My main aim is still to share and improve my miniatures painting but the blog has also provided a forum for me to talk about my wider hobby interests and this seems to have gone down well with my readers (I always welcome feedback folks).
• I'm also continuing to develop my Campaign World (gotta tell you about this sometime) for D&D. When I started this project over four years ago I produced a 'sourcebook' for my players and now I have enough material for a revision... a 2nd edition non-the-less.
• In addition I am developing and writing a third campaign for my players. I'm the sort of GM that thrives on detailed backstories, real world politics and a setting that maintains internal consistency across the whole campaign arc. And this makes writing the campaign both enormous fun and very hard work.
• To support the campaign I have a growing list of miniatures that need painting and Dungeon Floorplans that need putting together.
• And if this lot were not enough I am also considering running a Basic D&D game and a Call-of-Cthulhu game for my gaming group... with accompanying Miniatures and Floortiles of course.

So, long story short, I'm quite busy at the moment. Add in the fact that I have a full calendar of living history events, game conventions and trade shows and you can see I'm burning the metaphorical candle at both ends and in the middle. And it has to be said that I'm loving every minute of it.

New Project - Gunman

I've started prep'ing a number of models for a possible Call of Cthulhu game in the near future. I have a selection of miniatures that would be suitable for a 1920's setting and this is the first that I am working on.
I'm still at the starting stages, having basecoated and begun the highlighting process. I'm experimenting with a more 'painterly' style this time (i.e. slapping-it-on-while-wearing-a-béret) but I'm not sure it's turning out how I want.

I'll post more pictures as I progress with this model.