MU Podcast 057 – Mappers' Friends and Lunar Fiends

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MUP_057_Mappers_Friends_and_Lunar_FiendsIn episode 57, we’re rifling through some hidden digital cartography and floorplan resources to help you flesh out your games. Plus, hop aboard a black galleon for a lunar safari to see if we might spot a Moon-beast. Plus news, the conclusion of our IndieGogo campaign, and more!

Campus Crier

Cubicle 7 has released a book of scenarios for the Laundry system called Unconventional Diplomacy. Goodman Games is Kickstarting a hardcover version of Age of Cthulhu 8: Starfall Over the Plateau of Leng Our opening has been translated into Japanese by forum member Flashbackjuice! IndieGogo final tally: $3,692!! Once again, a sincere thank you to all who contributed. Perks for backers are on the way! Alumni Dinner signups will continue until August 1st. Just go to mu-podcast.com/dinner to sign up.

Card Catalog

Check out this amusing Lovecraftian description generator…

Cryptocurium Spot

Totem of the Wind Walker
“A small pendant fashioned from mammoth ivory that depicts the Native-American mythical being known as “The Wind-Walker” and “Ithaqua”. According to legend, wearers of the totem were possessed by the spirit of Ithaqua and became imbued with an insatiable hunger for human flesh. Scholars believe this to be the origin of the “Wendigo” legend. Item is currently housed in the Miskatonic University Special Collections Department.”
  • This pendant is hand cast in solid resin by artist Jason McKittrick. The Totem of the Wind-Walker comes attached to a red suede cord that is ready to wear or hang.
  • Measures 2″ x 3″
  • $15 + shipping

Bestiary

This week, we’re gibbering about Moon-beasts! First reference:
“Great greyish-white slippery things which could expand and contract at will, and whose principal shape — though it often changed — was that of a sort of toad without any eyes, but with a curious vibrating mass of short pink tentacles on the end of its blunt, vague snout” — HP Lovecraft, The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath
The Moon-beast makes an appearance in the Pathfinder world, too. Stats can be found on the Paizo site, and so can the miniature mentioned in the show. Here are some of our favorite Moon-beast images from Deviantart. Anchor text can be found here, here, here and here. As a web bonus, not mentioned during the show, here’s a link to the Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode of a terrible movie called Track of the Moon Beast. A warning: Lovecraft’s influence is pretty thin, here…

Main Topic

This week’s topic comes to us from PirateLawyer on the forums: As a Keeper I struggle to find map resources that I can readily convert for use in my games. Where can I go to find, say, a map of a deserted oil rig? An abandoned missile silo? A 1960s apartment block? etc. Dan focused on plans for ships and nautical structures… Jon did looked up some images for missile silos… Chad pulled up a couple of links for New England maps and historical house layouts We also chatted about oil rigs, as mentioned in the original question. Koakai from the forums found that Google’s 3D Warehouse has some 3D images like this one that could be exported to a flat file using the free software SketchUp. Jon scrounged up a map of 27,000 abandoned wells and oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico, and a floor plan for an imagined reclaimed oil rig as a living space for after the zombie apocalypse. It’s a well-assumed fact that zombies can’t swim probably.  Along the way, we mention Surface, an old medium-good TV show, which incorporated an abandoned oil rig. For other search resources, consider using a search engine that uses Bing and Google at the same time, and turning off your web history to keep Google from constraining your search results. Other cool game resources can be found on the US Census site, and Wolfram Alpha for stats searches –try typing “New Orleans” for an example of its usefulness in games. Another interesting resource for maps, not mentioned during the show, is the Google Plus community “The Library of Gaming Maps.” It’s mostly fantasy stuff, but it’s a great community and they love to help hunt stuff down. Discuss what you heard on this show on our Campus Forums here.]]>