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In this episode, all four Keepers are back together to talk about a certain “unfathomable” Hyperborian wizard, postcards, Attract Fish, and the occasional Lemming. We also delve into an invaluable well of ideas from Lovecraft’s own brainstorming journal.This episode was recorded on March 8, 2015.

Campus Crier

We recorded two weekends in a row to reset our schedule so we all can be together more frequently. We’re now back on a fortnightly schedule with episode 75 on March 22.

• Alone Against the Flames, free PDF solo scenario and 7E tutorial.
• Wake Up, Cthulhu! — A card-driven board game for 2-4 players based on Lovecraft’s universe. In that universe, a group of cultists knows that their dread lord Cthulhu is awakening so they have to compete with each other to be his right hand and avoid being eaten with the rest of the humanity.
• Journal of Lovecraftian Science: “If we hit  $3,500.00 we will expand ‘The Biology of the Elder Things’ from a 10 page chapbook to a 20 page chapbook and it will be re-titled ‘The Biology of the Elder Things and Shoggoths.'”
• Packs! A fluffy horror RPG for Savage Worlds.
• Cave Evil, the board game described as “Imagine a game where Gary Gygax had been possessed by Abdul Alhazred”
• Kickstarter for the Masks of Nyarlathotep Companion for Call of Cthulhu is in its last days! Also, check out Bret Kramer’s interview on Unspeakable!
• First, Lovecraft Beer. Now, Lovecraft Wines.
• CthulhuCon is coming up in April in Portland.

Keepers Jon and Dan received some mysterious postcards from Edinburgh, Scotland. Make of them what you will! [gallery type="rectangular" link="file" ids="3263,3266,3267,3265,3264"]

Cryptocurium Spotlight

Masks-friendly items to go with the Masks of Nyarlathotep Companion. Both the Crawling Chaos Amulet and the Nyarlathotep Idol are useful props for the campaign.  

The Wizard’s Tower

In a new Side Topic, we’ll be selecting the occasional wizard to discuss. Be they a potential ally, Big Bad, or something more akin to a force of nature. Our first trip to the tower brings us to discuss everybody’s favorite Hyperborian conman: Eibon. “. . . The Book of Eibon, that strangest and rarest of occult forgotten volumes … is said to have come down through a series of manifold translations from a prehistoric original written in the lost language of Hyperborea.” —Clark Ashton Smith, “Ubbo-Sathla” Some of the main source stories for Eibon are Clark Ashton Smith’s The Door to Saturn, and the Coming of the White Worm. He’s also in Incubus of Atlantis, by Robert M. Price — and many, many other stories by Lin Carter, Laurence Cornford and others. Check out this great overal resource for all things Eibon from Chaosium: The Book of Eibon Listen to some great Klarkashtonian episodes about Eibon from The Double Shadow Episode 8- The Beast of Averoigne Episode 22- The Door to Saturn Part 1  Episode 23- The Door to Saturn Part 2 Episode 32- The Coming of the White Worm

Main Topic

Our task this week was to pick an item (or three) out of HP Lovecraft’s Commonplace Book and spin some ideas out of it. Choose a number from Commonplace Book and riff on it.

Jon  #195

Pane of peculiar-looking glass from a ruined monastery reputed to have harboured devil-worship set up in modern house at edge of wild country. Landscape looks vaguely and unplaceably wrong through it. It has some unknown time-distorting quality, and comes from a primal, lost civilisation. Finally, hideous things in other world seen through it.

Murf #198

Distant tower visible from hillside window. Bats cluster thickly around it at night. Observer fascinated. One night wakes to find self on unknown black circular staircase. In tower? Hideous goal.

Chad #44/#77/#51

44 Castle by pool or river—reflection fixed thro’ centuries—castle destroyed, reflection lives to avenge destroyers weirdly. 51 Enchanted garden where moon casts shadow of object or ghost invisible to the human eye. 77 Unspeakable dance of the gargoyles—in morning several gargoyles on old cathedral found transposed.

Dan #141

Footnote by Haggard or Lang in “The World’s Desire” “Probably the mysterious and indecipherable ancient books, which were occasionally excavated in old Egypt, were written in this dead language of a more ancient and now forgotten people. Such was the book discovered at Coptos, in the ancient sanctuary there, by a priest of the Goddess. ‘The whole earth was dark, but the moon shone all about the Book.’ A scribe of the period of the Ramessids mentions another in indecipherable ancient writing. ‘Thou tellest me thou understandest no word of it, good or bad. There is, as it were, a wall about it that none may climb. Thou art instructed, yet thou knowest it not; this makes me afraid.’ “Birch Zeitschrift 1871 pp. 61–64 Papyrus Anastasi I pl. X, l.8, pl. X l.4. Maspero, Hist. Anc. pp. 66–67.”

Here’s a link to The World’s Desire Sidebar Lemmings don’t really commit mass suicide. That was invented by Disney. Discuss this episode on the Campus Forums]]>