MU Podcast 057 - Mappers' Friends and Lunar Fiends

[Keeper Dan]

In 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

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• 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, hereand 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...

• US Coast Guard
• The Historical Naval Ships Association
• The RMS Aquitania
• Steamship Deck Plans
• YSDC Forum Thread on Ocean Liners
• Smithsonian Nautical Exhibition Page
• Plus Lighthouse History from the Coast Guard and an Enthusiast Site

Jon did looked up some images for missile silos...

• Titan Silo
• Missile Base
• Bunker Home Plans
• US Air Force Sketch
• Buckaroo Bonzai's Complex 88

Chad pulled up a couple of links for New England maps and historical house layouts

• House Mouse
• University of New Hampshire

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, andturning 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.

[Keeper Jon]

Am I missing the moon beast audio files? I may just be overlooking them, but I don't think I see them. Dan, can you help a brotha out?

[Keeper Dan]

Crap. I forgot to add them before I published. I'll have to get it after work.

[Graham]

Good episode, thought I was surprised you didn't mention my favourite source for house plans, the Internet Archives "Building Technology Heritage Library", which covers the late 19th C to 1964 time period.

The picture below gives an example of what can be found:

[Keeper Jon]

Good episode, thought I was surprised you didn't mention my favourite source for house plans, the Internet Archives "Building Technology Heritage Library", which covers the late 19th C to 1964 time period.

The picture below gives an example of what can be found:

Awesome! Thanks Graham.

[Graham]

Good episode, thought I was surprised you didn't mention my favourite source for house plans, the Internet Archives "Building Technology Heritage Library" (BHTL), which covers the late 19th C to 1964 time period.

The picture below gives an example of what can be found:

Awesome! Thanks Graham.

I've put a direct link in the "1920s Campaign Resources" thread, the BTHL is not as far as I can tell sortable by year, but what I've found is that plan books tend to be conservative, so books from the 1940's generally tend to reflect the 1930's, 20's books the 10's and so on.

[PirateLawyer]

Belated thanks for tackling this mapping issue in a segment. Useful links and advice, to be sure. I will put it to good use!

[etopp]

Following your discussion about moon beasts and references to the "dark side of the Moon", I thought I'd mention some events in my current CoC campaign.

The Investigators went through a gate and ended up in the Dreamlands. This was a surprise to some of the players as I don't think they were familiar with HPL's Dreamlands stories. Anyway, their characters were on a galley heading through space towards the Moon. Now, I knew that the dark (i.e. far) side of the Moon meant that it was unknown before Luna 3 similar to the way that Europeans once referred to Africa as the dark continent. However, one of my players is a volunteer guide at the local NASA tracking station and likes to correct this type of misconception. I thought I'd have a bit of fun so I said that in the Dreamlands the dark side of the Moon really was dark. "So how can I see?" he asked. I said that his Investigator immediately lost his sight - unlike the others. To fix this (using dream logic), he had to wear his spectacles.

Like you, I also thought that limiting the moon beasts to using spears was a bit boring, so (in keeping with their vile nature) I gave them whips with poisoned barbs. If an Investigator was whipped, the Investigator then had to roll CON x 1 or be helpless with agonising pain for 1D10 turns. This deterred escape attempts (helping to railroad the adventure) and gave the Investigators some motivation i.e. revenge when the opportunity arose.

[Dr. Gerard]

1. Great resource, Graham. Knocked it out of the park with that one.

2. Love your take on the Dreamlands Moon, etopp. Dreamlands is a great opportunity to explore myths and outdated assumptions. Hollow Earth, a recursive foundation of turtle shells, a Sun that revolves around the Earth...all these things are fair game in dreams, no? And I love how you even allowed for differences in each PC's perception. That's a trick I'm likely to steal.

[Graham]

1. Great resource, Graham. Knocked it out of the park with that one.

I'm still exploring it myself, one good trick is to look at the keywords or the creator, they seem to have a lot of Sears catalogs, covering houses (including kit-built mansions), barns and fittings.

I'm linking below to a catalog by a West-Coast maker of Kit-houses, whose main claim to fame these days is that Walt Disney's first California home was one of their products, the advertising at the front gives a good outline of the 'kit house' process.

Pacific's book of homes, vol. 25 (1925)

https://archive.org/details/PacificRead ... svol250001

Roy and Walt and Disneyland and Pacific Ready-Cut Homes

http://wardwayhomes.com/blog/2010/08/ro ... cut-homes/