MU Podcast 075 - Dust-up on the Dunes

Post by **Keeper Dan** » Mon Mar 23, 2015 12:20 am

Episode 75 sees Jon and Dan back from the Bestiary and trying to get sand out of their stuff (I hate sand, it gets everywhere). Then they crack open the digital goodness of the Call of Cthulhu 7th Edition rules to look at how combat works now. This episode was recorded on March 22, 2015.

Campus Crier

Sense Impacts, a soundtrack for Call of Cthulhu has been released!
The Kickstarter campaign for the Masks of Nyarlathotep Companion for Call of Cthulhu is complete!
Friend of the show Bret Kramer was interviewed on Unspeakable about the campaign.
Journal of Lovecraftian Science Kickstarter: 7 days to go, and almost to a stretch goal that will provide a 10 page book for the biology of the Mi-Go.https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1081353216/journal-of-lovecraftian-science-volume-1/
Orcs Must Die Goes To Board Game With Head-to-Head Twist
A very generous member of the community had a spare Trail of Cthulhu book, and donated it to Dan. Thank you!
Gareth is now updating YSDC when a new episode drops. Thank you!
We also have a community segment being worked on for future episodes.

Keepers Jon and Dan received more mysterious postcards. This time from Italy. Make of them what you will!

There is a gallery on the show notes page that does not translate to the forum code.

Cryptocurium Spotlight
Alien magnets are back in stock!

The Bestiary
We pull our Stillsuits out of storage once again to find another denizen of the desert wastes, Sand Dwellers!

Here is the cover of Jon's book to show a great rendition of a Sand Dweller.

Sidebar
Koalas are cute at a distance, but utterly disgusting animals.

Main Topic
Jon and Dan cover the first components of the new combat system for Call of Cthulhu 7th Edition.
Nutshell Version:
All attacks are resolved using opposed rolls from the attacker and defender.
Defenders of melee attacks have the choice of Fight Back, Dodge, or do nothing. (We don't recommend the last one for survival)

If a weapon needs practice to be good with it, like a sword, then it should have its own skill. Otherwise simple or improvised weapons use Brawling.

Dr. Gerard · Post by **Dr. Gerard** » Mon Mar 23, 2015 1:04 am

Hahahah -- sand people as Timeless Sands extras in the episode collage. Nice one.

Dr. Gerard · Post by **Dr. Gerard** » Mon Mar 23, 2015 2:20 am

I think the whole reference to Sand Dwellers specifically being in the American Southwest might stem from Adam Niswander's novel, "Sand Dwellers," which I have not read. But I lived near the Superstition Mountains, where the novel is set, for about a year in Tempe and got to meet Adam at Mythoscon in 2011. It was his lifelong dream to make that convention happen. He gave me a copy of "The Charm," which is a really fun read. He died in 2012 after a long battle with cancer.

More here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sand_Dwellers

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Niswander

A tribute on the Lovecraft E-Zine YouTube channel after he passed away:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sr7Plw1cXw

Update: I just found a copy of Sand Dwellers online and bought it. Maybe sometime I'll have an opportunity to report back about how he treats the Dwellers.

Jon, I love the idea of the backwoods gothic story of a Sand Dweller baby raised in a human family. Reminds me a little bit of the Clive Barker story Rawhead Rex.

Post by **Keeper Dan** » Mon Mar 23, 2015 1:38 pm

Chad told me that there's a silence gap in the episode. I'll fix it tonight after work and connect the new file to the feed for everyone.

Keeper Jon · Post by **Keeper Jon** » Mon Mar 23, 2015 3:50 pm

And I will email Dan the transcripts of our postcards for him to post into the show notes as well. I meant to do it last night, but I way over-medicated myself due to my allergies, and I was wiped out. I crashed early last night. Felling better today.

3rik · Post by **3rik** » Mon Mar 23, 2015 4:52 pm

Am I somehow overlooking the link for directly downloading the episode?

Post by **Keeper Dan** » Mon Mar 23, 2015 5:27 pm

Weird. I added a manual link at the top of the post. I'll have to see what happened and why the links aren't auto-populating like they should.

Thomas R. Knutsson · Post by **Thomas R. Knutsson** » Mon Mar 23, 2015 6:30 pm

Keeper Jon wrote:And I will email Dan the transcripts of our postcards for him to post into the show notes as well. I meant to do it last night, but I way over-medicated myself due to my allergies, and I was wiped out. I crashed early last night. Felling better today.

I can definitely relate to that. I have a severe birch tree pollen allergy that makes me a indoors recluse during the later part of the spring season.

fox01313 · Post by **fox01313** » Mon Mar 23, 2015 11:37 pm

Nice show though a bit short though having gone through tons of allergy issues recently too after the cold/flu plague, it's understandable. Thanks for the tips on the 7th ed. combat which makes a lot more sense now & should speed things up though still want to play some of the new edition before running it once I leave enough signs of Hastur around for the friends to try to spur them into getting a gaming schedule in order for playing more locally.

So trading tips now, on what I know on trail (once you get hooked on the Gumshoe system, it's 2nd favorite to Call of Cthulhu for me but great for horror/mystery settings):

Good tips some here on Unspeakable Oath in one part of this where they talk about Trail
http://theunspeakableoath.com/home/2013 ... f-cthulhu/

Also for the Night's Black Agents here's a bit more on some of the rules*, highly recommended as it's fun but informative on many things though a few skills are purely for Nights though the mechanics are universal to Gumshoe.
http://www.oneshotpodcast.com/one-shot/ ... planation/

*There is more tips in the Dracula Dossier sample around this link with the 4 part preview run of Dracula Dossier with Ken Hite

running the game (double bonus as it's not only a preview with Dracula Dossier but hearing a 4 part session with the writer of Night's Black Agents & Trail)
...link to part 1
http://www.oneshotpodcast.com/one-shot/ ... er-part-1/

Good things on the Pelgrane site hidden away in a dark corner of the downloads
http://www.pelgranepress.com/site/?tag=download&cat=10

Resources for new Trail of Cthulhu players/GMs
http://pelgranepress.com/site/?p=16862

After seeing the other good things from Pelgrane with Esoterrorists & Night's Black Agents, main difference between these & Trail is that Trail has the Sanity mechanic. All use stability though some like Esoterrorists only lightly touches the fun pillars of stability mechanic in Trail (which adds a lot of character background). I think if they ever do a 2nd edition to Trail, that they might wind up putting in the stealth & alertness modifiers (how sneaky or noticeable the monster is) as well as the dice power pool in Eso/Night's for the monster to use for any special powers.

Another good thing that came out of the Trail/Pelgrane camp that can go for that system or converted to Call of Cthulhu is the Armitage Files which is more of an open world campaign that's quite flexible for a campaign (as the Keeper can adapt the pieces to be helpful/fake or harmful to the players) & if you don't want to run that wild campaign, there are so many detailed NPCs & location/groups that it can be mined for info to fill any modern horror game.

Post by **Keeper Dan** » Tue Mar 24, 2015 12:14 am

I replaced the file with a good one. It should hopefully pull the fixed version in the feed now.