MU Podcast 043 -- The Campaign Trail

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Keeper Dan
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MU Podcast 043 -- The Campaign Trail

Post by Keeper Dan » Sun Nov 17, 2013 11:05 pm

Image
In episode 43, we talk about the pacing and of construction of campaigns. We also head back to the bestiary to investigate the mysterious Serpent People! Fortunately, we also get a visit from our favorite adrenalin junkie, Monterey Jack, who tells us about an odd piece of equipment that could help us fend off the scaly folk.


Campus Crier
  • Rafael Chandler did, in fact, release his new game called Pandemonio, and there's an excellent interview on The Good Friends of Jackson Elias to explore his sick little vision of this game. Two words: cannibalism mechanic.
  • Also recently released: In Strange Aeons: Lovecraftian Numenera. The hugely popular science-fantasy game by Monte Cook now has a Mythos add-on. Yikes.
  • And the latest issue of The Arkham Gazette is out! This issue's theme: Arkham! You can find Bret Kramer's Lovecraft Country newsletter for free on Sentinel Hill Press.
  • HP Lovecraft Historical Society has released their first Rock Opera, Dreams in the Witch House.
  • Also, HPLHS has announced that their next Dark Adventure Radio Theater will be: Herbert West, Reanimator!
  • Robert M. Price has launched a new podcast, called “The Lovecraft Geek.” It's available on iTunes, but you have to root around for it a little.
  • The Lovecraft e-Zine is moving to a bi-monthly format, and they're going to start publishing books!
  • By the way, remember the Card Catalog last show with all the great random generators? It was on a site called Donjon. Apparently that’s just a really weird way to spell the word dungeon.

And a zealous sponsor shout-out to ZombieMaster! Thank you so much for your contribution.
Monterey Jack

After a very long hiatus, Monterey Jack finally took a minute to come into the Miskatonic University Anthony Goodlight Memorial Recording Hall and record a segment about the Serpent Fang-Slinger.

Along the way, we call back to the Indonesian Upas Tree, a source of poison with legendary properties.


Cryptocurium Chat
This week, we discuss the limited edition Antarctic Expedition Kit, which is full of proppy goodness for keepers to use in Beyond the Mountains of Madness.


Bestiary
We’re back in the bestiary this week to spy on our squamous neighbors, the Serpent People. Here's a nice wiki entry on them from YSDC.

These wily things show up in all kinds of fiction and folklore, including the Silurians in Dr. Who, Sleestaks in Land of the Lost, and...various conspiracy theories. A good place to start with the latter is Jon Ronson's documentary about David Icke.


Here's some more background on the Mythos version, which are said to worship Great Yig.


One cool tech item players might encounter is the Mirror of the Serpent People.


And if you want a possible plot hook involving an artifact with Serpent People connections, check out Bret Kramer's The Milltrap Stone on Unspeakable Oath.
There is also Joe Broer's Yig 'The Father of Serpents" idol.
The Yahoo News article about giant fauna that Jon mentions can be found here.


A brain storm on multi-group campaigns


Main Topic


For our main topic this time we’re dipping back into our well of ideas from listeners. We covering a couple of suggestions from our forum about running and writing campaigns.
From Zombieneighbours...


Pacing and the construction of Long Term campaigns, how do you keep the investigators from going off the deep end too quickly, and how do you bring in replacements when the Mythos takes it toll.
From Gareth….


Do you guys have any hints and tips for me in terms of writing your own campaigns? Any feedback or help would be really appreciated.
In this segment, Chandler's Law comes up.
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Re: MU Podcast 043 -- The Campaign Trail

Post by WinstonP » Mon Nov 18, 2013 6:24 am

You can download issue #1 of the Arkham Gazette here - http://sentinelhillpress.files.wordpres ... er-1-0.pdf

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Re: MU Podcast 043 -- The Campaign Trail

Post by Benjamin.wenham » Mon Nov 18, 2013 8:04 am

Two mentions in one episode, awesome. :D

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Re: MU Podcast 043 -- The Campaign Trail

Post by Keeper Dan » Mon Nov 18, 2013 10:56 am

Crap! I completely missed that we were missing the link to the Gazette! Sorry about that Bret.
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Re: MU Podcast 043 -- The Campaign Trail

Post by fox01313 » Mon Nov 18, 2013 5:39 pm

Great job on this one guys & very nice piece on the serpent men & thanks for the reminder about Nephren Ka*. The idea of one person in the hold of the ship being consumed is a nice touch & there's been plenty of things going on with the carrying over of a likeness through time with the movie franchise Phantasm which would be a nice spot of inspiration for those looking for fun ways of putting things in.

Now that the Silurians from Dr. Who were finally mentioned near the end (this was driving me crazy it wasn't mentioned sooner as they'd look like some offshoot serpent men quite well on doing a near human look to them), as I've seen many of the episodes with them & they could be a good source of inspiration on getting some of the more subtle characteristics down plus the writing on the last few seasons/doctors have been damn good so plenty of rich fun there to mine for in your games. Image & some Dr. Who wiki links off the main one I know of:

Image

http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Silurian

http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Silurians_ ... ppearances

Do want to say if people are going with the serpent people, to avoid the Lair of the White Worm book from Bram Stoker (hilariously covered on the HP Lovecraft literary podcast), movie is okay but that's the only other serpent people thing I could think of to get ideas from.

Great tips on the rest & still jotting down notes on the campaign stuff.

*was about to use an Egyptian sounding name for something writing up to see if Unspeakable Oath likes it for one of the small written sections & almost was going with that as the first thing coming to mind, just don't want to use him/it for this short prop idea
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Re: MU Podcast 043 -- The Campaign Trail

Post by Thomas R. Knutsson » Sat Nov 23, 2013 7:37 pm

While we talk about Serpent People, let's not forget the TV-series V. (I prefer the original over the remake. Huge fan by the original here, I have all the comic books of it too.)

The Original

V (1983) (TV Movie)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085106/

V: The Final Battle (1984) (TV Mini-Series)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086823/

V (1984-1985) (TV Series)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086822/


The Remake
V (2009-2011) (TV series)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1307824/
In the morning, mist comes up from the sea by the cliffs beyond Kingsport. White and feathery it comes from the deep to its brothers the clouds, full of dreams of dank pastures and caves of leviathan.
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Re: MU Podcast 043 -- The Campaign Trail

Post by Keeper Dan » Sun Nov 24, 2013 1:04 am

I do believe I mentioned V on the show. I remember the original mini-series quite fondly.
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Re: MU Podcast 043 -- The Campaign Trail

Post by creatureslagoon » Thu Nov 28, 2013 3:25 am

I have to say I have incorporated serpent people the most of any other Mythos characters in my short time as keeper. They are so great, as the are some much like humanity. I worked one in a back story of a character that had a mysterious past, and wrote a crazy Yig adventure for them. Serpent people are great for a surprise reveal from human guise. Very long story short, I had a female investigator force another investigator to shoot her in the face after she got knocked up by a serpent man willingly to help complete a campaign.

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Re: MU Podcast 043 -- The Campaign Trail

Post by Benjamin.wenham » Thu Nov 28, 2013 6:46 am

I have never used serpent people.

It isn't that I dislike them. I really like them.

Rather it is that I haven't had "the big idea" for them yet. I am sort of saving them, until I can do something truly amazing with them.

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Re: MU Podcast 043 -- The Campaign Trail

Post by Scott Dorward » Thu Nov 28, 2013 10:54 pm

Thanks for the mention! Rafael is a great guest, and he always gives good interview.

Oddly enough, Paul, Matt and I have just started work on a pulp campaign about serpent people. We thought they'd been underutilised, despite having lots of potential.

The book is going to take a while to develop, but I hope it will be out in 2015.

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