Chaosium Digest Volume 8, Number 11 Date: Sunday, November 20, 1994 Number: 1 of 1 Contents: Nephilim Plans (Sam Shirley) NEPHILIM Review: Herald of Doom #1 (Shannon Appel) ELRIC! Review: HPL's Miscellaneous Writings (Bob Cannard) CALL OF CTHULHU Editor's Note: Welcome to another issue of the Chaosium Digest. Just today, subscriptions topped 550 people, more than ever before. PRINCE VALIANT RETURNS: Fans of King Arthur, Camelot and Hal Foster's Prince Valiant may be interested in Prince Valiant #1 [of 4] (Marvel Comics, $3.95). It's a brand new story, set at the very end of King Arthur's reign, beginning with the final climatic battle between Arthur and Modred. It's quite good, and seems to be fairly true both to Foster's Valiant and the Arthurian legends. Writers are Charles Vess and Elaine Lee. Artists are John Ridgway and Curtis Woodbridge. -------------------- From: Sam Shirley Subject: Nephilim Plans System: Nephilim I'm writing to clear up a few concerns expressed by Peter Whitelaw regarding Nephilim and our planned support. It's unfortunate that someone got the impression that we are not planning to support the game. Indeed, our intentions are the opposite. Our annoucements of upcoming releases are not the only releases we plan -- they are merely the one we will do in the near future, with some speculation of what will be out in the medium and long term. There main emphases is to tell what will be released in the next 3 to 4 months, and in those upcoming months, there will be several new Nephilim items available. First on the schedule is the Gamemaster's Veil, which will be out in a few weeks. This contains a GM screen, a 13 page adventure, and an Astrological Modifier wheel to quickly calculate the modifier for any day. Shortly after that, at intervals of every two or so months, we will publish Past Lives (character generation), Mystery of the Serpent Mounds (adventures), Secret Societies (sourcebook), Major Arcanum (sourcebook), Templars (sourcebook), Revealed Mysteries, Liber Ka (magic) and various adventure books as we get finished manuscripts in house. We have numerous other projects planned and semi-planned, including soucebooks for the different Arcanum, regional books, campaign adventure books, the Selenim, and more, but it is our policy not to officially announce projects until they are solidly underway. Which brings me to my next topic: We certainly would like contributions to a book of short adventures, as Peter has suggested. These will be compiled into a 128 page book of adventures, or perhaps more, as material allows. If you have something you'd like to contribute, or a proposal for an adventure, please write me at chaosium@aol.com, or Chaosium Inc, 950-a 56th street, Oakland, Ca 94608, to discuss them. Other projects for which I am soliciting contributions are: Nephilim Gamemaster's Companion: History and Timeline, Secrets about the societies, secrets about the world, big plots. Contributors to this book will have to work closely with me and with each other. It will help to have access to the net (which all of you do, obviously). Nephilim Player's Companion: More weapons, equipments, spells, creatures, etc. If you have contributions to make to these, please write us at one of the above addresses. Thanks, Sam Shirley -------------------- From: appel@erzo.berkeley.edu (Shannon Appel) Subject: Review: Herald of Doom #1 System: Elric! A few weeks ago, I received in my mailbox the first issue of Herald of Doom, the newsletter of Elric! roleplaying. Although the 'zine is small (just 12 pages), it chock full of fun things for the Elric! fan. Also, unlike many starting fanzines, Herald of Doom is a pleasure to look at. It is beautifully laid out, full of dark and gloomy, doom-filled art. Here's a quick run-down of the articles contained in the first issue of the Herald of Doom: Welcome to Your Wyrd, by Richard Watts. An explanation of the change from Stormbringer to Elric!, and an exploration of the 'dooms' that Richard feels are central to Elric! campaigns. NPC Digest: The Sword of Justice, by Malcom Wolter. A lawful NPC to use in Elric! campaigns. A Breed Apart, by Nick Haggar. Information on the Glaurax, an interesting new demon breed. Ranyart Finn, by Lawrence Whitaker. A story set in the world of Elric!, and a new spell, 'Memory of Cran Lyret'. Wyrd Tales: Hoard of Amber, by Mark Morrison. A short adventure centered around the Codes of the Sealords of the Purple Towns. HellRazors and Other Enchantments: The Vessels of Eternal Elan, by Ross Isaacs. Information on the ancient Melnibonean war saints, and the vessels which still carry their souls in the modern Young Kingdoms. Bright Umpire, by Lynn Willis. Questions about Elric!, and official answers from Chaosium. Overall, Herald of Doom loooks like a good 'zine with tons of potential. I hope that it gets sufficient support to keep going. If you're a fan of Elric!, I'd highly suggest picking it up. You can subscribe to Herald of Doom by sending $10 in the US or $15 elsewhere for four quarterly issues to: Pale Prince Publishing 2900 Rolido, #168 Houston, TX 77063 Shannon -------------------- From: mi_go@icx.com (Bob Cannard) Subject: Review: HPL's Miscellaneous Writings System: Call of Cthulhu Yes folks, it's real and it's here. The new Arkham House volume, "Miscellanous Writings" of H. P. Lovecraft arrived on Yuggoth yesterday evening. Here are my first (pre-reading) impressions and a complete contents list. It's a good thick tome, 570 pages or therabouts of the usual Arkham quality. Cover price $29.95, ISBN 0-87054-168-4. I was pleased and just a little peeved to find that the first four items are the very same early tales (Little Glass Bottle etc) recently discussed on alt.horror.cthlhu. It woud have been nice if the book had arrived 2 months earlier! Anyway, the 18 items of fiction nicely fill out most of the gaps in Arkham's HPL story catalogue. After the fiction comes a whole lot of good stuff. It was interesting to find HPL advocating a search for trans-Neptunian planets 'way back in 1906; Pluto was not to be discovered until the '30s. The book is illustrated. Unfortunately there's no listing of illustrations in the contents, so I don't yet know what altogether is in there. A random scan revealed a good few of HPL's own drawings (e.g. his drawing of Pickman's Model), reproductions of pages from journals such as "The United Co-operative", and photographs. "The Battle that Ended the Century" is accompanied with photos of two of its participants: "Two-Gun Bob" - Robert E. Howard - and "Knockout Bernie" - Bernard Austin Dwyer; and there are several photos of HPL in company. Anyway, the book looks like quite a treasure-chest. Here are the complete contents. Introduction by S. T. Joshi I. Dreams and Fancies The Little Glass Bottle; The Secret Cave; The Mystery of the Grave-Yard; The Mysterious Ship; A Reminiscence of Dr. Samuel Johnson; Old Bugs; Memory; Nyarlathotep; Ex Oblivione; What the Moon Brings; Sweet Ermengarde; The Very Old Folk; History of the Necronomicon; Ibid; Discarded draft of "The Shadow over Innsmouth"; The Battle that Ended the Century; Collapsing Cosmoses; The Challenge from Beyond II. The Weird Fantasist Commonplace Book; Lord Dunsany and his work; Notes on writing weird fiction; Some nots on interplanetary fiction; In Memoriam: Robert Ervin Howard III. Mechanistic Materialist Idealism and Materialism - A Reflection; Life for Humanity's Sake; In Defence of Dagon; Nietzsheism and Realism; The Materialist Today; Some Causes of Self-Immolation; Heritage or Modernism: Common Sense in Art Forms IV. Literary Critic Metrical Regularity; The Vers Libre Epidemic; The Case for Classicism; Literary Composition; Ars Gratia Artis; The Poetry of Lilian Middleton; Rudis Indigestaque Moles; In the Editor's Study; The Professional Incubus; The Omnipresent Philistine; What Belongs in Verse V. Political Theorist The Crime of the Century; More /Chain Lightning/; Old England and the "Hyphen"; Revolutionary Mythology; Americanism; The League; Bolshevism; Some Repetitions on the Times VI. Antiquarian Travels Vermont - A First Impression; Observations on Several Parts of America; Travels in the Provinces of America; An Account of Charleston; Some Dutch Footprints in New England; Homes and Shrines of Poe VII. Amateur Journalist In a Major Key; The Dignity of Journalism; Symphony and Stress; United Amateur Press Associations: Exponent of Amateur Journalism; A reply to /The Lingerer/; /Les Mouches Fantastiques/; For What does United Stand?; Amateur Journalism: Its Possible Needs and Betterment; What Amateurdom and I have done for each other; Lucubrations Lovecraftian; A Matter of Uniteds; Mrs Miniter - Estimates and Recollections; Some Current Motives and Practices VIII. Epistolarian Trans-Neptunian Planets; The Earth Not Hollow; To /The All-Story Weekly/; Science versus Charlatanry; The Fall of Astrology; To Edwin Baird; To Edwin Baird; The Old Brick Row; To Nils H. Frome IX. Personal The Brief Autobiography of an Inconsequential Scribbler; Within the Gates; A Confession of Unfaith; Commercial Blurbs; Cats and Dogs; Some Notes on a Nonentity Bibliography Cheers, Your friendly local mi-go -------------------- The Chaosium Digest is an unofficial discussion forum for Chaosium's Games. To submit an article, subscribe or unsubscribe, mail to: appel@erzo.berkeley.edu. The old digests are archived on ftp.csua.berkeley.edu in the directory /pub/chaosium, and may be retrieved via FTP.