Chaosium Digest Volume 17, Number 8 Date: Sunday, December 15, 1996 Number: 1 of 1 Contents: The Miracle: A Tale of Terror (Ricardo J. Mendez) CALL OF CTHULHU CF: The Ring of Eibon (Shannon Appel) MYTHOS Announcement: Opifex Bi-Monthly (Mike LaBrossiere) CALL OF CTHULHU Editor's Note: This month, a selection of Lovecraftian articles. First, a new Tale of Terror by Ricardo J. Mendez. Next, a Mythos Card File that has previously appeared over on rec.games.trading-cards.misc. Finally, some new info on Opifex (previously mentioned in V14.1). Shannon RECENT RELEASES The following two supplements started shipping this week, and should begin showing up in stores just before Christmas. * Call of Cthulhu - _The Complete Masks of Nyarlathotep_ (Chaosium, 224 pg, $22.95, ISBN 1-56882-069-0), by Larry DiTillio & Lynn Willis, is the reprint of the classic Masks campaign. Complete for the first time, this third edition includes the lost Australian chapter and four new encounters. * Pendragon - _Land of Giants_ (Chaosium, 128 pg, $19.95, ISBN 1-56882-055-0), by Chris Hind, with Christer Edling & Robert Andersson, is the long-awaited new Pendragon book on the lands of Scandinavia in the time of Beowulf and King Arthur. And, the Cult of Chaos is really rolling now: * Misc - _Starry Wisdom_ Vol. 1 No. 1 (Chaosium, 16 pg., free to members of the Cult of Chaos) includes "Why Chaosium Is", by Greg Stafford, my Card File on the Kitab Al-Azif, a marketplace for Mythos prints and original artwork, a preview of the Dreamlands, a listing of the next 6-9 months of Chaosium Products, MSGS FAQs, and info on the future of Glorantha from Rob Heinsoo. You can sign up for the Cult of Chaos with the form in V17.7, and you'll also get a subscription to InQuest or Shadis. And, to whet your appetite, two more books were shipped off to the printers last week, _The Compact Trail of Tsathoggua_ for _Call of Cthulhu_, and _Liber Ka_ for _Nephilim_. Both are expected to start shipping January 27th. Meanwhile, _Mythos: The Dreamlands_ will be going on sale January 17th. BOOKS OF NOTE Necronomicon Press recently came out with their latest batch of mags. Mine just arrived in the mail last week, so I thought I'd take a second to mention them all. Crypt of Cthulhu #94 contains three non-fiction pieces by August Derleth, the most important of which is his "The Weird Tale in English Since 1890". Cthulhu Codex #9 includes a story by Gary Myers. Midnight Shambler #4 includes the usual batch of fiction, as well as poems by Tierney & Schweitzer. Tales of Lovecraftian Horror #4 is Bob Price's most newly resurrected magazine; it includes Lovecraftian but non-Mythos stories by Rainey and a variety of others. The New Lovecraft Collector #16 contains the usual news, as well as an essay by Cannon, and part 3 of the Works of H. P. Lovecraft: A Listing by Magazine. Finally, Lovecraft Studies #35 contains essays on "The Outsider", "The Call of Cthulhu", Poe's "The City in the Sea" and more. You can get more info on Necronomicon Press at their web site: http://www.necropress.com -------------------- From: "Ricardo J. Mendez" Subject: The Miracle: A Tale of Terror System: Call of Cthulhu The Miracle: A Tale of Terror Ricardo J. Mendez A weird character in the news has come to the attention of an investigator. It will most likely be a skeptical and cynical investigator, or one compelled to believe that kind of news. The news, it turns out, deals with a person that seems to have stigmata that match those suffered by Jesus Christ on the cross, according to Catholic Mythology. The man, one Jacobo Lewis from Haiti, seems to have injuries on his hands, feet and side that match those famous wounds. These wounds keep bleeding, but apparently never get infected. People are said to have healed after he touched them, especially those with blood diseases, although no cases have been documented. Also weird is the fact that Jacobo is 30 years old, the same age Jesus was when he started preaching. What has the religious community in an uproar is that Jacobo is black, and definitely not a Christian, but a practicer of voodoo. He says the wounds were inflicted on him by the Loa of his tribe, as a reminder of his human frailty and so he could spread the word. After a couple of weeks of reading about him in the papers, the investigators might be curious enough to check him out. Possibilities: 1) Jacobo is, of course, a fake. The people he has been said to heal are healed by their own faith, just as a lot of people get sick when they believe they are. Most likely those people weren't even sick. 2) The man from Nazareth was an avatar of the Crawling Chaos. The reason that we don't know anything about his life from his early years until his 30th birthday, is because previous to that point he hadn't been contacted by Nyarlathotep, and therefore wasn't important. The Black Man tried to recruit him when he is said to have been tempted in the desert, but he went mad, and began believing he was the Messiah. Given his newly found powers, that delusions wasn't hard to live up to. Now, more than 1900 years after that, Nyarlathotep is willing to try again, with a son of mortal woman. Jacobo might dream about "past lives", which are previous avatars, and by those means the players can find out the truth. His stigmata is the means that Nyarlathotep uses to both confuse the general populace and tease those with more knowledge. 3) The Loa did contact Jacobo, and inflicted his stigmatic wounds. Unfortunately for him and his honour, the alleged Loa is a vampire, too week to fully return from his resting place. He was in life a sorcerer, and is trying to attract a cult to his crypt. Then, he will control Jacobo to slaughter the all, so that with the strength given by their blood he may return. Copyright (c) 1996 Ricardo J. Mendez ricardo@tecapro.com -------------------- From: Shannon Appel Subject: CF: Ring of Eibon System: Mythos ** THE CARD FILES: RING OF EIBON ** THE CARD -------- Name: Ring of Eibon Set: Mythos Limited Type: Artifact Affects: Opponent's Hand San: -1 Unique: Yes Special Effect Box: Spend 2 Sanity points to gain a 13-second glance at one opponent's hand and choose their next legal play (cannot be a Pass) of a card from their hand to the table. Flip this card face-down after use. CLARIFICATIONS -------------- The crux of this card is the fact that you "choose [a] legal play... of a card from [your opponent's] hand to the table". This means you cannot force your opponent to: rotate a card, flip a card, bury a card, cast a spell, pass, or do any other action that would normally be legal. The only thing you can force them to do is play a certain card. Although you get to select a card that must be played, you are in no way restricting the playing of other cards. For example, if you selected a Monster, your opponent may be able to Join some friends. If a card is targeted in some way, as many Events are, particularly Phobias, you do not get to choose the target of that event. You simply specify which card an opponent must play on their next turn, not what they can do with it. In summary: you get to choose a card that must be played on your opponent's next turn, but everything else is up to him. QUESTIONS --------- Q: Can I choose to play a Joined set of cards from an opponent's hand? A: No. The Ring of Eibon only allows for "a card". However, if the card you selected was Joinable, your opponent may choose to play those other cards, if he wishes. Q: What happens if I choose a Car, a Closed-Cockpit Monoplane, or some other card which requires for another card to immediately be played? A: Your opponent is forced to play the first card, and then may pick the second. They must do so, and you can not choose to play that first card if there isn't a legal second card (since then it wouldn't be a "legal play"). Q: What happens if the Rounds ends before my opponent's next legal play? Or, alternatively, what happens if I use the Ring of Eibon during combat? A: Next turn is defined as "your next natural player Turn, even if that Turn occurs in the following round". Your opponent's "next legal play", per the Ring of Eibon, happens on their next Turn. If both cases, you will have chosen your opponent's first action in the next Round. Take note that your opponent is not allowed to discard the card that you required him to play, nor is he allowed to play it before his next turn (eg, if you selected a Monster he couldn't use Create Gate to bring it into play during the Spells phase of Combat). Q: What happens if my opponent has no legal card plays? A: You wasted two Sanity. Q: What happens if the card I selected becomes an illegal card play before my opponent's turn? A: You wasted two Sanity. Your opponent gets to play whatever card he wants. Q: What happens if I play Ring of Eibon on someone, and force him to use their Yithian Mental Contact, and he decides to Yithian the Ring of Eibon usage? A: In practice, the Yithian Mental Contact is used, the Ring is buried, and you get the two points you spent to activate your ring back. Theoretically, you iterate through an infinite number of alternate realities until you find one where your opponent decides to Yithian the Ring, even though the Ring didn't force him to. Alternatively, the Universe may implode. STRATEGIES ---------- The Ring of Eibon is probably one of the most overlooked cards in Mythos. It has the potential to be devastating to your opponent's plans, though that is offset by its high cost to use. Following are a number of uses for the ring. There are many more: the Ring is one of the most versatile of all Mythos cards. * Discard a Location - Few people realize that the Ring of Eibon is a Discarder, in certain limited ways. If your opponent is walking to a Location, he is quite vulnerable. As per MSGS rules pg. 17: "When walking to one Location, you might find that you wish to change to a different Location instead. Your previous destination has never been rotated right-side-up and is Discarded. It never became part of your Story. Your new Location is played crosswise, replacing your previous card." If your opponent is walking, and you choose a new Location for him to play, you implicitly force him to discard that old one. * Discard a Travel Event - The same trick can be used, to a certain degree, upon Travel Events (MSGS rules pg. 17: "You may also do this if your Current Location is a Travel Event"). While your opponent is upon a Travel Event, you can pick a Location that is not legal to play from the Travel Event, but was legal from the investigator's former location. For example, if your opponent played the Mauretania, which requires a new Location card in "a different region", you could select a Location in their old region. If your opponent was upon a Tramp Steamer, which requires them to "play a new Location card featuring the Water attribute in either the same or a different region", you could select a Location without water in their old region. In both cases, your opponent would be forced to discard their Travel Event in order to play the card you selected. * Mess Up Travel Events - If you can't discard your opponent's Travel Event, you can likely mess it up. Dirigible, Seaplane, Tramp Steamer, and U-Boat are the most vulnerable to this, because they allow the play of a card in any Region. After your opponent hops on a Travel Event, ready to visit far-away lands, you select a Location in their old Region, and they're right back where they started. * Deny Attributes - If your opponent is getting ready to use Location attributes (Tome, Artifact, Gate), you can choose a new Location for them, that they'll be forced to play. This is a particularly nice (short-term) counter against Samuel Winsor or the Tiara of Opulent Fantasy. * Ward Off Passing - When an opponent begins to pass, you can use Ring of Eibon to force them to play a card. This will get you a total of one extra turn (for your two Sanity). * Set Up for Combat - Just before passes begin, you can set an opponent up for Combat with the Ring. Got Byakhee in your threat? Make them go outside. Hiding a Pack of Rat Things? Send them back inside. Have Living Dead in your Threat? Make them play a Night Event, if they have one. * Play the Wrong Card - The idea is that your opponent has some limited resource, and you force them to use it wrong. If they're at a Gate, you have them play their wimpy Skeleton rather than their Color Out of Space. If they have only one space left in their Death Tome, you have them play Orne's Black rather than that Resurrection Spell they need for their Adventure. * Play a Bad Card - Some cards will just be bad for an opponent to play at certain times. Examples include: An Unexpected Calamity, certain types of Storm (when your opponent is Travelling), Aldeberan Moves in the Sky (if your opponent has useful events out), etc. If you discover your opponent has some of these cards in their deck, you can try to get them to use them at an inopportune time. This is probably one of the most satisfying uses of the Ring of Eibon. * Cost Them Sanity - On rare occasions, you can cost your opponent Sanity with the Ring of Eibon. Force them to reuse a Gate (by selecting a legal Monster card at a reusable gate Location that costs Sanity). Have them play a costly Monster, Tome, or Artifact when they can't really afford it. Make them go somewhere that they're currently Phobic of. Cause them to leave a Sanitarium or Church before they've buried their Phobias. Choose a card other than a Location for them to play when someone else has Townsfolk Rioted them. * Intelligence Gathering - I've primarily talked about the use of the Ring to force your opponent to do stuff. Its other power, the fact that it allows you to see your opponent's hand, should not be forgotten. You can see: what Monsters are going to end up in your opponent's Threat, what Adventures they're working on, how close they are, and lots more. Ring of Eibon works very well with Amnesia. After you verify that your opponent is actually holding crucial cards for their Adventure, then you can nail them with your Amnesia card. COUNTER STRATEGIES ------------------ Situations where you can counter the Ring are rare. Most of the time, you'll be stuck. * Typical Artifact Strategies - Steal the Ring with Mi-go or Thieves in the Attic. Decrease your opponent's Sanity level so that they can't afford to use the Ring. * Yithian It! - If you're hit with the Ring of Eibon, you can't Yithian it, since your next card play has already been selected, and then it's too late. However, if an opponent is using the Ring to very good effect, and hits someone else with it, it might be worth you, an unaffected third party, using a Yithian. The Ring is flipped when it's used, and that's an orientation change, so when it's directed at someone else, you can toast it. * Indirectly Make Your Card Play Illegal - This only works if you're hit with the Ring, and then the round ends before your next turn. You can't discard the required card, but you can do some sneaky, indirect thing during the Artifact/Tome phase of combat if you really don't want to play it. The most obvious thing you can do is change your Location with the Create Timewarp or Fly spells. Simply go somewhere where you can't play the Ally, Tome, Artifact, or Monster that was selected. If your opponent selected a Tome, you might get rid of the Allies who knows its language with Body Warping of Gorgoroth, Call Power of Nyambe, Devolution, Consume Likeness, or Dread Curse of Azathoth. If your opponent selected a weapon, you might kill every single one of your Allies in similar manners (though that's likely overkill). -------------------- From: Mike LaBossiere Subject: Announcement: Opifex Bi-Monthly System: Call of Cthulhu Opifex Bi-Monthly: Random Universes GENERAL INFORMATION Opifex Bi-Monthly: Random Universes is a bi-monthly electronic magazine (ezine) which is distributed in pdf format. The ezine requires Adobe Acrobat Reader or other software capable of viewing pdf files. The Adobe Acrobat Reader is free and is available on most online services or from Adobe (www.adobe.com). Macintosh only versions (in eDoc format) are also available on America Online. These versions are standalone applications which do not require reader software. Opifex Bi-Monthly : Random Universes is dedicated to role-playing games, war games, and computer games. The primary emphasis is on science fiction and horror games, but games from other genres will be covered. Each issue features two original Call of Cthulhu adventures. ACQUIRING OPIFEX BI-MONTHLY: RANDOM UNIVERSES -America Online Opifex Bi-Monthly: Random Universes is uploaded to the Role-Playing Game Forum on America Online (keyword "OGF"). A Macintosh only version is also available on America Online in the Mac files section of the OGF. -Subscriptions Subscriptions are available begining with issue #5 (January-February). Simply send email to: ontologist@aol.com with the message "Subcribe OBM" and you will be added to the list. Issues are mailed as binhexed (.hqx) files attached to/included in email. Current versions of the America Online software will automatically decode the files. Users of other online services or internet service providers might need a utility such as the free Aladdin's Stuffit Expander to convert the binhex file to a usable format. The Stuffit Expander utility is available in both Mac and PC forms and is readily available online. -Online The current issue of Opifex Bi-Monthly: Random Universes will be available at http://user.aol.com/ontologist/web/opifex.obm.html in January. The current issue can be viewed from the current versions of NetScape, Explorer or any browser which supports Adobe's PDFViewer plug-in. The current issue can also be manually downloaded by making an FTP connection to user.aol.com/ontologist/web. SUBMISSIONS Because of the current "legal situation" of the "gaming world," no submissions of any kind are accepted. MORE INFORMATION For more information contact Michael C. LaBossiere - ontologist@aol.com. -------------------- The Chaosium Digest is an unofficial electronic 'zine about Chaosium's Games. In no way should it be considered representative of the views or beliefs of Chaosium Inc. To submit an article, subscribe or unsubscribe, mail to: appel@erzo.org. The old digests are archived on ftp.csua.berkeley.edu in the directory /pub/chaosium, and may be retrieved via FTP.