From: To: Subject: Majordomo file: list 'chaos-digest' file 'chaos-digest.000209' Date: Thursday, June 14, 2001 8:28 PM Chaosium Digest Volume 30, Number 5 Date: Wednesday, February 9, 2000 Number: 1 of 1 Contents: * Sickboy (ELRIC!) by Alexandre Lanciani alex.lanciani@flashnet.it * The Adventure of the Red Rose (PENDRAGON) by Jorge Palinhos neonaeon@mailcity.com Editor's Note: The Cthulhu Hardcover Contest winner has been announced! Congratulations go out to Jorge Palinhos for his "Sweet Child of Mine" submission. I'm also happy to announce that Chaosium is willing to offer a new contest each quarter! These contests will be open to all article submissions of current Chaosium game lines, namely: Call of Cthulhu, Elric! and Nephilim. I'll still accept submissions for Pendragon, Delta Green and Glorantha but they won't be eligible for the Chaosium contests, sorry. Now if Green Knight, Pagan Publishing and/or Issaries Inc. want to sponsor their own contests I'd welcome them... The deadline for the next contest will be March 31st. The winner gets a copy of the upcoming Call of Cthulhu Keepers Screen for their winning Cthulhu, Elric! or Nephilim submission. So, keep those submissions coming! ANNOUNCEMENTS * From Pagan Publishing Our book-publishing imprint, Armitage House, has two new releases that have been a long time coming. THE LURKER IN THE LOBBY, by Andrew Migliore and John Strysik, is the definitive guide to Lovecraftian movies and TV shows. Reviews of more than 30 films, exclusive new interviews with film-makers like John Carpenter, Roger Corman, and Stuart Gordon on their Lovecraft-inspired work, and essays by 20 indie film-makers on how they made their zero-budget short HPL adaptations. There are gobs and gobs of movie stills, posters, lobby cards, and behind-the-scenes images; this book is a visual feast and the most profusely illustrated book we have EVER published! Just to top it off, we proudly present a new interview with master horror illustrator and comic-book artist Bernie Wrightson, plus a lengthy portfolio of his drawings for the never-produced SHADOW OVER INNSMOUTH movie. You may have seen some of these Wrightson drawings in magazines like FANGORIA, but the majority have never seen print--and they're stunning. LURKER is 208 pages of jaw-droppingly entertaining Lovecraftian movie madness, all for $19.95--plus a great preface by HPL scholar and biographer S.T. Joshi! It'll be in gaming stores in the next week or two, and bookstores sometime after that. You can also order it from our mail-order catalog, The Outsider. SOSOSTRIS, by John Tynes, is a bloody, bold, and resolute tale of the King in Yellow. It's a follow-up to his stories BROADALBIN and AMBROSE, both published in chapbook form by Armitage House several years ago and long since out of print. SOSOSTRIS tells the story of Madame Anna Sosostris, a fortune-teller and mystic who comes to the Broadalbin Hotel in depression-era New York City with a terrible plan. This new novella is available only in a 100-copy limited-edition chapbook, signed and numbered by the author, and is expected to sell out quickly so order fast if you want it. Our web site has been updated with lots of new info about these and other titles, including sneak previews of both the above books. Both titles are also available for ordering now through our mail-order catalog, browsable online. --- Lots of you have asked for updates on some other projects, so here's the skinny. THE KING IN YELLOW, a hardcover edition of Thomas Ryng's never-before-published translation of this infamous play, goes to press next week for release in mid-February. MORE TALES OF TERROR is an all-new collection of short scenario ideas for CALL OF CTHULHU. Our last ToT collection was a great success, so here's another one! Editor Steve Hatherley's newest volume goes to press this month for a February release, by mail-order only. DELTA GREEN EYES ONLY VOLUME THREE: PROJECT RAINBOW is still getting the once-over from our staff, but we expect to have a firm release date soon. DELTA GREEN EYES ONLY VOLUME ONE: MACHINATIONS OF THE MI-GO is still sold out. The revised and expanded second edition will follow RAINBOW, and again, we'll pass along more definite information when it's available. THE UNSPEAKABLE OATH 16/17 is on track after many, many months in limbo. We're plowing through the many submissions folks have turned in and expect to have the contents assembled shortly. We'll post more info as it becomes available. --- That's it! We'll keep you posted as the above projects (and others) move forward. For more info and lots of sneak previews, check out our web site: http://www.tccorp.com/ * Arg, TENTACLES is slowly awakening from its deep slumber beneath the Old Castle. Green blood is pumping back life into a Hell of a Convention. Sneak to the secret weblair to have a look at the summoning - if you dare... http://www.uni-weimar.de/~kuechle1/next.htm You can even register yourself as Another Victim online! Slurp -- ~~TENTACLES Convention~~ fabian.kuechler@medien.uni-weimar.de We want YOU for - TENTACLES Millennium! 9th-12th June 2000; Castle Stahleck, Germany Visit our weblair at: http://www.uni-weimar.de/~kuechle1/next.htm * ~SLURP, green and slimy TENTACLES crawl slowly through halls and chambers of the Old Castle. Green blood is pumping steaming hot life into a Hell of a Convention. ~PLEASE note that you will not receive a snail mail registration form, the only way for you to register is ONLINE! If you already booked your place online and received a confirmation just relax and read on... Welcome to the 2nd TENTACLES News Post! We checked our databases and found some additional email addresses lost until now. We believe you to be a potential victim for TENTACLES Millennium, our Glorantha and Cthulhu Convention at the dawning of the new millennium. TENTACLES Millennium takes place 9 - 12 June 2000, at Castle Stahleck in Bacharach, Germany. Residential membership will close at the 30th April 2000. Sneak to the secret weblair to have a look at the summoning - if you dare... http://www.uni-weimar.de/~kuechle1/next.htm You can even register yourself as Another Victim online! Please note that you will not receive a snail mail registration form, the only way for you to register is ONLINE! Naibaf -- ~~TENTACLES Convention~~ fabian.kuechler@medien.uni-weimar.de We want YOU for - TENTACLES Millennium! 9th-12th June 2000; Castle Stahleck, Germany Visit our weblair at: http://www.uni-weimar.de/~kuechle1/next.htm **RECENTLY RELEASED!** >Call of Cthulhu RPG (Hardcover) 2386 $37.95 ISBN 1-56882-148-4 Call of Cthulhu Is Shipping Now! The Great Old Ones ruled the Earth aeons before the incidental rise of man. They came from the gulfs of space, waged war upon one another, and then were cast down by even greater beings. Remains of their cyclopean cities and forbidden knowledge can still be found in the remote extremes of our planet. Upon uncharted islands, within dark ocean depths, under burning desert sands, locked within polar ice, miles below the Earth's crust, they lay imprisoned. But when the Stars are right they will awaken and walk this earth once more. Call of Cthulhu is our classic role-playing game of Lovecraftian horror in which ordinary people are confronted by the terrifying and alien forces of the Cthulhu Mythos. A bestseller with over 300,000 copies sold world-wide. Call of Cthulhu has won dozens of game awards. In 1996 Call of Cthulhu was elected to the Academy of Adventure Game Designer's Hall of Fame. Call of Cthulhu is well supported by an ever growing line of high quality game supplements. No Gaming library is complete without a copy of this book! This new hardback edition is completely compatible with all our previous 5th edition supplements for Call of Cthulhu. Some sections of the book have been revised and clarified, and the book includes some new interior art. This book is a complete role-playing game in one volume! All you need to Play Call of Cthulhu is this book, some dice, and your friends. ** UPCOMING CHAOSIUM RELEASES** FEBRUARY >Book Of Dyzan 6027 $13.95 ISBN 1-56882-114-X Nonfiction. A discussion of Blavatsky's famous book, the mysterious Book of Dyzan, the heart of the secret books of Kie-Te, once known only to Tibetan mystics. Includes lengthy quotes. Excerpts from the Society for Psychical Research's 1885 report on the eye-opening phenomena connected with the Theosophical Society. Editor Maroney's biographical essay for Madame Blavatsky starts off the volume with a fascinating portrait of an amazing woman. Mention of Dzyan in H.P. Lovecraft's writing is made. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR * Hello - On Wed, 19 Jan 2000 you wrote [in part]: >BOOKS OF NOTE from Shannon Appel > >* Call of Cthulhu - _The Last Continent: New Tales of >Zothique_ (Shadowlands Press, 440 pgs., $60[!], ISBN >0-9665662-4-6), edited by John Pelan, is a collection of >brand new stories related to Clark Ashton Smith's Zothique. >I haven't read this tome yet, but it has a story by my >favorite writer, Gene Wolfe, as well as items by a few other >luminaries, such as Brian McNaughton, t. Winter-Damon, and >Brian Stableford. The rather hefty price is for the "Limited >Edition", which is signed by all the authors and numbered >(out of 500). There's also a $100 Deluxe edition, which I'd >have to assume is slipcased, but I haven't seen it. Their >website, http://www.bereshith.com/, doesn't list a cheaper >edition, so if you're a CAS fan, you'll probably need to get >this one. I recently picked up this book (copy #253 of 500). I'm lucky enough to live near a shop that ordered a few copies of the $60 edition signed by all the authors, the illustrators, and CAS scholar Donald Sydney-Fryer, who wrote the intro. The Deluxe Edition, also signed by all contributors, is bound in leather, slipcased, with 4 limited edition art prints. Anyway, this is one beautiful book! Black cloth binding w/ silver lettering on cover and spine, great dust jacket art, and 19 stories. Many authors I'm not familiar with (Gerard Houarner, Rhys Hughes, David B. Silva, Mark McLaughlin, Edward Lee, John Pelan, Jessica Amanda Salmonson, Don Webb, Geoff Cooper, Polygaya Fine, Lucy Taylor, Mark Chadbourn, and Charlee Jacob), and others whose works I have enjoyed before (David Niall Wilson, Brian McNaughton, Dan Clore, t. Winter-Damon, Gene Wolfe, Brian Stableford, and Henrik Johnsson). Beyond what I've already stated, this book is exceptional for the fact that it is, to my memory at least, the only one of it's kind; to paraphrase from Donald Sidney-Fryer's introduction: unlike HPL, Smith's tales have spawned relatively few sequels or imitations. The fact that a recognized and respected Smith authority, such as Donald Sidney-Fryer gave his endorsement to this project, definitely helped tip the scales in my mind. He must be included when discussing individuals who have established an indisputable knowledge of the field, and earned the respect of the Mythos/Weird Fiction "community." He first won my respect for his work on another CAS project, the 1979 Arkham House publication of _The Black Book of Clark Ashton Smith_. The only problem that I've noticed, in this otherwise highly enjoyable book, is *several* typographical errors. I do hear that the publisher will soon be offering the book on Amazon.com, but I don't know whether it will be this, or a less expensive edition. Now, what I'd really like to see is affordable new hardcover editions of Smith's own work. Aside from Arkham House's _A Rendezvous In Averoigne_, I only managed to acquire the majority of his fiction about six years ago, in second hand British paperbacks from the '70s. Yrs. by the Black Litany of Thasaidon, Timothy J. Stehle "All human thought, all science, all religion, is the holding of a candle to the night of the universe." - Clark Ashton Smith, from his Black Book * Hi John, Found this article on CNN and thought it might make for a good CoC adventure hook. Looks like computer simulations show that the AIDS virus first occurred in the 1930s. The connection to our favorite Cthulhu hunting era seems too obvious to ignore. Maybe the stars were right after all. The URL is: http://www.cnn.com/2000/HEALTH/AIDS/02/01/aids.ancestor.ap/i ndex.html Best wishes, Nils ----------------------------- "Sickboy" This is a character from my campaign. He was originally a player character but when the player left he became a part of the setting. Hope you enjoy and feel free to express your opinions, whether positive or negative, about him. Cheers, Alex. ----------------------------- SICKBOY, Cadsandrian former drug dealer, now a mysterious benefactor and the Constable's physician, a.k.a Leon Dahr. I have often told you about my childhood and The Brotherhood Orphanage where I spent it, but I think I did never tell you of its founder and benefactor, a mysterious guy the old nurses there called Sickboy. They told weird stories about this man. This is the one about his origins. They never told it until we were about to leave, though. You know those Cadsandrian suburbs of big tenements that grow out of some Melnibonean villa, like mold out of a rotten tree, where you can find between the marble and the plaster floors of reed and thatched roofs, don't you? Well, our hero grew up there. I said grew and not was born because nobody knows where he came from. All that is known is that a merciful prostitute found him on a street, packed in dirty rags, maybe one year old and sick. Luckily, her trade generated enough income to support them both until he was old enough to support himself, so she kept him and took care of him. Well before fifteen, he begun to wander between the old ruins, in secret passages under the ground. There he learnt, the hard way, the effect some strange plants and fungi had on his perceptions. An old man, something of an alchemist, a physician and a drug dealer took him as his apprentice. The old man lusted after the boy's knowledge of a place close at hand where the precious and rare Melnibonean herbs he had to buy at high cost grew freely. The old man hoped to learn Sickboy's secret, and then to make him disappear.But the boy was smarter than his mentor. He never betrayed himself and learnt how to refine into drugs the plants only he knew where to find. Then, with the help of one of his foster mother's most loyal client, he got rid of the old man and became the alchemist, physician and drug dealer of the neighborhood. A few years later, a mysterious murder puzzled Cadsandria's authorities. The body of Piotr, one of Cadsandria's most skilled smiths, was found hanging from the roof of Lord Marroy's city mansion's stable. Of course you've heard about Lord Marroy, one of the most powerful merchant prince of the Coast, so the city watch powerlessness shouldn't surprise you. Sir Finn Gham, the Constable then, recruited a band of... Well, freelances, to investigate on the matter. Sickboy's reputation of being a shrewd and well connected underground personality wasn't unknown to the Constable, as his recent friction with a powerful organized band of thieves who wanted to hire him not to produce dreams but deaths. So Sickboy was convinced to join with the investigators, in exchange of protection if he continued to produce only - at worst - mildly harmful drugs. To make it short, Piotr's death was linked to a new revolutionary religious sect originated in Dharijor - the Brotherhood. The sect was really just a cover for a coven of Pyaray cultists who planned to sacrifice all the lesser initiates to the Tentacled. As you know, the Church of Chaos in itself is not illegal here in Argimiliar, but mass murder is, and Piotr discovered his masters' plan and wanted to turn them in to Sir Finn. Lord Marroy's implication in the plan was never proved, though. Anyway, Sickboy and the other investigators stopped the sacrifice and saved the two dozens hypnotized believers. But rather than accept the bronzes and the protection that Sir Finn offered him, he asked for the building of the Brotherhood and the permission to turn it in an orphanage. The Constable agreement was not unconditional: Sickboy had to give up his addiction and become a respectable member of society. And not respectable in King Jiku's sense, mind you, but in Sir Finn's, maybe the most stern and just old fashioned southerner cattle baron I can think of. Of course there are many other tales about Sickboy. What did he found in the underground of the old Melnibonean villa? Why nobody did ever went down there? What of the thieves' band? And of Lord Marroy and the Pyaray cultists? And how did he overcame ten years of addiction in a few months? And what is he doing now? Well, all these questions are answered in tales for another day. Now, let's toast to the man who gave me the childhood he never knew. Let's toast to Sickboy. LEON DAHR ("SICKBOY"), 21 years old Argimilliaran Physician (in the employ of Sir Finn Gham) Chaos 9, Balance 24, Law 6 STR 15 CON 11 SIZ 10 INT 16 POW 12 DEX 15 APP 11 HP 11 Armor: Soft Leather (1d6-1) Weapons: Cutlass 59%, Damage 1d6+2+1d4 Skills: Climb 60, Conceal Object 35, Dodge 50, Hide 40, Insight 79, Move Quietly 44, Natural World 59, Physik 101, Pick Lock 25, Potions 101, Scent/Taste 35, Search 40, Scribe 29, Swim 55, Trap 25. ¤ --------------------- The Adventure of the Red Rose This is a very short solo adventure. Well, I personally prefer considering it a something between an adventure and a tale. Therefore I provide a short explanation for it. It was designed for a single knight with a passion for a lady. It can be run once instead of the Romance solo, if you have the time to run it. You may consider it a mix of a Lost in the Woods and a Romance solo. THE ADVENTURE Once, while one of the knights is wandering near or in the woods, he will hear a woman singing. If he goes looking for her, he will come across a small hut in a clearance. The hut is made of shining wood, fresh hay and with a curtain in the place of the door. If the knight calls, a beautiful young woman, with about 17/18 years old, golden hair, green eyes and voluptuous shapes will came out. (Player makes chaste check, if he fails he will desire her madly). She smiles and says she knows what he wants. And will offer him a piece of soft red silk (Lustful check - if succeed the character focus of the silk, if the player kills the young girl he will get an automatic check in chaste and cruel and the adventure will end). If the knight tries to catch the silk, it will escape between his fingers and fly away although there his no wind. The lady will scream and beg the knight to catch the silk again. The knight may run after it (DEX minus armor, if any, to run after it), if he doesn't he will see the lady and the hut fade in front of his eyes and the adventure will end. If he succeeds he will find an old, dirty rag. Either way while he stops, feeling lost in the middle of the forest he will hear quiet steps and a red she-wolf with 3 little wolves will approach him, call him husband and beg him to go save their house. The she-wolf will be impervious to all logic: that they can't possibly be married since he is a man and she is a wolf but instead will put her head between her paws and emit sounds like she was crying and ask the knight if will save their house or just do like every knight does and kill her, cut off her head and take her fur. (If player kills her will lose 1d6 of passion love (lady), if just goes away will lose 1 point of the passion) if the player follows the wolf he will find a small cave guarded by a small giant. The knight must fight the giant alone. If he wins, the giant's blood will start running into the cave but the she-wolf will be oblivious to this and will force the knight to get inside and will start licking his wounds. Unless a successful Energetic check his made) the knight will fall asleep. Next he will be wandering through the forest with no memories of having awakened and he will hear someone shouting his name. If he heads for the origin of the sound he will see a hut very similar to the previous one but old and dirty with falling hay, half-eaten wood and a ragged curtain full of holes. At the entrance a very old and ugly woman is sitting calling his name. She is nearly blind. She will recriminate him for leaving her alone and for not caring for her anymore. Nearly crying she will ask him if he still loves her and demand a kiss as proof. (If the player just goes away or kills her he will get a check in cruel. If he kisses her out of pity he will get a point for the passion and a check in merciful and generous) If the player kisses her he will realize he is actually kissing a red rose blossoming on the ground. If he tries to pick it up (if the player doesn't says specifically that he is careful about the thorns) he will wound himself with the thorns and a single drop of blood will flow and run down the rose leaving a trail and fall to the ground. The knight will notice that underneath the rose is written his name and the name of the lady he loves (2 points of passion and checks in Lustful and Generous.) THE MEANING Usually I don't like explaining the meaning of the things I write. I believe that everyone has the right to place his or her own meaning in it. But in this case I will open an exception since this little tale/adventure will be (hopefully) told by other people who probably will find their work easier if they know what were my intentions behind it and may even improve and enrich it considerably. Someone told me this one was pretty much like a popular fairy tale. I took that as a compliment. The adventure symbolizes the three stages of marriage. In the beginning, the knight falls in love with the lady when she is in the prime of her beauty. Her beauty is symbolized by the red silk that will always fly away. Just like beauty fades with time. The knight may pursue it trying to fool himself into having caught it. But it will always be irrevocably lost. The she-wolf represents the married woman in her middle age, having to care for her children and house while the knight is away adventuring. The knight must decide what comes first, his own safety or protecting his house and family. The giant, being similar to humans but living savagely, represents the dangers that may attack the knight's home: which may come from humans and/or Nature. The giant's blood running into the cave means that every danger no matter how successfully defeated always leaves its mark in the home of the knight. The wolves licking his wounds symbolizes that family and home are the places of safety and trust, where the knight comes to heal and rest in peace. The knight who finds himself wandering lost and without remembrance of what has happened since, represents the old age of the knight, trying to discover where all the time of his life was spent. The old woman outside the decaying hut symbolizes his wife and his house, which suffered the ravages of time. If the knight kisses the old woman, he shows he still loves her and that their love has stood the tests of time, sense of lost and danger. And therefore turns into a red rose. The rose represents their mutual love and the drop of blood represents the mark they have left on it. The blood also symbolizes that their material selves will die and go to the earth. But the rose (love), which is like every other rose (love) except it is theirs and bears their mark, will live forever. -------------------------- -- To unsubscribe from the chaos-digest ML, send an "unsubscribe" command to chaos-digest-request@chaosium.com. Chaosium Inc., Call of Cthulhu, and Nephilim are Registered Trademarks of Chaosium Inc. Elric! and Pendragon are Trademarks of Chaosium Inc. All articles remain copyright their original authors unless otherwise noted.