Irons in the Fire

What I'm working on right now

Once in a while I like to clear the decks: finish all my projects and avoid committing to any new ones. It feels good, like having your head above the clouds for a while. That’s where I was a few months back.

This post is an update, for anyone who is interested, on what I’m working on right now.

Call of Cthulhu

It was great to recently receive a print copy of Nameless Horrors (2nd edition). Getting my hands on the books I’ve worked on is always nice, though in all honesty, hearing comments from people reading and playing them is the best thing. So, anyway, this is done and out there.

Nameless Horrors is available now in hardback, leatherette and VTT (Roll20).

Presently I’m editing and developing a collection of scenarios for Chaosium, that will be published as Mansions of Madness vol. 2 (volume 1: Behind Closed Doors came out in 2020). I play tested the first of these at Concrete Cow recently, and have a second one lined up for Chaosium Con in April.

Bookwyrms

This month, March 2023, Storytelling Collective have organised a book club, named Bookwyrms. They are reading through the Call of Cthulhu Starter Box Set and collection of short scenarios, Gateways to Terror. I’ve been put forward to answer questions about the books and Call of Cthulhu in general, and we have the second of two Zoom calls this week. Storytelling Collective do a great job of putting these things together — these are the same people that organise the Write Your First Adventure programme, that so many people have undertaken over the last couple of years.

Good Friends of Jackson Elias Podcast

We’ve recorded a number of episodes recently, and are trying to build up a good store ready for the summer break — it’s always difficult recording in August. We’ve recorded one on the topic of time travel in Call of Cthulhu. It’s a theme / device that I love in so many TV shows and films — I hope we did it justice.

The Blasphemous Tome Fanzine

The Blasphemous Tome is a fanzine produced by hosts of The Good Friends of Jackson Elias podcast. Following consultation with our Patreon backers, we’re in the process of re-releasing the whole back catalogue. So far, we’ve reissued 1, 2, 3 and 4A, and I’m waiting on receiving a print proof of 4B from DrivethruRPG. Once the proof has been approved I’ll make that available, sometime around the start of April.

Every new issue of the Tome features a Call of Cthulhu scenario by one of the three hosts. Scott has one lined up for the summer (issue 11), entitled Black Shade. It then falls to me to write the next one for the December issue (12). As yet, all I have is an idea for a title, and the vague inkling that it might be a Pulp Cthulhu adventure set in 1970s America.

Information about the tomes can be found on the Good Friends Patreon.

Gatsby and the Great Race

The first Call of Cthulhu scenario of mine that was published was Gatsby and the Great Race, back in 2005. At the time it was available under an imprint referred to as a MULA (Miskatonic University Library Association), which was a way for Chaosium to publish short runs of books, mostly for sale through their website. Today, I’m revising the text and updating it for 7th edition. I hope to publish it on the Miskatonic Repository before the summer.

At present, I have three scenarios out on the Miskatonic Repository (Chaosium’s community content programme on DrivethruRPG): Full Fathom Five, Dockside Dogs, and My Little Sister Wants You to Suffer.

Conventions

Recently, I was at the Old Bath House in Wolverton for Concrete Cow, the one day RPG convention that takes place twice each year in Milton Keynes.

In April, I’m flying out the Michigan for Chaosium Con. I was sorry to miss the first one last year, and I’m looking forward to it.

Games Expo is in June, and I’m joining some illustrious pod-brothers for a live show (feat. Dirk the Dice of

The GROGNARD files

, Dave from Frankenstein’s RPG Podcast, and Steve of Orlanth Rex’s Gaming Vexes).

Under the Hat

Furthermore, there are 5 projects that I am either not meant to talk about, or just plain don’t want to jinx!

The first two are directly Call of Cthulhu related. The third and fourth are tangentially related to Call of Cthulhu. The fifth is nothing to do with Cthulhu, though I may find ways to link it in!

I realise it might be kind of annoying to be such a tease, I just wanted to say that there’s more going on than just the above.

That’s all for now folks

I’m finishing off writing this from the comfort of my sofa, having tested positive for COVID this morning. It’s fine so long as I don’t have to do more than sit here and type, and as you’ll have gathered from the above, there’s plenty of that to be done!

Love and tentacles,

Paul