The Lovecaftian Thing a Day (2018) No.113: Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea (Second Edition)

This is something of a return visit to the rather floridly-titled Astonshing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea rpg, whose first edition featured in 2016’s iteration of this blog; since then, a second edition has appeared in the form of this massive 600+ page hardback.

Part of the Old School Renaissance rpg movement, Astonshing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea uses an interation of Advanced Dungeons and Dragons to reproduce an experience of old time sword-and-sorcery by way of the Weird Tales triumvirate, Howard, Smith and Lovecraft. Of all the OSR products which attempt to replicate this specific mode of weird fantasy in rpg format, Astonshing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea is rhe most convincing (although I do have a soft spot for Crypts and Things which, however, owes far more to Moorcock than Lovecaft, et al); the second edition is also chock full of new art depicting the Lovecraftian realm of Hyperborea, - my personal favourite being the Old School piece by Peter Mullen shown above: wonderfully capturing the feel of Hyperborea, this panoramic piece depicts a parade of that world’s strange inhabitants dutifuly making obeisance to the Great Old One Tsathoggua (attended by its formless spawn), and forms the book’s endpapers. The huge, fold-out map of the world of Hyperborea which comes woth the book has also been upgraded to full colour. Nice.

Astonshing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea is available in hardcopy here, and in pdf format here. Right, that’s enough of that - it’s time to put on a pair of furry underpants, unsheath my broadsword, and prepare to do battle with ancient horrors from beyond time and space.

The Lovecraftian Thing a Day (2018) No.112: Cthulhu Statuette

This statuette of Cthulhu - gifted to me by an old student - broods silently on one of the bookshelves in my office. As a pertinent reminder of the pointlessness of all human endeavour, this guides me daily in my dealings with students and colleagues in the workplace.

The Lovecaftian Thing a Day (2018) No.111: Cthulhu Gloom

Cthulhu Gloom is a multiplayer card game by Atlas Games in which, appropriately, the winner is the person whose in-game protaganists are the first to be driven insane or meet a horrible, untimely death. Shown here is also Unpleasant Dreams, the first expansion for Cthulhu Gloom themed around Lovecraft’s Dreamlands tales.

The game is also unusual in that art and game information is printed upon clear vinyl cards, and can be layered on top of one another as part of gameplay to produce modified effectso the rules. Whilst darkly humorous in tone (I’m not really a fan of comedic horror), the cards are gorgeous, and I’ve always wanted to give the game a go; however, being a curmudgeonly solitaire ludologist, this is unlikely to happen - so, for now, Cthulhu Gloom remains unplayed on my gaming shelf.

The Lovecraftian Thing a Day (2018) No 110: Dayglo Hot Pink Disco Tentacle of Doom

Further to my jewellry making efforts, this is my favourite piece so far: what I am calling the Dayglo Hot Pink Dicso Tentacle Medallion of Doom (tm).

Nice.

The Lovecraftian Thing a Day (2018) No.109: Death Poems

Another Ligotti rarity which has not previous made its way onto the Lovecraftian Thing a Day: the Durtro edition of Death Poems. This also came with a cloisonne badge which I have currently misplaced - it will probably form the focus of its own post when I discover its whereabouts.

Long-time readers of this blog will no doubt be aware of my affection for weird poetry; unfortunately this does not extend to Death Poems - my least favourite of Ligotti’s works. That is not to say Ligotti is incapable of producing fine, free-verse poetry: This Degenerate Little Town, and the lyrics to The Unholy City being cases in point; but for some reason the content of Death Poems leaves me cold.

But I suppose that is rather the point of Ligotti.

The Lovecraftian Thing a Day (2018) No.108: The Agonizing Resurrection of Victor Frankenstein

This is Centipede Press’ deluxe limited edition reissue of Thomas Ligotti’s The Agonizing Resurrection of Victor Frankenstein: a series of vignettes wherein Ligotti revisits - in his unique style - a number of horror classics, including Dracula, the Wolf Man, and the titular Fankenstein; notably, it also includes three re-envisionings of Lovecraft’s work. This is the only Centipede Press book which I currently own; what makes it doubly unique to my collection is that it is also the only Ligotti tome I possess which has also been signed (perhaps ‘inscribed’ is a better word, when you see the signature) by the elusive author.

Nice.

The Lovecaftian Thing a Day (2018) No.107: The Pencil of Yog Sothoth

For the life of me I have no idea how I came into possession of this - I imagine it was probably a freebie sent by Paul of Cthulhu (Paul McLean) when I purchased something from yog-sothoth.com. Well, there you have it - another intriguing piece of ephemera from my seemingly-bottomless well of Lovecraftian odds-and-ends.

The Lovecraftian Thing a Day (2018) No.106: Holy Terrors

Holy Terrors: A Collection of Weird Tales by Arthur Machen is Obsolete Films 2017 portmanteau feature collecting together six adaptations of Machen’s stories for the screen. Whilst the cover of the DVD contains a quote from Lovecraft’s attesting to the fact that Machen’s work is the ‘absolute culmination of loathsome fright’, Holy Terrors in fact tends to focus on Machen’s more mystical tales, with the inclusion of an adaptation of ‘The Novel of the White Powder’ being the only piece representative of his classic weird fiction. Even so, the film is beautifully shot, and effectively captures the visionary quality of Machen’s writing.

Filmed in Whitby, initial runs of the DVD come with a facsimile edition of The Town of Magic Dream: Arthur Machen in Whitby - initially published in 1987 by Mark Valentine, and illustrated by Nick Blinko.

The Lovecraftian Thing a Day (2018) No.105: The Thin Veil of London

The Thin Veil of London by Rich Cochrane and Robert Kingham is the literary companion to Minimum Labyrinth’s occasional Arthur Machen-inspired walking tour of Holborn and Bloomsbury, in which I was fortunate to participate back in 2013 (on that occasion the walk was led by Robert Kingham). This was, without exception, the best guided walk I have as yet ever been on - not just on account of its focus, but because of its surprising incorporation of theatre in a manner which effectively replicated Machen’s own visionary excursions into the ineffable hieroglyph which is London.

I am also very proud to have played a very small role in facilitating an ongoing collaborative film project on pagan London between Robert and Goldsmiths College’s Department of Anthropology - which I am sure I will have more to say about in a later post.

The Lovecraftian Thing a Day (2018) No.104: The Ring of the Deep

Last night the Silver Key opened a portal in my dreams leading to a crooked old chapel, which stood at the edge of a salt marsh a short distance from a decrepit coastal town. At the entrance to that curiously ramshackle place of worship, I was greeted by a robed and hooded figure, who beckoned me to follow within. 

Thence I was led down the nave to the alter, which was carved with strange and monstrous designs, and bedecked with strange and unfamiliar implements and ritual regalia. Beyond the altar a trapdoor yawned open to a set of stone steps, down which I followed my silent guide. 

The cellar below reeked unwholesomely of the sea, yet formed the habitation of a group of figures arrayed in a circle and garbed in shapeless black robes like unto that of my guide: they stood there motionlessly, chanting words in a coarse and inhuman tongue I was unable to comprehend. 

The cowled being who had led me into that realm of subterranean horror then turned and drew me into the centre of the circle; with cold, clammy hands that hooded thing forced something onto the little finger of my left hand, declaiming in gutteral tones that this was the seal of the First Oath of Dagon, to which I was now committed. I was then given a black robe of my own, and instructed to join the others in the circle in their aberrant hymnal. Lacking volition in that dream-like state, I did as I was commanded - and found to my surprise and horror that I was able to comprehend the strange and unearthly song of my new companions. 

The terrible secrets and cosmic abnormalities revealed in the alien phraseology of those lyrics - which I dare not repeat here - forced me to a screaming wakefulness...on which I discovered, thrust upon the little finger of my left hand, a ring of unearthly metal, wrought into a curious tentacular design...

The Lovecraftian Thing a Day (2018) No.103: Collapsible Lovecraftian Beaker

More random Lovecraftification of some of my odds and ends: in this instance, attaching an aged silver squid charm to this collapsible metal beaker/shot glass - useful for when you need something from which to neck a measure of your favourite tipple (mine’s currently cognac). I purchased this, of all places, at Kelvedon Hatch Nuclear Bunker in the UK - there is a tale or two to be spun regarding the Lovecraft associations of that strange locale - but that is for another day...

I carry this item on my person at all times - which I think tells you everything you need to know about me.

The Lovecaftian Thing a Day (2018) No.102: Green Tentacle Necklace

For reasons which as yet remain entirely obscure to me, I have recently acquired the habit of cheaply acquiring small Lovecraftian things from off ebay, putting them together with other cheap things from off ebay, and in a supremely uncreative act of bricolage, bringing into an unholy state of being new things entirely - this green acrylic tentacle necklace being the first of these monstrously hybrid fabrications. I rather like it. 

Coming up at some point in the future, bronze and silver squid charm bookmarks, keychains, and other assorted squid- and tentacle-themed tat...

The Lovecraftian Thing a Day (2018) No.101: Alone Against The Dark, 7th Edition

Alone Against The Dark was the final solitaire module/scenario produced by Chaosium for the Call of Cthulhu rpg and is, in an indirect and roundabout way, a sequal to Lovecraft’s classic tale of Antarctic  horror, At the Mountains of Madness. Alone Against the Dark now returns in a revised edition updated for the new CoC ruleset; it has been available in pdf format for a few months, but has only just been released in hardcopy. Here’s hoping that this represents a renewed interest on the part Chaosium in publishing more solitaire-friendly material for CoC.

The Lovecraftian Thing a Day (2018) No.100: Rhan-Tegoth

Last night the Silver Key opened a portal to dreams of boreal horror - dreams filled with intimations of something which yet lurks beneath the primal ice of the Arctic: something which filtered down from nameless gulfs of infinity, to swim languidly through seas of pitch on far-distant Yuggoth; something which, by the dawn of the Pliocene, had wended its way to Earth, borne through the depths of space on solar winds; something with claw-like appendages and three monstrous eyes; something whose name our early hominids ancestors shrieked and howled amidst nameless rites, long before the coming of the ice; something which slumbers yet within its glacial tomb, dreaming of the time when the stars once again come rightness.

Something whose rough, misshapen approximation, hewed in rough, pale stone, appeared at the foot of my bed after a night of foreboding dreams.

The Lovecraftian Thing a Day (2018) No.99: The Terrible Old Man by Jim Pitt

A print of Lovecraft’s Terrible Old Man by Jim Pitt, stares down at me ominously from the wall of my study...

The Lovecaftian Thing a Day (2018) No.98: The Hound

Dave Carson depicts ‘The Hound’ from the Lovecaft tale of the same name: one of a series of six prints (the other five of which also currently grace the walls of my study) collected in The Haunter of the Dark portfolio, published by Dagon Press in 1987 in a signed, limited edition of 450 copies.

A copy of this currently appears to be available on ABE books for a ridiculously low sum. You are welcome.

The Lovecraftian Thing a Day (2018) No.97: Horror on the Orient Express Keeper’s Screen

As an adjunct to their Horror on the Orient Express campaign box set, Chaosium have also produced this very fine dedicated Keeper’s Screen for those intent on running HotOE (Q Workshop also produce a dice set themed to the campaign).

All I need to do now is work out a way of playing HotOE solitaire...

The Lovecraftian Thing a Day (2018) No.96: Teeny Weeny H P Lovecraft

7th Continent is a solitaire/cooperative boardgame whose central conceit is that some of the great works of 19th/early 20th Century speculative literature are quasi-fictionalised accounts of a newly-discovered continent. Tasked with exploring said continent in order to lift a terrible curse, players take on the role of various historical, literary and fictional characters, including Victor Frankenstein and H.P. Lovecraft:

Is he small, or is he just far away? The tiny Lovecraft standeeand plastic
miniature which come with the game shown alongside a five pence piece.

In any case, I have only just received my copy of 7th Continent - but no prizes for guessing who I’ll be playing when I get it to the table...

The Lovecraftian Thing a Day (2018) No.95: Horror on the Orient Express

Horror on the Orient Express - the glorious, Continental Europe-spanning campaign for Call of Cthulhu - had been on many players’ ‘want’ lists subsequent to its going out of print at some point in the early-to-mid 1990s; then, with the 7th edition of the game on the horizon, Chaosium launched a Kickstarter campaign for the purposes of publishing a new, revised 7th ed-compatible version of HotOE. Without going into details, this instigated a series of events leading to the almost-collapse - then subsequent (and surprising) revival - of Chaosium. The new edition of HotOE (shown above) is certainly a product of that troubled and tempestuous moment.

Whilst the new edition of HotOE comes in beautiful heavy cardboard boxing - which contains a plethora of high quality, well-produced maps and handouts - the scenario books which constitute the core of the campaign lack the same care as those subsidiary materials, appearing very bland and almost unfinished by comparison. That said, HotOE remains notable for containing the only scenario I am aware of based upon (or more accurately ‘inspired by’) the work of Thomas Ligotti. Whilst available for the first time in pdf format, this edition of HotOE has now, I believe, also sold out - and it is uncertain if we will see it in print again anytime soon...

The Lovecraftian Thing a Day (2018) No.94: Call of Cthulhu 2nd Edition

In reviewing my posts from the last few days, it looks like I have made a mistake in assuming that my first copy of the Call of Cthulhu rpg was the second edition of the game; I first bought CoC in 1981, when it seems that the second edition was not released until 1983. Looking online, it also appears to be the case that the pink version of the game’s world map also belongs to the Chaosium first edition, rather than the licensed second edition which Games Workshop produced for the UK market. The UK-produced second edition rulebook shown above, which I picked up a couple of years ago, also contains orange bordering which my copy of the game definitely didn’t possess. Finally, the copy of the game I initially owned used CHA (Charisma) as a statistic, which was replaced in the second edition by APP (Appearance) - a decision I have never quite understood, other than as an unneccessary means of further distinguishing Call of Cthulhu from D&D. Well there you go - another barely-interesting trawl through my distant gaming history...

The Lovecraftian Thing a Day (2018) No.93: Call of Cthulhu Monster/Character Silhouettes

An enduring memory of - and perhaps my favourite piece of content from - the first and second editions of the Call of Cthulhu rpg is the card sheet of monster and character silhouettes illustrated above. I don’t recall ever using these in a game of CoC, which I think is interesting in what it says how CoC marked a narrative break from the minature wargaming roots of roleplaying games; nonetheless, I remember dutifully cutting them and attaching them to one pence pieces (as per the instructions) on purchasing my first copy of the Call of Cthulhu rpg (the above sheet being part of a later ebay purchase mentioned in yesterday’s post).

I think it worth repeating here a point which (I think) China Mieville once made: that Lovecaft gives good monster; in the late 70s/early 80s there wasn’t much by way (outside of paperback covers) of illustrations of Lovecraft’s worlds and monsters which were readily accessible to you average 13 year old - and unlike, say, the classic D&D Monster Manual, the bestiary chapters of early Call of Cthulhu rulebooks were relatively sparsely-illustrated; so much like the equally sparesely-populated Cthulhu mythos map which formed the focus of yesterday’s post, this single sheet of silhouettes functioned as a seductive visual signifier of the mythos, whilst at the same time preserving the sense of the unknowable and undescribable which permeates so much of Lovecaft’s writing about it.

The Lovecraftian Thing a Day (2018) No.92: Call of Cthulhu World Map

This early Call of Cthulhu rpg World Map displays key global locations, places of archaeological significance, as well as important sites from the Cthulhu Mythos (of which there are, in fact, very few). That the original game came with this map is somewhat telling in consideration of the more pulpy, globe-trotting and ‘non-purist’ direction the game took with early supplements and campaigns; the provision of maps both in rpgs and in so much fantasy and sci-fi literature also speaks to the expectations set, post-Tolkien, regarding the construction and presentation of speculative worlds - as well as a need within geekdom to somehow fix in place a starting point for the imaginal exploration of those worlds. In some respects, the map is the (virtual) territory - or at the very least a visual reference and mnemonic device for reminding us how far we have travelled in realms otherwise uncharted.

The pink version of the map I’ve had since I was thirteen years old: it came with the second edition Call of Cthulhu rpg boxed set - published under license by Games Workshop - which I recall purchasing one wintery Friday evening after school from the original Games Workshop store in Dalling Road, Hammersmith. After having my tea, I spent the rest of the evening closeted in my bedroom eagerly devouring the contents of the box. Whilst I had already read some of Lovecraft, there was very little by way of Lovecraftian fiction available in my local library or in regular bookshops, and the Call of Cthulhu rpg was to me less a game but another kind of map - part conceptual travelogue, sourcebook and bestiary - to the worlds of the Cthulhu mythos.

The map is all that remains from that original purchase, but it spent the next few years pinned to my bedroom wall, later following me to Leeds when I eventually went to university, and returning with me to London in the mid-1990s.

The blue version is, I think, from a later printing of the 2nd edition box set, and was acquired a couple of years ago when I picked up another copy of the 2nd ed rules (minus the box) from ebay - in part for the purposes of playing some of the early solitaire modules, but primarily for its nostalgic charm.

The Lovecraftian Thing a Day (2018) No.91: The Dirge of Reason

The Dirge of Reason is the most recent in Fantasy Flight Games’ series of novellas which tie-in with their Arkham Horror Card Game. Unfortunately, whilst sporting very high production values, The Dirge of Reason - like the previous volume in the series - falls short of the mark in being a rather uninspired addition to the mythos.

This may be, I suspect, a consequence of these works being meant as accessible entry points into the Cthulhu mythos for gamers with only a passing familiarity with Lovecraft’s work, and are thus not intended as nuanced contributions to the genre. Whilst this may have merit in terms of drawing new readers into the mythos, I think it also does a potential disservice to those readers in presenting them with a somewhat pedestrian vision of the milieu. Whilst tabletop gaming has played an enormous role in the popularisation of Lovecraft’s work, more recent ‘gamified’ iterations of the Cthulhu mythos such as The Dirge of Reason do sometimes feel as if they are contributing to a dilution of its central philosophical tenets.

The Lovecraftian Thing a Day (2018) No.90: The Eye of Azathoth

Last night the Silver Key opened a portal within my dreams to the vast, empty reaches of infinite space - and through those star-strawn gulfs of endless night I found myself carried on the back of a great scaly beast: a thing with colossal bat-like wings and a hideous equine head.

As the monstrous beast flew through those unknown gulfs of night, ever onwards towards a strangely pulsing beacon millions of light-years distant, I became aware of the frightful sound of discordant piping - a sound with no discernable origin, but which filled me with an unnameable dread regarding the source of that far-distant luminescence.

As the bat-winged thing drew nearer to the sinister radiance of that ill-omened star, the atonal piping became louder and yet more wild; in that moment I intuited something of the nameless horror which lurked behind that deafening, tumultous symphony from unformed spheres: these were the cacaphonic strains and disharmonious chords of entropic dissolution - the disorderly resonance, echoing through time since the moment of the universe’ inception, of a terminal, uncreated and formless chaos which gnaws blindly, hungrily and eternally at the nucleus of reality.

Understanding then the destination toward which I was being carried, I prefered instead to jump from from off the back of the great flapping thing which had borne me so far, to fall endlessly through the limitless chasms of space, where I was tossed and buffetted by the star winds and tachyon currents which flow through those infinite expanses, until blackness finally took me...

This morning I found hanging around my neck this strange and unsettling amulet, comprised of some bronze-like extratelluric alloy. The tinnitus in my right ear (which I have suffered from periodically for the better part of a decade) has also returned; somewhere beneath that internal hiss of white noise, I am certain I can hear the remnant refrain of a mad piping - a sound which, one might imagine, could only be produced by some monstrous flautist which writhes mindlessly and shapelessly within unlighted and undimensioned abysses at the centre of all creation.

The Lovecaftian Thing a Day (2018) No.89: Shadows Over Normandie Storage Solution

More gaming accessories today, by way of this rather attractive (and compact) storage box, which holds all of the dice, counters and game elements for Shadows Over Normandie - a gorgeously produced WWII wargame in which the allies employ occult technologies to combat the apocalyptic plans of Cthulhu mythos-worshipping Nazi cultists. You can view further archive footage of the historic events depicted in the game here. Nice.

The Lovecraftian Thing a Day (2018) No.88: Keeping Providence Weird

Another brief slice of NecronomiCon nonsense today, courtesy of Lovecraft Arts and Sciences - who have been keeping Providence Weird since 2013!

The Lovecraftian Thing a Day (2018) No.87: The Call of Cthulhu 10th Anniversary Programme

The HPLHS’ propensity for slightly tongue-in-cherk verisimilitude is certainly not absent from this in-universe brochure celebrating the 10th anniversary of the ‘1927’ release of The Call of Cthulhu motion picture. There is also something strangely hauntological (not to say melancholic) about it which, I suspect, beckons to the imagination of many a Lovecaft fan: for all his failings, we like to speculate about what might have been in that imagined past-future in which Lovecraft not only found fame and fortune, but did so on the back of a cinematic adaptation of what is today probably his best known work

The Lovecraftian Thing a Day (2018) No.86: Illustro Obscurum Collection II by Michael Bukowski

Illustro Obscurum Collection II is, as I understand it, part of Michael Bukowski’s attempt to illustrate Lovecraft’s monsters in their entirety. Bukowski has not only brought to shrieking, horrific life such classic Lovecaftian teratomas as Shoggoths, Elder Things and the Dunwich Horror, but has also revealed the liveliest awfulness of the (quite literally) indescribable beings to which Lovecraft alluded in the vaguest of terms (the ‘white polypous thing’ from The Call of Cthulhu, or the ‘Black winged thing’ mentioned in an entry in Lovecraft’s Commonplace Book). Unfortunately both this and volume I of the collected Illustro Obscurum are currently out of print (being published in very limited, handcrafted editions), but you can find many examples of Michael Bukowski’s wonderful art at his Yog-Blogsoth site here.