New Maps from LoveMaps

I normally discourage using maps for tactical purposes in for horror games. It moves the emphasis away from the feeling of the situation to the facts of the situation and as a result people can’t help but kick into war-game mode. However maps can also play a very important role in simply providing an overview of an area which might otherwise be hard for the players to fully grok. And if their progress, or even just the story of the thing is relying on the players having a clear sense of the space and its features, a map is a great way to provide that.

Beyond the Mountains of Madness is a great examples of having several locations which largely require maps to enable the players. And if you’re in the Patreon game, LoveMaps is creating maps for Beyond the Mountains of Madness, and while I’ve only sampled some of them, they really shine; I wish I’d had these for my game!

In other news, the Discord server (see previous post) is ticking along, it’s a great little niche community, even if work and family leave me with too little time to always participate as I’d like.

And yeah, that’s also why I haven’t finished the recordings yet 😄

Discord

I get contacted relatively often by other keepers looking to take on Beyond the Mountains of Madness, so I started a Discord server for us to hang out and share tips, tricks and resources (it even has rooms for a couple of other classic campaigns).

Roll20 Setup

I recorded a quick walkthrough of our Roll20 setup, for anyone interested in that sort of thing.

The Archive

Just a quick flick through most of the stuff I've accumulated for our Beyond the Mountains of Madness Campaign over the years.

I forgot I recorded this a while back (and it doesn’t even include everything).

BtMoM Theme for Fantasy Grounds

I meant to run a follow-up scenario for the group on Fantasy Grounds but got derailed into The Enemy Within for Warhammer Fantasy 4e instead. But before that, I spent a weekend putting together this theme for Fantasy Grounds.

Mind you, it contains quite a lot of spoilers, as it was intended for use with The Black Rat, which occurs after the main campaign. However I included the PSD files with everything in layers, so you can easily turn off whatever you don’t want to have showing up.

The Soundtrack

For our campaign I spent some time assembling a soundtrack from a variety of sources. I lost the source list, but look to Alien 3 in particular, The Exorcist, and 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Logomark

Here’s the logomark I made for the campaign.

The End

A short note to mention that we ended the campaign last weekend after a short five year run (with plenty of large breaks built in). I am going to get the recordings uploaded as soon as I can, and will close the book on this chapter of gaming as I’m frantically looking around for something new to hook my teeth into.

Tekeli-li.

The Gabrielle Blueprint

I spent some time combining and conforming all of the schematics of the Gabrielle spread throughout the campaign book, and even added in one or two updates from the German second edition. It turned out to require a bit of adjustment to get all the decks and features to line up properly.

Session 11 — Trouble

The expedition is haunted by strange dreams and find themselves facing a new enemy in the city.

Back

It’s been three years, but on Saturday we went back to the ice!

I’ll spare the long history in between now and when last we played, but suffice it to say that a lot happened; I for one now have a son. We previously played through part of the campaign (the tower) but I lost part of that recording, and for this session we went back and did another take at the approach to get off on the right foot.

As Avery’s player noted, it was surprisingly easy to slip back into the story even after so much time had passed.

And on the recordings… well I’m still behind, but I’m catching up!

Shoggoth!

#procgen eye test. Eyes everywhere, anytime, and any size.
Turn this up, @gutterboxaudio did the amazing sound design on this.
Done in @sidefx #houdini #redshift
In case of compression woes, here’s a Youtube link - https://t.co/yapdNrGlUb pic.twitter.com/ecZaEbbmwm

— richard lord (@rich_lord) October 15, 2019

The Good Friends Journey to The Mountains of Madness

The always affable Good Friends of Jackson Elias have begun their decent into madness in the latest episode of their podcast, as they cast their attention onto At the Mountains of Madness.

Session 10 — The Tunnels

The expedition wakes the day after, uneasy and anxious to get on with the exploration of the dead city. What will they find in the tunnels beneath it all?

Gou Tanabe's Mountains of Madness

I highly recommend getting you hands on the newly released English edition of Gou Tanabe’s At the Mountains of Madness. The art is amazing. I don’t love his take on Lake, or changes like making the dig at Lake’s camp a cave, but on the whole this is a fantastic take on the story!

Posters

I stole some artwork to make a few posters for a special event my group and I are trying to put together. Credit to all the original artists, most of which I’ve featured on the blog.

Miskatonic Flight

Oh yeah.

On the Boeing 247D

I’m currently spending some time with the Boeing 247D, for reasons which can become apparent later, and I found that the text has a minor error in it. The specs for the Boeing on page 386 lists it as having 12 seats on board, but being able to carry 5 passengers (in addition to the pilot and navigator).

View fullsize

First of all, as near as I can tell the 247D actually had five rows of two seats, for a total of 10 passengers, as shown above. So even if it was fitted for passenger flight, it wouldn’t hold 12 plus pilot and navigator. Moreover while the Boeing’s are configurable, I don’t know how much so once you’re on the ice. The diagram on page 387 shows the Boeing outfitted with four extra fuel tanks just behind the cockpit, which would take up two rows, which leaves six seats.

Once you make room for the ‘extra radio equipment’ listed on page 386, that probably leaves us with the five passenger payload it lists.

Stay tuned for more riveting content!

Rediscovery

Great student film special effects of a modern expedition to the MOUNTAINS OF MAADNEEEESS!