Book Review: The Yith Cycle

    Chaosium’s “Cycle Books” are a fantastic series of themed anthologies (for the most part). But they do have one thing that I’m not thrilled with, usual series editor Robert M. Price. It’s not one thing I can necessarily point to. Sometimes his introductions give away major plot points and spoil the story’s surprise. That’s annoying. Especially as short stories often live and die on their dramatic or surprising endings. He also has a sort of Tom Snyder style pomposity. There’s something in his writing style that makes me think of a boorish cocktail guest, speaking too loudly, relentlessly name-dropping, and smoking especially rank cigarettes. And finally, I find myself in disagreement with him on his interpretations of Lovecraft and the Mythos on a semi-frequent basis. However, I must admit that his knowledge of the subject is deep and profound, with a wide reach. He frequently pulls stories and information from surprising sources.

    With “The Yith Cycle” he has collected several stories either directly involving the Great Race of Yith, or dealing with related topics like mind transference or unusual time travel. The Great Race featured in the original H.P. Lovecraft story “The Shadow Out of Time,” which is among my very favorite. Their history is strange and convoluted, but the gist is that they’re aliens from somewhere very distant, who transferred their minds into creatures in Earth’s distant past. From there, they reached forward into the minds of various beings throughout Earth’s history (including the protagonist of “The Shadow Out of Time”) and into our far future. In that future, in a time after Humanity has passed into forgotten history, they will eventually project themselves into beatle-like things in that future. The Great Race is not especially evil or hostile. In fact, while they certainly couldn’t be said to have Humanity’s interests at heart, they are fairly civil, and for an alien species, somewhat relatable. Simple, right?

    The anthology starts with the novel, “The Purple Sapphire,” which I have reviewed previously. I was not a fan.  And in truth, I just don’t see why it was included.  Connecting it to the concepts of the Yith seems like a stretch.  You could have put in H. Rider Haggard’s “She” or any number of other “lost civilization” or “reincarnation” novels and it would have had just as much point, and perhaps less racism (perhaps?).  From there things improve. There are several good stories and interesting reads. I especially liked ‘The Horror from Yith,’ a round-robin story by three authors. Each segment explores and expands upon a theme, using some recurring characters. One of the authors has a follow-up story included, ‘The Changeling,’ which is also quite good. ‘The Sands of Time’ is a cool old science fiction story, reminding one of Edgar Rice Burroughs and others of his ilk. And the next story, by Richard L. Tierney is quite interesting, building on Lovecraft, but also on ‘The Sands of Time,’ and using other genre references. It has a very 70s, anti-hero kinda thing going on.

    One thing that started to bother me a lot were the typos. I know Chaosium isn’t a big publishing company, but I found the frequency of typos, especially in the second half of the book to be off-putting.

    The book would have been stronger without the inclusion of “The Purple Sapphire,” but features enough good stories that anyone interested in The Great Race should certainly give it a read. If you want a bit more science fiction in your Lovecraftian, cosmic horror, this is the way to go.

-Matthew J. Constantine

Thoughts on Running “Horror on the Orient Express”

    I recently did something I’d been debating for a long time. I plunked down the $75. for the new edition of Chaosium’s classic Call of Cthulhu campaign, “Horror on the Orient Express.” I got one of their ‘damaged’ copies which saved quite a few precious pennies. And it’s in fine shape. Looked like it could have come right out of the delivery box at a store. A slight crinkling on the box near one corner is all that could be seen as ‘damage.’ And the box is a monster. It’s over-full, with a daunting amount of material to sift through.

    Here’s the thing, though. I’m not really a pre-made adventure guy. Since I started running roleplaying games when I was a lad, I’ve almost always written my own stories, and improvised the rest. I’ve read published adventures from companies, but usually to get ideas. I’ve played in some, but the best ones didn’t seem pre-made, because the game master (storyguide, DM, whatever) made it his own (I have, sadly, not had a female GM to the best of my knowledge/memory). Once, long ago, I ran the haunted house scenario from the Call of Cthulhu basic book, but I guess I re-worked it enough that the one player familiar with the scenario didn’t recognize it for what it was until the climax. So, I’m worried about the idea of running not just a published adventure, but an entire campaign. The reports I’m seeing on this game is that it takes a year or more to go through the whole thing (real time). That’s huge.

    The obvious thing to do, and what I likely would do, is to run a shorter published campaign or some adventures to get a handle on the process, and on how I would make them my own.  But there, I’m still running into my old problems. I’ve been bad about connecting with the gaming community in my area ever since I moved here 8 years ago. And I haven’t managed to do a good job of convincing my friends to try it (other than a brief, dramatically failed attempt a couple years ago). Yet, the draw of the hobby keeps me going; keeps me hoping and spit-balling.

    So, start small, huh?  OK.  This new version of the campaign has several side adventures that are scattered across time, going all the way back to ancient Rome.  One of the first is set in Victorian London.  That got me to thinking, maybe I could run that side adventure as a kind of preamble.  That’s a start, I guess.

    And, with a scenario set in the late 1800s that leads into the greater Orient Express campaign, it got me to thinking about connections.  One of the challenges that face a lot of RPG groups when a scenario or campaign begins is ‘why are we all together?’  But the Call of Cthulhu RPG takes place, typically, in a time when social groups were common; gentlemen’s clubs and the like.  That presents a solid way to join the characters together.  Add in a few bits, and it’s not too hard to have them be members of a group that’s large enough to use for replacement characters (should the nearly inevitable event of character death/madness happen).  A few more bits, and you could have a club with some ties or interests in the occult.  In the case of “Horror on the Orient Express” it even gives a link across the years between the events of the 1800s and the primary campaign in the 1920s.  And of course, Professor Smith, as another link between the eras, can be linked with the social club.

    Now, the 1890s and 1920s were hardly times of enlightenment.  Women (all women over 21) didn’t get the vote in England until 1928.  But, while that was the reality, and I don’t like to completely shy away from real life evils, making some things a bit more pleasant for potential female players is also a concern.  Since Call of Cthulhu typically favors more intellectual and artistic characters, and those people tend to be on the forefront of social progress, I got to thinking that making an element of the characters’ social club women’s suffrage would be interesting.  I think adding some era-grounded politics will help set the stage.  Especially since there are some red-herrings about communists and the like in the campaign.  Because I always like to dream bigger than I should, it also might work to help set the stage for a future campaign.  If “Horror on the Orient Express” turned out well, I’d love to follow it up with another London based campaign, “Tatters of the King.”  Again, I’m getting ahead of myself, but I love to plant seeds in one story that might bloom in a future story. So, even if I have no idea how this trip on the Orient Express might go or how it might end, I figure I’d try to drop in a few bits to introduce themes from “Tatters of the King.”

    I have no idea if I’ll eventually run this campaign or not.  No idea if it will go the distance, or if it will be successful enough to demand a follow-up.  For now, it’s just a lot of reading and dreaming.  

-Matthew J. Constantine

Tabletop Roleplaying Review: RuneQuest 2nd Edition

    I cut my teeth on “Worlds of Wonder” from Chaosium, which used their Basic Roleplaying System. That’s the same core game mechanic (rules) as “Call of Cthulhu,” “Stormbringer,” and of course, “RuneQuest.”  And I know that I used to flip through the "RuneQuest" books when I was first starting out, looking for little ideas and variations I could use in my own games. But I don’t think I ever really embraced the game or its world, Glorantha.

    When I heard that the folks at Moon Design were working with Chaosium, including some of the original developers, to bring back the classic edition of the game, I figured I had to chip in, so I supported their Kickstarter campaign. My hardcover copy recently arrived and I’ve been picking through it for the last week.

The first thing I noticed is that this game is very much of its time. Now, I don’t mean that to be too harsh, but as I read through it, I was reminded of a lot of the things about early roleplaying games (rpgs) that were problematic or frustrating for me. Thankfully, the core mechanic of this game is fairly easy and intuitive. But explanations can get a bit obtuse, and frankly, the game is far, far more ‘crunchy’ than I enjoy. (Crunchy is a term applied to games with more complicated, often math heavy rules). There are still some pretty strong traces of strategy games and miniature combat rules floating through the book.  That’s fine for folks who are into that kind of thing, and the gods know, "D&D" is still sick with it.  But it’s not my thing, and I don’t feel like it’s as present in some of the other Basic Roleplaying System games ("Call of Cthulhu" being the one I’ve had the most experience with). I kept finding myself thinking; “well, I wouldn’t use that,” or “I’d cut that whole bit out.” Not that there’s anything wrong with modifying rules to fit your style, I just found myself doing more mental editing of these rules than I’ve done to any in a long time.

    The second thing that struck me about "RuneQuest" that I really didn’t remember from reading it as a lad is that it’s a Bronze Age game, not a Medieval game. It’s a very, very High Fantasy Bronze Age game.  Magic and gods are real, frequent, and important to everyday life. There are parts of it that feel almost like Tolkien’s “Silmarillion,” they’re so out there. And while there are obvious callbacks to Tolkien and European mythology, the setting has its own vibe going on. There are hints of Sumerian and Greek, bits of maybe Mesoamerican, and other stuff that’s just pure fantasy. In this High Fantasy/High Magic world, there are lots of different intelligent species, and things we’re not used to being intelligent that can talk and do other things. It’s certainly not my usual type of Fantasy setting, having more of Narnia than expected. But it could be interesting for a change of pace. It’s probably the closest to a "Dungeons & Dragons" game I’d likely run (well, maybe "Earthdawn"…). But at least it doesn’t have levels and alignments.

    Overall, "RuneQuest 2nd Edition" is a nice little look back at the early days of gaming, and a much better alternative to "D&D." But it’s also a reminder of how far games have come, and I don’t know how likely I am to ever run it. Too much number crunching, too much paperwork, and maybe a bit too much regimentation. Still, I find the Glorantha setting intriguing. It’s very much not the kind of Fantasy I tend to like, and very much not the sort I’d be inclined to run a game in. But it has enough of that ‘old school gaming’ vibe, without the terrible base mechanics of "D&D" (or "Rolemaster," or some of the others of the era). I don’t know. Maybe, if I had a group of friends who wanted something more in the vein of 70s rpgs...Maybe I’d give it a go. I’d still probably strip some of the more unwieldy bits.

-Matthew J. Constantine

Revisiting Lovecraft

I guess there's a reason Brad and I started this blog.  We're two dorks who think along similar lines.  While I was writing up this little post, he posted something related. 

I’ve been saying, off and on for the last two years or so, that I really need to get back into reading H.P. Lovecraft.  The man is one of the most influential writers in my life, basically shaped horror fiction of the 20th century, and inspired many of my favorite films and one of my favorite roleplaying games.  But I think the last time I read anything by him was more than five years ago, when I gave the very dense The Dreamquest of Unknown Kadath a skimming.  A few weeks ago, around the same time I started getting interested in running a roleplaying game again, an anthology called Cthulhu’s Reign passed before my eyes.  On a whim, I picked it up and read the first story on my way home from work.  Not bad.  And the second story.  Pretty good.  That’s all it took.  I picked up my old Del Ray edition of The Best of H.P. Lovecraft, and started reading one of his major classics I’d somehow never gotten around to, The Dunwich Horror.

And the love returned.  I started watching some movies inspired by his work, either directly or in some cases, very indirectly.  I pulled out my old Chaosium Call of Cthulhu roleplaying game.  Watched some videos on YouTube, and finally got around to watching the vague adaptation of The Color Out of Space, Die Monster, Die! with  Boris Karloff.

Then yesterday, a new Barns & Noble leather bound edition of Lovecraft’s ‘Complete Fiction’ hit the shelf.  It’s a handsome volume to be sure, and it feels good hefting a monster leather bound book.  What can I say?  I picked up right where I’d left off that morning reading The Shadow Out of Time.  Man, I’m loving this.

Lovecraft’s vision of a blind, uncaring universe where the hopes and dreams of mankind are like tears in rain, and the whole of human history is the briefest of footnotes in the cosmic reckoning is such a breath of fresh air after so much human-centric horror, like ghost stories and possession tales.  The gods of Lovecraft aren’t gods at all, but beings so outside, so beyond our ability to comprehend that even the hint of truth will drive people mad.  They don’t want our worship.  They don’t want our fear.  They don’t even know we exist, and if they did, they would care like we care about gnats. 

This is hardly all I’ve got to say on the subject.  But I felt I had to say something.  I’m going to go back to The Shadow Out of Time now, and find out just what horrors our poor old professor is about to find under the deserts of deepest Australia.

If you haven’t read Lovecraft, do so.  Pick up any given anthology.  Start with some easy stories, like The Outsider, Cool Air, or Pickman’s Model.  Then try some of the bigger tales, like The Shadow Over Innsmouth, and the maybe eventually film destined At the Mountains of Madness.  Check out The Dunwich Horror, for sure.  And maybe take a taste of his more fanciful stories with The Cats of Ulthar.  It’s good stuff. 

-Matt