Mockman, maker of the graphic novel of Lovecraft’s Kadath and the fine Dreamlands map, now has a note on the map page to say that the map has sold out, but a reprint is planned in…

2018 connected to my Kickstarter for my Dreamlands-specific Lovecraftian roleplaying game, “Dreamland”

The game appears to have been in development since Christmas 2015, was scenario tested at NecronomiCon 2017, and was again convention play-tested at Big Bad in October 2018. The blurb for the latter event now suggests it’s gone beyond being ‘pure Lovecraft’ and is…

inspired by the fantasy worlds of Lord Dunsany, H.P. Lovecraft and Italo Calvino.

Though potentially still being restricted to Jason’s Lovecraft Dreamlands map in terms of the terrain and places, I’d guess.

I like Jason’s idea of preventing modern ‘yo-speak’ and encouraging acting by making the game run so that…

each character receives bonuses for their in-game use of language to deepen the fairytale mood.

A comment on the event page by Jason has more details…

Rules-wise, the game uses dice, but the biggest element of the game is Words. Dreamland style stories (Lord Dunsany etc) are all about evocative language. In game terms, this is represented by 240 Word Tokens (see attached) with words which ’embody’ Dreamland — divided into 5 categories, Wonder, Loathing, Mystery, Exoticism and Poetry. These elements are the Five Pillars of Dreamland.

During the game, the DM gradually distributes the Words into a common pool, and players gather and combine Words to fuel their powers by making flowery speeches. Different Roles (like character classes) and Memories are associated with different types of Words, so different characters (and their players) are encouraged to speak in different ways. There’s some simple dice, too, but Words are the main mechanic. But use too many Words and you risk breaking one of the Pillars of Dreamland, causing terrible and bizarre effects…

I’d also suggest the possible need for a demerits system, removing points for cringe-inducing hokey cod-medieval use of words such as “dost”, “thee” and “thou” and “verily” etc. And extra points for confabulating mellifluous new words from two words that one has already been dealt, then giving them an instant definition that pleases the gamemaster.

For instance, Eldritch and Ulthar = ‘Ulthitch, the thick tangled thatch on the peasant houses of the Dreamlands, in which Ul-worms sometimes make their nests’. Other player, in response: “Dost thou tell me, lord, that I sleep under a roof of [uses a dealt word] horrors, and am likely be-wormed with these Ul-worms? How may I rid myself of such vermin?”. One point deducted for the cod-medieval “dost”, two added for a good player response and use of a dealt word. The gamemaster would have the option to dismiss the new definition: “You have drunk [heavily of the strangely perfumed wines of Hatheg], and babble nonsense…” etc.

[Warning: Plot-spoilers ahead]

Jason’s NecronomiCon 2017 events showed off what sound like the game’s early scenario ideas…

DREAMLAND: THE PARADISE OF THE UNCHANGING (Thursday, 6-10 PM)
Olathoe, the beautiful city which knows no age nor death, is besieged by a monstrous terror. Can a small group of Olathoeans (you) save the only home you have ever known? Summoned by the king, the task of saving the timeless city falls to a small group of farmers, merchants and craftsfolk… united only by your dreamlike memories of another life in another world…

DREAMLAND: ON THE WINGS OF DREAM (Friday, 8 PM-Midnight)
After a hazy night in the Enchanted Wood, you awaken with strange marks on your bodies and the chattering of birdsong in your ears. What happened to you in those forgotten hours? What sinister bond connects you to the fangs of snakes, the jaws of dragons and the claws of crows? Slipping back and forth between waking-world London and the world of Dreamland, you and your fellow dreamers must solve the mystery before the terror which comes with the rooster’s crow of dawn…

DREAMLAND: TO THE END OF THE WORLD (Saturday, 2-6 PM)
You have traveled far, seeking the legendary edge of the world which no living dreamer has beheld. On your side: the greatest science and magic of the Six Kingdoms. Standing before you: deserts and jungles, monsters beyond belief, and cities of nightmare. Succeed in your quest, and gain fame and knowledge beyond your wildest dream. Fail, and infinities away, your waking-world body will pay the price…

Looks good.

“… a vast series of raids and arrests occurred, followed by the deliberate burning and dynamiting — under suitable precautions — of an enormous number of crumbling, worm-eaten, and supposedly empty houses along the abandoned waterfront.” — from “The Shadow over Innsmouth”.

Jonathan Thomas’s Tempting Providence and Other Stories is a 2010 story collection which I don’t think I was aware until now. But on reading the blurbs, the title story certainly appeals.

Apparently the story “Tempting Providence” is the best of what the Publishers Weekly called an “uneven” bunch. Amazon reviewers appear to concur about the unevenness. Although I see many glowing nuggets of praise plucked from magazine reviews, and that Thomas is in the “Elite” of recent writers according to Joshi’s new book 21st-Century Horror: Weird Fiction at the Turn of the Millennium. So he seems worth a look.

In the well-regarded title story, it is said, the wistful ghost of H. P. Lovecraft returns to modern Providence. He finds that a herd of real-life horrors have been allowed to run rampant across his beloved city. He lyrically compares the dehumanised modern city to the old Providence he knew so well. What a fine idea for a story. Thomas is a native of Providence, and thus the topographic and architectural details must be presumed to be accurate to a level that only a local could attain.

I’d definitely like to read this story at some point, and there’s a £5 ebook. Though no audiobook, or a 99 cent audio reading of just that story. I see that it’s the third story in the book, so I can’t get it free just by weaselling the free 10% ebook sample from Amazon.

But my finances dictate that the book is one for my WishList at present, since I recently had to spend £130 to replace an old computer monitor than died. Nice to see a big version of the book’s cover, though, simply in terms of a tasty bit of Providencial Lovecraftian art presented within an adequate design framework (though I would have improved the use of type, such as by reducing the huge gap between the words ‘Tempting’ and ‘Providence’). Self-publishing is drifting into a dangerous disregard for the needs of book cover design and typography, in my view, though this fine cover from Hippocampus shows how appealing a cover can be to potential readers. I doubt I’d have stumbled on the book, in image search, if it hadn’t been for seeing a thumbnail image of the cover. The cover is your primary initial marketing hook, and it should not be neglected just because Amazon often chooses to annoyingly whisk the reader to the start of the body text when they first open a purchased ebook.

The cover art is by Thomas S. Brown, who I’m pleased to discover is both British and on DeviantArt with a fine big Gallery that I had never seen before (despite much regular burrowing into DA for Digital Art Live magazine). Brown’s Gallery has a delightfully Lovecrafty version of the famous ‘death of Chatterton’ paintings…

There’s also a darker ‘age stained’ version of the picture, something that perhaps reflects the fact the the original also exists in several versions. I saw the original of the Birmingham version of the ‘death of Chatterton’ many years ago, up close and at leisure. I hazily recall that it was unexpectedly small, but also magnificently detailed.

I’d never seen this cover before, for Joshi’s Decline of the West…

del Toro has this week revealed a list of possible or shelved projects for which he has finished screenplays, in addition to the Mountains of Madness project that everyone already knows about…

SECRET PROJECT (UNTITLED)

SUPERSTITIOUS [at a guess – old school superstitions, such as ‘throw salt over your shoulder for luck’, become ‘real’ in some way?]

NIGHTMARE ALLEY [perhaps his Water-like take on the 1947 film noir set in a seedy carnival?]

HAUNTED MANSION [apparently a movie to be built around the Disney theme park attraction?]

THE HULK pilot [TV reboot]

THE BURIED GIANT [live-action sequel to The Iron Giant? or perhaps a movie of the great children’s book The Giant Under the Snow?]

THE COFFIN [? my complete guess would be a traditional Poe-style horror, with many del Toro twists?]

DROOD [presumably his take on Dickens’s The Mystery of Edwin Drood?]

LIST OF 7 (Mark Frost) [apparently it’s a 1993 occult murder mystery novel in the Sherlock vein, but one that spirals up and out into a sort of wild theosophical da Vinci Code. Sounds fun, though it seems there’s no graphic novel which is a pity. Not even an audiobook, other than a 1993 cassette-tape edition.]