Chaosium Inc. - Newsletter

The latest RPG news and releases from Chaosium...

#54 the straight scoop from the well of chaos... Chaosium wins seven Gold and three Silver at the 2017 ENnies! Chaosium and Call of Cthulhu had a truly amazing night at the 2017 Gen Con ENnie Awards, winning 7 gold and 3 silver awards! Many thanks to the members of the Chaosium tribe, fans and supporters for sending your ENnies votes our way. We appreciate it, and can't do what we do without you. We thank the panel of judges for putting so many of our recent releases up for nomination, and the ENnie Awards organisers for putting on such a wonderful way to celebrate what we all love. Here are the awards Chaosium won: Best Cover Art - Call of Cthulhu Investigators Handbook = GOLD Best Interior Art - S. Petersen Field Guide to Lovecraftian Horrors = SILVER Best Cartography - Call of Cthulhu Keeper Screen Pack = GOLD Best Production Values - Call of Cthulhu 7th ed slipcase set = GOLD Best Aid/Accessory - Call of Cthulhu Keeper Screen Pack = GOLD Best RPG-related Product - Call of Cthulhu - The Colouring Book = GOLD Best Adversary/Monster - S. Petersen Field Guide to Lovecraftian Horrors = GOLD Best Adventure - Doors to Darkness = SILVER Best Supplement - Pulp Cthulhu = GOLD Fan Favourite Publisher - Chaosium = SILVER Congratulations to all the other winners and nominees. In particular, we'd like to highlight our friends Stygian Fox Publishing who won GOLD in the Best Electronic Book category for their licensed Call of Cthulhu release The Things We Leave Behind. We also applaud and thank our French language licensee Éditions Sans Détour, whose wonderful artwork graces the S. Petersen Field Guide to Lovecraftian Horrors.  Chaosium Founder and current Chair of the Board Greg Stafford receiving the Silver ENnie for Fan Favorite Publisher with members of the Chaosium team. Chaosium wants to thank and recognise the creative teams behind each of our ENnie-winning titles and everybody involved in making Call of Cthulhu 7th Edition such a great success. A new edition of Masks of Nyarlathtotep Reanimation of the classic Call of Cthulhu campaign! The new edition of Masks of Nyarlathotep is a complete revision and updating of this epic multi-part campaign set in 1925, in which steadfast investigators must unravel secrets and battle the minions of darkness in an attempt to stop world-shattering events from destroying humanity. The original six-chapter campaign featuring adventures in America, England, Egypt, Kenya, Australia, and China have been developed and updated by Mike Mason, Lynne Hardy, Paul Fricker, and Scott Dorward, and feature enhanced and new encounters, sub-plots, and on-point guidance for the Keeper. Now written to be playable with either standard Call of Cthulhu or Pulp Cthulhu, the text guides the Keeper and allows for both gritty or pulp styles of play. New Chapter What’s more, a brand new chapter is introduced. Set in Peru, this new scenario provides an exciting introductory prologue to the campaign, where the investigators get to meet Jackson Elias, the industrious and charming author, whose researches lead into the globe-spanning plot. Each chapter has been tirelessly crossed referenced, to help those running the campaign to keep track of the many locations, characters, player handouts, and items thrown up by the players’ investigation. With new appendices collecting spells, tomes, and artifacts, running the campaign is easiest its ever been. Apart from the revision and updating of the text to Call of Cthulhu 7th edition, this new version of Masks of Nyarlathotep will be released in full color, with all new maps, handouts, and artwork throughout. A truly reanimated classic campaign, coming to you later this year! Horror on the Orient Express Kickstarter ends with all backers receiving free bonus 20th scenario Like a final and unexpected postcard from the journey after you've arrived home, Chaosium has just sent all 1,374 Horror on the Orient Express Kickstarter backers the link to a free download of Mark Morrison's bonus 20th scenario for the epic campaign.  'Empire of Death' uncovers hitherto unknown secrets from the back story of the Orient Express campaign. What initially started out as a special backer reward for four Gen Con players has been transformed and expanded into a much larger stand-alone supplement of which the Empire of Death scenario is but a part. Reign of Terror is a sourcebook for playing Call of Cthulhu during the French Revolution, and will be in print around the end of 2017.  This marks the official end of the Horror on the Orient Express Kickstarter. Chaosium president Rick Meints said, "Chaosium needs to thank our patient backers for their ongoing support as we got the campaign back on track and to its final destination. It was a bumpy ride and we learned a great deal on how to properly run a Kickstarter campaign professionally. Over the last 5 years we know there should have been far more Express in getting it all delivered, and less Horror in how some things were handled. In the end, our backers got a great campaign at an excellent price, something which matters greatly to us." Khan of Khans Kickstarter Update: we brought some copies to show off and demo at Gen Con. These RuneQuest Quickstart cosplayers were keen to get people to play: probably not a good idea to refuse... The ships bringing Khan of Khans to the USA, Australia and UK have arrived, and our Kickstarter backers will start getting their copies from this week! Pulp Cthulhu won the Gold ENnie for Best Supplement. Can it win in the 2017 Dragon Awards as well? You have until Friday, September 1, 2017 at 11:59 pm, EDT, to register your ballot. Voting ends on Saturday, September 2, 2017 at 11:59 pm, EDT. The winners will be announced at Dragon Con 2017 in Atlanta, September 1 - 4. VOTE PULP! Licensee Focus: The Props of Nyarlathotep, New York and Kenya  More spectacular handcrafted Masks of Nyarlathotep props from the talented Delphes Desvolvres! - this time for the New York and Kenya chapters. And what Delphe's is creating is simpatico with the updates, changes and tweaks of the recently-announced new edition. With just over a week to go, the Kickstarter is on the way to being 3x funded. Here's our Call of Cthulhu line editor Mike Mason showing off some of the cool art pieces available:

What is Ab Chaos? (...from Ab Chaos #7, May 31 1992) Ab - Latin "from" Chaos - (1) Any condition or place of total disorder (modern vernacular); (2) the disordered state of unformed matter which preceded creation (since Milton, Paradise Lost); (3) the dark, empty space which preceded creation (Greek Mythology); (4) the [formerly] Californian roleplaying game company. Ab Chaos is an informal newsletter for Chaosium fans. Through our history we have tried to serve the players and gamemasters through craft and art as well as (and sometimes at the expense of) marketing and moneymaking. We appreciate your loyalty, and offer this communication to those who are curious about us, beyond the mere "product". It is planned to be informal and irregular. We are, after all, not the Orderium.

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