Chaosium Inc. - Newsletter

The latest RPG news from Chaosium...

#55 the straight scoop from the well of chaos... Wyrms Footnotes Returns! Wyrms Footnotes is Chaosium’s House Magazine for Greg Stafford’s World of Glorantha. Fourteen issues were published between 1976 - 1983. After a (mere) 29 year hiatus, Wyrms Footnotes returned in 2012 with issue #15, produced by Moon Design Publications. In 2017, Wyrms Footnotes is back again as the Chaosium House magazine for Glorantha! "Our goal is for Wyrms Footnotes to be a place where we can regularly publish articles, maps, short scenarios, background, fiction and more, exploring Greg Stafford’s World of Glorantha", said Chaosium vice president Michael O'Brien. Guest Editors Each issue of Wyrms Footnotes is overseen by a special Guest Editor. Guest editors may or may not be Chaosium staffers, but all share a deep and abiding love and passion for Glorantha.  The guest editor for issue #16 is Ian Cooper, Chaosium's line editor for the HeroQuest RPG and author of recent Glorantha releases The Coming Storm and The Eleven Lights. Issue #17 will be overseen by long-standing Glorantha contributor and creator David Scott, who is currently helping lead a 32-week "Group Read" of the monumental Guide to Glorantha on the Chaosium fourms at BRP Central. Award-winning RPG designer, author and passionate Gloranthan Sarah Newton is guest editor of Issue #18.  Come share your stories with the tribe! "Wyrms Footnotes will appear bi-annually, at least initially", O'Brien said. "We’re happy to consider anything Gloranthan that is well-written, playable and consistent - each issue will contain a potpourri of subjects relating to Glorantha and the Hero Wars." Submissions for Wyrms Footnotes is now open. Check out the submissions guidelines page for more information. Licensee Focus: Follow up on several long-overdue Kickstarters by licensees... Chaosium has recently been in touch with the creators of several overdue licensed Kickstarters. We are keen to see these projects through, and for backers to be updated regularly about progress. Here is our report... Horrors of War Chaosium met with Scott Glancy of Pagan Publishing at Gen Con and discussed the Horrors of War license. We have confidence Scott can deliver on this project in the revised time frame he has put forward, and that he will give backers timely updates about progress until it is done. More details Punktown Chaosium recently spoke to Tom Lynch of Miskatonic River Press. Although the Punktown Kickstarter is way, way overdue (launched in Nov 2012!) a 50% preview of the book has been recently shared with backers, and the second half is in the final stages of layout (work on this being undertaken by Angus Abranson of Chronicle Cityfor Miskatonic River Press). For this reason Chaosium has decided to keep the Punktown license in place and we'll hopefully get to see this much-delayed project taken through to completion in the coming months. More details. Writhing Dark & Writhing Dark Extended Edition We don't want backers to be prevented by Chaosium from getting what they've paid Shane Tyree to produce, although we would be within our rights to terminate his Kickstarter agreements. But because Shane has the actual product in hand and sincerely states that he still wishes to deliver, we have instead issued a special license extension. This is strictly limited to fulfilling the original Writhing Dark and Extended Edition Kickstarter rewards and expires on completion. More details. The Complete Fiction of H.P. Lovecraft An Audiobook from our friends at the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society From our friends at the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society! An audio recording of all HPL's stories, spanning his entire career: if it were on CDs (it isn't) it would need 42 of them! Available in a custom designed USB flash drive, or as a monster digital download. Seventy-four stories adding up to more than fifty (50!) hours of Lovecraftian listening, professionally performed and recorded for your enjoyment. Licensee Focus:  "For the Love of..." is new, free download Call of Cthulhu scenario by our friends at the Miskatonic University Podcast. This was their fundraiser to help get them to Necronomicon 2017. Says MU Podcast: "It was an amazing time, and we are grateful to everyone who pitched in. As a token of our gratitude, here is the finished scenario written by our own Jon Hook." "Horror in the Biltmore" raises funds for charity From the greedy Keeper at the gates of the Dreamlands to the waking of H. P. Lovecraft himself, nearly 30 players (including several that had never played before) donated their way through 16 keepers across three tables over four hours of improvisational Call of Cthulhu. All told, these poor, lost, generous souls gave more than $700 to support the Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals as they struggled to escape a series of portals linking the many worlds found within the Biltmore Hotel in Providence, Rhode Island, during NecronomiCon 2017. "Horror in the Biltmore" was Team NEG’s third foray into face-to-face charity gaming, and their first using Call of Cthulhu. It was a blast, featuring keepers from Chaosium (Mike Mason, gesticulating above), the Good Friends of Jackson Elias (Matt Sanderson and Scott Dorwood), the Miskatonic University Podcast (Keepers Chad, Murph, and Dan), Skype of Cthulhu (Jonathan, Edwin, Max, Randall, and Matt), and friends (Ian, Cory, Badger, Sean, and Dave). It was a tremendous event and a highlight of the convention. Join the crew for their 2017 fundraising finale!   24 hours of live play gaming on November 17, 2017, from 6 pm EST!   At Midnight EST the team will be playing the "Something from Down There" scenario from Chaosium’s newly released Down Darker Trails supplement. Throughout the event, donors will have the option to “mess" with the game (throwing in monsters, puzzles, and even getting the players sing a song!) All’s fair when raising money to help sick children. Chaosium, alongside Frog God Games and Kobold Press, are sponsoring the event, enabling participants to win some fabulous thank you prizes. Licensee Focus   Rapier's Runestarter: Morokanth and Trolls Our friends at Rapier Miniatures now have their fabulous Morokanth minies available for pre-order, along with the Trolls they're also working on (one Dark, one Great, one Cave)—details here: http://bit.ly/2xIDqCf Morokanth (34mm) Dark Troll (shown - 35mm). Cave Troll and Great Troll will be approx 45mm. Rapier says they'll be available for dispatch the week commencing Monday 23rd of October... MORE LOVECRAFTIAN LISTENING FROM YSDC! Our friends at Yog-Sothoth (YSDC) were the first in the world to record roleplaying games and put them on the Internet, starting an online phenomenon. They are just about to finish up an epic 12 year run of Call of Cthulhu gaming, having journeyed through 10 recorded adventures between September 2005 and September 2017. To mark the occasion, YSDC is making all their recordings available for free, starting with their play-through of Masks of Nyarlathotep. Licensee Focus: Our friends at Modiphius have launched a "Living Campaign" for Achtung! Cthulhu, their licensed Call of Cthulhu adventures set in WW2. The Living Campaign is free to join and kicks off with a free 29 page adventure, "A Light on the Mountain", the start of a sinister plot across occupied territory. It contains maps, handouts and four pre-generated player characters to get you started playing. And by completing a special debriefing form, GMs have an opportunity to change the plot as the campaign unfolds and have a direct result on the course of the Secret War. You can sign up to the Achtung! Cthulhu Living Campaign by visiting the Living Campaign Sign Up Page. It’s your perfect way to report for duty in Achtung! Cthulhu’s Secret War, which mixes the terrors of HP Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos with the heroism and pulp adventure of World War 2.

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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