Greetings from Studio B!

As preparations for Carnage pick up speed, more of the not-work portions of my brain are given over to the many interlocking, moving parts whizzing about at every increasing speed that go into putting on a convention. Just this evening, I took a pass through proofreading the convention book, soon to hit an inbox, physical or electronic, near you.

Additionally, I made some upgrades to the Carnagecast recording setup in here “Studio B.” A shiny new mixer firmly wedges open vistas of remote interviews over the telephone and VOIP. We’ve done those before, certainly, talking to luminaries like Lorien Green, director of Going Cardboard, and Dave Chapman, line developer of Conspiracy X 2.0. Those recording sessions were special set-ups. Now it’ll be easier to pull them off. And maybe, just maybe, we’ll work our way up to a live show at Carnage.

In the meantime, I’ll be recording more Carnagecast episodes, assembling the schedule grid for cross-referencing with the Carnage book, playtesting my adventures, Reavers of the Pearl Bright Ocean and The Ice Giants of Mansfield, and doing whatever else needs to get done to make our last year at Lake Morey — we’re moving to Killington in 2013, you know — memorable and fun.

Farewell, Lake Morey; Hello, Killington!

My favorite game convention^[1], Carnage, announced it’s moving to the Killington Grand in 2013. I’m excited by the venue change in 2013 because Killington’s a nice joint and there’s plenty of space for the convention to grow.

Leaving Lake Morey is a little bittersweet, though. Being right on such a picturesque lake has been lovely. I’m always comforted slowly rolling through the sleepy town of Fairlee, wondering what restaurant might possibly be open on a Saturday evening.

The Lake Morey resort itself has character that can’t be beat: wing after addition after extension ramble along the lake shore in directions that only start to make sense after a weekend or two of trial and error, trying to figure out how to get down to the ballroom, or where on Earth the third floor went. There’s nothing quite like bursting out of a little stairwell to find yourself suddenly in the role-playing area when you thought you were well on your way to the bar.

So farewell, Lake Morey! I’ll miss watching the mist rise up off your waters in the early morning. I’ll miss the thunderous roar of LARPers passing through the hallway overhead. I’ll miss the camaraderie of the Steamboat Lounge on Thursday night as Tom urgently scribbles out tomorrow morning’s characters and the first of many, many pick-up games hit the tables.

It’s time to move on to Killington. There are traditions to carry over, new rites to shape and lapsed customs to resume. And here’s to the many, many anecdotes that will begin, “One time when Carnage was at Lake Morey . . . “^[2]

---

^[1] I liked it so much, I joined the staff.

^[2] In fact, I’ve got a great one that is generally fit only for verbal recounting. Ask me at Carnage sometime!

Exiting the Gray Goo Zone

After the apocalypse, when the nanite swarm blankets the earth, some of them will form coalitions to recreate some of the silly bipeds by merging together into biomechanical organisms.

Because what else are you going to do once you’ve blanketed the earth and everyone who wants to has built their interstellar vehicles?

Ye Liveliest Awfulness

Reading The Case of Charles Dexter Ward this weekend — probably a re-read, as it’s all very familiar to me — a question struck me: given that one of the founding principles of life in Lovecraft Country is that there were all sorts of unnatural doings afoot during America’s colonial period, particularly in the darkly wooded hills of New England — including the deeds of Keziah Mason, as related by The Dreams in the Witch House — why haven’t there been more role-playing opportunities set in that time period?

Certainely, there was Noth’g but ye liveliest Awfulness in that which H. rais’d upp from What he cou’d gather onlie a part of.
— H. P. Lovecraft, The Case of Charles Dexter Ward

Maybe I’m not aware of the texts that do so or maybe it’s because one of Call of Cthulhu‘s key themes is the modern person’s realization the universe is vast, ultimately unknowable and uncaring, but given everything going on at the time that crept down through the years to plague the residents of 20th century Arkham and its neighbors, it seems like colonial America is a natural time and place for mythos-based action. Even in Charles Dexter Ward, there’s an archetypal coterie of community members who take it upon themselves to protect their local world from the depredations of an evil alchemist. That screamed “party of wildly disparate yet bound by a common interest player characters” to me.

I see there’s at least one Chaosium monograph on the topic, Colonial Terrors. Have you ever run a Cthulhoid campaign or one-shot in colonial America? How did it go?

Terms for the ‘Fiters and Lurkers

Terms for the ‘Fiters and Lurkers is an interesting glossary I ran across searching for “Corvae Hermanubis” — still not sure what that actually means — of a mash-up role-playing setting including elements of GURPS Cabal, Ars Magica and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

I wonder if the author, Jeb, has written any more for this mash-up, which even manages to namecheck Trinity. I could drop a line to find out, couldn’t I?