I Hate Drawing (RPG All)

 

OK, that might be exaggerated. Hear me out.

I'm not a visual thinker. If I want to describe a scene I don't picture the far-off hills or the shadowed forest paths. I suspect one of the reasons why I go for the Rule of 4 and Rome is that these rules force you to think about what goes into the soup, to create a recipe. That recipe can be made to fit different paradigms, but it's the same recipe. The recipe used to make tiramisu can be adapted to make ice cream. Theoretically the recipe used to make carbonara can also be adapted to make ice cream, but I make no promises as to taste. Eggy, though. Creamy. With a hit of salt and umami.

Drawing leaves me cold. Forcing the recipe to fit into a particular box is no fun. I appreciate the necessity. Not everyone thinks the way I do, and some people need the formula. 

Ratatouille 

Yes, there is a flow to the diagram. It directs along certain lines and paths. Theoretically you can refer to it when in need to provide a sense of plot direction. But because it's not how I work or think, I find this kind of thing frustrating. So long as your technique is on-point you should be able to flow with the recipe and embrace the end result. 

But!

Let's think about this from a design perspective. 

Let's say this is a murder mystery, It doesn't matter, for this example, whether it's a locked-room puzzle, a cozy, a whodunnit or some other kind of mystery. There is a body on the floor and our heroes have to find out how it got there, and why.

The body is the opening scene. Theoretically there can be a scene prior to this where the characters are introduced to the victim before they hit the floor, find out a little about them, what-have-you. But for purpose of this example the body is the opening scene.

From that scene, questions follow.

What did they die of?

How was the means of death administered?

When was the means of death administered?

Who had the opportunity, means or motive to administer the means of death?

Some of these questions can be answered in the opening scene. If the victim's head was bashed in, and there's a bloody crowbar lying nearby, safe to say you've found out what they died of and how means of death was administered. You may also have eliminated the weedy secretary from the list of suspects, since it would take significant upper-body strength to do what's been done and the secretary's arms are scrawny.

That said ... suppose the victim was poisoned first and lying on the ground. A toxicology report would show that one way or the other, as might blood splatter. The weedy secretary might be back in play, since it would be easier to do what's been done while the victim's lying face-down. In fact, since that's the only way the weedy secretary might have done it, and that's the way it was done, signs are beginning to point in a weedy direction ...

Point being, each of these questions can be a scene in and of themselves, which means they all need a spot on the diagram. What began with one box becomes many, with arrows pointing hither and thither. 

Let's start with two boxes.

One is the opening scene. The inciting incident. Call it what you will.

The other is the end scene. However the detectives get there, this is where they'll end up. The murderer revealed.

All those boxes in the middle? Some of them are set dressing, some red herrings. Notice in the drawing above that the boxes are color-coded and shaped in a particular way. That allows me to see at a glance which scenes are directly relevant to the plot and which not. 

There will always be something interesting to do in any scene. Whether or not the interesting thing is also plot-relevant ... well, Doctor Watson's in Sherlock Holmes for a reason. Without him, the stories would be a boring recitation. This-is-how-it-was-done. Yawn, But, with him, a plot-relevant character wanders in and out of intriguing situations, finding things out. Not all those things are as important as they seem at the time, but they all seem important at the time. Eye-catching.

So, to sum up: the diagram might look like a spaghetti nightmare. Nevertheless, it follows a recipe. It has the same rule of 4 and Rome as any other plot. Difference being, it fits those things and Rome into a skeleton which can be referred to, as needed, to give you a sense of plot direction. 

The important things remain the same, Something interesting to do must be in each and every scene, whether it's set dressing, a red herring, or something else.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some drawing to do.

 

Ghost Town Goussainville, Val-d'Oise (RPG All, Esoterrorists)

Once upon a time I said:

a ghost town is more than just a few forms. I think of it in these terms: first a town loses its ability, then its vitality, and shortly after that it becomes a ghost

Here's another practical example, inspired by various internet posts but particularly this one.

Goussainville, Val-d'Oise is close to Paris and was at one time an ordinary place. Then someone built an airport next door. Air and noise pollution was bad enough, but then a Russian aircraft crashed during a show killing several residents, all the air crew, and destroying a portion of the town. What was already a steady decrease in population became a flood, and the old town emptied out.

An architectural wrinkle prevents significant regeneration. The 14th century church of St Paul and St Peter at the heart of Goussainville is protected by the state. Neither it nor any building within 500 meters can be altered in any significant way. While parts of Goussainville are thriving, the old town is a graffiti-pocked shell of its former self.

Voyage en Île-de-France

In the previous post I said:

I think of ghost towns in small sandbox terms. There may or may not be a convenient central hub - a general store, an inn, a church - but the town's story is scattered roundabout, which means there will be different kinds of experiences to be had. 

That's what we're looking at here. There is a central hub - the church, the abandoned mansion, the old supermarket - but the ghost town's story is scattered across several locations. If they want to follow up on certain angles (the Russian plane crash, eg) they might have to leave the town altogether and go hunting in old archives. Perhaps they'll find old television footage:

AP Archive

Perhaps they'll find first responders or former government employees, now long retired to [somewhere far away from here] who have vivid memories of the event. Perhaps this, perhaps that, but the central point is that the story is large and will be found in several locations, not all of which are obvious.

Let's give this an Esoterror angle.

To The Devil A Daughter: Bundyclub, France

Bundyclub, from the Esoterrorists main book, is a group of otherwise unconnected people who become serial killers under the direction of John Michael Loehr, a ringleader figure who communicates with all of them online. The group began as killer fans, and later, under Loehr's direction, become killers.

Bundyclub acquires an international dimension when Loehr contacts a Frenchman, Gabin Bazin, through the same internet forum. 

Bazin's fascinated by killer Marcel Barbeault, aka The Shadow, who Bazin believes committed at least one murder in Goussainville: Bazin's mother, Esme. Bazin believes the murder was never solved, at least in part, because of the plane crash which interrupted the investigation. 

Loher's corpsejabber controller 'Maria' perked up when Bazin's dead mother was mentioned in chat. Could Bazin be tempted down the same path as Loehr, becoming the center of a French Esoterror daughter cell?

It's been two years since that initial contact. Now Bazin has a corpse on his back and a murder basement in one of the abandoned buildings in Goussainville. Like Loher, Bazin has been gathering like-minded individuals online. They plan their first killing soon. A target in Paris has been picked out.

However, unlike Loher Bazin hasn't quite mastered the dark arts of internet security, and the French authorities have picked up his trail. The OV is dropped a hint: somewhere in Goussainville a dark secret is hid, but where exactly - and what?

That's it for this week!

 

UK Booty Haul

OK, last week it was all about the books and blu-ray. This week it's the RPG stuff.

Cranfield was ... odd ... in the vendor hall department. I mean, the establishment's huge. But the vendor section was a room behind the bar. Nice room. It got a little hot in there, not much air flowing through. I wouldn't want to be in there all day. Drifted in and out a couple times, was tempted by this and that, thought of my suitcase with tears in its nonexistent eyes, that sort of thing. 

In the end I walked away with:

Rivers of London, main book, Underground/Overground. 

Yes, I know. I know! But some temptations can't be resisted. I really admire Aaronovich's work. That's why I agreed to write for the setting, but I never did get the physical of the main book and Underground/Overground collects all the short scenarios including the one I wrote. I already have the physical of Liberty's Shadow. That's enough for now. 

Plus, Underground/Overground has variant spell rules and a system for playing foxes. How hard can any gamer's heart be? Could you resist those soulful brown eyes? I remember seeing Reynard all over London, when I lived there. A natural fit for the game.

I wasn't that tempted by the pleather version. Granted, pretty. But our climate is death to that sort of thing. That said, your milage (and climate) may vary.

Campfire Tales: Scouts Against Cthulhu.

OK, this one had to sell itself. I enjoy a bit of nonsense. But this was setting off alarm bells. Honestly, if several of the organizers hadn't turned up in full Scouting rig (mentioning no names, in part because I can't remember them) I might have turned my head. I shan't say they inspired me. I shall say they caught my attention, and the book did the rest. 

This is meant to be a more survivable kind of BRP, which I think probably suits it best to an in-between kind of game. A relaxing change of pace between more grueling adventures. But I could be selling it short. A campaign of this might be what the doctor ordered. 

I'm not sure how much use I shall have for Westhaven, the setting in the book. I mean, this is Cthulhu. Arkham's right there. Kingsport too. It makes more sense to my addled mind to use those locations. But your milage may vary. 

Malleus Monstrorum. Because you need something with tentacles in your life. Plus, it was on sale. It did force the Arkham book out of my hands, though. There wasn't a chance I'd squeeze both this and the Arkham book in the case. Hard decisions had to be made. Over 150 entities gruesome and otherwise? OK, sold. I didn't pick up the cards, though. Again, suitcase. There are limits to any creature's endurance and I knew I'd be going to Birmingham later.

Speaking of.

 

That is the queue for badges and entry passes, Thursday afternoon. Good night. The picture does not convey the heat. There was very little air down there and no air conditioning. It was no joke. I flat out do not understand how anyone thought building an Expo center like that without functioning HVAC was a good idea. You might as well fling gunpowder into a furnace.

But!

The queue moved quickly. I picked up the bits for myself and a mate, and we braved the nonsense on Friday from the moment the halls opened. 

Did I buy books? I did not.

Was I severely tempted? Yes. But not by books, so much. I did get a small pile of other stuff, special dice, mats, that sort of thing. You can't find these down here. Cons are the only chance I have to get them. 

No, I was tempted by this:

Footsore Miniatures

Now, this might in part be because I was with an old tabletop buddy (Keiran, you villain!) but I felt the tabletop urge again. I used to be an enthusiast. No good at painting, mind, which is about 90% of the hobby as far as I can make out. Much like about 90% of tabletop RPG is talking about playing, rather than actually getting around a table and playing. But it was a big part of my life. Skirmish gaming is always easier to find a group for than Napoleonics because, although the Napolean crowd is dedicated, it takes a lot of time to set up and play. I still shudder at the memory of one dark day when we spent the better part of an hour setting up and placing units, only for the other player to concede two turns in. No, the other player did not help put the terrain back. 

Whereas a brief skirmish between two or more factions on the streets of Rome (or in my case back in the day, a gunfight in a nameless Western town) is much quicker to arrange and play. 

Pictures like these are the crack in the cocaine. You look at something like this and inspiration hits. Never mind that my painting skills are not up to the task. I can see this, in my minds eye, spread across a table at gaming night.

I did not buy it. Nor did I buy any of the solid, paintable Bloodbowl (or possibly Bloodbowl knock-off) stadium sets I saw on sale. I still have a team hiding in a box somewhere. Two, actually. Nor did I buy any of the Chicago Way stuff, tempted though I am by its setting.  I think I still have the ruleset somewhere, though that may have changed.

That's the rub, honestly. You get to a point in your collecting career where you look the temptation square in the eye and say, I haven't the space or the time. Other things bring me joy. I shall pay attention to the other things.  

There will be a period, about a month, where I wonder whether I ought to have done thus or so.

Then the image will fade and I shall go on to other things. 

Till next week!

New Rule (Cranfield, Birmingham)

New rule: check your bags.

For years I've been wheeling a carry-on secure in the knowledge I can get off the plane straight away and walk out of the airport. I avoid paying the fee of [whatever it may be]. Score! So clever am I!

This was a good rule. Then everyone started following it. This trip to the UK started with a mad scramble to get everyone's bags in the overhead. I genuinely thought someone might die, probably one of the flight attendants from an aneurism. We left a few minutes behind schedule; by the grace of God it wasn't much more than half an hour. Opening the containers up again was like Russian roulette with carry-ons. That's before you consider that for a lot of folks it wasn't carry-ons; it was duty free, it was duffle bags, it was this, it was that, but it wasn't the standard size bag. Which makes a huge difference when the overheads can only take two or three standard size.

No, no. Never again. I'm going to get a larger bag (because why not) and whenever I fly long haul, that bag gets checked. I don't care if the airline charges me. It is worth the cost to avoid the pain. Short haul is different. If I'm only going to be out of country for a few days, it makes sense to use a smaller bag. But long haul, with a larger bag, I can carry more books. Which are duty free. Alleluia!

Now, the conventions. 

Chaosium UK was an eye-opener. I'd forgotten how desolate UK villages can be; there's nothing in Cranfield beyond a couple pubs, a chippie, a Chinese, and one decent restaurant. Allegedly decent. I never saw it because it wasn't in walking distance and Cranfield's Uber drivers are double-charging weasels.  

I tell you, these places are deserts where you park your 2.4 kids until they're old enough to feck off to uni. I cannot imagine living there. You'd start to see the walls move in and out after a while. Which is very odd, for a university village. I can only think the students make their own fun. Or get the hell out to Milton Keynes as soon as possible, but that would involve functional public transport or a willingness to get robbed blind by the aforementioned Uber weasels.

Cranfield School of Management was great and the staff did their best, though I did feel as if I'd gone back in time and was a student again. At least this time the bar had a decent selection of non-alcoholic beer! Food was British Stodge, and while I do not mind a bit of Stodge I can't imagine living on the bloody stuff. You'd need a cast iron stomach and the epicurean incuriousness of a billy goat.

Another thing I had forgotten: UK cons are mostly about gaming. I've become used to the North American version, where there's a much larger vendor presence, film, guests, panels, the whole schmeer. As a result I didn't sign up for anything like as much gaming as I could have, though I did enjoy dipping into a Rivers of London game, Route 66, and was able to sit in on the start of a Jimmy's Last Dance session. Plus, Miskatonic Playhouse! Ahh, fun times. I did spend money. One of these days I should also claim the .pdf version of some of those games I bought. I tell you, it's easy to get sidetracked in a dozen different directions if you're not careful.

Then there was the Birmingham Expo. 

Yes, there is a vendor presence at the Expo. However did you guess?

One thing Birmingham does not know how to deal with: heat. It was baking in there. Thank God it was high ceilings at the Expo centre for the heat to bleed out or I think there would have been a couple heatstroke cases.

I went to one panel - Off With Your Head, a ton of fun, my allegiance remains with King Non-Copyright Mouse - in something called Piazza Five, which is a tiny brick oven at the heart of the Expo centre. I think I caught a breath of fresh air once, briefly, at the start of the show, when the aircon wrote its will and collapsed. I was in the front row, because I like to be in the splash zone. If someone on stage spontaneously combusted and burnt to ashes on the spot, I would not have been surprised. Credit to Sam See, the Vizier and Master of Ceremonies. He did not wilt. Which must have been a temptation.

For the love of God, put in more water stations at least, inside the halls. Better yet functional HVAC, but water stations, por favor. 

Books!

Where did I go? Foyles, of course. Rare Books & Curios, Greenwich Market. Henry Pordes on Charing Cross, The Bookshop on the Heath (an old favorite), Criminally Good Books in York. Plus a side trip to the bookstalls outside Southbank BFI.

What did I get?

Yellow Kid Weil: the autobiography of America's Master Swindler.  I knew I had to have this the second I saw it. Read it before two days passed. This is one of those must-haves for anyone who delights in crime, the Roaring Twenties, or both.

Coming Up For Air, George Orwell. I haven't cracked this one yet but I'm looking forward to it. A nostalgia tour of the world before the Great War. 1960s paperback reprint of the 1939 original.

Memoirs of Joseph Grimaldi, edited and rewritten by Charles Dickens. I love the stage and I admire Dickens' writing style. I haven't finished this one yet but am working on it. My God, Grimaldi had a punishing father. 

Death In Captivity. Michael Gilbert. Chewed this down within a day. A prisoner is found dead inside a second world war internment camp. Why was he killed? Who's responsible?

Crook O'Lune, E.C.R. Lorac. A remote farmhouse is set ablaze and a woman dies of smoke inhalation. Why do this? Is it to distract attention from sheep smuggling or is there something more sinister at root?

Impact of Evidence, Carol Carnac A car wreck in the Welsh Borders kills a retired doctor, and a second body is found. Who's the extra dead man? Why was he in the doctor's car?

Both these last are technically cozy crime, but they're as far from cozy as it is possible to get. Ate these within 24 hours of purchase.

Deadly Dolls: Midnight Tales of Uncanny Playthings, short story collection. Because how could I resist? Bought on the Saturday, finished same day. Highly recommended to horror fans, there are some interesting pieces here you won't see elsewhere.

Farmer Giles of Ham, J.R.R. Tolkien. See, this is why you go to places like the BFI bookstalls. Lovely little 1979 imprint of the 1949 original. I've read this before. it was a treat to read it again.

The Chinese Nail Murders and The Phantom of the Temple, both Robert Van Gulik, both BFI bookstalls. Lovely 1960s Panther paperbacks. I've a lot of time for Van Gulik. He tackles his subject with aplomb. I look forward to reading these.

She Walks At Night, Seiko Yokomizo. Pretty sure I picked this up at Foyles the first day I was there. Brilliant stuff, with an ending that subverts all that has come before.

Suspicion and Inspector Imanishi Investigates, both Seicho Matsumoto, bought at Heathrow Airport. Because all the other books were in my case and that had been checked in. Finished Suspicion as I was waiting to board the plane.  

Film! Yes, I did buy some blu-ray, mostly from the BFI but also from Fopp. Which, you ask?

Well!

Night of the Comet

Black Lagoon

Gremlins

Gremlins 2

 

BFI Classic Ghost Stories

As for the RPG stuff, that can wait another week.

See you soon!

Wild Wild West (Bookhounds)

Last post before I fly. I'll be offline for two weeks; won't see you again till the beginning of June.

Reminder: I'm one of the hosts of a Friday panel at the UK Chaosium thing in Cranfield. Come say hi!

***

Wild West shows were a big thing, once upon a time. Buffalo Bill is supposed to have started the first, after Ned Buntline's novel made him famous, but in their day they were the Great Big Thing of entertainment. By the 1880s there were several troupes travelling the US and making a big splash abroad. They began to die out around about the 1890s, and the biggest and the best, Buffalo Bill's, fell to bankruptcy shortly before the First World War.

Broadly speaking, the format was the same across the board. Daring displays of horsemanship, shootist talent, and glammed-up frontier life, capped with an Indian raid on some burning cabin or other, repulsed by the brave cowboys and their allies. Historical accuracy was so far from the point as to be living in another country under an assumed name. Buffalo Bill and his fellow entrepreneurs knew one thing and one thing only:

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance

This is why Stoker uses a cowboy stereotype in Dracula. Not that he gives a damn, but he knows what his audience likes. They knew cowboys. Dime store novels and Wild West shows told them everything they needed to know about the heroes of the prairie. 

In the 1930s, Wild West shows are dead and gone. The West as a genre of entertainment is still alive and well; the riders and daredevils move on to film. There are still novels, just not dime novels.

There are collectors who want those novels.

Ghost Woman

The Hounds know that someone out there wants all the copies of Doc Cantrill's Burning Sagebrush they can get their hands on. It's not clear why.

Burning Sagebrush is a tell-all that first saw print in the States back in 1908, went out of print for a while, then saw a new edition in 1931 as a tie-in for a Tom Mix flicker. Mix's film wasn't a faithful adaptation of Burning Sagebrush, which is just as well since the novel's next door to pornography. At its release, there were calls for it to be banned under the Obscene Publications Act.

Sagebrush is the story of a wild west desperado who rides with a Wild West troupe, having adventures across the US and, in the final chapters, in Europe. Bedroom antics made it notorious, in its day. Cantrill's tour of the boudoirs of Europe, in company with his ride-or-die Indian queen Ghost Woman, kept boys awake at night. 

In the film, much is made of the final chapters in which Cantrill and Ghost Woman restore a Ruritarian monarch to the throne, in the guise of a thrilling Wild West show which is actually an excuse to smuggle guns to the rebels. In the novel, this bit takes up less than a chapter and is capped by a daring raid and 'rescue' of Princess Kinbote from an unhappy marriage. Kinbote joins Cantrill and Ghost Woman in the show. This never happens in the film.

There's a lot of money on the table, but why is someone so eager to get all the Burning Sagebrush they can handle?

Option One: Hollywood. The buyer is a studio executive who realizes that the novel is actually coded for some sort of 'kookie European cult'. The executive wants in on the cult and figures that they can curry favor by presenting them with a gift: covering up their deeds. The cult in question is the Keirecheires, which the executive thinks is some kind of upper-class supper club. The Keirecheires is the inspiration for the Ruritarian romance. The cultists don't mind the book so much, but they become concerned when Hollywood comes knocking on their door. Surely this little man doesn't want to film their activities?

Option Two: Kinbote. Formerly Annie Love, a star of the British stage who happened to go round with Cantrill's show for a while as the poor victim rescued from the clutches of wicked Ghost Woman. There's a bit in the British version of Cantrill's novel that Annie Love, now a woman of leisure living in Brighton, really would rather the world not know about. Turns out those clutches were clinches, and there are photos to prove it in the British version. Unfortunately for Love the ghost of Cantrill is just as eager to see his work in print as she is to keep it out; it's a struggle between a dead man and a living woman as to who will come out on top.

Option Three: Ghost Woman. Formerly May Lillie, a kid from Brooklyn who saw the world on horseback and ended up running cabarets in Soho through the 1920s after Cantrill's show went bust. She supported herself during the war with unsavory photographic displays; very artistic, but not the sort of thing she wants publicized. However, the Keirecheires, who took those photos, are keen to get them back out there for cult reasons of their own. May Lillie knows the cult of old and is gathering friends from her Wild West days to put a stop to it. She's willing to use the Hounds to find out where the Keirecheires is hiding, but the Hounds aren't friends of hers. She'll sacrifice them to get the information she needs.

That's it for this week. See you in a bit! 

  

Not Quite Review Corner: Kolchak the Night Stalker

Kolchak: the Night Stalker Kino Lorber blu-ray 2021 edition, first filmed by CBS way back in the mid-70s.

Sourced from CINE CLASICO DE TERROR

My collection grows apace. I've known about this for a long time. Pretty sure I first heard of it when Stephen King referenced it, probably in Danse Macabre. I'd never seen it, so when Kino told me a sale was on (I think Kino has my number) I figured I could spend a few bucks and find out what the fuss was about.

Well. 

Hum.

It's ... interesting? I can't put myself in the 70s and imagine what it would have been like to see this on the small screen in a darkened living room. I think it hits differently under those circumstances. I can understand why the likes of Chris Carter (X-Files) cite it as an influence on their work. It has flair, even charm. 

Where it loses me a little is with the monsters. 

Carl Kolchak faces off against pretty much everything you can think of, from relatively ordinary beasties like zombies and vampires to the more esoteric aliens, ghost knights and killer robots. They're a grim bunch. Richard Kiel of Jaws fame plays the gribbly at least twice. Thing is, they lack personality. They exist to menace. But even the ones that might have a little something, like Jack the Ripper, are one-dimensional. This Ripper is a wooden slash-slash killer with almost no dialogue. There's a side character who reportedly has whole conversations with him, off-screen. But nothing out in the open where the audience can see it. 

It doesn't help that, since this is a 70s TV show and not a movie, the effects are minimal and there's no blood to speak of. Not that I like to wallow in gore, but if you're going to have a dog viciously attack someone on-screen there ought to be at least a hint of claret.

It's just about as cheaply made as you'd expect. Lots of clips sourced from other stuff with voiceover attached. Cardboard sets. Minimal fight choreography. There was one moment that stick in my mind, where Kolchak meets a source of information. This source is introduced, given a bit of background, but they never speak and you never see their face. It's almost as if they couldn't afford an actor so they dragooned one of the studio lot lice, put him in a dark suit, and said 'wave your arm around when I tell you to.' Somehow I don't think they had a union card.

But when it works, it works. This is due in no small part to the lead, Darren McGavin, who grabs the screen and doesn't let go. It's a treat to watch him scuttle around, fight his bosses with pop-eyed enthusiasm, dive after a story despite compelling reasons to run the other way. His Kolchak does what some Cthulhu investigators fail to do: he investigates. He actively goes after clues. Interrogates witnesses. Challenges authority. He's no angel, but fights on the side of the angels. 

I know McGavin didn't like working for TV. He felt the work was soul-destroying. If you know him at all, it's probably thanks to his role in A Christmas Story, not this show. Still and all, this is damn fine work from someone who didn't like television. He put it all out there, and in doing created a character that's fun to watch.

A neat little Kolchak trick: he's at a hospital, trying to get a photo of the patient in their hospital bed. The door between him and the patient is shut and a cop stands outside, not letting Kolchak in. Kolchak engages the cop in conversation, gets the cop to agree to have his photograph taken. At the fatal moment, the hospital door opens and a nurse comes through. Kolchak whips around, gets a shot of the patient. 'Thanks!' Off he scuttles. 

Another neat Kolchak trick. He has a recorder in a bag with a strap on it. The crime scene is on a stairwell. He knows he's not supposed to be at the scene, so he hides one floor up and lowers the recorder by the strap close enough to hear the forensic techs gossip. When caught, he loudly protests. When dragged away, his camera pointing at the ground, he makes sure he's dragged over the body on the stairs (which even in the 70s must have been a crime-scene no-no) and the viewer sees the flash go off.

That's Karl Kolchak in a nutshell. He finagles. He twists, he schemes. He does not bluster or start fights. He's no action hero. But he's got a lot of courage and he doesn't mind taking risks to get a story. 

The blu-ray set is the full TV series, but it does not include the movie version which kicks it all off in 1972. It has a couple of special features but nothing too fancy, no commentary track. Worth picking up if you like this kind of thing, but not something I'd call a must-have. More a might-if-on-sale.

Keepers want this to steal NPCs from. It's vintage 70s stuff. If you have an NPC or a situation set in that period, you want to watch shows like this. Players want this because Kolchak is their patron saint. He shows you what it means to be an investigator into the mystery, and he never gives up.

That's it for this week. Enjoy!

UK Travel & Other Stuff (Bookhounds)

A heads-up for the moment, but if you're planning on attending the UK Chaosium Con in May 2026 you may see me there, in one of them there speaking roles. Keris McDonald and I will host a panel at the Expo, all about Yanks and their peculiar ways in the Gaslight era. Come one, come all!

I will also be at the Birmingham Expo but I shan't be hosting any panels there. Popping in on the Friday to see the sights and buy stuff. Not a lot of stuff, my suitcase won't stand it. But, y'know, stuff ... 

There's been some writing gigs as well, and you may see my name attached to a project I hadn't thought was on the bingo card in 2026. However, more on that later once it becomes more of a thing.  

This does mean I shall be off island and away from keyboard in May, from about the 17th to the end of the month, so if you're wondering why I shan't be posting over that period, now you know. 

Speaking of, I do have a Bluesky account if any of you want to pop over and say hi. 

***

I've never been to Milton Keynes. 

It's kinda the iconic UK destination. Not iconic in the sense everyone wants to go. But it's the sort of place everyone thinks of as quintessentially UK, in much the same way that Main Street USA is quintessentially American. It has that 'green belt but with houses in it' vibe that many English towns strive for. Or at least, it's supposed to have it; having never been, I can't say for sure. 

I mention this because I've got to go through Milton Keynes to get to Cranfield, where the Expo's held. I'm curious to see what the place is actually like. 

Of course, in period there's no such thing as Milton Keynes, at least not the modern version which was founded in the 1960s. The older version is a gaggle of villages, hamlets and stately homes a short(ish) train ride outside of London proper. 

It's the sort of place you might find many a 'maudlin and monstrous pile,' a stately home with little of the stately left. The gothic-tudor-baroque mess put together at some point in the 1800s by someone with more money than sense, now rotting thanks to death duties and other unfortunate accidents. Bletchley Park of sainted memory was one such.

With that in mind:

A Visit to the Country

One of the shop's more reliable scouts has come back from a trip to the countryside. According to the scout there's a blessed pile moldering up near Milton Keynes, put together by some nabob back in 1820-somthing-or-other and left to rot after the grandson caught a packet at the Somme. Or perhaps it was the great grandson, but whichever it may have been there's none of the family left now and the place is in the hands of the trustees. Apparently there's some legal kerfuffle and the relatives, all of whom live in the States or the Colonies, are fighting it out among themselves. 

Meanwhile here's the pile, out in the country miles from anywhere, looked after by some doddering old retainer. There's meant to be a fantastic library, at least as far as the old catalogues can say. The paterfamilias (or perhaps it was the pater's pater) was rather keen on tales of folklore and witchcraft and built up a significant collection before popping his clogs the day before Edward VII's coronation. Dicky heart, they say. 

Do the Hounds fancy a visit to Milton Keynes?

Option One: Trust But Verify. Yes, the pile exists, and yes, it is looked after by a doddering retainer. Lonely spot out in the middle of nowhere, check. Valuable library, check. Is it ripe for the plucking? Well, theoretically ... if someone can deal with the ghost that's haunting it. The deceased is meant to be a witchfinder of the olden days bound to a collection of trial documents, but that could be a load of old piffle. Whether the spectre is or is not a witchfinder, there's something in that library.

Option Two: It's More of a Cult. The dead collector was an important member of the Witch-Cult, and surviving members of that same cult keep an eye on the place in their memory. Occasionally the woods near the house are used for sacrifices, and the doddering retainer is far less doddery than they seem. There are wards in place to keep the library secure. 

Option Three: Can't Get The Staff. The retainer has had plenty of time to study the texts in the library. They fancy themselves a bit of a Faustus and are working up the courage to attempt a summoning. Up till now they haven't felt the urgency. There's always tomorrow. But if the Hounds start poking around the place the retainer will realize that tomorrow's come earlier than expected, and will start the ritual they've been planning all this while. The consequences will be spectacular.

That's it for this week. Enjoy!