Between October 2003 and October 2013, Chaosium, Inc. published a series of books for Call of Cthulhu under the Miskatonic University Library Association brand. Whether a sourcebook, scenario, anthology, or campaign, each was a showcase for their authors—amateur rather than professional, but fans of Call of Cthulhu nonetheless—to put forward their ideas and share with others. The programme was notable for having launched the writing careers of several authors, but for every Cthulhu Invictus, The Pastores, Primal State, Ripples from Carcosa, and Halloween Horror, there was Five Go Mad in Egypt, Return of the Ripper, Rise of the Dead, Rise of the Dead II: The Raid, and more...

The Miskatonic University Library Association brand is no more, alas, but what we have in its stead is the Miskatonic Repository, based on the same format as the DM’s Guild for Dungeons & Dragons. It is thus, “...a new way for creators to publish and distribute their own original Call of Cthulhu content including scenarios, settings, spells and more…” To support the endeavours of their creators, Chaosium has provided templates and art packs, both free to use, so that the resulting releases can look and feel as professional as possible. To support the efforts of these contributors, Miskatonic Monday is an occasional series of reviews which will in turn examine an item drawn from the depths of the Miskatonic Repository.

—oOo—
Name: Horror in the HighlandsPublisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: David Wright

Setting: Jazz Age Scotland
Product: Scenario
What You Get: Forty-four page, 51.22 KB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: Madness and murder beset the Mackintosh Clan on MoyPlot Hook: Bottling of a newwhisky is disturbed by dark dreams made realPlot Support: Staging advice, thirteen NPCs, ten handouts, elven maps, one illustration, one monster, six Mythos tomes and books, two spells, and six pre-generated Investigators.Production Values: Decent.
Pros# Scenario for Shadows Over Scotland: Call of Cthulhu Roleplaying in 1920s’ Scotland?
# Scottish Gaelic folkloric horror# Decently done background# Pleasingly ordinary pre-generated Investigators# Solidly Scottish one-shot
Cons# Needs an edit# Some handouts have Mythos rules# No guidance on using scenario in a campaign
# Classic ‘unstoppable monster unless you find the solution’ set-up
Conclusion# Engagingly Scottish murder, mayhem, and monster one-shot showdown in the highlands # Solidly written up background and support

Between October 2003 and October 2013, Chaosium, Inc. published a series of books for Call of Cthulhu under the Miskatonic University Library Association brand. Whether a sourcebook, scenario, anthology, or campaign, each was a showcase for their authors—amateur rather than professional, but fans of Call of Cthulhu nonetheless—to put forward their ideas and share with others. The programme was notable for having launched the writing careers of several authors, but for every Cthulhu Invictus, The Pastores, Primal State, Ripples from Carcosa, and Halloween Horror, there was Five Go Mad in Egypt, Return of the Ripper, Rise of the Dead, Rise of the Dead II: The Raid, and more...

The Miskatonic University Library Association brand is no more, alas, but what we have in its stead is the Miskatonic Repository, based on the same format as the DM’s Guild for Dungeons & Dragons. It is thus, “...a new way for creators to publish and distribute their own original Call of Cthulhu content including scenarios, settings, spells and more…” To support the endeavours of their creators, Chaosium has provided templates and art packs, both free to use, so that the resulting releases can look and feel as professional as possible. To support the efforts of these contributors, Miskatonic Monday is an occasional series of reviews which will in turn examine an item drawn from the depths of the Miskatonic Repository.

—oOo—
Name: Operation FoxglovePublisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Chad Briggs

Setting: Norway, 1944
Product: Scenario
What You Get: Thirty-three page, 9.561 KB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: Nightmare in NorwayPlot Hook: The mission or the monster?
Plot Support: Staging advice, eight pre-generated Investigators, two handouts, three maps, multiple NPCs, and a non-Mythos monsters.Production Values: Adequate.
Pros# World War (non) Cthulhu
# Solid bibliography# Straightforward plot# Potential convention scenario# Folkloric foe# Possible adaptation to Pulp Cthulhu: Two-fisted Action and Adventure Against the Mythos?# Part of the RPG Writer Workshop Summer 2021 Call of Cthulhu Vol. 1
Cons# World War (non) Cthulhu# Underwritten pre-generated Investigators# Action and combat orientated# Faceless NPCs# No real investigation

Conclusion# Action and combat focused scenario with a simple plot: Trollhunter with Nazis versus SOE

Between October 2003 and October 2013, Chaosium, Inc. published a series of books for Call of Cthulhu under the Miskatonic University Library Association brand. Whether a sourcebook, scenario, anthology, or campaign, each was a showcase for their authors—amateur rather than professional, but fans of Call of Cthulhu nonetheless—to put forward their ideas and share with others. The programme was notable for having launched the writing careers of several authors, but for every Cthulhu Invictus, The Pastores, Primal State, Ripples from Carcosa, and Halloween Horror, there was Five Go Mad in Egypt, Return of the Ripper, Rise of the Dead, Rise of the Dead II: The Raid, and more...

The Miskatonic University Library Association brand is no more, alas, but what we have in its stead is the Miskatonic Repository, based on the same format as the DM’s Guild for Dungeons & Dragons. It is thus, “...a new way for creators to publish and distribute their own original Call of Cthulhu content including scenarios, settings, spells and more…” To support the endeavours of their creators, Chaosium has provided templates and art packs, both free to use, so that the resulting releases can look and feel as professional as possible. To support the efforts of these contributors, Miskatonic Monday is an occasional series of reviews which will in turn examine an item drawn from the depths of the Miskatonic Repository.

—oOo—
Name: The Hounds of SalemPublisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Anthony L. Wolf

Setting: Jazz Age Lovecraft Country
Product: Scenario
What You Get: Fifty-Three page, 9.21 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: What drives the moral to act immorally?Plot Hook: Missing Mythos missives
Plot Support: Staging advice, two Mythos tomes, one spell, one map, one floorplan, three floorplans, two handouts, two Mythos monsters, and four pre-generated Investigators.Production Values: Reasonable.
Pros# Miskatonic University scenario
# Easily adapted to other periods# Straightforward, but decent  investigation
Cons# Underwhelming and unsympathetic villain motivation# Too much Cthulhu Mythos reward# Salem description undeveloped# Odd title versus new Mythos creature, why not a Hound of Tindalos?

Conclusion# Potentially too deadly an encounter for straight students rather than a mix group of Investigators # Decent investigation clashes with underwhelming and unsympathetic villain

The A to Z of Conspiracy Theories: T is for Tunguska (and some Tesla)

On the morning of June 30, 1908 near the Podkamennaya Tunguska River in Yeniseysk Governorate (now Krasnoyarsk Krai), Russia an explosion of roughly 12 megatons occurred.  This is not in doubt and was well documented at the time.

What is in doubt is why it happened and what caused it.

Since then there have been over 1,000 scholarly papers and countless more less reputable inquiries as to what happened.  The best guess so far is it was some sort of meteor that hit the Earth with a glancing blow. 

Others have speculated that it was a comet, a small asteroid, or even more fanciful ideas like a bit of "dark matter" or even anti-matter.  Though in those last two cases we would need to figure out what dark matter actually is first and for it to be anti-matter where did it come from because it would not last long in space and not at all in any part of the Earth's atmosphere.   Going on the even more fringe it was a black hole, alien spacecraft, or Tesla's Death Ray.  More on those in a bit.

Tunguska has fascinated me for years.  I wish I could recall when I first heard about it.  It have to have been Carl Sagan's Cosmos ('Heaven and Hell') since I can't recall anything talking about it before that.  I found it so strange and yet so cool.  It would later be a throwaway line from Dan Aykroyd's Ray Stanz in Ghostbusters.  It would come again as a major plot point in the X-Files.

Let's look into the two big fringe theories, one of which is a conspiracy theory.

Nikola Tesla and the Death Rays

This is one that has received the most ink in my library.  It is also a proper Conspiracy Theory.  In the late 1890s, early 1900s, Nikola Tesla was working on the means to transfer large amounts of electricity through the air.  His experiments were failures for the most part.  But there is the claim that while working on this he sent a blast from Colorado to the North, over the North Pole, and hitting Sibera causing the Tunguska blast.  The government then came in to hush it all up to keep the Russians and Czar from knowing.  The US Government then kept pressuring Tesla to repeat the experiment for a long range "death ray."

We do know that when Tesla died FBI officals rushed into his New York hotel and confescated all his belongings.  Among these were supposedly plans for his death ray.

UFOs Over Russia

Another popular idea (it's not a theory) is that the blast happened due to a crashing or exploding UFO.  This might help with the question of where did the anti-matter come from if it were an anti-matter explosion.   Of course there is no evidence for this.  It was 1908 in the remotest part of Russia.  Even if good records had been keept in a little more than 10 years the Communists would have control and anything like records or evidence could have been lost.

These notions all come from more recent scientific forays into Siberia. One as recently as 2004. So not quite a 100 years after the fact.

For NIGHT SHIFT

Look. You can't mention Tesla and not get my ideas generating!  He is the epitome of the mad scientist.  If you have a game that has an inventor or weird science then at some point you are going to need to talk about Tesla.

So what was Tunguska in the worlds of NIGHT SHIFT?  Easy. It was e.) All the above.

There were UFOs over Siberia.  The US government had found about them and Tesla blew them up with his death ray.  Something he felt terrible about ever after.  The aliens would then later investigate again only to crash in Roswell, NM.  That's USA 2, Aliens 0!

A possible adventure idea is that someone has found Tesla's notes and now has their own death ray! 

The NIGHT SHIFT RPG is available from the Elf Lair Games website (hardcover) and from DriveThruRPG (PDF). 

Between October 2003 and October 2013, Chaosium, Inc. published a series of books for Call of Cthulhu under the Miskatonic University Library Association brand. Whether a sourcebook, scenario, anthology, or campaign, each was a showcase for their authors—amateur rather than professional, but fans of Call of Cthulhu nonetheless—to put forward their ideas and share with others. The programme was notable for having launched the writing careers of several authors, but for every Cthulhu Invictus, The Pastores, Primal State, Ripples from Carcosa, and Halloween Horror, there was Five Go Mad in Egypt, Return of the Ripper, Rise of the Dead, Rise of the Dead II: The Raid, and more...

The Miskatonic University Library Association brand is no more, alas, but what we have in its stead is the Miskatonic Repository, based on the same format as the DM’s Guild for Dungeons & Dragons. It is thus, “...a new way for creators to publish and distribute their own original Call of Cthulhu content including scenarios, settings, spells and more…” To support the endeavours of their creators, Chaosium has provided templates and art packs, both free to use, so that the resulting releases can look and feel as professional as possible. To support the efforts of these contributors, Miskatonic Monday is an occasional series of reviews which will in turn examine an item drawn from the depths of the Miskatonic Repository.

—oOo—
Name: Nightmare in the SanitariumPublisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Rudy Peverada

Setting: An asylum
Product: Scenario
What You Get: Elven page, 3.61 KB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: An Escape Room meets Murder in the DarkPlot Hook: Can you escape the asylum?
Plot Support: Staging advice, two floorplans, some NPCs, and some Night-Gaunts.Production Values: Adequate.
Pros# Murder in the dark one-shot
# Nice cover
Cons# Murder in the dark# Sanitarium as a reverse dungeon# No investigation
# No background# No plot# No pre-generated Player Characters# Devoid of roleplaying potential as written# The Player Characters have ‘special powers’# Choice of ‘special powers’ limited to three# Cuts the Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition rules down unnecessarily for brevity 
Conclusion# Murder in the Dark combined with an Escape Room set in a sanitarium, reverse dungeon-style.# Potentially mildly interesting set-up undone by a lack of plot, background, or pre-generated Player Characters, leaving the Keeper to develop the roleplaying possibilities they would provide.

Between October 2003 and October 2013, Chaosium, Inc. published a series of books for Call of Cthulhu under the Miskatonic University Library Association brand. Whether a sourcebook, scenario, anthology, or campaign, each was a showcase for their authors—amateur rather than professional, but fans of Call of Cthulhu nonetheless—to put forward their ideas and share with others. The programme was notable for having launched the writing careers of several authors, but for every Cthulhu Invictus, The Pastores, Primal State, Ripples from Carcosa, and Halloween Horror, there was Five Go Mad in Egypt, Return of the Ripper, Rise of the Dead, Rise of the Dead II: The Raid, and more...

The Miskatonic University Library Association brand is no more, alas, but what we have in its stead is the Miskatonic Repository, based on the same format as the DM’s Guild for Dungeons & Dragons. It is thus, “...a new way for creators to publish and distribute their own original Call of Cthulhu content including scenarios, settings, spells and more…” To support the endeavours of their creators, Chaosium has provided templates and art packs, both free to use, so that the resulting releases can look and feel as professional as possible. To support the efforts of these contributors, Miskatonic Monday is an occasional series of reviews which will in turn examine an item drawn from the depths of the Miskatonic Repository.

—oOo—
Name: Passenger OlympusPublisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Mitchel Bonnema

Setting: Gulf of Mexico, 1921.
Product: Scenario
What You Get: Thirty-One page, 11.53 KB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: Fear on a Freighter!Plot Hook: When a ship goes adrift, could it have been cursed by the mermaid it pulled aboard?
Plot Support: Straightforward plot, six NPCs, five pre-generated Investigators, one deck plan, ten handouts, and two Mythos creatures.Production Values: Decent.
Pros# Sea-bound one-shot# Scares amidst a stormed-tossed sea# Escalating song of sanity!# Strong sense of isolation# Detailed steamer description# Decent handouts
Cons# Needs another edit# Dense# Uneven Sanity loses# No portholes!# A lot for the Investigators to explore
Conclusion# Maritime madness as the Investigators confront a mermaid # Isolated horror aboard a vessel adrift at sea, not in space—and you can hear the siren's song!

The A to Z of Conspiracy Theories: S is for Satanic Panic

This one might get a little meta.  But the Satanic Panic is something that all gamers of a certain age know all about. But if you think this particular corn-filled nugget was left behind in the 1980s then I have some news for you all.

A satanic panic is a form of moral panic that also has an element of a conspiracy theory behind in.

The notion is that there is a worldwide conspiracy of Satanists out there stealing babies and trafficking in children.  

Which of course is insane.

80s Satanic Panic

In the 1980s we went through a period of Satanic Panic that kept bubbling up. There were allegations of ritualistic abuse and that some daycare centers were fronts for sex trafficking and cannibalism.  Some children even came forward to talk about it.  The people that bought into this panic claimed there was a conspiracy of Satanists and it went on even persecute and jail innocent people.

The agreed start of the Satanic Panic scare, was Michelle Remembers, a book about recovered memory of ritualistic abuse. Though I claim it is a backlash of the 70s Occult Revival that has it's ceremonial start with the 1972 Time magazine cover of "The Occult Revival. Satan Returns."  Once both of these publications had hit the public consciousness the Wee Care Nursery School and McMartin preschool incidents and trials began.  Millions of dollars were spent, thousands of hours, and several lives of those accused destroyed.  The very few convictions were voided, but not before some people spent time behind bars.  The testimony of the children interviewed was later looked back on and many errors and outright miscarriages of justice were found.

All in the fear of Satan.

We even felt it in my small town in Central Illinois. Someone "found" a "satanic altar" in a cornfield south of our high school.  People were losing their damn minds.  I thought it was so fascinating that everyone at the school was so freaked out over what I considered nothing. I had been a pretty strong atheist at this point so I did not even remotely think there were any Satanists here, at least not the type that could do the things some of my peers thought.   This was an isolated situation, but not really a conspiracy. 

Here are some links to help you with the right feel of the 80s Satanic Panic.  This is nowhere near as long as it could be. But to put up everything would be pages of links. 

• My older A to Z of Witches featuring Turmoil in the Toybox
• Gizmodo: A Brief History Of "Satanic Panic" In The 1980s
• YouTube: The Thinking Atheist podcast153 - Satanic Panic
• Good Ol' Wikipedia (great to get you started)
• Satanic panic
• Moral panic
• Day-care sex-abuse hysteria

Pizzagate

Speaking of people losing their damn minds. You would think that the Satanic Panic would have stopped by the mid-90s.  After all, this is the 21st Century, the 3rd Millenium, we are obviously too smart for this sort of fairy tale nonsense.

Yeah, you know where I am going next.

So back during the 2016 Presidential election when new bars were being set for stupidity every day the latest rumor from QAnon connected a pizzeria, Comet Ping Pong Pizza, to a supposed ring of Satanic pedophiles. Things only got worse, or stupider, from there. 

I don't want to go into the whole Pizzagate saga or even into QAnon. They don't deserve my mental energy and especially no place on my blog.  You can read all about Pizzagate online if you wish. I mean seriously, these idiots claimed there were underground areas in a building with no basement.  Suffice to say this: There are still plenty of people that believe, like Hal Lindsay once proclaimed, Satan is alive and well.  

Are there Satanists? Yes. There is the legally recognized Church of Satan and other Satanic and Luciferian religionists.  There is no worldwide Satanic conspiracy. There is no worldwide anything for Satanists in fact. They rather famously don't see eye to eye on many things after Anton LeVey's death. 

Does child trafficking happen?  Sadly yes it does.  But there is no evidence that there is any connection to Satanists. 

We are not done with Satanic Panics.  Who knows what shape the next one will take.

For NIGHT SHIFT

So in the real world, there is no Satan and most Satanists are fairly harmless.  But NIGHT SHIFT is a different story. There are really demons and devils and evil spirits.  But there is no conspiracy here.  Demons, historically in games, are "Chaotic Evil" and they rarely work with each other. Their followers never do. 

I have used demons and trafficking in a game before. It was my "Vacation in Vancouver" campaign. Everyone in the game agreed it was going to be NC17 and very dark. But it is not something I would recommend for most groups but for the most serious and trusting players.  

All of this being said here is what I would do.  The characters catch wind of a possible Satanic Conspiracy.  Being big bad monster hunters they seek to investigate and possibly kick some demonic ass.  Instead, they find not demons and devils, but just garden variety humans being evil little fucks.

Why this? Two reasons. First I like to show that most often the evilest things we encounter are other humans.  Humans have a capacity for evil unmatched.  Secondly, it is a nod to the personal history I and many gamers have with Satanic Panics.  Many of us were on the receiving end of this just for being gamers.   So instead of it being Satanists, it is members of the local community doing this to get rid of the "undesirables" in their community.  If they look like the local PTA or HOA that is a mere coincidence. 

Yes, I know this is also essentially the same plot of the comic and TV series "Runaways" and the rather terrible Dan Ackroyd and Tom Hanks "Dragnet" movie. Though not as bad as Tom Hanks' other starring role in "Mazes & Monsters."

Given the nature of these work in real life, I would these sparingly, maybe only once per RPG title ever. 

The NIGHT SHIFT RPG is available from the Elf Lair Games website (hardcover) and from DriveThruRPG (PDF). 

Between October 2003 and October 2013, Chaosium, Inc. published a series of books for Call of Cthulhu under the Miskatonic University Library Association brand. Whether a sourcebook, scenario, anthology, or campaign, each was a showcase for their authors—amateur rather than professional, but fans of Call of Cthulhu nonetheless—to put forward their ideas and share with others. The programme was notable for having launched the writing careers of several authors, but for every Cthulhu Invictus, The Pastores, Primal State, Ripples from Carcosa, and Halloween Horror, there was Five Go Mad in Egypt, Return of the Ripper, Rise of the Dead, Rise of the Dead II: The Raid, and more...

The Miskatonic University Library Association brand is no more, alas, but what we have in its stead is the Miskatonic Repository, based on the same format as the DM’s Guild for Dungeons & Dragons. It is thus, “...a new way for creators to publish and distribute their own original Call of Cthulhu content including scenarios, settings, spells and more…” To support the endeavours of their creators, Chaosium has provided templates and art packs, both free to use, so that the resulting releases can look and feel as professional as possible. To support the efforts of these contributors, Miskatonic Monday is an occasional series of reviews which will in turn examine an item drawn from the depths of the Miskatonic Repository.

—oOo—
Name: Crepid FornicationPublisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Philip G. Orth

Setting: Jazz Age Hamburg, 1928
Product: Scenario
What You Get: Fifty-eight page, 15.69 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: A one-shot soirée at a snail’s pacePlot Hook: An artists’ affair turns abstrusely abhorrent in a hunt for a missing girlPlot Support: Spiraling plot, staging advice, two NPCs, six handouts, eight pre-generated Investigators, two new Mythos spells, one new Mythos tome, and one new Mythos creature.Production Values: Decent.
Pros# Molluscophobia# Interesting period setting# Oozes artistic otherworldliness into another direction # Nicely detailed octuple of pre-generated Investigators# Could be adapted to other time periods# Part of the Miskatonic Repository Halloween 2021 Collection# Potential crossover with Berlin: The Wicked City – Unveiling the Mythos in Weimar Berlin
Cons# Molluscophobia# Needs a strong edit# Plot not always clearly explained# No advice for adding it to a campaign
Conclusion# Unclear plotting slightly obscures a molluscophobic meeting# Engaging sense of the strange and creepy creativity combined with an encounter with an otherworldly horror inspired by reality. 

Between October 2003 and October 2013, Chaosium, Inc. published a series of books for Call of Cthulhu under the Miskatonic University Library Association brand. Whether a sourcebook, scenario, anthology, or campaign, each was a showcase for their authors—amateur rather than professional, but fans of Call of Cthulhu nonetheless—to put forward their ideas and share with others. The programme was notable for having launched the writing careers of several authors, but for every Cthulhu Invictus, The Pastores, Primal State, Ripples from Carcosa, and Halloween Horror, there was Five Go Mad in Egypt, Return of the Ripper, Rise of the Dead, Rise of the Dead II: The Raid, and more...

The Miskatonic University Library Association brand is no more, alas, but what we have in its stead is the Miskatonic Repository, based on the same format as the DM’s Guild for Dungeons & Dragons. It is thus, “...a new way for creators to publish and distribute their own original Call of Cthulhu content including scenarios, settings, spells and more…” To support the endeavours of their creators, Chaosium has provided templates and art packs, both free to use, so that the resulting releases can look and feel as professional as possible. To support the efforts of these contributors, Miskatonic Monday is an occasional series of reviews which will in turn examine an item drawn from the depths of the Miskatonic Repository.

—oOo—
Name: Missing in the WoodsPublisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Brandon Estelle

Setting: Blackwood National Forest, Modern Day USA.
Product: Scenario
What You Get: Fourteen page, 648.65 KB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: Can the investigators find the missing, before they become missing too?Plot Hook: A search for a missing girl turns strange Plot Support: Straightforward plot, one handouts, and one monstrous entity.Production Values: Plain.
Pros# Modern day, backwoods one-shot# Easily adapted to other periods# Eerie sense of unreality# Folk horror more than Mythos horror
Cons# Needs an edit# Short and linear# Emphasises physical skills rather than mental# Folk horror more than Mythos horror# Not much for the Investigators to do
Conclusion# Easily adaptable, short piece of folk horror with a sense of the eerie that is all too straightforward with little for the Investigators to do

The A to Z of Conspiracy Theories: R is for Radio Conspiracies

There is something about many modern conspiracy theories and their connection with radios.  I think it is because, like the Internet, conspiracy theories were often shared in less than reputable papers and tabloids but also via ham radios and various pirate radio stations.

So today I thought I'd look into a couple of these.

The War of the Worlds

The first is the 1938 broadcast of War of the Worlds. It seems that people missed the repeated remarks on this being the fictional broadcast.  But as Orson Welles was broadcasting wide-spread panic sat in by people believing that the US was really being attacked by Martians.  Why am I including this here?  It shows that people were taken in rather convincingly by what they heard on the state-of-the-art technology of the time.  So really, can we be surprised that people are taken in by stuff they see on the Internet?

Numbers Stations

These are weird.  I mentioned them back in October and I have looked into them a little more since then.  These are short-wave radio broadcasts believed to be coded messages to intelligence officers in the field.  If you can find them they are actually a little creepy to listen to.  While some, a minority, have been found out this leaves a majority who have not been discovered. Where uncertainty leaves a gap it is usually filled with a conspiracy theory. 

Some of the best I have heard/read is that these codes are for programming people that hear them.  Someone hears these numbers and they are pre-programmed to do some activities that they will not remember later.  Others claim they are alien broadcasts, either to or from aliens.

I can't recall if "The X-Files" ever covered Numbers Stations, but the recent History series "Project Blue Book" (not to be confused with the older, similar series on NBC "Project U.F.O.") featured them.

For NIGHT SHIFT

Taking a page from Banshee Chapter, the characters can discover a new Numbers Station; or be given a story by their editor in a Weirdly World News.  The station is not communicating with anyone human but the extra-dimensional aliens.  What are they doing? What do they want?  Maybe these numbers are not a coded message, but rather the frequencies are for opening up a portal to let in even more aliens.

Story or not, these aliens should probably be stopped. 

Oh. Looking for what I have said about another R word, Roswell? I have a whole entry in the latest NIGHT SHIFT book Night Companion: A Sourcebook for Night Shift: VSW.

Given all this talk about Radio, I thought this was a good choice. 

The NIGHT SHIFT RPG is available from the Elf Lair Games website (hardcover) and from DriveThruRPG (PDF).

The A to Z of Conspiracy Theories: Q is for Queen is a Lizard

One of the strangest conspiracy theories I have ever encountered was that the Queen of England, and presumably the entire Royal Family, are in fact shape-shifting lizard people.

I first heard about this during the 1986 Illinois gubernatorial election.  There is a lot to it, but briefly A couple of candidates, called "LaRouchies" by my dad, had run on the National Democratic ticket and won some major primary wins.  Because the people were confusing them with the Illinois Democratic Party (the one that would later back future President Barrack Obama). Anyway, it caused a lot of confusion, not that it mattered, Thompson won for like the 300th time.   But it did introduce me to National Democratic founder Lydon LaRouche.    

LaRouche was, as we used to say, bat-shit crazy.  Among his other ideas (including fascism, antisemitism, and racism) he believed that the Queen of England was not just a lizard person, she was in charge of an international drug ring along with the USSR. She also had put a hit out on him.  LaRouche was a constant bogeyman in Illinois politics until his death.  I remember one time they were on the campus at UIC (the University of Illinois at Chicago) and I asked them as I walked by on my way home from work if they still thought the Queen was after them.  They got mad but I didn't stick around to talk to them. 

I later found out that this whole Queen is a shape-shift lizard person comes from professional crazy person David Icke.  Icke really is the architect of this whole Lizard person/Reptiloid/Reptilians idea so maybe I do owe him some slack. After all, I have gotten a few hits this month from his ideas. Just a quick glance I have grabbed ideas related to this for A (Ancient Aliens), E (Extraterrestrials on Earth), I (Illuminati), N (New World Order), and  O (Outer Space).

Icke might not be picking on the Queen in particular, he seems to think that anyone in power is actually a lizard person. It should be noted he is also a Holocaust denier. 

There are others that share these ideas, but they seem to stem from Icke.

For NIGHT SHIFT

Again going with the obvious choice here, but finding out local government officials are shapeshifting aliens.  The trick for Game Masters is how deep does this conspiracy go?  Is it all of them or just a fringe group of weirdoes?  Given the history I have, I am likely to go with the whack-a-doodle fringe group is really the lizard people.

The NIGHT SHIFT RPG is available from the Elf Lair Games website (hardcover) and from DriveThruRPG (PDF).

Want to learn more about  NIGHT SHIFT and our plans for the game?  Check out this post from my co-creator Jason Vey on Powered by O.G.R.E.S.: A Multiverse of Systems.

The A to Z of Conspiracy Theories: P is for Paul is Dead

Ok. This one is VERY different from my other conspiracy theories posted here this month, but maybe one of the most important ones to me.  Why?  Because this is the conspiracy theory that introduced me to all the others.

Back in the 80s my dad (or maybe it was my mom, both were voracious readers) had a book about conspiracy theories and urban legends.  One grabbed my attention because my older brother Mike had gotten me into the Beatle recently and I was tuned in to anything Beatles.

The rumor was that Paul McCartney was dead and the clues had been scattered across all their albums if you knew what to look for.   And the list was a tantalizing one.

The rumor began in 1967 that Paul, singer, songwriter, and bass player for the Beatles was killed in a car crash.  The rumor was denied later, but it caught on and fans began to look for clues.  Here are some of the things they found.

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967)

• On Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart Club Band, the album cover had a hand over Paul's head, which many people claimed (with no evidence) was an ancient sign of someone about to die.  
• Paul's uniform had a patch on the shoulder with the initials "O.P.D." on it which fans took as "Officially Pronounced Dead."  It was, according to McCartney from the "Ontario Police Department." This can be seen on the cover and the gatefold.
• The lyrics page of Sgt. Pepper's had all of the band, except for Paul, facing the camera.  
• The lyrics page also had George Harrison pointing to a lyric from "She's Leaving Home."  The line says "Wednesday at 5 o'clock."   This was not just when Paul died, but also to signify George Harrison's disappointment that Paul was replaced.
• The flowers on the cover represented a left-handed bass or a P, both for Paul. 

The Beatles, aka The White Album (1968)

• Ringo's song "Don't Pass Me By" features the lyrics, "You were in a car crash, And you lost your hair."  
• John Lennon's song "I'm So Tired" has some mumbling in the recording that when played backward says "Paul is a dead man. Miss him. Miss him. Miss him."
• If you play the end of "Revolution 9" backward (the "Number 9. Number 9" bit) you can hear John saying "Turn me on Deadman."   Producer Alan Parsons confirms that this is true, but only because John liked the sound of it. 
• The song "Glass Onion" has the line "the Walrus was Paul."   People decide that the walrus was the "Viking animal of death" or whatever that means.  

Abbey Road (1969)

One of the most famous covers of Beatles' albums is also full of clues.

• Each Beatle is crossing the road in step with the other, except for Paul.
• Paul is barefoot (as a corpse, so it is claimed) and smoking his "last cigarette."
• Each Beatle represents a different person in a funeral.  John is the priest in all white, Ringo the undertaker, Paul the corpse, and George in work clothes the srave digger.
• There is a Volkwagon (also known as a "Beetle") in the background with the license plate "28IF." Paul would have been 28 IF he had lived. Though in truth he was only 27 at the time.

And there are more, some going back to the Beatles catalog to find more clues.  Some even going back to "Revolver", released in 1966 BEFORE Paul "died."

The idea, which I clearly knew was false, fascinated me that people could be so caught up in it.  I would later see the same sort of behavior when the Satanic Panic happened.

Of course, this happened all by word of mouth and rumor and shoddy reporting and less than critical DJs on FM and college radios.  Certainly, something like this would never happen in the days of the Internet and fact-checking websites? 

WRONG.

Avril Está Morta / Avril is Dead

The newest version of this rumor is that Canadian singer Avril Lavigne died in 2003.  She was replaced by someone named Melissa Vandella (oh I have to use that name sometime) and was used to support their perception that Avril's style, both musically and personally, had changed from 2003 on.

What must they think of Lady Gaga then?

Both of these though bring up an interesting point in contrast.

Avril is Dead is a rumor or urban legend.  Paul is Dead is a conspiracy theory.

What is the difference?  Well, the key here is twofold.  Both seem to have grown from fans reactions to their artists and rumor getting out of hand.  While that seems to be the beginning and the end for Avril's supposed death, there is some evidence that Paul is Dead was embraced by at least John Lennon, and clues were seeded.  These are largely in the backward masking of songs from The White Album.  

Intentional involvement to hide the truth (or a lie) is the key element here.

For NIGHT SHIFT

This is the harder bit.  Despite my enjoyment of this particular bit of Beatles trivia, I have not found a good way to use it in a game except for the obvious.  Doppelgängers.  Someone famous has been replaced by a doppelgänger, or maybe a shape-shifted Reptoid, and the characters are the only ones who have noticed.  OR better yet.  Someone else has noticed and collected all this data but is then later killed.  It is up to the characters to discover the truth. Is the person a doppelgänger? Victim of a false rumor? Or did they cook the whole idea up to sell more whatever, albums, books, hits on YouTube.

Up to the characters to find out.

The NIGHT SHIFT RPG is available from the Elf Lair Games website (hardcover) and from DriveThruRPG (PDF). 

On the tail of the Old School Renaissance has come another movement—the rise of the fanzine. Although the fanzine—a nonprofessional and nonofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon, got its start in Science Fiction fandom, in the gaming hobby it first started with Chess and Diplomacy fanzines before finding fertile ground in the roleplaying hobby in the 1970s. Here these amateurish publications allowed the hobby a public space for two things. First, they were somewhere that the hobby could voice opinions and ideas that lay outside those of a game’s publisher. Second, in the Golden Age of roleplaying when the Dungeon Masters were expected to create their own settings and adventures, they also provided a rough and ready source of support for the game of your choice. Many also served as vehicles for the fanzine editor’s house campaign and thus they showed another DM and group played said game. This would often change over time if a fanzine accepted submissions. Initially, fanzines were primarily dedicated to the big three RPGs of the 1970s—Dungeons & Dragons, RuneQuest, and Traveller—but fanzines have appeared dedicated to other RPGs since, some of which helped keep a game popular in the face of no official support.
Since 2008 with the publication of Fight On #1, the Old School Renaissance has had its own fanzines. The advantage of the Old School Renaissance is that the various Retroclones draw from the same source and thus one Dungeons & Dragons-style RPG is compatible with another. This means that the contents of one fanzine will be compatible with the Retroclone that you already run and play even if not specifically written for it. Labyrinth Lord and Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay have proved to be popular choices to base fanzines around, as has Swords & Wizardry. A more recent retroclone of choice to support has been Old School Essentials.
Published in Autumn 2020, Planar Compass Issue One begins a journey that takes Dungeons & Dragons and the Old School Renaissance out where it rarely goes—onto the Astral Realm and out between the planes. Of course, the option for travel in this liminal space has always been there in Dungeons & Dragons, most notably from Manual of the Planes all the way up to Spelljammer: Adventures in Space and the Planescape Campaign Setting. Whilst those supplements were for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition and Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, Second Edition, the Planar Compass series is written for use with Old School Essentials, and it not only introduces the Astral Realm, but adds new Classes and rules for one very contentious aspect of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons—psionics! Planar Compass Issue One can be divided into two halves. In the first half, it explores a place of refuge and calm amidst the Astra Sea and provides a number of adventures on and below that location, whilst in the second half, it details both the four new races and their  Classes, as well as the new rules for psionics for Old School Essentials. The second half has been collected into a booklet of its own. The Planar Compass Player’s Booklet and thus the four new Classes and the rules for psionics are reviewed here.
Planar Compass Issue One starts with a quick introduction, explaining how old Palio One Eye, once a fearsome and notorious pirate on the Astral Seas, accidentally discovered the location of what was to become Dreamhaven by wrecking his ship upon it. Then when another ship anchored off its coast, instead of capturing the ship and resuming his career of piracy, he instead started selling his cargo of Aldhelsi mead to the other ship’s crew and thus he had a bar. Soon others were coming to Dreamhaven—the Onauk, behorned barbarian pirates, the Aldhelsi, short fey psionicists, the short and furry Belsorriso known for their charming smile (very Rocket Raccoon-like!), the Skullga, goblinoids with deer-like heads who are excellent shipbuilders and tinkerers, Chanicoids, clockwork beings serving a higher master, and of course, Humans. (The Onauk and the Aldhelsi, along with the Psion and the Astral Sailor are detailed as Classes later in Planar Compass Issue One and also in the Planar Compass Player’s Booklet.) Dreamhaven is actually quite small, but has extensive docks, adheres to Central Ordo Time or the time of Ordo, the plane of Law as marked by a series of clocks around the island, and although there is no night and day, no sun which sets and rises on Dreamhaven, the island keep to a day and night cycle of Central Ordo Time.
‘Beach Psiombies’ is the first of two short adventures in which Palio, still short of supplies, takes the Player Characters out on his clockwork, glass-bottomed boat, to go fishing for dinner. Unfortunately, they reel in something much worse—Psiombies! This is primarily a combat encounter, but again there are some moments for levity. The second shorter adventure is ‘All That Glitters’. Leonid, extravagantly wealthy high-Level Wizard and patron of The Slipstream Bar, covets an item of jewelry, currently in possession of his rivel, the Half-Ogre, Otis. Leonid will pay handsomely, or provide a significant discount to his magical services—including the casting of Teleport if the Player Characters are eager to get off Dreamhaven, if they can retrieve the necklace from aboard Otis’ ship, the Rude Awakening. As written, this is an assault upon the docked ship amidst a Psychic Storm which makes it all very challenging, but it is only the Psychic Storm which makes this encounter interesting. In fact, ‘All That Glitters’ is decidedly underwhelming in comparison to the other three scenarios in the Planar Compass Issue One.
The fourth and longest scenario in Planar Compass Issue One is ‘Deepwarren’. Various inhabits of Dreamhaven have an interest in what might be found in the Deepwarren, so by the time the Player Characters decide to explore it (they have an opportunity to do so earlier, but advised not to), they may have several motivations or at least several employers willing to pay for what they discover. The Deepwarren is a short, but detailed dungeon, which hides several secrets, including Dreamhaven’s  true nature. Revealing that nature has disastrous consequences for Dreamhaven, which will bring the mini-campaign to an exciting conclusion. However, these secrets need not be revealed all at once and if the Game Master hands out the offers of employment in a more piecemeal fashion, the Player Characters can explore the Deepwarren more than once and have the consequences of their exploration play out at a less tumultuous pace. One location in the Deepwarren does consist of a maze and it really does not serve any purpose in the dungeon except to get the Player Characters lost. It is nicely done, but really the Player Characters could just wander around to no real effect. Otherwise, ‘Deepwarren’ is a nicely detailed and flavoursome dungeon whose contents will bring the campaign in Dreamhaven to an end.
Physically, Planar Compass Issue One is very nicely done. It is engagingly written, the artwork is excellent, and all together, it is a lovely little book.
Where Planar Compass Issue One does feel lacking is suggestions on how to get the Player Characters there given the far off and  very strange location of Dreamhaven. Where it disappoints—in a way—is in probably bringing a campaign on Dreamhaven to an end. There is no doubt that it does so in a satisfying and appropriate fashion, but Dreamhaven is such a fun little place to adventure that more scenarios on the island would be more than welcome! After all, pirate coves and haven are not exactly uncommon in roleplaying fantasy, but the combination of its location on the Astral Sea and psionics serve to make Dreamhaven genuinely unique. It would be lovely to have a further anthology of adventures which would get the Player Characters there and give them the opportunity to explore the island a little more before the campaign proper in Planar Compass Issue One begins.

Whether it is the rules for psionics, which are as simple and straightforward as they can be, or the description of Dreamhaven, its inhabitants, and its adventures, Planar Compass Issue One is an impressively fantastic and self-contained first issue of a very well-done fanzine. If Planar Compass Issue Two is going to be as good as Planar Compass Issue One, then fine. If it is better, then Planar Compass Issue Two is going to be very good indeed.

The A to Z of Conspiracy Theories: O is for Outer Space

This is a catch-all for various things I wanted to talk about but didn't have enough on their own.

They do all have at least one thing in common.  A serious distrust of NASA.

Moon Landings Faked

This is a big one really. There are some people out there who think the moon landings were faked.  We have a word for these people.

Idiots.

But it does give me a chance to use one of my favorite movie jokes.  

"NASA went to Stanely Kubrick to convince him to film their fake moon landing, but Kubrick was such a perfectionist he demanded the film it on location."

It is the same distrust of NASA that gives us the Flat Earthers. 

The Planet Nibriu 

Nibriu has tried to kill us not just once, but twice. There has been some version of this for decades.

Face on Mars / Pyramids on Mars

Back in 1979 the Viking I mission to Mars took orbital photos of what appeared to be a face on the planet Mars.  Later the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and the Mars Global Surveyor in 1998 and 2001 took better pictures and showed that the "Face" was a trick of the light and pareidolia.  Humans are programmed to recognize faces.  Great when you are a newborn baby looking to get fed, bad when trying to separate signal from noise.  

Mars in general has fascinated us since we started looking up to the skies and noticed this one reddish-looking point of light was a bit different than the others.   I suppose it is hard to let go of some ideas after they have been ingrained for so long, even with the best data out there.

Of course, all the data in the solar system won't change the minds of those that feel that NASA is lying to them. 

Area 51

I talked a bit about this in "Night Companion: A Sourcebook for Night Shift: VSW" in my "Weirdly World News."  Area 51 is neat and all, but it is likely nothing there save for advanced aircraft. Advanced, sure, but not alien.   Besides, I have my own ideas for Area 51.

For NIGHT SHIFT

Nothing in particular that I have not mentioned already.  Save I want to do some more sci-fi style games with NIGHT SHIFT.  Come back in two week when May starts off Sci-Fi month here at the Other Side!

The NIGHT SHIFT RPG is available from the Elf Lair Games website (hardcover) and from DriveThruRPG (PDF).

On the tail of the Old School Renaissance has come another movement—the rise of the fanzine. Although the fanzine—a nonprofessional and nonofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon, got its start in Science Fiction fandom, in the gaming hobby it first started with Chess and Diplomacy fanzines before finding fertile ground in the roleplaying hobby in the 1970s. Here these amateurish publications allowed the hobby a public space for two things. First, they were somewhere that the hobby could voice opinions and ideas that lay outside those of a game’s publisher. Second, in the Golden Age of roleplaying when the Dungeon Masters were expected to create their own settings and adventures, they also provided a rough and ready source of support for the game of your choice. Many also served as vehicles for the fanzine editor’s house campaign and thus they showed another DM and group played said game. This would often change over time if a fanzine accepted submissions. Initially, fanzines were primarily dedicated to the big three RPGs of the 1970s—Dungeons & Dragons, RuneQuest, and Traveller—but fanzines have appeared dedicated to other RPGs since, some of which helped keep a game popular in the face of no official support.
Since 2008 with the publication of Fight On #1, the Old School Renaissance has had its own fanzines. The advantage of the Old School Renaissance is that the various Retroclones draw from the same source and thus one Dungeons & Dragons-style RPG is compatible with another. This means that the contents of one fanzine will be compatible with the Retroclone that you already run and play even if not specifically written for it. Labyrinth Lord and Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay have proved to be popular choices to base fanzines around, as has Swords & Wizardry. A more recent retroclone of choice to support has been Mörk Borg.
Published in November, 2020, Strange Inhabitants of the Forest is one of three similar fanzines released by Philip Reed Games as a result of the Strange Citizens of the City Kickstarter campaign, the others being Strange Citizens of the City and Strange Visitors to the City. It follows on from the publisher’s Delayed Blast Gamemaster fanzine, by presenting a set of tables upon which the Game Master can roll and bring in elements to her game. Whilst Delayed Blast Gamemaster detailed monsters, environments, and more, with a cover which reads, “Roll 2d6 and say hello to Evil”, Strange Inhabitants of the Forest all about the encounter and all about encounters with evil. 
The issue opens with the eponymous ‘Strange Inhabitants of the Forest’ which presents a table of villains or villain-like NPCs to be encountered in the forest. Each is given their own two-page spread, with a large illustration, a full page of text providing background, and of course, notes and stats. The notes typically suggest how money the Player Characters might make from their loot or handing in proof of their deaths, though not always. They include the Armoured Suit of Despair, Being of Animated Evil is a suit of armour forged in the deepest pits of hell with only one purpose—slaughtering the living! However, there is no means of destroying it and upon their first encounter with it, the Player Characters will find it doing something unspeakably evil. A handful of options are included. Jannick Pückler, Undead Huntsman, was a huntsman of the undead in life, and even in his unlife as a skeletal huntsman, he has continued his calling. Despite being dedicated to destroying evil, he has a hard time persuading others that he himself is not evil. Zakari Echautz is a Frustrated Angel, driven to act against evil in the face of infighting amongst his kind, who has become intolerant and unlikely unable to determine who or what is exactly evil and who or what is not. A huge pack of rats drive the Player Characters to find refuge at the isolated mansion of Lady Jeni Dargonmir, but she is not what she seems, but a ‘Connoisseur of Blood’. A night in her demesne should set up a night of horror. What all eleven entries have in common is that they appear to be evil, though this is not necessarily the case—as evidenced by Jannick Pückler. Most though, are tough opponents, some more than the players and their characters might imagine, and if there is another common theme, though not to all of the entries, it is that a few of them are actually bodies animated by items of clothing or armour, and in many cases, should a Player Character decide to don such an item or clothing or armour, then he is dead! Or at least an NPC turned to evil. Nevertheless, there is a good mix here and definitely are encountering one or two of these, the Player Characters are going hate being in the forest.
‘Strange Inhabitants of the Forest’ takes up over half of Strange Inhabitants of the Forest. It is followed by ‘Strange Encounters’. This provides twelve encounters, or locations, which the Player Characters can come across on their journeys through the forest. These are shorter, just a paragraph long. For example, ‘The Collapsed Bridge of Neumark’ is a ruined bridge across the Soulless River, leaving dangerously rabid waters to cross or the ‘The Woodcutter’s Hut’, home to the friendly and helpful Arno Schottenstein who does not tolerate rudeness. These are uninteresting, even banal, as encounters go, at best contrasts to others such as ‘The Mound of Skulls’, literally a pile of hundreds of human skulls and so evil that anyone of that persuasion has a bonus to their damage rolls when in that vicinity, or ‘The Wizard’s Walking Hut’, an animated walking hut, who has little time for intruders now that his master is dead! Can the Player Characters loot the hut before it galivants off? Overall, the weird encounters outweigh the mundane, and again, these are going to make the Player Characters hate the forest even more!
Lastly, ‘1d12 Travellers on the Road’ presents exactly that. This is the third table in the fanzine and like ‘Strange Encounters’, it consists of single paragraph entries. The travellers encountered might include Soli Kamolov, a cheesemaker on his way to market who might sell the Player Characters some of his hard cheese; Karolina Strle, a terrified deserter who fears her former employer, a powerful warlord might be after her and so would be happy to sell her sword and armour which identifies her as one of his soldiers; and Nusret Oblak, a bamboozled merchant who will be happy to see the Player Characters because the men he hired to guard his goods swindled him, leaving him penniless, but he wants revenge and will pay if he can get his good back! These are generally more mundane encounters than in the previous articles, and so act as contrasts.
Physically, Strange Inhabitants of the Forest is very nicely presented. Although it makes strong use of colour, it uses a softer palette than Mörk Borg, so is easier on the eye. The artwork throughout is excellent, but the one of Jannick Pückler really stands out.
To be honest, none of the encounters in Strange Inhabitants of the Forest actually have to take place in a forest and there are possibly too many encounters for one forest—unless it is a very big forest! Yet, Strange Inhabitants of the Forest is full of dark and deadly encounters, to varying degrees, that the Game Master can pick and choose from, all to make her Player Characters fear the forest.

The A to Z of Conspiracy Theories: N is for New World Order

The New World Order is a conspiracy theory that gets rolled out once every few years. We are about due for it to come back up.

The idea behind it is that some great disaster, usually a false flag one, will cause all the countries in the world to cede control to some World Government, usually the UN, so there is a one-world government.

The term seems to come from early 20th Century political figures Woodrow Wilson and Winston Churchill.  It was much later popularized again by the first President George Bush.   

There are SO MANY conspiracy theories about the New World Order. More than I could even pretend to cover here.  But here are a few.

The first big one centers around the "End Times" of the New Testament.  Some readings of Revelation led people to people that the time of the Anti-Christ would coincide with the rise of a One World government.  This one got a lot of press back in the time when the European Union was founded (1993).  I remember having a conversation with a woman I worked with at a head injury clinic.  Like me she was a Qualified Mental Health Professional so not a dumb person by any measure, in fact very bright and very good at her job. Yet she told me she was not making any plans for the future.  She took the formation of the EU as a sign of the Beast returning. She even pointed out to me that the number of countries was the same as the number of horns of the great beast.  I don't think she was right, but she was convinced.  She even told me she expected the world to be over by 1999.  I kinda wish I had kept in contact with her.

There is a New Age philosophy that takes the NWO into a positive light with the arrival of the Age of Aquarius.  This will be a new age of peace and love.  I have used these ideas before with my witches and Sisters of the Aquarian Order.

There are plenty more involving the Illuminati and the Masons (of course).

David Icke, in particular Icke fashion, claims this is the time when we will be invaded by aliens.

And there are more, but you get the idea.

There are so many problems with any sort of New World Order.  I am not saying that we won't get to a One World Government, but it won't be any time soon.

Capt. Burnham and Earth's President in the 32nd Century

Honestly, look at Brexit.  Not even Europe can hold itself together even when there are solid financial reasons to do so.  

Plus there is no single body of government that can even make the claim of being able to gather everyone together even through force.  

New World Order conspiracy theorists have a remarkable faith in humanity that I simply do not share. 

For NIGHT SHIFT

If anything the world of NIGHT SHIFT is even more chaotic than our real world.  Getting humans together is hard enough.  Add a bunch of supernatural creatures on one side and now a bunch of extraterrestrials on the other side, the notion of a New World Order is laughable.  Unless...

There is fear of a New Word Order, and the ones that are feared are normal humans.  This works well with my Ordinary World setting. Here the supernatural creatures are worried that humans will discover all about them and wipe them out.  As we know, scared groups tend to panic, and panicked groups tend to lash out violently.  

The situation would play out with various groups of supernatural creatures working together that normally hate each other joining forces to fight what they consider the bigger threat, united humanity. 

A bit like this.  

And like the Doctor Who episode, The Pandorica Opens, they gather together based on a faulty premise. The Doctor wasn't destroying the universe and the humans are not gathering together to destroy all the supernatural. Well...no more than usual. And certainly not a coordinated effort. 

So no New World Order here. 

--

Of course, this song was the first thing I thought about. 

The NIGHT SHIFT RPG is available from the Elf Lair Games website (hardcover) and from DriveThruRPG (PDF).

Lots of new Kickstarters out there.  So many in fact. Let's have a look!

Mini-Adventure #1: Shadow of the Necromancer 1E/5E & Box Set

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/marktaormino/mini-adventure-1-shadow-of-the-necromancer-1e-5e-and-box-set

Mark Taormino and Dark Wizard Games has another gonzo adventure for us, this time for both 1st Ed and 5th Ed D&D. As always it looks like great fun.

Swords & Chaos

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/blackspirefantasy/swords-and-chaos

Swords & Chaos is powered by the SIEGE Engine, the same system in Castles & Crusades. Looks like it is cut from the same cloth as AS&SH or Barbarians of Lemuria.

Tome of Adventure Design

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/adventuredesigntome/tome-of-adventure-design

A revised and updated Tome of Adventure design for 2022.  I have the original and it is really useful to whip up something in a pinch.

An Unexpected Wedding Invitation (5e)

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/midnight-tower/an-unexpected-wedding-invitation

A bit of change here is a Jane Austin-ish-inspired wedding mystery for 5e. Looks like a lot of fun.

Shield Maidens: A New Viking/Cyberpunk Tabletop RPG

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1990654819/shield-maidens-a-new-viking-cyberpunk-tabletop-rpg

Ok, this one sounds interesting.  Mixing cyberpunk, pre-apocalypse, and Norse myth.  There is also a free preview to get your first shield maiden built.  It is its own system, but it still looks fun.

The Art of Ménage à 3

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/pixietrixcomix/the-art-of-menage-a-3

Now for something completely different.  Ménage à 3 was a fantastic webcomic about three roommates hopelessly in love with each other.  But that did not mean things worked out! It also launched the career of  Gisèle Lagacé.  This has art from the comic and new pieces.

Old Gods of Appalachia Roleplaying Game

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/montecookgames/old-gods-of-appalachia-roleplaying-game

Dark weird folk horror from Monte Cook? YEAH! Sign me the hell up! It is the Cypher system and you know the production values will be high.

FAST Core Rulebook - Multi-Genre RPG System

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/563681582/fast-core-rulebook-multi-genre-rpg-system

A new multi-genre system that looks like it has a LOT of potential.  I like multi-genre systems since I tend to mix a lot of things together in one game. 

Swords of Cthulhu

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/brwgames/swords-of-cthulhu

Another cool one from Joseph Bloch who has a stellar Kickstarter track record.  This one brings the Lovecraftian mythos back (or back again) to AD&D/OSRIC.

Lots of choices!

The A to Z of Conspiracy Theories: M is for Masons

This was almost the F post with "Freemasons" but "Flat Earth" won out. But I have a second chance now.

The Masons, or Freemasons, are not so much at the root of many conspiracy theories these days.  I can recall a time when they were still considered to be a super-secretive society with clandestine methods and nefarious plans.

These days not so much.

Mind you I don't think the Masons really changed all that much save for being more open with their membership and practices.  

Sure they are still basically a club. And they give their own members preferences where they can within the bounds (as far as I can tell) of the law and good taste.  Which is nothing more than I would expect.  You can pretty much look up everything about them on the Internet.

After seeing the Shriners in many parades it is hard to see them as a world-dominating threat. They went from a secret organization full of hidden motives to something akin to the Loyal Order of Water Buffaloes in my lifetime.

But Masons of the old days are a different story (maybe).

Because so many of the leaders of the world, especially the English speaking world of the 18th to 20th Centuries. Several Presidents, Ambassadors, and even the Royals were Masons.  We do know that Washington D.C. (supposedly) was laid out in terms of Masonic designs and the All-Seeing Eye appearing on the back of the $1 bill.  

The Masons were often the whispered source of many conspiracy theories.  One of the persistent ones is that the Knights Templar would change into the Freemasons when they got to Scotland.  Or that there was some intermediate stage where the Templars became the Rosicrucians who became the Masons.  It's fun, but not a shred of evidence to support it really.  Others state they are connected to or in fact they are the Illuminati.   

There is also the claim that the Mason's "Great Architect of the Universe", which they claim is the same as God, is actually something else.  This could be Baphomet of the Templar fame or something else like Baal. 

For NIGHT SHIFT

In the world of NIGHT SHIFT, the Masons are NOT the center of any conspiracies.  But they DO know about all of them. There is usually a price for this knowledge if the characters are not Masons or some related order.  Usually, this price is to obtain some item the Masons want.  So to get the information you need to be prepared for some "National Treasure" style shenanigans. 

Which of course could be its own kind of fun. 

The NIGHT SHIFT RPG is available from the Elf Lair Games website (hardcover) and from DriveThruRPG (PDF).

The A to Z of Conspiracy Theories: L is for Lost Cosmonauts

L was going to be for Lunar, but while I was researching this one came up and I just really could not say no.

The notion of lost cosmonauts has been around since the dawn of the manned space missions.  I recall people (ok, kids) talking about this in the 1980s when the distrust of the U.S.S.R. was at a high.

The idea is simple.  The Soviet Union sent men into space even before Yuri Gagarin's (the first man into Space) historic flight.  Cutting corners the Soviets sent men into space and presuablly could not get them back down.  Somewhere up there their life-less, well preserved bodies still float in orbit.

The first of these came up after 1959 when the US and the USSR were deep into the "Space Race."  Even such illuminaries as Robert A. Heinlein wrote about shenanigans with the Soviet space program in his article "Pravda means 'Truth'."  The is in fact so much about it that I am not entirely sure I can rule it out.  It's not inconceivable that the Soviets would lie about these sorts of things, and certainly not beyond the realm of belief that they would cut corners.  As the following meme demonstrates.

Cute. But no where near the truth.  Pencils are flammable. Pencils, modern ones anyway, are made of graphite. Which as you are writing turns to a fine dust, which while weightless can get into electrical circuits and cause damage.  None of these things you want in a small, oxygen rich, inclosed environment.   People buy into this meme because the accept a level of, well incompetence from the forme Soviet Union. 

Are there dead Cosmonauts still in orbit out there?  Who knows.  This is the first one I really can't outright dismiss.

Links

• The Haunting Mystery Of The USSR’s Lost Cosmonauts
• The Enduring Myth of Phantom Cosmonauts
• Ivan Ivanovich and the Persistent Lost Cosmonaut Conspiracy
• Robert A. Heinlein, http://www.firearmsrights.com/rah1961.htm
• Oberth Believes Astronauts Lost

For NIGHT SHIFT

The problem with dead Cosmonauts is not whether or not they are out there.  It's what happens when they come back to Earth.  I have lost track of how many "horror from space" movies I have seen. Lots. Too many really.  So here is situation.  A space craft in orbit from the 1960s has been spotted by some amateur astonomers (nod to me sitting out in the cold with my telescope trying to find Skylab) and it is slowly falling to Earth.  The Soviets want it to burn up in the atmosphere, but the Americans want to salvage it for it's secrets (let's say this is the 1980s).  Guess who has the right idea? Clue, it isn't Uncle Sam. 

The craft lands and yeah, the Zombie Apocylpse starts.  What do your characters do?

This is essentially the premise behind Völlig Losgelöst, a proposed 80s themed horror game I wanted to do.  I dropped it largely because Dark Places & Demogorgons did what I wanted VL to do and did it quite well.  That's fine, much like my Zombie Cosmonauts, Völlig Losgelöst is coming back from the dead with a new-ish direction.  

This is German, not russian, but still has a lost astronaut and full of 80's pathos.

Ich komme bald.

The NIGHT SHIFT RPG is available from the Elf Lair Games website (hardcover) and from DriveThruRPG (PDF).

The A to Z of Conspiracy Theories: K is for Knights Templar

Back when I was working with Eden Studios and working on games like Buffy, WitchCraft, and Conspiracy X we used to joke about how every conspiracy theory could be traced back to the Knights Templar.  Well...only half-joking.   

The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon, or the Knights Templar, were a Knightly Order dedicated to protecting pilgrims headed to the Holy Land.  They built fortifications for protection and housed money and soon became rich.  Very rich. Like stupid rich. So rich that the King Philip IV of France and  Pope Clement accused them of heresy, witchcraft, and idolatry (worshiping a Baphomet figure).  They were famously arrested on Friday the 13th, 1307.  They were tortured and burned at the stake. 

Though many believe that not all the Knights were captured and some fled to places like Scotland and the Americas; Novia Scotia ("New Scotland") in particular. From here they took their still considerable wealth and ... well there are lot of things they supposedly did.

There is a rumor that when they went to the Holy Land they found treasures there including the cup of Christ (the Holy Grail), the treasures of King Solomon, and even the lost Ark of the Covenant.  Their present-day followers have those items still.

They have been associated with the Freemasons, the Order of Malta (in some theories), and even the Miꞌkmaq, one of the indigenous tribes of Northeast Canada.  So many I feel if their influence was removed the History Channel would lose about ⅓ of all their total programming.

Again, as others I have talked about here they are featured rather prominently in Foucault's Pendulum and The Da Vinci Code.

What is it about the Templars that fascinate everyone?  You don't see the same level of conspiracy around the Knights Hospitaller really.  Or any of the other medieval knightly orders.  I think it was because they were hunted down and killed that makes their story fascinating.  

Though the real tale here is about a group gaining some power and influence only to be struck down by the status-quo power structures of the day, the Monarchy and the Church.

For NIGHT SHIFT

Fortunately for me my co-author on NIGHT SHIFT already did something for the game that would work.

Monster Hunters of the Church: New Orders for Your Night Shift: VSW Game

He uses the Order of the Dragon and the Divine Order of the Sisters of Orleans.  The same process can be used for the Knights Templar.  The modern-day Knights Templar would be more of the occult investigator types, but the ones that can pick up a sword as well as a pen.  In NIGHT SHIFT they would either be sages or veterans. 

For my use I'd still have them around, but NOT be involved with any of the things they are popularly believed to have been.  I'd even throw out a line like "and we have never even been to Oak Island!" 

The NIGHT SHIFT RPG is available from the Elf Lair Games website (hardcover) and from DriveThruRPG (PDF).