The Blasphemous Tome #9 Is Upon Us! (Patreon)

If you're a table top roleplaying gamer, and a fan of Chaosium's Call of Cthulhu RPG in particular, you may be familiar with The Good Friends of Jackson Elias podcast, featuring Scott Dorward, Paul Fricker and Matt Sanderson. The three hosts all have worked on various Chaosium projects and have written play scenarios for CoC and other game systems. I stumbled across the podcast some years ago while looking for inspiration while working on my horror comic scripts. And I'm glad I did, because it was entertaining and opened up a world to me that I had been on the outskirts for some time. It also provided good company for drawing. 

The hosts are knowledgeable, articulate and funny and not above arguing their points about aspects of Call of Cthulhu, horror RPGs, movies and books. Listening to them discuss how they put scenarios together, how they draw inspiration from various sources for their work, how they run games, play games, design characters and settings et al, has really opened my eyes up to other ways at looking at worldbuilding that are similar but not exactly the same as what writers to for straight fiction or scripts. I find RPG mechanics and scenarios helpful to me in my own writing and thinking, as well as listening to live play and game discussion by players in regards to characterization and character motivations and choices. Plus, it's just fun and interesting to listen to. 

Listening to The Good Friends started me down a rabbit hole of looking into other RPG podcasts and eventually I started listening to live play podcasts and video channels, such as Into The Darkness (where Matt Sanderson has become a regular and noted player and game keeper) on Youtube. I've always maintained a liking for TTRPGs, but have been mostly on the outside looking in for the past few decades. I was an RPG fan as a teenager, starting with the red box of Dungeons and Dragons, which I bought together with my friend Rob Beck. I ran a years-long D&D campaign for our gaming group, we also dabbled with Gangbusters, played a few Gamma World campaigns, Traveler (modified into a Star Wars setting with added combat rules), a few homebrewed zombie apocalypses and then two years-long Champions campaigns run by myself and our friend Karl. After college I pretty much had stopped playing anything, on two occasions I was at Kevin and Diana's house during game night and everyone rolled up Call of Cthulhu characters -- but on both occasions the process took so long we didn't have time for everyone to stay and play. Womp womp.

I was intrigued by Call of Cthulhu and really wanted to try it out, it seemed so different from the games I had played, and I had read a few HPL paperbacks by that time so I had some idea of what I was getting myself into (not really, as it turned out). But I never actually got to play the game. And then I stopped playing RPGs entirely as life went this way and that.

In 2017, The Good Friends were doing a signing at the legendary Compleat Strategist in NYC after flying to the U.S. to attend Necronomicon in Providence, Rhode Island. I managed to force myself to overcome both my laziness and my social anxiety and got off my ass to go to the signing. And I had a wonderful time, as it turned out that Scott was a fan of my comics and everyone involved were super friendly and welcoming to everyone who showed up. I ended up going to dinner with Scott, Paul, Matt and a group of people and it was just a super evening.   

I because of that I finally ended up getting to play Call of Cthulhu, when Scott Dorward invited me to playtest a few scenarios online with a small group. It was the first time I got to play any RPG since the very late 80s. I was super nervous and my internet wasn't the best, which stressed me out, but I had a fantastic time playing. I haven't been able to bring myself to try to poke my head out any further with any other games or groups, I had to be held by the hand a bit and unfortunately my internet connection is crappy. But I hope if things change I can play online again. Maybe one day even play somewhere in person. Who knows?

What I do know is that the latest issue of The Blasphemous Tome is available in PDF form to Patreon backers of the Good Friends at the $1 level. And the print edition is being readied to go out to backers at the $5 level. The ninth issue of The Tome features a cover taken from one of my Experiment drawings done for my Patreon. A number of Tomes have now featured art from the Experiment series, and my Pad'Thulhu drawing was used for the cover of #4.

The Tomes contain RPG and CoC articles, media and gaming reviews, artwork, short fiction and original Call of Cthulhu scenarios, which are worth the price of admission in and of themselves. originally designed like an old school zine, while the Tome has been cleaned up some since then in terms of graphics and layout, it still retains that feel. It's also been licensed for the game system from Chaosium.   

Information on the latest issue and its contents can be found at their blog: https://blasphemoustomes.com/2022/06/26/the-blasphemous-tome-issue-9

The podcast not only covers specific gaming topics related to Call of Cthulhu, but dedicates episodes to weird, cosmic and Mythos horror stories, horror movies and how to draw inspiration from them for your games and scenarios.  Here's a link to read about the podcast itself: https://blasphemoustomes.com/the-podcast

Finally, the Good Friends have recently uploaded the 242nd episode of the podcast, about morality in RPGs: https://blasphemoustomes.com

Consider giving an episode or two a try to see if it interests you and/or sparks ideas for your own games, or creative writing. And if you like the podcast, consider supporting them and checking out the Blasphemous Tome zine.

While I'm at it, here's a link to the Into The Darkness RPG group on Youtube. It's a very laid back pool of players who play the games to have fun, mostly CoC but also Delta Green, Vaesen, Kult and others, they recently they played a fun Alien RPG scenario. There isn't an emphasis on acting or being funny or outwardly entertaining, if you know what I mean. There's campaigns but also lots of one-shots, they're always bringing in new players and seem very open and friendly. I find it enjoyable to listen to the games while drawing: https://www.youtube.com/c/IntotheDarkness

Okay, I have to get back to work. Remaining late commissions and slowwwly starting to get my notes in order to outline the next Beasts of Burden issue. I'm scared as heck, I haven't written anything in ages.

In the meantime, feel free to chime in with what RPGs you played back in the day, or still play. Or anything RPG-related while we're on the topic. I think we may have tried to play Boot Hill once, and it didn't take, now that I think about it. Hmmm. 

Hope everyone had a fine Labor Day weekend. 

More soon, later.