IOC props and scenario

Hi 

You may have received an e-mail telling you that the orders were ready to be sent. That's not exactly the case as I have to collect  the jewelry and handouts next week, hopefuly, and I still haven't finished the bas relief ordered during the survey.
I'd like to take advantage of this update to share with you on Matthew Sanderson 's account of running the Ido of Cthulhu scenario at the Necronomicon convention!  You'll be also able to see a few handouts in the process and  this will give you an idea of the playing conditions.

Here is an overview that Matt sent me :

" I had the pleasure of returning to Providence for Necronomicon. I’d been there twice before, in 2017 and 2019, and it was these visits that inspired me to set “The Idol of Cthulhu” in the city. It featured prominently in the first part of “The Call of Cthulhu”, so it was fitting to return there for this sequel to the classic tale.

I had originally planned to offer the scenario at the convention in 2022, but at the time I was still recovering from a severe medical condition which meant I was unable to travel. Finally getting back to Providence certainly felt like reaching a milestone on a very long road.

We had seven players in total for the scenario (using all the pre-generate characters available), which I ran over two morning sessions in a private room on the top floor of the Providence Graduate hotel. I’d meant to take photos of the table, but completely forgot (my memory does a good impression of sieve most of the time). However, one of our players (Alexandria Wong) took some photos of prominent handouts from the game and is happy for me to share them here (thank you!). I got in a habit years ago of laminating all the handouts in games I run (hence the glare on some of the following images).

 The quality of the handouts went down really well with everyone. I know when I looked through them the first time, they really made the scenario come alive for me. Having the detective agency letterhead on several of the sheets was a particular favourite touch for me! 

One thing I would have loved to have been able to put together would have been a 3D-printed version of a set of symbols that feature in the scenario. It looks like I may have to invest in one of those someday! Having something tactile would have certainly added an extra dimension (no pun intended) to the puzzle-solving element of the scenario they represent. Other than that, the players appeared to get on well with that particular challenge and reaped the “rewards” that entails in the story.

The scenario took us the full eight-hours to run over the two sessions. I’ve run it at conventions in the UK before, and it took the same amount of time, although the investigators in this case took a very different route to how some of their predecessors have tackled the situation, which is always nice for me as the Keeper to encounter.

Overall, the investigation-heavy scenario went down well with the players (again, always nice for a Keeper to hear!). 

Here’s a couple of testimonials I received after requesting if anyone had taken any photos during the game:

 

“I was so into the game I didn’t even think of taking pictures. Sorry! I really lived it though and still am thinking about it. Thank you!” (David Willems)

“Thank you sir! What a joy to have you be our Keeper for two mornings. High point of my convention.” (Aaron Breidenbaugh)

I’d certainly count that as a job well done! Thanks to all our players for helping create a great time at the table for everyone! Hopefully I’ll see you in Providence again in a couple of years.

To help get a feel for the places I write about, I like to visit them where possible. Many of the locations I selected to include in “The Idol of Cthulhu” I’d visited on my previous trips (for example, going to the Fleur-de-Lys Building is always on my go-to list when I’m in town), but a few others I’d either only passed by briefly, or not managed to get to them at all. So, this year, I planned out a little walking tour around the city to take some photos of all these locations. Here’s how it turned out. 

I’ve listed the following in the order they appear in the scenario, rather than the route I took around Providence. Going back and forth across town in that order would have taken me significantly more than the three hours it took on an already very hot summer morning!

The eagle-eyed amongst you may have noticed the incline of the sidewalk outside the Fleur-de-Lys Building in the previous picture. A short walk from there is the Rhode Island School of Design. That incline is the western slope of College Hill. It may not look like much in the photos, but on a hot day, for someone like myself (who is far from the peak of physical fitness), it almost felt like a mountaineering expedition to climb up there!

Heading over to Federal Hill now, what was once the site of a well-known speakeasy back in the 1920s is still a restaurant today. I managed to find a menu from the speakeasy dating back to the early 1930s when doing research for the scenario. The prices are a lot different now! Camille’s like many of the restaurants in the surrounding area, has a dress-code if you wish to dine there. My attire for the walking trip meant I wasn’t able to head inside this time, so that’s another item to add to the next trip.

Back over to College Hill, a location that many Lovecraft fans may well be familiar with – the “Shunned House” on Benefit Street. It’s a private residence, and the garden looks significantly better than how Lovecraft described it. It certainly doesn’t “stand out” much compared to the houses around it…

The location that has probably changed the most in the time between when the scenario is set and the modern day is the Providence Steel and Iron Company complex on Federal Hill. It was a thriving steel manufacturing business then, but now it is home to a non-profit industrial art center and shared studio called “the Steel Yard”. A private show was on inside when I visited, but a large part of the outside area was open the public, having been converted to seating/picnic areas with some relics of the former equipment dotted around."

I'm really pleased that this first session took place in Providence, and I'm very happy to know that our handouts were well thought out and executed. Thanks to Matt's experience this summer, we can see that the presence of runes on a volume is really necessary; so I'm pleased to annonce that I will share the STL files of the runes if some of you would like to print them and use them in a creative way. I 've made these plastic stamps to draw the shapes on the sculpture bases. This stamps will enable those who haven't bought the scultpure and who use 3D printers or have a Fablab near them, to print these runes and then use them on a clay slab or even directly on a wet floor. 

Thanks again to Matt for this enthusiastic feedback. For those of you who played with him this summer, don't hesitate to tell us more about your experience there!

Delphes

For now I'm launching the handouts productions and all the other add-ons including jewellery and twenty bas relief. 

I've already start to produce the bas relief this week..

 

Next week, I'm going to the jewel funder and to my printer. After those Handouts, Bas relief and Jewelry are made, I guess in a month ( I'll know more about it next week)  the shipping process will start. 

 

You have a good weekend ;)

Delphes