Episode 93: A Damp 1968
June 13th, 2014 | Robin
We start in a submersible as the Cartography Hut takes you under the sea to riff on campaign and adventure possibilities arising from the mapping of sunken Dunwich.
In Ask Ken and Robin, Yohann Delalande asks us to find inspiration for Night’s Black Agents in the flamboyant and multi-pronged career of Uzbekistan’s Gulina Karimova. We oblige, throwing in some Hillfolk and The Esoterrorists for good measure.
The Business of Gaming lays down the wisdom on professionalism.
And Anne Boleyn’s life hangs in the balance as we take a trip to a dangerous Tudor moment in Ken’s Time Machine.
It’s yo ho ho and a pocketful of doubloons as Atlas Games surveys the seven seas from the crow’s nest that is our coveted anchor sponsor slot. Parrot on its shoulder, it orders up another special deal for Ken and Robin listeners, this time in the form of their innovative game of piratical nautical warfare, Pieces of Eight.
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I sort of adore your solution to Anne Boelyn. I doubt it would be difficult to make sure Henry didn’t wake from that accident–just give him an injection of a sedative and that would probably depress his respiration enough that he’d drift off. The only tough part would be getting to him in the first place.
The idea of Anne as regent for Elizabeth makes me so happy.
Thank you so much for your reply to my question. You’ve given me an awful lot to process and think about.
Regarding Night’s Black Agents, the convention was last week and I took a completely different tack.
However, as I didn’t know Hillfolk when I posted the question but discovered the game really soon after (by the way, the “aka Princess Brown Wheat” really cracked me up), I’m intending to put your segment to good use for Hillfolk as, like you both said, there’s some real potential for DramaSystem.
So thanks a lot for all the inspiration!
You could easily adapt the location of Dunwich as a resting place for one of the lost Anglo-Saxon crowns described in M.R. James’ ghost story “A warning to the curious”. The crowns supposedly protected England from invasion so a ‘Trail’ scenario would work well with the looming threat of war a few years down the road. You could have a team of archaeologists beset by a spectral guardian of the crown in a similar fashion to Paxton in the original ‘Warning’ story. Perhaps the expedition is either in part or completely infiltrated by british fascists that want to deliberately uncover the crown in order to hasten an invasion.
I would like to ask Mr Hite a question.
Dear Mr Hite what’s the dealio with Heribert Illig and his Phantom Time Theory?
[…] of Jackson Elias talk about “The Dreams of the Witch House“; Ken and Robin talked about Uzbek occultist pop stars, mapping sunken Dunwich, and the business of gaming; and the Miskatonic University Podcast discussed dealing with Total Party Kills and retro Cthulhu […]
Segment idea: a behind-the-scenes hut, a.k.a. “How To Podcast Good,” in which Ken and Robin reveal their best practices for keeping it tight, professional, hi-fi, entertaining and usable, and in which out-takes and bits from the virtual cutting-room floor are aired. Bonus points if your editor chooses all the out-takes.
Dunwich is a great place to visit on the Suffolk coast (which is east rather than north). We spent three days there last year walking in the woods and on the beach and heaths. For more modern stories there’s a bizarre dome poking out above the trees, one of our nuclear power stations, an apparition from Dr Who or Quatermass.
Also, here is a letter to John Dee describing the destruction of Dunwich (Suffolk) by the sea in 1573.