Our Latest Publications

Cat Links Keeper Tips, MoN - Keeper

On Clues – Missed, but not Lost

Posted on Keeper Doc

Keepers planning their MoN campaign will frequently hear this valuable pearl: “Let them miss clues.” From the launch, you and your players will be afloat in a sea of intertwined leads, locations, and characters. With everyone immersed in the sprawling campaign world, players often find distractions from the campaign’s prescribed investigative threads. If your players overlook an important clue in the designated location, you should adhere to the aforementioned advice—do not force-feed them clues. While MoN may be a well-structured campaign, it should not function as an exercise in long-form railroading. Redirecting investigators back to missed clues compromises player agency and disrupts the game flow. With all that said, we would like to add a

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Cat Links China, Tomes

Mythos Tomes – The Tale of Priest Kwan

Posted on Keeper Doc

Location: Stored in Ho Fang’s booby-trapped teak cabinet in the Shrine to the Bloated Woman (China). Physical Description: Woodblock print scroll (mulberry, hemp, and rag paper) stored in a hollowed-out piece of bamboo adorned with faded yellow velvet. Author:  Unknown. Publication History: Unknown. Composed in Classic Chinese. A successful History/Archaeology roll places the scroll as an artifact from the waning years of the Ming Dynasty. Skim:  An obscure and disturbing work of poetry presented as a homily recounting the actions of a wayward Buddhist Monk, who joined the Order of the Bloated Woman, found “pure faith,” and defended the sect from a crusading noble, Hun Tao. With his victory over the noble, the monk excoriated

Read on…Mythos Tomes – The Tale of Priest Kwan

Cat Links Creative Process

Delivering on Creativity

Posted on Keeper Doc

After a weekend of manuscript wrestling and editorial review, I sent Deliver Us From Evil, my latest writing project, to my collaborator Alex Guillotte. I started on this scenario one month after releasing my first Miskatonic Repository effort. I banged out Swamp Song’s draft in under two months, yet I struggled to finish the latest work for over a year. Nearing the finish line for this marathon, I’ve taken time to reflect on what happened, and what I can learn. First, I undertook Swamp Song one month after submitting a 120,000-word manuscript to Chaosium that includes four scenarios I wrote and playtested in under a year. I felt a creative void having completed this big

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Cat Links China, Tomes

Mythos Tomes – R’lyeh Text Commentaries

Posted on Keeper Doc

Location:  Stored in Ho Fang’s booby-trapped teak cabinet in the Shrine to the Bloated Woman (China) Physical Description:  Five scrolls, handwritten on fine parchment, plus five additional scrolls of handwritten commentaries, stored in a matching set of silk scroll boxes. Author:  unknown, additional commentaries by unknown author Publication History: Original Classic Chinese, c. 300 BCE. Commentaries: unknown date; originally transcribed on the long-lost great black tablets by the spawn of Cthulhu. The oldest copies are over 15,000 years old and preserved in scroll form somewhere in the depths of interior China. The commentaries contain select passages and obscene rituals extracted from the original work.  Skim:   This is the most singularly vile tome the investigators

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Cat Links Impossible Landscapes

Night Floors – Setting the Stage

Posted on Keeper Doc

 Warning: Spoilers for Impossible Landscapes below. Impossible Landscapes begins in 1995 with a team of Delta Green agents investigating a young woman’s disappearance from an artist’s co-op apartment in New York City. The strange state and contents of Abigail Wright’s unit prompt the Organization to look for an occult connection at the Macallistar Building.  While the occult connection persists throughout the campaign, the truth is Abigail unknowingly stumbled into an extra-dimensional bookshop and purchased a copy of The King in Yellow. She shared the mind-shattering text with her fellow residents, propagating a memetic contagion, and opening a connection to Carcosa via the weird, liminal Night World.   Originally released in 1999 as a stand-alone scenario in Pagan Publishing’s Countdown for Delta Green, Night Floors presents an experience. It lacks a clear-cut, defined

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Cat Links Conventions

Chaosium Con III: The Extended Cut

Posted on Keeper Doc

For more cogent and/or lucid recollections from Chaosium Con 2024,  please refer to the excellent accounts written by JR, Bucho, and Evan. In the words of veteran Detroit beat reporter Morrie Perlman: “It’s better to be fast than good.” With this axiom in mind, I’m trying to bang out this brief after-action report as I settle into my seat outside gate D31 of DTW’s North Terminal. I haven’t much time, but we’ll see what I can manage to recall from Chaosium Con III. Rest assured; it shall not be as long as my wandering recaps from prior conventions.   Pre-Con I spent months debating what I wanted to run. I had some Grindhouse scenarios set aside.

Read on…Chaosium Con III: The Extended Cut

Cat Links Impossible Landscapes

So You Want to Run Impossible Landscapes?

Posted on Keeper Doc

Delta Green is the system and setting of choice for my regular gaming group. We’ve been playing for years, but I’ve been reticent to run Impossible Landscapes for them long before its formal release. Dennis Detwiller released the first (or prologue) scenario of the campaign, Night Floors, in Delta Green Countdown way back in 1999. This 2021 release fully realizes the viral potential of the King in Yellow after germinating in Detwiller’s brain over decades. It’s establishing itself as a definitive This surreal and bizarre experience is a true departure from the X-Files-tinged Lovecraftian horror my players have come to love. And yet, they demanded it. Why not? The reviews are stunning. The praise is well

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Cat Links Uncategorized

What’s Happening at Prospero House

Posted on Keeper Doc

Things have been quiet around here lately. Even during my lulls, I strived to get at least one post out per month. February got away from me. My Masks of Nyarlathotep campaign is currently paused in Australia on the eve of departure into the Outback. I have found myself balancing my gaming with increasing (and rewarding) work responsiblities, as well as a deeper commitment to family time. Despite this, I’m always turning over ideas, getting occasional words down, and lurking on the edges of the community celebrating the fun of others and admiring the latest developments. As life evolves, I suspect Prospero House will too, and I remain committed to our mission, but I also

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Cat Links Australia, MoN - Keeper

Trimming & Refining Australia

Posted on Keeper Doc

Excluded from the early releases of Masks of Nyarlathotep, the Australia chapter finally saw publication in 1996, and, in many respects, still feels slightly perfunctory and out of place. For one, it lacks the geographic constraints imposed in the other chapters and spans an entire vast continent. While the scale of the search adds to the global flavor of the campaign and helps create late-game pressure by adding in lots of travel time, it also dilutes some of the excitement.  The cursory detail provided in the relatively brief descriptions of each location lacks the flavor and drama present in other chapters.  The chapter’s true heart lies beneath the parched earth of the sparsely populated Australian

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Cat Links Reviews & Picks

Heinrich’s Call of Cthulhu Guide to Carcosa – Review

Posted on Keeper Doc

Disclosure: I playtested and proofread Heinrich’s Call of Cthulhu Guide to Carcosa. I have not received any free content, payment, or remuneration for this privilege or the following review. “No, he is not vicious, nor is he in the least demented. His mind is a wonder chamber, from which he can extract treasures that you and I would give years of our life to acquire.”   -Robert W. Chambers, “The Repairer of Reputations.” Since Ambrose Bierce first introduced the ancient mysterious city in his short story “An Inhabitant of Carcosa,” the otherworldly place presided over by Robert W. Chambers’ Yellow King is oft-referenced but infrequently captured. By nature, it eludes description as those who wander

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