Marching On

You'll probably be unsurprised to hear that March was a busy month here in the writing hovel. As well as moving up to the advanced class in hieroglyphics, the last few weeks have seen a few changes, the biggest of which is that my contract with Chaosium is now on a full-time, permanent basis.

I think I can safely say that, when I sent those early Talislanta scenarios off to Wizards of the Coast, I never envisaged that, 25+ years later, I'd be working for one of the most iconic gaming companies in the field. As I think I said 18 months or so ago when I was first taken on as Assistant Line Editor for Call of Cthulhu, it's a great honour to be able to bring old classics to a new audience and develop new material for such a well-loved, and respected, game. Plus, I get to work with some wonderful people. I still have a lot to learn, but I know Mike (Mason) will steer me in the right direction!

I actually managed to get to one of the North East Ancient Egypt Society meetings this month. (Usually I'm away or already booked for something else.) This one was about the recent findings at Deir el Medina, the craftsmen's village for the Valleys of the Kings and Queens. The most fascinating part of the talk was about the partial mummies they discovered, particularly the torso of a woman with numerous symmetrical tattoos, and the disarticulated woman's thighs with a tattooed lotus flower garter belt. So, as you can imagine, that set the old brain a-whirring...

I've been working on numerous game-related things this month, most of which I can't tell you much about, but it included more development work, sending things out for proofing and compiling things into new collections, along with some more art and map direction. And things are only likely to get even busier as I move into my updated role.

The other highlight of the month was, of course, my trip to Berlin for the company summit, followed by CarcosaCon. It's always fun to be back in Berlin, and this time, we got to release the Berlin: the Wicked City sourcebook PDF while we were there. (Where we were staying for the summit was in the same area the first scenario in the book is set, so we all wandered down to the Elephant Gate at the Zoologischer Garten to take some celebratory photos!)

Held in the wonderful Zamek Czocha, CarcosaCon was the first Call of Cthulhu convention run by the lovely people at Black Monk Games, Chaosium's Polish-language licensees. Funnily enough, my husband, Richard, had already been there three times for various College of Wizardry LARPs over the last two years, so I was aware of what a spectacular venue it was, but it was even better to see it up close and personal, rather than just through photographs.

If you're going to hold a horror game convention in a castle, then it really needs to have secret passageways. Czocha has loads of them, often hidden behind movable bookshelves. It was always lovely to see gamers pop out from a bookcase, dirty great grins plastered across their faces.

You also need dungeons and wine cellars, spiral staircases, a mirror room, lots of portraits of people who are probably definitely not vampires (honest), a tower with a narrow, winding staircase and amazing views, a well in which to drown unfaithful wives, an actual oubliette and a small horde of cats and bats. And a gazebo, which, because of the wonderful sunny weather, you can sit out in and play games. (And yes, there were a couple of Knights of the Dinner Table gazebo jokes - this was a games convention, after all)

As is always the case at these conventions, I was lucky enough to spend time with some old friends and have the opportunity to make new ones in between panels, interviews, running a game and the copious quantities of good, hearty food served up by the castle's catering staff. The Polish Cthulhu players were a wonderful bunch, as were all the other gamers, some of whom had travelled quite a way to be there.

I also got to know Andrew and Sean from the HP Lovecraft Historical Society, who are responsible for the jaw-dropping Masks of Nyarlathotep Gamer Props Set and the wonderful Call of Cthulhu and Whisper in Darkness movies, both of which they showed in the library at the castle over the course of the convention. I also got to hear the opening act of their beautifully produced Masks of Nyarlathotep radio play - it's always a bit odd to hear dramatizations and live-plays of things you've worked on, but I'm thoroughly enjoying listening to the rest of this one now I'm home.

So, April is going to largely be a month of finishing off outstanding projects for other companies, but that's a tale for another day...

The Last Days of Summer

For the first time since 2013, August didn't find us jetting off to the States for a games convention.

It must be said, it was a bit of an odd sensation not to be shuffling through Heathrow airport at some ungodly hour, dealing with its ever-surly security staff. (Seriously, every single one of them has had a sense of humour transplant and has apparently never spent a sleepless night on a transatlantic flight based on their total and utter lack of empathy with/sympathy for the poor shambling wrecks trying to work out where it is they're supposed to be going now they've changed all the security procedures. Again.) Mind you, we do at least now know where the half decent seats are for the three to four hour lay-overs we invariably end up having to make.

No, this August we largely spent at home. So while most of the people I work with or know in the gaming industry were getting trampled to death or melting with heat exhaustion in Indianapolis, we enjoyed our beautiful former kingdom, helped by a couple of friends and their families coming up for their holidays.

Northumberland is beautiful, and has the best castles (Bamburgh, Dustanburgh, Warkworth, etc., many of which have featured in a variety of films and television series). It also has wonderful beaches, amazing moorlands, fantastic museums (many of which have been involved in the Great Exhibition of the North this summer, even if the definition of what constitutes "North" has been somewhat elastic. Cheshire? North? Really?) and a ton of other cool historical stuff for us to explore. Which makes it a very inspiring place to live; aspects of which often creep into my work, be it legends, locations, or people. (One of these days I'll get round to writing a Northumbria sourcebook for something - in fact, I was doing research for that when I was hired by Modiphius to head up Achtung! Cthulhu.)

And just because I wasn't at a games convention doesn't mean I wasn't slaving away at the day job (none of that while the cat's away nonsense, thank you very much!). More development and mentoring on an upcoming project for Call of Cthulhu; finishing off proofing the Call of Cthulhu Starter Set (it comes in a box and everything. Plus: dice!); more writing, playtesting, and correcting the Children of Fear campaign; and I also started editing another Call of Cthulhu supplement that's making me determined to plan a return trip to the location it's set in after the fabulous week I spent there last year. (And that's as much of a hint as you're getting for now, I'm afraid!)

There's been quite a bit of peripheral stuff, too: getting costume ready for a World War II WAAF LRP I'm going to in September, sending stuff off to conventions regarding panels and games I'm offering, and confirming attendance at other events. The end of the year is going to be its usual blur, convention-wise, that's for sure, and I'm already making arrangements for OrcaCon and Necronomicon next year, too.

One of the other events I was privileged to take part in over the Bank Holiday weekend was a 24-hour charity fundraiser for Leukaemia Care, organised and hosted by the folks over at the Necronomicon Discord community. I lost a friend to leukaemia when I was a teenager, and one of my jobs back when I was a biomedical research scientist was developing a screening panel to identify chromosomal breakpoints in leukaemias in order to make sure patients received the most effective treatment for their illness, so this one was close to my heart.

Once again, the generous nature and community spirit that I've found among Call of Cthulhu players and professionals came to the fore, and there were numerous panels and three live-streamed games over the course of the 24 hours. (I was on two: one introducing Lovecraft and discussing how a host of writers came to be involved with the game, the other on scenario design, both of which were great fun.) Those who couldn't directly take part donated prizes to help with the fundraising and, at last count, the team had raised £480.

Thank you to everyone who took part, and to everyone who donated. Gaming has its fair share of dark moments, but every now and again, it shows what I'd like to believe are its true colours with events like this. May there be many more.

And on that uplifting note, it's time to get back to the real world and those scenarios. After all, they're not going to write/edit themselves!