We’re back and we’re pouring ourselves into our rubber suits and orthopaedic shoes. Doing up all these straps can be murder when your fingers are made of protoplasm. We’re going to need a nice, tasty stray dog or two to get our energy back after all this messing around. At least we’ve learnt how to maintain a human countenance atop all the ooze, fat face and all. Extruding a new head can be, well, a headache.

Fat Face

This episode is our discussion of Michael Shea’s Mythos tale, “Fat Face”. Originally published as a chapbook in 1987, this nasty little novelette has since been collected in countless anthologies. It’s probably sitting in one of those Mythos books on your shelf right now, waiting patiently for you.

As well as being a great story in its own right, “Fat Face” is the origin of shoggoth lords, as seen in the Call of Cthulhu RPG. We take a little detour into their presentation in the game and some of the ways they’ve been used.

The protagonist of the story is a sex worker, and while the story isn’t at all prurient, it also doesn’t shy away from some of the more dangerous aspects of Patti’s profession. Be warned that our discussion mentions the story’s depictions of violence against women, threats of sexual violence, drug use, body horror and animal cruelty.

News

Blasphemous Tome 3 reissue

Matt has finished converting issue 3 of The Blasphemous Tome to PDF format. This means that backers can now download it from our Patreon page. Those backing us at the $3 level or higher before the end of the month will also receive a voucher for a print-on-demand version from DriveThruRPG. See Patreon for more details.

The Blasphemous Tome is the fully licenced Call of Cthulhu fanzine we produce for backers of the podcast. As well as all the usual features, issue 3 includes Scott’s Pulp Cthulhu scenario, “A New Age of Wonders!” This weird little adventure follows a notoriously self-aggrandising inventor as he throws a New Year’s Eve party to unveil his latest creation to the world. Of course, nothing good can come of this and deadly peril awaits. If you want to hear how it plays, Scott ran it for our good friends at Pretending to be People last year.