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.

Links

Things we mention in this episode include:

• FatFace clothing brand
• Michael Shea
• A Quest For Simbilis by Michael Shea
• The Dying Earth by Jack Vance
• Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities
• Weird fiction

• Sword and sorcery
• Nifft the Lean by Michael Shea
• Mr Cannyharme by Michael Shea
• Demiurge by Michael Shea
• The Autopsy: Best Weird Stories of Michael Shea
• The Best Fantasy and Horror Volume 1 edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling
• Cthulhu 2000
• The Color Out of Time by Michael Shea
• “The Colour Out of Space” by HP Lovecraft
• “The Hound” by HP Lovecraft

• The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath by HP Lovecraft
• The Cabin in the Woods (2011)
• The great vowel shift
• Midnight Cowboy (1969)
• Simon Whistler on YouTube
• The Casual Criminalist
• Dorothea Puente
• At the Mountains of Madness by HP Lovecraft
• Strange Eons by Robert Bloch
• In the Mouth of Madness (1994)
• “The Whisperer in Darkness” by HP Lovecraft
• “The Visible Filth” by Nathan Ballingrud
• Wounds (2019)
• Malleus Monstrorum
• At Your Door
• Cthulhu Now

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.

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We’re back and we’re holidaying at Deepfall Water in sunny Gloucestershire. The area may be a bit rundown but you can’t argue with these prices. Buying a house here cost us less than a week in Benidorm, and it even came with a free library in the cellar! Our estate agent is a chatty sort, full of lively local folklore. He reassures that that every rural area has tales about dead cities arriving on the back of a comet. Apparently, we have neighbours, although we never see them out and about in the daytime. Must be gamers. One of them, Gla’aki, is supposed to be a prickly sort but we’re sure that meeting him with prove revelatory.

Main Topic: Gla’aki

This episode is our latest exploration into the deities of the Cthulhu Mythos. We have devoted previous episodes to Dagon, Shub-Niggurath, Yog-Sothoth, Nyarlathotep, Hastur, Azathoth, Nodens, Ubbo-Sathla and Mordiggian, Ithaqua, and Cthulhu. This time, we’re returning to Ramsey Campbell, following our earlier discussion of his creations, Daoloth and Eihort.

While Gla’aki has only appeared in a handful of Call of Cthulhu publications, he has made quite an impact, and not just on the Brichester area. He’s an interesting example of how Mythos deities can change over time. While we’ve seen other deities evolve in the hands of multiple writers, Gla’aki represents one of the largest revisions by its original author.

Links

Things we mention in this episode include:

• “The Inhabitant of the Lake” by Ramsey Campbell
• The Inhabitant of the Lake and Less Welcome Tenants by Ramsey Campbell
• The Thing From the Lake by Eleanor Ingram
• The Revelations of Gla’aki
• The Last Revelation of Gla’aki by Ramsey Campbell
  • (Currently to be found in Visions From Brichester, from PS Publishing)
• The Stone of Scone
• Lovecraft’s Commonplace Book
• “The Colour Out of Space” by HP Lovecraft
• “The Call of Cthulhu” by HP Lovecraft
• “Pickman’s Model” by HP Lovecraft
• “The Whisperer in Darkness” by HP Lovecraft
• “The Man of Stone” by Hazel Heald and HP Lovecraft
• The Book of Eibon
• Robert Bloch’s Egyptian Mythos fiction
• Bast
• “The Necropolis” from Gateways to Terror

• The Return of the Living Dead (1985)
• Pyramid power
• The Trap Door
• “The Festival” by HP Lovecraft
• Malleus Monstrorum
• Call of Cthulhu Keeper Rulebook
• Doors to Darkness
• The Cthulhu Mythos Encyclopaedia by Daniel Harms
• Ramsey Campbell’s Goatswood
• Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987)
• MKUltra
• David Icke
• The Apocalypse Players
• Fear’s Sharp Little Needles

News

ENnie Nominations

The shortlists for the 2022 ENnie Awards have been announced and a number of good friends of the podcast are in the running. Ain’t Slayed Nobody is up for Best Podcast, to no one’s surprise. Chris Lackey and Mike Mason’s Cults of Cthulhu, which we discussed recently, is listed for Best Supplement. The HP Lovecraft Historical Society’s Call of Cthulhu Classic Prop Set has a well-deserved shot at Best Aid/Accessory – Non-Digital. And TYPE40’s Call of Cthulhu 3D Digital Gamer Props – Masks of Nyarlathotep has been nominated for Best Aid/Accessory – Digital.

Please be generous with your votes!

Scott on Unknown Worlds of the Merril Collection

Oliver Brackenbury, host of the Unknown Worlds of the Merril Collection podcast, recently interviewed Scott to discuss the evolution of the Cthulhu Mythos beyond Lovecraft. The episode is scheduled for release on the 25th of July.

Dockside Dogs now in print

Paul’s Reservoir Dogs-inspired Call of Cthulhu scenario Dockside Dogs is now available in print-on-demand form from DriveThruRPG. Just tell them Mr Puce sent you.

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We’re back and we’re waking up. It’s been a long old kip, but not that refreshing really. Dreams of being chased by hunting horrors aren’t as restful as we might like. On the bright side, we’ve awoken to a world as wonderous as any dream. Admittedly, that may be more the paucity of our dreams than any praise of the waking world. Who would have thought that our dream city was Milton Keynes all along?

Main Topic: The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath part 5

This is the conclusion of our multi-episode exploration of Lovecraft’s novel, The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath. In our earlier episodes (part 1, part 2, part 3 and part 4), we looked at the story’s origins and followed Randolph Carter’s increasingly odd adventures in search of his dream city. Now, we’re journeying into Kadath itself, accompanying Carter to, we hope, the fruitful conclusion of his quest.

As ever, we pick the story apart, looking for Call of Cthulhu inspiration. In particular, we spend some time wondering how mountains can tiptoe so daintily. Maybe that extra head helps with coordination.

Links

Things we mention in this episode include:

• Plateau of Leng
• Night-gaunts
• At the Mountains of Madness by HP Lovecraft
• Shantaks
• Nyarlathotep
• Pschent
• Men of Leng
• “The Call of Cthulhu” by HP Lovecraft
• The One Ring
• Powered by the Apocalypse

• Randolph Carter
• Howard Carter
• Tutankhamen
• “Nyarlathotep” by HP Lovecraft
• “The Statement of Randolph Carter” by HP Lovecraft
• King Kuranes
• Vega
• Azathoth
• Frankie Howerd

• 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
• Nodens
• Hunting Horrors
• “A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens
• The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L Frank Baum
• “Fungi From Yuggoth” by HP Lovecraft
• Lengian spiders
• “The Other Gods” by HP Lovecraft
• Celephaïs
• Dylath-Leen
• The Enchanted Wood

• Ulthar
• “The Cats of Ulthar” by HP Lovecraft
• Sarkomand
• HP Lovecraft’s Dreamlands
• “The Colour Out of Space” by HP Lovecraft
• “Pickman’s Model” by HP Lovecraft
• Ain’t Slayed Nobody

News

Issue 9 of The Blasphemous Tome

We are now a month away from the release of issue 9 of The Blasphemous Tome. This is the semi-annual fanzine we create for our wonderful Patreon backers. And what is Patreon, we hear you ask? Well, we don’t actually hear you. We’re wearing noise-cancelling headphones and they tend to block out obvious rhetorical devices.

But still, Patreon is a crowdfunding platform that allows people to sponsor creative endeavours, such as the Good Friends. The generosity of our backers allows us to put a lot more time into the podcast than we could otherwise, from research to scripting to audio production, and we hope the results are worth it.

It seems the least we can do to reward such generosity with a couple of fanzines a year, as well as uncut versions of the podcast, the occasional exclusive audio release, and a few other goodies.

Paul’s unboxing video of the HPLHS prop set

Our good friends at the HP Lovecraft Historical Society have been creating wonders again. They have produced a box set of props and handouts to tie into the recent Chaosium release of remastered classic Call of Cthulhu publications from the ’80s. Paul has been lucky enough to lay hands on one of these sets and offers a brief overview of the contents.

Paul on Frankenstein’s RPG Podcast

Paul has also made a return visit to the Frankenstein’s RPG podcast. In the second series, the team are assembling the perfect science fiction RPG from the dismembered remains of other games. This episode delves into the blood and guts of initiative and combat.

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