We’re back and and we’re geeking out.

Main Topic: Nightmare Alley

With all the talk about mediums in recent episodes, we thought it might be helpful to examine one from media. Guillermo del Toro’s 2021 adaptation of William Lindsay Gresham’s novel Nightmare Alley may not lean into the Spiritualist elements of the source, but it still presents a gripping story of a predator who uses the techniques of stage mediumship. Moreover, the film’s setting in the worlds of carnival sideshows and mentalist acts are rich inspiration for games of Call of Cthulhu.

As well as discussing the film itself, we talk a little about del Toro’s career, focusing on some highlights.

Things we mention in this episode include:

News

Paul at Gen Con 2023

Paul will be at Gen Con in August. He’ll be signing at the Chaosium stand on Thursday at 1:30 PM. On Thursday evening, he will be running what he has dubbed “Full Fathom Five-Point-Five” with You Too Can Cthulhu, riffing on his Miskatonic Repository scenario “Full Fathom Five”. And if you’re not sick of him by then, you can see him on the panel about Horror on the Tabletop on 12 PM on Friday.

Episode 263: Time Travel in Call of Cthulhu part 2

We’re back and we’re going round in circles. Driving around Milton Keynes has prepared us for such eventualities, although these are temporal loops rather than roundabouts. Then again, what is a time loop but a four-dimensional roundabout? Let’s just hope we can work out how to find an exit before we go around yet again. This is murder on our tyres. And our watches.

Main Topic: Time Travel in Call of Cthulhu part 2

As we mentioned last episode, we ran out of time to discuss time. This means we’ve gone back to the discussion, delving into psychic time travel as well as different varieties of time loops. We also spend a bit of time (it’s really hard not to make jokes here) talking about the way time travel has been presented in Mythos fiction and the Call of Cthulhu RPG.

Things we mention in this episode include:

News

The Blasphemous Tome issue 11

The next issue of The Blasphemous Tome will soon be ready to creep its way across the globe. This is the fully licenced Call of Cthulhu fanzine we produce for Patreon backers of the podcast. Issue 11 features a gorgeous full-colour cover from John Sumrow and a brand-new Call of Cthulhu scenario from our own Scott Dorward, titled “Blackshade”. Anyone backing us at the $5 level or higher will receive a print copy of the Tome, signed by our arthritic hands.

A Weekend With Good Friends

Player signups for A Weekend With Good Friends will soon open!

This is the online RPG convention organised by our lovely listeners and hosted on our Discord server. While the main source of information is said Discord server, we also have a web page with important details and links. We will update this as things progress.

Don’t worry if you missed the cut-off for GM signups. There will be pickup games running throughout the weekend.

The important dates are:

  • Friday 2nd – Thursday 15th June — GM signups
  • Friday 23rd – Thursday 29th June — Player signups
  • Friday 30th June — Lottery results announced
  • Friday 7th – Sunday 9th July — AWWGF
a weekend with good friends logo small

The Murder Shack and Blackshade on Ain’t Slayed Nobody

A few years ago, Scott ran “The Murder Shack”, his scenario from issue 5b of The Blasphemous Tome, for our good friends over at Ain’t Slayed Nobody. Cuppycup has recently edited the audio and produced it as a podcast, with music, sound effects and voice acting for a key NPC role. You can hear the end product on ASN now.

As if that weren’t enough, a recording of “Blackshade”, Scott’s scenario from issue 11, will be available on Ain’t Slayed Nobody next month. Watch your feed for more details.

Sean F Smith Interview

Following our recent episodes about Victorian Spiritualism, Scott interviewed Sean F Smith for a follow-up special. Sean is a stage magician and mentalist, with a lifelong interest in the techniques of fraudulent mediumship. The discussion goes into the psychology of trickery, along some history of how Spiritualism and stage magic evolved together in Victorian Britain.

Scott on Bud & Griff’s RPG Creepshow

Bud and Griff recently invited Scott onto their (relatively) new gaming podcast. As well as discussing horror gaming and podcasting, the duo asked Scott about his weirdest uncanny experience. This gave Scott the perfect opportunity to talk about that time he got roped into performing an exorcism.

The episode will be released on their public feed this coming weekend.

We’re back with our first special episode for a while. After our recent look into Victorian Spiritualism, Sean F Smith contacted us, offering to discuss the topic from the perspective of stage magic.

Sean is a magician and mentalist by profession, with a special interest in séances and mediums. We discussed the history of Victorian magic and how it relates to fraudulent mediums. There are also a few diversions into the psychology of trickery, techniques to encourage creativity, and the secret of how to hammer a nail into your face.

You can find Sean’s work on DriveThruRPG, and you can check out his websites below.

Sean and friend

Things we mention in this episode include:

We’re back, or should that be forward? Time does have a tendency to jump around, and you’re never quite when you thought you were. Days pass in years and years pass in days. And the older you get, the stranger this relationship with time becomes. Sure, you might struggle to remember what you just had for lunch, but you have a pretty good idea of what you might have been doing ten years ago. In our case, we were starting a podcast.

If you ever wondered why our early episodes sound the way they do…

Main Topic: Time Travel in Call of Cthulhu part 1

The Good Friends of Jackson Elias are ten years old! Well, not the Good Friends ourselves, obviously. One look at our grizzled countenances should disabuse you of that. If you tried to total up our lived years, you’d quickly run out of fingers. And toes. And any other protuberances you may have. But the podcast itself will have been around for ten years as of the 8th of June 2023. That’s 262 regular episodes, 42 specials, and 12 backer-only episodes. No wonder we’re tired.

The shed where it all started

We figured we’d mark this milestone by discussing the role of time travel in Call of Cthulhu. In one form or another, time travel has been a part of stories for about as long as people have been telling them. Genre fiction and media have codified a lot of tropes, however, some derived from actual science and some the product of pure imagination. We discuss some of our favourite media presentations of time travel in its various forms, looking for inspiration for our games of Call of Cthulhu.

Once again, we found this was a larger topic than we’d anticipated and have had to spill over into a second episode. Join us next time when we discuss time loops, as well as the presentation of time travel in Call of Cthulhu and Mythos fiction.

The teetering pile of books that thought it was a microphone stand

Things we mention in this episode include:

Behold the Man by Michael Moorcock

News

The Blasphemous Tome issue 11

The next issue of The Blasphemous Tome will soon be ready to creep its way across the globe. This is the fully licenced Call of Cthulhu fanzine we produce for Patreon backers of the podcast. Issue 11 features a gorgeous full-colour cover from John Sumrow and a brand-new Call of Cthulhu scenario from our own Scott Dorward titled “Blackshade”. Anyone backing us at the $5 level or higher will receive a print copy of the Tome, signed by our arthritic hands.

A Weekend With Good Friends

GM signups are now open for A Weekend With Good Friends! This is the online RPG convention organised by our lovely listeners and hosted on our Discord server. While the main source of information is said Discord server, we also have a web page with important details and links. We will update this as things progress.

If you would like to offer a game and have it listed in the programme, please check out the AWWGF GM signup page between the 2nd and 15th of June. Don’t worry if you miss the cut-off, however — there will be pickup games running throughout the weekend.

The important dates are:

a weekend with good friends logo small

We’re back and we’re glowing. While we’re only too happy to ascribe this to good diet and healthy living, all this phosphorous oil we keep splashing on ourselves may also play a part. It really helps you stand out in the dark, although it does make it a bit harder to creep around and do all the other sneaky stuff that goes into a good séance. At this rate, we’re going to need a real spirit guide to help pull this off.

Main Topic: Victorian Spiritualism part 2

This is the conclusion of our two-part look at the origins and evolution of Spiritualism in the gaslight era. In the first part, we examined the origins of Spiritualism. This time, we explore how Spiritualism became so popular in Victorian Britain, as well as some of the key figures of Victorian Spiritualism and the strange techniques they used to fake séances.

These episodes gloss over many of the details of séances themselves. We aim to cover those properly in an upcoming episode.

Things we mention in this episode include:

Phantasmagoria
The Davenport Brothers in their spirit cabinet
Daniel Dunglas Home levitating
Helen Duncan manifesting “ectoplasm”

News

The Blasphemous Tome issue 11

The next issue of The Blasphemous Tome will soon be entering layout, ready to creep its way across the globe in June. This is the fully licenced Call of Cthulhu fanzine we produce for Patreon backers of the podcast. Issue 11 features a gorgeous full-colour cover from John Sumrow and a brand-new Call of Cthulhu scenario from our own Scott Dorward.

Paul at UK Games Expo

Paul will be attending the UK Games Expo in Birmingham between Friday the 2nd and Sunday the 4th of June 2023. While there, he will take part in a panel discussion with members of The Grognard Files, Orlanth Rex’s Gaming Vexes, and the Frankenstein RPG Podcast.

A Weekend With Good Friends

The next Weekend With Good Friends is approaching fast! This is the online RPG convention organised by our lovely listeners and hosted on our Discord server. While the main source of information is our Discord server, we also have a web page with important details and links. We will update this as things progress.

GM signups open a little over a week after this episode goes out. If you would like to offer a game and have it listed in the programme, please check out the AWWGF page between the 2nd and 15th of June. Don’t worry if you miss the cut-off, however — there will be pickup games running throughout the weekend.

The important dates are:

  • Friday 2nd – Thursday 15th June — GM signups
  • Friday 23rd – Thursday 29th June — Player signups
  • Friday 30th June — Lottery results announced
  • Friday 7th – Sunday 9th July — AWWGF
a weekend with good friends logo small