Please follow me on Twitter: @drgonzo123

Or check out my Tumblr site (with free downloads still in place and all) at: http://www.detwillerdesign.com

If you still see this site with that address, please clear your cache.

Cheers,

Dennis

We’re at 245% on the Kickstarter for my Dreamlands campaign, THE SENSE OF THE SLEIGHT OF HAND MAN. About 375 people have pitched in, and nearly 250 hardcover books have been ordered. Unless some extraordinary breakthrough occurs, the book will not be available after this Kickstarter closes.

Even better, I’ve wrapped the cover image of the campaign. This acrylic painting took me ~20 hours, and was a heck of a lot of fun, especially the Man from Leng in the upper right hand corner.

So, those of you who haven’t pitched in, get out there and Kickstart the project a little more. Those of you who have, do what you can to promote it. Every dollar that goes to the project is another buck that keeps me working on RPGs and books and the things I love to do (and thanks for that!)

Delta Green is an odd organization. It employs a sort of Orwellian double-think when it comes to science, intel on Mythos creatures and “hyper-geometry” — the science of “magic”. When something anomalous is recovered, there is a limited inquiry by the group, not the kind of fascination such oddities would usually garner. The information is run up the flagpole to A-Cell.

Has the group seen it before? Are its methods, or methods to eliminate it known? If so, the specimen is discarded at the soonest opportunity. If not… many things can happen. A specialist (usually a Friendly) can be brought in, the specimen can be moved to a secure location for later study, or A-Cell can fear the recovery so much, they immediately order its destruction. Often, the motives of A-Cell are difficult to discern and their orders, though clear could mean so many things.

Once a creature or item is catalogued (and such catalogues are kept only in the possession of A-Cell) this data sits and waits for another piece of intel to come in. There is no active comparison — no “correlation of contents” as it were — A-Cell knows the dangers of such endeavors. Instead, pains are taken to pursue leads (science, intel or other) only to the one step Delta Green is interested in: the destruction of the supernatural threat.  Any investigation past that is considered too dangerous.

Often, however, Agents deviate from this path, particularly new Agents or Friendlies confronted with something in their field which is so staggeringly mind-boggling, they can’t seem to stop investigating it. A-Cell is clever. Under such situations, a “watch” is placed on Agents or Friendlies the conspiracy feels may wander off the path. Another Agent in the Cell monitors the suspect for signs of odd behavior, and more often than not, they can be pulled back from the edge before the obsession goes too far. Or, if they do cross that line, they can be eliminated.

Still, even in small bursts of information, knowledge of the Mythos is poisonous to the human mind. The concept that the entirety of human existence is nothing but a random alignment of elements into the semblance of order that will soon be swept away by alien horrors is too much for a healthy mind. Even the most hardened Agents will eventually begin to feel the nihilistic pull of such knowledge. From there, it is a slippery slope towards insanity.

As such, efforts are made to limit, control and destroy information on a level that Orwell’s Big Brother himself might have found extreme.

My new Call of Cthulhu Dreamlands Campaign, The Sense of the Sleight of Hand Man has made the base Kickstarter goal thanks to your kind support. The initial $5,500 will pay for the monstrous amount of work needed to finish it up to proper standards.

But! We still have 19 days to go, and now, print editions of the book (black and white, 128 page hardcovers) are up for pre-order on the site as well. Visit and contribute or up your contribution now!

Even if you’ve contributed, there’s some more you can do:

1. Visit the page.
2. Promote it via Twitter/Facebook.
3. Tell your friends (who might be interested).

Thanks a lot to everyone who kicked in. You’ve given me more runway to complete fun, cool RPG stuff, and for that, you have my eternal gratitude. I’ve had a rough year with some scares and problems, but this puts a big smile on my face.

Sarkomand Awaits,

Dennis

Contribute to the Kickstarter for this project now: The Sense of the Sleight of Hand Man, a Call of Cthulhu Dreamlands Campaign by Dennis Detwiller

I receive a lot of email about my gaming methods in Call of Cthulhu. It’s nice to be known as a heartless killing machine when it comes to Keeperdom; I take it as a compliment. Many people have praised/complained about my style of scenario creation as well. In any case people are talking about it, so I figure, I must be doing something right.

I will say something to the people who say the way I run games is “too cruel” or “keeps the gamers from having fun”; in the twenty or so years I’ve been running game sessions I’ve have about four people who these methods didn’t jive with. Everyone else has had a great time. I’m going to breakdown why I think my methods are successful, why I run the games the way I do, and how I create scenarios.

The first, and most important thing is controlling the game. As a Keeper, it is your game. You own it. You own everything in it, even the player’s characters. In a game like Call of Cthulhu, there is no other choice. The game is fraught with incredibly dangerous, player-taking-over beasties, spells that swap bodies, vast damage amounts and more. PCs are cheap. It is a mechanical fact of the game and Lovecraft’s stories. Call of Cthulhu is a game about death and madness.

I meet a lot of Keepers who say something like “the monster took him over but the Player didn’t want to do that…” What? In my games this isn’t even an option. There is no polite discussion when a mind-control parasite takes over a PC. It’s not a debate, it happens. What happens when a player accidentally blasts themselves with a electric gun or takes 1d10+4d6 damage from a Gug bite? Do you just hand wave and let them survive?

If this is what you do, I’ve got some news for you, you’re not playing Call of Cthulhu. You may gain something in the short-term, a laugh, some player celebration, but when these false successes pile up, you’ll gain something else: boredom. Fear and danger are what moves Call of Cthulhu off the shelves, not success. Player characters must die to allow others to seem to succeed.

Secondarily, when you fudge the game at player pressure you set a vast and terrible precedent. Once you cede control on any issue, no matter how small, you have opened a gulf in the trust the players must have in you. The trust that you will make the session fun, that you will be consistent, that you know what you’re doing. So, own the game. Don’t take any guff.

So, onto scenario creation. I write up scenarios from a single nugget of an idea (like “a mirror which allows time travel”) and then follow the leads out from the inciting event. Many people write scenarios that say things like “and then, this happens”. I try to avoid this (though it does happen from time to time). I attempt to fill in as many of the surrounding blanks as possible by detailing side characters (so the important NPCs have as many facts about them as the unimportant NPCs — don’t want them to stand out artificially!) Finally, I do my best to embed three or four memorable moments in the scenario; something creeptastic and cool which will stick with the players.

Finally, a word on Seat of the Pants RPGing. I’ve done this for a long time. For the last 15 or so years, I’ve simply come up with the basic idea for a scenario (like the mirror example) and sat down with the players and made it up on the fly. The key to this method is taking extensive notes while doing so. Some of my best scenarios (like Night Floors and Music From a Darkened Room) arose in this manner. I had the inkling of an idea and just dumped it on gaming table, making up contents seconds before the players asked. I find the most satisfying and cool scenarios become “more real” when I put the players through them in this style. The players often make me think about and flesh out weird leads that I never would have considered if I had just written the scenario in a void.

I hope this article gives a little more insight into my methods and beliefs when it comes to Call of Cthulhu. 

Contribute to the Kickstarter for this project now: The Sense of the Sleight of Hand Man, a Call of Cthulhu Dreamlands Campaign by Dennis Detwiller

The Black Galleys

These huge Galleys are the Moonbeasts’ vessels, the source of legend and intrigue in all lands of trade. When in foreign ports, only the Men from Leng interact with Humans, and then as quickly as possible, as the ways of Humans do not agree with the Satyrs. It is not known to the general public exactly where the men who pilot these ships come from, nor that they are Satyrs at all, as they wear voluminous robes and turbans to cover their inhuman features.

The ships rowers are the source of much speculation, as the tireless rapid movement of the oars is the envy of every sea captain.

At full speed the Black Galleys can top forty miles in an hour, faster than any other ship known. No one has ever seen whom or what powers the ships, but the oars move in an unnatural unison, as if one giant moved every oar at once.

In truth, convict Moonbeasts row the ships. Torture machines force the convicts to row in unison, if they resist or tire or row out of order they are electrocuted, if they halt too many times in a single day, they are horribly and finally electrocuted. Many Moonbeasts perish despite their exceptional strength and constitution, and the rowers only rest when in port, a rarity. They do not leave the ship ever, until dead, and are fed and excrete through tubes. Those characters foolish enough to go below deck, although physically safe will suffer a loss 1/1d8 SAN, confronted with the terrifying forms of the Moonbeasts trapped in their torturous prison. Such service is the penalty for the only Moonbeast crime, the failure to worship Nyarlathotep as their lord and master (even so many still choose to worship Azathoth).

A simple panel on deck controls the direction and speed of the rowers, besides that, there is only a single extremely large hatch leading below. Most of the interior of the ship is made up of storage space, cargo holds and slave galleys (where the Human slaves bought at market are kept). The huge hold of the convict Moonbeasts composes most of the lower decks.

The crew quarters for the Lengian Sailors are a room of strange hammock like hanging bags (they sleep standing) with an adjoining galley. The ceilings on this level are low and difficult for Humans to get used to.

Each ship is loaded down with supplies of food and fresh water enough for a journey of several months, and will leave three days after the characters awaken, for the dark side of the Moon.

Contribute to the Kickstarter for this project now: The Sense of the Sleight of Hand Man, a Call of Cthulhu Dreamlands Campaign by Dennis Detwiller

In the high west there burns a furious star.

It is for fiery boys that star was set.

-Wallace Stevens, Le Monocle de Mon Oncle

Lhosk

A well traveled Human city on the coast of the Cerenarian sea, it has enjoyed a prosperous existence as a trade center for many surrounding lands, due to its low levy and easy going economic policies.

The city itself winds up a thirty-five mile stretch of tropical coastline, and the natural bay is protected by a series of small reefs and sandbars. Two large lighthouses called “the Twins” mark the mouth of the port. At high tide, the lighthouses seem to float on the water, at low tide, the small islands on which they are built can be spied.

The beautiful teak docks of the coast city are famous as far south as Baharna, the intricate patterns and winding spires of the etchings were carved in the classic Lhoskian style, and are a prized cultural treasure.

The entire city except for port towers and lighthouses are gambrel roofed, making them easier to maintain due to the frequent rainfall. No private house stands that are over three stories, and none have basements. Due to inclement caused by local weather, hurricanes are often felt and the water table is quite high.

Most of the city proper is within a mile or so of the sea, and all Lhoskian children are equally as comfortable on land and water from a very early age. As one would expect, the major industry of the city is fishing, and the native barks are known in many cities up and down the Cerenarian coast as the prime traders of sea goods. The Lhoskians hold a near monopoly in their bazaar on sea goods, including fish, fishing goods, shipboard goods and other various maritime sundries. Other goods are left to foreign traders, as this promotes both a healthy relationship with other lands and a strong economic base.

The City itself is quite old, although no records exist revealing its true age. As far back as any of the Human books remember, the people of Lhosk have been sailing and fishing on the Cerenarian coast. The native language of the area is called Talunen, although English and Skand are nearly as common.

A small council of Sailors and Traders rules Lhosk. One family has held most of the council seats for many generations (although some seats are purposely vacated for set periods and presided over by foreign traders), and the interplay and intrigue of these great families has become more and more complex and incestuous with each passing generation.

Today Lhosk is the predominant trade city in the northern reaches of the Dreamlands, and is the gateway of trade to the exotic and dangerous northlands.

Is there another realm beyond that of earth, but counterminious with it? A realm of thought, formed by the dreams of humans and other creatures? If there is, in Delta Green, you can be certain it is composed primarily of nightmares. If we say that, yes, beyond the waking world, certain minds can travel through a barrier and experience what some have called the ‘shared hallucination’ of the Dreamlands, then we must also say the the minions of the Mythos can do so, as well. There is no escape, just another field of conflict; even in the world of dreams.

Travel to this ‘hallucination’ is accomplished in many ways, but in the world of Delta Green, it is mostly accomplished through drug use. Such drugs are difficult to come by, nearly impossible to make, and addictive.

Almost always, one hit, and the subject is hooked. Transported to an unearthly realm which seems to be an amalgam of Earth cultures on a foreign globe, six hundred to a thousand years in the past, ripe with magic and alien races, few ever truly return to earth mentally, instead, viewing their “real” life as a necessary illusion; a place which must be tended to to allow access to the Dreamlands.

Several Delta Green Operations have crossed over into this realm in the groups’ pursuit of the destruction of Mythos threats. Reports have been collated, and their contents have proven disturbing. The machinations of the Great Old Ones and their cults are much more evident, powerful and eager in the world of Dreams (it has been posited by A-Cell that perhaps a battle for the human psyche must be won in the Dreamlands for the world to fall).

Unfortunately, Agents who are veterans of the Dreamlands are often shattered, broken individuals, looking only for their next hit to avoid the dull monotony of our world, which appears, in comparison, like a lightbulb next to a sunset. The emptiness and drabness of the ‘real’ earth cripples them.

Still, permanent travel to such realms is possible. Antique devices and technology offer a gate to these realms, often transporting the operator to places of great danger in the Dreamlands. But once you have a taste of such a place, even the worst threat there makes earth and all of its inhabitants seem like nothing more than a figment.

My new Call of Cthulhu Dreamlands Campaign, The Sense of the Sleight of Hand Man is up for Ransom now on Kickstarter. Please:

1. Visit the page.
2. Contribute, if you can.
3. Promote it via Twitter/Facebook.
4. Tell your friends (who might be interested).

Thanks a lot. If you are a fan of Delta Green or my other work, contributing to this Kickstarter will help me continue to create in the RPG space, and, in turn, will keep me working on other RPG projects. Without this lifesblood, making time for RPGs is difficult.

Here’s to Call of Cthulhu!

Fighting the forces of the Cthulhu Mythos is one thing, confronting the roiling insanity that is Carcosa is another. The otherworldly madness and horror the Old Ones spread is due to their impossible nature and unknowable methods. Carcosa, the horrific realm of Hastur the Unspeakable appears different, but may simply be another manifestation of this impossibility.

Few Agents can feature the differences between an inhuman monstrosity loping at them from the sea, and a house that seems to bend and warp around them, changing as they observe it. One seems separate from humanity, a monster, the other seems to warp and change the deepest and most coveted concepts of humanity — thought, ideas, order.

Carcosa is a name given to the slurry of thought and quantum possibility that exists between man and the Great Old Ones. In this run off, human thought is pulled into a void and fills the space of possibility with thoughts, dreams and ideas. The collapse of the waveform becomes the dance of multiple waveforms — a thousand outcomes become possible, or impossible at once.

This effect occurs in a limited manner in so called “non-euclidean” constructions. The warping of space/time evident in some structures left behind by the Old Ones exhibit a bizarre change in human perception. This seems to be a fixed effect — the perception is shifted depending on location, but rarely seems to “bleed” or “change”, instead, it looks alien and surreal.

Carcosa, however could be more akin to a feedback loop in this area of “reality”, a tug of war between an infinite consciousness considering a finite reality, and a human consciousness observing the same. Carcosa seems to act and react to human thought, to change and direct itself in a within human concepts of fear and disorder and chaos. As such, it is extremely potent in its effects on sanity.

Attempts to understand Carcosa always fail. Carcosa may appear to become “ordered” for short periods based on Agents’ mental fortitude, but this is always a momentary pause in a dance of horrors that swarm the mind. It is like an undertow in the current of thought, deceptive at first — appearing subtle and easy to resist — but soon, as the Agent is pulled out to sea, the truth is realized. Carcosa envelops and digests humans like a slug, ingesting and burning away their minds. All that remains behind are their thoughts and perceptions, which sometimes echo in the slurry forever.