Chaosium Con IV: The Voyage Home

Hold on just a second while I dust off my keyboard and clear the cobwebs over here in the Prospero House office. We have precious little time before reality bleeds back into my fevered brain and the wake-work cycle resumes. This was my fourth consecutive Chaosium Con, and though I have been absent around here of late, I could not count this experience complete without one of these rambling recollections. If you don’t have the patience for my purple prose, my thesis is this: come next year, play games, meet people, and you will have the time of your life. And if you haven’t tired of me yet, read on!

Hello Again:

Eagerly out of bed at 4 am for my 6 am flight from Phoenix to Detroit. Still too warm in the predawn desert to don my hoodie while awaiting the Uber. Despite grand plans to write on the plane, I skipped the coffee and struggled to nap in flight. Too drowsy to cough up any creativity, I watched Cavill slay in The Man from U.N.C.LE. Arrived in Detroit on time, gathered my luggage, and jumped in an Uber. At the registration desk, indestructible con organizer Bridgett Jeffries greeted me with her trademark thorax-crushing hug. I was immediately at home. Good vibes only from here on out.     

As usual, many other convention stalwarts arrived a day earlier and posted up in the lobby to greet arrivals. So great to see the enthusiastic crowd already gathered in the bar area. Awkward at hugging with bags strapped to me, I run to my room, dump my stuff, and lay out my suit for tonight’s LARP put on by Symphony Entertainment.  

After exchanging hellos and hugs with friends, I ran over to registration and picked up my badge. This year marked Chaosium’s 50th anniversary, and they delivered the swag along with the badge: a full dice set and a sweet commemorative pin. Heading back to the lobby, I ran into a shady character with a hoodie pouch laden with more swag. In hushed tones, she passed me lip balm, badge ribbons, and stickers. Minutes later, she stood at full-volume before an audience in the bar and gave away a copy of Regency Cthulhu to a lucky fan. This was just one of Bridgett Jeffries many surprise book giveaways during the convention. Hopefully, they will continue this at future cons, even though this is Bridgett’s final epic turn at the helm.  

As more attendees arrived, the group gathered around our bar table, greeted newcomers, and swapped weekend plans. Famished, I benefited from the characteristic generosity of mensan98th, who shared her order of chicken tenders and fries with me while folks organized an offsite excursion. These small acts of kindness can be expected between friends and strangers throughout the con. Many former strangers quickly shift to close friends as Discord handles are exchanged.     

Despite my excitement about seeing folks, I returned to my room for a nap to bank some energy. By year four, I’ve fully embraced this event as a marathon rather than a series of delirious sprints. In the interest of maintaining my staying power, I just scheduled the minimum three games required to earn a complimentary GM badge. I’ve signed up to play one game along with the LARP. Well, I guess this is growing up.

Symphony LARP (or The Shoes Make the Character):

With a nod to Chaosium’s anniversary, the mixer theme was pretty open-ended and lacked the cohesion of last year’s Jazz Era costuming. This worked fine for me as I arrived in a blue suit, cowboy boots, and sterling silver Texas-shaped cufflinks. My assigned LARP character was Everett Corrigan, venture capitalist and principal investor in Aeternis Solutions. The intent was an outrageously hateable mash-up of T. Boone Pickens and Peter Thiel (you know, an absurdly wealthy man-child who talks endlessly in Texas twang about his optimization protocols and dreams of cryogenic immortality). In this case, the shoes made the man…and his disruptive, visionary tech-gal CEO portrayed by DontStopMeNow in orange Heelys and a Cthulhu onesie. 

Having not read the terms and conditions of this particular corporate retreat, I unwittingly signed an NDA and cannot reveal the explicit plot details of Storyteller Clyde’s jarring creation. I can say that Mr. Corrigan and his associate might have survived by cowering in a dark corner. What this means is that I’m bad at LARPing. I don’t have the brain for it. 

The most disappointing turn of events was that Corrigan did not get to take the technological marvel of precision engineering, the Helios Unit, home with him. Corrigan and his Aeternis Solutions team watched raptly as Helios led calisthentics, recited Hamlet, and drank from a Gatorade bottle without “moistening himself.” Turns out the whole thing was a real business boondoggle. 

All tuckered, Mr. Corrigan sent himself to bed, took a fistful of bespoke herbal supplements, and got his minimum of six hours of sleep while wearing his rejuvenating red-light facemask.

 Gaming Responsibly:

Day two began at 9 am with a four-player session of Mr. Corbitt. For this run, I deployed the Kid-thulhu rules and pre-generated from The Dare to ground this classic scenario in 1985 Southern California during Christmas Break. Enabled by a double shot Americano from the BearClaw coffee truck, I helped a brave group of kids consisting of a bookworm, girl scout, know-it-all, and their instigating prankster get to know their friendly neighbor, one Bernard Corbitt, just a little bit better. Initially intending to run this with six players, we lucked out getting four, as this permitted a more intimate and personal adventure with a very touching (and completely unexpected) conclusion. A group this size or smaller is ideal for this scenario. Reskinning a key NPC as a creepy Domino’s delivery guy helped ground the adventure in the neighborhood and period. Getting to run a game for a first-time Chaosium Con attendee as well as a player I’ve now gamed with annually since the second Con was wonderful. This is an event where the circle of friends just continues to grow every year.

Aside from Symphony’s LARP last year, I haven’t played a game at Chaosium Con since the inaugural event. I broke this trend by signing up for GamerMatt’s Speed of Light, Cloud of Dust game. Matt played in my Detroit-based Death of Superstition and the first Chaosium Con. As a local and fan of Detroit history, he told me he was inspired by the experience and began crafting a series of Pulp scenarios set in 1930s Motor City. His game was an inspired and educational Midtown romp featuring the Detroit City College (the future Wayne State University) and surrounding environs. I played Enrique “Handsome Hank” Martin, a swashbuckling ace aviator from El Paso, Texas. Lacking common sense, Hank made up for his intellectual shortcomings with dead-eye shooting and dumb luck. The scenario concluded momentously atop a local landmark with the survivors gazing down at the broken body of their accomplished but luckless (literally!) mesmerist, Dr. Eros. This was just one of a series of connected scenarios that Matt runs annually at Chaosium Con, and he intends to release them once a Call of Cthulhu Detroit sourcebook becomes available. I cannot wait to run these, and I hope that day arrives soon!

Typically, I arrive fully prepared to cons with proofread pre-gens, playtested handouts, and a home group dry run of all scheduled scenarios (note: fully is used very liberally here). This year, I flew by the seat of my pants with a small handful of resulting gaffes. In preparation for my Saturday Deliver Us From Evil game, I had ordered some special tokens but left them at home. As a consequence, I needed to run across the street between games to pick up substitute markers at the convenience store. With careful consideration, I selected two boxes of Red Mike & Ike’s for use tomorrow morning. Improvisation at work! And since I’m a responsible adult, I grabbed two Dr. Pepper Zeros and a bag of Doritos for dinner. 

The final game of the evening was my slight remix of the oft-maligned scenario from The Cthulu Companion (1983), The Secret of Castronegro. Here, I felt I might be flying too close to the sun (or dark abyss?), as I had no prior experience running this scenario, which took the Grizzly Peak podcast 28 hours to complete. I brought a set of thoughtfully (ha!) crafted pre-gens to help immediately hook the players and drive the investigation at a breakneck pace. I was cautiously optimistic, though, as I had repeat players, DontStopMeNow (DSMN), Mary G., and Sean H joining me…or so I thought. 

Just 24 hours before, DSMN had informed me she had dropped my game in favor of running her own. Seeing my immediate heartbreak, she consoled me that a friendly Icelander had already seized her spot. As I finished my earlier Detroit game, I discovered that Hilmar had abandoned me as well! I sent an emergent Discord plea seeking another player to fill out the party. Now, flash forward a couple hours to me interrogating my sanity as I sat sandwiched between DSMN and yourfriendnate, who took Sean H’s open seat. 

With a full table, we hit it hard with the investigators unleashed from the starting line by an Albuquerque landlady opening a locked door leading into Professor Godfrey’s apartment. I soon smelled trouble as our private investigator undertook a furious and laser-focused search for a missing tome while our New Orleans occultist seemed slightly untethered. Each player had received, along with their character sheet, a place card with some specific goal instructions pasted along the underside. The always prepared Keeper Doc had carelessly swapped the goals for Irina and Jonah! Nate sat with delight as I grabbed both place cards, examined them, facepalmed, peeled the pasted goals off, and retrieved a purple glue stick (used for Kid-thulhu!) from my bag. Error corrected, we plowed onward!

Poised between my twin chaos agents, we eventually shuttled the party to Castronegro (bum-bum-buuuum!), and a wild three-way split party sandbox search got underway. We quick-cut our way through town locations, driving the investigators towards a viable climax. The final hour was a mind-numbing blur as we forcibly tied unconnected locations together to reach the final destination. Magical weapons in hand, they confronted a demonic foe (no spoilers as all this is total Keeper Doc nonsense). The emboldened anthropology professor, Dr. Athena Abernathy, swung her wicked scythe weapon at the heinous entity only to find the blade curve back on itself and inflict twelve points of damage directly to her forearms, cutting both her hands off above the wrist. Undeterred, she heroically passed her CON roll and defeated the remaining adversary with her mouth alone. Enjoying the fruits of her victory, the good professor was surprised to discover her hands beginning to regrow from the bloody stumps as the scene faded to black. This concluded mere minutes after the 11 o’clock mark, and my brain began its full reboot cycle after overheating. I promptly put myself to bed. I would need rest more than I could imagine.    

Deliver Us To Chaos

I knew this was coming. I had a full table at 9 am for Deliver Us From Evil. I ran my second playtest of my latest scenario at Chaosium Con one year earlier. I’d since run a handful more times, most recently at Miskatonic Repository Con last October. But this group. They were the kind of table this scenario was written for. And it scared me. Less than 12 hours later, I was once again facing down Nate and DSMN, now joined by Bucho, Tara, haplessmage, and Soft Hands Larry (geolaur). We found ourselves some privacy in the comfortable corner on the second floor and settled into a fun trip down the Lost River. 

Friends, I must speak frankly: I am not quite ready to relive this experience. I grabbed my own X-card. Some things are just best left in the Washington wilderness. I will simply say this: Wonderwall will never be the same song for me again, and yourfriendnate is a free-spirited, chain-smoking 13-year-old girl trapped in a middle-aged man’s body. (Edit: And due praise to Tara for her haunting singing during the final act!)

Were it not for Jet’s Pizza and the kindness of one cuppycup, I may not have survived to compose this increasingly scattered collection of thoughts. And I certainly wouldn’t have been able to participate in the two panels that followed my morning game. 

Thanks to Suda and XPLovecat for inviting me to participate in these events and join esteemed creators to discuss Scenarios Every Keeper Should Run Once and Success Stories and Pitfalls in Community Content Creation, respectively. These were excellent panels, primarily due to the contributions from my fellow panelists, and I wanted to share the Top 5 from each participant:

Seth Skorkowsky:

1. Edge of Darkness
2. Westchester House
3. Dead Light
4. Mr. Corbitt
5. The Dare

Matt “Just Doc” Tracey

1. Saturday the 14th
2. The Necropolis 
3. Mr. Corbitt
4. Dockside Dogs
5. Tatterdemalion

Suda

1. The Code
2. Signal to Noise
3. Rigid Air
4. Uncle Timothy’s Will
5. The Scuttling

XP Lovecat:

1. The Night Season
2. Crack’d and Crook’d Manse
3. Waiting for the Hurricane
4. Note and Notoriety
5. Saturday the 14th

Keeper Doc:

1. The Dare
2. Mr. Corbitt
3. Full-Fathom Five
4. The Secret of Castronegro
5. Cheap Hipster Take: The One You Created (for myself, The Death of Superstition)

Though it seems a bit of a self-promoting cop-out, I’ll stand firmly by my position that every Keeper should write an adventure just once. It’s one you’ll always hold dear and enjoy sharing with people. Unless you’re Doc Tracey, who speaks passionately about drowning his “darlings” in the bathtub. If you weren’t there to have direct context for this, it’s ok. Trust me. 

As for the second panel, rather than provide a summary of that discussion, I’m going to provide a separate post at a later (I swear!) date that covers this material, including thoughts from the panelists and my reflections. 

It was truly humbling to sit in front of a room of folks and share my thoughts alongside some very talented people. I learned a lot from both groups of panelists, and I really enjoyed all interactions with audience members, especially the question from Nate about how to be a better playtester. The short answer from the panel was “to bring the chaos,” which should read as mischievous and clever spontaneity paired with a desire to identify and challenge narrative weaknesses while pushing the borders of the plot. As Seth wisely emphasized, chaos does not equal wanton destruction/murder and willful petulance. In other words, aim for chaotic good/neutral, not evil. 

Following the panels, it was great to enjoy some time sitting around the bar and lobby catching up with folks, hearing about games, sharing ideas, and, frankly, supporting each other. At cons, I seldom gift myself with time during the day to enjoy the camaraderie. My interactions have typically taken place at the game table, during meals, and following a very long game or travel day. It was a pleasure to sit back in comfy chairs while enjoying some drinks without having to watch the clock for the next event or fight back the urge to pass out. This downtime was something I’ve been missing since the beginning, and I’m looking forward to taking more of this leisure time to connect with folks next year. It turns out that Chaosium Con is just as much about these moments as the adventures in gaming.

Fortified by some beef chow fun and a gallon of Diet Pepsi, we wrangled an intrepid band of players to start a pick-up session of The Death of Superstition just after 9 pm. With strong representation by the Ain’t Slayed Nobody cast and friends, proceedings veered rapidly off the rails following an impressively committed opening seance. We had the bout of madness within the first 45 minutes, and it never let up. Cuppycup and Suda manifested some violent, drug-addled Abbott and Costello vibes—an encounter with the antagonist concluded with a morphine-filled syringe to the eyeball. Don’t worry, he returned later with an eye patch. Clues were discovered via inadvertent psychic detonations. And merciless player-on-player violence occurred while wearing a stolen bunny suit. The Tin Man lost 77 sanity points while driving an eldritch artifact into the antagonist’s other eye socket. Please see the earlier discussion about bringing the chaos.

The Journey Ends:

The next day began with some frantic packing followed by too-short lobby farewells. An annual brunch tradition continued in Downtown Ypsilanti. We shared many highs about our weekend among friends. Great experiences were had all around. Before parting, everyone was discussing when we would next meet. 

A quick trip back to the hotel permitted a run through the dealer hall. I got to catch up with Sumrow and pick up a test piece for the forthcoming Encyclopedia Cthulhiana. It’s going to have a stunning cover. And then, all too soon, we were whisked away to the Detroit Airport, where all this writing began. 

We Are All Us:

This con is a place of belonging. It’s a community. It’s an ever-growing circle of friends. This year, I will only be able to attend a single con, and I’m so very glad it was this one. Thank you all.