Arcane Underground

Dark Passions is Done

matthewgrau@cthulhutech.com — 2008-11-06T14:11:34-08:00

The new Dark Passion is done and going to the printer. We added four new pieces of art for the four new character archetypes, re-commissioned three of the pieces, and colorized everything else. The book finally has the punch I wanted it to have.

Here are a few preview pieces. The one on the left is the Congregation Medium template and the one on the right is the Cult Witch template. I hope you dig them as much as I do!

Going to Press

matthewgrau@cthulhutech.com — 2008-10-29T18:57:02-07:00

The revamped version of Dark Passions goes to the printer end of this week for a January release. It's a way cooler book than it's ever been.

I've been receiving the final version of the colorized art and the book takes on a whole different character now that it's all in color. The fiction spreads have changed to match the new Core Book and Vade Mecum. And the big beauty is that I got rid of those reference sheets in the back (which were intended to be in an accordion fold reference thing, but that's a whole other story) and instead I added whole appendix on creating cultist characters and running cultist games. I've written advice on playing cult characters, added the Congregation Medium Asset and the Empty Drawback, as well as four new profession templates which include Congregation Medium, Cult Provocateur, Cult Svengali, and Cult Witch. I've also added a Storyguide section with themes to keep in mind and three hooks for cultist characters.

In my opinion, it's this appendix that makes the book finally complete. Plus, it added four new pieces of really cool art to the book.

The New Version

matthewgrau@cthulhutech.com — 2008-09-22T20:42:04-07:00

So I am working on a new version of Dark Passions that supposed to be out in January. Good news. I love this book and don't feel that the black and white edition entirely did it justice. It's still the book that people have both advised against reading before you go to bed and that early readers called me to tell me they were queasy. Perfect.

The new edition is going to be full color. We're colorizing most of the art and re-contracting a few pieces. I've gotten rid of the reference pages in the back of the book. Story behind those: originally we were supposed to be binding in an accordion fold reference screen, but Mongoose wanted us to just bundle something into a print book. They're gone, because they really weren't all that useful (apologies to those of you who've purchased the B&W edition. If you buy the PDF, it will be updated for free). I've instead added new pages for playing cultists and running cultist games, including new character templates. It's pretty cool and what I think needed to be added to round out the book.

Overall, even though it's a small book, I think it's not one to be missed. Adding the minor cults to a game adds that paranoid and sinister feel that just screams Lovecraft. Frankly, I use several of the minor cults all the time in our Eldritch Society games. I have a soft spot for the Congregation of the Earth Mother, but that's a story for another time.

Romanticized Deep One City

matthewgrau@cthulhutech.com — 2008-07-31T19:38:17-07:00

The Empty

matthewgrau@cthulhutech.com — 2008-01-22T12:55:57-08:00

Of those who've seen Dark Passions, the response to the Empty has been pretty much the same. Cool. Sick.

What are they? In a nutshell, take a person who has fallen into utter despair and hopelessness (not necessarily a hard thing in the Strange Aeon), someone who has become hollow on the inside. Then have some thing ever so gently reach inside of them and destroy whatever humanity is left inside them and set up shop in its place. Now you have a person who has succumbed to the darkness.

The Empty are the people who molest every child in their family, the parents who abuse their children to death without blinking, serial killers, serial rapists, and all the other kinds of people that we can't believe exist when we read about them in the papers. All without a conscience, so they talk about the horrors they visit upon the world as simply and calmly as one would recount going to the grocery store.

Like so many things in CthulhuTech, the real horror comes from the evil that men do, not from the evil of gods or monsters. The Empty came to be after I went back to Minnesota/Wisconsin for Christmas a few years ago. My Mom told me a story from the newspaper about a little girl whose life had been great up until she was like 10. Then her mom died and she went to live with her dad and step-mom. Her life went downhill quick. First, she was sexually abused. Then, she was physically abused, regularly. One night, her step-mom got really pissed at her and put her under the shower on super-hot and basically boiled her (the police would later measure the water, which was somewhere around 140 degrees). Oh, and she left her in the tub. The police later found tracks of this girl's skin, which was sloughing off of her and sticking to the floor and walls, as she crawled into bed. Her dad finally came home and in a drugged haze decided the best thing to do was give her aloe and tell her to sleep it off. The girl was dead a few hours later, suffering the whole while. The dad and step-mom had nothing useful to offer in way of explanation for their actions and in a win for the justice system were both sentenced to hard time. (It's just my opinion, but I hope something bad happens to them.)

Well, I've seen some messed up things, heard some messed up things, and personally experienced some messed up things, and after hearing this stomach-churning story I got to wondering what it was that allowed people to perpetrate inhuman acts so casually on the people they love. I had this blank in the Dark Passions outline entitled "some kind of cult that has something to do with Gurathnaka." I just started writing and the Empty came to be. They are an explanation in the Strange Aeon of how some people can do the horrible things they do, without remorse, without conscience. They are a disorganized group of amoral freaks that can add an element of unease and outright unexpected terror to any game. Of course, the kind of terror they bring is the kind that comes at you from a very personal place, the kind that may catch you in such a way that you'd much rather be facing creatures from beyond. At least that way, there's an explanation.

Of course, in the real world there is no such convenient explanation or supernatural force. It's just horrifying.

Purpose

matthewgrau@cthulhutech.com — 2008-01-18T15:29:08-08:00

Moving to B & W

matthewgrau@cthulhutech.com — 2008-01-10T12:22:06-08:00

So Dark Passions is at the printer for real. It's been there for a while, but we've had to figure out whether the whole thing was going to be in color or not. We've opted for black & white after looking at the profit numbers, because we are a start-up that needs capital to keep all of our lovely artists happy.

This book in terms of manufacturing has had its own challenges. Originally, the vision I had for Dark Passions (which was originally named and advertised as the Cult Companion) was a small book with an accordion-fold reference booklet that was supposed to be like a game screen. I personally am not a fan of game screens, so I wanted to have something that was like a folding pocket reference. The reason for the small book was that the Core Book was such a mammoth undertaking that we wanted a supplement that we could complete easily before moving on to the chunky Vade Mecum (which was originally named and advertised as the Companion).

After completing the Core Book and going back to see what I could put in a reference, I realized that there really wasn't all that much in Framewerk that I could put into a reference without basically reprinting the conflict chapter of the book. The basic rules of Framewerk are simple and there's very little else you're going to have to reference all that much and anything you will have to reference is all in once place. The accordion-fold looked less and less likely. So the idea was to shrink-wrap in a booklet that was all the necessary sheets (character, mecha, supporting cast) and some other handy reference so that you'd have something to easily copy. Then that idea got shot down because Mongoose's printing facility isn't really ready to do that yet. So then the booklet was going to be bound into the book. That made the book half black & white and half color.

Which brings us here. It just makes sense to have the whole thing black and white and it doesn't make the reference any less useful. Plus, we're going to give the reference sheets as a free .pdf to anyone who buys Dark Passions, both in color and black & white.