Ancient Nord Helm

Deadbeard Props brings us this outstanding recreation of the Ancient Nord Helm from "Skyrim".  It's a great sculpt made even better by the paint job.

I really like the design work in Skyrim, but for some reason I just can't get into it.  There was a free trial weekend a few months ago on Steam and I just gave up and uninstalled after about four hours of play.  That's in contrast to the earlier Elder Scrolls game "Oblivion".  I picked it up during the Steam Summer Sale last week and absolutely love it.  I've only been able to work about half way through the Fighter's Guild quests because of time constraints, but the writing seems to be much better than in "Skyrim".

You know what's really weird?  I get interested in games based on the props produced by fans.  I was posting some of the cool weapons and accessories from "Fallout: New Vegas" long before I actually played it, and the same thing holds for "Oblivion". 

The Wild, Wild West

The town of Blackrock is typical of the old wild west.  There are feuding families, lawmen trying to keep a lid on crime, and an influx of ne'er do wells and blackhearts drawn by the promise of gold.  What makes it unusual is that it's located in France.

Christian Lehmann was one of the inhabitants of the town and was kind enough to send over a link to the website (in the original French and translated to English).  The gallery for the Deadwood-inspired LARP features some great photographs from Sandrine Schwoerer of the complete town (!) that served as a set.

Cthulhu Fhtagn! Soles Edition.

Jason Soles has been working in the Mythos for a very long time.  His latest is this freshly cast bronze Cthulhu idol, one of a series being offered as premiums for his art book kickstarter.

Not Dead. Not Yet.

My apologies for the lack of updates.  This was graduation weekend and things have been hectic beyond belief since Friday.  On the bright side, I won't have another one like this until my grandkids graduate.  Heh.

Vintage Arkham Shotgun Shells

This nicely done box of shells from the Arkham Powder Works comes to us from d1960.  I was surprised to learn it was relatively common for shooters to manually reload their own shells well into the 1930s.

The Nameless Tome

MilleCuirs once again knocks it out of the park with this beautiful tome.  It features a hand-tooled leather cover with inset glass eyes.

Miskatonic Alumni Package, International Edition

I'm waiting for some bubble mailers to arrive, so I won't be able to take international orders for the Miskatonic Alumni Package until Thursday.  If you've already emailed me, don't worry, I haven't forgotten about you.  I'm trying to package things so the shipping charges aren't astronomical.

Just as a heads up, I have a feeling shipping is going to be pretty hefty for the Eurozone and Australia.  It looks like the package will have to be treated as an oversized envelope because of the weight.  That means a minimum of $12.60 for postage. 

The Innsmouth Look

RBFX brings us this Deep One hybrid makeup.  The appliances were sculpted by artist John Wrightson.

Update:  Someone left a comment that seems to have vanished into the ether after I approved it.  The gist of it was the suspicion the eyes had been Photoshopped.  I believe the bright circle with the dot above it is a reflection of the ring light being used by the photographer.  I've seen the same thing show up in the bizarre ASMR videos I'm inordinately fond of.

The Thadreian Frog

Jamie D. Macfarlane brings us his sculpt of the Thadreian Frog from the licensed "Hellboy" prop collection. 

The Crimson Blades

Acrotomic Studios brings use these nicely done prop swords cast in foam. 

Mask of the Dragon Priests

Corroder666 brings us this recreation of Skyrim's wooden dragon priest mask.  The piece is a resin casting molded off the original wax master.

Modern Vampire Killing Stake

Hacksaw007 of the Lumberjocks forum brings us this modern vampire killing stake made from laminated wood.  The traditional stake is a classic, but this one has the benefit of being able to tackle multiple hemophagic species.  Some are vulnerable to oak, some to ash...with a laminate you can cover all the bases. 

The Light of R'Lyeh

Cthulhu Project has a new Kickstarter that I think is pretty neat.  The "Light of R'Lyeh" is a Cthulhu candle featuring a great sculpt.  To be honest, I'm not crazy about the wax candle.  The design is too nice to actually burn and the wick just detracts from the presentation. What I am excited about is the "Eternal Cthulhu" version featuring a translucent or glow in the dark resin casting with internal LED illumination.  Now that's awesome.

One reason I'm supporting this effort is that Cthulhu Project has a strong record of performance.  Their previous Kickstarters have delivered what they promised, something all too rare in Mythos-related ventures.

Call of Cthulhu Game Room

EarinShaad has posted a gallery of their very cool "Call of Cthulhu" game room.  It's outfitted with a variety of props and period antiques, including a telephone.  Sadly, there aren't many details about what went in to putting it together. 

For the Emperor!

Zach Pickard brings us this intimidating Imperial Bolt Pistol from "Warhammer 40k". His build log shows every stage of construction, including a close look at how he was able to make the prop field strippable.

Miskatonic University Alumni Package Update

It looks like all but one Alumni package arrived safe and sound at it's destination.  The USPS says the one that went missing is in Milwaukee, despite being addressed for San Francisco.  Clearly, some postal routes travel between the dimensions of conventional reality.

Later this week I'll have about two dozen more packages available.  They'll be lacking the field journal, but I'll be throwing in some other goodies to partially compensate for that.  They'll be $33 instead of the original $35 via PayPal for domestic US customers.

Next week I'll have a small number of packages for international customers.  I'm going to be handling those through email so I can calculate shipping on an individual basis.  As I've written, I've been really torn about international orders.  It's a huge hassle having to deal with customs declarations.  At the same time, one of the glorious features of Lovecraft fandom is that it is an international community.  Some of the best art and literature within the genre is coming from far afield of the Old Gent's New England stomping grounds, something he'd no doubt be amazed by.

Herbert West- Revitalizer

The Innsmouth Trading Company was lucky enough to purchase a variety of items from the estate of Herbert West.  Amongst them was the formula for his revolutionary "Health and Youth Reagent".  I couldn't find any information about potential side effects.

The Long Legacy of Auguste Delagrange

The vampire Auguste Delagrange came into being back in 2010.  Since then he's taken on a life of his own.  Google his name and you'll find over 42,000 web pages where he's mentioned.  His latest appearance is in this surprisingly entertaining video from Night Terrors on YouTube.  They significantly embellish the basic story, assigning names and personalities to the originally unnamed priest and voodoo man, but it's a great take on the "legend".

My thanks to Shockspur_1976 for bringing the video to my attention.

Fallout Water Chip Prop

Chunk-a-Nuke Props brings us the Ur-Prop of the "Fallout" series- the water chip.  One of the many disappointments of "Fallout 4" is that it didn't continue the underlying theme of the importance of water. 

Arcadian Firebear

Artist Emily Holland brings us an in-world model of the venomous Arcadian Firebear from the planet Ilion.

This is just the latest specimen from her long-running project describing the exobiology of an alien planet.  It's a fascinating world building exercise and the kind of thing I absolutely adore.   It's very reminiscent, and I mean that in the best way, of Wayne Barlowe's "Expedition" (which would become the Discovery Channel's "Alien Planet") and Dougal Dixon's speculative evolution books like "After Man", "The New Dinosaurs", and "Man After Man". 

Great Cthulhu

Artist Paul Komoda is one of the most talented sculptors working in the Mythos today.  His work was the standout feature of the ill-fated "The Doom That Came to Atlantic City" board game and I think its revival owes a lot to just how great his game pieces were.

His latest effort, a multi-piece resin kit from Gecco Direct, is one of the best takes on Cthulhu anyone has ever done.  Mr. Komoda takes Lovecraft's basic description and enhances it with anatomical details drawn from various species of sea life.  Click through on the link to see a glorious gallery of detail shots.

The Long War With the Deep Ones

One of my more rewarding hobbies is trolling for signs of the Mythos in actual historical events.  We may be comforted by the idea that the world is a rational, logical place, but in reality it's filled with things that defy explanation.  Unless, of course, one accepts that not everything Lovecraft wrote was fiction.

I bring your attention to the Daily East Oregonian of June 21, 1921.  The headline story concerns the disappearance of five ships in a matter of months from the same area off the east coast.  Read on and you'll see that even more ships were actually involved.  In addition to the sulfur carriers Hewitt, Sabine, and Texas the steamer William O'Brien, British cargo ship Albyan, and Russian barque Yuto all vanished into thin air.  A seventh ship, the Carroll A. Deering, was discovered run aground on the shore with no sign of the crew to be found. The only clue to their fate was a note alleging they were taken prisoner by an oil-burning pirate ship. That would later turn out to be a hoax.

What really happened?  Localized, violent storms?  Ships suddenly sinking because of a methane bubble release from the sea floor?  Or a colony of Deep Ones off the coast of Hatteras looking for some new blood?  Who can say.  But if you're playing "Call of Cthulhu" this is a perfect adventure hook for investigators.

Right click on the newspaper and  open the link in a new tab to get the low-resolution image.  You can download the high resolution PDF of the page over here.

Runic Inscription

Runic fonts aren't anything new.  What makes Temphis from Cumberland Fontworks different is that it comes in multiple distressed versions.  Standard rune fonts can be tough to use because the glyphs look too clean.  Temphis is considerably more convincing as something you would actually find in a prop document.

Miskatonic University Alumni Package Update

The final batch of packages is going out tomorrow.  With Priority Mail delivery everyone should have their goodies by Saturday at the latest.

Again, my apologies for the delayed delivery.  What really killed me this time around was collating everything.  In hindsight the easiest way to do it is to lay out all the items on a table, pick one from each pile, and then drop them into a mailer bag.  That's what I finally ended up doing, but I started by doing groups of 20 bags and adding one item at a time.  It was incredibly inefficient and wasted a lot of effort.

If you ordered multiple packages you should be receiving a notification for a partial refund.  More than one set can fit in each Priority Mail box, so I returned the $6.80 in shipping you were charged for each additional set.

Tremors Map

"Tremors" is one of my favorite movies, so I was excited to see that Mike Jenkins is tackling a recreation of the prop map from the film.  That includes some impressive detective work tracking down the original, truly obscure, source material.

I thought this might have been based on a real map, just retouched through some old-school cut & paste. I Google searched a couple of the unusual place names (Zumwalt Meadow) and managed to confirm that this is a real location. The location is the Cedar Grove area of Kings Canyon National Park.

But what was the exact version of the map was used for Perfection Valley?

The Book of the Labyrinth

What secrets lie within the labyrinth?  You'll find out within this Labyrinth Journal, hand bound by regular contributor AlexLibris999.

Miskatonic University Alumni Package Update

I still haven't finished mailing out all of the packages.  For that I apologize, and ask your indulgence.  A week's delay isn't anything unusual, but for every previous project I've been able to post off everything in just a matter of days.  This one turned out to be a bit more involved than I'd planned. 

That said, I should be caught up in the next two days.  If you have the slightest trepidation just drop me an email and I'll be happy to refund your money.

Elder Sign Pendant

Polish artist Vlodar brings us this Elder Sign pendant featuring a fired ceramic sigil. 

Heavy Metal

Once in a while you come across a prop project that's certifiably insane.  Such is the case with Samsun Lobe and his quest to build a life-sized recreation of a "Warhammer 40K" dreadnought.  You have to admire the passion of someone so committed to such a massive effort.  After over five years of work he's getting ready to complete the war machine's body and begin mounting the arms.  

This, my friends, is a fine madness.

Idol of Tsathoggua

Over the last few years Joe Broers has been doing outstanding sculpts based on lesser known Mythos entities.  He knocks it out of the park once again with this idol of Clark Ashton Smith's Tsathoggua. Seeing any depiction of the Sleeper of N'kai is nice, but this looks like something you'd see in a museum collection.

Miskatonic Alumni Package Update

The second batch of Alumni packages will be going out this afternoon and everything will be posted off by Friday.  I've been doing them in blocks of 25 to keep the very nice staff at my small town post office from losing their minds.  My sincere thanks for your patience.

I want to say again that this was a short run project, with an emphasis on the "short".   I've received a goodly number of emails from people irate that they didn't get a chance to buy a set.  For that I'm genuinely sorry.   

In an effort to fix the issues that have upset so many people I'm going in a new direction.  If things pan out future projects will be offered through Amazon.    They'll significantly streamline the sales and shipping process, including free Prime shipping.  That should make it easier to meet demand for both the complete package and individual items. 

The Necromancer

The talented Greg Onychuk brings us this rendering of "The Necromancer".   What's interesting about this is that it's a pre-production rendering of an upcoming resin kit.  That just blows me away.  Once an artist has created a digital 3-D model it's a template for all kinds of artwork, from conventional illustrations to statuary.