From the Mountains of Madness: Part Two

The first part of the "From the Mountains of Madness" log dealt with choosing a case to hold all the items that will be part of the project. Now we'll start filling it up, beginning with the physical samples collected by the Miskatonic expedition during the course of "At the Mountains of Madness".

Lovecraft's story provides us with a pretty broad list of items to choose from. The first type of specimens mentioned in the story are rock samples brought up by Pabodie's drilling rig and the subsequent blasting efforts. The second group consists of fossils recovered in the same way, both incidental finds from the initial borings and the treasure trove discovered when the Elder Thing cavern was exposed. After that come the star stones and, possibly, biological samples from the Elder Things themselves. The text implies that they were destroyed during the Elder Thing attack, but I don't think it's too much of a stretch to assume that some of them survived.

Now that I have a list of what kind of samples the case would contain I can start gathering them together and getting them ready for presentation. I'll focus on the individual specimens later, but for now I'm going to concentrate on producing the containers that will be holding them. I'll start with a simple sample bag, the kind of thing you would use in the field to hold a small specimen.

The base for the sample bag is a muslin sack like the ones you find in health food stores and craft shops. I've used them in the past for everything from evidence bags to ju ju pouches, but in this case I'll be customizing them with a Miskatonic University seal applied using a rubber stamp. If you don't happen to have a stamp you can still add the seal to your own bags. Just download the seal over here, mirror the image, print it out on a laser printer or copier that uses toner, and then transfer the image from the paper to the bag using a hot iron.

Here's what you'll end up with:



Age with a little tea stain, add a grease-pencilled ID number, and you're good to go.