Ancient Ritual Mask

This Lovecraft-inspired ancient ritual mask comes to us from artist Aleksandr Sivkov.  I really like how he's taken the basic form of tribal ancestor and spirit masks and given it a Giger-ish spin.

 

 

The Face of the King

Jason Soles of "Gods Below" has been producing Mythos artwork for years.  That includes the awesome cover for the D20 version of "Call of Cthulhu".  His latest is "The Face of the King" mask in cast bronze. 

 

 

Pulp Cthulhu Props

Sweet fancy Moses, these are gorgeous.  Over on Reddit, Djonas3 has posted a gallery of the paper props he created for a Pulp Cthulhu campaign based on the Arkham Horror "Scarlet Keys" expansion.  Click through to check out the full collection.  

In the comments they mention something that genuinely blew my mind- manila folders aren't available in Europe.   The covers for his suspect reports had to be created from cardstock. 

 

Throw the Runes

Tyler McCormick returns to our pages with these nifty hand-forged runes.  There's something to be said for a divinatory tool that has enough heft to serve as a weapon. 

 

Heads Up

Tom Kuebler returns to our pages with this collection of traditional gaff-style shrunken heads.  The woven headbands are a nice touch.

 

 

Hail to the King

Artist James Gardner brings us this wonderful theatrical poster for a production of "The King in Yellow".  Sadly, he doesn't appear to have it available for sale.

 

 

Not of This Earth

It's been a while since we've featured a full-blown prop set like this one from Creafae.  It not only features a nicely done Grey alien-style fetal specimen, but a slew of supporting documents and props. 

 That includes photographs, slides, and supplementary references for the included scientific report. 

The report itself is a wonderful piece of work describing the recovery of the specimen(s) and the resulting autopsy.  Some wonderful worldbuilding is on display here.  Click through on the link above to see the complete gallery.

 

House Telvanni Amulet

"The wizard-lords of House Telvanni have traditionally isolated themselves, pursuing wisdom and mastery in solitude. But certain ambitious wizard-lords, their retainers, and clients have entered wholeheartedly into the competition to control and exploit Vvardenfell's land and resources, building towers and bases all along the eastern coast. According to Telvanni principles, the powerful define the standards of virtue..."

— Great Houses of Morrowind

This amulet of House Telvanni from the Elder Scrolls videogame series comes to us from Silverrend Props.

 

 

Worn and Weathered Tome

This massive beast of a tome comes to use from the talented Sladjana Vukelic.  She has a very unique style of construction and weathering that I absolutely adore. 

 

Idol of an Ancient God

Morok Art Studio returns to our pages with this intriguing idol.  It depicts Hassara, a primal steppe god created by author E. Lear. 

 

Eye of the Faun

Inspired by "Pan's Labyrinth", Mats Labyrinth brings us this faun pendant inset with a domed smoky quartz. 

 

 

Shoggoth Plaque

Landron Artifacts has been making amazing Mythos props for years, and I'm proud to have multiple examples in my personal collection.  Their latest is this very nice Shoggoth wall plaque.  It's available in multiple finishes, but the green stone pictured below is my favorite.

 

Kron'thul Font

Artist Umut Comak has posted a brand new font that's ideal for prop documents.  Best of all, it's absolutely free.

Hey folks,

I’ve been experimenting with alien scripts and visual languages lately and ended up creating this brutalist-style font called Kron’thul. Think forgotten monoliths, ancient AI cults, or strange glyphs etched into derelict starships.

It’s completely free to use for personal or commercial projects. All I ask is that you credit me and shoot me a quick email if you use it anywhere. Would love to see what you do with it!

 You can download the Kron'thul alien language font at his site.

 

"Escape From Innsmouth" Prop Set

"Escape From Innsmouth" was originally released back in 1992 as one of Chaosium's first batch of "Lovecraft Country" supplements.  It builds on the details revealed in Lovecraft's "The Shadow Over Innsmouth".  The supplement includes a complete guide to the Deep One-dominated town and a series of adventures, including a recreation of the infamous raid on Innsmouth at the climax of the original story.

Gallery of Cthulhu brings us this impressive set of physical props he created for a friend running the adventure.  It includes the Book of Dagon, "Innsmouth gold", an idol of Dagon, and a variety of Deep One jewelry.  Click through and scroll down to see some of the details of their creation.

 

The Oracle

Professional tomecrafter MilleCuirs returns to our pages with their latest, "The Oracle".  Featuring a custom-tooled leather cover with an inset glass eye.

 

 

Cthulhu Fhtagn! Maelstrom Edition.

This traditional-style Cthulhu idol comes to us from Maelstrom Makers.  It's available as a downloadable 3D print file.  Below you can see the digital model and a copy printed out in resin. 

 

Middle East Mythos

Andrea Bonazzi has been one of the most active Mythos artists for decades.  In addition to his impressive sculptures and bas reliefs he's also crafted some great photomontages using those same artworks.  His latest is this look at one of the disturbing artifacts unearthed by the Miskatonic University Middle East expedition of 1920.

 

Hail to the Emperor

I love stumbling across an incredibly niche prop, and this one certainly qualifies.

Noah Bunyan directed the 2023 fan-film "The King in Yellow".  As part of the process he created this conjectural pamphlet for Hildred Castaign, the rightful Emperor of the Imperial Dynasty of America.  As someone who seems to trigger every handout-bearing cultist I pass, this is exactly the kind of stuff I would expect the Emperor to be passing out.

LARP Dagger

You kids today and your realistic LARP weapons.  Back in the day, we fought with swords made from pipe insulation wrapped in silver duct tape.  And we were happy!

Geezer flashback aside, it really is amazing how LARP weapons have evolved.  As artisans like Sander Propworx demonstrate with this dagger, things have gone far beyond being "Hollywood quality".  Stunt weapons on both the big and small screen just have to look good to a camera.  LARP blades are now so good they can survive up close scrutiny.

What a time to be alive.

 

Fungal Fae

This wonderfully gruesome fungally infected fae specimen comes to us from Umbratheca.  

 

Cthulhu Idol, Lurci Edition

Turkish artist Ebrahel Lurci returns to our pages with this wonderfully stylized Cthulhu idol.

 

 

Up From the Depths

Valraven brings us this interesting blend of cutting edge technology and old school gaff-making.  Their mounted mermaid skeleton was 3D printed in high resolution, assembled, and aged.  The results speak for themselves, with the bones devoid of the striations that are the mark of poor print head calibration.

 

 

There Was A Crooked Wand...

I'm not sure why, but I've never connected with the Harry Potter franchise.  In my circle of friends and family there are no shortage of fans.  That includes my son, who has an impressive collection of both licensed and unlicensed props from the wizarding world.  

Ultimately, his fandom transferred over to me in one small way- wands.  I started browsing the work of wandmakers to find suitably magical holiday gifts for him.  In the process, I began picking up a few for myself.  The attraction is similar to the one I have for collecting Cthulhu idols.  It's just cool to see all the wild variations on a basic theme.

 Which brings me to this wonderfully gnarled antique maple wand from McCormick Wands.  I'm not sure if the spalted effect is natural or part of the finish, but it's visually impressive either way. 

 

Custom Tome

Alex Libris returns to our pages with another masterful example of tomecraft.  This time it's a journal bearing a cast ouroboros embossment, custom hardware, and hand-tooled leather cover.

 

 

Idol of the Bat God

This idol of Camazotz, the Mayan bat god, comes to us from ToT ArtStudio.  The weathering is just perfect.

 

 

The Gates of Oblivion

Silverrend Props brings us this tableaux of props from the newly remastered The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.  That includes a wanted poster for the infamous Gray Fox, advertisement for the Imperial City's arena, Septim coin, and some very cool reproductions of the Varla and Welkynd stones.

 

 

Crown of Eyes

The talented Karen Main returns to our pages with another of her distinctively fleshy creations.  This time it's a Crown of Eyes.

 

 

Carved Cthulhu

This primitive-style wooden Cthulhu idol comes to us from Italian artist Fabio Stazi.

 

The One True Way of Aging Paper

Don't let their name fool you.  Magnoli Clothiers is one of the premier producers of movie prop reproductions in the world.  Yes, they specialize in bespoke clothing, in particular meticulously researched shirts, ties, and jackets from famous film franchises, but they do so much more than that.   The One Eyed Willy's treasure map from "The Goonies" featured in this video is a good example.  More importantly, at least for our purposes, it provides a master class in aging paper in less than three minutes.

1.  The paper is stained brown with a light spray of tea solution and immediately dried with a heat gun.   The entire process takes place on a flat working surface.

2.  This is one of the very, very few cases where burning the edges of a paper prop makes sense.  It's how the original screen-used prop duplicated the look of edge-browning caused by oxidation.  Importantly, note how controlled the process is.

 3.  General dirt and grime is recreated using pastel chalks, with particular attention to the extra material caught by creases in the paper.

4.  Finally, just for you closet pyromaniacs, some actual paper burning!  Again, it's a very fleeting, controlled exposure to recreate the scorch marks on the original prop.

This is the way.

Against the Dark

 Spooky Jack returns to our pages with this nicely done momento mori skull serving as a candelabra.

 

 

Stop, A Head

This wonderfully gruesome mummified head prop comes to use from the appropriately named Blind Dead Relics.

 

Mummified Vampire Heart

I love seeing alternate takes on subjects I've done myself.  In this case, Levi Combs of Planet X Games shares his version of a mummified vampire heart.  That includes a look at how he actually made it:

"I found the box at a yard sale. Got the heart from a Halloween Express and then coated it with multiple layers of adhesive and ash from my fireplace to give it a withered color/texture/look. The pages were taken from a small book inside the Hellboy Special Edition DVD."

Reproducing the texture of very old mummified body parts using layers of ash is a brilliant idea.  

 

 

Berserker's Thorns

These are most definitely not LARP safe.

 Blacksmith Tyler McCormick brings us his Berserker's Thorns, a matched pair of hand forged axes.

 

 

Big in Japan

For once the YouTube algorithm kicked out a banger.

If you're a Call of Cthulhu tabletop player you're probably aware the game has a huge following in Japan.  What I never actually grasped is that Chaosium's creation effectively is tabletop roleplaying there.  The Weird Place channel has a great look at some of the cultural quirks that made that happen.  

There's a lot to digest here.  I was vaguely aware of how important "Record of the Lodoss War" was to popularizing pen and paper RPGs, but never realized CoC campaign recaps were so insanely popular with the Japanese fanbase.  More importantly, now I know why a Japanese schoolgirl and her friends pop up whenever I Google "Nyarlathotep".

 

Giant Cthulhu Animatronic

Thanks to Alibaba, you can purchase a massive animatronic Cthulhu from the Gengu Dinosaurs Technology Company in China.  Just $6,380, not including shipping.  It's a goofy sculpt, but the fact it exists at all is absolutely mind-boggling.  Click through on the link to see a video of this beast in action.

What a time to be alive. 

 

Wilbur Whately

 

It was partly human, beyond a doubt, with very man-like hands and head, and the goatish, chinless face had the stamp of the Whateleys upon it. But the torso and lower parts of the body were teratologically fabulous, so that only generous clothing could ever have enabled it to walk on earth unchallenged or uneradicated.

- H.P. Lovecraft, The Dunwich Horror 

This incredible sculpt of Wilbur Whately from Lovecraft's "The Dunwich Horror" comes to us from professional motion picture makeup artist and designer Joel Harlow.  I'd love to see this maquette translated into a CGI creature.