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.
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" 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.
Professional tomecrafter MilleCuirs returns to our pages with their latest, "The Oracle". Featuring a custom-tooled leather cover with an inset glass eye.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
This idol of Camazotz, the Mayan bat god, comes to us from ToT ArtStudio. The weathering is just perfect.
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.
The talented Karen Main returns to our pages with another of her distinctively fleshy creations. This time it's a Crown of Eyes.
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.
