"He is called the creeping chaos, the dark pharaoh, the one who walks among us. Nyarlatotep is always changing - choosing the face that needs right now, from human to monster. He doesn't destroy with force - he destroys the mind, confuses the thoughts, tears the curtain between reality and the nightmare."
Morok Art Studio brings us this icon of Nyarlathotep in his aspect as Nephren-Ka, the Black Pharaoh.
Victor Marin of Invictus Designs is no stranger to these pages. His latest is this pre-Columbian sacrificial dagger, featuring a faux jade handle and obsidian blade.
Another outstanding LARP costume from Ordacraft. This time it's a wolf shaman featuring a cave wolf helmet. One of the things I love about their work is the textural contrast between the hard goods, like the skull and the horns and teeth of the necklace, with the fiber elements. It adds so much detail to every piece.
"Our goddess is the change under the earth. She is older than the dreams of men. Her's are the secrets of death and the mysteries of life."
‐Saying of the Physarum
Mor Design returns to our pages with the symbol of the Physarum, intelligent fungal beings.
It's been a long, long time, but the Hatswell Cthulhu idol is once again available. Julien Hatswell first produced this piece way back in 1997. Since then it's become an iconic interpretation, similar in stature to the 1999 Steven Hickman sculpt from Bowen Designs. This morning it popped up in my Instagram feed, one of the rare examples of the algorithm actually working. I was overjoyed to discover he's producing it in limited quantities and immediately placed an order. You can do the same over at his Etsy page.
Normally, when Valara Atran makes an appearance here it's for her mythos or Elder Scrolls props. This time it's for her awesome recreation of the experimental Duraframe Eyebot ED-E from my favorite video game, Fallout: New Vegas. She brought her little friend along to Goodsprings, Nevada this past weekend for the annual Fallout fan weekend. Along with the thousands of other attendees she bumped into Craig Boone, late of the New California Republic's First Recon division. Click through to see her extensive gallery.
I've been doing this for close to twenty years now. In that time I've posted about hundreds of Cthulhu idols, featuring everything from viking themed statuettes to primitive idols carved from wood. Today I'm immensely pleased to bring you something I've never seen before.
This Cthulhu idol from Kissoon is not only a wonderfully stylized sculpt, but the first bifacial statuette I've seen. The rear of the statue is a mirror image of the front. It looks hella cool in rotation, which you can see by clicking through on the link.
If you've ever wondered what kind of gear a classic era expedition or campsite would have, this video is for you. Mr. Dyer of Honorable Outfitters brings us this look at a recreation of a 1920s hunting camp. It features multiple re-enactors using everything from very basic backpacking kits to full blown tent setups with all the bells and whistles. I'm always surprised at just how sophisticated some vintage equipment was.
Maarten Verhoeven has been producing some incredibly Mythos pieces over the last few years. What makes his work unusual is that all of his work is digitally sculpted and then 3D printed. His latest physical offering is this excellent Cthulhu idol in faux gold. As much as I like the sculpt I'd love to see it with inset gems for eyes.
It's been interesting to watch the "Curse of Strahd" campaign for Dungeons and Dragons become the equivalent of Chaosium's "Masks of Nyarlathotep". Both are lengthy, multi-part adventures driven in large part by a plethora of documents and handouts, and gamemasters have embraced expanding the sheer number of props for players to interact with.
This recreation of the "Tome of Strahd" from AdSuccessful1184 is a good example. They used an off-the-shelf leather journal from Amazon as the base, then customized it with both printed and pasted in pages. The results are pretty impressive. Click through on the link above to see an entire gallery of the tome with a lot more of the interior pages.
The latest pagan idol from Slagovir is this carved wooden depiction of Ra, the ancient Egyptian god of the sun. I really like how he incorporates the traditional ship of the sun into the design.
Pomchop returns to our pages with another collection of excellent handouts. This time it's for "Great Old Ones on the Great White Way" from Chaosium:
I’ve just run ‘Great Old Ones on the Great White Way’ as a one-shot for some theatrical/roleplaying friends. Here are the handouts I made for the game. Unfortunately the investigators didn’t find them all, but they go to the bottom of the mystery with one indefinite insanity and no deaths.
For those of you who don’t know the scenario, it was originally printed in the Chaosium halloween monograph ‘Dead Leaves Fall’ and features a missing actress and a fishy broadway show. I feel to get the most out of the scenario the players should have a knowledge of musical theatre which, thankfully, my group did. It went down well and took 4 1/2 hours to run (with breaks).
He's very kindly made all of them available for free. You'll find a PDF with most of them over here, while the playbill for the show is over here.
I'm shocked, simply shocked, to discover bootleggers are active in the beautiful city of Arkham, Massachusetts. Abraham Marsh of El Primo de Innsmouth reveals the awful truth with these pictures of his ne'er-do-well cousin smuggling illegal liquor disguised as bottles of maple syrup.
"Brave-as-a-noun" went completely old school to produce props for a new Call of Cthulhu campaign. He used an actual vintage typewriter to produce teaser messages that he then mailed to his players. That's insanely cool.
Avason created these clay tablet props for a Dungeons and Dragons adventure. The process was pretty straight forward. They rolled out a sheet of polymer clay, sculpted the raised figures, then used a toothpick to engrave the writing. The results demonstrate a pretty high effort/reward ratio.
There are few things more evocative in a tabletop RPG session than a hand-written letter with an impressed wax seal. The only problem is that traditional melted wax can be tricky, not to mention messy, to work with.* As an alternative, artist Katrina Crouch has an incredibly detailed tutorial on how to create them with a glue gun. It's aimed at brides doing their own wedding invitations, but the techniques are equally applicable to prop use.
*Personally, I also have some concerns about the safety of sealing wax. Most of the commercially available products are manufactured in China and carry a non-zero risk of being contaminated with lead and other heavy metals. I religiously use a respirator, but that just adds to the hassle factor of prepping a prop document.
Ebrahel Lurci brings us Lucifer, the Bound Prince. Another wonderfully creepy piece combining a wildly imaginative sculpt with with a worn and weathered patina.
This cool little Cthuhu idol comes to us from Nigeqb. Sculpted in epoxy resin with a very cool opalescent finish.
Another glorious example of tomecraft from MilleCuirs. His latest grimoire features a hand-tooled leather cover and custom skull hardware.
The talented Jason Soles of God's Below returns to our pages with his latest jewelry piece, Seraph's Needle. Made from cast bronze and inset with a hessonite garnet cabochon.
Manas SUM brings us this massive, 14" tall Cthulhu idol sculpted by Yoneyama Keisuke. It's a beautiful design made even more impressive by the incredible paint job. The only negative are those long, delicate tentacles. They make me extremely nervous about how it will survive shipping.
Artedarme Workshop brings us this Mythos-themed LARP axe, complete with swirling tentacles on the shaft, strange runic inscriptions, the sigil of the Necronomicon on the blade, and an embossed Elder Sign on the pommel.
Jake Hellbach has posted a detailed look at how he created Egyptian hieroglyphic tablets for an upcoming video project. The end results are impressive.
Camilla: You, sir, should unmask.
Stranger: Indeed?
Cassilda: Indeed, it's time. We all have laid aside disguise but you.
Stranger: I wear no mask.
Camilla: (Terrified, aside to Cassilda) No mask? No mask!
- Robert W. Chambers, The King in Yellow
I have a deep and abiding fondness for those that dare to clothe themselves as the King in Yellow. This take from KMK Designs is an absolute banger of a costume. There's so much to like here. The frayed and tattered robe, the embroidered glyphs, and that mask. When you look at the closeup shot you realize the empty hood is actually a maw lined with dozens of human teeth.
In many ways, "Day of the Beast" from Chaosium is the little brother of "Masks of Nyarlathotep". Both were originally published back in 1984 ("Day of the Beast" as "The Fungi from Yuggoth") and involved a globe spanning fight against creatures of the Mythos. In the case of "Beast" that was the Mi-Go, as the original title gave away.
Over on Reddit, Pomchop put together a plethora of handouts for their running of the adventure. Even better, they've made all of that impressive prep work available for free. Yet another example of the awesomeness of the "Call of Cthulhu" community.
"The Knocker, Knacker, or Tommyknocker (US) is a mythical, subterranean, gnome-like creature in Cornish and Devon folklore. The Welsh counterpart is the coblyn. It is closely related to the Irish leprechaun, Kentish kloker and the English and Scottish brownie."
Despite their propaganda, there are vanishingly few beneficial fae. One of the few helpful types are the Knockers that dwell in mines. This example of the North American Tommyknocker comes to us from Caleb Volek of Wendigo Oddities.
What better accessory for your gaming room than a massive, mounted dragon head? This monstrous 46 inch long beast comes to us from Lozthegreat over on Reddit. Click through on the link for a full description of the build process and over a dozen additional pictures of the final product.
James Ewing just started experimenting with metal casting, and was kind enough to share his very first piece- this nicely done Cthulhu design in pewter.
Brutal Workshop returns to our pages with this fantastic shaman's mask. I love the contrast of the brown organic elements and the squamous texture of the mask itself. It's rare indeed that I get to use that wonderfully Lovecraftian word in the proper context.
