For the last six years Chaosium’s fearless players on the Stream of Chaos have faced the horrors of the Cthulhu mythos, the mysteries of the Rivers of London, the rebel kings of Arthurian Britain, the feuds of the Age of Vikings and much more as they streamed actual plays on Twitch, each and every week.
With this week’s concluding episode of The Sword Tournament from the Pendragon Starter Set, regular cast members Alex Caton, Art Hunter, David Naylor, Jackson Heenan and James Coquillat have taken a bow (for now) as they reach the end of their regular weekly sessions.
What an epic undertaking! There are few crews in the new form of actual play that can boast an unbroken run of six years. So many adventures, so many sanity rolls, so much dice-driven drama and face-melting laughter!
The Stream of Chaos started playing around a table in 2018 with Berlin the Wicked City for Call of Cthulhu, and later moved to purely online play. Early cast members included Rachael and Daniel before the lineup was finalised with Alex, Art and Jackson as the regular players, and David and James alternating in the GM chair. As well as showing up on Twitch week in and week out, they have also played live on stage at PAX AUS and Chaosium Con Australia.
All of their actual plays are on the Chaosium YouTube channel. They’re great entertainment and also handy inspiration for gamemasters who are about to run a published scenario but would like to see it played before diving in.
Here’s just a small selection of their past games:
- Gateways of Terror, three short Call of Cthulhu scenarios for one session play
- A Time to Harvest, a Call of Cthulhu campaign set in the 1930s
- The Two Headed Serpent, a Pulp Cthulhu campaign
- Shadows over Stillwater, a Down Darker Trails Call of Cthulhu campaign
- Regency Cthulhu, Call of Cthulhu in Jane Austen’s England
- Reign of Terror, a Call of Cthulhu scenario set during the French Revolution
- The AlÞing, Age of Vikings actual play
- RuneQuest Starter Stream, playing through all the scenarios in the RuneQuest Starter Set
- Rivers of London, creating player characters and playing the scenarios in the Rivers of London RPG core rulebook
- Pendragon Starter Campaign, creating player knights and playing through all the scenarios in the Pendragon Starter Set
-- Stream of Chaos character art by Adam Duncan --
The rapport and love that the Stream of Chaos cast have for each other shines through in each episode, even when David is trying to kill them all off. Their talent was recognised when they won an Australian ARPIA award for “Best TTRPG Stream” in 2021 for their actual play of The Necropolis from the Call of Cthulhu book Gateways to Terror, and an honourable mention in the 2023 ARPIAs for their actual play of The Two-Headed Serpent.
-- Jackson, James and David on the podium at the ARPIA Awards at Fortress Melbourne, April 2021 --
And just last week they were nominated once again for a “Best Stream” ARPIA for Call of Cthulhu Live! PAX AUS 2024, where they played through “Bits and Pieces” from the book No Time to Scream, with special guest Mark Meer.
This is not the last you’ll see of this talented crew! They may be hanging up their Roll20 dice as far as weekly games go, but they’ll be back for future one-offs and specials, including more Call of Cthulhu live games. They’ll be on stage at PAX AUS in October 2025 with Mike Mason in the Keeper’s chair. We’re sure he’ll be nice to them.
-- Stream of Chaos character art by Ruth Bosch --
