Ok, looks I can get this to work in bits... here is a copy of the post from yog-sothoth.com:
So, ho far have you guys gone to make props and such for your CoC game? I know the Cthulhu live guys have everyone beat... but not counting them, how do the table-top players do?
I thought some of you might want to take a look at our current prop box for our first CoC campaign. This is the first time I've run CoC beyond just a couple of one-shots on halloween, so I wanted to do it right
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I’ve combined three different adventures in my campaign (The Haunting, Edge of Darkness, and Tatters of the King), criss-crossing NPCs, plotlines, etc. My intro game was The Haunting (my first DMing experience, you can read a little bit about it here:
http://www.yog-sothoth.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=10546&highlight=), but set in New Orleans instead of Boston. I made the “landlord” character the father of one of the PC’s, an esteemed retired psychologist of failing health named Meriwether McKinney.
Here are the newspaper articles from The Haunting game:
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The Haunting newspaper articles didn’t take too long. I used the text Max_Writer had posted on the forums, and found some additional unrelated 1920’s articles on the web to put around the sides. I used a combination of coca-cola and pomegranate juice to stain the papers. The more pomegranate, the darker it is. Leave them soaking for about 15-30 minutes. I probably spent 10 minutes putting together the page layout in Adobe InDesign, and spent about 30 minutes looking for the surrounding newspapers.
Meriwether’s becomes even sicker, and now we have the Edge of Darkness adventure (also from the main rule book). If you recall, the dying character gives the investigator a box filled with all kinds of juicy clues:
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Finding the box took quite some time, it’s really a matter of luck. The cost was $10 USD.
Here is the famed deed and key…
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I found a mid-1800’s deed scan online, I laid out a design (InDesign again) exactly as per the scan, and wrote the text to suit my needs. I stained the print out as I did the newspaper articles, hand wrote the signatures on there, and used a bit of silver wax to get the effect of an old broken seal. The whole process didn’t take very long, less than an hour as I recall. The key I got from an old antique store for around less than $1 USD.
Here is the journal of the “Dark Brotherhood” the boys made and their pictures. Meriwether is the author and Walter Corbitt’s (the undead caster in The Haunting) grandson is among the members. I wanted to get across the feeling that the boys really had no idea what they were doing. They put every “occult” symbol they could find on the cover, with no regard to what it was. I wanted that high-school goth-club feel
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The pictures took time to find, especially since I wanted to match a particular character. It’s just a matter of going from antique shop to antique shop. Just remember to bargain, especially if you’re several items at once. Most of the pics I bought were priced around $2-5, but I was able to get most around $1-2 each.
Here are a few select journal pages. I did the whole thing in varying inks, using dip pens and other period writing instruments. The journal in my version is much longer than the one presented in the adventure. It includes drawings and goes into a bit of details on the boys lives, their occult experiments, bringing girls over to the clubhouse, etc
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Journal, plus the sarcophagus that once held the amber…
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Made the day after the "incident", this journal page hopefully shows Meriwether's fractured mind in his erratic handwriting. Tear smudges are found in the following pages.
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Another journal sample:
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Earlier in the journal, Meriwether mentions that if he can stand to do so, he’ll draw the horrible creature they summoned on the last page of the journal. Looks like he changed his mind…
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This was probably the most difficult and time consuming of all the projects. The notebook is just a moleskin mini-notebook from a 3-pack Barnes and Nobles sells. Of course, the journal entries from the adventure are nowhere near enough to fill an actual journal, so I had quite a bit of writing ahead of me. I typed up all the journal lines from the adventure and kept them with me as well as two of the moleskin journal in my pockets at all times. As I had ideas I'd write them down, and keeping them with me so much, gave them a nice worn look. Once I finished writing all 48 pages, I spent one very long night doing the final journal. I wrote it with a fountain pen and two different kinds of dip-pens. I did all the graphics, drawings, etc. I used water to simulate tears on some of the pages, and I used food and dirt to stain and wear some of the pages. To give the outside a textured and worn feel, I stuck pieces of packing tape to it, and carefully peeled it back, giving it a nice velvet-ish feel and look. Lastly, for the drawing of the creature in the back I employed another friend of mine, who is also an artist, to help me come up with something truly horrific. Together we did a pencil sketch, which I then inked over on the last page. It looked great… and I really regret not taking a picture of it. But as I looked at it, I became more and more disappointed by it. As with any drawing made by mortal hands (that isn’t the one in the in the book later it seems, lol) it just wouldn’t be mind-melting enough. So in an inspired moment at 3 a.m., I pulled out some matches and went for it… I’m glad I did (it gave the journal a nice smell too). Hints of it are much more effective than the thing itself. How long did it all take… ugh, 48 prop pages take a while, and I’ll leave it at that.
After the summoning, Merriwether went to spend time with his brother in Boston. Unfortunately the strain of the previous events proved too much, and he had himself committed for a few months.
(Sorry, had the wrong picture here... fixed)
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This came from one of the blank pdfs from the great site
http://www.cthulhulives.org/, and I just filled it out with what info I could garner from the Insanity section of the CoC book and on the web. With this handout I wanted to show the players that Meriwether wasn’t always the man they know now. The picture at the bottom is that of him and his since deceased wife. This took less than 30 minutes.
This is a telegram with news of the death of Cecil Jones, one of the members of the “Dark Brotherhood”.
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The telegram blank from this came from
http://www.cthulhulives.org/ again. The toughest part of this was actually making the stamp. It was quite difficult to find scissors that made that kind of cut, but I finally did come across some hidden away at Michaels. As an amusing aside… I looked up all the names of the members of the Dark Brotherhood, just to see if I could find anyone who was an actual historical figure and perhaps tie them in to the plot… and I did with Cecil Jones. I found a George Cecil Jones, the young man who inspired Aleister Crowley to get into the occult. All the dates of the real people involved worked perfectly… and since Aleister Crowley is actually an NPC in Tatters of the King, all the better! So that is who the “AC” is in the telegram
. Not counting the search for the scissors, this only took a few minutes.
Among the items included were some inheritance items for the PC.
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These are all blanks from
http://www.cthulhulives.org/, and as mentioned before, I particularly liked the whisky that was prescribed as medicine! In my research into the 1920’s I had come across that little tidbit. The matches I got at one of the antique stores and the rock was an RP item, coming from Meriwether’s birthplace in Ireland. This took very little time, just a few minutes.
Here's a detail of the inside of the sarcophagus with the strange writing inside, and the containers for the powder of ibn-ghazi and "brownish powder" (sulfur and an oxide of copper) found later in the adventure at the old “Dark Brotherhood” clubhouse.
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Finding just the right sarcophagus was a challenge. The one described in the story was made out of wood and metal, but I could find nothing like that. I did find one on eBay that was stone… but it wouldn’t get here in time for the game. The one I have I got on Amazon for $25 and it worked great. I used a wood-burning stylus to carve the runes on the inside. The runes based out of some presented in the Keeper’s Companion 2, I believe. Once complete I painted the sarcophagus with brown water-based paint, and while still wet I rubbed it out. This left the dark paint in the lower areas of the relief of the sarcophagus, making it look quite old and leaving the runes nice and dark. The whole process took about 45 minutes. The box and tin cylinder I got at an antique store, total around $5. What’s funny is that the tin looked very, very old to me… it was rusty, the label was yellowed and torn, and who the heck makes snuff anymore. I was quite sure it was old until I pulled it out in-game then noticed the nice UPC scan barcode on the side…
And here are the papers and translation of parts of De Vermiis Mysteriis that Corbitt’s grandson wrote, also found at the old clubhouse.
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The hardest work on this was the text. Online I was able to grab the texts of several old occult books. I used these as a started and I edited and changed the text to fit my story and needs. If you look at the pdf (
http://www.docezra.com/temp/Sheafe.pdf), you can read the interesting story of The Lurker and what he is. The writing is what took the longest, the production was quite easy and took only a few minutes. I used yellow parchment paper and stuck them in the dryer for a bit to make them look weathered and wrinkled.
