I SSUE 2 4 , J ULY 2 0 1 4 Writers: Chad J. Bowser, Scott Carter, Bobby Derie, Adam Scott Contents Glancy, James Haughton, Shane Ivey, Bret Kramer, Matthew Pook, Ed Possing, Ben Riggs, Brian M. Sammons, Greg Stolze Columns ILLUSTRATORS: Ian Anastas, Matthew Hansen, Steffon Worthington; THE DREAD PAGE OF AZATHOTH 2 cover art by Todd Shearer THE EYE OF LIGHT & DARKNESS 8 DIRECtiVES FROM A-CELL 57 ART DIRECTOR: Dennis Detwiller Mysterious M anuscripts PAGE DESIGNER: Shane Ivey FRAGMENTS OF THE SIMEON BibLE 60 EDITORS: Contents Tales of T error Daniel Harms, Shane Ivey, John Scott Tynes The Dread Page of Azathoth 2 THE BLACK-EYED CHILDREN 4 FOUNDING EDITOR: John Scott Tynes HiddEN PASSAGE 6 SMUGGLING 56 EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: Shane Ivey The Black-Eyed Children 5 Scenarios EDITORIAL BOARD: Brian Appleton, Monte Cook, Adam Crossin- The Hidden Passage 6 THE MARDLER HOUSE 10 gham, Dennis Detwiller, Adam Scott Glancy, Daniel Harms, Kenneth AGENT PURPLE’S GREEN BOX BLUES 32 Hite, Shane Ivey, Greg Stolze, John Scott Tynes, Ray Winninger HOLdiNG CELL 34 the Eye of Light & Darkness 8 SECRET SHOppER 36 COPYRIGHT: All contents are © 2014 by their respective creators. The TRUE DETECtiVE, SEASON 1 8 Yellow Sign design is © Kevin Ross and is used by permission. Call of Cthul- MASKS OF NYARLATHOTEP 9 Features hu is a trademark of Chaosium Inc. for their roleplaying game of horror THE CULT OF A 40 and wonder and is used by their kind permission. The Unspeakable Oath is a The Mardler H ouse 10 THE CHOSEN OF EIHORT 53 trademark of Pagan Publishing for its magazine of horror roleplaying. The Unspeakable Oath is published by Arc Dream Publishing under license from WHAT'S REALLY GOING ON? 11 Message in a B ottle Pagan Publishing. THE MARDLER HISTORY 11 WHY SHOULD WE CARE? 12 NOTES, TXTS, AND A SUBMISSIONS: Ever hear tell of a shoggoth? Submission guidelines THE HOUSE ITSELF 14 TWO-INCH ARtiCLE 72 are at our website. TIMELINE WitHIN THE MARDLER HOUSE 14 TIMELINE OUTSidE THE MARDLER HOUSE 15 Our Sponsors, THE PLOTLINES 20 ADVERTISING: Let us bring our cult to your doorstep. Get terms THE RESidENTS 24 Ravening for Delight and specifications at our website. THE LIVING 26 WHERE THE DEEP ONES ARE 4 PLAYTESTERS 29 SWORD & MYTHOS 19 PODCAST: “Unspeakable!” It’s like the Oath for your ears but with STAtiStiCS: THE LIVING 29 H.P. LOVECRAFT FILM FEStiVAL 21 more sarcasm. Subscribe at iTunes or listen at our website for hours of STAtiStiCS: RESidENTS 30 ARKHAM GAZEttE 23 interviews and actual play. GOLDEN GOBLIN PRESS 25 Agent Purple's Green Box Blues 32 CALL OF CTHULHU 39 CONTACT: Arc Dream Publishing, 12215 Highway 11, Chelsea, AL, WHAT'S REALLY GOING ON 32 CTHULHU MYTHOS ENCYCLOPEdiA 46 35043, USA; [email protected] HORRORS OF WAR 52 SampleDELTA GREEN: STRANGE AUTHORitiES 64 WEBSITE: www.theunspeakableoath.com file ISSN: 2334-4180 The Dread Page of Azathoth BY SHANE IVEY “When age fell upon the world, and wonder went out of the minds of men; when grey cities reared to smoky skies tall towers grim and ugly, in whose shadow none might dream of the sun or of Spring’s flowering meads; when learning stripped Earth of her mantle of beauty, and poets sang no more save of twisted phantoms seen with bleared and inward- looking eyes; when these things had come to pass, and childish hopes had gone away for ever, there was a man who traveled out of life on a quest into the spaces whither the world’s dreams had fled.” —H.P.Sample Lovecraft, “Azathoth (a fragment)” file 2 Fear is the object of every Cthul- that might be forever beyond his hungry things. That can make for hu Mythos roleplaying game. Fear reach, awakens him to astounding a very different kind of game. The is what moves us, whether we’re revelations. Carter is a jaded old special challenge for the Keeper is trying to evoke a chill of horror veteran of dreaming but the reader evoking those moods so effectively in players or release it in a shot- can’t help but start at the awful that they seduce players more jaded gun-shooting blaze of catharsis. and magical things he encounters. than Randolph Carter. But there are many kinds of fear. The quickest way to mine the Even outside the Dreamlands The Cthulhu Mythos thrives not Dreamlands for wonder is to actually themselves, every game can take just on the shock of one human play them in the game. But that lessons from Randolph Carter’s death but on the crawling dread can be tricky. There’s a common dreams. A cosmic fantasy like Call of a world where humanity itself sense that the Dreamlands are of Cthulhu or Trail of Cthulhu must is meaningless. There is often a gentler than the ordinary worlds evoke a yearning for other worlds—a vast gulf between gory horror and of Cthulhu Mythos games. Just see yearning that can be fulfilled only in cosmic terror. how Randolph Carter defied Nyar- the realization of what those other Lovecraft knew that gulf better lathotep and escaped the slaughter worlds truly hold. That yearning than anyone. His life’s work was of the moon-beasts. The Dream- is not just the province of idealism, reaching for the cosmic, yet he never lands tempt gamers to expect the and certainly not just the province completed his deepest exploration of tropes of Lovecraft but the mode of Lovecraft. Robert Chambers’ it. He wrote one page of “Azathoth” of heroic fantasy—swords shining, fragmentary mentions of Carcosa and abandoned it. He drafted The spells crackling, courage rewarded (“Strange is the night where black Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath by with victory over tentacular mon- stars rise”) leave you breathless with hand but never meant to publish it. strosities. Be wary that dashing fascination even knowing the Yel- Dream-Quest encapsulated themes those expectations doesn’t cheat low Sign signifies decay and death. that he evoked again and again, but the players of the game they want. The urge to be touched by a larger he worried that the breadth of its Dennis Detwiller and I faced meaning, even if an alien one, rises fantasy was overwrought—that “the this challenge developing The Sense from the terrible meaninglessness very plethora of weird imagery may of the Sleight-of-Hand Man, his long of mundanity. That fascination can have destroyed the power of any Dreamlands campaign for Call of drive monstrous evil, dangerous one image to produce the desired Cthulhu. In my home game, players curiosity, and tragic self-destruction. impression of strangeness.” who prefer high action felt frus- Lure players with curiosities of Many readers agree. For all trated with the sensation that in beauty and awe beyond the reach of its attention to Nyarlathotep and some parts they were being driven everyday life. Awaken their sensitiv- Azathoth, Dream-Quest is an outlier along from horror to horror, vic- ity to unknown possibilities. Then in the Cthulhu Mythos, especially tims and spectators. But that’s a let the most dizzying and terrible in games. It’s like a separate body deliberate feature of some parts revelations unfold alongside the of work and myth, ignored most of of the campaign—the way dreams worst gruesomeness. The bridge the time. Lovecraft’s Dreamlands sometimes carry you along unwill- between deadly horror and cosmic and his harder Cthulhu Mythos ing. Lovecraft’s vision lingers in the terror is wonder. stories seem hopelessly disentangled. imagination not for its heroism but Randolph Carter found his But the Dreamlands distill for its moods: the melancholy of golden city, forever part of him and and concentrate something that’s beauty that will soon be lost, the forever lost. What will your players essential to Lovecraftian terror. drifting timelessness of lassitude, find when the white ship comes to SampleRandolph Carter’s great quest to the creeping fear of secrets and bear themfile away in the night? regain a dream that he lost, to re- hateful schemes, the weirdness of turn to a hopelessly beautiful place trusting and befriending evil and Issue 24 3 Sample file 4 Tale of Terror: The Black-Eyed Children BY SCOtt CARTER it. The BEC’s targets are random, There was a man in our town having no correlation to any cult or cultist other than proximity, both geographically and temporally, to And he was wondrous wise. their meetings. However, all it takes is a nervous cultist to unintention- ally clue the Investigators in to the He jumped into a bramble bush bigger picture. Possibility 2: R evenge And scratched out both his eyes. BECs, while odd, bear some resem- blance to summoned beings in occult —“The Bramble Bush” lore. Perhaps they are servants of a witch summoned to terrorize victims who have threatened the Not all horrors are ancient. Some Investigators encountering witch or obscurely insulted her coalesce newborn from the stress these children are immediately decades ago. A disappearance or and fears of modern life, or else take disquieted, filled with a sense of two should spur the Investigators on new forms heretofore unknown. unspecific dread. Eventually the to action. Reports of the Black-Eyed Children child’s eyes are seen to be large raced across the Internet starting black pools lacking any trace of Possibility 3: A Great Work in February 2013 beginning with white or color. At this point the an MSN Entertainment segment children become angry and insist The BECs are the ghosts of rit- called “Weekly Strange.” Prior to that they be allowed in.