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Sample file “Lines on Graduation from the R. I. Hospital’s School of Nurses”

(To Be Spoken by the Author’s Sister) The prologue's doneSample — the play file of life succeeds; Our graver years respond to graver needs; Yet shall we never in the wider sphere Forget the happy days we linger'd here. 'Tis here that learning shap'd the course of youth, And set our footsteps on the path of truth; With kindly force our high ideals fix'd, And art and practice in due measure mix'd: 'Tis here, from each companion's earnest face, We drank the deepest draughts of friendship's grace: And here our dearest thoughts must ever cling, Whate'er of wealth or fame the years may bring! – H. P. Lovecraft Miskatonic University is published by Chaosium Inc,

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ISBN 1-56882-140-9

Chaosium Publication 2389.

Published in October 2005

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Printed in Canada.

H.P.Lovecraft 1890-1937 A Handbook to the Pride of Arkham

by Sam Johnson

With Sandy Antunes, Richard Watts, Keith Herber, Alan Matthews, Chris Tutt, Doyle Tavener,Sample Lynn Willis, file and dyvers hands

cover painting: Philip R. Rogers interior illustrations: David Grilla, Alex Thomas, Paul Carrick, Tom Kalichack

interior maps: David Conyers project and editorial: Lynn Willis design and layout: Deborah Jones, William Jones, Charlie Krank cover design: Charlie Krank Chaosium is: Lynn Willis, Charlie Krank, Dustin Wright, Fergie & various odd critters MISKATONICUNIVERSITY

General Contents INTRODUCTION ...... 7 Required Reading; Essential Reading; Other Inspirations; Campaigning at Miskatonic; M.U.as Base, Resource, Presence; Lovecraft’s Shadow; Frameworks of “Authenticity”.

1. MISKATONIC UNIVERSITY ...... 15 A Brief History; map of New England; Selected Facts; Campus Legends; Campus Traditions; map of Arkham; Miskatonic Campus Guide; map and key for M.U.; the Campus; West Campus; South Campus; Off-Campus; Distant M.U. Facilities. THE ORNE LIBRARY: 4 Plans ff. Denizens of the Orne Library; a Brief Chronology; Legends of the Library; Contents of the Restricted Collection (list); Shadowed Stacks (many volumes described); optional Hermetic Spells; Mythos Materials. THE EXHIBIT MUSEUM; Holdings; The Vault; Museum Oddities; Museum Staff; Legends of the Museum; plan of the Museum.

2. PEOPLE ON CAMPUS ...... 77 Students; Housing; Curfew; Dining; Expense and Income; Grad Students; Professors; Tenure; Salaries; Recent Expeditions Map and Chronology; Guests; Insanity in Academia; M.U. Personalities (night watchman, physician, groundskeeper, oldest student). FACULTY AND STAFF DIRECTORY: Departments and Schools; the Administration (president, vice-president, registrar, bursar); B&G; College of LL&A (Depts. and Instructors); College of Sciences (Depts. and Instructors; College of Medicine Depts. and Instructors); College of Law and Business (Depts. and Instructors). SOCIAL LIFE: Student Organizations; Selected Personalities (ongoing); Athletics; Frats and Sororities; Honor Societies; Fine Arts Clubs; Academic Clubs; Faculty Organizations; Professional Organizations; Political / Activist Organizations; Secret Societies.

3. GETTING AN EDUCATION ...... 131 Entrance Requirements; Tuition and Expenses; Graduate Fees; Class Levels; Academic Achievement; Academic Crime; Alternative Grade Roll System; Alternative Courses of Study; Uprof; Facetious First Week Schedule; Generating Student Investigators; Family Status Defined; Skill Limits; Making the Grade; Schools and Requirements; Degree Plans Worksheets. THE SEMESTER CHECK: Definition; University Classes; Half` Checks; Modifiers to the Grade Roll; Applications;Sample Slacking Off; Four file Example Semesters. New or Restated Skills. 4. MISKATONIC SECRETS ...... 151 The Campus Tunnels: History, Map, Conditions, Sewers. Denizens of the Tunnels; the Little People; Ghouls; Other Inhabitants. Ten Tunnel Features; 36 Tunnel Entrances and Exits. The Bronze Head. Miskatonic Mummy: Mummy’s Curse; Black Rites of L-K; Tesherkhenhekai. THE MYTHOS AT MISKATONIC: The Armitage Cabal (Armitage, Rice, Morgan, Wilmarth Allies, the Peaslees); Standing Alone; Hermetic Order of the Silver Twilight; the Antarctica Expedition; the Missing; Chronology. OCCULTISTS & CULTISTS: the Eye of Amara; Collegium Arcana; the Rosicrucians; Malcolm Veidt; Asenath Waite; Basil Ives; Esoteric Order of Dagon; the the Crowninshield Hybrids; Lucas Tetlow; the Witch Cult; Knights Templar; Swanson Ames. MISKATONIC MYS- TERIES: Signs and Seals; Orne Library; Bernard Herber; Jeremiah Orne; George Locksley; the Tetlows; the Secret Master; the Witch Cult; the Unseen Master; Sinister Seeds.

5. A LITTLE KNOWLEDGE ...... 214 Investigator Information; the Coroner; Vittoria Nangelo; Charlton’s Room; Biff Williams; Asenath Waite; Claude Owen; School of Medicine Library; Chapman Farmhouse; the Root Cellar; Claude Owen in Person; the Parts.

APPENDICES ...... 226 Flawed Spells; Many New Mythos Spells; Mythos Tomes in Play (individual research times, feverish study, skim- ming, Mythos tomes as references, learning spells, progressive Sanity loss; Useful Portable Items On-Campus; Learning Prehuman Languages; Existing Scenarios Adaptable to M.U. Play; Three Reproducible Diplomas; Blank Degree Plan Worksheets for the University’s Colleges.

INDEX ...... 254-256

4 MISKATONICUNIVERSITY

Clear Credit

That material was revised, embellished, and expanded Standing on the Shoulders upon by Sandy Antunes in his Miskatonic University of Giants Guidebook. The present work is another iteration, an attempt to expand and embellish even further while at work of this scope would have been impossi- the same time incorporating more information from ble if the groundwork had not already been the canon of Mythos fiction and twenty-five years worth masterfully laid, and I consider myself lucky of Call of Cthulhu scenarios. Most of the people, places, and honored to follow a path mapped out so well by and things you’ll find in these pages have their origin in thoseA who have come before. My approach in writing those works. this book was (not surprisingly) an academic one: I have embellished, interpreted, and compiled far more than General Contributions I’ve created in these pages. Miskatonic University was so Alan Matthews, Doyle Wayne Ramos-Tavener, and long in the writing and took so many unsuspected turns Chris Tutt all helped build the characterizations of the that the sheer number of references has become impos- Armitage Cabal as described in the Mythos at sible to track: my fingerprints and spin are all over the Miskatonic, and contributed to charting the history of book, but its bones and foundations were wrought long the University and the Orne Library. Their collabora- before I came to it. I’m sure that I’m leaving out a few tion as sounding boards and brainstormers was seminal names here and there, or missing the full extent of some to this book: it cannot be measured tangibly, yet is people’s contributions. If I have slighted anyone’s work inescapable. here, I humbly ask for forgiveness, and hope you see the finished project as a labor of love and see each reference Chris Tutt also drafted the first versions of the as homage. Academic Standing skill and, with Doyle Wayne Ramos- Tavener, created the semester check and grade roll sys- tems. Chris Tutt also helped expend upon the Eye of Primary Sources Amara and the Rosicrucian cell. Miskatonic University would not exist without theSample sto- Doyle file Wayne Ramos-Tavener created the character ries of H. P. Lovecraft. August Derleth’s work (particu- of Daniel Reardon. larly “The Thing at the Threshold” and “The Trail of Alan Matthews served as a cataloger of data, interim Cthulhu”) served as the inspiration for any material typist, and helped contribute to the tone of the “People pertaining to Seneca Lapham, Billington’s Woods, and of Miskatonic” section. He created the Burrowers Laban Shrewsbury. The Mythos fiction of Lin Carter (as Beneath, the shearing ceremony, Isaiah Potter, and reprinted in the Xothic Legend Cycle from Chaosium) Weatherton Artsbalm. has also had a profound influence, particularly on the Sandy Antunes created and first described the description of the Orne Library (Bryant Hoskins, Miskatonic Tunnels. Sam Johnson gave the tunnels a Wilbur Akeley, and the bust of Cotton Mather all origi- history, invented the locations within them, mapped nated in his stories). Additionally, the second edition of their egress points, and filled them with Little People. the Encyclopedia Cthulhiana served as a vital resource, as Antunes’ history of Miskatonic served as the primary did Joan C. Stanley’s Ex Libris Miskatonici (birthplace of inspiration for the version that appears in this volume. the Tabularium, the Krypticon, and a primary guide to Antunes also created the characters of Scott Whidden, the Orne Library’s history and contents). Peter Diane Loring, Joe the Shelver, Amanda the Transient, Cannon’s “The Chronology Out of Time” also helped as Napoleon the Mastiff, Lucas Tetlow, and first mentioned a reference and fact checker. the Rosicrucian order on campus. Sandy Petersen wrote an earlier short history of Secondary Sources Miskatonic, published as part of the Miskatonic Most of the material in this book was first created (in a University Graduation Kit in 1987. Sam Johnson blend- Call of Cthulhu context) by Keith Herber in Arkham ed this history with the version given by Antunes and Unveiled, and later issued as the H.P. Lovecraft’s Arkham. the tidbits found in Stanley’s Ex Libris Miskatonici.