Beyond the Mountains of Madness

New Maps from LoveMaps

I normally discourage using maps for tactical purposes in for horror games. It moves the emphasis away from the feeling of the situation to the facts of the situation and as a result people can’t help but kick into war-game mode. However maps can also play a very important role in simply providing an overview of an area which might otherwise be hard for the players to fully grok. And if their progress, or even just the story of the thing is relying on the players having a clear sense of the ...

Discord

I get contacted relatively often by other keepers looking to take on Beyond the Mountains of Madness, so I started a Discord server for us to hang out and share tips, tricks and resources (it even has rooms for a couple of other classic campaigns).

Roll20 Setup

I recorded a quick walkthrough of our Roll20 setup, for anyone interested in that sort of thing.

The Archive

Just a quick flick through most of the stuff I've accumulated for our Beyond the Mountains of Madness Campaign over the years. I forgot I recorded this a while back (and it doesn’t even include everything).

Down the Hole

BtMoM Theme for Fantasy Grounds

I meant to run a follow-up scenario for the group on Fantasy Grounds but got derailed into The Enemy Within for Warhammer Fantasy 4e instead. But before that, I spent a weekend putting together this theme for Fantasy Grounds. Mind you, it contains quite a lot of spoilers, as it was intended for use with The Black Rat, which occurs after the main campaign. However I included the PSD files with everything in layers, so you can easily turn off whatever you don’t want to have showing up.

The Soundtrack

For our campaign I spent some time assembling a soundtrack from a variety of sources. I lost the source list, but look to Alien 3 in particular, The Exorcist, and 2001: A Space Odyssey. Download Soundtrack

Logomark

Here’s the logomark I made for the campaign.

The End

A short note to mention that we ended the campaign last weekend after a short five year run (with plenty of large breaks built in). I am going to get the recordings uploaded as soon as I can, and will close the book on this chapter of gaming as I’m frantically looking around for something new to hook my teeth into. Tekeli-li.

The Gabrielle Blueprint

I spent some time combining and conforming all of the schematics of the Gabrielle spread throughout the campaign book, and even added in one or two updates from the German second edition. It turned out to require a bit of adjustment to get all the decks and features to line up properly. Download .PNG Download .AI

Session 11 — Trouble

The expedition is haunted by strange dreams and find themselves facing a new enemy in the city.

Back

It’s been three years, but on Saturday we went back to the ice! I’ll spare the long history in between now and when last we played, but suffice it to say that a lot happened; I for one now have a son. We previously played through part of the campaign (the tower) but I lost part of that recording, and for this session we went back and did another take at the approach to get off on the right foot. As Avery’s player noted, it was surprisingly easy to slip back into the story even after so muc...

Shoggoth!

#procgen eye test. Eyes everywhere, anytime, and any size. Turn this up, @gutterboxaudio did the amazing sound design on this. Done in @sidefx #houdini #redshift In case of compression woes, here’s a Youtube link - https://t.co/yapdNrGlUb pic.twitter.com/ecZaEbbmwm — richard lord (@rich_lord) October 15, 2019

The Good Friends Journey to The Mountains of Madness

The always affable Good Friends of Jackson Elias have begun their decent into madness in the latest episode of their podcast, as they cast their attention onto At the Mountains of Madness.

Session 10 — The Tunnels

The expedition starts exploring the city on the plateau, making their way into the underground...

Gou Tanabe's Mountains of Madness

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Posters

View fullsize View fullsize View fullsize View fullsize View fullsize View fullsize View fullsize View fullsize View fullsize I stole some artwork to make a few posters for a special event my group and I are trying to put together. Credit to all the original artists, most of which I’ve f...

Miskatonic Flight

Oh yeah.

On the Boeing 247D

I’m currently spending some time with the Boeing 247D, for reasons which can become apparent later, and I found that the text has a minor error in it. The specs for the Boeing on page 386 lists it as having 12 seats on board, but being able to carry 5 passengers (in addition to the pilot and navigator). First of all, as near as I can tell the 247D actually had five rows of two seats, for a total of 10 passengers, as shown above. So even if it was fitted for passenger flight, it wouldn’t hol...

Rediscovery

Great student film special effects of a modern expedition to the MOUNTAINS OF MAADNEEEESS!

Leng

I bought myself a copy of this poster a while back.

Lake's Camp by Yuri Hill

Original.

A Wallaroo Alternative

I came across a really fantastic alternative to the Wallaroo encounter in the campaign book. It builds it up a lot more, and tells a much more well rounded story. As suspected, the sound comes from an animal—a sooty albatross has found his way into the tank, and has broken his wing. The pathetic bird grows still upon being illuminated, staring up at the investigator with unblinking eyes. The bird’s feathers are ragged and covered by half-frozen whale oil, and it’s clear the creature has be...

François Baranger's Mountains of Madness

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It's Alive!

Found this magnificent gem by Piotr Jabłoński depicting the incident at Lake’s Camp. More please!

A Brief Notice

I’m not dead. Nor am I insane. So far. I am however a father now, and time is scarce. We haven’t had a session of this campaign in a while, but I do have several sessions recorded that I also haven’t released yet. Unfortunately I don’t have both sides of the latest session, which is quite disheartening (if for no other reason than it will be harder to pick up once we get back into it). I’ll try and gather the party again in the new year and finish what we began. Hopefully you’ll still be ...

Vredenburgh

I was by struck something that seemingly cannot be a coincidence, but of which no hints of a relationship or any sort of explanation is given in the Beyond the Mountains of Madness book itself. I can only assume that it is an easter egg-like wild goose chase (or seed for any Keepers who, God help them, want more side adventures), but I must admit it confounds me somewhat. Specifically I'm talking about the Vredenburgh family, and their propensity to appear throughout the BtMoM storyline. Hi...

The Wallaroo

A lost whaler, and the last words of a defeated captain. A mysterious bounty.

Soundtracks

Over time I've managed to suss out a few soundtracks written directly for At the Mountains of Madness, and I finally took the time to gather them as a list. By Reber Clark (for the HPL Literary Podcast) By Alicorn (used by Yoggie's BtMoM podcast) By Erdenstern (official soundtrack for European 2e BtMoM)

Elder Thing Relief

Via Andrea Bonazzi.

1932 National Geographic Map of Antarctica

Found this print-resolution map from 1932 of Antarctica published by National Geographic. Perfect for BtMoM (and perfect for the new, concurrent instance I'm starting next week). Thanks to the David Rumsey Map Collection (this 1931 map is also not half-bad). Download Printable Map

Lovecraft's Penguins

This penguin was made for Guilermo Del Toro's abandoned attempt at making At the Mountains of Madness. It's wonderfully repugnant.

Session 9 — Through the Pass

The expedition makes its way through Dyer's Pass and lay eyes upon that high, frozen plateau where an ancient ruin awaits them.

Map of the City

Removed the numbers from the Keeper map on page 186 for use as a player handout.

Session 8 — The Caves

Unexpected visitors arrive at Lake's camp, and a small group of expedition members explore a vast cave network under the ice. Recorded January 31, 2016

A Peek at My Library

I recorded a few videos talking about some of the books I've got in my private collection, and this one covers most of my Beyond the Mountains of Madness collection, along with assorted props.

Redrawn Map of Lake's Cave

Needed the map for Lake's cave, so I drew a version of it for our game. And no, there aren't any new episodes yet, but yes I do have two in the can, but no time to edit them. 

A New Look at the Elder Things

Kurt Komoda has gone to great lengths to draw what is probably the most accurate version of the Elder Things so far; a great resource for any keeper of BtMoM. And no, our game isn't dead, merely in suspended animation as life became too chaotic for planning for a period. As it begins to settle down once again, I expect we'll pick up the scent any week now. Also I do have our previous session recorded already, I just need to find a day or so to edit it in.

Session 7 — Keeper's Debrief

The keeper talks a bit about how things went.

Session 7 — Lake's Camp

In which the expedition reaches the remains of Lake's destroyed camp in the foothills of the Mountains and find evidence of more than a freak Antarctic storm.

Session 6 — Antarctica!

Sorry for the long wait, but session 6 is now finally available. Having run out of time, the editing standards are a bit lower this time around, as I'm trailing somewhere in the neighborhood of 10 hours of recordings. This session sees our expedition arriving on Antarctica, and trouble following them close by as they're awoken in the early morning by an alarm.

Session 5 — Keeper's Debrief

The kepper rambles on about session 5, Trail of Cthulhu vs. Call of Chtulhu, the use of sound effects in games and how to deal with action scenes in general as well as a lead in to session 6.

Session 5, Part 2 — Stormy Weather

A storm breaks on the ship, tearing cargo loose in the hold.

Session 5, Part 1 — Melbourne

The investigators spend some time trying to figure out Henning's motives, before the ship pulls into Melbourne where everyone enjoys some much deserved R&R.

Postcard from the Panama Canal

A Sea Voyage

Thanks to Cthulhu Reborn making a mirror of GEEDUNK, I could use this fantastic line crossing prop as well as the accompanying invitation (and many others), instead of the lackluster one included in the book itself. I run most of the handouts I share in Roll20 through some griming in Photoshop, just to give them some semblance of the real world.

Session 4 — Keeper's Debrief

The keeper talks through his prep and experience for session 4, and the regrettable loss of the audio files.

Session 4 — To Sea (Recap)

Oh, calamity of calamities. Somehow Logic Pro X decided to ditch the .wav files from last session, and the recording is now nowhere to be found. So I had no choice but to simply record a recap and take better care of my files in the future.

Map of the Panama Canal

As our intrepid expedition members set to see, their journey takes them from the Atlantic Ocean through the Panama Canal to the great Pacific Ocean and south towards Australia.

The Panama Canal

A few choice shots of The Gabrielle passing through the Panama Canal.