Call of Cthulhu Props – the slightly dark art of prop making

Recently on the blog site Propnomicon, a real historical archeological object was brought forth as a possible prop item for playing the role playing game, Call of Cthulhu and this set me thinking.  See the post http://propnomicon.blogspot.com/2015/09/the-curious-case-of-cthulhu-stele.html

With a little work a historical object can be modified into something of fun and interest for your game.  The point is to make something as a gaming aid, not in making a forgery or hoaxing a gullible public.  I decided to make a bit of a tutorial on how to rework a photo over and place it into a gaming context for players.  For that I primarily used Photoshop and some images gathered from the web.  Note that I didn’t try hard to mimic an authentic old dig book, but left the format rather plain so it will fit into a number of eras.

Now that you have your object's image, you need to set into context like a gem into a ring.  An association to reasonably old and obscure publication helps.  It really doesn’t matter if the publication is made up whole cloth, or your drop your page into an existing book.  The point is to make it reasonably believable to your gamers.  A few additional photos for support to add a garnish to your page and you have a passable (for gaming purposes) page to show your players.

But first a little photomanipulation is in order:

 You can use your picture as is, but dropping it into a book just sharpens up the presentation.  Remember context helps suspend disbelief in players.

You can print on different types of paper and add use marks or damage.  You can also turn it slightly brown for aging.  It's up to you to decide how it will look.  A book cover is pretty easy to turn up on line.

This project was done with bare-bones computing resources just to show that it's within anybodies grasp.  All I used was an old laptop computer and a decade plus old copy of Photoshop Elements 2.  Nothing else. That also includes the modification on the photos to make them look like antique formats.  With more sophisticated software and a fairly modern computer, you can really make some believable documents and photos with a good printer.  Oh yes, all of this is done in low resolution 72 dpi because its only was intended to be demonstrated on the web and not really printed out.  I generally work in 350 dpi for projects that are going to be printed or I need photorealistic products.

It’s up to you to decide to how to incorporate this item into your scenario:  they could be questing to find the fragment, which had been stolen; they could be looking for the rest of the fragments to assemble a terrifying realization.  You can print this out, age the paper if you wish and let your players find this clue.  I just quickly knocked this out with no real attempt to make it pass muster as original, but you can take your time using the same techniques and produce a highly believable prop.  Halftoning it would make it look like an autogravure, typical in old dig books.  I didn’t add any incriminating dates so the page can be used for the 20s & 30s or be a much older book that is referenced the players.

Note that I added the insinuation into the text that one figure was using a control panel, with a joystick no less.  Maybe it’s a late Dynastic version of an Atari game.  Erich von Däniken
would have loved it. You can also add other pages with modified or even original photos to add depth to your presentation.

Yep, it's an original unaltered photo, but it works well for the story.

A fairly modern photo made to look older.  Do you know the source?

Another real photo, unmanipulated -- hard to tell, isn't it?

So now you have a little inspiration to go forth and spice up your CoC campaigns.  Photos are much easier than other physical props and if you take a photo of your prop, drop it into prop book or make manipulated pictures, you can really add a dynamic to your game with a multi-level prop.  Because you can add your own text to the book like I did above, you can tell the story your way.  It's all pretty basic really. 

No Egyptologists were injured in the making of this paper prop.

                           CoastConFan

Background and links

Here is the original location of the fragment on the web, torn from reality and set down in H. P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos setting of the 1920s-1930s.

https://www.liveauctioneers.com/item/40539007_translated-egyptian-stone-stele-fragment?utm_source=Auction+Email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=lot5&utm_campaign=20150921artemis

Another blog entry of mine about using original items as props, in this case Jomon Culture items embedded into the Lovecraft Cthulhu Mythos  http://coastconfan.blogspot.com/2015_06_01_archive.html 

I was tempted to use the location of Tanis in this prop project but considering my previous post on the subject, decided to go for a more obscure site   http://coastconfan.blogspot.com/2014/09/ancient-tanis-forgotten-occasionally.html

 

Does this fine antique image of a dig from the 1880's look familiar? It should, its source if from Raiders of the Lost Ark, modified into an ambrotype photo, damage and all.  But you can use such items as support for your prop, be it paper or some other material.  BTW the other antique dig photo above this one is also another Raiders image, but made to look 1920s.

Fee Gee Fiji Mermaid Prop, a Classic Gaff of the Victorian Era

The other day I was doing a little reading online about classic sideshow exhibits and gaffs, the most celebrated of the genre is the Fee Gee Mermaid of P. T. Barnum+ fame from the 1840s.  Over the years the Fiji Mermaid idea resurfaced in traveling museums, curio shops, carnival sideshows, roadside attractions, and at auctions.   Most of the gaffs were composed of fish parts and other taxidermy items cobbled together to make a mermaid for the rubes to gawk for a dime a shot.  I won’t go into the history of the Fee Gee Mermaid as the links in this post pretty much walk you through the background of these interesting biological fantasies.

 

So anyway, I stumbled upon a really interesting site called the Taxidermy Emporium, which is based in the UK.  It has some of the most interesting dead things I have seen for sale outside of a Victorian curiosity shop.  The photos of the objects in question, in this case was a Fiji Mermaid gaff, which was worthy of a blog post.

A Fiji Mermaid gaff at Taxidermy Emporium   Ref PI 1040  Sold

Another Fiji mermaid from the same source     Ref PI 902  Sold

Sea Pixie from Taxidermy Emporium     Ref PI 912

Before you get too excited about purchasing items from the Taxidermy Emporium my American readers, many of the offerings at this site are absolutely illegal to import into the USA as most of them are of endangered species.  Well possibly excluding the Fee Gee Mermaid gaffs, but there is no telling of what material those items are made.  There are stringent import laws about the importation of objects made from endangered species, far more than the expected aquatic mammal and elephant ivory items, we generally hear about in news articles.

This classic gaff and variations has been posted a number of times by well-known prop expert on his site Propnomicon, see below.  Propnomicon has covered the prop scene for a number of years now and features a number of tutorials on how to make props.  The fan community owes a big debt of gratitude to Propnomicon for his daily posts about props and prop making over the years.

The only other gaff that tickles me more than the Fee Gee Mermaid is the classic roadside attraction, The Thing, but that’s another story*.  I hope this post has been of interest and will stimulate the reader into looking more deeply into historical gaffs and props of the 19^th century. 

                                    CoastConFan

Not all of the items at the Taxidermy Emporium are for everybody as seen below.

These are called, “Well preserved British Bulldog puppies – Natural death”     Ref – PI 984   sold

    *Well also jackalopes too.  The history of the true origin of the jackalope.

    +P. T. Barnum actually didn’t say, ‘There’s a sucker bornevery minute” it has been attributed to David Hanum a competitor in the trade, who was commenting on Barnum making his own copy of the Cardiff Giant – a fake of a fake.  The real joke is that Barnum’s fake made more money than the original fake.  Now that’s ballyhoo.  

Links of Interest

A number of Propnomicon Fee Gee Mermaid posts:

http://propnomicon.blogspot.com/2015/01/we-first-saw-jacob-peterssons-classic.html

http://propnomicon.blogspot.com/2015/02/mermaid-fossil.html

http://propnomicon.blogspot.com/2014/06/mermaid-post-mortem.html

http://propnomicon.blogspot.com/2013/05/making-quick-and-dirty-fiji-mermaid.html

http://propnomicon.blogspot.com/2012_02_01_archive.html

http://propnomicon.blogspot.com/2012/02/buxton-mermaid.html

A large collection of Fiji Mermaid images and memorabilia, well worth the view   http://www.sideshowworld.com/81-SSPAlbumcover/Feejee/fejee.html

Museum of hoaxes  http://hoaxes.org/archive/permalink/the_feejee_mermaid

FeeJee Mermaid post http://www.thehumanmarvels.com/the-feejee-mermaid-the-famous-fake/

More background on Mermaids  http://canofmystery.blogspot.com/2013/10/legend-of-fiji-mermaid.html

Monkey headed Fiji Mermaid gaff

The Maltese Falcon: Fakes, Facts, and Metafiction – A Fabled and Fabulous Prop Sold

Da Black Boid itself sold at Bonham’s Auction in New York on 25 November 2013 for $4,085,000, including the buyer's premium of $585,000.   This recent sale has placed the Maltese Falcon prop as one of the most expensive piece of movie memorabilia every sold.  Other high placers are a couple of cars:  the original 1960s Batmobile which sold for $4.6 million and the Goldfinger Aston Martin which sold for $4.1 million.  An other well known prop went over $576,000 for the original model of the Enterprise from Star Trek and one pair of  ruby slippers from The Wizard of OZ, which went for $2 million.   Kasper Gutman didn’t lie when he said that the black bird was worth a fortune and obviously there is a brisk trade in used cars and old shoes as well.

Interestingly the “real” Maltese Falcon wasn’t real, it also wasn’t Maltese, and it wasn’t a falcon but it’s still worth a fortune to prop collectors – “the things that dreams are made of.”  It’s a fake of an item that never existed at all, which makes it a perfect metafiction prop.  H. P. Lovecraft summed it up pretty well in Notes On Writing Weird Fiction.         

 

“… present an account of impossible, improbable, or inconceivable phenomena as a commonplace narrative of objective acts and conventional emotions. Inconceivable events and conditions have a special handicap to overcome, and this can be accomplished only through the maintenance of a careful realism in every phase of the story except that touching on the one given marvel. This marvel must be treated very impressively and deliberately—with a careful emotional 'build-up' —else it will seem flat and unconvincing.”

The establishing open crawl sequence of the 1941 movie sets the stage with the claim that the Knights Templar created the falcon in 1539 as a golden tribute.  The only problem is that the Knights Templar were violently dissolved in 1312.  Clearly poor research led to confusion with the Knights of Malta, which still exists today.  But never let history or facts get in the way of a cracking good yarn, as Commander McBragg might say.   

To quote Kasper Gutman in Dashiell Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon,

“These are facts, historical facts, not schoolbook history, not Mr. Wells’s history, but history nevertheless”.

Now there actually was a tribute paid (see Tribute of the Maltese Falcon), although the modeled bird would probably be a peregrine falcon, which is commonly found around the Mediterranean.  I have shown a few historical birds as well as one modern golden copy of the 1941 The Maltese Falcon.

Modern golden copy

For the movie prop a rather chunky and very art deco avian sculpture was chosen to represent the golden bejewled bird.  Two lead birds were made and an unknown number of plaster Maltese Falcons.  To date only the recently auctioned bird can be authenticated as screen used, due to some damage when it was dropped.  The other lead bird, carved upon and scarred in the final scene by Gutman, has long since disappeared.  As for the mold for the bird – nobody has any idea what happened to that.  Keep in mind there are differences between the 1940 movie and the book as well as the two previous Maltese Falcon treatments, The Maltese Falcon (1931) and Satan Met a Lady (1936).

The falcon was a major “MacGuffin” in the film.   A little more backstory has Kaspar Gutman seeking the falcon for 17 years (he says).  Since Dasheill Hammett’s book was published 1930 that means that  Gutman has been pursuing it since just before WWI, about 1913.  Just after that time, Constantinople was the capital of the Ottoman Empire and was closed to French, Italians, English and later Americans in WWI.  The ensuing Turkish civil war and Greco-Turkish War after WWI made Turkey a dangerous place to travel outside of Constantinople (later Istanbul).  For fans of history, see the Turkish War of Independence and the Greco-Turkish War.   

Although they fought over a grimy package, paid for in blood and mayhem, in the end it is revealed as a fake.  Ultimately, it is a copy that “proves” the validity of the original in the sense that one cannot make a copy of something that doesn’t exist.  It’s a kind of physical prop metafiction. 

That all being said, there are in fact a number of golden bejeweled birds littered throughout history and I have peppered this article with some images of fabulous birds.  Clearly, if there had been a medieval Maltese Falcon, it wouldn’t be a classic Art Deco bird, but such is license in film.  Real or not, the Maltese Falcon is truly, “The, uh, stuff that dreams are made of.”

                                            CoastConFan

Previous blog entries about prop sales:         

http://coastconfan.blogspot.com/2013/08/famous-fantasy-weapons-that-would-be.html

http://coastconfan.blogspot.com/2012/11/indiana-jones-prop-sale-holy-grail-of.html

http://coastconfan.blogspot.com/2012/06/tintin-covers-1-reality.html

Links of interest to the Maltese Falcon story:

http://www.thehistoryblog.com/archives/26481

http://dpwilkens.blogspot.com/2010/05/fake-journal-month-and-meta-fiction.html  

http://faculty.washington.edu/cbehler/teaching/coursenotes/luhrMaltFalc.html

http://cobalt.rocky.edu/~rachel.phillips/The%20Maltese%20Falcon%20Review.html

http://www.moviemistakes.com/film3655

http://www.theculturedtraveler.com/Archives/Nov2002/Maltese.htm

http://www.williamahearn.com/maltesehamm.html

http://mysteryscenemag.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1928:the-3-falcons-dashiell-hammetts-the-maltese-falcon&catid=24:filmandtv&Itemid=191

http://usingsfhistory.com/2012/01/22/the-maltese-falcon-copies-without-an-original/

http://byrneswoder.com/jake-zablarski/hammett-vs-chandler-the-maltese-falcon-vs-the-long-goodbye/

http://faculty.washington.edu/cbehler/teaching/coursenotes/luhrMaltFalc.html

FAKES, FUN, AND LEAD CODICES

Make your own Unspeakable Cthulhu Codex

I love a good prop or fake, but when one tries to sell the item as original, then that goes beyond a hoax and into the area of criminal fraud.  When these appeared earlier in 2011 with a lot of press hoopla, I had strong suspicions about them being fake.  Somehow, they just didn’t fit in with finds of that period, but I held my tongue while actual experts viewed the images since my Hebrew and Aramaic is pretty shaky.  Most of the text was lifted from other sources and many of the images were as well.*  Well, we can learn something even from counterfeits and fantasy objects.
                                                                            CoastConFan

Please note that these are not intaglio (carved into) the lead, but they are convex, which means they were cast from a master mold.  I think it would be an easy matter to make a Cthulhu Codex using the same method.  I don’t encourage you to use lead it has toxic fumes.  You might try making the reversed master out of plaster, carving it while wet.  Then use Femo or another polymer clay to make an impression.  You need only paint and age and you have a page for your Unspeakable Codex.  You could try casting with a metal such as zinc or safe casting metals, but be careful of getting burned.  Frankly, polymer clay is a better idea because you can tweak up the impression for more detail. 

*For example the head of Helios and Alexander as found on Greek coins and the star bursts are common on Hebrew coins, see the so called Widows Mite.  Check out some of these links about the lead codices and some legitimate scholarly criticism:

http://rogueclassicism.com/2011/03/30/lead-codices-silliness/

http://aramaicdesigns.blogspot.com/2011/08/lead-codices-genuine-forgeries.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jordan_Lead_Codices     

Check out this YouTube video: