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

MobiCon XVIII, 2015 – A Great Gulf Coast Convention

I attended MobiCon 18 at Mobile, Alabama this past Saturday.  The first thing that hit me when I walked through the door at 9:30 in the morning was the fact that at least one quarter of the people were in costume even at that early hour.  The registration was quick, easy, and very professional.  MobiCon was held at a great venue, downtown at the Renaissance Mobile Riverview Plaza Hotel on Mobile Bay and had a parking garage next door with a ramp that lead directly into the hotel.

 Costuming is an integral part of MobiCon and there was a variety that raged from the impromptu to the highly professional.   Anime and gaming console inspired costumes were predominant, but there were a number of original designs.

I was lazy this time around and only had a couple of costumes, which mostly loosely based on H. P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos.  I had purchased some Mythos patches from Propnomicon a few years back and they have come in handy.  One of the other Propnomicon patches was from the Miskatonic University, which I attached to a blue blazer and worked well with a nice 60s Stetson fedora, a pair 30s glasses with my prescription inserted, which completed the costume for a Miskatonic U. “Professor”.  I also added the Miskatonic U lapel pen, but it's hard to see in the photo.  The other gentleman in the photo, Capt Gordon I believe, is from the Arkham Asylum, which although HPL inspired, is of the Batman/Joker timeline.  It worked well together for the photo nonetheless.

The other Mythos costume was even easier than the Professor, which featured another Propnomicon patch from the Arkham Sanitarium on a simple lab coat.  A syringe was actually an ink pen from a “Don’t Do Drugs” campaign which made for a safe and useful prop.   I lack photos of my third and last costume, but wasn’t really very Lovecraftian, as it was an Edwardian frock coat, a fancy vest and a grey top hat.   If I turn up a picture of this outfit, I’ll post it.  The upshot is that most of these costumes were generally thrift shop items with a few coming from antique shops, but not expensive at all.  Costuming doesn’t have to be expensive to be effective. The popcorn machine was not a costume prop, but a donation to the MobiCon Charity Auction.

Among the many interesting guests attending MobiCon 18, I got to meet the animator Philo Barnhart, who worked on the Disney animated films such as The Secret of NIMH (1982), The Black Cauldron (1985), The Little Mermaid (1989), and Beauty and the Beast (1991).  All these films I remember watching them with my daughter (when she was small) years ago.  We had most of them on videocassette if that dates the period.

I didn’t have much time to chat with David Gerrold, but I did enjoy what little time I spent at his table.  It’s good to see him still active, having met him the first time some 40 years ago at a VulCon in New Orleans and have bumped into him from time to time at CoastCon.   Lou Zocchi, the dice and game designer was there and he is shown holding a copy of the classic Star Fleet Battle Manual, an early Star Trek model game from the late 1970s.  I go way back with Lou, but that’s another story.  Conventions are a place to meet old friends and meet new ones.

There was lots of gaming at MobiCon with two rooms dedicated to gaming with one for miniatures and the other to board games.  There's always a strong contingent of gamers at Gulf Coast Conventions.

Some friends of mine and myself had an impromptu fan table at MobiCon and held forth with our rendition of The Arkham Historical Society, which is a loose organization of local Gulf Coast fans who enjoy H. P. Lovecraft, history, pulps, weird fiction, Steampunk & etc.  We had a number of people who seemed interested.  Unfortunately I didn’t have any literature (or concrete plans) available at the time, since we hadn’t expected to set up at MobiCon.  You can’t see it in this photo, but the lady in the green dress has a nice Celtic Cthulhu on her skirt.

I had a great time at MobiCon and pretty much relaxed throughout the day enjoying watching fandom go through their paces.  The costume contest was at room capacity as always.   Photos from the contest are always tough locals to take photos, so instead I posted some costume photos taken throughout the day on Saturday.  I'd like to thank the MobiCon staff and volunteers for making this a successful convention.  I'd also like to thank the fans attending, without which there would be no convention.   I hope to see you at MobiCon 19 next year.  

Here are twenty two additional photos by another MobiCon attendee, Mike Kittrell:     http://photos.al.com/4558/gallery/mobicon_xviii_may_23_2015/index.html#/0 

MobiCon attendee Eris Walsh of the site She Geeks has a great, in-depth post:  http://she-geeks.blogspot.ca/2015/05/mobicon-happened-and-i-was-there.html

As more attendees post their galleries (and I find them), I'll put the links here.

Update 19 Jul 2015:  I've added a couple of new photos from a fellow attendee.

                                                                     CoastConFan

Oh yes, they had dancing girls ... did I mention dancing girls?

Zotz!, a Magic Amulet Right Out of Weird Fiction

A professor of archeology comes into possession of a dangerous ancient amulet.

A rather quirky movie from my youth is the William Castle “B” movie from 1962, Zotz!, which involved possession of a powerful ancient amulet that accidentally falls into the hands of an average guy.  This is powerful stuff and once word gets out, rival governments also want the amulet, of course.  Both a comedy and cautionary tale, the movie was made during the Cold War when fears of atomic war were grist for Hollywood’s movie mill. 

Stop me if your have heard this one:  A professor of archeology and ancient languages comes into possession of an amulet found at an archeological dig and sent to him by mail.  The professor can read the language and finds that the amulet is magical.  By intoning the magic word (Zotz of course) or by pointing at the target, the user can stun, inflict pain or kill.  In the book, the powers are a bit more dire, as just pointing at an human or even animal while holding the amulet will cause them to faint.  If you also utter the magic world while pointing the person will die.  In the film the professor used the amulet to slow his fall.  While not flying, this power comes in handy.

The original release of the film for theaters was in October of 1962 saw a promotional item in the form of plastic replicas of the amulet from the film.  A number of these turn up from time to time with varying degrees of accuracy to the film used prop.  A screen capture shows the original prop and a couple of snapshots show a plastic version and a metal version.  The plastic original one has the most detail.  Note the dimples on the face, which is probably from the mold ejector during the casting process.  The pot metal version lacks most all detail and there are other plastic copies that really look soft.  Clearly there are a number of copies around with varying accuracy to the one in the film or those given out at the original release of the film.

This film was based on a book by Walter Karig published in 1947 with clear indications of being a reference to the misuse of modern technology.  Karig knew all about it as he was a US Navy captain who also wrote on the side.   Interestingly Karig wrote scripts for the TV series, Victory at Sea, which was rerun on TV and another old favorite of mine when I was a kid.  Amusingly enough, he also ghostwrote three Nancy Drew books under the name Caroline Keene.*  He also wrote Perry Pierce stories around the same time.

I remember this film as a kid, but wasn’t too taken with it at the time.  Over the years, with some readings in Weird Fiction and H. P. Lovecraft and the like, my interest returned.  Especially with my interest in movie props and prop blogs, such as Propnomicon as well as costuming and role playing games such as Call of Cthulhu and the like.  So the story line works for an RPG and the ZotZ! amulet would make a great prop as well. 

I haven’t read a copy of the original 1947 book by Walter Karig that inspired it all, but it’s on my “to do” list.  I’d like to recommend another quirky book another book about an eccentric professor of Eastern cultures called When the Assyrians Came Down From the Trees (1969) by Gwendolyn Reed and Angela Conner about a professor of archeology who goes mad and begins to believe that squirrels are the descendants of the ancient Assyrians.  The illustrations become progressively more stylized in the manner of ancient art as the story unfolds and the professor’s madness takes him to the trees.  A really great children’s book. 

I learned a bit myself researching about Zotz! and Walter Karig.  I hope this post will get you out thinking and reading a bit yourself.  The idea of the Zotz amulet is not a new one by any means but it lends itself quite well for a prop in an RPG.  Also at the end of the film, the amulet disappears down a storm drain, to be found by the next person.

    *Those books were:  Nancy’s Mysterious Letter (1932), The Sign of the Twisted Candles, 
      and Password to Larkspur Lane (both 1933)

     Update:  I just found ZotZ! on YouTube, so interested parties can see the film:

The theatrical trailer is on YouTube:   http://youtu.be/3df9PGETpMs

The film itself is on YouTube in 9 sections:  http://youtu.be/uMYMA8ELcfE

For a little extra credit: 

Zotz is also a German language surname as well as a month of the 365 day Mayan Haab calendar (also as Sotz’)   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haab%27

There was a fizzing candy that came out in 1968 also called Zotz, which had nothing to do with the book or film  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZotZ_%28candy%29  and here's a blog entry on the candy   http://www.collectingcandy.com/wordpress/?p=1690

A review of the film Zotz! as well as a nice overview with photos, well worth the visit http://www.midnightonly.com/2011/08/18/zotz-1962/

         ZotZ All!

                                                    CoastConFan