The Unspeakable Oath #08-09.pdf

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Contents
Columns
The
Dread Page
d
Azathoth,
by John Tynes
Saeam
And
Scream
Again,
Letters From Lunatics
The
Paranoia
rIles,
by Philip
H.
Garland
The
Case Of
Mark
Edward Morrison, by Mark Morrison
Mysterious
Manuscripts,
by Thomas M. Stratman
The
Eye
Of
light
&
Darkness,
Reviews, News
&
Spews
Winter. 1993
Issue 8/9
Editor
&
Publisher
John Tynes
A
Tale
Of
Terror: Drearnflfes, by Steve Hatherley
A
Tale
Of
Terror:
Headaches,
by Steve Hatherley
Mm;age
In
A
Bottle, by Marie E. Listopad
1
3
8
10
13
15
24
39
160
Art
Director
Jeff Barber
Proofreader
Brian Appleton
Design
&
Uiyout
John Tynes
Staff
Artists
Articles
Loathsome
Lead,
by Scott David Aniolowski
Jacob's
Forge, by Per Okerstrom
18
22
~~:~rnroffi---------------------------------------
Jeff Barber
Dennis Detwiller
Blair Reynolds
Cover
Art
Kick-Off!, by Steve Hatherley
25
Thin~
That
Go Bump
In
The
Night,
by J. Todd Kingrea
30
A
Non-Mytha; Menagerie. by CL. Werner
34
The Randolph Pierre Foundation
----------------------------
The
Loula
Institute,
by
Kim
Eastland
41
Blair Reynolds
Contributing
Artists
Jason Bov'ee
David Brown
Jesper Myrfors
Chris Thieke
.Matti
Williams
Jonathan Wolfe
Contributing Cartographers
J.
Todd Kingrea
Daniel J. Lowell
John Tynes
This issue, column logos
<Such as the one at the top
of the next page), were done
by Blair Reynolds. He
claims they depict
real-
world
items that relate in
some way to Nyarlathotep.
Can
you identify them all?
Scenarios
Fear
cl
Falling by Steve Hatherley
Dark
Harvest,
by Kevin A. Ross
Albert
Pitler, by Jonathan Tweet
What
Goes
Around,
Canes
Around, by Jeff Moeller
96
98
115
124
Special Features
The
Unmentiooab1e
Odor
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
How To
Be
A Cultist, by Chris Bridges
66
The
Paranoid Guy, by Philip H. Garland
67
The
Cthulhu Fncounter Problem-Solver, by J. Todd Kingrea
69
70
Rlyeh, by Chris Klepac
I Was A Teenage Ohulhu Chaser!, by J. Todd Kingrea
71
Bitter Bones
&
Horrors, by John Tynes
&
Dennis Detwiller
149
Mytha;
Mail
Order, Horrific Things You Can't Blow A SAN Roll Without!155
The Unspeakable Oath, volume 2, number 4 and volume 3, number 1 (combined), Winter 1993 (whole numbers 8/
9) is published "quarterly" by Pagan Publishing, 403A N. 8th S1., Columbia, MO 65201. Individual confents are
©1993
by the respective creators. Package as a whole is
©1993
John Tynes. The term
"Call
of Cthulhu"® represents
Chaosium, Inc.'s trademarked horror role-playing game, and is used with their kind permission. The first nimrod
to ask why the Winter/April Fool's issue is coming out in June gets a poke in the eye! Grumble, grumble...
Issue
8/9.
Winter 1993
The Dread Page Of Azathoth
The Unspeakable Oath
why the cat went
sans
name in print. To quote from a
letter by Mark:
''Thing was. I wanted to make a joke about [the catl
Niggerman. from [H.P. Lovecraft's storyl 'The Rats
in the Walls." In a letter an American correspondent
[Mark lives in Australial told me that
'African-
American' was the preferred term these days. which
struck me as something worth poking fun at. Mak
-
ing it 'African-American-Person' just rounded out
the joke."
(f)
9
>
o
z
3
III
w
a:
a:
I got the joke. which was intended to be a backhanded
comment on both the attitudes of the past and the bela-
bored nomenclature of the present. But some of our
proofreaders - whether they got the joke or not -
thought the reference was in poor taste and out of place.
So. a bit worried about it myself. I deleted it (with
Mark's permission). But the issue isn't as simple as that. To
quote Mark again:
couple of years ago. a friend of mine was trav-
eling late at night to his home in Memphis.
_ Tennessee (where I was born and raised). Before
he got as far as West Memphis. Arkansas. he had the
misfortune to run out of gas.
He hiked a bit to the nearest farmhouse. This being
very late at night. he wasn't entirely sure what sort of
reception he might receive. Walking through the yard. he
awoke the family's dog. who began to bark loudly and
strain at
his
leash.
He knocked at the door and lights came on inside the
house. An older man came to the door. My friend began
to explain his problem and request aid; the man nodded
and kindly agreed to help him out. despite the late hour.
As they talked. the dog kept barking. making it diffi-
cult to hear. The man called out to the dog. to silence it.
"Shut up. Nigger'" he cried.
<What did you feel when you read the above line? Did
you cringe just a bit? Did you frown? Did you laugh?>
'Nigger: needless to say. was the name of the family
dog. Which goes to suggest any number of obvious
points. the main one being that bigotry is alive and well
in our society.
In TU07. the column "The
Case
of Mark Edward
Morrison" began by describing Mark's experiences with
his pet feline. unnamed as the article saw print. In fact. the
cat described in the article
was
given a name in the text
that Mark submitted: 'African-American-Person:
Did you get the joke? I feared many wouldn't, and that's
7~
.~
'\
"Now. just to engage you in an interesting discus-
sion. and I'm by no means complaining. because
you've saved me from looking like a chump. but:
you've built a platform of in-your-face free speech.
What stayed your hand this time?"
What did stay my hand? The
Oath
has not lacked in
the past for bare female breasts rendered by our talented
artists. and I've made no objections - in the name of
artistic freedom. So is it okay for the
Oath
to objectify the
physical attributes of women. but not okay to make an
off-handed and kindly-meant reference to racial termi-
nology? Apparently not.
I haven't got a ready answer for this. There are no
editorial guidelines under which TUO operates; rather.
the content of the me.gazine is determined by knee
-jerk
response
(if
the editor's knee jerks. something's amiss).
Was I being overly sensitive? Am lone of that damned
legion of politically-correct suppressors of thought that
we keep reading about?
I was going to bring up the example of a professor of
Black Studies here in Columbia He gave a lecture at a
local high school about black history and the crimes of the
white race; that afternoon. there were a couple of fights at
the school that were allegedly racially motivated. In the
week that followed. the professor got a number of racial
insults and even death threats. by mail and by phone. One
was from a college student who signed his piece of
bombast "from a white student studying
to
be The Man:'
~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~
..
The Unspeakable Oath
The Dread Page Of Azathoth
Issue 8/9, Winter 1993
But as I was putting this column together, I realized
that I could also point out the example of rape and sexual
abuse suffered by women in Columbia, and question the
role of our occasional presentation of female nudity. How
could I present one example and ignore the other? How
could I reconcile the decisions I have made about the
content of TUO?
Mark again:
To me, the broader issue [of the Niggerman debatel
is how to deal with Lovecraft...do we damn HPL as
a racist? I think not. Should a modem reprint of
"The
Rats in the Walls" retitle the cat's name? I hope not.
In this case, it's easy to be an apologist. HPL was
writing in what we would consider a less-enlightened
time. Without the benefit of our modem sensibilities, can
HPL be damned for the bigotry that manifested in his
early work?
I haven't got any answers to the many questions I've
posed.
I can't explain where my knee jerks and where it
doesn't. But I didn't feel it was at all fair to make an
editorial decision of this nature and magnitude and not
describe it for the readers of this magazine. We all have
to know as best we can the attitudes and rationales that
influence what we read, what we hear, and what we are
taught. We cannot assume that the gatekeepers of infor-
mation are free of bias, in our favor or against it; rather, we
must keep our eyes open and our minds alert. Nothing is
given to us without passing through a filter first;
be
aware
of these filters, and be ready to challenge them when they
are askew. To quote our writers' guidelines:
"Communication
is humanity's strongest weapon
against mediocrity and surrender."
The difference in cost will enable us to begin paying all of
the creative and tireless people that write and draw TUO.
So
far, it's been an entirely voluntary endeavor. We won't
be able to pay very much, but if nothing else it's worth-
while as a gesture of respect to our contributors.
In addition, the larger page size will make our artists
happy, since theyll no longer have to cope with the
frequent one-inch-tall by six-inch-wide iIIustrations
that drive them nuts. And of course, Blair Reynolds wiII
have a better opportunity than ever to produce stunning
cover artwork.
On the other hand, this prospect has its downside. The
strength of TUO, according to many readers, is its acces-
sibility. Anyone who reads it feels they can contribute
with an article, scenario, or drawing. There isn't a big wall
discouraging submissions from first-time creators, as
there is (intentionally or not) with other magazines and
other publishers. We've even been advised to continue
working on a voluntary-contribution basis, to maintain
this characteristic of our work.
Hopefully, our move to a more-professional appear-
ance and our ability to pay contributors won't change this.
After all, our first published work was TUO; how could
we tum our backs on this, a virtual mandate to give
opportunities to everyone we can?
In short, don't worry that we're suddenly going to
become stricter or require published authors only. Not
much is different here. Pagan Publishing is still run out
of the back bedroom of an old house inhabited for the
most part by an overweight cat named Spooge and two
itinerant publishing neophytes. If you want offices and
receptionists and - hey!
-
an honest-to- gosh-busi-
ness-only-phone-line, well, there's a role-playing-game
published in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin we'd be happy to
sell you.
Lest I lose sight of the fact that this is a magazine about
role-playing games (well,
!!
role-playing game), here's
some notes about stuff you might want to know.
This is the last issue of
The Unspeakable Oath
that wiII
appear in the familiar digest format. Beginning with
TUOlO, on sale this fall, TUO wiII shift to a normal
magazine size, complete with a full-color glossy cover.
The cover price wiII remain the same, and the amount of
content in the magazine shouldn't change either.
The reason for the change is fairly simple: our digest
format is much more expensive to produce, even with
black-and-white covers, than a full
-
sized color version.
If you liked
"Convergence"
in TU07 and want to see the
second part of the scenario, check out
Interface
116,
which
should be on sale in your local game store. If they don't
have it, send a check or money order for
$5.50
to:
Interface
116
Prometheus Press
919 C Santa Clara Ave.
Alameda, CA 94501-3429
And tell them the
Oath
sent you.
.5
Issue 8/9, Winter 1993
Scream And Scream Again
The Unspeakable Oath
9
o
en
3
III
~
a:
a:
z
rape their son and hook him in drugs I say, I pity you and
your sad, shallow minds. Those who are violent see
violence everywhere. Rape is repugnant
to
me. It is about
the most horrid crime that can be committed against a
person. I am an avowed pacifISt and anarchist-to me,
violence is
part
of the whole power game of the consumer
culture we live in that I despise. I would never use violence
against another person, whether to force them to have sex
with me or to force them
to
take
drugs...
The underlying theme of what both some parents and
some distributors said seemed to be that being queer was
somehow inferior to being straight. Oh dear. Look boys
and girls-some people fuck with the opposite sex, some
the same, some a mixture of both. Whatever. What we do
in bed helps defme who and what we are, but it is not the
be-all and end-all of our make-up. People are a lot more
complex than just who they fuck, and other people should
try and not be afraid of something that is unfamiliar to
them. Let's all try and love each other a little, what do you
say?
found
CoC5I~
to be outstanding.
It
is an invaluable
supplement for running a campaign with less than
90% investigator fatalities. Part of the fun of most
RPG's is to see characters develop over time, which is
often impossible in
CoC.
It's kind of hard for a mindless
vegetable to develop.
Especially good is the Randolph Pierce Foundation.
One of the hardest parts of starting a campaign is the
limited resources of beginning characters-this takes care
of that nicely, while the Keeper can always decree that
help is not currently available due to some other pressing
concern. This will keep the players from simply "running
to daddy" anytime things get a little rough.
At any rate, please continue the fme work.
I
Richard Watts
ViClDria, Austra1ia
...I
just re-read TU07
(a
magazine that bears re-reading?)
and in the process confIrmed the initial impression I had,
but which I didn't want to be hasty about: you've got the
best role-playing magazine I've ever seen. The last
gam-
ing magazine I subscribed to was
Strategy
&
Tactics
long
long ago. You seem to possess an element of
intellectual
excitement I haven't seen in many gaming quarters in
ages.
Ray
Tumblesoo
Seattle.
WA
David
D. Porter
~
U~
Ouellet
...I
thought I would chime in on the weapon damage and
monster debate, with the monsters being
"eminently
killable" and all that rot. True, the way
the
game system
is set up, if Joe Investigator gets a clean, point-blank shot
with a 12-gauge shotgun at Fred Deep One, Fred Deep
One is likely to be fISh-burgers.
The problem with the level of monster casualties and
game balance in some campaigns is not the fault of the
game system, though. Remember that cultists, ghouls,
deep ones, etc. are more or less human and should there-
fore be more or less destructible. If the monsters are dying
like flies, the real problem is more often than not that the
Keeper is not playing the monsters up to their capacity.
Ghouls will have an average INT of 13. So will Deep
"JliiiiII
Being partially the subject of your editorial in TU07, I feel
compelled to make a response. Firstly, my thanks to your
spirited defense for my rights to
"advertise
my lifestyle:
whatever that means <anyone looking for a queer anar-
chist punk, slightly used?l...If heterosexuals can advertise
their sexuality, by flaunting their relationships in public
through heterosexist billboards and television commer-
cials that parade endless visions of happy straight couples-
when if I try I get punched in the teeth-why shouldn't I
advertise mine?
To those parents who claim I would seem to desire to
~.~.~.~.~.~~~.~.~.~.~.~.

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