Interview with Cakebread and Walton

There's an interesting interview with game designers Peter Cakebread and Ken Walton of 'Cakebread & Walton' over at the Precis Intermedia blog.

I'm a big fan of the Renaissance system (which is a 'blackpowder' variant of Newt Newport's OpenQuest RPG) that Cakebread and Walton use for many of their settings, including the superb Dark Streets.  In fact, Dark Streets, which involves investigations into unnatural crimes in mid-18th century London, probably is my favourite non-1920s 'Cthulhu Mythos' setting.

Cakebread and Walton February Sale

I'm generally not much inclined to promote sales here, but I'm a big fan of many of the RPG products of Cakebread and Walton, and think that they deserve a larger audience.

C&W are having a February sale on their print and PDF products, so if you're a fan of d100 games and/or the Cthulhu Mythos, check them out.

I especially recommend Dark Streets!

More Praise for Dark Streets

A few months ago I expressed here my very high opinion of Cakebread and Walton's Dark Streets, a guidebook to running Lovecraftian adventures in the London of 1749.  A very detailed and informative review of this book is now available at the RPGsite.  Check it out!

Dark Streets

Speaking of Cthulhu-related gaming stuff, I wanted to mention that my favourite RPG book of 2013 so far is (hands down) Dark Streets from Cakebread and Walton.

Dark Streets is a setting supplement for the Renaissance RPG (which is based upon OpenQuest, adapted for ‘black powder’ era settings).  However, Dark Streets should be easy to use with Call of Cthulhu (Renaissance  and CoC share the same d100/BRP ‘DNA’, after all), and most other d100-based systems.

The setting itself is London in 1749 -- a dynamic, rapidly growing city, but also a den of iniquity and crime.  The historical information is well presented and (thankfully) not too overwhelming.  There is just the right amount of information for non-historian Game Masters to run adventures in this setting with aplomb.

The players’ characters are members of the Bow Street Runners, London’s first police force, run by chief magistrate Henry Fielding (with help from his blind brother, John Fielding, who occasionally receives ‘visions’ in his dreams that help him anticipate highly unusual crimes).  The premise of the setting is that, in addition to all the prosaic crime to which Londoners are victim, there are darker, eldritch things going on as well -- things that threaten the very future of humanity.  (I guess there is no need to be coy here: I refer, of course, to assorted ‘Cthulhu Mythos’ creatures and associated human cultists, all of which are up to no good.)

One way to think about Dark Streets is that it is, very roughly, the Laundry (or perhaps Delta Green) set in the mid-18th Century.  The PCs work for a government authority (with hopelessly inadequate resources, of course!), investigating things about which the public must not know, but from which they must be protected at all costs.

In short, I strongly recommend Dark Streets to anyone interested in running a Cthulhu Mythos game in a great, flavourful setting that is a little different from the standard 1920s one.

(The RPG Pundit also likes it.)

300

This is my 300th post!

I'm somewhat amazed that this blog is still chugging along.  Its focus has changed slightly over the past three years.  Lately I've been posting somewhat more on various d100 games (RuneQuest 6, OpenQuest, Call of Cthulhu, BRP, Renaissance, etc.) than on classic D&D and Swords & Wizardry (the games that inspired me to start this blog in the first place).  But I remain as committed to DIY, 'old school' style gaming as always.  And I certainly haven't forgotten about D&D or S&W; after all, I'm a contributor to d101 Games' excellent S&W-based Crypts and Things role-playing game!

Looking forward to another 300 posts...

Oh yeah: another cool RuneQuest 6 preview is available here (this one focuses on magic).

Clockwork and Cthulhu

Well this certainly looks cool:

From here:

Horror Roleplaying in the world of Clockwork & Chivalry

“Then she did confesse that she gained her powers from a Devill which did come to her out of the baye on moonless nights. And upon examination, we did find the markes of evill upon her, for she bore scales like unto a fish about her bodie. And so was she hanged as a witche, and upon the scaffolde she did crie out “Ia! Ia! Cthulhu fhtagn!” and those who did witnesse this were sore afraide, but her Devill answered her not, and she did die in that place.”

– Fear-the-Lord Grimshaw, Witch Finder, 1645

England has descended into civil war. The earth is tainted by alchemical magick. Giant clockwork war machines lumber across the land. In the remote countryside, witches terrorise entire villages, while in the hallowed halls of great universities, natural philosophers uncover the secrets of nature.

War, plague and religious division make people’s lives a constant misery. But even greater threats exist. Witches whisper of the old gods. Royalist alchemists pore over John Dee’s forbidden translation of the Necronomicon, dreaming of powers that will allow them to win the war. Parliamentarian engineers consult with creatures from beyond the crystal spheres and build blasphemous mechanisms, unholy monuments to their alien overlords. Vast inter-dimensional beings seek entry into the world, while their human servants, corrupted, crazed and enslaved, follow the eldritch agendas of their hidden masters.

Clockwork & Cthulhu brings the horror of H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos to the 17th century alternate historical fantasy world of Clockwork & Chivalry. Inside you will find:

· Mythos creatures and gods, cults and secret societies for 17th century England.

· New rules for Mental Damage in the Renaissance system.

· Three complete scenarios which take the Adventurers into the rain-shrouded Coniston Fells, the shifting sands of Morecambe Bay, and the corridors of the Royalist court at Oxford.

I've been intrigued with Clockwork & Chivalry for well over a year now, as it was, in my opinion, the most novel setting produced for the (short-lived) RuneQuest 2. And my fondness for Call of Cthulhu is longstanding.

So once I get my hands on this book and the second edition of Clockwork & Chivalry (which employs the Renaissance system, which, in turn, is based upon OpenQuest), I plan to inflict some 1645 eldritch horror upon my players!

As I mentioned in an earlier post, Cakebread & Walton have taken Newt Newport’s excellent OpenQuest system (essentially a ‘rules light’ version of RuneQuest, with some bits from Stormbringer thrown in), and retooled it for Renaissance-era fantasy role-playing. Their new system – called, appropriately enough, ‘Renaissance’ – will fuel the second edition of their excellent campaign setting, Clockwork & Chivalry.

Today Cakebread & Walton announced some exciting news concerning Renaissance and Clockwork & Chivalry at their website:

Cakebread & Walton are pleased to announce the launch of the Renaissance System Reference Document, available for free download. The Renaissance system is a new D100 system based on Newt Newport’s OpenQuest, and is designed for historical and fantasy gaming in the age of black powder weapons. Released under an Open Gaming License, which allows companies and individuals to incorporate the rules into their own games, it features familiar mechanics, grim and gritty combat, extensive period weapons and equipment lists, dozens of professions, and rules for factions and belief systems. It also includes two magick systems – the powerful battle alchemy first introduced in Clockwork & Chivalry 1st Edition, and a streamlined and expanded version of the witchcraft rules from the Silver Oggie Award-winning supplement Divers & Sundry.

Renaissance can be downloaded in two forms: as a zip folder containing all the Word files needed to introduce the rules into your own system, or as a printable PDF for use at the gaming table.

Also released today is a 40 page preview of the forthcoming Clockwork & Chivalry 2nd Edition Core Rulebook, due out from Cubicle 7 Entertainment in January. This 400 page rulebook incorporates the Renaissance system into a fantasy world of mud, blood, mayhem and magick, in an alternate 17th century England where the giant clockwork war machines of Oliver Cromwell do battle with the battle alchemists of the Royalists, and Adventurers struggle to survive in a world of religious persecution, splintered politics, corruption, ghouls, witchcraft and chaos.

The Renaissance system will form the engine for all future Clockwork & Chivalry releases, as well as other exciting new Renaissance products for 2012 and beyond. Products in the pipeline include the first four volumes in the Kingdom & Commonwealth campaign re-released in two omnibus editions (currently in preparation), followed by the final two adventures in the series, Hobbes: Leviathan and London Calling; a series of “pick-up-and-play” books for the Renaissance system, including Clockwork & Cthulhu and Clockwork & Deviltry; and a new “airships and flintlocks” fantasy world, Realms of Gold, featuring, faeries, shape-changing lizardmen, plunder, pirates and revolution in a world almost, but not entirely, unlike our own.

I’m especially intrigued by the reference to a ‘Clockwork and Cthulhu’ book, which is something that I would snap up in a second!

Overall, I must say that it is good to see that Cakebread and Walton not only have survived the unexpected early end of MRQII, but now are authors of their own destiny with Renaissance!