The House of R'yleh - Part 1: The Mysterious Case of the Silver Locket

The House of R'yleh is a Call of Cthulhu adventure set in London in late November 1923.  The Games Master is Mark and play takes place at Dragons Keep Roleplay Club in South East London every Friday night.

Cast

• Yoshi "Kanagawa" Yamamoto - A disgraced former Sumo wrestler turned journalist - Tony
• Chester "Pretty Boy" Lyle - A bareknuckle boxer - Sam 
• Ryan Wurmshurst - A retired policeman turned private sleuth - Steve
• Thelma "Ginger" Purdey - A recently graduated botanist and girl about town - Various

Tuesday 13th November 1923

Six weeks had passed since we buried Freddie's mother Josephine at the Kensal Green Cemetary.  She finally succumbed to the polio that had made her final years a struggle.  We had arranged to meet Freddie, who we had not seen since the funeral, in the Princess Victoria Public House on the Uxbridge Road and were looking forward to spending some time with our ebullient chum.

It was quite the shock when the normally dapper Freddie burst into the boozer looking somewhat worse for wear.  Ginger immediately ordered a double whiskey for Freddie and he gulped it down, desperate to tell us his story...

"I can't believe that they would do such a thing, to my poor old mum who never hurt a fly.  I was just browsing in the pawnbrokers for a bit of something for my girlfriend Sophie, you know the one from the bank I was telling you all about.  Anyway, I popped into Stokes Pawnbrokers, the one on the Fulham Road, and there I spotted it... My mum's silver locket... the one I put in the casket with her when we buried her.  I had it out with the bloke, questioned him, but all he wanted was 15 nicker.  What sort of man would steal an old woman's locket from her dead body?"

Freddie's story gripped us all and we all agreed that we would solve this mystery and bring the culprits to justice. We shared a few drinks with Freddie and decided to take a cab down to the pawnbrokers to see if we could get to the bottom of it.  It was about 10pm when we arrived and the place was closed.  We vowed to take up the case in the morning and meet at the undergound station at 9am.

Wednesday 14th November 1923

Another damp day loomed as the gang trudged along the Fulham Road towards Stokes Pawnbrokers.  Yoshi went in first aiming to distract the fellow behind the counter with his oriental guile.  Briefly looking around, he turned his attention to the jewellrey case behind the counter.

"Sivur Rocket, Arigato"

The man, presumably Mr. Stokes (or one of his employees) took the bait and was pleased to take advantage of this foreigner and charge Yoshi the princely sum of £50 rather than the £15 he charged Freddie.  Incensed with this blatant display of price gouging, Yoshi grabbed the fellow under the armpit and tried to hoik him over the counter.  Sadly Yoshi's best days as an Ozeki were behind him and the chap was a little too heavy for The Great Wave.

Yoshi's friends came to the rescue and shooed him out of the shop.  The perfect ruse to act as saviours and get some info out of him.  After some questioning it turned out that the man did not know the locket was stolen and that it had been sold to him by one of his regulars called Mr Draper.  A clearly wealthy man Mr Draper dressed shabbily and exhibited the signs of drinkers palsy.  He did sport a lapel pin from the Chelsea Art Club and Stokes commented that he always brought him tasteful objet d'art from time to time.  According to his ledger Draper's last visit was 5 days ago.

Stokes gave Chester a small discount as thanks for saving him from the oriental beast.

To the Cemetary

Their next port of call was the grave of Mrs Brydon located in the Kensal Green Cemetary. 

Kensal Green Cemetary

The grave was undisturbed, a dead end.  The friends considered that the locket must have been lifted before she was interred which left only one option.  The undertakers.  Perhaps Draper works there or has a man on the inside.  They headed to the funeral parlour.

Fowler & Williams Funeral Directors

Mr Fowler and Mr Williams were most upset to hear of the disturbing incident and were extremely helpful with the gang's enquiries.  An employee lineup was hastily convened, none of whom matched the description of Mr Draper and none of the staff had heard of the man.  

 

 

Funeral Hearse

Another dead end left the team with only one lead...

The Chelsea Art Club

Situated in the heart of the Latin Quarter the Chelsea Art Club had some notoriety as a private members club for the appreciation of art.  Posing as a dilettante and her entourage, Ginger managed to get the friends into the club so that they could enquire about this Draper fellow.

Their enquiries were fruitful and they were introduced to two members, Mr James Cummings and Mr Charles Young.  Both independently wealthy men, they were art lovers and patrons of some of the bohemian types who frequented the club.  Draper had not been seen for some time since the disappearance of his protege Jason Davies, a professor at the Chelsea School of Art and a promising talent in the macabre scene.  The papers aluded to some sort of scandal at the School and at least two of the students had likewise gone missing... 

Jessie's Prints - Episode 19 - Free Files Galore

This week, I are mostly been enjoying printing free pre-supported files I found on the interweb.

Truth be told they found me really.  I was approached in a random email by CustomMiniatureMaker.co.uk who run an email newsletter called Free Files Friday.  Seriously peeps if you aren't subscribed to this smorgasboard of STLs then you are missing out.  Join now at https://www.customminiaturemaker.co.uk and maybe even join their latest kickstarter campaign.

Blackjack Dreadnought Omni - Custom Miniature Maker

All the cool kids seem to be sticking it to the man (Games Workshop) these days with their "proxy" models for WH40K so I thought I's jump on the bandwagon.  I've always loved the chunky aesthetic of the WH40K vehicles and been a fan of the dreadnought's since the early days of Rogue Trader.

This is a wicked model and has so many possible weapon options that I thought I would have a go at magnetising my loadouts (ooer sounds a bit rude!!).

Goatman - Infernal Miniatures

For old skool gamers the Broo were the iconic bad guy minions of the Runequest franchise and I fancied printing me out this great double axe wielding bad boy.  Worth the download.

Amazon Warrior - Artisan Guild

I've been hearing about these chaps and their patreon but I wanted to try out one of their files for myself.  It came unsupported but I put my new found support skills to good use and she came out a treat.  And lets face it, who doesn't like a bikini clad warrior woman?

Slime Weird - My Mini Factory

In our last D&D game we ventured into the underdark and encountered a water weird which almost ripped our party to shreds.  This one is a slime varient and I love it's animated pose like it's trying to smother you.  

Yoshi Yamamoto - Ex Sumo Wrestler and Foreign Correspondent

In Episode 18 of Jessie's Prints I printed of a couple of models which, as the Spice girls once sang...

Two Become One

This is a head swap of a sumo wrestler onto the King Pin's body.  A perfect marriage IMHO for my next Cthulhu character.  Hai!!

This was another exercise in using the Army Painter Speedpaint over a zenithal highlight.  The suit about 4 layers of Gravelord Grey and the flesh tones are Crusader Skin with my usual blend of Army Painter Tanned Flesh and Vallejo White.  Black accents are Scalecolour Black.  The base is Speed Paint Hardened Leather with a light dry brush of a couple of other Army Painter browns.

Jessie's Prints - Episode 18 - I Need Supports

This week, I are mostly been learning how to add custom supports to unsupported STL files using Any Cubic Photon Workshop.

Rafts are essential to make the prints stick to the bed and not the FEP film

 

This is the slicer which came with my printer and has a somewhat frustrating interface.  The key things I learned were:

1. Always add a raft using the RAFTS tab in the Shape Edit window.  This is essential to help your minis to stick to the bed (Foot) of the printer and peel away from your FEP film.

2. For best results with tabletop mini prints set your supports to LIGHT this will allow you to get more supports in tighter spots.

3. Fill your model with auto generated supports and then add more manually.  You're gonna need them.

King Pin - Thingiverse 4140572 

There are a lot of marvel minis out there but very few free ones of King Pin.  I liked this one because he had a useful pose and body shape for my character mini in the game of Call of Cthulhu which begins next week at Dragons Keep Roleplay Club.

Sumo - Sketchfab

To be honest I just needed the head for my character project.  I should probably have cut it apart in mesh mixer and blended it together with the King Pin but that's what superglue is for.

Crouching Gargoyle - Thingiverse 3604340

This is a neat model and useful for both set decoration and as a monster in almost any game.  I printed a bunch to fill up the print bed and get the best value for money from my printer.

My First Resin Mini - Sci-Fi Adventurer

As I mentioned in last week's Jessie's Prints one of my first successful prints on the new Resin 3D Printer  was the insanely detailed Sci-Fi Adventurer from Loot Studios.

Over the Jubilee Bank Holiday Weekend, I painted him.

This is most definitely not my finest hour.  I became incredibly frustrated with this model which decided to snap at both the ankles and the ipad hand multiple times.  

I am not sure if this was an error in the printing or curing process, the brittleness of the resin or the robustness of the sculpt, but if a mini cannot stand up to the rough and tumble of painting then it does not bode well for gameplay.

There is a distinct difference between digital sculpts and hand sculpts.  Personally I prefer the chunky aesthetic of hand sculpts over the extreme detail and "spikiness" of these newfangled digital sculpts.  There is a certain charm of a vintage oldhammer mini over the new plastic kit warhammer minis never mind the scale creep that has occurred over the years.

As you can see I am still getting to grips with Army Painter Speed Paints and I ran out of white primer so the zenithal highlight was a bit muted.  The next one will be better I promise...