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Old 03-22-2015, 02:07 AM   #360
ATDrake
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Quote:
Originally Posted by DebbyS View Post
Thanks for the info about the Bundle of Laundry. I do not expect ever to play any RPGs, but having the playbooks will, I hope, increase my enjoyment of the excellent, fun series.
I just splurged on them myself (also not a gamer), and I'd highly recommend starting your supplementary reading with the Mythos Dossiers sourcebook if you got the top tier.

It does write-ups on the various Lovecraftian creature species a bit in the style of Stross' novellas, where Bob is reading all these old letters and case documents etc. relevant to the investigation, and they do a great mix of fake memos, newspaper clippings, excerpts from old books and diaries, internet message board and auction sites, and bureaucratic meeting minutes and such (the transcript of the interview with the BLUE HADES is especially hilarious*, as is the taskforce committee for finding a way to combat DEEP SEVEN). There's stuff like this scattered around the rest of the manuals, but this has the most of it and the others consist of much more RPG how-to mechanics (the Agent's Handbook does have some amusing paperwork forms for expenditures and requisitions and such, and God Game Black does fill in a bunch of details following the events of The Fuller Memorandum and The Apocalypse Codex).

It's a lot more enjoyable than I thought it would be (I was expecting just a lot of appendix-type supplementary non-canonical-but-based-loosely-on-Stross'-notes-IIRC-his-old-blogposts-about-the-RPG-licensing backgrounder info of varying niftiness) and I'm glad I went and splurged. (But then I'm a sucker for appendix-type supplementary material, so YMMV for other Gentle Readers who aren't so much into what amounts to DIY authorized fanfic.)

*
Spoiler:
Quote:
ASHDOWN: Will a geas even work on you?
RUPERT: I am curious to see you try.
FISHER: Right. Ahem. Blue-Hades-Fast-Bracket- Journey-Doctor. By the authority vested in me by the emissaries of Y’ghonzzh N’hai I have the power to bind and to release, and your tongue be tied of these matters of which we have spoken until you hear these words again: Blue-Hades- Fast-Bracket-Journey-Doctor. How do you feel?
RUPERT: I feel no different.
ASHDOWN: Well, he wouldn’t, would he? I mean, you can’t feel a geas, can you?
FISHER: You were looking at me, Miles. I think you put the geas on me instead of Rupert.
ASHDOWN: It works for whoever is in the room, doesn’t it?
FISHER: Besides, I think you mispronounced Y’ghonzzh. There’s an emphasis on the ghon like this. Ga-hon. Ga-hon.
ASHDOWN: No, the emphasis is on the end. Zuh-zh.
FISHER: Ga-hon.
ASHDOWN: Zuh-zh.
RUPERT: Are you two qualified to interview me?
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