Masque of the Red Death Resources

[DoctorMoreau]

So what resources do you use (websites and the like) when running Masque games for information on actual Victorian Era? I'm running a game in that setting and I'm looking for useful information about different regions of the world in that time period.

Though the Masque books are good, I wish I had Gazateer's the like's of S's.

Easy reference to the things an actual Game Master would need, including possible plot hooks.

[DoctorMoreau]

Specifically I'm looking for information regarding the rest of the world at that time period, Victorian England isn't too hard to find info on.

[lostboy]

Well its not exactly the same time period, but I found a few Call of Cthulhu source books that were pretty useful (Cairo Guidebook especially but theres also Cthulhu by Gaslight)

Also if you fancy an Indian themed campaign theres a sourcebook (D20 compatible ) called Imperial Age: British India you can get it form Drivethru rpg. http://adamant.rpgnow.com/product_info. ... s_id=51230 These guys seem to do a whole range of Victorian era splatbooks.

There's also a D20 Tibet rpg out there somewhere (try googling it), so you could recreate the diplomacy and intrigue of the Great Game between Britain and Russia for control of Central Asia.

[DoctorMoreau]

Also if you fancy an Indian themed campaign theres a sourcebook (D20 compatible ) called Imperial Age: British India you can get it form Drivethru rpg. http://adamant.rpgnow.com/product_info. ... s_id=51230

Well, it's not that I want to do an Indian themed campaign, but I tend to enjoy a bit of globe trotting in my campaigns. So I want information that I can use for other areas of the world for specific adventures. That's awesome help by the way.

Just looking for websites, role playing books, or even other books if people have used them in their Masques or Victorian Era campaigns.

[Ronia Sun]

whoo! This beleaguered Masque DM thanks you both for this thread! That pointer to Adamant publishing was a lifesaver!

[DoctorMoreau]

whoo! This beleaguered Masque DM thanks you both for this thread! That pointer to Adamant publishing was a lifesaver!

I was looking at them too last night and they are really neat. I'm trying to figure out which ones I'm going to buy as since I'm not running d20 but instead nWoD rules.

[Brock Marsh Runoff]

If your interested in the United States during the Victorian Era, you might want to read The Devil in the White City, a non-fiction book about the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago and H.H. Holmes, the serial killer who used the fair for his hunting ground.

[steveflam]

Here's a really odd idea..... Why not read up on actual events in history! I recently played a MoTrD game in which we had to stop this "prophet"from being born, or did we? Anyways it ended up that way. We battled Daegon followers and one of our pc's ended up in the insane asylum. There we met a few really odd characters and one of them wanted to kill this prophet. We tried to stop and succeeded, we thought! Our games open up like an X-Files episode where the "camera" spans down onto the city(We're in Boston)...... It was three months in the future,,,, to make a long story short, the prophet is born! That's how our "episode" ends. KNow who the prophet was? H.P Lovecraft! He was born in 1890!

So actual historic events insignifigant and not can be used for great ideas!

[Ronia Sun]

"Devil in the White City" is a brilliant book--I couldn't put it down! It's one of the few nonfiction books I've ever read that I can say that about. For some reason, the vast majority of nonfiction writers seem to think they have to sound like a textbook, ie, deadly dull. This one, though, reads like a well-done novel, and in fact was one of the things that cemented my desire to run a Masque campaign in the first place! I can't recommend it enough.

But sadly, many of us don't have time for much in the way of in-depth research, and so things like the Adamant Imperial Age books are a wonderful boon. I, too, had difficulty deciding what to get. I highly recommend the Victorian Monstrosities one. Yeah, it covers some things already dealt with in the Masque or Ravenloft books (like Frankenstein's Monster), but what really impressed me was the fact that for each "monster" drawn from a Victorian literary source, they offered a new spin, an alternative monster based on the same theme, but shaken up and given a makeover so your well-read players won't automatically start howling "Hey, I know what that is!" For example, rather than Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde, they offer a Chinese apothecary in the U.S. (I forget if it was New York or San Francisco, but likely it was SF) who is weak and timid, but when a local gang-boss roughs him up and his thugs violate a beloved niece decides he's had enough. Rather than a new "scientific" formula, he researches an ancient Chinese medical concoction, and becomes a thug himself. (Who, ironically, goes to work for the very same gang-boss as a Very Scary Enforcer.) Instead of Frankenstein's Creature, we have a golem built in a Jewish neighborhood in London--though it could easily be a Jewish neighborhood in New York, or (if you want to go traditional golem) Prague. They also offer up more "obscure" Victorian monsters, in case the DM reading the book has never gotten around to reading the vampire novels that predate Dracula, or who has never read M.R. James's ghost stories.

Next on my list is either the "Grimoire" book, which looks like it might go into detail about the ritual-based magic-use of a low-magic setting (unlike MotRD, which is maddeningly vague about how to effectively use magic) or the "Faeries" book, which offers lots of ideas about how to work Faerie Courts into your Victorian setting. (And while they might have a few cute, fluffy faeries in there, I expect to find more of the scary sort, appropriate to Gothic Earth.)

So, yeah--*highly* recommend Adamant's books! They're great.

[Sassey]

If 1905-1914 are a period of interest to you, the website http://fellowshipwhitestar.com/ has a campaign sourcebook for a d20 horror campaign and 21 modules set in 1905 earth (global campaign book and global modules). Fair disclaimer that I write for that campaign.

I love reading books and find module ideas in many that are set in the right general period. HH Holmes is a great one to use as a period bad guy as are: Mata Hari, Edison, Tesla, JP Morgan, Rasputin, The Queen of Hawaii, Hawley Harvey Crippen, etc... Hmmm two HH killers, I'm not naming any of my kids with two H names Turning a guy who most people don't think of as evil (say Edison) into a campaign bad guy can really be alot of fun

Another great resource is ghost anthology books. Especially right now (Halloween), when I walk through the library lobby, they have a half dozen ghost tale books. Some talk about haunted trails, some house, some parks, etc...

By the way, Erik Larson who wrote The Devil in the White City also wrote a period book called Thunderstruck. It merges the invention of the wireless radio to the murder by HH Crippen. Great read that gives a good feel for the period and ideas for modules.

Also if London is your setting in the 1900 period, then I highly recommend Baedeker’s London and it’s Environs 1900 by Old House books.

/cheers!

-Dave

[DoctorMoreau]

Thanks for all the resources, I think it will be 1890s but I'm not going to be an exact stickler.

And historical research is part of what I do, I was just looking for easy to use gamer references, just as I stated. Especially things I can refer to on the fly if the group does something I don't expect.

It's also difficult sometimes to find details about places other than Europe and America in this time period.

But I also found this resource:
http://www.victorianadventureenthusiast.com/guide.htm

It pointed out this, which I now really want.

http://catalog.chaosium.com/product_inf ... cts_id=336