The Playhouse at Chaosium Con (2025)
Thursday
After hitting the open road, it wasn’t long before the shining towers (or, more correctly, the mid century brickwork) of Cranfield University hove into sight. I remember feeling some consternation when the venue was first announced: a business school in the wilds of Bedfordshire? But with a stout heart, I took my first steps on the terra incognita that was to be my home for the next few days. It took surprisingly little time to navigate the corridors of the venue, and I soon found myself in the company of friends both old and new, including Hedge, my roommate for the weekend.
We took the advantage of a quiet evening to head to nearby Newport Pagnel for dinner (or, if you are of a Northern persuasion, tea). A delightful time was had by all, and the table was shared with both Playhouse and Chaosium staff ordering far too much food. Returning to the venue, we took the opportunity for more conversation in the bar, and greeted the arrival of Newman and Cosmic. Hail, hail, the gang’s all here (as the old song goes).
We had been set the unenviable task of being Chaosium’s influencers on the ground, so to speak. Bridgett Jeffries had set us a number of challenges, which Hedge and Newman carried out with customary aplomb. This ranged from talking Regency with Lynne Hardy, ruduely interrupting Paul Fricker’s VIP game, to challenging Mike Mason to a Dice Off (with catastrophic results)! These challenges have been recorded for posterity, and may be found on our various social media platforms.
Friday
Friday morning started, as Friday mornings are wont to do, bright and early. I had decided to get my Keepering obligations out of the way early, and so we found four investigators unwittingly thrust into a cover-up at the Admiralty in A Drop of Nelson’s Blood. Highlights here included a Tory MP licking a carriage clock—I suppose you had to be there.
Friday morning also brought the first of many panels, namely the Writing for Rivers of London workshop, in which Lynne Hardy, Helena Nash, and Paul Baldowski, gave us an hour of insight into both the British and American settings, and how to craft fun casefiles. We also received the Word of God, in two tenets set down by Ben Aaronovich himself: “no sparkly vampires”, and “no brain stuff”. We were lucky enough to chat with Helena after the workshop and were treated to an unwrapping of their contributor copy of In Liberty’s Shadow.
The afternoon brought the Community Content Meet and Greet (and Eat, as a BBQ was laid on for the convention attendees at the same time). It was glorious seeing so many talented community content creators in one place. With a free drink courtesy of Chaosium for all who attended, the event ran smoothly, even if a number of us did miss the Welcome Ceremony!
That evening was the first of the Miskatonic Playhouse’s live shows: Waters of Leith, our Scottish Rivers of London:RPG actual play. The original cast of the chaotic DS Rhodri Cadwallader (Newman) and his long suffering partner DC Isabelle Woods (Lynne Hardy) were led by Hedge from an interspecies football match, through Edinburgh, to seek out a stolen trophy, assisted—although I hesitate to say ably—by PC Lennox Gyle (played by yours truly in full constabulary regalia). The addition of a live audience made the experience thoroughly enjoyable, and the recording shall be made available in the near future. The whole technical set-up was masterminded by The Cosmic Outpost with aplomb.
Saturday
While sitting down to breakfast, we were kindly gifted a hand-written one-card dice game by friend of the playhouse Marek. Naturally we had to play it, and I believe this video of our game speaks for itself. We followed this up with a game of the Mythos CCG; once a proud contender in the TCG wars of the ‘90s, this game had, until recently, been consigned to history. For those unfamiliar with the game, each player takes an investigator who uses their deck to complete adventures, while simultaneously summoning eldritch entities to decimate their opponent’s sanity. In a surprising turn of events, Newman actually won the game with the most remaining sanity!
We soon bundled into the seminar room to our Community Content Creators panel. Chaired by Nick Brooke and Newman, the topics ranged from how to get your product seen (with an excellent introduction to cover design by Diana Probst), sensitivity reading, and when to publish. Hopefully we managed to convince a few more people to take the leap and publish for the MR, JC, or CoA. If they needed more convincing, then the Community Content pop-up shop that followed surely would have done the trick; with 117 individual titles available in print (217 books in total—thanks to Nick Brooke for the numbers), the success of the program was self-evident. It was gratifying seeing the buyers seeking out those authors present and asking for signatures on the frontispieces. Apologies to those whose copies of Lost and Found were sullied by my inadequate train drawings!
Over lunch we were able to meet and chat with Ben Aaronovich, who gave us some wonderful insights into the workings of the Rivers of London world, and hints at what is to come. Alas a gentleman never tells, and neither shall I. We also took the time to walk the Artist Atrium, perusing the fine wares; from dice bags paintings, via the Innsmouth Literary Society and Cthulhu Architect (handouts). I managed to procure a rather marvelous painting of a Mi-Go facing off against a cat, and we commissioned the likenesses of our Waters of Leith characters.
The afternoon brought us the answer to What’s New With Cthulhu? Brian Holland, Mike Mason, Paul Fricker, Keris Macdonald, and Lynne Hardy were present to give us a peek behind the curtain at the forthcoming CoC titles. We got an exclusive teaser trailer to the Suture of Pale Leaves, a ramble through the woods of Campfire Tales of Terror (1920s scouts versus Cthulhu), and a trip down memory lane to the forthcoming Innsmouth sourcebook.
A break from the world of lovecraftian horror, as Hedge ran us through a short session of his post-apocalyptic BRP game Embers of Humanity. In a world decimated by nuclear war caused by prions found in lab-grown meat, our group of vegan survivors—holed up in an old mine in the peak district—have to navigate starvation, fuel shortages, and yoga mums. I eagerly await more sessions of this in the future!
It was time for our second Live Playhouse Game, this one dubbed Mike-mares. Newman, Keris, Camille, and Cosmic, were led through a gaslight scenario, Birds of a Feather, by Mike Mason himself. I won’t spoil it for those who wish to listen to the forthcoming recording, but let's just say you know you’re in for a good time when you’re asked to roll 1D100 for a SAN loss (and that wasn’t from me being on tech)!
Sunday
With the dawning of the Lord’s day, what better way to observe than by changing the central tenets of the Christian Church, by which I mean played the demo of the new edition of the Credo card game, led by Sue O’Brien. With a wonderful amount of plotting and backstabbing involved, I’m definitely considering grabbing a copy once it is available.
From ecclesiastical conflict to class conflict, as Keris led her seminar on Social Class in Cthulhu by Gaslight. This informative talk ended with an exercise where we put what we had learnt in practice by everyone in attendance taking on different social roles, and being introduced to ourselves. Again I ended up as a Bishop—maybe I missed my calling?
Three further games of Mythos CCG followed. In one I lasted only a handful of turns before my investigator was stranded on the far side of the moon without the ability to breathe in space. During these games a very generous chap approached me and donated his collection of Mythos cards. I unfortunately didn’t manage to catch his name, but it was a wonderful gesture that was typical of the chummy atmosphere of the whole convention.
And just like that, the Closing Ceremony was upon us. With the news that Chaosium Con UK was to become an annual fixture,
But fear not, intrepid reader, for our tale does not end there. In grand Playhouse tradition—well, it’s happened twice now so that makes it a grand Playhouse tradition—we gathered together one last time, accompanied by Lynne, Keris, Lydia, Jayson, and Mr Spike, to play a mad-cap improvised game of Cthulhu Cards with Newman as Keeper. Again, the recording of this will be made available at a later date, but if you experienced our previous offering from UKGE ‘23, you’ll know what to expect!
And with that our adventure drew to a close. The next morning we made our goodbyes and headed back to reality. As it transpires, the old catechism is true: the real cosmic entities are the friends we made along the way.
