Game Fodder / Story Fodder

[Setherick]

This is the start of a CoC adventure if I've ever heard one.

Roughly 2 million years ago, the Taylor Glacier sealed beneath it a small body of water which contained an ancient community of microbes. [...] Evolving independently of the rest of the living world, these microbes exist without heat, light, or oxygen, and are essentially the definition of "primordial ooze."

-- Blood Falls

Or the zombpocalypse.

[robotkarateman]

A Short History of Ireland, BBC Radio 7.

I'm about halfway through this series and it's absolutely brilliant. If you've got a traditional Europe-based fantasy setting, this series gives real-world flavor for Empire vs. Barbarian combat, religious war, subjugation of the impoverished, and the taming of wild lands that's invaluable. It's definitely helped shape my current campaign.

Unfortunately, the series is no longer on the BBC iPlayer, and I would never, ever recommend finding it through torrent sites such as RadioArchive.cc because that would be illegal even if the show were on such sites. Which it is.

[Setherick]

A Short History of Ireland, BBC Radio 7.

I'm about halfway through this series and it's absolutely brilliant. If you've got a traditional Europe-based fantasy setting, this series gives real-world flavor for Empire vs. Barbarian combat, religious war, subjugation of the impoverished, and the taming of wild lands that's invaluable. It's definitely helped shape my current campaign.

Unfortunately, the series is no longer on the BBC iPlayer, and I would never, ever recommend finding it through torrent sites such as RadioArchive.cc because that would be illegal even if the show were on such sites. Which it is.

I saw an interesting program about how potatoes were introduced to Europe, and Ireland specifically, during the 16C by the Spanish. It was really neat.

[robotkarateman]

Science and Tech Ads of the 50's and 60s

Add a little McCarthy-era science flavor to your campaign.

[Setherick]

Science and Tech Ads of the 50's and 60s

Add a little McCarthy-era science flavor to your campaign.

Google books has a collection of old Life magazines.

[robotkarateman]

Dude, I love their old Popular Science. It's fun to read the "MAKE MONEY FAST" ads in the back. Things haven't changed much.

I ran an alt-verse steampunk campaign a few years ago and I used the Google Magazines archive extensively for flavor.

[Setherick]

Iraqi War footage: http://www.guernicamag.com/features/1563/the_pleasure_of_flinching/

[clockworkjoe]

The story of Mouse Tower: http://great-castles.com/index.pl?mauseturmtale.html

[Kroack]

Is that actually a true story.
Death by mouse?

[robotkarateman]

Is that actually a true story.

According to Wikipedia, no, but it's still an awesome story. And actually gives me a great idea about the current scenario my players are in.

[Setherick]

Actual reviews from a Ramada Inn in Fond du Lac, WI (near where I live): http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowUserReviews-g59884-d100828-r3024580-Ramada_Plaza_Hotel_Fond_Du_Lac-Fond_du_Lac_Wisconsin.html

Let me start out by saying it's a great Ramada with clean rooms, and friendly staff. However, in the middle of the night, I heard the sound of someone pulling covers off the other bed. I looked at the other bed in my room, and saw the outline of a head resting on the pillow. I put my hand on it, and it was ICE cold. 30 minutes later, I am woken up again with the sound of footsteps by the bathroom. I get up, and find no one. But wait theres more, I also heard the sound of water from the sink in the bathroom. I got up, and could not find any faucet running. At that point, I just asked whoever was there to please let me have some rest. And the ghost(s) must have been listening, because after that I slept fine. Give it a chance! If you love spacious, haunted hotels, this is for you!!!

A very nice hotel with lots of charm, but this place gave me the creeps. An older couple on the way up to the seventh floor (the floor we were both staying on) told me this hotel had a haunted past, and I didn't believe it...at first. But in the middle of the night I heard noises coming from the bathroom, so I went to investigate and found nothing. While in the bathroom I heard footsteps coming from the room near the bed, but when I looked I also found nothing. Then later in the night I woke up again, feeling like I was being held. Weird! Supposedly this place has a history, and I'm curious if something bad has happened in this old place over the years...

[ristarr]

Actual reviews from a Ramada Inn in Fond du Lac, WI (near where I live): http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowUserReviews-g59884-d100828-r3024580-Ramada_Plaza_Hotel_Fond_Du_Lac-Fond_du_Lac_Wisconsin.html

This sounds like a great place to host a COC/horror gaming convention.

[robotkarateman]

Safari Ltd toys

We use minis in our games, so I'm always looking for fun things to throw on the table (last year I scared the shit out of my players by dropping a few of Mongoose Miniatures' Starship Troopers soldier bugs on the table).

Anyways, I've got a campaign coming up that's a modern updating of the Harryhausen film The Mysterious Island. I found the Safari Ltd. toys at Target and they're awesome. They're just the right scale for the giant creatures that inhabit the island, including weird stuff like dodo birds and giant bees. The movie was the basis, but the more I've poked around the Safari collection, the more ideas I've gotten.

I'm particularly looking forward to introducing the players to the 7.5" Sally Lightfoot Crab.

[robotkarateman]

It's like Y: The Last Man.

Atrazine, one of the world's most widely used pesticides, wreaks havoc with the sex lives of adult male frogs, emasculating three-quarters of them and turning one in 10 into females, according to a new study by University of California, Berkeley, biologists.

Pesticide Atrazine Can Turn Male Frogs Into Females

[robotkarateman]

Flickr "Underground" cluster.

Subways, sewers, even underground churches. Pretty awesome stuff, if you ignore the "underground boxing" results.