Gold mine discovered!

We had a look through the Oxfam book shop today and came across something that just couldn't be left behind, especially for £3.

This book is full of short articles that cover true facts that are weird or downright strange.

The book is divided into 18 chapters that start off with science and nature related items and moves on to the main reason I bought the book... there are chapters on hoaxes, unsolved mysteries, world explorations, strange customs and legendary beasts. From just a quick flick through the book so far, it looks like ideal fodder for pulp style adventures, even if the science chapters are 37 years old and out of date.

Each article is less than a page long, so is perfectly formatted for plot ideas and easy to flick through for inspiration.

Who knew that the world's largest nugget of gold was almost as tall as the man who found it and weighed nearly 187lbs? Useless? Maybe... but fascinating none the less.

Another example, also involving gold is the tale of a gold mine in Arizona where you could tap the wall gently and bars of solid gold would tumble to the ground. There are official records to show a number of prospectors all claiming to have found this mine and made quite a lot of money, but each time one of these prospectors returned, they were killed by the Apache tribes in the area, who believed that the prospectors had become greedy and tainted. You can't get more pulp than a mysterious gold mine protected by Apaches can you?

I may pull out (metaphorically speaking) any good ones and post them into the Plot Hooks section.

The Statement of Randolph Carter

"The Statement of Randolph Carter" is Randolph's testimony about the disappearance of his companion, Harley Warren. In the statement he tells of a mysterious tome in an unknown language that leads the two of them deep into the swamps in search of a stairway down into the earth that, presumably, goes to another time and place.

We already know about the existence of mythos tomes; they are the cornerstone of many of the tales and lead to some serious sanity loss in most Call of Cthulhu games. If you're ever short of a way to send people to their doom... use a book. They are generally written in arabic by some madman who lived in a cave in the desert and contain lots of indecipherable script unless you've got lots of Knowledge (Mythos).

The location covered in this story will still be in existence, but likely hard to find without the original books or a lot of luck (mostly bad). We don't actually know where the stairs go, other than down and that they are inhabited by some evil that killed Warren. It could be a tomb of some sorts, a gateway through to the Dreamlands or even the nest of some nasty creature. This one is an easy location to transplant anywhere in the world  and could be accidentally uncovered while fleeing from a German search party if you need a one-shot adventure.

Carter, the survivor of the tale, later appears in other Lovecraft stories and has gained power in the Dreamlands as well as the waking world. Whether these stairs and this event have increased his awareness and power over this realm are unknown, but it does introduce the theory that there is some connection here...

The events in "The Statement of Randolph Carter" are also key elements of Cosa Nosferatu, a fantasy/crime/horror novel featuring Eliot Ness and Al Capone, set in a 1930 era Chicago beset with Lovecraft-style Undead. I've not read this one yet, but it could also provide some interesting ideas for an investigation in America. I'll hopefully come back to this later when I find a copy.