Climbing this Mountain of Madness
by Nate French
;)
"Now, outspread below us, it loomed like a dream-phantasy against a westward mist through whose northern end the low, reddish antarctic sun of early afternoon was struggling to shine; and when for a moment that sun encountered a denser obstruction and plunged the scene into temporary shadow, the effect was subtly menacing in a way I could never hope to depict."
For this bibliophile, one of the great pleasures of Call of Cthulhu Asylum Pack design occurs every time we decide to base one of the packs on a classic mythos story. Why? Because that means I get to settle in at a nearby coffee shop and immerse myself in the strange imaginings of H.P. Lovecraft. With pen in hand, I make my way through the tale, jotting down ideas for potential characters, support cards, events, and conspiracies. I look for particularly memorable passages, and jot them down for use as flavor text, or sometimes just for the sake of the mood or mindset they inspire. (Being in the right mind is an important part of getting into the initial stages of design.) I look for imagery that can be conveyed to our artists so that they can provide artwork that enhances and works alongside the source material. And finally, I look for ideas that can transfer mechanically into the world we know as the Call of Cthulhu Living Card Game.
For Asylum Pack 5, I had the opportunity to work through this process with the atmospheric At the Mountains of Madness tale. Forgotten Shoggoths and Elder Things, Sledge Dogs and Giant Albino Penguins, and the members of Professor William Dyer’s horrifying Antarctic expedition all jumped off the pages of the book and into this Asylum Pack. Ultimately, though, it was the setting, the mood, and the atmosphere of the story that really captured my imagination, and got me to thinking: "How can I capture this environment in LCG form?"
One thing you may notice about this set when you first encounter it is how cold it feels. From the card titles to the artwork, and even some of the effects, a deep, frozen feeling dominates the Mountains of Madness Asylum Pack. The real mechanical break-through came with the concept of Polar event cards, which are peripherally teased by everyone’s favorite hideous penguin, above. Without saying too much (that’s Morgan’s job) and giving away all the secrets of the new Polar event mechanic, I will only mention that there are a number of them in this Asylum Pack, they build upon each other if you play more of them in a couple different ways, and both "Realm of Ice and Death" decks and "Hypothermia" decks should be interesting post-Mountains of Madness metagame choices.
The Mountains of Madness Asylum Pack is currently at the printer, and it will be coming your way this summer. Over the next few weeks we’ll be showing off some cards from the set, but we’re also going to take the opportunity to introduce you to our new blog feature. And by "we" I mean myself and our LCG Line Coordinator, Morgan Stana. (Word on the street is she’s a Cultist.) Besides the more traditional "codex" articles, these blogs will give you a more free-form look at the behind the scenes activity and thinking that goes on as we work on and play the Call of Cthulhu card game. Next week, Morgan will kick off the blog feature as she opens her first pack of Call of Cthulhu cards ever, and lets us all know what she thinks. You can check it out then if you’re interested, but if you ask me the real fun starts in two weeks, with my first blog. (No, I’m not bitter that she won the first time we played.)
Until then, remember: It was only a penguin.
