Early interest check for Colonial Gothic, a Call of Cthulhu-esque game of subtle supernatural horror set in colonial North America.

Our scenario will take place in wintertime New France (present-day Quebec). Players take the role of indigenous peoples or French colonists; play an Algonquin scout, an Ojibwe diplomat or a French coureur des bois.

I need to read a ton of source material for this, so will look to start the game mid-year should there be any interest at this time. Leave your name here and I’ll rMail you when the game starts.

Yes! This! ...can we have a little more idea of the focus, though? Would be be investigating, diplomacing, soldiering, just trying to keep our heads down, or is that to be decided as per interested parties?

TBD to an extent, but lots of wilderness travel and exploration with aspects of winter survival, conflict and diplomacy with the many tribal confederacies that existed at the time.

Something for most tastes, so long as you're into the setting.

That sounds amazing, count me in.

Just replying to confirm definite interest, as I realised I might be looking ambivalent up there. If you run this, count me in!

i'd be interested

I would like to be considered for this game as well. It sounds very promising.

Thanks to those who've replied. Seems there's enough interest to start a game!

As a result, I'm currently working on a Colonial Gothic quickstart guide for chargen and gameplay (none exists, far as I can see. Happy to be corrected). I'll open chargen once that's done and posted, and rmail each of you individually. Probably still looking at a mid-year start for actual game start. Thanks for your patience!

I am definitely interested in this game. I have the Colonial Gothic New France rules, but I have not played them. The only Colonial Gothic game I played in RPOL (set in New England) died an early death, so I don't have a lot of experience with the rule set. However, I would be interested in playing in this game, probably as a French character. My knowledge of the period is chiefly old (Parkman) or from the English side of the border (Clark's The Eastern Frontier) but I think I have a general idea of it.

That makes me think - Jon Canuck, any particular sourcebook you'd recommend reading, in preparation for the game?

If I could recommend only one source it would be Black Robe, the 1991 film, or the book it's based on. It captures the characters and themes very well. I haven’t settled on the exact decade yet, but we’ll probably be playing around 75 years after the events of that film.

I haven’t seen Barkskins, the new NG TV series based on 17th C Quebec. It looks good, but perhaps more Eurocentric.

Print sources are many, and I’m open to suggestions. I’m currently reading Hunt’s “The Wars of the Iroquois”. For PC backgrounds, Wikipedia does a pretty good job of providing little regional details for characters’ cultural and historical origins, French PCs in particular; indigenous characters less so.

The Colonial Gothic source material really isn’t detailed enough to be of use: it covers a vast historical and geographical area. There’s no reason not to buy the books, but I wouldn’t rush out to get them, since the ruleset is easy enough to learn and we won’t be sticking closely to the fantasy lore presented there. It’s the sort of game you can have fun with learning on the fly.

In reply to Jon Canuck (msg # 11):

Thank you for the list, Jon Canuck. So, we're looking at the very early 18th C then?

Yes, probably the Golden Age of New France: after the Treaty of Utrecht and before the 7 Years' War.

Update: I really liked the movie, it piqued my interest. I looked for but couldn't find Hunt's book, so I'm reading Timothy Shannon's "Iroquois Diplomacy on the Early American Frontier" instead. I'm about a third in and so far it's pretty good.
This message was last edited by the user at 20:04, Tue 20 Apr 2021.

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