Episode 148: The Dunwich Horror (part 2)

If you're already a backer, you should have received a couple of emails today, notifying you of something new from the Good Friends. We've set up a new backers-only RSS feed. You should find show 147 there, along with todays release, 148. You should also find another file there, entitled 'It's the Good Friends, but as you've never heard them before' (yeah, I'll work on the titling for future shows). 

Anyhow, this is an opportunity to hear us unedited, the full thing from start to finish. This will remain a backers-only reward. We'll let you decide if reward is the right word?

Let us know what you think.

And on with the show:

We’re back and we’re continuing our exploration of the hidden corners of Dunwich. The locals seem quite welcoming and some of them may even be described as undecayed. Those Whateleys are especially interesting, although we’re not quite sure why they’ve installed what sounds like a swimming pool in the top floor of their house. We’re sure there’s a perfectly innocent explanation.

This is the second installment in our ongoing look at Lovecraft’s foundational weird tale, The Dunwich Horror. Last episode, we looked at the opening of the story, exploring Dunwich itself. This time, we learn more of Wilbur Whateley’s ill-fated outing to Miskatonic University. Of course, this leads into discussions about how best to represent 4-dimensional geometry, why having eyes on your hips is only fairly weird, and whether an arrangement of tentacles could really be something unknown to our solar system.

News

We had a bit of good news that came in too late to make it into the episode. The members of EN World recently had a poll to determine their favourite RPG podcast. There were 99 podcasts nominated and over 9,000 votes. Somehow, we were voted the most popular in the talk category! This was entirely unexpected and utterly delightful! Thank you to everyone who voted for us! Congratulations also to our good friends at The Grognard Files, who came in second. “What Would the Smarty Party Do?” also made the top 5 and How We Roll was number 6 in the actual play category. This is a fantastic time for UK gaming podcasts! If you would like to hear the countdown of the top 20, check out the latest epsiode of Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk.

Good friend of the Good Friends, Anthony Lee-Dudley, sent us a copy of Hypergraphia issue 1. This is a new Mythos gaming fanzine that explores the connection between eldritch horror and language. It is packed with strange and wonderful articles from familiar names. A most entertaining way to lower your SAN score.

In Dunwich, the song of the whippoorwill portends doom. Our songs may not prove quite as fatal, but they will still devour your soul. We have two new $5 Patreon backers, and so we have gathered outside their windows at dusk to sing our thanks to them.

As a result of the recent release of issue 4 of The Blasphemous Tome, we have a lot of new backers to thank. Everyone who backed us at the $1 and $3 levels before the end of last year will receive their thanks in either this or the following episode. It will take us longer to get to everyone who backed us at the $5 level or higher, however. The dark forces we draw upon for our songs are not easily contained and we dast only summon them twice per episode. Please be patient with us as we work through our backlog.

Two of the backers we thank in this episode create things that our listeners would probably enjoy, so we promised to link to them. If you’ve received a copy of issue 4 of The Blasphemous Tome, you’ve already seen some of John Sumrow‘s marvellous art. He has been kind enough to share a number of his drawings with us, much to our delight. If you like the picture below, you can find many more on his portfolio site.

We also mention another new backer known as Lord Mordiggian (Lord Mordi to his friends), who is the singer of the Lovecraftian metal band, Crafteon. We end the episode with their song “From Beyond”. If you would like to hear more of their work, they are on Bandcamp, YouTube and Spotify.