Rogue Cthulhu's Origins '03

The Rogue Room was in perfect form. Eerie lights, haunting music, decorated tables, and of course, a nine foot tall inflatable Cthulhu that we call, "The Big Steaming Pile". All the amenities of last year's room were back, with a few added touches. The Steaming Pile grew a pair of wings over the winter, and thanks to the generosity of ZARONO, we had a fresh new batch of Mythos artwork for the walls. The famed Prize Table was also looking mighty fine. Our clever cultist craftsmen had been busy slaving away on new items all winter, and we brought an absolute crap-load of nifty swag to give away. Stone medallions, sculpey statues, necronomicon pages, even hand made soaps made in mythos shapes. An entire 6ft. round table was overflowing with the stuff. One drawback to having so much fantastic stuff, is that people are hording their points in order to get some of the really big prizes. This created a minor shortage of Rogue Point chips which forced us to substitute business cards with the GM's initials and a point value written on the back. Sorry guys, we'll make sure to have a fresh supply of chips for next year. The crowning jewel of this year's prize table had to be the hand made Necronomicon donated by ZARONO. Priced at 4000 points and valued at over $80, it was by far the most admired and sought after item of the lot. It finally sold to three guys who pooled all their points from this year and last. Congratulations guys! Happy summoning.      The location of this years room gave us excellent exposure for our 8ft tall banner. It could redily be seen by all the convention attendees passing by the main escalators. It was such a striking fixture, that it is prominently featured in several interviews (with people who are not even affiliated with us L) that were conducted by a documentary film crew, who spent lots of time on Thursday, hanging around our room. They said it was a "pro-gaming" film, but we're reserving judgement. They seemed overly fixated on our horror decorations and Cthulhu-cultist costumes. It will probably end up on the 700-Club sometime. Anyway, even that kind of exposure doesn't bother us (much). If you want to find out more about it, you can email the producers.

Of course all our events were sold out, but that didn't stop us from taking in dozens of refugees from next door. Chaosium had reportedly dropped the ball on their demos. Apparently, none of their Game Masters showed up to run their events. So we took in all the players that we could, turning NPCs into PCs and making room wherever possible, so people wouldn't have to do without. Because that's the kind of GoTo guys we are!

Speaking of GoTo guys, the amount of support and volunteerism we managed to dig up on sight, to bolster our sagging roster, was phenomenal. All of our regular GMs pitched in to fill the holes left by Don's unfortunate absence, and with the addition of three freshman Rogue GMs; Gene, Spencer and William, who all really shined for their debut performances, not a single one of our scheduled games was canceled! No amount of thanks can express how grateful and proud we are to have such a terrific team. Great job guys! The only event casualties were the recruiting seminars and caroling sessions, which weren't listed as scheduled events anywhere except our web page anyway. Oh well, maybe next year.

This year served as the final tour of duty for several of our classic adventures, which are going to be retired (look for them to be available for sale on our web page soon). But that doesn't mean the entire show consisted of re-runs. Rod and Justine tag teamed another brand new three part adventure, called "The Hunger of the Hills", for their sophomore run, and Dustin weighed in with some fresh meat of his own devising, entitled "Far Beneath, The World Below." All four of these scenarios got rave reviews by the players. And we can't forget the Wild Card three-point shot at the buzzer put up by Don and Jeff, "Look to the Sky Above". So what if you didn't know what it was going to be about until you got there. With a brand name like Rogue Cthulhu, it's got to be good!