This weekend I finally started to dig in to the upcoming books (Vornheim, Isle of the Unknown, Carcosa) and I think people are going to be well-pleased.
Vornheim will be easy to promote. "You know that Vornheim city from I Hit It With My Axe? That! Which also functions as a generic city adventuring sourcebook!"
Isle of the Unknown is easy. "Medieval island permeated by Weird Stuff, presented as a 70s-style sandbox."
But... how does one describe and promote Carcosa?
"The post-apocalyptic pre-colonial Mesoamerican planetary science fantasy horror setting - swords, dark sorcery, ray guns, Cthulhu!" "But forget all that, you'll only fixate on a half dozen (or whatever) lines in the book!"
That's a mouthful. :D
Vornheim will be easy to promote. "You know that Vornheim city from I Hit It With My Axe? That! Which also functions as a generic city adventuring sourcebook!"
Isle of the Unknown is easy. "Medieval island permeated by Weird Stuff, presented as a 70s-style sandbox."
But... how does one describe and promote Carcosa?
"The post-apocalyptic pre-colonial Mesoamerican planetary science fantasy horror setting - swords, dark sorcery, ray guns, Cthulhu!" "But forget all that, you'll only fixate on a half dozen (or whatever) lines in the book!"
That's a mouthful. :D
I feel like the picture on the original Carcosa cover was surprisingly eloquent.
ReplyDelete"But... how does one describe and promote Carcosa?...dark sorcery, ray guns, Cthulhu!"
ReplyDeleteExpedition to the Barrier Peaks?? I'd never heard of Carcosa until following this blog. It seems quite interesting, but the classic module noted above seems the most appropriate comparison. I'm sure this comparison is incorrect and will rub some the wrong way...but I don't mean it to.
You could always market on how controversial the original was. A certain number of people will always want to buy stuff like that.
ReplyDeleteIt'll have some sort of note about content but that's not what McKinney considered to be the focus of the book and it's not I want to present as the important thing about Carcosa.
ReplyDeleteIf you're gonna keep those half dozen lines, you can't wish that people would stop talking about them... if it's so vital to the supplement to keep them, then you get the baggage that goes along with it.
ReplyDeleteMagic in Carcosa is bleak and horrifying, it's the stuff of nightmares where evil isn't embodied by some horned dork wearing a black outfit with a skull motif.
ReplyDelete@Pat
ReplyDeleteTrue, but that doesn't mean you can't decide the people focusing on them are the kind of people you wish didn't exist.
I'd pitch it like this:
ReplyDeleteCarcosa: Buy the book that others do not want you to read! Read the 'blasphemous text' that HURTS CHILDREN and might be illegal in the State of Florida! As bad as the Necronomicon! More madness than The King in Yellow!