CALL OF CTHULHU's DARK SHADOWS

 So, while sorting through more Judges Guild stuff I came across an issue of THE DUNGEONEER (issue #17, May/June 1980) that contained an interview with Greg Stafford (founder of Chaosium, author of one of the greatest of rpgs, PENDRAGON). The most interesting part, for me, was Stafford's offhand comment on the game, then in the works, that became CALL OF CTHULHU (another of the best rpgs ever):

"We're . . . working on a new introductory role-playing system 

based on the works of H. P. Lovecraft.  It is going to be very simple 

and is not intended for the very sophisticated player. 

It's called Dark Shadows. 

It's being authored by Kurt Lortz and 

we'll have the usual amount of Chaosium 

support material to add local color so that

the game will be easier for the Judge and

the players to get into. By local color I mean

that it will include items such as timetables

for getting around the world in the late 19th

century (which is where much of the 

Lovecraft material takes place). Like most

Chaosium books, we want to make it 

entertaining to read or browse. 

I'm not familiar with Lortz's work (in fact, I'd never heard of him before), though a quick search on the internet provides an outline of how DARK SHADOWS by Lortz morphed into CALL OF CTHULU by Peterson. 

What's perhaps more surprising is that nobody seems to have thought about copyright over using the DARK SHADOWS name. Given the hugely popular gothic soap opera of the same name, starring anti-hero vampire Barnabas Collins, one suspects licensing (or the lack of it) may have played a role as well in the project's floundering.

Still, it'd be interesting to know more about this project's earlier stages.

--John R.

--current reading: THE GAUDY by J. I. M. Stewart

--today's song: "Twenty-five or -six to Four" by Chicago (remixed version)