Summon Invisible Servant

A while back my Call of Cthulhu players found a tome (Or rather, stole it from Miskatonic Library in a daring armed raid). It contains a number of poorly labelled spells, so I thought I’d make handouts for my players describing what each ones does. However, this being Lovecraftian horror and all, I’m using the description from the book with all the rules information cut out.

For example: Summon Invisible Servant
What do you think? Would you want to cast it?

That file was produced using code written in LaTeX by a group of awesome people on the TeX Stackexchange. You’ll also need the background image from http://www.alfredom.com/art/free-6.htm

I modified the code they listed to work with the default packages included in TeXLive as follows:

\documentclass[17pt]{extarticle}% This is a document class providing more font size options

%Thanks to doncherry for doing this whole mess! http://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/29402/how-do-i-make-my-document-look-like-it-was-written-by-an-cthulhu-worshipping-madm/29458#29458

\usepackage[svgnames]{xcolor}
\usepackage{graphicx}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
%\usepackage{emerald}% font package %Not in TeXLive
\usepackage{aurical} %The font I decided to use.
\usepackage[doublespacing]{setspace}% line spacing

\usepackage{wallpaper}

% thanks to Bruno Le Floch: http://tex.stackexchange.com/q/9331/4012
\usepackage{rotating}
\usepackage[first=-6,last=6]{lcg} % you can play around with these values
\makeatletter
\newcommand{\globalrand}{\rand\global\cr@nd\cr@nd}
\makeatother
\newcommand{\easteregg}[1]{%
\expandafter\let\csname old\string#1\endcsname#1%
\expandafter\def\expandafter#1\expandafter##\expandafter1\expandafter{%
\csname old\string#1\endcsname{\protect\globalrand\protect\turnbox{\value{rand}}{##1}\protect\phantom{##1}}}%
}
% ———-

\newcommand{\randomrotation}{}
\easteregg\randomrotation

% thanks to Martin Scharrer: http://tex.stackexchange.com/q/11598/4012
\makeatletter
\def\cthulhu#1{%
\@cthulhu#1 \@empty
}
\def\@cthulhu#1 #2{%
\randomrotation{#1}\space
\ifx #2\@empty\else
\expandafter\@cthulhu
\fi
#2%
}
\makeatother
% ———-

%\newcommand{\eldersign}{\raisebox{-.5\height}{\includegraphics[height=3ex]{eldersignimagefile}}}

%\renewcommand*{\rmdefault}{\Fontskrivan}

\begin{document}

\pagestyle{empty}\CenterWallPaper{}{parchemin_6}

\centering% that madman wouldn’t justify his writings
%\color{MidnightBlue}% my pick for “looks like ink” %I don’t have a colour printer.
\Fontamici %The font out of that package we want to use
%\Fontlukas %Use this if you don’t want the long S shape.

\cthulhu{\textsc{Summon Invisible Servant}}

\cthulhu{Curious rustling sounds are heard once this invisible thing lurks near. The caster needs a book in which are written or inscribed the words of the spell. This spell can be cast only at night under a cloudless sky. The creature is invisible save when its veins fill with blood from some visible creature.}

\end{document}

————–

I’m very open to suggestions on how to improve this, if anyone knows of a better background image for example. I’d love to improve the font, but I’m not framilar with XeTeX or LuaTeX enough to modify this to run on it, so I have to stick with Type 1 fonts.

Published in: on September 28, 2011 at 11:47 pm  Comments (8)  
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8 CommentsLeave a comment

  1. Hi,

    Apologies for the off-topic comment, but I couldn’t find a contact email for you.

    I’ve recently put out an ebook of my writing, called ‘The New Death and others’. It’s mostly short stories, with some obvious gamer-interest material. For example I have a story inspired by OD&D elves, as well as poems which retell Robert E Howard’s King Kull story ‘The Mirrors of Tuzun Thune’ and HP Lovecraft’s ‘Under the Pyramids’.

    I was wondering if you’d be interested in doing a review on your blog.

    If so, please let me know your email, and what file format is easiest for you, and I’ll send you a free copy. You can email me (news@apolitical.info) or reply to this thread.

    You can download samples from the ebook’s pages on Amazon and Smashwords:

    http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/92126

    I’ll also link to your review from my blog.

    Yours,
    James.

    • Hey, sorry for not getting back to you for so long, I totally missed this somehow. I’ll give it a read when I get a chance, but I have no experience reviewing fiction. *.mobi would work the best, but I’ve got software to convert just about anything to anything. My email is Canageek at gmail. If you poke me around Christmas I’ll see what I can do.

      • No problem. I’ve emailed you a kindle file. If you want to, you can do a review of it from the perspective of whether it provides gaming inspiration.

  2. I’m not a Cthulhu fan, but dang, that’s awesome. Now I gotta go learn me some LaTeX.

  3. […] year some awesome people made me a Cthulhu prop making LaTeX document. I then went and made a prop out of it, but my game then died. Today is Halloween, and I found myself writing a journal entry to my TA as […]

  4. No long s at the end of words, please!

    • Sadly, with the fonts I’m using I can either replace all the S or none of them. You can quite easily swap the font for one with no long S if you desire.

  5. I am going to be running the D&D 5e Starter Box campaign and plan on using something like this to do this: http://imgur.com/0FUAlnH

    More info here: https://www.reddit.com/r/dndnext/comments/4e3iol/starting_a_new_lmop_campaign_made_a_cool_prop_for/d1xck2f?context=3


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