Skotos Tech Licenses Chaosium’s Lovecraft Country

BERKELEY, CA, September 6, 2000 – At last, the stars are right! Skotos Tech has licensed Chaosium's 'Lovecraft Country' supplements to create multiplayer online interactive fiction games. This partnership promises to bring together Skotos' innovative game technology and Chaosium's renowned Miskatonic Valley setting.

Lovecraft Country is based on the works on H.P. Lovecraft, a famous horror fiction author who wrote during the Jazz Age. His tales of cosmic evil influenced many of the most popular writers in the genre, including Stephen King and Clive Barker. Many of his best remembered stories were set in the legendary Miskatonic Valley, in Massachusetts -- Lovecraft Country.

The Lovecraft Country books published by Chaosium take H. P. Lovecraft's references to the Miskatonic Valley and unite them into a harmonious whole. "Chaosium's Lovecraft Country books do a superb job of codifying Lovecraft's Miskatonic Valley," says Shannon Appel, Skotos Director of Operations and contributor to Chaosium's Call of Cthulhu line. "All of the people and places described in Lovecraft's stories are laid out in vivid detail. The Chaosium sourcebooks are the perfect basis for interactive fiction stories."

Skotos' Lovecraftian interactive online fiction stories open in Arkham, Massachusetts in 1925. "Students are working late into the night, flappers are dancing till dawn, and pretty much life is going on as normal," says Shannon Appel. "It's the Jazz Age, and life is good. No one realizes that the end of the world is just around the corner." But, it is. In a few months, a mysterious island will rise in an ocean far from Arkham, and all over the globe people will begin to dream of a dark future. It could be the beginning of the end for humanity.

The plot-driven Lovecraft Country games will also focus heavily on player interaction. "Plots will be building to climaxes and mysteries will slowly be unraveling," says Shannon Appel, "but there's also going to be a lot going on between the players. Some folks are going to side with humanity and others with the dark gods from beyond time, and that's going to be pretty explosive."

As time goes on, the Lovecraft Country games will expand. Although Arkham is the initial center, games in Dunwich, Martin's Beach, and other locales are also being considered. In addition, occasional small- scale "Expeditions of Miskatonic University" Stages [short-term LARP- style games] will give investigators the opportunity to leave Massachusetts behind for short periods of time, travel to mysterious Cairo, over the Mountains of Madness, or into the unknown beyond.

The Lovecraft Country games will be built using Skotos' text-dominant StoryBuilder Server. This powerful server supports the creation of large and immersive virtual worlds centered around socialization. Players will be able to interact with each other in real and important ways amid the ever changing web of alliances that will be at the center of Lovecraft Country.

The first Lovecraft Country game is expected to go live in early 2001. The exact development team has not yet been determined, but Skotos has several experienced Lovecraft enthusiasts on staff, including authors of the award-winning, "Beyond the Mountains of Madness," Cthulhu adventure, Charles and Janyce Engan, and contributors to BTMOM, Michael Blum and Lisa Eichler, and Shannon Appel, contributor to and editor of more than a dozen Call of Cthulhu books.

About Skotos Tech

Skotos Tech is an online game company committed to creating a community of players, storytellers, and world builders. Skotos offers tools that allow its StoryBuilders to concentrate on the plot, character, and detail of the worlds they create. Skotos provides an environment that allows players to explore these worlds, share their accomplishments, and possibly become StoryBuilders themselves. Skotos Tech is located in Berkeley, California. Its first game, 'Castle Marrach', begins a limited beta test in late September, 2000. More information is available at www.skotos.net.

About Chaosium, Inc.

Chaosium is a roleplaying and fiction publisher located in Oakland, California. Chaosium is one of the most renowned and respected companies in the industry, and its Call of Cthulhu roleplaying game, regularly named one of the top five roleplaying games of all time, has received 45 awards since 1981 including both the Gamer's Choice Hall of Fame and the Origins Game Manufacturers Association (GAMA) Hall of Fame. The Lovecraft Country supplements are the solid core of Chaosium's Cthulhu line, and the most recent release, Beyond the Mountains of Madness, won the 1999 award for Best Role Playing Adventure. More information is available at www.chaosium.com.