Overview

History: 2018-Present

Jared Smith, publisher of Bayt al Azif, began roleplaying when he and his younger brother were run through B2: The Keep on the Borderlands (1980) by a babysitter. Their characters both died, which would be excellent practice for a future Call of Cthulhu (1981) aficionado. Despite some Lovecraft reading in High School, Smith wouldn't meet the famous horror game until college, when he played in "The Haunting". No word of who survived that adventure, though apparently at least one character went out a window!

One other bit of knowledge was needed on the road to Bayt al Azif: publishing experience. That also began in college, where Smith edited and produced an anthology. However, he gained even more experience starting in 2013 when he began publishing comics through his comic store, Big Planet Comics, alongside the small-press Retrofit Comics.

The past is prologue: the actual inciting incident leading to Bayt Al Azif occurred when Smith picked up a book from Kobold Press and recognized it as print-on-demand (POD). When Smith realized that anything could be printed POD in the modern day, and that he wouldn't have to deal with subscriptions, warehousing, or shipping, a new magazine was born. He settled on a Cthulhu Mythos RPG mag because of his enjoyment of the games, and because he knew there was a dedicated fanbase.

Bayt Al Azif was also inspired in part by The Unspeakable Oath (1990-2001, 2010-2018), likely the most famous of the Cthulhu RPG magazines. It supports Call of Cthulhu, published under the Chaosium Small Publisher Limited License, which is a royalty-free license for products whose gross revenues don't exceed $2000 a year. However, it also supports Trail of Cthulhu (2008), courtesy of the GUMSHOE SRD, made available under both the OGL and a Creative Commons license.

Like the second incarnation of The Unspeakable Oath and other Cthulhu RPG mags of the '10s such as The Arkham Gazette (2013-Present) and The Blasphemous Tome (2016-Present), Bayt Al Azif was (as planned) built using PDF and POD technology. Ingram manages the on-demand printing and also makes the magazine available to book stores; it's also possible for Smith to send the magazine on from Ingram to gaming distributors such as IPR (provided that the printing costs and the discounted price offered to distributors line up and Smith makes sure they do!).

Bayt Al Azif has published about once a year since its October 2018 debut. The magazine is almost like a yearbook, thanks in part to Dean Engelhardt's looks at the annual publications for Cthulhu RPGs. It also tends to include history and interviews, plus a number of adventures for a scattering of eras in each issue.

Obtaining the Magazines

About the Game Systems

This index is © Copyright 2023 by Shannon Appelcline. It is released under a cc-by-4.0 license, allowing reuse with attribution. Background Image by inksyndromeartwork on Freepik and is available under separate license there.

Main Index

🏚️️ Adventures: Misc

1. Translated from the German in CTHULHUS RUF #1 (2012).
2. Translated from the German in CTHULHUS RUF #3 (2013).

🏡️️ Adventures: Geographic

1. Translated from the French in DI6DENT #7 (2013).
2. Translated from the German in CTHULHUS RUF #1 (2012).
3. Translated from the German in CTHULHUS RUF #3 (2013).
4. Translated from the Finnish in SEIKKAILIJA #8 (1991).

🕰️️️ Adventures: Historic

1. Translated from the German in CTHULHUS RUF #6 (2014).
2. Translated from the Finnish in SEIKKAILIJA #8 (1991).
3. Translated from the German in CTHULHUS RUF #1 (2012).
4. Translated from the German in CTHULHUS RUF #3 (2013).
5. Translated from the French in DI6DENT #7 (2013).

🦉 Advice

1. A discussion of adapting OUR LADIES OF SORROW (Miskatonic River Press, 2009).

🎨 Background: Misc

🗺️️ Background: Geographic, Earth

⌛ Background: Historic, Misc

💀 Creatures

📚️ Equipment: Books

🧶️ Fiction

📣 Interviews, Memoirs & Notes

🪟️ Meta

🎲 Random Tables

📜 Rules

⭐ Reviews: Misc

1. Originally printed in GAMEPLAY #1 (Crstyal Publishers, 1983)

Covers