Host's Resources - Sound Effects

Host’s Resources -

Sound Effects

Just a quick post to let you know about new resource for background sound effects. 

 One of the ways often suggested to increase the in game experience is the use of different senses to explain a scene in the game. Prop documents and smells are easy to access and use. I have also employed sound effects of ship noises, storms and threatening beasties as atmospheric background in tabletop and LARP games. 

Usually I find them on Youtube and use a programme to save the sound only as an mp3 file. There are also some commercial gaming sound effects on sites like Drivetrhurpg but generally these have Lovecraft-based or science fiction themes.

Recently, the BBC set up a beta trial with free access to over 16,000 sound effects.  Some are purely studio effects but the majority are actual recordings from the BBC’s collections. There is an airship engine recording, lots of different steam train effects and a large range of horse and carriage sounds. There are also steam and sailing ship recordings, storms and street scenes from radio productions amongst the list. It is easy to search and quick to download.  The BBC collection can be found here. 

Host’s Resources: Building Floor Plans

Host’s Resources:

Building Floor plans

 

In addition to city and country maps, we make use of a number of house plans.  Always useful when planning a break in or displaying who is where during an attack on your dramatic character’s location. These links will give you a range of buildings which you could include in your campaign: There are many available from a quick search on-line, however, most of them are ground floor only. The ones below have all or at least most floors included in the plans.

Stately Homes & Palaces

Highclere castle (UK) - best known for being Downton Abbey in the TV series

Several plans including Weston Park (UK) & Vanderbilt’s Biltmore House (USA)

Palacio de Liria: Madrid (Spain)

 Castles

Castle Drachenfels and King Ludwig’s Castle Neuschwanstein – They are excellent plans, clear and well-drawn & this site has several other more Edwardian plans that are suitable.

Longford Castle (Wiltshire, UK) - a rare triangular castle.

Pfalzgrafenstein (Bavaria) - an interesting “Toll” castle in the middle of a river.

Housing of the Middle Classes

Haussmann apartments & Mansions in Paris (France)

House with a Mansard Roof 1860s (France /USA)

1870 Second Empire House (France / USA)

Housing of the Lower Classes

London Orphan Asylum (UK)

Workhouses & lower class lodging houses (UK)

The floor plan of a typical Victorian terraced house in Britain.

A Mixed Selection

Woodward’s Country Homes 1866 (USA) - A good range from labourers’ cottages to schools and chapels to larger establishments with illustrations & floor plans

Paris Catacombs & Sewers

Here are some nice maps of the Paris catacombs, annotated in French.

Host’s Resources: Maps

Host’s Resources:

Maps

Like many Hosts, I often make use of different scale maps during our gaming sessions, the most consulted one is this battered old map of the centre of New Europa which I constructed from printouts from this website.

It shows Bavaria, the Inner Sea and the numerous (non-canon) principalities and minor states of the Rhineland Provinces where much of the action in our campaign is set. I have another map from the same website which covers the Austro-Hungarian Empire and its neighbouring nations.

For maps of large parts of “the Germanies”, I have recently discovered this site containing maps of the area from just before the Great War.

There are numerous maps of the Major Cities of New Europa available on-line and here are a few which I have found :

VIENNA:

An 1873 city map

A plan of the 1873 Vienna Exposition - the great international exhibition

The environs of Vienna, Prague & Buda-Pest in 1881

PARIS:

An 1869 city map

An 1870 map of Paris and its environs  

An 1871 map of Paris and its surround ings

BERLIN:

An 1875 city map

A colour 1883 city map

MUNICH:

An 1880 city map

ROME:

An 1881 city map 

GREAT BRITAIN:

Just search this site to find six inch to the mile scale maps

Very detailed maps of Great Britain dated 1888-1913 

I have really good maps of London and Edinburgh from this site.

 

OTHER PARTS OF THE WORLD:

 

Explorer’s map of the Congo area, 1874

(In the 1876 section)

If Exploration is a Major Theme in your campaign, you might find this page very useful:

Maps from the Journal of the Royal Geographical Society of London

It has many great European maps of Africa & the Orient from the 19^th century.