Actual Play Podcast

The Shadow Over California

Gravestone Productions’ first foray into the world of podcasting, The Shadow Over California (the SOCpod) presents a thrilling story of action, adventure, mystery, and a  little comedy set against the backdrop of Arkham California, 1925. To make it more interactive, five college friends (F. Scott Graves, Nick Meyer, Jason Baldwin, Doug McAvoy, and Jenae Schneider) tell this story around a table together using Chaosium’s Call of Cthulhu 7th Edition rules with the Pulp Cthulhu supplement.

Season 1 & 2: The Main Story

When Jonah hears that his missing fiancee's younger sister has been kidnapped, he gathers his friend Claudia and David and heads to Big Bear to join the posse. He doesn't expect to find an eldritch god, civil war deserters, and a notebook from his missing fiancee.

Season 3: The Prologue Season

There was a whole demo/beta test season that happened before we began recording the story of Jonah, Claudia, Cecil, and John. This was recorded on a phone sitting amongst the middle of the table and then edited by Scott into a podcast in order to prove to his cool friends they could make a good show. For those dedicated listeners who want the full story, this season is available exclusively on Apollo+!

Semi-Indefinite Hiatus

Due to graduating straight into the 2020 pandemic and therefore a scattering of the crew, the SOCpod had to unfortunately shut down. However, Scott particularly loved this podcast, and despite some creative differences with certain members of the crew, he promises that the show will return if Gravestone Productions can reach $5000 monthly income from Patreon. Why so high? Well, Scott is currently busy with 3 other shows at the moment, adding another show that would release weekly would require Scott to be able to go full time with Gravestone Productions. Department 7 can only continue to hunt monsters with the help of you, dear listener.