EPISODE · Jul 21, 2025 · 1H 3M
Cthulhu Calling: The Greatest Conspiracy in History, ft. The Apocalypse Players (Part 2)
from PastMaster: Reshaping History · host PastMaster
What started as a missing persons case in 1920s Arkham has gone catastrophically sideways. Ezra Whitmarsh is alive but changed. Forbidden books are burning. Alien technology is doing things to mortal flesh that mortal flesh was not designed for. And T.G. Fells has one obsession that overrides cosmic horror, sanity loss, and the basic instinct for self-preservation: he needs to know who killed Christopher Marlowe. Dan Wheeler and Joseph Chance return as Gert and T.G. Fells to conclude their investigation, and "conclude" is doing a lot of heavy lifting. The Arkham mystery has spiralled into something involving Yithian technology, temporal displacement, and a nervous businessman who turns out to be far more dangerous than he appeared. Where the investigation leads and what Gert does when he arrives there involves iambic pentameter, a tavern that goes very quiet, and a conspiracy that makes the Syndicate look like amateurs. Marlowe's death in 1593 is one of history's genuine unsolved mysteries. Theories range from a pub brawl to government assassination to a faked death by the man some believe was the real Shakespeare. The Yithians, from Lovecraft's "The Shadow Out of Time," are beings who swap minds across millennia. Put those together with two podcast veterans improvising their way through cosmic horror and Elizabethan murder, and the question isn't whether they solve the mystery. It's whether there's enough reality left to solve it in. If you were sent back in time, could you survive and thrive — or would you be burnt at the stake for being a witch? PastMaster is the show that turns history into an interactive adventure game. Each episode, a comedian is dropped into the past with nothing but modern knowledge and terrible ideas. The AI Game Master is strict. The chaos is inevitable. The past will be mastered. Era: Fiction | 1926 CE / 1593 CE | Arkham, United States / Deptford, England Featuring: The Apocalypse Players (Dan Wheeler, Joseph Chance, Al Clayton, Chris Reading) Part 2 of 2 EPISODE LINKS Follow Dan and Joseph's adventure on the PastMaster Interactive Map 👉 https://map.pastmasterpod.com Dan Wheeler: X @danwheeleruk | danwheeler.org Joseph Chance: X @JosephChance2 Al Clayton: IG @turtlecanyoncom | X @turtlecanyoncom | turtlecanyoncomedy.com Chris Reading: IG @chrisjreading | X @ChrisReading | chrisreading.com GET IN TOUCH Sign up to our newsletter 👉 www.pastmasterpod.com Instagram 👉 @pastmasterpod TikTok 👉 @pastmasterpod X 👉 @pastmasterAI Email us 👉 [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
What this episode covers
What started as a missing persons case in 1920s Arkham has gone catastrophically sideways. Ezra Whitmarsh is alive but changed. Forbidden books are burning. Alien technology is doing things to mortal flesh that mortal flesh was not designed for. And T.G. Fells has one obsession that overrides cosmic horror, sanity loss, and the basic instinct for self-preservation: he needs to know who killed Christopher Marlowe. Dan Wheeler and Joseph Chance return as Gert and T.G. Fells to conclude their investigation, and "conclude" is doing a lot of heavy lifting. The Arkham mystery has spiralled into something involving Yithian technology, temporal displacement, and a nervous businessman who turns out to be far more dangerous than he appeared. Where the investigation leads and what Gert does when he arrives there involves iambic pentameter, a tavern that goes very quiet, and a conspiracy that makes the Syndicate look like amateurs. Marlowe's death in 1593 is one of history's genuine unsolved mysteries. Theories range from a pub brawl to government assassination to a faked death by the man some believe was the real Shakespeare. The Yithians, from Lovecraft's "The Shadow Out of Time," are beings who swap minds across millennia. Put those together with two podcast veterans improvising their way through cosmic horror and Elizabethan murder, and the question isn't whether they solve the mystery. It's whether there's enough reality left to solve it in. If you were sent back in time, could you survive and thrive — or would you be burnt at the stake for being a witch? PastMaster is the show that turns history into an interactive adventure game. Each episode, a comedian is dropped into the past with nothing but modern knowledge and terrible ideas. The AI Game Master is strict. The chaos is inevitable. The past will be mastered. Era: Fiction | 1926 CE / 1593 CE | Arkham, United States / Deptford, England Featuring: The Apocalypse Players (Dan Wheeler, Joseph Chance, Al Clayton, Chris Reading) Part 2 of 2 EPISODE LINKS Follow Dan and Joseph's adventure on the PastMaster Interactive Map 👉 https://map.pastmasterpod.com Dan Wheeler: X @danwheeleruk | danwheeler.org Joseph Chance: X @JosephChance2 Al Clayton: IG @turtlecanyoncom | X @turtlecanyoncom | turtlecanyoncomedy.com Chris Reading: IG @chrisjreading | X @ChrisReading | chrisreading.com GET IN TOUCH Sign up to our newsletter 👉 www.pastmasterpod.com Instagram 👉 @pastmasterpod TikTok 👉 @pastmasterpod X 👉 @pastmasterAI Email us 👉 [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Cthulhu Calling: The Greatest Conspiracy in History, ft. The Apocalypse Players (Part 2)
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