Vidya Games That Look Good in 2018

Code Vein

This looks like some Grade-A Dark Souls + anime bullshit.

Sunless Skies

Weird steampunks in spaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaace.

Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night

The spiritual successor to Castlevania? Yes, more of that, please.

Darksiders 3
My money's on her, tbh.

Finding Inspiration Elsewhere

Sometimes you read something that burrows under your skin and sticks with you. I remember reading an interview with Jello Biafra (I think it might have been in the second volume of Incredibly Strange Music put out by Re/Search, but don't quote me on that) where he was talking about where he sought out inspirations while writing for the Dead Kennedys. The Dead Kennedys were a punk band, but despite that--or rather because of it--Biafra made a point not to listen to punk rock while crafting his own songs. 

His point was that an artist working within a certain genre or mode of artistic creation who only surrounds themselves with artifacts bearing the expected tropes, signs, and signifiers will inevitably create derivative work. 

To sidestep that paucity of tone, range, and influence, Biafra said that instead of listening to records by other punk bands, he listened to lounge music, oddball country & western, and whatever else seemed fundamentally different from his own creative project. Letting those other influences drift in, as opposed to just coloring safely within the lines, opened the doors to different possibilities for the Dead Kennedys and for what constituted the accepted category of "punk rock" in a larger sense. 

You can hear the end results all over the Dead Kennedys' records. They are recognizably "punk," but I'd be hard-pressed to name bands that are truly similar in sound or approach. 

Of course, the idea of finding inspiration elsewhere is not solely applicable to music. Obviously, the idea can be applied to role-playing games as well. It's easy to get stuck in a rut--such as a sword & sorcery campaign that only takes its inspiration from Howard, Lieber, and all the other usual names. I'm willing to bet that going a little farther afield could liven up what many consider to be the nadir of exciting settings--TSR's canonical campaign worlds. Here's a few campaign ideas that put a new spin on a well-worn setting by going outside the usual inspirations:

High Noon Under a Dying Sun
Dark Sun, but all the adventures are built off of classic Western movies. Water bandits, duels with weapons of bone and obsidian, struggling desert villages in need of black-hearted heroes, escaped slaves, psionic warlords and their cruel mining operations, etc. This one should have enough brutality to make Cormac McCarthy blush.

The Accursed Inheritor
A megedungeon campaign set in Ravenloft, executed in the style of Darkest Dungeon. One of the characters has inherited a manor house in Mordent, but below the house are warrens filled with eldritch things that must be dealt with before the house is habitable; along the way, the players will discover the horrible secrets lurking in the inheritor's family line as they delve deeper in the manor's depths.

Dark Souls of Moonshae
The Moonwells of the Moonshae Isles are dying mysteriously, their sacred waters dwindling, threatening to bring a new dark age without the protection of the Earthmother. The players must travel into the wilds of the islands, braving hordes of barbarous Northlanders and the mystic trickery of malicious fey, to discover that is causing the Moonwells to dwindle and, if possible, replenish them once more by linking their waters to the power of the Earthmother.

Gangs of Sigil
The characters are members of a newly formed criminal organization in the City of Doors looking to take over the territory of their more entrenched opposition. They engage in fights for domination against the orc and goblin gangs of the Hive, backstabbing and double-dealing, planar skulduggery, daring crime sprees, and evade both the Mercykillers and the Lady of Pain. Throw ideas from Peaky Blinders, Dishonored, Taboo, Gangs of New York, and Ripper Street into a blender--and add tieflings on top.

Creatures of Will and Temper

Episode 19: Molly Tanzer's Creatures of Will & Temper.

In Creatures of Will and Temper, Molly Tanzer takes elements of Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray and crafts a story of romance, swordplay, and demonology. It's an ambitious premise that goes beyond simply gender-swapping its source material. Listen and find out what Jack, a Wilde scholar, and Kate, a reader with a deep fear of contemporary takes on fin de siecle themes, think about this supernatural adventure.

Just how bent do genders get in this story? How much of the artistic process involves drinking, crying, and puking? Will these fencers ever get an opportunity to have some sexytimes? How do demons fit into the worldview of the Aesthetic movement? Find out all this and more in this month's episode of Bad Books for Bad People.

Listen here!

NOTE: Your hosts apologize for mis-naming the lead character. Her name is Dorina Gray, not Doriana Gray. The mispronunciation is due to a typo by Kate in the show notes, but we trust this doesn't impact your enjoyment of this episode!

BBfBP theme song by True Creature

Buy Jack's new book, Krevborna: A Gothic Blood Opera, on DriveThruRPG.

Find us at BadBooksBadPeople.com, on Twitter @badbooksbadppl, Instagram @badbooksbadpeople and on Facebook. You can discover where to get all the books featured on Bad Books for Bad People on our About Page.

Oyster Pirates, Tanith Lee's Weird Fiction, Deterring Witches

The Notorious Oyster Pirates of Chesapeake Bay (Kerry Wolfe, Atlas Obscura)

Weird Beauty: The Weird Fiction of Tanith Lee (Craig Laurance Gidney, The Weird Fiction Review)

The DIY Carvings Designed to Deter 17th Century-Witches (Kristen Amor, Atlas Obscura)

* * *

Ad by Trey Causey

Don't let a malevolent specter rob you of your copy of Krevborna! Best buy two copies of Krevborna: A Gothic Blood Opera at DriveThruRPG or RPGNow today, just to be on the safe side! EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

Loved to Death, Grand Gesture, Monstrous Love

Loved to Death: Top Five Gothic Romances for Valentine's Day - Stephanie Cole, Nightmare on Film Street

The Grand Gesture: Crimson Peak - Following Film podcast with Anya Novak

Women in Horror: A Monstrous Love - C. A. Yates, FoxSpirit

We Kidnapped Your Son, Sell Us Dragon Blood

Campaign: The Excruciata

Characters: Raymondo Cortiz (Human assassin rogue, former entertainer);  Grumli Fellhammer (Mountain dwarf path of the ancestors barbarian, former tribesman); Zanna Cobblestop (Forest gnome wild magic sorcerer, former urchin); Nina Kessler (Air genasi way of the frozen fist monk, former spy); Hiroshi (human samurai fighter, former knight).

Events: Having made a tidy profit selling gunpowder that had been magically enriched with sea dragon ichor, the Excruciata were keen to capitalize on their economic momentum and corner the illicit trade in enchanted black powder. Unfortunately, since no new source of already prepared arcane gunpowder was in view, they decided that it might be best to procure their own method of creating it. A little research in the criminal underworld turned up a new ally: a man named Hiroshi, a disgraced bodyguard to an aristocratic family living in a country far, far away.

Hiroshi had previously taken a few jobs providing muscle for Antoine Saulk, a wealthy man who owned a prosperous sea dragon ichor refining plant in Umberwell Docks. The Excruciata made a legitimate appointment with Saulk in hopes that he would be willing to sell them ichor they could use to enrich gunpowder, but during the meeting it quickly became apparent that he viewed the gang members with obvious distaste. As a man of rising fortunes, he had no wish to do business with a pack of obvious ne'er-do-wells.

Artby flaviobolla

Plan B was to escalate the situation. Since Saulk was unwilling to deal with them due to their obvious criminal enterprises, they decided to show him exactly how villainous they could be. Hiroshi knew that Saulk's mansion was situated at the edge of Umberwell Docks and Sartorial Square; Nina was able to adopt the guise of one of Saulk's lovers to get access to his social calendar through his secretary. Picking a night that they knew Saulk would be at the opera, they put there plan into action: break into Saulk's mansion, and kidnap his son.

The Excruciata entered the house by breaking into a storm cellar that led into a storage area of the basement. They made as much use of stealth as they could, but when that failed they brought violence into the house of Saulk. They tried to keep casualties to a minimum, particularly among Saulk's innocent servants, but a few guards within the house had to be sniped and killed from a distance. The gang managed to find the boy's room and steal away with him from the mansion. A letter was sent to Saulk the next morning, informing him of his son's abduction, and the Excruciata's willingness to return him for a favorable rate on sea dragon ichor.

It only took enclosing one of his son's fingers with the letter to provide proof that they were serious.

A source of sea dragon ichor now secured, now all the Excruciata had to do was find someone mad enough to use it to enrich a store of gunpowder...

Bad Books Short Story Swap

Bad Books For Bad PeopleMini Episode 7: Short Story Swap

In an effort to atone for the damage done during the Book Battle episode, Jack and Kate trade short story selections designed to delight one another. Do their efforts succeed?

Kate assigns Jack "The Adventure of 'The Brain,'" a 1910 comedy tale by Bertram Atkey that finds a bumbling pickpocket tied up with a cult of phrenology-obsessed suffragettes. Read the story in Otto Penzler's anthology The Big Book of Rogues and Villains. Jack introduces Kate to the work of Vernon Lee with the story "Dionea," a decadent gothic tale of an orphan, a doctor, a sculptor, and the old gods. Read the story in Vernon Lee's short story collection Hauntings, first published in 1890.

Find us at BadBooksBadPeople.com, on Twitter @badbooksbadppl, Instagram @badbooksbadpeople and on Facebook. You can discover where to get all the books featured on Bad Books for Bad People on our About Page.

BBfBP theme song by True Creature

Click here to listen!

Karen Berger on the Birth of Vertigo Comics

This is a fascinating interview. Karen Berger discusses how her lack of interest in conventional superhero comics was actually a strength when it came to the creation of Vertigo--a venue for comics that appealed to people like me couldn't get into capes comics.

Also, does anyone else remember this Vertigo-centric DC Comics commercial from the 90s?

Say "Hi," Tina!

Aside from the huge nostalgia hit I get from watching that again, I realize that this commercial was actually effective at letting me know that comics might be worth my time in two ways: most obviously, it was saying that there are non-superhero comics out there that might appeal to me; secondarily, it showcased the graphic novel format. That second part was huge for me, even if I didn't recognize it at the time. 

As a teenager I didn't have a reliable way to make it to a comic shop every month to pick up the new issues as they arrived; reading them in a collected format was much easier. The graphic novel format also capitalized on a level of already existing comfort: it's easier to pick up graphic novels when you're used to reading regular novels than it is to pick up single issues when you've been reading novelistically for your entire literate life.