Diremoon Revelator Shrines and Fort Gilead

The following two adventure locations in the Vespermark are meant to emphasis its status as the "wild frontier" far away from the mainstream Church and other loci of authority. "Location" is being used fast and loose to describe the Diremoon Revelator Shrines, since there are many of them dotting the Vespermark, but they were also a great opportunity to introduce a folk religion based on belief in Santa Muerte. Fort Gilead, on the other hand, is a classic convention of Wild West fiction, but I'm also giving it a little bit of gloss from Stephen King's Dark Tower books.

Diremoon Revelator Shrines

The Diremoon Revelators are followers of a folk religion that venerates Saint Vionka, a non-canonical saint, whom they believe intercedes on behalf of mortals in matters of death.

    • The Diremoon Revelators maintain no organized temples or churches—instead, they establish small shrines dedicated to Saint Vionka throughout the Vespermark. 

    • The Diremoon Revelators’ devotional shrines are most frequently found in areas prone to turmoil, violence, and danger.

    • Saint Vionka is depicted as a pale maiden clad in a black dress and wearing a matching lace veil; she is often shown accompanied by crows, ravens, and jackdaws. 

    • The Diremoon Revelators pray to Saint Vionka be to spared from “bad deaths,” such as deaths by violence or at the hands of the evil creatures who roam the land. 

    • The faithful hope that Saint Vionka will guide them to “good deaths” free from pain and strife. 

    • Saint Vionka’s faithful consider the undead to be atrocities; the most fanatical Diremoon adherents hunt undead abominations as a sacred calling.

Fort Gilead

Fort Gilead is a castle stationed on the wild frontier of the Vespermark. Fort Gilead is currently occupied by members of the Knights Labyrinthian, who are using it as their ad hoc headquarters.

      • Fort Gilead is used as a center of trade for the people living on the Vespermark’s plains. 

    • As their tranactions take place under the watchful eyes of the Knights Labyrinthian, traders are expected to be fair in their dealings.

    • The Knights Labyrinthian also use Fort Gilead as a training ground for the young “squires” of their order who have not completed their trials and are not yet recognized as full members.

    • Squires are trained in tracking, wilderness survival, and marksmanship; they are also initiated in the Knights Labyrinthian's mystical teachings and peculiar version of laconic chivalry. 

    • Within Fort Gilead, the Knights Labyrinthian compile information on the Grail Tombs gathered in their travels across Krevborna.

Urska

Did you know that Krevborna has bear people as a playable race? It's true. Below are the Savage Worlds stats I've cobbled together for them; I think I might have based them somewhat on the minotaurs from the Fantasy Companion.

Urska

Similar to humanoid polar bears in appearance, urska are generally solitary–though they sometimes rally under the banner of a strong leader who commands their stalwart loyalty. Such leadership roles are only ever assumed when a urska manages to best all challengers in deadly, ritualized combat. Urska often favor attitudes best characterized as stoic and militaristic. 

• Blunt: Taught that might makes right, urska struggle with diplomacy and tact. They have the Mean Hindrance.

• Claws: Urska claws cause Strength+d6 damage, adding +4 if the character runs at least 5” (10 yards) and hits with them.

• Cold Resistance: Urska receive a +4 bonus to resist cold effects. Damage from cold is also reduced by 4.

• Heat Weakness: Urksa suffer a –4 penalty to resist heat effects and take +4 damage from heat and fire. 

• Hulking: Urska are tall and broad, adding +1 to their Toughness. They are Size +1.

• Martial Code: Honor is very important to urska. They generally keep their word, don’t abuse or kill prisoners, and feel duty-bound to respect those who have bested them.

• Tough: Urska starting Vigor is d6, increasing the limit to d12+1.

• Uneducated: Urska society favors physical prowess over intellectual ability. Smarts rolls are made at −1.

• Unwieldy: Their muscular frames causes urska to subtract two when using equipment designed for smaller beings, and they cannot wear humanoid armor or clothing. Equipment, armor, food and clothing cost double the listed price. 

• Very Strong: Urska start with Strength d8, increasing their maximum Strength to d12+2.

Beltaire and Bordel

Two adventure locations in the Vespermark: a pilgrimage site where something very strange is happening and a frontier town run by a family of nefarious wereleopards people. Beltaire is a product of my fashion with Europe's bejeweled catacomb saints, as well as my love for the video game Blasphemous. Bordel is my Wild West-inspired take on Val Lewton's Cat People. (The name "bagheeta" is from Lewton's short story in Weird Tales that formed the basis of Cat People; it's definitely worth checking out!) There's probably also a little play on "leopards eating people's faces party" in there.

Beltaire

The ruins of Beltaire are a popular pilgrimage destination for the faithful of the Church of Holy Blood, for beneath the village lie catacombs that house the gilded and bejeweled skeletons of venerated saints. 

    • It is unknown who placed these skeletal remains within the subterranean crypts or who has taken pains to dress them in sumptuous religious vestments, but the Church’s adherents consider it an act of faith to anoint the saints’ bones with blessed oil.

    • Oddly, the saintly corpses within the caverns are sometimes found to have changed posture or position—or to have moved to a different section of the catacombs entirely. 

    • The faithful regard these unexplained movements as miraculous, but there is a darker truth to the ambulatory dead of Beltaire; when the sun sets, the unquiet spirits of Beltaire’s former residents stalk the ruins in search of prey.

    • A thriving market peddling fraudulent saintly relics, fake holy water, and other chicanery has taken root just outside the walls of the ruined village.

Bordel

Governed by a scheming brothel madame named Katarina Valdemar, Bordel is a community of swindlers who survive by providing services such as gambling, saloons, and prostitution to travelers in the Vespermark. 

    • The sins of Bordel drain the town’s visitors like parasites, draining their coin before sending them on their way, broken and humiliated by their vices. 

    • Katarina and her family run the town as if it were their personal barony; strangely, those who stand up to their despotism are often found badly mauled as if they had been attacked by wild animals. 

    • These killings are the work of the Valdemars—a family of bagheeta, werecats who turn into hybrids of man and black leopard when angered or aroused, hiding in plain sight as bawds and procurers in Bordel.

The Unworthy

Bad Books for Bad People, Episode 86: The Unworthy

Agustina Bazterrica’s 2023 novel The Unworthy explores the relationship of its unnamed narrator with the repressive post-apocalyptic cult in which she finds herself. Jack and Kate embark on a harrowing journey through broken relationships and authoritarian control and dare to ask the most important question of all: can it be considered nunsploitation?

What does it mean to crave feel-bad stories? Where did nunsploitation come from? And why does everything have to be “elevated,” anyway? All these topics and more will be explored in this episode of the podcast.

The Vespermark

Art by Mike Royal

The Vespermark is an area of Krevborna not detailed in the first-edition book, but it will be featured in the revised version of the setting. I realized I wanted in an area of frontier wildlands, one influenced by the Westerns I grew up on.

The Vespermark

A Nightmarish and Lawless Frontier

The sparsely populated hills and plains west of Krevborna’s nominal bastions of civilization are collectively known as the Vespermark. Small towns, villages, and farmsteads dot the borderlands between the settled areas of Krevborna and the rest of the world. In between these outposts are swaths of badlands and steppes littered with supposedly abandoned keeps, castles, and monasteries.

An atmosphere of vigilante justice prevails in the often lawless Vespermark; its settlements are imperiled by unholy beasts and predatory outlaws, and it lies beyond the protective reach of the Church of Holy Blood. The lonely homesteads and towns of the Vespermark are encircled by perimeter walls meant to keep out monsters and bandits. 

Most settlements in the Vespermark practice their own forms of self-governance, but some are oppressed by local tyrants, hereditary boyars, mercenary bands, or cult leaders. For example, the wilds of the Vespermark are a safe haven for the Yezhuli—a forbidden sect of the Church of Holy Blood that practices polygamy.

People who live in the Vespermark are protective of the lives they carve out of the desolate landscape. They are often regarded as standoffish, justifiably so, as they often have good reason to be distrustful of strangers.

Hallmarks

The following elements and aesthetic notes define the Vespermark:

    • The Vespermark is the sparsely populated borderland between Krevborna’s “civilized” areas and the neighboring countries.

    • The settlements of the Vespermark are self-governed, when they aren’t oppressed by local strong-arm rulers.

    • Strange cults that would otherwise be stamped out by the Church often take root in the Vespermark.

    • Brigands, highwaymen, and monsters prowl the badlands and prey upon the Vespermark’s farmsteads and towns.

    • Unusual flowers, their scent both sickly sweet and redolent of rotten meat, grow in the wilds of the Vespermark.

Two Reasons Why Call of Cthulhu is One of the Great Horror RPGs

Call of Cthulhu is one of the best horror games I've ever played, and I've played a lot of them. There are many reasons why it works great for horror, but I want to spotlight two elements that make a particular case for Call of Cthulhu as a top of the class game.

Sanity

It has been said, and rightly so, that Call of Cthulhu's Sanity system is a poor representation of actual mental illness.

Everyone who says that is correct. What they're missing is that this is a feature, not a bug.

Used liberally, Sanity loss in Call of Cthulhu is an unstoppable spiral into the abyss. Players should be incentivized to involve their character in the scenario for an important reason (stopping something awful from happening, keeping the people they love safe, etc.), but the act of involving their characters should also always put them in a position where losing precious Sanity is a preeminent threat.

The beauty of Call of Cthulhu's Sanity system is not in how it models mental illness, but rather in how it snowballs precipitously into a spiral of madness. One failed check means the next check is even more likely to fail, which means that the margin of success on the check after that is likely to be the slimmest it's been. 

Couple the viciousness of that unmitigable peril with the fact that every blown Sanity check could be an opportunity to make the current situation worse. If things go truly bad on a SAN check, it might mean briefly handing a player's character over to the Keeper's machinations and forcing them to do something that is contrary to their best interests.

And Keepers? If you get that opportunity, use it. Have the character do something that really fucks them over or makes the situation demonstrably worse.

What this means is deceptively simple: in Call of Cthulhu, even your own character is a liability.

There's also a special social effect that often occurs when the Sanity system rears its misshapen head in Call of Cthulhu. Sanity loss seldom spreads itself evenly across a group of characters; some characters get hit hard, while others remain largely unscathed. This creates a tension within the group between players who want to play it safer (they're watching their character's SAN score plummeting toward permanent insanity) and those who want to explore the scenario more cavalierly (their character is mostly unharmed by the horrors encountered thus far, so they see room for further error without consequences). 

So long as that tension remains at the table between the characters, and doesn't spill over to the players themselves, it makes for a wonderful push-and-pull of anxiety and dread that really enhances the game's atmosphere of horror.

The Character Sheet

At the side, you can see the skill list that takes up the majority of a Call of Cthulhu character sheet. It almost looks like a tax form, doesn't it? There sure are a lot of skills in this game.

They won't save you.

Ideally, there comes a point in a Call of Cthulhu scenario where a player desperately looks to all the skills listed on their sheet and has a horrifying realization: there is nothing there that can help them.

I've never seen a better encapsulation of the futility of human animal come face to face with eldritch horrors than that.

It's the theme, isn't it? The sum of human ability, the skillset that has allowed mankind to flourish on Earth, all that hard-won specialized knowledge and mastery--all of it is ultimately worthless when confronting things the human mind is not equipped to comprehend.

Now, do I think that is an intentional design choice on the part of Call of Cthulhu's authors? Of course not; the skill list in Call of Cthulhu is obviously an iteration of RuneQuest's rules updated for a modern setting. But as an unintentional facet of the game--it's utterly delicious, a nightmarish serendipity. 

I Wrote a Novel

I got back into writing short fiction in a concerted way in 2024, so for 2025 I gave myself the goal of writing a novel--something I'd never tried before. And I did it; I have now written a novel! And, as you can see from the word count, it's not even a short novel.

I'll have more to say about the process and how I crossed the finish line in a post or two to come at a later date. I've set my book aside for a bit, to give it (and myself) a rest. Then the revision process will begin.

Printed out, double-sided, the draft is thick

What's my novel about? Let me take a crack at summing it up:

A melancholy grave robber and her cheerful automaton friend get involved in the mystery of a missing corpse and an equally missing book of poetry. As they investigate, they cross paths with a black metal bard out to kill an angel and a famous monster hunter who is in love with a beautiful, but deeply evil, witch. 

It's got Slavic monsters, nunsploitation, a first date at an absinthe bar, a fetishistic death cult obsessed with red-haired women...and a whole lot more.

I'll definitely let everyone know when it's available to read.

The Horror at Hickory Park

I broke one of my own rules: I ran a Call of Cthulhu game set in the modern era, instead of using the 1920s or the Victoria era. In this game, the characters graduated from high school in 1995. That summer, on the Fourth of July, they went camping in Hickory Park with their friend Kim. Kim died on that trip, and her death was ruled an accidental drowning.

Although the players didn't know this about the other players' characters, each character had a memory of being the one who killed Kim. 

The present year is 2005, ten years after the tragedy. Each of the characters received a blackmail letter threatening to expose their secrets if they didn't bring $10,000 to the park on the anniversary of Kim's death. 

Characters

Dan, NYSEG accountant

Mickey, comic shop owner

Jason, journalist

Ruth Ann, yoga instructor and art therapist

Events

The group arrived at Hickory Park in two vehicles: Mickey's Ford Transit van and Ruth Ann's 70s AMC Hornet with a deer painted on the hood. At the gates of the park, they spoke to a park ranger whose nametag disconcertingly read "Kim." Kim explained that there would be fireworks later that night, a family friendly movie at the park's drive-in theater, and that they had accommodated the group's request for a campsite at a remove from the other campers. The booking had been apparently made over the phone by Jason, though he denied making it.

As they set up their tents at the campsite, Mickey was blasting a cd of Led Zeppelin's 4 on his boombox--until it started playing Nirvana's "Come As You Are," their friend Kim's favorite song. They stopped the cd player, started it again, but could not get it to play "Come As You Are" again; the song simply wasn't on the cd.

The group left their campsite to see what was going on at the beach. The beach was full of families, teenagers, and middle-aged people looking to cut loose on the holiday; they passed folks stacking firewood in the firepit for a party on the beach later. They decided to rent a canoe from the pier, where old men were fishing, and row around the river to see what was what. However, before they all set off in a canoe, Jason said he left something at camp. He told the rest of the group he would catch up to them later.

While canoeing on the river, the rest of the group saw workers setting up fireworks on Hiawatha Island. Sharp-eyed Dan also spotted a river cave on the isle, so they rowed for it and dragged their canoe up the rocky beach. They discovered a few strange things inside the cave, such as a shrine to their friend Kim (complete with framed yearbook photo), a mural depicting six people wearing furs and metal masks about to sacrifice a young woman lying in the snow (the young woman had an uncanny resemblance to Kim), and a tin mask and hand-crafted knife (that bore a resemblance to those in the mural).

Meanwhile, back at the camp, Jason searched everyone's tents and found their stashed weapons and hidden cash. The jig was up--he rightly assumed that every member of the group was being blackmailed, even if they had denied it earlier. 

When he made his way to the island in his own canoe, he caught up with the group just as they were examining a strange white globe hanging from the ceiling of a cavern by what looked to be a rope of flesh. The globe was covered with a lattice of some sort, and the chamber itself was frosted over despite the fact that it was a hot summer day. As they began to leave the chamber, they heard an unearthly howl. Ruth Ann panicked at the sound, drew her gun, and shot the orb.

When it exploded, it generated enough force to propel the group against the walls of the cave at speed. They all lost consciousness.

As they awoke, they realized that the world was not as they had left it. Hiawatha Island was piled high with snow and the Susquehanna was partially iced over. The gray clouds above threatened snow. They dug their canoes out of the snow and made their way back to the campground, but when they reached the beach they saw that all the celebrants who had been alive when they set out were now frozen-solid corpses. The cars in the parking lot were also mangled beyond repair.

They quickly made their way to their campsite, but trudging through the snow made them realize that they would soon need cold-weather gear if they wanted to survive the unnatural winter that had descended around them. They found their campsite destroyed as if an explosion had centered on it--the trees around it were bent backwards, their tents were shredded, their belongings scattered, and all the cash they had brought was strewn about.

Desperate for warmer clothing, they headed over to the camp's general store. The door was open, though they did knock over a bucket full of water and a mop as they entered. They found cold-weather parkas and boots lined up in the back of the shop--almost as if someone was expecting a sudden, violent turn in the weather. Within the shop they also found a dead man, his body evidencing multiple recent stab wounds. 

The movement of someone crossing the window caught their eye and they moved to lock the front door. Whoever it was pleaded with them to open the door to save them from the cold, but when they risked a look out a window they saw that the would-be intruder was clad in furs and was wearing a tin mask. They quietly exited out the back instead.

As they plodded near the playground, on their way to the house on the hill, they saw that there were children playing on the swings and teeter-totters. The kids were also clad in furs, and some of the group caught a snippet of their singsong: "Wind walker, wind walker, wendigo! Wind walker, wind walker, where'd Kim go?"

They entered the house through its unlocked back door. Inside, they could hear a rhythmic rocking sound coming from the stairs leading to the second story. The group paused too long in the hallway, riven by indecision; they heard a window shatter in a nearby room and the sound of something large trying to push its way into the house. The group opened the door of the room to see what they were up against: the creature was four-armed, covered in shaggy fur, and its monstrous head devolved into a giant curling horn.

Mickey and Dan both made a break for it, running back outside. Unfortunately, the creature easily caught up to them and messily dismembered them.

Back in the house, Ruth Ann and Jason ascended to the second floor. Unfortunately, they never made it to the origin of the rhythmic sound they heard; the monster squeezed up the stairs and into the second-floor hallway, effectively cutting off their escape route. Ruth Ann unloaded her pistol at it, but to no avail. The monster killed her first. Jason tried to ready a can of bug spray and a lighter to use as a makeshift flamethrower, but--the eldritch horror tore through him as well.

The last image we imagine in this scenario was the can of bug spray rolling down the stairs.

The headline in the Press & Sun Bulletin the next day reported that many died during the "freak storm" that darkened the Fourth of July, but no one would ever truly understand--the Horror at Hickory Park.

Comments are Back on the Menu, Boys

I've turned comments back on for this blog. I turned them off years ago because keeping up with spam comments started to feel like a part-time job. 

But they're back on now, because I've heard the filter is much better, so you can yell at me about my posts, agree rabidly as your vie to join my cult of personality, or just say, "hey, what's good. homie?"

Unless, of course, the filter is still crap. In that case, I'll turn comments off again or something.

Smoke City

Bad Books for Bad People, Episode 85: Smoke City

Keith Rosson’s 2019 novel Smoke City is a supernatural character study that somehow makes the road trip adventure shared by a loose-cannon pop artist, a reluctant immortal, and a would-be ghost hunter into something much more poignant that one might expect. Jack and Kate hitch a ride with this motley crew and learn whether or not the real treasure is, in fact, the friends we make along the way.

Why does absolutely everyone in LA have a doorman? What is it that makes a dive bar truly magical? Is it ever wise to start a fight with a headbutt? All these questions and more will be explored in this episode of Bad Books for Bad People.

Almost Dying on the Moon

The second, and final, Krevborna game taking place on the Shadow Moon.

Characters

Willard Corn, strange old man in search of his missing dog

Heck, revenant who punches things to death

Garazi, young witch with a bird familiar

Panthalassa, a necromancer out for vengeance against a death cult

Daytona, dhampir cowboy along for the ride

Events

When we last left our "heroes," Panthalassa ran in to grab a skull mask off a table in a mess hall just as a dragon swooped down from a hole in the ceiling; everyone else was gathered by the doorway. Panthalassa took a mauling from the dragon, but made it to the door with the mask. 

The group slammed the door shut. Willard and Daytona ran down the hall, but everyone else stood by the door arguing which way they should flee--which gave the dragon the opportunity to breath fire and nail the characters who weren't already in motion. The door was blown off its hinges and the hallway filled with fire.

That got the rest of them moving. 

Now that most of them were injured, they decided to hole up in the empty cells in the subterranean floor to rest and recuperate. The time passed without them being detected, but they did begin to recall strange snippets of the woman who sent them here in the first place. 

Panthalassa summoned a cat and used it to explore the fissures running through the broken walls in the complex. Through the cat, they located a cache of stowed-away food and a room where the remaining Fraternitie du Cadavre cultists huddled in darkness. The last mask they needed was with the cultists. 

The group was detected as they approached the cultists. The cultists ran deeper into the tunnels, but the characters followed them. They ran into a chamber where the living avatar of the Nightmother stood; her six hands each held a blade, her monstrous tongue lolled from her mouth. Her mere presence caused fear in the majority of the party; thus debilitated, they had a difficult time fighting the pagan goddess's avatar, but eventually they prevailed--mostly due to Willard's efforts.

Unfortunately, while they were battling the Nightmother, the spectral necromancer Valton Blakely oozed into the room in shadow form and joined the fray. He wore a twisted crown and bore a greatsword blazing with black fire. Luckily, they heard the barking of a dog--Willard's legendary three-legged dog burst from a tunnel and tore a chunk out of Valton. 

Valton proved to be an even more powerful foe than the Nightmother. Since many of the characters (including Panthalassa's summoned raptors) were all bunched together, he was able to hit them all with a big swing, Dark Souls-boss swing of his blackflame sword. Interestingly, they didn't scatter after the first time that happened--so they all took another full swing of massive damage from the necromancer's sword. 

It was a very near thing; even Heck, the party's strongest member, was in danger of meeting death again. They did, at last, kill Valton, but they were always on the brink of losing one or two of their own.

They slaughtered the remaining cultists without mercy and took the final mask as their prize. They then hid out in the room with the cached food to heal up again. Backtracking to the room where they had fought the vlaak Lord Doctors, they realized that they had never looted the bodies there. In that room, they found the key to the vlaak craft, which Yarsi helpfully knew how to operate. 

Once everyone was aboard and strapped in, Yarsi fired up the ship and brought them back to Hemlock Hollow. Willard bid the rest of the group farewell; his next destination was the stars where, with Yarsi and his dog at his side, we would seek more vlaak to kill. 

The rest of the group brought the skull masks back to the Usher house. Inside, they found the sorceress Cassie Mabcrowe and her friends Brigid and Anastasia waiting for them. Nightsong was there too; she was yelling at Cassie for using "her team" for this mission. Cassie explained that she had sealed away their memories to prevent their plan from falling into the wrong hands if it was discovered--which was only partially true, but no one pressed her on that. 

They did, however, insist on watching her perform the ritual that would put Madeline Usher back to "sleep." Wisely, they wanted to make sure Cassie was as good as her word. She was telling the truth--this time, at least. The world is now safe again from Madeline, the Curse of the Ushers.

But how does the party feel about being used by Cassie and, more importantly, what can they do about it? Perhaps that will be filed away, as the next item that appears to be on their agenda is to confront the witchfinders responsible for Heck's death.

Brigid Fane and Bram van Gheist

Two NPCs in Krevborna who couldn't be more different: Brigid Fane, a rage-filled barbarian who approaches all challenges with murder in her eyes and a sword eager in her hands, and Bram van Gheist, a cowardly scholar who has the knowledge necessary to push back the tide of evil, but who is weak of body and resolve.

Brigid Fane

Brigid Fane is a barbarous woman hailing from the tribal lands within the Silent Forest. She was captured by slavers and sold into service at Winterholt in Sibersk, where she fought as a gladiator until her escape during a revolt in the fighting pits. She frequently travels with Cassie Mabcrowe and Anastasia Elanova, serving as their swornsword. Also known as the Red Fury due to her fearsome and unstoppable berserker rage, her skill with a greatsword is terrifying to behold, as is the sound of her savage war cry. 

    • Appearance: Brigid is a hulking woman with bulging muscles and a messy crop of red hair.

    • Personality: Brigid is loud, boastful, and generally jovial.

    • Motive: She is a simple creature who loves fighting, fucking, and drinking.

    • Flaw: Brigid believes that violence solves most problems.

Bram van Gheist

Bram van Gheist is the foremost scholar of the occult currently active in Krevborna, even though he was dismissed from his post at Creedhall University. Too physically infirm to fight against supernatural evil directly, he is overeager to share his accumulation of lore with those who battle against darkness.

    • Appearance: Bram van Gheist is an elderly gentleman with wizened features and a shock of white hair.

    • Personality: There is something undeniably impish about van Gheist’s behavior despite his academic demeanor, and he often laughs at inappropriate times.

    • Motive: He wishes to aid those able of making war against demons, the Unseelie fey, and the undead.

    • Flaw: Deep in his heart, Bram van Gheist knows himself to be a coward who uses others as proxies to fight evil.

Walking on the Moon

We've returned to finish the Shadow Moon adventure in my Krevborna campaign. 

Characters

Willard Corn, strange old man in search of his missing dog

Heck, revenant who punches things to death

Garazi, young witch with a bird familiar

Panthalassa, a necromancer out for vengeance against a death cult

Daytona, dhampir cowboy along for the ride

Khamaat, mysterious pyromaniac mummy 

Events

The session opened with the characters gathered at the mouth of a cave on the forbidden Shadow Moon. They had just traversed a portal in the dungeons below Geldingstone to arrive here. Now, as they gazed on the alien lunar landscape, they saw that the surface of the moon was so black it would have been indistinguishable from the sky were it not for the stars. 

In the distance, they could see a Vlaak fortress surrounded by a tall fortified wall. Between the fortress and the cave was a field of black boulders. They spotted a dragon flying above them in the sky. 

The group wisely decided to use the boulders as cover to zig-zag to the gate at the wall. The were successful at avoiding the dragon's attention. However, as they approached the wall they saw that there were six gibbets on poles erected before it; each gibbet held a Fraternitie du Cadavre cultist. Panthalassa cast her burrow spell so she and Heck could move beneath the ground and come up on the other side of the wall to remove the bar that kept the gate closed. 

The first chamber they entered was a Vlaak barracks. Twelve Vlaak soldiers and two officers were sat at tables playing an esoteric game involving polyhedral dice, books, and miscellaneous papers. Khamaat was able to incinerate a bunch of them before they could even rise from their table. The rest put up more of a fight and were able to deal out a few wounds to the party. 

Two of the soldiers ran into another room. Heck and Daytona followed and found that they had removed some strange metal rods from a glass case, presumably to activate the two skull-headed iron golems standing in the room. Daytona and Heck killed them before they were able to do whatever it was they were doing.

Back in the main melee, the party turned the tide. One soldier struggled to unentangle himself from Garazi's magical chains, and it turned out he'd rather die by his own hand than face the dreaded Willard Corn. He turned his psychic blade on himself and chose death over Corn.

Beyond the automaton room, they found a door of flowing shadow. Khamaat tried tapping it with one of the metal rods, but the rod immediately disintegrated. The murals in this room told an interesting story: they depicted Vlaak in ceremonial armor and neck ruffs presenting chained humans to a throned Vlaak queen. 

In an armory chamber, the group found suits of Vlaak armor, psychic blades, a diorama depicting miniature Vlaak figures fighting eldritch abominations, and a fissure in the wall leading to a narrow tunnel. They followed the fissure tunnel and ended up in what appeared to be a small cell with an observation window set into its iron door. Luckily, the cell was unlocked so they could enter the hallway beyond.

In the hallway, they saw that there were two more cells. One held a human-looking man who had something horrific crawling under his skin. The sign under the observation window to his cell read: "CORN HYBRID #8729, NON-VIABLE." The second cell contained a teenage girl who appeared to be a hybrid of Vlaak and human. The sign beneath her observation window read "CORN HYBRID #7639 !DANGEROUS DO NOT RELEASE!" She clearly recognized Willard and made a three-fingers-down gesture that he recognized as a way to symbolize his missing three-legged dog. 

Panthalassa picked the lock to the girl's cell, and she was very relieved to be released from captivity. They quickly discovered that the girl did not speak Krevbornski; she only knew the language of the Vlaak. Willard could read Vlaak, so they began to write messages to each other to communicate. The hybrid girl's name was Yarsi and there were two important things to know about her: she loves dogs and hates the Vlaak. She joined the party from there on out.

In another room the group caught five scarlet-robed Vlaak Lord Doctors in the act of experimenting on a live human subject with their alien surgical instruments. With the doctors were three hovering automatons bristling with hypodermic needles and bone saws. Yarsi immediately proved her worth by psychically bursting the head of a Lord Doctor. The rest of the enemies were dealt with handily. 

Once their foes were disposed of, Heck took the opportunity to eat one of the Vlaak's brains and the human's brain to gain some insight into what was going on within the fortress. The human was one of the Fraternitie cultists, but unlike his fellows, who were rotting in a cave somewhere, he had escaped the Vlaak's initial massacre. As for the Vlaak, when they returned to their fortress and found it overrun with human cultists, they began to systematically hunt them down. There were still a bunch hiding in the complex, somewhere. 

They also found one of the Usher masks on the person of a dead cultist floating in a tube of yellow liquid. One mask recovered; two to go.

As they explored further, they found a chamber down a spiral ramp that was open to the air. Below the skyward opening sat an alien craft that vaguely resembled a fish made of metal and glass. Yarsi explained that they would need a key to operate it. There was another fissure in this room, and from it issued the sound of a dog barking. Willard wanted to go in to find his dog, but the passage was too narrow to admit him. Garazi send her bird familiar into the crevice and it ended up in the chamber Heck had seen in his vision after eating the cultist's brain--the chamber was piled with bodies. Unfortunately, the familiar's exploration was cut short when she was slain by the burning sword of an immense, shadowy figure wearing a twisted crown.

The group then decided that walking around without disguises was dangerous, so they outfitted themselves in Vlaak armor. This proved helpful when they blundered into a Vlaak mess hall. Thinking on his feet, Willard pointed and yelled "Willard Corn," which tricked the Vlaak into running out of the room in search of the hated and feared Willard Corn. The soldiers left behind one of the skull masks on the long dining table. Panthalassa ran in to get it--and just then the dragon swooped down into the room from an aperture in the ceiling. 

We'll find out what happens next time!

Sonja Barbarez

Veil’s most powerful villain is Sonja Barbarez, a demoness who gathers an army at Hell’s behest. My thought with Sonja Barbarez was that the setting needed a) a major villain who is a demon and b) a major villain who is militaristic and warlike. The notion of a monstrous army sweeping out of the north, which is where Veil is located on the map, is a classic campaign framework--and Sonja Barbarez and her Storm of Malebolge will get you there if you'd like that to be the flavor of your Krevborna campaign.

Sonja Barbarez

Sonja Barbarez is a diabolic soldier serving the demon known as Legion. She has come to Veil to recruit warriors to her army, the Storm of Malebolge, a force capable of subjugating the land and unitinge it under Legion’s banner. Sonja keeps a close eye on Veil’s gangs and the most violent members of its outcast population, always looking for promising conscripts. To Sonja, “promising” means a combination of discipline, sadism, and brutality. 

Sonja has taken the ruins of a former army barracks in Veil as the Storm of Malebolge’s headquarters. Once their numbers are sufficient, they will seize Veil as their own and begin to build larger battalions—ranks Sonja hopes to swell with summoned devils and other enslaved monstrosities who will march in Legion’s name.

    • Appearance: Broad-shouldered and imposing, Sonja is demon wearing the guise of an amazonian warrior woman only a fool would trifle with. 

    • Personality: She is a conqueror who brooks no dissent, which is why her fastness is surrounded by a forest of impaled corpses.

    • Motive: She wishes to see all of Krevborna annexed by the tide of her diabolic army.

    • Flaw: Sonja would rather die in battle rather than retreat.

Rick Swan's The Complete Guide to Role-Playing Games

I was recently reunited with Rick Swan's The Complete Guide of Role-Playing Games. I had a copy in high school, but lost it somewhere along the way. The book's premise is simple: it's a collection of Rick Swan's reviews of the rpgs that had been published by that point in time, by which I mean 1990. Each game covered gets an entry describing what it is about, its level of complexity, and how good it is overall. 

Underneath that, though, is a fascinating snapshot of an era now long gone.

When I had a limited number of games available to me back then, based solely on what the local stores were willing to carry, the book was a revelation; it showed you just how expansive the rpg hobby was and had been since its inception. The book is full of games I would never have heard of otherwise. Who among us has ever played Swordtag? Or The Morrow Project? Or Sandman? I've met some Skyrealms of Jorune fans over the years, but Expendables? Never.

Returning to Swan's book now renders it a map of how batshit insane a lot of early rpg design really was. Check out KABAL's rules for determining your character's height:

Similar instances of madness: if you wanted to play a character of a gender opposite your own in DragonQuest, you had to roll for permission. The lowest end character type in the James Bond rpg has you spending 3000 points at character creation. Timeship apparently doesn't have rules for time travel.

If nothing else, The Complete Guide to Role-Playing Games is a good reminder that your favorite game, yes, the one you think is the new revolutionary hotness, may also disappear beneath the shifting sands of time.

The Nightside

The Nightside is one of the additions to the revised Krevborna setting book that I'm most proud of. The idea of a dream-like realm of aestheticized horror has its appeal as a point of contrast from Krevborna's more standard Gothic atmosphere. Inspired by things like Thomas De Quincy's Confessions of an English Opium-Eater and films like Jean Rollin's Fascination and Jim Henson's Labyrinth, the Nightside offers a change of pace where you can explore the thin boundary between the real and the unreal.

The Nightside

Among other more mundane intoxicants, Veil’s sordid drug dens peddle midnight bell, a greenish-gold, magically enhanced opium that allows the user to travel to the Nightside—a phantasmagorical dream of Veil as it was in better times. 

    • When midnight bell is smoked in Veil, one’s mind leaves their body behind as an inert and insensible husk in the "real" world as their spirit is clothed in new flesh to wander and explore what the town’s residents call the Nightside. 

    • The Nightside is an endless aesthetic dream; in the Nightside’s version of Veil, it is always the height of wondrous night, the stars emit their luster in the darkened sky, the city is lit by thousands of paper lanterns, and the shining outline of the Shadow Moon presides over all. 

    • Where the real Veil is a land of poverty and deprivation, the Nightside is a world of glamour, decadent pleasures, and thrill-seeking.

    • Nothing is ordinary in the Nightside—everyone is beautiful, fashionable, and stylish. 

    • Sebastian Lee, an androgynous dandy never seen without his ornate cigarette holder, a foppish hat, and his crystalline walking stick, is the undisputed king of the Nightside’s electrifying nightlife. 

    • “Sebastian Lee” is a guise adopted by the Goblin King of the Unseelie fey.

    • Nightmarish monsters are born from the hazy smoke of burning midnight bell, which hangs in the air as a persistent miasma always fraying the edges of reality. 

    • The Nightside is entrapping; nothing but a yawning void exists beyond the forest that encircles the Nightside’s dream-like fantasy.

    • Smoking midnight bell is a vice known colloquially as “tolling the bell.”

    • Those who partake of midnight bell always eventually awaken from the Nightside’s lurid fantasia and must seek enough coin for another dose if they wish to return.

    • Few can resist the allure and mystique of Veil’s illusory echo, and those who try are wracked with the pains of withdrawal. 

    • If a mortal expires within the dream of the Nightside, their body also dies amid the squalor of its “real” iteration. 

PLANET MOTHERFUCKER IN PRINT

I used my own instructions (here) and printed myself a copy of PLANET MOTHERFUCKER: SATANICO PANDEMONIUM EDITION. 

It turned out great!

You know it's free, right? Check it out if you missed it.

I've seen one other person's personal copy, but I want to see ALL of them. If you do a print version of the book, I wanna see what kinda cover you knocked out for it. Send images to totgad @ gmail dot com. 

People who send in pics of their print copy might get something cool & free in their inbox in a couple months, just sayin'.

Tip jar if you want to encourage this sort of thing.

Lycans

I've begun figuring out what a "lycan" (aka Werewolf Lite) should look like mechanically in my Savage Worlds Krevborna games. Here's what I've come up with for an ancestry that has the werewolf flavor without being as busted-for-normal-campaigns and inconvenient-to-play as the werewolf rules in the Horror Companion.

Lycans

Also known as “wolfbloods,” lycans are folk who have inherited the curse of lycanthropy in a minor, but persistent and incurable, form that sets them apart from other mortals. Lycans appear to be members of other ancestries, but their bodies possess obvious bestial traits, such as sharp teeth, yellow eyes, or hair as thick as a shaggy pelt. When angered, a lycan’s form becomes more animalistic and fierce. 

Lycans as Savage World Ancestry

Lycans can usually pass as normal humans unless they are under close scrutiny. As a limited free action, they can transform into a more bestial, wolfish state; while in this form, they gain access to their Bite and Claw ancestral abilities.

Accursed Ancestry: Lycans suffer a -1 penalty to all Spirit rolls.

Bestial Rage: The beast is always ready to spring forth and cause carnage. All lycans possess the Berserk Edge.

Bite: In their bestial forms, lycan fangs cause Str+d4 damage and may be used on grappled foes.

Bloodthirsty: Lycans never takes prisoners unless under the direct order of the person they consider the leader of their "pack." 

Claws: In their bestial forms, lycans have claws that cause Str+d6 damage and are AP 2. 

Easily Angered: Lycans subtract 2 when resisting Taunt attacks.

Heightened Sense of Smell: A keen sense of smell gives lycans +2 to Survival rolls made to track if the target has a scent and the trail is no more than a day old.

Hunted: Lycans must always be wary of monster hunters who might mistake them for full-blooded werewolves. 

Low Light Vision: Lycans ignore penalties for Dim or Dark illumination (but not Pitch Darkness).

Monstrous Weakness: Attacks made with silvered weapons deal +4 damage against Lycans.

Konrad Draghul and Kassidy Durango

Two NPCs in Krevborna. First up is a take on the classic "dhampir vampire hunter"--my variation is, "make him a vengeful twink." (Happy Pride Month, everyone.) And then we've got everyone's favorite boots and leather cowgirl. (Happy Pride Month, everyone.) Seriously, I've written short stories about Kassidy.

Konrad Draghul

Konrad Draghul is the bastard child of Count Magnus Draghul. Konrad was sired upon a serf in Myrkrania; he was born a dhampir. Before his mother succumbed to a disease hastened by their poverty, she told her son the secret of his heritage. Enraged that his father had abandoned them after a loveless affair with his mother—a dalliance that Count Magnus soon forgot—Konrad vowed to become the sworn enemy of all vampires.

    • Appearance: His features have a feminine cast, especially his head of unruly blonde curls, and he radiates physical prowess.

    • Personality: Despite his desire to be different from his father, he can be snide and stereotypically aristocratic.

    • Motive: The only thought that brings him joy is imagining what it will feel like when he plunges a stake into his father’s heart.

    • Flaw: A particularly handsome man can distract him from his quest—but only momentarily.

Kassidy “Deathshot” Durango

Kassidy “Deathshot” Durango hails from a long line of members of the Knights Labyrinthian; her mother, in particular, was a famed gunslinger and High Warden of Fort Gilead. The last of her line, Kassidy Durango continues the family trade of protecting pilgrims traveling the wilds and righting wrongs where she can.

    • Appearance: Kassidy is a freckled woman with long brown hair and a crooked smile.

    • Personality: Despite the bloody-mindedness with which she pursues her mission, Kassidy is quite philosophical and loves to discuss the great mysteries of life. 

    • Motive: Kassidy feels evil is likely to triumph in the world, but she feels compelled to fatalistically wage war against darkness regardless of the eventual outcome.

    • Flaw: Kassidy is plagued by an infirmity called blisterlung that sometimes causes her to be monetarily incapacitated as she coughs up blood.

The Gang Wards

I feel like too few Gothic Fantasy settings really do much with the fear of criminality and banditry that suffuses much of the early Gothic canon. Veil is, of course, filthy with criminal activity, and the city's gangs form the largest locus of power in the city. The following gangs draw inspiration from The Witcher, Dishonored, Gangs of New York, various Batman comics, and Fallen London.

Also, that time that juggalos were deemed a gang by the feds wormed its way in there.

The Gang Wards

Four gangs ruthlessly compete against each other for territory, wealth, and power in the fallen city. Unfortunately, the people of Veil are often caught in the crossfire as the gangs make war against each other. The following gangs hold multiple wards of the city under their control:

The Butcher Boys

    • The Butcher Boys are dwarven thugs feared for their use of violence, terror, and intimidation. 

    • The Butcher Boys operate protection rackets and offer their services as bodyguards. 

    • Members of the Butcher Boys are immediately recognizable by the bloodstained leather aprons they wear.

The Firebrands

    • The Firebrands are a gang involved in the production and sale of patent medicines of dubious efficacy, the operation of brothels, burglary, and arson. 

    • The Firebrands are notorious for hurling flasks of flaming oil in combat and setting their blades alight prior to engaging in skirmishes. 

    • The boss of the Firebrands is Jackdaw, a ruffian who claims to have once been a surgeon of repute.

The Harlequins

    • The perverse Harlequin gang are motley-clad miscreants who run gambling houses and fighting pits throughout Veil. 

    • Their leader, Cyprian Wilde, is a disgraced nobleman who uses his inheritance to bankroll the gang’s criminal ventures. 

    • They disfigure the faces of those who cross them.

The Seamasques

    • Veil’s river and its stretch of coastline is dominated by the Seamasques, barbarous pirates and smugglers.

    • They also sell their services as mercenaries.

    • The Seamasques are led by Gretha Sigurdsdottir, who is in turn guided by her lover Iska Gaskill, a Polnezna fortune teller with the gift of foresight. 

Lubek Crodescu and Winter D'Averoan

My philosophy for creating NPCs for Krevborna is simple: I want them to be streamlined, boiled down to an essential thrust that lets a prospective GM know exactly what these people are about and how they can be used in a game, without an excess of history and detail. Plug-and-play NPCs, so to speak. You can't need to know Winter's favorite color, for example.

Below, you will find a plague doctor turned plague spreader and a fortune teller trying to find an heir to Krevborna's vacant throne to please her father.

Lubek Crodescu

Once a selfless plague doctor who worked tirelessly to cure and comfort the afflicted, Lubek Crodescu’s worldview changed when he contracted a fatal illness that began to slowly kill him. In his desperation, he turned to an evil power to save his own life—he prayed to the demon Pazuzu, and his prayers were answered. He now acts as Pazuzu’s agent of destruction, spreading pestilence throughout Krevborna. 

    • Appearance: Lubek was formerly judged a handsome man, but his face is marred by pustules and buboes; he hides his visage behind a plague doctor’s mask.

    • Personality: He is a deeply embittered man.

    • Motive: Lubek has been hollowed of any recognizable human wants or goals; he merely seeks to spread contagion.

    • Flaw: Part of him wants to die to end his misery; his death wish could be exploited. 

Winter D’Averoan

Winter D’Averoan is a young half-Polnezna woman who is the illegitimate daughter of a nobleman named Jeremiah de Cote. The de Cote family is pledged to the cause of the Hounds of Velun. When her father realized that her oracular abilities could be harnessed to find a true heir to Krevborna’s vacant throne, he brought her into his household and set her to the task. 

Winter is never without her velvet-edged deck of tarot cards. She uses them as a focus for divination and can conjure strange magics from the occult imagery depicted on the cards.

    • Appearance: Winter’s mess of dark curls frame a face that is perpetually caught in a scowl.

    • Personality: She is only loyal to those who are loyal to her; she is protective of her half-brother Jean de Cote.

    • Motive: She hopes that if she finds an heir for the Hounds her father will formally recognize her as his daughter.

    • Flaw: She views the Church as a hopelessly corrupt institution and is not shy in her criticisms of it.

Angolstad Cathedral and the Convent of Saint Rivka

Today's post features two dangerous religious sites within Veil. Angolstad Cathedral is inspired by the rumors that circulated about the Knights Templar during their downfall. I was absolutely obsessed with the Templars during my teenage years; I even wrote a term paper on the dissolution of the order in college at one point. The Convent of Saint Rivka was my excuse to add nun-based horror into the setting. The movie The Nun isn't good, but it was probably an influence in there. A much better influence I can cite is the story of the Bleeding Nun in Matthew Lewis's The Monk.

 

Angolstad Cathedral

When heavily armored warriors calling themselves the Knights of Saint Othric emerged from badlands north of Veil and entered the city, they immediately seized the abandoned Angolstad Cathedral and made it their keep. 

    • The knights make every attempt to portray themselves as Veil’s benefactors, providing food and medicine for the needy and unwell.

    • However, the knights secretly worship the demon Baphomet in the maze-like catacombs beneath Angolstad Cathedral.

    • Their unwholesome rites involving trampling and spitting upon icons of the saints.

    • Baphomet has commanded the Knights of Saint Othric to search Veil’s ruins for an extremely powerful artifact—the Spear of Longinus.

The Convent of Saint Rivka

Although Veil harbors many heretics and apostates among its population, it is also the home of the Convent of Saint Rivka, a religious community of female penitents who have chosen to withdraw from the world to repent of their sins. 

    • Despite the convent’s pous reputation, it holds a secret: it is haunted by a murderous ghost named Sister Agatha.

    • In life, Sister Agatha was sent to the Convent of Saint Rivka against her will.

    • Her parents, enraged at having caught her in the act of eloping with a mere miller’s son, brought her to the convent in chains, where she was forced to take the veil. 

    • Within the year, Sister Agatha had died of a broken heart.

    • The truth of Sister Agatha’s death was covered up; unable to handle the melancholy of being separated from her lover, Sister Agatha took her own life by drowning herself in a fountain on the convent grounds. 

    • After her death, Sister Agatha rose again as a specter devoted to murdering lovers—she emerges from the convent at night to kill any trysting couples she encounters in Veil.

The Cherry Pit and the Bargain

Bad Books for Bad People, Episode 84: The Cherry Pit and The Bargain

It’s time for Jack and Kate to explore their vintage paperback piles and trade tales from the yellowed pages of the past. Jack wades through the sweltering psychosexual Southern Gothickry of Donald Harington’s 1965 sex comedy (?) The Cherry Pit while Kate learns what happens when Hitler faces off with Dracula in Jon Ruddy’s 1990 shock-horror masterpiece (?) The Bargain.

Will we encounter the worst Van Helsings of all time? Why don’t the cool madams in exploitation novels get their own books? What are “big dinners” and how often will “big dinners” be referenced? All these questions and more will be explored in this episode of Bad Books for Bad People.

Veil

The time has come to turn our eyes to the lawless sanctum of outlaws and heretics in Krevborna: the ruined and ruinous city of Veil! 

It took me a long time to figure out what Veil was really all about. It wasn't until I stumbled on the idea of a city given over to gang warfare coupled with Silent Hill aesthetic notes that things really got cooking for this area of the setting.

Veil

A Fallen City of the Downtrodden and Outcast

Once regarded as one of the jewels of Krevborna, Veil was originally a pomenysh city renowned for its beauty. Today, Veil is a shadow of its former self. Generations ago, the thriving city of Veil was put to the torch by the Church of Holy Blood’s Inquisition to flush out the blasphemous blood cult that had overrun it. It now consists of hastily repaired houses, looted ruins, and ramshackle shelters made from scavenged materials. The stout walls that protected the city in ages past are broken and in dire need of repair.

Greatly diminished from its golden age as a metropolis, Veil is haunted by the ever-present reek of smoke, soot, and ember, as the fire that razed it still burns in the tunnels beneath its streets due to the strength of a desperate man’s dying curse. Noxious fumes leak from cracks in the ground, and cold fogs obscure the city's ruined wards.

Veil is currently a haven for outlaws, heretics, and those who do not want to be found by the world at large. In Veil, the strong dominate the weak. It is expected that those with power will abuse it and that those without must suffer under oppression.

Hallmarks

The following elements and aesthetic notes define Veil:

    • Veil was once a grand Vlaak city, but it has since fallen into ruinous decay.

    • Veil is a vile den of crime and heresy; many of its residents are apostates and outlaws hiding from justice.

    • The city is dominated by criminal gangs who wage war against one another for territory and ill-gotten wealth.

    • A mercenary general has recently taken up residence in a former barracks; she is raising an army for an unknown purpose.

    • A strange, opium-like drug known as midnight bell is peddled in Veil; using the intoxicant allows entry into a dreamlike portion of the city that is otherwise inaccessible. 

    • The smell of smoke predominates throughout Veil due to a curse that keeps a fire raging beneath the city streets.