The Silent Forest

From Nathaniel Hawthorne's "Young Goodman Brown" to Robert Egger's The Witch, "the woods" are a place where the laws of man--be they temporal, spiritual, or moral--are suspended in the wildness that resists the forces of civilization. If you want to have a Gothic-influenced setting, you need a dark forest where savage elements lurk in the untamed bosom of the natural world. The Silent Forest fills that role in Krevborna.

(art by Tenebrous Kate)

The Silent Forest

Forbidden and Accursed Woodlands 

The Silent Forest is a deep woods of misshapen trees whose limbs resemble clawed, skeletal appendages. True to its name, the forest is ominously quiet. Old burial grounds—their headstones cracked and the names upon them effaced by time and the depredations of nature—are slowly consumed by the green hell of the Silent Forest. 

Villages lurk at the edges of the Silent Forest, but the villagers warn their children not to enter the woods, as it is believed to cursed. When night falls, the malign creatures within the forest grow stronger, faster, and more ravenous. 

However, the Silent Forest is not wholly uninhabited. Those who live in proximity to the Silent Forest report that elves, goblins, and fairies possess a secret enclave deep within the woods, hidden from the eyes of human kind. Tribes of wildlings, regarded as cannibals  prone to scalping civilized folk who intrude on their enclaves, also make their homes among the Silent Forest’s twisted trees.  

Hallmarks

The following elements and aesthetic notes define the Silent Forest:

    • The forest is an accursed and unholy place; many sects of the Church forbid their parishioners from entering it.

    • Elves, fairies, and goblinkin maintain a hidden city in the Silent Forest.

    • The trees of the Silent Forest are often blackened and ominously shaped.

    • Woad-painted wildling tribes live deep inside the woods.

    • A family of bandits known as the Ulvarg clan hide within the Silent Forest.

Sir Edvard Hawley

Piskaro's most powerful villain is Sir Edvard Hawley, a spectral serial killer.

Sir Edvard Hawley

For the past thirteen years, Madchapel—a borough of impoverished slums mostly inhabited by destitute immigrants—has been the site of a series of brutal murders that are believed to have occult significance due to the ritualistic nature of the slayings. Sir Edvard Hawley, a minor noble and fraudulent “gentleman surgeon” with an interest in black magic, was suspected by the Rooks as being the Madchapel Slasher, but those conjectures ended with Hawley’s death five years ago.

The truth is that Edvard Hawley was the killer all along and continues to stalk the residents of Madchapel after death as a murderous wraith. He prowls by night, sometimes driven in a spectral black coach lit by baleful green lanterns, to hunt for victims. Anyone slain by Sir Edvard Hawley’s ghostly postmortem knife rises from the grave as an unquiet spirit under his control.

    • Appearance: Edvard Hawley appears as a grinning spectral man wearing a long overcoat and a top hat.

    • Personality: He does not even attempt to repress his murderous impulses.

    • Motive: He plans on branching out from Madchapel, adding unfortunate souls to his army of ghosts, until all of Krevborna is a spectral empire under his rule.

    • Flaw: Sir Edvard Hawley relishes the thought of possessing a body to continue his murders in the flesh.

What I Did at Jesus Camp

My bud Goose ran a one-shot of Dollhouse D.R.A.M.A. in which we played a bunch of fuck-up teens sent to Jesus Camp. I've written out the experience from the perspective of my character Mary Katherine, a girl sent to the camp because her parents are worried about her involvement in her local punk scene. This was probably not the sort of scenario Dollhouse D.R.A.M.A. has in mind, but man did we have a blast with it! The funny thing is that in a group that's usually about half women, only the boys were around to play in Goose's game.

***

Dear Diary,

Jesus Camp is exactly as lame as I thought it would be--lots of singalongs and talks meant to get us "right with the Lord." My fellow inmates of Cabin Twelve are pretty cool at least. J.P. is hella gay, but he's good at all that outdoors shit. Mikaela is also hella gay and doesn't know it; bitch is constantly drawing lesbians munching rug and has not put it together that she's in the big acronym. Jessie Jesus is the only one who seems kinda lame, but she's all right, I guess.

No matter what, we're way better than Cabin Six. Fuck those guys.

***

Dear Diary,

Ugh, Counselor Josh called us to a campfire meeting and starting talking about how God "wrestles with his tool" or something. I swear to fuck that guy is a huge pervert. He told us that it was our turn to fight the Devil on some stupid island--I'm pretty sure the "Devil" in this case is just going to be Josh in a Halloween costume trying to, like, pop our cherries or whatever. Like I said--HUGE pervert.

***

Dear Diary, 

We had some trouble getting to Molestation Island because this camp is so broke-ass that the canoe we were given only had the one oar. We drifted around for a while until J.P. figured out how to get us there. But in the meantime: BIG revelation on the Jessie Jesus front. Our girl was playing possum the whole time, which we discovered when she pulled out a massive blunt to pass around. All that Jesus Girl shit was a smokescreen--literally. 

***

Dear Diary,

Our cabin on the Island of Perverts is fucked. The lights kept going off, which I helped fix 'cause I learned how to steal power to put on illegal punk shows, and the radio is playing some kind of "evil" sounding message. Josh really likes to set the mood before he deflowers the campers, I guess. Jessie blessed the weapons we assembled to fight Josh off if he shows up as "the Devil." 

We found some booze under a floorboard at least. It's probably Josh's stash of "Jesus Juice" to make us pass out, but joke's on you, Josh--we're getting lit without you, creep!

***

Dear Diary,

Uhhh, bad news, fam: Josh isn't the Devil.

It turns out that I am the Devil. I don't get it, but--fuckin' cool, right? All the other scenesters are gonna flip when they find out.

Anyway, I knew I had to get the rest of my cabinmates on side with my satanic mission. I coulda beat them into it 'cause I feel demonic power flowing through my veins now, but I fuckin' like those guys.

J.P. was a pretty easy sell--I just don't him that instead of "pray the gay away" we should "gay the pray away" and he was on board. Mikaela was a tougher sell, but I let her wrestle around with me on the floor for a while so she could, like, have a sexual awakening or whatever. Jessie ran for it, unfortch--weed does make people paranoid, tho.

Long story short, we got back to camp and raised hell--either converting the other campers and counselors to our dark cause or making examples of 'em. Hell yeah! 

Satan 1, Jesus 0. 

Suck it, Cabin Six!

Treacle & Crouch's Pie Shop and the Wormwood Star

Two more adventure locations in Piskaro! One is my obvious Sweeney Todd riff, the other was inspired by my study of French Decadent literature.

Treacle & Crouch’s Pie Shop

Treacle & Crouch’s Pie Shop is an eatery serving meat-stuffed pasties in Piskaro. It is frequented by the working class because the meals on offer are both cheap and filling. 

    • Some residents of the city suspect that Lovetta Treacle and Bartram Crouch, the shop’s joint proprietors, supplement the filling in their pies with rat meat, but the truth of the matter is much worse: both are serial killers who commit murder and use the flesh of their victims to make the pies they sell in their shop.

    • Bartram and Lovetta are former sailors who sought the aid of a demonic force to help them escape the barren island they had been shipwrecked on once they ran out of the corpses of their fellow mariners to eat. 

    • The demon lord Baal promised to save their lives and usher them into prosperity—if they would make a pact with it and pledged themselves to furthering the practice of cannibalism through nefarious means. 

      

The Wormwood Star

Operating out of a defiled and defaced chapel of the Holy Blood Church, the Wormwood Star is a salon catering to Piskaro’s decadent dandies. 

    • The Wormwood Star openly sells a number of exotic stimulants—both those imported from foreign shores and those alchemically concocted by the Skarabasca.

    • The intoxicant that has brought a measure of infamy to the Wormwood Star is a special absinthe made on site.

    • Some patrons of the Wormwood Star experience an uncanny visitation while in the grips of the absinthe served on the premises: they hallucinate a vision of the Green Fairy.

    • The Green Fairy is a capricious fey being who is as apt to offer startling delirium and artistic inspiration as she is to send the imbiber on an ill-fated quest. 

Graves Left Wanting in Bloat

We had a gap in the rotation of who was running the weekly game, so I ran a one-shot of MORK BORG. For this adventure I cobbled together two things from the Heretic supplement: "Graves Left Wanting" and "Bloat."

Characters

Vagal, Heretical Priest, wants to kill Silas the vagabond

Agn, Fanged Deserter, wants to kill Silas the vagabond

Merkari, Wretched Royalty, accompanied by the jester Poltroon, wants to rescue missing villagers

Karg, looking for a new home maybe there's one in the graveyard

Graft, looking for a new home maybe there's one in the graveyard

Events

The characters found themselves at the top of a hill, looking down at a vast, jumbled graveyard of crowded tombstones. Next to them on the hill was a large tree with corpses hanging from its bare limbs. From their spot on the hill, they could see a stone landing below. Vagal climbed the steps going up the trunk of the tree and peered into the stinking hole at its top. He dropped a caltrop inside, but did not hear it land. He did, however, find a rope strung up inside the tree that, when pulled, caused the limbs of the tree to bend and make it look like the corpses hung from them were dancing like marionettes. 

The group decided to pick their way across the field of gravestones to the landing. The landing was covered in debris and at one corner was a throne made of garbage. Sitting upon the throne was a dirty, bearded bastard holding a whip. Kitten-sized roaches scurried at his feet. He introduced himself as the Roach King and explained that he wasn't allowed in the village anymore. He didn't know where Silas was, but he did offer to take them all to the undertaker's house.

On the way to the undertaker's house, they heard the disturbing sound of something human breathing in their left ears. Suddenly, four rotting ravens descended from the night sky and attacked! The ravens were intent on pecking their way through the characters' flesh so they could "nest" inside of them. A few injuries were taken, but the ravens were dispatched with haste. Unfortunately, the Roach King was killed by the birds. They looted his body, but nobody wanted to eat the jerky they found on his person. 

They party decided to turn back at this point, but without a light source or the Roach King to guide them they were soon lost in the tangled cemetery. A soupy fog rose from the tombs and the group nearly stumbled into a plague pit filled with noxious corpses. 

Eventually they found a large stone mausoleum. Inside, they discovered a plain stone sarcophagus standing upright against the back wall. Merkari ordered Poltroon to open the lid, which promptly fell on him--killing him under its heavy weight. RIP Poltroon the jester. 

Inside the sarcophagus was a undecayed corpse whose flesh had the consistency of dough. In fact, when touched, it could be remolded. They also found that the skeleton inside the dough-flesh was made of iron. Removing the corpse revealed a tight passageway down into some kind of subterranean complex. The hole was too narrow for them to fit in while wearing their armor, but they weren't fooled by this puzzle: they simply dropped their armor down into the hole and followed after it. 

The chamber bellow had a fungal stink...and was the home of a trapped ratbadger that needed killing. Once that was accomplished, they cleared debris from the floor and saw that it was covering a mosaic depicting corpulent priests feasting. In fact, all the stone doors they found in this dungeon were carved with similar scenes. 

As they explored, they heard the sound of running water coming from somewhere. Karg ducked through a leather curtain in one corridor and triggered a stone block to fall on his head from above--he nearly had his skull caved in on the spot. The tinkling water sound proved to be coming from a fountain with a statue of a comely woman. The water in the fountain smelled weirdly sweet. Graft drank some of the water and felt invigorated by it; however, the fountain rapidly drained and the flow of water stopped. 

In another chamber they saw a statue of the hated Silas standing in a pool of congealed sewage, fat, and greasy water. A single person knelt at the edge of the pool, "praying" to the statue. (They risked a look over their shoulder at the party and mouthed "help me." This was one of the villagers Merkari had hoped to rescue.) Behind the villager were three ceramic automatons wearing the same priestly miters they had seen in the art throughout this complex. 

Vagal waded through the muck and stole the gem eyes from Silas's statue. Agn was unwilling to leave the villager to these strange constructs, the group battled them. The ceramic automatons were difficult to harm, but when their ceramic bodies were shattered it became apparent that they were filled with fatty tissue. 

In a nearby room, they found Silas--but he had grown to enormous proportions. He was holding a silver fork in one hand and a silver knife in the other. He was now too fat to leave the room he was in. He tried to convince the group to bring him more villagers to eat, but they weren't buying it. When they realized that he couldn't come at them through the doorway, they began lobbing poison and bombs at him. Once reduced to a chunky slurry, they decided to hide out until morning and then head back to the village--approximately five silver pieces the richer.

Karnstein Castle and Our Lady of the Drowned

Two more adventure locations in Piskaro. 

Karnstein Castle is a naked attempt to shoehorn Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu's Carmilla into the setting. Look, if you have the opportunity to include lesbian vampire shenanigans, you leap at it. Also, I've included an in-joke here with Carmilla's origins being "in Styria." That's true to Le Fanu's fiction, but I've also noticed that fantasy novels have a strange proclivity for including Styria among the made-up place names. Why not have a Styria in the world of Krevborna too?

Our Lady of the Drowned exists because I love the idea of creepy nautical rites and monstrous sea goddesses. A lot of this bit of the setting was inspired by the film version of Dagon, but big chunks of it were also inspired by an actual Krevborna campaign that focused the cult's rise.

Karnstein Castle

On the outskirts of Piskaro sits Karnstein Castle, the abode of an ancient vampire posing as a foreign noblewoman who retired to the city for the healthful benefits of its fresh sea air.

    • Carmilla Karnstein purchased the castle to use as her lair; she claims to be a noblewoman from a far-off land known as Styria—though no one has ever heard of such a place.

    • Carmilla plays the part of an invalid stricken with a strange and incurable malady, but this merely disguises the fact that she is a bloodthirsty vampire.

    • As a woman of status and means, Carmilla Karnstein often holds balls, dances, and masquerades to which the well-to-do and aristocratic are always invited.

    • If Carmilla takes an interest in a young woman at one of her parties, the girl is invited to become her companion. 

    • When these companions return to their homes after a stint with Carmilla, they are always curiously anemic, listless, and sometimes lovelorn. 

    • Some of Carmilla’s lady companions are never heard from again.

Our Lady of the Drowned

Our Lady of the Drowned is a grand church in Piskaro dedicated to Scylla, a morbid goddess of the sea, who is in actuality a primordial monster of the depths feared for her bloodlust and fecundity. 

    • The church was built from the remains of ships that capsized, foundered on Krevborna’s shores, or otherwise became less than seaworthy. 

    • The church’s altar is constructed from driftwood and carved figureheads recovered from sunken ships. 

    • The faithful come to Our Lady of the Drowned to pray for the souls of those lost at sea and to petition Scylla for safe passage before undertaking ocean voyages. 

    • The church is presided over by Belle Silvra, the high priestess of the cult of the Lady of the Drowned in Piskaro.

    • Belle Silvra always appears in public wearing a veil that obscures her face.

    • The effective proselytizers for the cult are the Daughters of the Eel, strange “nuns” trained at the Nightsea Priory in the nearby town of Lachryma.

The Hook and Lamb's Boarding House

Two more adventure locations in Piskaro! The Hook is based on an obscure bottle of booze called "Incredible Hook" that my friend Ken produced during a weekend-long D&D fest. The world hasn't been the same since. There's obviously a Lovecraft element to it as well, but that's fitting as Ken is something of a Lovecraft scholar. (But not the terrible apologist kind.) Consider it a tribute from one DM to another. Lamb's Boarding House was inspired by Black Sunday, one of my all-time favorite Euro-Gothic movies. Mario Bava was the absolute master. I'll fight you if you disagree. There's a little Ringu to Lamb's as well.

The Hook

The Hook is a rough sailors’ tavern in Piskaro. It is primarily frequented by folk possessing “the Piskaran look,” an affliction that manifests as pronounced alopecia, bulging eyes, small ears, the complete lack of a nose, and wide, thick lips.

    • In truth, the sailors who drink at the Hook are the children of men and women who have fornicated with the fish-like humanoid creatures who live in the underwater city of Fathom’s Reach.

    • The degenerates descended from the people of Fathom’s Reach drink a special brew served only at the Hook—an algae-green concoction that sickens any human men and women who dare to quaff it.

    • Although other members of Piskaro’s populace are welcome to drink at the Hook, they are expected to ignore the unnerving and inhuman idols carved from black, oily stone that decorate the interior of the pub.

Lamb’s Boarding House

Generations ago, Piskaro went through a particularly pious period that resulted in witch hunts and persecutions. When it was discovered that Anya Lamb—a boarding house owner in Piskaro—was a sea witch, she was executed by her “friends” and neighbors. 

    • Before her death, a demonic iron mask was nailed over her face to mark her status as a condemned sorceress and she was thrown unceremoniously into the well behind her boarding house. 

    • However, when a worker at the recently reopened boarding house cut himself on one of the well’s sharp stone edges, his blood dripped onto Anya’s forgotten remains where they lay at the bottom of the well.

    • The boy’s blood awakened Anya Lamb as a undead witch. 

    • She now stalks the streets of Piskaro, emerging from her well by night to hunt the descendants of the people who cheered at her execution. 

    • Still wearing the hideous iron mask that was forced upon her, she brings a bloody vengeance in her wake.

The Bloody Machinations of Makeen

The Khorne-carved butte

The Friday night group had a gap in between games that needed filling, so I stepped in with a one-shot session. The initial premise was that they'd be playing young barbarians about to be exiled from their tribe. Little did they know that they'd find themselves in a scenario that was half the Doctor Who episode "Face of Evil" and half them being recruited by Warhammer 40k's Inquisition.

I love doing a one-shot with a twist or reveal to it, but to make that work I think you also have to deliver on the premise you presented at the outset too. I promised barbarians vs. dinosaur action, which they got, and then there was a "the fantasy stuff is actually sci fi" and "actually you're facing an AI wargame corrupted by the chaos god Khorne" layer over that.

The Characters

Aldric, an agile warrior

Bru, a brutal warrior

Chika Boom-Boom, a lorekeeper

Abendego, a hunter

Yrsa, a shaman's acolyte

The Premise

This is what the players knew going into the game:

You are youngbloods of the Rokatehm tribe, hunters and gatherers who eke out an existence in your tribal lands. Your people collect fruit from the jungle and kill the mighty thunder lizards who roam the Carnage Zone for their meat and skins. The Carnage Zone lies beyond a line of magical pillars that keep the thunder lizards from wandering into your tribe’s territory. 

The Rokatehm do not live in peace; your people suffer raids from the lizard-headed Eaters, who attempt to drag members of your tribe away to be devoured or enslaved. No one knows where the Eaters hail from–they cross the Carnage Zone to reach your village. Even your great god Makeen does not offer an explanation for the predatory Eaters.

Makeen speaks! Mostly to Gorvus Feld, your tribe’s head shaman, and only when he wears his sacred headdress. Only Gorvus Feld can hear the voice of Makeen–or so you had been led to believe.

One night, drunk on the fermented nectar of the katal-katal fruit, you youngbloods sneaked into the head shaman’s chamber ritual chamber and took turns placing the holy helmet upon your heads. Each of you has heard the voice of Makeen! Makeen has spoken to you!

You were caught during your act of transgression and dragged before the tribal council. No one cared when you claimed that Gorvus Feld had lied about Makeen’s willingness to speak to others. The chieftain sentenced you to exile–you now stand before the mystical pillars, the tribe’s warriors at your back ready to force you from your home and into–the Carnage Zone!

Events

Play began with the characters' gear being tossed beyond the shimmering protective barrier of the pillars. The character crossed into exile willingly, except for Yrsa who had to be thrown past the boundary by the tribe's warriors. The group began to pick their way into the Carnage Zone. Around them, the jungle was alive with the sounds of birds and buzzing insects; as they marched the heat sapped their strength and they were soaked in sweat.

Things went from bad to worse when a few members of the group detected the ground shaking in response to a massive thunder lizard bearing down on them and crashing through the trees. The group ran for it, with most of the party heading left and Aldric heading right in hopes that the monster would pursue the larger group. 

Everyone emerged from the jungle at the same time at the base of a butte. The butte had been carved to resemble some kind of helmet or ritual headdress of unknown origins. The maw of the helmet was actually an entrance to a cave within the butte. The characters rushed inside. From the safety of the cave, they could see that the thunder lizard that had chased them through the jungle was a T. Rex. Fortunately, the cave's mouth was too small for the thunder lizard to squeeze in, though its saliva-dripping jaws did snap and snarl at the entrance.

Inside the cave, Abendego tripped over a skeleton whose remaining clothes marked them as a previous exile from the Rokatehm tribe. Using bits of the skeleton and its rags, he was able to fashion a makeshift torch to explore the rest of the cavern. There was a slopping passage up and a strange, unnatural shaft. The shaft was "decorated" with small blue lights and "vines" of copper metal that were threaded with strands and clumps of throbbing meat. When cut, the meat bled.

With no way to ascent the shaft, the group ventured up the sloping path and wandered further into the interior of the butte. They found themselves in a chamber lined with large glass tubes (though they had no conception of what glass was) filled with murky liquid. They had a bit of a jump scare when they realized that fetal thunder lizards were floating inside the murky liquid. Atop each of the tubes were more of the copper vines and bits of pulsating meat. A metal door with no handle marked one exit from the chamber and a corridor stretching off to the side marked another. There was also a perfectly round hole in the floor of this chamber. Using his torch, Abendego could see a collection of human and thunder lizard bones done below, as well as rats scurrying to and fro.

Their exploration was halted when five of the tubes opened to disgorge fully formed (and hungry) velociraptors. The group attempted to flee down the unknown corridor, but it ended in another featureless metal door. Now they were penned in with no choice but to fight their way past the velociraptors. Axes and swords were swung, arrows were unleased, and Chika was nearly shredded by the teeth of a raptor. The group managed to slay the prehistoric beasts. Bru was particularly effective at carving a swath through the monsters.

Abendego was able to fashion a rope from the copper vines (cables, really) and descend into the bone pit, where he found a slim card that unlocked the doors in the area above. As they explored further, they found a shrine with a bronze statue with the same helm as was carved on the butte's face. Piled around the statue's feet were human skulls that were spattered with dried blood. When Aldric began smashing the skulls, it alerted the lizard-headed Eaters in the next room to their presence in the complex. The Eaters rushed in and again the party found themselves in a life and death struggle.

The Eaters were hardy foes, but once they were vanquished the group found themselves in possession of another card. This one unlocked the most horrifying chamber yet: a room filled with wheezing machinery, curtains of raw meat hung like skirt steak, and undulating organs of alien purpose. Within the room were more Eaters (one of whom was armed with a strange sword whose edge was lined with metal "teeth," yeah, it was a chainsword) and a number of dead-eyed beings who looked like Rokatehm exiles whose flesh had been combined with bits of metal and flashing lights. 

The voice of Makeen rang out as they stepped into the chamber: "Calculating winner, please stand by." The winner was announced, and it was Chika! Part of the unnerving black metal machinery opened, revealing a throne. Chika was told to sit herself upon the throne and receive her "prize," but she refused. Her refusal confused the Eaters in the room, as they could not imagine rejecting the chance to be transformed into a champion of "the Blood God." 

The group heard a sound like the shrieking of a great bird coming from atop the butte. Further conversation with the gobsmacked Eaters was rendered impossible by a woman coming down the stairs from the top of the butte who opened fire on the Eaters with a miraculous weapon. Her white hair was cut in a bob and she wore black armor the likes of which the group had never seen before. (Yes, Sister Talisa was an Adepta Sororitas.) Since she didn't know what to do with the group, she brought them up top where her leader, Inquisitor Mohandas Corrado was busy examining Makeen's "brain."

Mohandas Corrado was a dark-skinned man with a swoop of curly hair covering one eye. He explained that just about everything the group knew about their lives was a distortion of the truth. The Rokatehm tribe were the descendants of the Boom-Boom Rocket Team, a team of suborbital racers who competed across the sector until their ship got caught in a Warp Storm and deposited on the jungle planet. One of the Rocket Team members was a "naughty boy" who had a xenos artificial intelligence wargame system onboard the ship; when it passed through the Warp Storm it was infested with Khorne's demonic energies. That xenos device was, of course, Makeen (machine!) and had been breeding dinosaurs and creating Eaters to carry on the blood-soaked wargame in real time to feed blood and souls to the Chaos god Khorne!

Mohandas asked the group what they would do with Makeen, if they were in his position: would they destroy it or take it away for further study? They hemmed and hawed over this question, but ultimately indicated that they would study it further if that meant putting an end to similar incursions elsewhere. Mohandas agreed and, intrigued by the groups' ability to survive against the machinations of Chaos, offered to take them with him on his gunship so they could be trained as part of his Inquisitorial retinue. 

They agreed that leaving the planet was a capital idea, so they boarded Corrado's gunship and prepared themselves to encounter an entire galaxy beyond their wildest imaginings. 

Drathmoor Asylum and Esperhaus

Below are two adventure locations in the city of Piskaro. It just wouldn't be a Gothic fantasy setting without a horrible asylum to either infiltrate or break out of, would it? Similarly, you can never have enough venues for terrifying, empowered children. Krevborna trivia: the twin sisters in charge of Esperhaus are named after former members of the band Rasputina.

Drathmoor Asylum

Drathmoor Asylum is an infamous place of incarceration for inebriates and the mad. 

    • The asylum gives some lip-service to the notion of being an institution where the afflicted find solace, but the treatments provided there are seldom better than torture.

    • Rumors circulate that some of the procedures pioneered at the asylum have horrifying origins—serving the doctors’ desire to know the inner workings of the mind, rather than tending to their patients’ recovery and treatment. 

    • It is also suspected by many that Drathmoor is used to get unwanted and inconvenient relations out of the way.

Esperhaus

Esperhaus is a sprawling orphanage and foundling hospital in Piskaro that hides a dark secret.

    • The avowed mission of Esperhaus is to clothe, feed, and educate orphans and unwanted children according to a modern, progressive plan.

    • However, the educators of Esperhaus clandestinely test their charges for psychic potential.

    • When they discover a child with latent psychic powers, the boy or girl is subjected to experiments designed to enhance and unlock their extraordinary abilities.

    • Esperhaus is run by Carpella and Agnieszka Parvoska, twin sisters who are both scientists who have been driven to madness by their own psionic powers.

    • Carpella Parvoska is a proficient telepath able to prize secrets from even the most well-guarded mind.

    • Agnieszka Parvoska is a wild-eyed pyrokinetic who can barely contain her violent power.

Best of 2024

Bad Books for Bad People, Episode 82: Best of 2024

Jack and Kate look at what they've read and watched in the year that was 2024 and make some recommendations in the world of books and beyond. The rules of engagement are simple: the hosts each choose one movie, album, TV show, and book that was the best experience of its kind, regardless of when it was actually produced. A little bit new, a little bit old, and a whole lot of weirdness is in store!

Join your hosts for a discussion that ranges from wicked governesses to the relative merits of Italian heavy metal to gothic roadside attractions. Oh, and murder. So much murder.

Piskaro

We're moving from the Karthax Mountains down to Krevborna's coast, stopping for a while in Piskaro--Krevborna's second-largest city and busiest port. Piskaro is the gateway for nautical horrors in the setting, but it also has variety of other Gothic nonsense going on.

Piskaro

A Dangerous Seaport Fallen From Grace

Piskaro is a densely populated port city of teetering buildings crowded together like crooked teeth atop canals at the mouth of the River Krev. Piskaro is a center of thriving maritime trade and a haven for pirates. Its wharves bustle with the lading and unloading of full-rigged ships, prison hulks are moored offshore, and dangerous quayside taverns are frequented by cutthroats and whalers who call exotic ports home. 

Piskaro is governed by whichever pirate captain has recently intimidated the others into submission. The exercise of law and order in Piskaro falls on parish beadles and constables. Piskaro's authorities turn a blind eye to the activities of the buccaneers operating out of its wharves, but the city’s pirates do make examples of those they consider traitors—as the number of gibbeted skeletons hanging wharfside attest.

Perhaps because of its proximity to the strange and unknowable sea, life in Piskaro is subject to persistent oddities. Those who sleep in Piskaro often find their slumber disturbed by hallucinatory nightmares, prophetic dreams, and foreboding omens. The deformed and reeking remains of unnatural aberrations occasionally wash up on shore. Sigils and runes are scrawled onto the sides of buildings with chalk to ward off violent crime. Also, it is obvious to all that some of Piskaro’s native population possess bulging eyes, a marked lack of hair, and fish-like visages that hint at an inhuman heritage.

Hallmarks

The following elements and aesthetic notes define Piskaro:

    • Piskaro, Krevborna’s largest port, is controlled by pirate captains and their crews.

    • The city sits atop a labyrinth of canals, bridges, and islands at the mouth of the River Krev.

    • The city smells of the briny deep and the sea’s unfathomable secrets.

    • Many of the seafaring folk of Piskaro place their faith in the Lady of the Drowned, a cruel sea goddess regarded as a grim heresy by the Church of Holy Blood.

 • The taverns near Piskaro’s wharves are notoriously violent.

Hellraiser #3

This blog post continues my journey through the Hellraiser comics published by Epic that ran in the late 80s into the early 90s. As I stated in earlier installments of this series, these initial issues are all about the series finding its rhythm and discovering what kind of comic this is going to be. It's an anthology-style comic, collecting the work of diverse hands, but as the run progresses certain through-lines emerge that give the comic its own special character.

In issue three of Hellraiser, they're experimenting with the notion of running fewer stories, but allowing the stories present to run to greater length. All in all, I'd say the experiment is a success because there really isn't an even slightly below-par story in the lot. Here's what the third issue has on offer:

"The Crystal Precipice"

Jan Strnad, Steve Buccellato, Stan Drakes, Sherilyn Van Valkenburg, Michael Heisler 

As with all long-running horror franchises, it was only a matter of time until Hellraiser ended up in space. "The Crystal Precipice" even predates Hellraiser: Bloodlines by eight or so years! This story takes place on an alien planet being surveyed by four explorers. As they look through their binoculars at a mysterious crystal city on the horizon, they see a human-shaped figure waving to them.

Of course, that's not a man--that's a Cenobite. In fact, it's Face. Remember when I said he would be one of the break-out original characters of the comic? Face loves this strange alien world, calling it an "Eden of rock and dust and crystal." In fact, he has a great admiration for the floating crystalline entities that inhabit this world because they have left all the impurities of the flesh behind for lives of strict geometric order.

One member of the explorers is a great example of the unruly flesh of mankind: Ernest is a violent rapist who has been assaulting one of the women in the party. He's caught in the act and banished into the alien waste. Unfortunately, that simply drives him into the hands of Face, who uses him to lure the rest of the group to their dooms.

Ernest's revenge trip is thwarted when he accidentally hits an alien crystal while firing a gun at one of his former compatriots. Face allows for no accidents; unworthy of transformation into a crystalline entity, Ernest is instead taken to Hell and refashioned as one of the mongrel pets the Cenobites keep. 

As far as stories go, this is a strange one, but what I appreciate most about it is that the art style and characterization is heavily reminiscent of the horror comics put out by Warren back in the day. There's a wonderful throwback quality to "The Crystal Precipice" in its blending of weird science and horror that is particularly pleasing even if there isn't much depth to the story. Which is fine, as this one functions like an appetizer for the longer tales to come in this issue.

"The Blood of a Poet"

R. J. M. Lofficier, John Ridgway, Gaspar Saladino, Steve Oliff

In "The Blood of  Poet," a naive would-be poet from Kansas finds himself in 1920s Paris, hoping to find his way in the invigorated European art scene between the wars. Following a tip he gleans at an occult bookstore, which happens to have a cute employee who catches his eye, he seeks a room at the Pension Veneur--a rooming house where artists are allowed free residence. The only terms at the Pension Veneur is that any artist in residence is required to create and they must attend formal dinners within the house every night.

The formal dinners are a nightmare of rehashed arguments, recriminations, and general antisociality, punctuated by what appear to be epileptic fits. During his first night within the Pension Veneur, our poet has horrific dreams--rendered in a way that delightfully reminded me a bit of the work of Basil Wolverton--and discovers upon awakening that he has penned lines of truly decadent verse. His experience at the rooming house never improves; his fellow residents are secretive, combative, and their ways are shocking to a young man fresh from the Midwest. When he's invited to join in a sadomasochistic sex act, he demurs with great haste.

When he takes the cutie from the bookstore out on a date, he learns that her boss probably steered him to the Pension Veneur under a malign ulterior motive. That ulterior motive creeps into the picture when several small details converge: the protagonist learns that Lemarchand had a hand in the Pension Veneur and several former residents of the room house have disappeared under mysterious circumstances.

Things come to a head when the main character is accosted by the other residents and chained to a wall as they operate a phallic-looking clockwork contraption that summons the Cenobites. (And they're the original movie Cenobites!) It is revealed that the Cenobites allow the Pension Veneur to exist in hopes that the artists they patronize will create works that capture their hellish ideas and translate them into artistic mediums. Those who fail are sacrificed to make way for the next batch of prospects. As the Cenobites approach, the protagonist declaims his infernal-inspired verses, impressing the Order of the Gash. They take one of the other residents to Hell instead.

The main character attempts to flee the house and the horrible bargain he has struck within it, but when he finds out that his lady love from the bookstore was slain in a random mugging he returns to the Pension Veneur, dejected but ready to accept his damnation. The artwork, and especially the color choices, in this story give it a lurid, sullen atmosphere that perfectly fits the subject matter. It's a longer story, in terms of the usual page lengths for the comic, but it uses that space to be languid rather than packed with frenetic plotting.

"Songs of Metal and Flesh"

Peter Akins, Dave Dorman, Lurene Haines, Phil Felix

"Songs of Metal and Flesh" is another story that has remained with me over the years; in my estimation, it ranks among the acknowledged classics of Epic's Hellraiser run. Like "The Blood of a Poet," this story concerns art--in this case, classical music. Since childhood, Jason Marlowe has been blind. True to the trope, Jason's "other senses" compensate for his lack of vision and he becomes a musical prodigy. He wins a scholarship to a musical academy where he not only excels, but meets a woman named Deborah who will change his life.

His sexual experiences with Deborah put all those heightened sense to good use. In their pleasure, he finds access to the "hidden melodies and mysterious harmonies" that had alluded him. However, Jason Marlowe also discovers a rival in fellow student Stephen Middleton. Unsatisfied with competing against Jason musically, Stephen also seduces Deborah. Stephen assumes that because Jason cannot see Deborah's infidelity he is incapable of detecting it, but he can feel it, smell it, and hear their "cruel excitement."

Deborah introduces sadomasochism into her relationship with Jason, tying him to the bed and slashing his chest with a knife. This not only brings a new flavor of sexual pleasure into Jason's life, but gives him another way to access "the hidden sonatas." Meanwhile, Stephen breaks into Jason's home and places razor blades between the keys of his piano so that the next time he plays he maims his hand. 

Stephen exits to a successful career as a touring musician. The story notes, with cold cruelty, that he cheats on Deborah in every city and that she eventually dies, unloved, of a cancer that eats away at her.

Jason is forced to pivot from performer to composer, but his experiences with Stephen and Deborah have fueled him to creative heights he would not have reached otherwise. Music becomes a puzzle to solve and--well, you see where this is going, right? At the cresendo of his composition, he drags his naked body along a wall studded with razor blades, then spins en pointe, sending droplets of his blood to complete the sheet music he has scattered before him on the ground.

At the debut of Jason's piece everything goes to Hell--literally. Stephen is the pianist entrusted to bring the music to life, of course, and when he does he finds himself snared on hooked chains, the Cenobites now part of the audience. What follows is pure Grand Guignol style theatrics: headless violinists saw at their instruments and the audience is flayed alive. In the end, Jason finds himself in Leviathan's realm. His vision has been restored, so that he might see the horrors around him, but he has now lost his senses of touch, smell, taste, and hearing. Once an instrument for producing Hell's music, he is now a physical instrument plucked and drummed upon for eternity.

As I said at the start, I consider "Songs of Metal and Flesh" to be a Hellraiser classic--and for good reason. It is an exceedingly cruel story, and the way it combines desire, beauty, and pain into a heady mix is entirely on theme. I also love the art style. There is a certain naivety to the coloring (colored pencils, I think) that mirrors Jason's lack of experience and unguarded descent. This one is hard to beat.

Thronzeker

One common complaint about fantasy games is that they don't feature enough dragons, even if the game has "dragon" in its name. Well, here's one from Krevbrona.

The Karthax Mountain’s most powerful villain is Thronzeker, a regicidal undead dragon.

Thronzeker

Thronzeker is an undead dragon obsessed with regicide. Indeed, it was Thronzeker who whispered of treason in the dreams of the conspirators who overthrew and executed Krevborna’s royal family. Without a tsar on which to focus his bloody ire, Thronzeker has grown restless over the intervening years. As the Church of Holy Blood has grown in secular power, his thoughts have turned toward demolishing the faith as a bastion of nascent political power.

    • Appearance: Although the bleached bones of his skeleton comprise the majority of his form, gobs of nauseating rotten flesh still adhere to his frame. 

    • Personality: He still dreams of the death of kings.

    • Motive: He hopes to render the people of Krevborna weak, vulnerable, and afraid by removing their protectors.

    • Flaw: Without a downfall to plot, he finds himself growing erratic and unstable.

Sanctum Sabbathi and Valpurga

Today's post contains two more adventure locations in the Karthax Mountains. The first is the lair of Krevborna's foremost criminal syndicate based on the fabled mountain dwellings of the Order of Assassins. The second is an eldritch library presided over by the legendary nosferatu.

Sanctum Sabbathi

Sanctum Sabbathi is a concealed fortress used as the headquarters of the Skarabasca criminal organization.

    • Sanctum Sabbathi is veiled by powerful illusions—only those who hold one of the magical keys to the fortress can perceive it. It is otherwise invisible.

    • Within Sanctum Sabbathi are vast alchemical laboratories used to create the magical intoxicants that the Skarabasca’s agents peddle throughout Krevborna.  

    • The alchemists of the Skarabasca are not adverse to dipping into their own supply; the members of the Skarabasca at Sanctum Sabbathi exist in states of paranoia, mania, and heightened aggression.

    • Sanctum Sabbathi is also home to the many seers, oracles, and diviners that the Skarabasca use to spy upon rival criminal organizations.

    • The inner chambers of Sanctum Sabbathi contain the summoning circles the Skarabasca rely upon to conjure the demons they employ as supernatural assassins.  

Valpurga

Valpurga is a lonely clock tower constructed from a weathered material that appears to be stone, but is in fact the petrified flesh of a sleeping eldritch creature. No matter the state of the weather, the tower’s “stone” is uncannily warm to the touch. 

    • The interior of Valpurga is dominated by floor after floor of library shelves, all of which are tightly packed with rare and ancient tomes. 

    • Valpurga is a repository of knowledge that has been preserved for posterity via magical means. 

    • Valpurga is also decorated by a startling amount of grandfather clocks, each of which is actually a portal leading to a different location within Krevborna.

    • The surest way to find what you seek in Valpurga is to consult Count Orlok, the librarian residing within it; Orlok is a nosferatu who is only lucid for a few hours after he has fed on fresh blood.

    • Count Orlok’s arms and legs are laden with heavy iron chains as a sign of his devotion to the otherworldly entity known as the Chained Scholar.

The Sisters Carnifexa and The Skarabasca

Two more factions and organizations you can drop into a Krevborna game. Look, if you think I wasn't going to add battle nuns you don't get the setting at all. And of course you need a clandestine criminal organization.

The Sisters Carnifexa

The members of the Sisters Carnifexa are battle-ready nuns professional monster hunters who have been trained for combat at Kairn Volkov, an ancient mountain fortress in the Karthax Mountains. 

    • The Sisters Carnifexa recruit new members exclusively from Krevborna’s population of orphaned and unwanted female children. 

    • Originally a branch of the Church who specialized in slaying unclean monstrosities, the Sisters still wear clerical vestments common to militant nuns.

    • According to hearsay, some of the children collected by the Sisters Carnifexa are experimented upon in the Vlaak laboratories they discovered in the depths of their fortress. 

    • The purpose of the Sisters Carnifexa’s experiments is to mold them into “perfect warriors” to be used as weapons against supernatural threats; those who survive these experiments are rendered stronger and more resilient, and they often possess strange powers.

The Skarabasca

The Skarabasca is a powerful, shadowy criminal syndicate operating throughout Krevborna. 

    • The Skarabasca executes mundane crimes, such as heists, robberies, and assassinations, but the organization’s true specialty is dealing in alchemically enhanced intoxicants.

    • The goal of the Skarabasca is to either destroy or assimilate all rival gangs and criminal organizations in Krevborna. 

    • Upon joining the Skarabasca, a new member chooses a grandiose or fanciful name for themselves, such as Broken Sword, Mirthless Daughter, Steel Serpent, or Omen of the Seven Sorrows. 

    • The members of the Skarabasca revere Cain, the immortal first murderer, as their spiritual patron.

    • Each murder committed by the Skarabasca is dedicated to Cain in hopes that, like him, they will remain uncaught and unpunished for their crimes.

The Mote of Sycorax and the Needle of Golgotha

Two adventure locations in the Karthax Mountains. In this installment of our tour of the mountains things are getting eldritch and strange. Of course, both the artificial sky-island and sinister obelisk described here are connected to the Vlaak.

The Mote of Sycorax

Hidden behind the perpetual cloud cover surrounding one of the Karthax Mountains’ highest peaks floats the Mote of Sycorax, an artificial island held aloft by eldritch machinery.

    • The Mote of Sycorax was created by the aberrations who once kept the inhuman Vlaak as slaves.

    • Sycorax was created as a monitoring station meant to analyze the Vlaak Empire’s rise and eventual fall.

    • The Mote of Sycorax contains magical and technological marvels unseen in this or any age.

The Needle of Golgotha

The Needle of Golgotha is a magical obelisk erected by the Vlaak.

    • The Needle of Golgotha is a narrow, towering pillar of unnatural black stone; embedded within its surface are a multitude of yellowed Vlaakish skulls.

    • Cultists of the otherworldly abominations of the Outer Dark believe that the Needle allows direct communion with the eldritch monstrosities they serve. 

    • If the Needle of Golgotha truly allows for contact between the “eldritch gods” and their cultists, it is theorized that the use of certain obscure rituals performed at the base of the obelisk may enable travel from the mortal plane to the nearest reaches of the Outer Dark.

The Requiem and The Rooks

Two factions in Krevborna! One is an order of magical math monks and the other is the setting's equivalent of the Pinkertons. 

The Requiem gives an organization for characters to belong to for people who like to play D&D-ish monks in the setting, which has proven to be a surprisingly popular option over the years. 

Nobody in my games ever seems to trust the Rooks, but unlike the real-world Pinkertons WotC can't send them to your house over some illicit Magic cards.

The Requiem

The Requiem is a monastic order of warrior ascetics who believe that study and contemplation of the divine mathematics underlying all creation is the true path to spiritual redemption. 

    • Each monk of the Requiem inscribes their body with angelic seals and complex mathematical formulae to channel the power of the divine. 

    • The ascetics of the Requiem prize cold, passionless logic.

    • Monks of the order venture into the world to obtain evil or accursed magical artifacts to be taken for safekeeping in the well-protected vaults below the Monastery of Saint Menoch.

The Rooks

The Rooks are a guild that engage in “night work”—clandestine investigations, strike breaking, and bounty hunting.

    • The Rooks maintain guildhalls throughout Krevborna where they can be contracted as private detectives, hired muscle, spies, discreet couriers, bodyguards, and manhunters. 

    • Over the years, the Rooks have gained renown for disrupting the illegal slave trade in Piskaro, capturing several bandit chiefs, and solving a number of mysterious murder cases. 

    • However, rumors that the Rooks will take innocent lives for the right handful of coins continue to dog the organization and tarnish its reputation. 

    • The Rooks have established routes upon which specialized agents deliver mail and parcels sent through their guildhalls.

The Malcovat and the Monastery of Saint Menoch

Two adventure locations in the Karthax Mountains. The Malcovat is a school of dark magic based on the folklore of the Scholamance. The Monastery of Saint Menoch was inspired by the Ravenloft novel Tapestry of Souls and my desire to add something to the setting that would allow for the sort of militant "monk" characters that some people like to play.

The Malcovat

The Malcovat, a school of black magic, is hidden within the Karthax Mountains. Though the Malcovat is largely thought to be a thing of legend, the rumors of its existence are all too true.

    • Students at the Malcovat are taught by warlocks and wizards who have extensively studied arcane magic.

    • Some classes at the Malcovat are presided over by devils summoned from Hell to provide instruction in the darkest arts of magic. 

    • Out of every cohort, the student who advances the least in their studies is forfeit to the school’s diabolic masters; their soul is taken as Hell’s due. 

    • Graduates of the Malcovat can be found throughout Krevborna, though they keep their alma mater a closely guarded secret.

    • When encountered in Krevborna, former students of the Malcovat’s infernal curriculum are almost always pursuing unholy routes to power.

The Monastery of Saint Menoch

The Monastery of Saint Menoch is a mountainous spiritual refuge maintained by the warrior monks and nuns of the Requiem order. 

    • Though the Monastery of Saint Menoch is known for the tutelage in celestial mathematics and the rigorous physical and mental training it provides to acolytes, there is a secret hidden beneath the well-protected edifice.

    • Hidden below the monastery is a vault in which the Requiem safeguards evil and accursed magical artifacts. 

    • As part of their spiritual mission, the monks and nuns of the Requiem search out and obtain baleful magic items, which they then transport to the vaults of Saint Menoch to be secreted away and kept out of the hands of those who would be tempted by the corrupting power they offer.

Hellraiser #2

This post is the second installment of my re-read of the Hellraiser comics published by Epic. The first issue was undeniably a cracking start, even if it played fast and loose with the idea of a unified "Hellraiser Mythos," but can the second issue rival that tough act to follow? Let's dig in and find out.

My thoughts on each of the stories contained in the issue are below. As always, the stories chosen for the issue offer a nice range of horror tales, albeit that they are united under the Hellraiser rubric. We've got the political and corporal terrors of the prison, the horrors of the hospital, virtual reality, and more!

"The Vault"

Marc McLaurin, Jorge Zaffino, Phil Felix, Julie Michel

"The Vault" concerns a violent prison in an unnamed South American country where a revolution is currently sputtering to its end. A prisoner within the facility sold out his comrades to get possession of a Lament Configuration, which he inexplicably still has in prison. Opening the box removes him from incarceration, but that poses a problem for the facility's commandant, who sees the unexplained escape as a blotch on his record of keeping law and order. And he is a big believer in law and order; he believes in structure and imposing structure from top to bottom, bottom to top, and from the middle outward.

To rectify what he sees as a lapse in order in the prison, the commandant tortures various prisoners into solving the left-behind puzzle box to figure out how the escapee fled his domain. The puzzle doesn't open until he beats a prisoner while holding it. The Cenobite who arrives is very disappointed in the commandant's lack of self-control. The story ends with the commandant being told that this fault can be corrected--from top to bottom, bottom to top, and from the middle outward.

This is an interesting story. I think the way it focus on chaos (symbolized here by the failed revolution) versus order (here played by the carceral state) is a nice thematic contrast. The art style, with is deep, shadowy blacks and muted orange and yellow palette, also really works well with the subject matter.

"Divers Hands"

James Robert Smith and Mike Hoffman

A patient named Vincent in the last leper colony in the continental United States has got his hands--or, rather, what's left of his hands--on a Lament Configuration. Vincent believes that successful manipulation of the puzzle box will grant him a cure for his ravaged body or perhaps give him a new body entirely.

Enter a new nurse named Mary at the treatment center. Vincent quickly seduces her; not romantically, of course, but he coaxes her into solving the puzzle for him since his hands are no longer up to the task. Although, it must be noted, that there is a sexual component to the attraction between them that rings true to Hellraiser's mixture of desperation and desire. While having sex with her boyfriend, Mary imagines the leper atop her in his place.

The Cenobites arrive when Mary solves the puzzle as Vincent's proxy. We now learn that this isn't the first time has had another solve the Lament Figuration on his behalf. Vincent's goal isn't to have the Cenobites cure his affliction per se; he believes that if he leads enough souls to Hell they will remake him as a Cenobite. 

Mary is taken by the Cenobites, but before she enters Hell she flings the Lament Configuration away. Believing that it must have reappeared somewhere else in the institute, Vincent begins scouring the hallways until he finds it. When he does, the Cenobites reappear, apparently re-summoned to their infernal work. The institute, it turns out, is also a puzzle created by LeMarchand, and traversing its corridors has "solved" it. With no proxy to offer them, Vincent is taken as their victim--but not before he sees Mary again, refashioned into a tangle of whole, healthy limbs.

The pastel colors and the unwaveringly bland expressions given to the characters in "Divers Hands" really sells the "clinical" horror of the piece. Everything, from the progress of Vincent's disease to the sterile Hell of the facility, underlines the cold, unfeeling betrayals that Vincent engages in and adds to the horror of the red-hot desires lurking under the surface. This is one of the all-time classics to emerge from the Epic run, in my opinion.

"Writer's Lament"

Dwayne McDuffie, Kevin O'Neil, and Jim Novak

I'd later come to know Kevin O'Neil for his work on The League of Extraordinary Gentleman, of my favorite comics of all time, so you'd think this one would appeal to me. And yet...I really don't.

"Writer's Lament" follows the travails of a freelance writer named Dave who is already in Hell. Used to writing scripts to fit a client's specifications, Dave is surprised one day to find that he's created something actually artistic for once, something that is undeniably his own. Because the use of metaphor in this story is blatantly obvious, the piece is symbolized by a baby because the project is "his baby."

Dave rushes his baby to his editor and is shocked to learn that other people have brought their babies in for consideration as well. The editor likes what he sees, but begins to make changes--you have to think of the audience, the sponsors, the pressure groups, you see. He pulls out one of the baby's eyes, yanks an arm off, and rips off its genitals. (Yes, really.) When Dave balks that the editor is destroying his concept of what the baby should look like, he reassembles it--but then rips the "heart" out of the project.

Dave is ushered out, the creative spark behind the baby now dead, but he's placated by the promise of work to come in the future. 

The underlying idea is interesting here, but the execution is so on-the-nose that it feels more like a creative's gripe session than a real examination of the commercialization of art. The casual gruesomeness of the baby's dismemberment has some shock and heft to it, but the artwork on this one just doesn't feel particularly inspired.

"The Threshold"

Scott Hampton, Mark Neece, and Phil Felix

Oh hey, a virtual reality story! Look, it was the late 80s; "The Threshold" even pre-empts that god-awful Lawnmower Man movie.

A scientist named Leo Marks perfects the virtual reality experience, and then promptly disappears after granting the patent to an amoral tech company. The virtual reality technology is mostly used by people who want to fuck celebrities, but a scientist at the company named Tom is up to some darker stuff. You see, Tom has been experimenting on a man's whose mind was "blown out" in the technology's trial phase; now Tom subjects him to ever-increasing experiences of pain to discover what lies beyond the threshold of maximum agony.

Since this is a Hellraiser story, you can guess what lies beyond pain, actually. A Cenobite arrives after Tom cranks the dial on his experiment--and the Cenobite is none other than Leo Marks! Marks then ushers Tom into the fold, where it seems he may be destined to become a Cenobite himself.

This is a fairly slight story, but it sticks to the themes and the virtual reality gag still has some novelty to it. Loved the scene of the guinea pig having to surf a lava flow in Hawaii.

"The Pleasures of Deception"

Philip Nutman, Bill Koeb, Gaspar Saladino

Now this art style is so of the era it gives me an ache in my chest! Dark, murky paints; inexplicable squares drawn around focal points; scratchy textures hinting at human blight--this is the stuff I'm craving.

"The Pleasures of Deception" is pure strain Hellraiser. When an artist named Davis tries to sell his latest macabre piece to a gallery, his work is rejected. His art has grown stale. What he needs is new inspiration, a new window into the complexities of desire and the flesh, so he gets his hand on a Lament Configuration. 

Solving the puzzle summons Pinhead and the High Priestess. (I believe this is the first time the movie Cenobites show up in the comic as characters.) They guide him through a series of disturbing, blood soaked lessons in how the flesh can be reshaped, taming the chaos of life and turning it into static art. Of course, like many Faustian bargains, this one comes with an unforeseen price: the artist is now cursed with seeing more of the world that he can really handle.

This is a perfect piece to close the issue. Overall, this is another strong entry in the run. You get a sense that they're still figuring out what a Hellraiser comic entails, but it does feel more unified than the first issue.