A Night at the Skarnesti Circus

In this adventure, the party made their way to the Skarnesti Cicus, which had pitched its tents in a clearing just outside of Hemlock Hollow. They were in search of an artifact known as the Mantle of Iron Tears that could aid Raoul in his quest to resurrect his deceased beloved, though their quest for the item was hampered by the fact that they neither knew what it looked like nor who was in possession of it. This is the first part of a two-part write up of the adventure; according to several of the players, this was one of the best adventures of the campaign thus far.

The Characters

Catarina, unconventional prioress

Pendleton, rogue anatomist

Raoul, necromancer

Geradd, swashbuckling nobleman

Daytona, dhampir gunslinger

Panthalassa, feral child

Asudem, undead antiquarian

Events

As the party waited for the Skarnesti Circus to open its gates, they observed that the makeshift fairgrounds were contained within a plank fence that had been painted with a graveyard scene in which cartoonish ghosts rose from their graves. Eventually, a woman--her face powdered deathly white, wearing a slinky black dress--appeared, mounted a platform, and addressed the crowd:

Good evening, boils and ghouls. I bid you welcome...to the Skarnesti Circus. I am your host and proprietor, the mistress of the macabre, the ghostess with the mostess, Zoskia Skarnesti. Lurking just inside, you will find an untold number of attractions that will shock and amaze you, but I must warn you: those of weak hearts and unsound constitutions should turn back IMMEDIATELY. But those of you made of sterner stuff may brave your horror of what’s to come. We have a freak show that will shiver you down to your bones, a monster of unmatched strength who could rend you apart with his bare hands, and a sinister seductress to which no succubus could compare. If you slaver at the sinister, if you moisten at the morbid, if you have no regard for your personal safety, why then, step right up and buy a ticket to…YOUR DOOM!

The party bought their tickets and entered. They found that the grass in the clearing had been turned black somehow, saw a number of black and white striped tents, noticed the unusual number of young women in black dresses and especially pointy shoes among the crowd, and could hear the sound of a calliope playing minor-key carnival music. They located a hand-painted sign listing the attractions on offer and set off to investigate.

Their first stop was the tent of Mister Marvelo, Gentleman Fortune Teller. One by one, he told their fortunes via the tarot, giving them eerily accurate assessments of their lives and, possibly, of their futures. (I did an actual tarot card reading for each character; I highly recommend doing this if it suits the aesthetics of your game, as the results were fascinating and in many cases surprisingly apt.)

Panthalassa wanted to test her strength against Dogface, the Hirsute Brute, a massive mountain of muscle covered in brown shaggy fur. Dogface mistook Catarina for Panthalassa's mother and wanted to make sure that it was okay that a "mere child" compete against him. He tried to offer her a dainty, small hammer with which to pound the high striker, but she insisting on wielding one of the biggest mallets on offer. Both of them swung. Dogface's blow caused the bell to ring at the top of the high striker. Panthalassa's blow caused puck to hurtle off the end of her high striker. Amazed at the child's strength, Dogface loaded Panthalassa with prize tickets and proclaimed her the victor. 

The group also took the time to watch the performance of Vandia, the Human Pincushion. Inside Vandia's tent, the doll-like woman--who looked uncannily like a human version of the Widow--gave a speech about how women are often the target of violence at the hands of men, but that she would prove that women were truly the stronger sex. Vandia invited Pendleton to select a blade from a barrel and run her through with it. Pendleton chose a rapier, and tested it to make sure it was real. He drove the sword through her heart; blood coursed from the wound and poured from her mouth, but she strutted across the stage to show that she still lived. Daytona turned a keen eye to the performance to note any trickery and Raoul tried to detect magical interference, but neither could determine how it was done.

The group also took a tour of Captain Cadaver's House of Horrors, in which a tour guide in a boiler suit painted with a skeleton and wearing a skull mask directed them through the circus's "dark attraction"--a series of black chambers designed to surprise and disgust the visitors with examples drawn from Krevborna's terrible history. The group saw mechanical ghouls and zombies feasting upon "living" dummies (and a few of them were sprayed by fake blood from the exhibit), stereotypically alien Vlaak (Pendleton was "abducted" by actors in Vlaak masks), and even a scene depicting a haggish Viktoria Frankenstein cooking up horrors in her laboratory (which caused Serafina to say, sotto voce, "This isn't accurate at all."). 

The final exhibit in the House of Horrors showed Dracula rising from his coffin. However, they also noticed a child's discarded shoe in this room of the House of Horrors, which they found troubling.

Catarina and Daytona faced off against each other at Kassidy Durango's Shooting Gallery. Daytona was the winner, and some unspoken promised prize was on the line. Sensing a worthy opponent, Kassidy challenged Daytona to face her, with a similar prize hanging in the balance. Upping the stakes, Kassidy proposed that they would fire at the targets blindfolded. Daytona was able to hit two of the milk bottles in the gallery, but Kassidy took down three--with a fourth taken out by a trick shot with a ricocheting bullet!

The group decided to enter the freakshow next. At the tent's flap, Zoskia Skarnesti offered Pendleton a job with the freakshow, since he was still sporting a fish-face from a ritual undertaken in a previous adventure. Inside, the encountered a hallway of pickled punks (some of which scratched at their jars from inside), the World's Tallest Man, and a geek they declined to feed live chickens. When they were within the freakshow, they could hear a distraught woman calling for someone named "Bastien." 

Ducking out of the tent, they made the acquaintance of a woman named Navenka Sokoloff, whose son had entered the House of Horrors but seemingly had not exited. They showed her the shoe they had found and she confirmed that it was his. Daytona was able to track a pair of footsprints--one a child wearing a sole shoe, the other wearing low-heeled women's shoes--to the Hall of Mirrors. 

Inside the Hall of Mirrors, they saw the usual assortment of mirrors that distorted their images, but they also found one mirror that was out of place because it seemed utterly normal. However, it was anything but normal. Gazing into it, Catarina could have sworn she saw the reflection of Wallace Redmoor, her brother-in-law. Touching the mirror revealed that it was a portal leading--somewhere. Guessing that whoever abducted Bastien from the circus had passed through the mirror, the group decided to enter it for themselves.

We'll find out what happened beyond the mirror in the next write up.

Blood on the Beach

We left off the last session on a cliffhanger: the characters had fought their way to the beach so they could infiltrate a fortress in hopes of liberating the "goddess" Scylla, but they roused the fortress's guardians, who were now on guard for their arrival. 

Characters

Catarina, unconventional prioress

Pendleton, rogue anatomist

Raoul, necromancer

Geradd, swashbuckling nobleman

Daytona, dhampir gunslinger

Panthalassa, feral child

Events

We opened with the party on the beach, their fallen foes arrayed before them. In the center of the island stood a five-towered fortress. A causeway connected a small guardhouse to the fortress proper. Cannon fire and the occasional death scream could be heard from the sea, where the Dawnrazor was locked in nautical combat with a ship flying the Church's flag.

A bell was tolling from within the fortress, probably alerted to the party's presence because they had been firing pistols at the foes who followed them ashore, calling troops to form ranks outside the guardhouse. From the dim lanterns at the guardhouse, the party understood there to be six templars in knightly armor, a templar captain, a nun with a shaved head, and ten humans in ragged clothes who were walking on all fours instead of upright--the latter of which made them very uneasy.

(Because Daytona has night vision he could also see that there were three archers standing atop the guardhouse with longbows.) 

The party hid within tree cover and debated how to tackle the enemies between them and the fortress. They considered trying to lure their enemies in waves into successive ambushes, they floated the idea of a frontal assault, and even a stealthy approach was (briefly) on the table. In the end, they discussed their options for too long; the figures going about on all fours caught their scent and the entire host made their way down to the beach.

What followed was a massive, edge-of-the-seat battle. The party summoned as much aid as they could to make up for the disparity in size between their group and their foes, calling forth dire wolves, a few undead, and a demonic knight. Still, they were mobbed by enemies, effectively cut off from aiding one another. Things tipped badly against them when the nun began chanting and afflicted them with blindness.

Both Catarina and Pendleton were nearly gutted by their enemies. The tide turned when Geradd managed to slay several templars and then moved to dispatch the bestial penitents who were biting and clawing at his companions. When the battle was over, the group badly needed to recuperate and made full use of Pendleton's healing alchemy. Still, much of their resources were now spent and they hadn't even entered the fortress.

Daytona slipped away and, under the cover of night, made his way to the guardhouse. Taking the archers unaware, he fanned the hammer of his pistol and managed to shoot them all down in one fell swoop. The way in was now clear.

When the group ventured inside the fortress, they found it eerily quiet. During their exploration of the fortress, they found the journal of Cardinal Radinov. Although Geradd had slain the priest in a prior adventure, the dates in his journal suggested that he had somehow survived. 

They also found notes that hinted at the Church's current plan. The Church was pursuing "the Golden Push," an organized crusade to take back land that had been wrested from their hands. Among the places to be reconquered were Lachryma and the Isle of Omera. There were also references to the summoning of an entity called the Autarch Angel, which sounded distinctly sinister to their ears.

(Daytona also found needed to cause the angel's sword he had taken to flare to life with a blade of flame.)

When Raoul examined the fortress's towers through the enchanted kaleidoscope, he saw a shaft of light descending from the heavens and piercing through the northwestern tower. Deducing that this is the tower in which the Autarch Angel had been summoned, they entered and found that the stairs descended down into a pool of water and ascended up several floors. 

Three of the group could easily breath underwater: Catarina because she wore enchanted bracers, Pendleton and Geradd because they had gills from the mask ritual they participated in within the Necropolis of Omera. Catarina and Geradd decided to dive into the water to see if Scylla was trapped as she was in the dream that Panthalassa and Catarina shared. Down in the briny depths, they found Scylla trapped within a cage made of angelic blood. Catarina passed Scylla the Brineblade, and the "sea goddess" began bashing the sword into the bars of the cage, slowly cutting them away. Once their was a hole big enough to escape, Scylla left the cage and gathered Geradd and Catarina too her, kissing them with her fang-lined mouth. After the brief embrace, Scylla swam off and Geradd and Catarina returned to the tower. 

At the top of the tower, the group discovered an angel in black armor, its head obscured by a helmet, hanging from chains. The angel's body had been pierced through in several places with golden lances. Daytona, craving angelic blood, climbed up to the angel to sample its essence. However, the angel broken its chains, landing in the chamber with Daytona's companions. The angel pulled one of the lances from its body and stalked toward the party.

Still battered and bruised from their fight on the beach, the group decided to drop down into the water rather than face the angel. Of course, since only three of the party could survive the swim to safety from underneath the island, many of them were still in dire peril. As they struggled to reach breathable air, they lost consciousness. The last thing they saw was a feminine shape, her lower extremities a mass of tentacles, swimming toward them out of the darkness.

The group awoke on the beach, having been saved from drowning by Scylla. From the timber and detritus washing up on shore, they could tell that the Church's vessel had been destroyed. Recovering their boats, they rowed out to the Dawnrazor. As Pendleton climbed aboard, he was intercepted by Captain Laurant. She bent down to whisper in his ear. As she turned away, everyone realized that she had quickly cut his face. The wounding object she had used to cut him clattered to the deck: it was a sharp, broken seashell.

(Raoul later determined that the wound was magical in some way, but was unable to identify or dispel the magic.)

Once back in Lachryma, the group received a letter from Serafina: she had discovered that the Skarnesti Circus would soon be setting up outside of Hemlock Hollow. Serafina and Widow would meet the group en route so they could try to find the Mantle of Iron Tears within the circus.

BLACK SUNSHINE

Assuming you don't go blind staring at the eclipse, maybe you've got a second to check out BLACK SUNSHINE, the first supplement for PLANET MOTHERFUCKER. 

(Note: you'll need to have "show me adult content" checked on your Drivethru account for those links to take you where you need to go.) 

What's in BLACK SUNSHINE? It's packed full of the outrageous content you've come to expect from the premier psychoholic post-apocalyptic trash culture rpg:

• New character types to cause mayhem with! Doctor Feelbad, Hoodlum, Looter, Murderist--all total shitheads.
• Rules for vehicular combat and chases!
• Dirtbag NPCs for your scummy characters to pal around with! A drunk bear! A big-breasted alien babe! A fuckin' caveman! And more!
• Seedy adventure seeds! Many involving strip clubs!
• LOOT!!! A Kool-Aid man suit that lets you smash through walls! Russian steroids! A big fuckin' gun! And more!
• Lotsa random tables!
• A FAQ of dubious value!

This shit will put hair on your chest.

And just as a heads up, this is the first of a whole pack of PLANET MOTHERFUCKER supplements coming your way this year. DEMONOID PHENOMENON drops this summer, to be followed by LIVING DEAD GIRL before Halloween. Something called PUSSY LIQUOR might show up and wreck the party at some point too. Put your helmet on, if you know what I mean.

Creedhall Overview

Creedhall is essentially the Gothic end of "dark academia" in Krevborna.

Creedhall

A University Town of Dark Experiments and Mad Science

The town of Creedhall is regarded as a shining beacon of enlightenment in the superstitious darkness that pervades Krevborna. The atmosphere in Creedhall is electric; the town’s cafes and salons host fevered debates over the latest philosophical and scientific propositions, new ideas strike like lightning from the ether, and the academic community pushes innovations and modernization unheralded in the rest of Krevborna.

Creedhall is home to the prestigious Creedhall University, Krevborna’s premier institute of higher learning. Scholars and students garbed in dark robes bustle to and fro throughout the town, seeking curious shops tucked away on forgotten avenues that peddle tomes, scrolls, and other obscure research materials. Creedhall has a thriving trade in rare books, particularly tomes of an occult nature. Due to its culture of intellectual curiosity and mechanical inventiveness, artificers and inventors working at the crossroads of science and magic feel free to pursue their mad experiments within this Promethean burg. Creedhall is the only locale in Krevborna that is lit by magical lights—a gift to the town from a prominent scholar of the arcane.

Desolate, mist-shrouded moors surround Creedhall, enhancing the feeling that the town is a point of light in the darkness. The moors are notoriously haunted by a wide variety of spirits; paranormal researchers from Creedhall University often send expeditions to research ghostly phenomena. 

Hallmarks

The following elements and aesthetic notes define Creedhall:

    • Creedhall is a site of magical and technological marvels.

    • The town is home to the famed Creedhall University, Krevborna’s most prestigious institution of higher learning.

    • Obscure books can often be obtained from Creedhall's book stalls and markets.

    • The architecture in Creedhall tends toward neoclassicism; domed buildings and colonnades are common.

Gothic Noir, Horror Companion, Fire Blades From the Tomb, and More

Things that brought me delight in March, 2024:

Gothic Noir

Criterion has a collection of "Gothic Noir" films up on their streaming site. I knew I'd enjoy them, but I had no idea that once I started watching them I wouldn't be able to stop. Here's a run down of my thoughts on all twelve of them:

• The House on Telegraph Hill: This was a strong start, with a woman assuming an identity not her own to enrich herself and getting herself in over her head.
• The Sign of the Ram: This was a clear stand-out to me; a woman confined to a wheelchair schemes to keep her family close; real sense of unease here.
• Lightning Strikes Twice: Love the psychosexual elements in this tale of a man who may have killed his first wife and may now be compelled to kill her.
• The Seventh Veil: Another one with twisted psychosexual vibes, a woman raised by a second cousin to be a concert pianist loses her ability to use her hands and must turn to hypnotism to confront her trauma.
• The Ministry of Fear: This is the only one I had seen before; it's a two-fisted spy story.
• Woman in Hiding: A woman is indeed in hiding from her murderous husband.
• The Upturned Glass: A surgeon takes it on himself to avenge the death of his beloved; really liked the downer philosophy that permeates this one.
• Kiss the Blood Off My Hands: Tense thriller about a man drawn to violence.
• My Name is Julia Ross: Another great one; this is perhaps the most "Gothic," what with its premise of a woman abducted and forced into a role in an insolated manor house.
• Lured: Weird hybrid crime story and comedy starring Lucille Ball (!!!)
• Undercurrent: Katherine Hepburn falls for the wrong scientist.
• When Strangers Marry: A whirlwind marriage to a man who may be a murderer--and the weirdest part is how ride or die the heroine is.

Savage Worlds: Horror Companion

I got the printed book of the Horror Companion for Savage Worlds in early March from the crowdfunding campaign. I had access to the pdf for quite some time, and had already gotten a ton of use out of it in my ongoing Krevborna campaign. There's a lot of stuff to use in this book, no matter the subgenre of horror you're exploring or the era your setting takes inspiration from: tons of monsters, magic items, powers, new edges and character "species," and genre-specific rules that will definitely help you round out your game. If you're running a Savage Worlds game with dark elements, this book is practically essential.

Ponte del Diavolo, Fire Blades From the Tomb

Fire Blades From the Tomb is the debut album from Ponte del Diavolo, an Italian band deftly combining doom-y metal with deathrock-style vocals. If that heady mix wasn't enough, they also spike the punch with some occasional unexpected instrumentation such as synth, theremin, and clarinet. This is a very exciting, vital album, and the band is certainly one to watch; it would be crazy if this ended up as my album of the year this early on, but I'm nuts for Fire Blades From the Tomb right now.

Luke Dumas, The Paleontologist

I had picked up Luke Dumas's The Paleontologist last year when it was on sale, but when a friend on my Discord started reading it and had positive things to say about it I decided it was this novel's turn in the reading pile. She was right, this is a fun book. Written in a somewhat breezy style, this is my idea of a beach read: a paleontologist takes a job at the run-down museum his kid sister traumatically went missing from in their youth. Besides being haunted by the memories of his missing sister, the museum itself may be harboring the primeval ghosts of the bones it has on display. Ghost dinosaurs! Can you dig it?

Hannibal, Season One

Hannibal has long been on my list of things to watch, especially given how popular it is among my extended circles, and it really has lived up to the hype so far. That said, I wasn't prepared for how silly and fun the show is due to how seriously a lot of people seem to take it. From Hannibal's serial-killers-as-superhuman-predators to its grotesquely beautiful set piece crime scenes, there is a a lot of improbable camp in the show. You've just got to roll with it and enjoy the ride.

Ashes of Malifaux

Ashes of Malifaux is the new supplement for my favorite miniatures wargame that I may never get to play again. Still, the expansions for Malifaux are always worth it to me for the art and the ideas alone. There's a lot to love here, like a six-armed robot shootist, a giant albino alligator, and a gremlin-based Fury Road riff. Not going to lie, I wish I had come up with the Leech King and Sightless Snow. No matter, I'll simply swipe the ideas and throw them into my campaign; forget this admission.

Rotting Christ, A Dead Poem and Triarchy of the Lost Lovers

In early March I decided it was time to revisit two classic albums from Rotting Christ's back catalog: A Dead Poem and Triarchy of the Lost Lovers. Both are generally mid-tempo records and both are crucial moments where Rotting Christ was adding Gothic aesthetics to their standard extreme metal sound. These records are classics for a reason; they have definitely earned their status as stand-outs in the Rotting Christ discography.

Dune: Part Two

I have DUNE THOUGHTS. The second half of Dune is pretty incredible. It's even more visually stunning than the first installment. It feels epic. Costume design is on point. The run time is long, but I didn't even feel it. You know the effects are good when I'm not even thinking about the fact that I'm seeing effects on screen.

That said, and I hate to say it, but the two leads just aren't very good actors. I also understand the need to condense the plot, but choosing to reduce the story from unfolding over years to what felt like a month or two was weird; this also means that Paul and Chani don't have a kid in this and Alia hasn't been born by the end. (And the cameo of Anya Taylor-Joy as Alia felt a little pointless.) Maybe Dune is the thing I'm a purist about because I found some of the changes mystifying or even a little galling. It's me, I am the Dune grog.

Soska and Flaviano, Black Widow: No Restraints Play

I don't want to alarm anyone, and this isn't a cry for help, but I read a Marvel tpb in March. It's kinda off the chain. I don't know what kind of content Marvel is putting out these days, but I assume this is on the more extreme end of things. Black Widow heads to Madripor because she feels like killing some bad guys and she's tired of Captain America giving her shit for it on US soil. And boy does she find some bad guys. The "No Restraints Play" of the title is a dark web site where rich sickos pay to watch kids being tortured, mutilated, killed, and (it is implied) sexually abused. Black Widow goes after them with a vengeance, feeling very few compunctions about dispatching lethal justice. This is grottier stuff than I expect from Marvel, but they must have known what they were in for when they hired the Soska Sisters to write this comic.

Mark Dawidziak, A Mystery of Mysteries: The Death and Life of Edgar Allan Poe

A Mystery of Mysteries is a book that admits that we will never know as much about its subject as we would wish to. Although Edgar Allan Poe was a known figure in American letters during his lifetime, his own biographical fabrications, poor documentation, and a literary executor out to paint him as an utter blackguard conspired to render Poe's death an essentially unsolvable mystery. That said, Mark Dawidziak's book pulls together what we do know about Poe's life and death, busting myths along the way while allowing a few of the stronger theories to hang in the air for consideration. The book's structure shifts between the events of Poe's life in chronological order and an examination of the final days of his life. I'd definitely recommend this book as a go-to biography of Poe.

Monica Brashears, House of Cotton

Monica Brashears's House of Cotton is a strange modern Southern Gothic novel that really makes you feel the sweat and grit of desperate existence. The protagonist is a teenager who is on her own after her grandmother's death. She's particularly vulnerable: her landlord immediately takes advantage and her convenience store job is a dead end. She engages in a lot of casual sex to fill the void and finds herself drawn to the troubled misfits of the world. To extricate herself, she takes a gig that is too good to be true; a chance encounter leads her to an aunt and nephew who operate a funeral home and who have a side hustle in which she is tasked with pretending to be various dead or missing people for their relatives and friends who want to talk to their absent beloveds on a livestream. This eventually gives way to live performances for the bereaved and her life becoming tangled with the funeral home owners. 

Call of Cthulhu: Arkham

I'm generally a bit skeptical of city-based supplements for role-playing games, mostly because there are so many bad ones out there. I was pleasantly surprised by the new version of Arkham for the latest edition of Call of Cthulhu. This book both makes a compelling case for why city supplements are worth the trouble and provides a great example of how this kind of supplement can be done right. There's a wide variety of information here: new skills and optional rules that make sense for an urban environment, nefarious cults, the history of the area from settlement to urban hub, etc. The essential part: everything is dripping with potential plot hooks. All that and it comes with a fake Arkham newspaper!

Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa and Francesco Francaville, Afterlife with Archie

I re-read Afterlife with Archie in March. It's not just good for an Archie comic, it's honestly kinda great for a horror comic. What makes Afterlife with Archie great is that it takes full advantage of the comic format. For example, the scene in which Archie has to beat his zombie-fied dad to "death" with a baseball bat is told in panels intercut with panels of Archie and his dad sharing golden times in his childhood. That shit works visually in a way that only comics can really do. It also, forgive me, goes for the jugular. The stuff with the dogs falling victim to the zombie outbreak really gets to me. Of course, the weak point of the Archie horror comics lies in completion--or lack thereof. It's a shame that this title and the Chilling Adventures of Sabrina never got wrapped up.

Dimmu Borgir, Inspiratio Profanus

Cover albums usually aren't my bag at all, but Dimmu Borgir's Inspiratio Profanus is pretty fun. None of the tracks are that surprising, as this is Dimmu Borgir paying tribute to their inspirations, yet you really can't go wrong with Dimmu Borgir turning in populist black metal covers of Venom, Twisted Sister, Celtic Frost, Bathory, etc.

L'amante del Demonio

This Italian Gothic horror flick is an odd duck. The heroine, played by the ever-lovely Rosalba Neri, falls asleep in a castle rumored to be haunted by the Devil. In her dream (or is it?), she's transported back in time to a dreamlike tapestry of all the medieval Gothic hits: vampires, witches, diabolic temptations, etc. (The teleporting hooded swordsmen are a novel touch, though.) Essentially, L'amante del Demonio has a gimmick that feels quite similar to The Undead, though when Neri's character awakens--there's curiously no real payoff. Our heroine simply wakes up, leaves the castle, gets in her car with her friends, and speeds away!

Ed Piskor, Red Room: The Antisocial Network, Trigger Warnings

I initially wrote Red Room off as a comic with somewhat weak storytelling that mostly existed to be a vehicle for gory art in the splatterpunk tradition that sometimes veered into adolescent edgelord-ism. And I still don't think I was entirely wrong about that; there's something weirdly puritanical in this exercise in excess, where bodies are torn apart in preference to a mix of carnality and carnage. If you're just in it for the gross-out gore gags, you'll be pleased, but if you want something more compelling those first issues probably won't hit. 

That said, you can see the storytelling chops improve in real time. The second batch is much stronger; the "Pumpkinz" story in the second collection is actually pretty clever and I really liked the folk horror riff. Red Room has risen in my estimation when considered as an artistic response to the dark early days of the pandemic; the anxiety of that moment is captured on the page in overt and subconscious ways that are truly fascinating. But one thing still bugs me about the collections: why don't they include all the cover art, especially the dope variants by other artists?

The Gorgon

You could put just about any Hammer Horror joint with Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee on the tv and I'd sit and watch contentedly. In The Gorgon, instead of the usual Gothic monsters such as vampires, werewolves, and mummies, we have a snake-haired lady who turns people to stone as the central figure of terror. There’s a fun wrinkle with the monster here too–an otherwise normal looking woman becomes a gorgon on nights of the full moon! You will have no trouble figuring out who the gorgon is (there just aren’t that many women in the movie), but you’re sure to enjoy the schlocky thrills of a Hammer movie made from a story submitted to the company by one of their fans.

J. Michael Straczynski and Colleen Doran, The Book of Lost Souls

I kept hitting up the bins at the comic shop like a complete addict in March. Anyway, I got The Book of Lost Souls from some dusty, forgotten corner. I knew nothing about it, but I'd been wanting to check out more of Colleen Doran's art. The art is generally pretty good in this, with some moments of greatness. The color palette is a bit dark, but I think that's down to the tone of the book. It's hard to believe that this is a 2006 book because it really does feel like a vintage Vertigo riff. The main conceit is that a suicide is brought back to life and entrusted with the task of turning people who are at a pivotal moment in their lives toward taking the better path. There's a talking cat and also an eyeless character that really feels like a rip of Sandman's The Corinthian. Icon, the imprint that published it, is actually a Marvel subsidiary, so it really feels like Marvel wanted their own Sandman--predictably trying way too late to jump on that train.

Immaculate

Apparently the far right is saying that Immaculate "debases the Mother of the Christ," which to be perfectly honest is exactly what I liked about the movie. I went into Immaculate with fairly low expectations, which were completely blown out of the water; generally, I find "Catholic horror," especially the many Exorcist knock-offs, to be watered down--but that is not a problem that Immaculate shares. Immaculate goes hard and pulls no punches. We have an early contender for movie of the year on our hands, so don't miss out on seeing this is the theater.

Frank Frazetta

I've got an idea for a sword & sorcery story brewing, so of course that's a great excuse for going back to the wellspring of inspiration that is Frank Frazetta's art. I'm actually hoping to make it to the Frank Frazetta museum this summer, but for now I will content myself with drinking in all the mighty thews, buxom maidens, and primordial beasts. 

Stephen King, Wizard and Glass

My attempt to re-read Stephen King's Gunslinger saga continued in March with Wizard and Glass, though if I'm honest I have to admit that I got bogged down in its ~700 pages. The meat of the story is great; King is really on a tear as he takes the story back in time to a pivotal moment in Roland's life. The Weird Western aspects of Wizard and Glass bring the heat and the tragedy. The end of the Weird Western bit evolves into folk horror territory, but those are two flavors I think work really well together--and I'd love to see more in that vein. But I had forgotten that the end does a weird Wizard of Oz riff that feels like an insane tonal shift.

The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll

The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll, aka Jekyll's Inferno or House of Fright, was a pleasant surprise. This movie has some really strange elements in it. For example, there is an extended snake dancing scene. The dancer puts the snake's head in her mouth, simulating fellatio, and you should see the look on Mister Hyde's face. Dude is loving what he's seeing. Speaking of Hyde, usually he's just a brute in films based on Stevenson's novel, but in this one he's a charming maniac, not unlike Alex from A Clockwork Orange, just absolutely gleefully evil.

Frank Beddor (with Liz Cavalier) and Ben Templesmith, M Hatter Volume One

My addiction to painted comics continues without cure. M Hatter is about an agent of Wonderland, festooned with blades and a hat that just won't quit, who is traveling through space and time to find Princess Alyss--who escaped from a coup in her kingdom. The Hatter's quest puts him into conflict with a secret society that wants to sap all creativity and imagination from the world. There are hints of greater schemes afoot, but I suppose those will be unveiled as I dig further into the series' six volume run.

Vampire: The Masquerade, Blood Sigils and Blood-Stained Love

I picked up two supplements for Vampire: The Masquerade: Blood Sigils and Blood-Stained Love. Blood Sigils provides mechanical expansion for people who want a lot more blood sorcery in their chronicles. Blood-Stained Love is geared toward ways of adding themes of sex and romance into your chronicle. The latter is particularly interesting, as in my experience that particular focus was the big draw for a lot of people when it came to Vampire: The Masquerade in the first place, though its long been the case that the game hasn't really acknowledged that in any official capacity. 

Bodies Bodies Bodies

I was really expected to not like Bodies Bodies Bodies, but I was pleasantly surprised by it--though perhaps I shouldn't be too shocked that I enjoyed this horror film about clueless zoomers dying off one by one when the power goes out during a storm and they're holed up in a mansion. This is one of those movies where you get to sit back and feel like a Roman emperor saying shit like "Yes, kill any of them, it will amuse me." Fun movie? Yes. Hate crime against Gen Z? Probably also yes. And that's fine by me.

Shin'ichi Sakamoto, #DRCL: Midnight Children 01

#DRCL: Midnight Children is manga artist Shin'ichi Sakamoto's take on Bram Stoker's ubiquitous vampire novel. The art is exhilarating; every other page has an image, if not a full-page spread, that is absolutely jaw-droping. The writing is...weird. Weird as hell, actually. For some reason the main characters are made younger and all attend the same school. The "John Seward" character is a Japanese photographer, and he keeps Renfield, who is inexplicably a nun, as a sort of pet in his dorm room. There's a fuckton of bullying subplots in the first volume. Let's be real, the draw here is the art so all the strange interventions in the familiar story are really just the price of admission.

Yellowjackets, Season One

Yellowjackets follows two timelines: in the past, we follow the survival horror-meets-folk horror travails of a high school soccer team stranded in the wilderness after their plane goes down, while in the present we see how the adult survivors from the incident try to deal with the trauma of it. There's a lot of clever writing in the first season, and the production features some stellar performances. For the record, I am #teammisty all the way. Can't wait to start the second season--I badly need to fill in the narrative gaps, though I suspect that the second season still won't hold all the answers.

The Silver Bayonet: Canada

I also picked up the Canada supplement for The Silver Bayonet miniature wargame. Taking place during the War of 1812, this supplement has solo, cooperative, and competitive scenarios. It has new military units, new foes drawn from Canadian folklore, new wartime equipment--everything to get you going with a fresh regiment. Canada has never seemed so interesting. Luckily, it also has rules for recruiting American units, so maybe Canada isn't a lost cause after all? I kid, I kid.

The Three Musketeers: D'Artagnan

I love Alexandre Dumas's The Three Musketeers, so I'm pretty picky when it comes to film adaptations of the swashbuckling classics. (To be honest, many of them are straight corn dog in execution.) But this recent French version is fantastic. It plays up the darkness inherent in the original, the fight scenes thread the needle being flashy and brutal, and it preserves the "everyone is horny and it's fucking their lives up" throughline of the original novel. Much like Dune, a two-part feature film is a pretty big ask, but I will happily line up to see Milady when I can.

Caitlin R. Kiernan, Dean Ormston, and Sean Phillips, The Girl Who Would be Death

I read the four issues that comprise the Girl Who Would Be Death miniseries over the course of a lazy Easter morning; perfect time for a story about coming back from the dead, right? I'm a mark for this era of Vertigo anyway, but I do think these were some pretty excellent issues. It's a shame they were never collected in a tpb because between the art (the style of which lingers in between Mignola and Ted McKeever, somehow) and Caitlin R. Kiernan's writing (and I don't think she's ever gotten her due as a comics writer), this is a great adjunct to the Sandman universe. Sort of hard to believe that I hadn't picked them up before, given how hard they advertised them in all the goth mags back in the day, but I'm glad I finally got around to them.

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow Tarot

Big fluffy candy corn models the newest addition to my collection of oracular devices: the Legend of Sleepy Hollow tarot. 

Calico Critter blind bag

The cute kitten I got in a Calico Critter blind bag came with an extremely creepy folk horror-looking mask, which is fantastic.

Vampiress Carmilla and Shudder

I have continued to keep current with both Vampiress Carmilla and Shudder, as well as continuing to work my way through the back issues. The cover for issue #20 of Vampiress Carmilla is yet another piece worthy of framing.

At Sea Once More

In the last session, the party successfully rescued Lenore and Emily from the machinations of the Convent of Our Lady of the Blood Reborn. In this session, they chose to direct their attentions toward getting the Brineblade into the hands of Scylla, the eldritch "goddess" of the sea responsible for raising Asudem from the dead and whom Catarina reveres as her patron.

Characters

Catarina, unconventional prioress

Pendleton, rogue anatomist

Raoul, necromancer

Geradd, swashbuckling nobleman

Daytona, dhampir gunslinger

Panthalassa, empowered feral child

Asudem, undead antiquarian

Events

On the way to Lachryma, the party deposited Emily and Lenore at Chateau Frankenstein for safekeeping. Serafina and the Widow also left the party at this point; Serafina promised to dig up information about where the Skarnesti Circus was headed, as that was to be their next destination once the business with the Brineblade was at an end. 

Every night on their journey to Lachryma, Panthalassa and Catarina had the same dream: they approached an island by sea, and once they was upon it they found themselves ascending the tower of a fortress. The tower's roof was compromised; rain was pelting down from above and running down the stairs. Drops of blood were mixed in with the rain. Looking up, they could see a winged humanoid suspended from chains at the top of the tower--the blood was coming from several wounds on the creature's torso. The dream's perspective then shifted. They could now see the blood dripping into the sea, where it hardened into a cage that kept Scylla trapped in the depths. 

When the group arrived in Lachryma, they found the town in a state of turmoil. They had spotted people on the road fleeing the town, taking whatever worldly possessions they could load onto wagons or carry on their backs. From the vantage afforded by the hill, it was clear that a few ships were on fire in the harbor. Daytona stopped a man who was leaving the town to ask him what was happening. The man told them that the Church had stepped up its efforts to reclaim Lachryma from Scylla's cult and the chaos they saw was the result of Church terrorism.

As they hurried to the temple presided over by their ally Belle Silvra, they saw a towering angel with a sword of flame also making its way to the temple. Correctly ascertaining that the angel meant to destroy the temple and all within it, Panthalassa ran forward to strike at the angel with her maul. What really got the angel's attention, however, was Daytona unloading a devil's blood bullet into it. It made a beeline for the gunslinger and very nearly dealt him a crippling blow. The angel was ultimately destroyed by one of Raoul's necrotic bolts. Daytona recovered what was left of the flaming sword--merely a hilt they did not yet know how to activate. 

Inside the temple, they were escorted to Belle Silvra's sitting room. There was a pistol laying on the desk in front of her--less a method of self-defense and more insurance that she would not be taken alive should the angel have breached the temple. In their conversation, it turned out that Belle had been having the same dream as Panthalassa and Catarina. As to why that would be, Belle conjectured that the primordial sea spirits that Panthalassa had forged a pact with were possibly Scylla's children and that Catarina's possession of the Brineblade drew her into connection with Scylla.

Asudem managed to piece together the dream island's location from their description of it and his recollections of his own travels at sea. Belle summoned Captain Laurant to give the party passage aboard her ship, the Dawnrazor. Captain Laurant's presence was the cause of some nervousness among the party, as they were not sure how much of a grudge she nursed against them for blowing up not one, but two of the ships she had captained. 

Wanting to get underway as soon as possible, the group made their way with Captain Laurant to where the Dawnrazor was docked. The Dawnrazor proved to be a man o' war bristling with armor and cannons. Half of the ship's crew were human pirates and fish-man hybrids. The other half were undead under Laurant's control. Speaking of awkward interactions, on the second night of their voyage Captain Laurant sent her zombies with invitations for the party to dine with her in her cabin. It became clear what she thought of several party members: she respected Asudem's navigational abilities and saw him as favored by Scylla; she was intrigued by Daytona and Geradd's capacity for violence; she still held enmity toward Pendleton, who was responsible for planting the explosives that scarred her body.

Soon after, the night was interrupted by the sound of cannon fire. Everyone rushed on deck and discovered that the Dawnrazor was under attack by a vessel flying the flag of Churchmen. Captain Laurant gave orders to her crew to engage the ship; meanwhile, two rowboats were prepared for the party to make their way ashore and enter the fortress. However, the party saw that their rowboats were being pursued to shore by a similar boat launched from the Churchmen's ship. The party fought the interlopers on the beach, with Panthalassa staving in one of their heads with a well-thrown rock. 

However, Daytona and Catarina's pistol shots had alerted the guards at the fortress that they were about to be infiltrated; the group could hear the sound of a warning bell clanging madly. As they looked up toward the fortress, they could see a number of armed combatants spilling from within.

We will find out how they deal with that obstacle next time.

Live Girls

Bad Books for Bad People, Episode 75: Live Girls

Ray Garton’s 1986 horror novel Live Girls may have the perfect bad book pitch: vampire hookers in seedy vintage Times Square. Jack and Kate travel back to a golden age of sleaze and encounter smokeshow bloodsucking strippers, donut-inspired dirty talk, and dancefloor remixes of “The Old Rugged Cross.”

What perverted compulsion makes a vampire turn the worst dudes in the world immortal? Why are nightclubs never, ever as cool as the ones in bad books? What do table tennis and the Anarchist’s Cookbook have in common? All these questions and more will be explored in this episode of Bad Books for Bad People!