Anastasia Elanova and Erasmus Feist

Two NPCs from my campaign setting: Anastasia Elanova and Erasmus Feist. Anastasia is a monster hunter, and also secretly the heir to Krevborna's vacant throne. Erasmus Feist is a loser who was been habitually bullied by various characters in-game, but in the intervening years since he last appeared he's  been delving into alchemy and has a horrible secret of his own.

Anastasia Elanova

Anastasia Elanova is a young monster hunter who travels Krevborna slaying unnatural beasts for coin. She is also of royal blood and the nearest surviving heir of Krevborna’s tsar. Like every scion of her noble lineage, she posses the “Voice of the Tsarina.” When she puts the force of her will behind her commands, her dictates tend to be obeyed.

She knows the secret of her origins, though she would resist any attempt to install her as the land’s sovereign ruler. 

    • Appearance: Anastasia is a young woman who keeps her blonde hair boyishly short; a livid scar mars the sharp angles of her cheek.

    • Personality: She is brash and overeager to prove herself.

    • Motive: She aspires to nothing more than a life of adventure.

    • Flaw: Anastasia avoids responsibility like a plague.

Erasmus Feist and Yosef Wulfson

Erasmus Feist is a dilettante occultist who foolishly experiments with alchemy. Unfortunately, imbibing the wrong chemicals has resulted in an uncontrollable affliction: when he becomes angered, afraid, or otherwise stressed, Erasmus Feist transforms into Yosef Wulfson, a brutish lout given to licentiousness and explosive violence.

    • Appearance: Erasmus is a thin, reedy man with prematurely receding hair; Yosef is a muscular giant of a man who is slovenly in appearance.

    • Personality: Erasmus is an arrogant poseur, but he is timid; Yosef is loud, selfish, and possesses a horrid temper.

    • Motive: Erasmus desires respect he does not deserve; Yosef lives for his own perverse pleasures.

    • Flaw: Erasmus is terrified that the world will learn of his second life as Yosef; Yosef hates that he has to share his life with Erasmus.

Diremoon Revelator Shrines and Fort Gilead

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

Diremoon Revelator Shrines

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Fort Gilead

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

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

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

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

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

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

Urska

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

Urska

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Beltaire and Bordel

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

Beltaire

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

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

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

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

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

Bordel

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

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

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

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

The Unworthy

Bad Books for Bad People, Episode 86: The Unworthy

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

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

The Vespermark

Art by Mike Royal

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

The Vespermark

A Nightmarish and Lawless Frontier

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

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

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

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

Hallmarks

The following elements and aesthetic notes define the Vespermark:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sanity

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Character Sheet

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

They won't save you.

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

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

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

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