Total Skull: August, 2026

Things that brought me delight in August:

 

Tahkhana

At the beginning of August I made a big Indian feast of saag paneer, bhindi masala, methi roti, rice, and samosas...and Tahkhana was the perfect movie to accompany it. Tahkhana (aka The Dungeon) is a Bollywood horror flick, complete with the requisite song and dance numbers. It is also an incredibly wild movie; I was not expecting the scene where bandits randomly show up on horseback and get their asses beat by the heroes. Yeah, there is a supernatural menace at work in this movie, but far more sinister is the rapist cousin lurking about!

 

Laura Purcell, The Shape of Fear 

I've written before about how I regard Laura Purcell as one of the modern masters of Gothic novels set in the Victorian era, and The Shape of Darkness just adds further evidence in support of my claim. Purcell is incredibly adept at loading a novel with tons of nineteenth-century Gothic oddity; this one's got silhouette cutting, seances, and phossy jaw. (Do not image search phossy jaw if you don't know what it it, it might ruin your day.) The ending of The Shape of Darkness could have gone in many directions; the course it did take was a pleasant, and disturbing, surprise.

 

The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave

The number of times I almost took The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave home from the video store back in the day is astronomical, but somehow I put off watching it until now. In a way, I'm glad I had this little grimy cinematic treasure waiting for me the whole time. The film begins like a grindhouse giallo: Alan, a rich aristocrat, lures a series of red-haired sex workers to his chateau so he can murder them to purge his lingering feelings of animosity toward the red-tressed (though now dead) wife who cuckholded him. The film then veers into Gothic territory when it appears that the deceased Evelyn's ghost is haunting him. Lurid stuff, to be sure, but beautifully lensed and not afraid to be sadistic.

Children of the Inquisition

Children of the Inquisition is an old supplement for Vampire: The Masquerade. It is essentially a book of NPCs, with no stats--just their histories, motivations, etc.--which may have left it as a strange book with limited utility in that game's line, but I'm sure enterprising "Storytellers" were able to do something with the prose. (It's also an oddly oversized book; it was clearly not meant for the table.) The real draw is gorgeous, moody black and white art throughout. I actually has a copy of this supplement when I was a teenager--even though I think we only ever played Vampire twice--so it was nice to take a walk down memory lane with it again.

Xandria, Eclipse

It's not exactly a secret that Xandria's vast catalog of albums varies greatly in quality, an effect fueled by the fact that the project tends to operate on a revolving door of singers. That said, the Gothic symphonic metal formula hits right on their new one, Eclipse. The songs are compelling, the singer on point, and the addition of metalcore-esque breakdowns to add a bit more heaviness to the proceedings makes this a great album to throw on when you're driving around--you get the soaring beauty and the brutal chugs of a downtuned guitar, what more could you ask for?

Joe Abercrombie, Red Country

Western + Fantasy - Guns = ??? Honestly, it's a tough brief to fulfill, but Joe Abercrombie makes it look easy in Red Country--a novel now tied with Best Served Cold for my favorite book in the First Law series. Red Country is about a young woman who comes back to her farmstead to find tthe place burned to the ground and her brother and sister abducted--so she sets off with a hired hand (who is not what he seems) to get them back. It's got the grit, the violence, but it's also got heart to it. Imagine two hulking Northmen staring each other down across a dusty streets, their hands on the pommels of their swords, Ennio Morricone playing in the background--that's the vibe in Red Country.

Dolly

There was something about the poster for Dolly that compelled me to give it a try. In Dolly, a couple get attacked in the woods by a killer wearing a baby doll mask; the woman is imprisoned in a creepy house and made to play the role of a baby. This is definitely a low budget slasher movie, but I thought it was actually quite fun; it's got a certain charm and there's a nice chunk of some gross stuff here. I can appreciate a movie like that keeps things "classic," never really getting too meta or attempts to deconstruct the genre. This film felt like it was born to be played at a late-night drive-in.

Julia Leigh, The Hunter

Once in a while, I like to dip back into literary fiction for a change of pace. And with Julia Leigh's The Hunter, I'm glad I did. The Hunter is a terse novel about a man sent into the wilderness to capture the DNA of the last living Tasmanian tiger. This is not an action-packed novel by any stretch; rather, it is a masterpiece of interiority. The push and pull within the main character--his professionalism versus his savagery, his cold rationality versus some part of him reaching toward the divine--that's the real ebb and flow of the book. This is such an interior-focused book that I can't imagine how they made a movie adaptation from it. I guess I'll have to seek that out and discover it for myself, eh?

Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma

In Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, a young film maker tracks down the star of a slasher franchise in hopes of talking her into taking a role in the reboot she's helming. As with I Saw the TV Glow, I wouldn't call it a horror movie; it's more like Jane Schoenbrun is great at using the language of horror movies to make other kinds of films. Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma is...maybe more like...a queer rom com dressed up as horror. I really enjoyed this one--it's laugh-out-loud funny, with tons of deep-cut references, and Gillian Anderson absolute tears the screen up with her quietly charismatic performance.

Ethel Cain, Preacher's Daughter

Ethel Cain's Preacher's Daughter is an album to get lost in. There are a lot of sonic elements at work here, but you have to dig through the waves of despair and loneliness to get to them. There are touches of Gothic country, blues, piano balladry, and even some heavier quasi-doom moments. But predominant above it all is a wash of ethereal sadness that turns the entire song cycle into one lengthy walk through decaying fields in insolation. 

Maladonna and Malombra

I picked up this new blu ray set from Kino mostly because of what I knew about Malombra, but now having watched both of the films on the disc in sequence--I am perplexed. They're both erotic (and definitely not softcore) European period dramas, with the same director, and the same principle actors playing characters with identical names in both films. The events of the two films mostly line up in a way that would suggest that one is a sequel to the other, but the details are just off enough that they don't 100% line up--but it's so close. And yet, I can't find anyone talking about their congruence online?? Wild stuff. Of the two, I did prefer Malombra, which flies its psychosexual Gothic flag proudly.

Phyllis A. Whitney, The Red Carnelian

When a man who designs window displays for a department store returns from his honeymoon and is promptly murdered at work, everyone in the store is a suspect! Was it the woman he jilted? The coworker who was passed up for a promotion? The disapproving father-in-law? The unhappy new wife? A mysterious figure from the past? The Red Carnelian is a fairly ridiculous novel, but it's also incredibly fun. One noteworthy element: nobody in the book trusts the cops, so they're basically all withholding crucial information from the investigation. Kinda can't blame them, really.

Federale, All the Colours of the Dark

I'm sure I'm not the only one who has this experience: a band you like slips an album past you, but when you discover it later you realize you've really been missing out because it is excellent. Such was the case with me and Federale's All the Colours of the Dark. All the Colours of the Dark has a perfect conceptual premise: it's the soundtrack to a giallo spaghetti western that doesn't actually exist. (You have to ignore the fact that there is an Italian horror film that does use that name, okay?) This is a pitch-perfect album: all the reverb and tremolo you could ever want is here! 

Dixie Ghosts: Haunting, Spine-Chilling Stories from the American South

Dixie Ghosts is an anthology of Southern ghost stories; the authors collected here run the gamut from big names like Madeleine L'Engle and Manly Wade Wellman to lesser-known authors or forgotten tale spinners. Overall, this is a well-curated book. Mostly, it sticks to folksy ghost stories, but then--you get hit with George Guthridge's "See the Station Master," a surprisingly grimy story about a pedophile child murderer that comes screaming at you out of nowhere. You have to admire the placement. Also noteworthy was Jack Cady's "Ride the Thunder," a strange tale of a cruel trucker with a load of tortured poultry and the price he paid on the highway, and Richard Hardwick's "Wish You Were Here," which had all the charm of those old stories published in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine.

Ornamental Women at Riverrow Books

For anyone local to the Owego, NY area--or perhaps traveling through the Southern Tier--you can now pick up a print copy of Ornamental Women at Riverow Books, the area's best independent bookstore! Find the shop at 187 Front Street, Owego, New York. They have a ton of great stuff in there.

The copies of Ornamental Women they have even come with a custom bookmark tucked inside. Get 'em while they got 'em.

Hostile Takeover

Our Krevborna campaign continues with the second half of this adventure.

Characters

Dario Diego Durant, swashbuckling swordsman

Ulu, the party's urska mom

Varro, a young snow elf bearing a magical sword

Johanna, lycan bard and fallen noble 

Father Severin, a defrocked priest with a gobkin sidekick

Doctor Anastasia Nadya Strahov, a gun-priest

Morwenna, harpy devotee of St. Vionka

Events

As the group carried on exploring the Grail Tomb beneath the Chapel of St. Aiban, they found a tableaux of vlaak statues arranged in a scene depicting fealty. Dario noticed something gray move behind the statuary, and Johanna smelt an unwashed person in the chamber with them. Once corned, the person appeared to be an old man in threadbare clothes; strangely, he had a great deal of wax that had melted down over the top half of his head, covering his eyes entirely--the wax was the remains of candles, no less.

The man explained that he was the descendant of a group of heretics who had been imprisoned by the Church generations ago; he was not a lone survivor, either--his people had been living in the Grail Tomb and thriving in their penance. When asked about anyone else who might be down below, he told the group that Ratibor and his mercenaries had released creatures held in stasis that now had them penned in at the eastern extremity of the floor. They thanked the strange old man for his help and went on their way.

In this case, going on their way meant finding the shattered material that had once held the two now-marauding creatures. Father Severin used his holy magic to get a sense of what they might have to face; his vision showed him that the creatures were chimeras.

Indeed, in a further chamber they found the two chimeras scratching at the door that Ratibor and his group were hiding behind. Morwenna took to the air to throw her blade at one of them, but the winged creature was soon in the air after her. The grounded one spewed fire at the rest of the group, but they quickly closed on it and slew it without too much trouble. Johanna scrambled up a statue to leap at the airborne chimera. Dario followed suit. With both of them atop the creature, it couldn't maintain flight; as it got closer to the ground it was cut down.

The doors were thrown open, revealing Ratibor and his hired swords. When Ratibor's pistoleers and crossbowmen opened fire on the group, Varro charged in to thin their numbers--which necessitated the rest of the group piling in as well. The following melee was fairly brutal. Both Johanna and Ulu nearly met their ends at the blades of their foes, but healing magic from Anastasia and Father Severin saved their hides. Johanna went berserk and tore a Narskeman apart. The battle continued until only Ratibor and two heavily armored swordsmen remained. The soldiers determined that the likelihood of receiving the rest of their reward was now quite low, so they surrendered and the group let them leave.

Ratibor was not so lucky. On his person they found the missing gauntlets; he explained that they were necessary if someone wanted to handle the destructive orbs they had seen depicted earlier in the Grail Tomb's etchings. On his person they also found a letter from Brother Jacob that read as follows:

Ratibor, 

My Dearest Brother in Arms! Greetings and salutations–may the glory of the Light fall upon thee and may the Word resound in thine ear. I hope all goes according to plan in Chancel, home of false promises and a Church that is little more than a gilded slattern, but I have no doubt it does as we are guided by a providence divine. 

Once you’ve found the information sought by Sorrow’s Six, fly to us with all haste, brother, come on as quickly as though Hell followed your trail–for I believe it does. By the time you reach us, the Thorn will have fallen on Braelin and I will follow in her wake. The others come on, too leisurely for my tastes. Onquin will rove from the forest, Ugly Zillah will descend from the north, and that poppinjay Lucio Rinketti will traipse in when he feels like it. And the one they're calling the Blizzard–well, I have not had the pleasure of meeting him yet, but I hear he is a horror. 

Among such unhallowed company, your pious presence will be a relief. I am sure between the two of us we shall convert them all, even our master, to the path of righteousness. Come soon! Your welcome will be warm, your promised redemption nigh!

Yours in God,

Brother Jacob

The group's hearts collectively sank as they realized that something bad had happened to their adopted home of Braelin in their absence. They recovered the missing pages of the books from Ratibor, questioned him thoroughly, then left him to the Church's tender mercies so they could rush back to Braelin.

On the sign that hung above Braelin's wooden archway, they saw two bodies hanging: Ulysses the sheriff and Sister Eliza from the shrine to St. Vionka. They decided to skirt around the town for now and head for Wyatt at his outpost in Fort Onataiga. On the way, they saw that the Wolf and Rose, Embrelle's tavern, had been burned to the ground. 

Speaking with Wyatt, they learned that Brother Jacob and the Thorn's forces had descended on the town and basically took it over. There had been a number of executions. Wyatt had sent word of what happened to his fellow Knights Labyrinthian and was awaiting instruction on how to proceed. He also told them that Aivra (who they know to be the witch Ivara Graymalk) was missing, and that Ragdoll Ilsa was now doing a cracking business now that the Honey Pot was the only drinking establishment in town. He gave a letter to Ulu indicating that the Rue sisters had to travel on their business.

The group was relieved to discover that nothing had happened at the Kaul House--Morwenna used her skull magic to observe things through D'Orleac's skull and they called to him for a brief conversation in some sort of bricked up alcove. When they reached the Kaul House, they found everything in order--but Raenessa appeared and told them she had done something that may have exceeded her authority in the house. They followed her into her basement lair and found--Embrelle ensconced in a bedchamber of her own. Apparently, Raenessa had found Embrelle camped in the woods after her escape from the burning tavern and convinced her to stay at the house until a better plan emerged. The group were relieved that their friend was unscathed.

That night, Irenya made her way to Morwenna's roost and gave her Sister Eliza's skull helmet--which Irenya had scavenged from the destroyed shrine to St. Vionka under the cover of night.

How will the Charnel Hounds push back against the usurpation of "their" town? We'll see what machinations they set in motion in the next session.

Ornamental Women Art

Check it out, my pal Goose made me some art based on my novel Ornamental Women:

Serafina glass ornament! 

Felt doll of the Widow!

Goose has a glass art shop called A Good Goose Studio that you can check out here. And, of course, if you haven't picked up a copy of Ornamental Women, you can do that here.

The Tomb of Many Colors

Our Krevborna campaign continued!

Characters

Dario Diego Durant, swashbuckling swordsman

Ulu, the party's urska mom

Varro, a young snow elf bearing a magical sword

Johanna, lycan bard and fallen noble 

Father Severin, a defrocked priest with a gobkin sidekick

Events

The characters arrived in Chancel, where they hoped to find and question Ratibor Bron--a man somehow connected to the machinations of Yavor Mikalek, who had betrayed their mercenary band. To that end, Cassie Mabcrowe let them use a flat she kept above an herbalist's shop. At the flat, they met Father Severin and his gobkin factotum Slink, who were to help them in their search.

One place that seemed a likely place to start was the Vagabond's Shield, a tavern frequented by mercenaries and sellswords. As they arrived, the barkeep was tossing a musician out the door with his accordion. He explained that the only thing that could help him when he had one of his headaches was music, but the ejected bard couldn't even hold a tune. Luckily, Johanna stepped up and performed a song that got them on the barkeep's good side. The barkeep knew of Ratibor as "the librarian" and was able to offer up the location where he seemed to be employed. They also learned that Ratibor had been hanging about the Vagabond's Shield, trying to recruit mercenaries for an "expedition."

At the library of the Divine Mercy, they found a nervous-looking monk who admitted to letting Ratibor conduct his researches among the stacks, even though Ratibor had been ex-communicated from the Church. Ratibor claimed to have been writing a manuscript on "unholy abominations." The monk allowed them to look at the two books Ratibor had spent the most time with: a collection of horror stories called The Opener of the Gate & Other Tales and A Treatise on Profane Magics. Both proved to be missing pages; the anthology was missing a story called "The Krusikan Gambit" and the treatise was missing a chapter on the mountain cults of Krusikal.

Then, over at the Chanticleer, a molly house, they learned quite a bit about Ratibor's sexual proclivities. The madame of the house also offered to buy Dario from the party. They declined.

The Chapel of St. Aiban the Pious was a more productive visit. The blind priest in attendance within the small, forgotten church admitted that Ratibor and his hired swords had ventured into the extensive crypts below--and had yet to return to the surface. He offered to admit them as well, which they took him up on.

However, these were no normal crypts--below the Chapel of St. Aiban was a vlaak Grail Tomb made of a strange, glass-like, but altogether alien material. Dario wisely left an offering of coins at the feet of the vlaakish statue they discovered in an alcove, which ensured it did not stalk them throughout the complex.

They had much more trouble with the colored doors within the Grail Tomb, as they missed the artwork that would have clued them in to how vlaakish color theory works. They did, nevertheless, find four color-coded keys around the necks of vlaakish mummies--though the order to apply them initially eluded the group, causing more than a few magical wounds through their trial and error attempts to figure it out, until Father Severin used his prayers to get a glimpse of the ancient vlaak using the keys as intended. 

Also confounding were the jagged holes in the complex that either had air forcefully rushing into them or being pushed out of them like a vacuum. They threw a few levers they found in a control room, but what that accomplished was not immediately clear. 

In one chamber, they found an eerie mural depicting vlaak forging metal gauntlets, then a vlaak figure wearing the gauntlets and commanding two orbs to unleash cataclysmic energies on an army. Behind the figure lurked an ominous presence. Within the same chamber they found a wooden box; the interior of the box looked to have been made to fit two glove-like objects. 

The next room they entered featured another of the structural holes with air streaming into it. The chamber also featured a number of vlaak automatons made of the same glass-like substance as the complex; the statues attacked and gave the party a run for their money. Ulu threw one out of the hole, but because of the air current it was thrown back into the room where it shattered against the far wall--and the explosion of shrapnel set up a bad situation that almost cost Dario his life. Ultimately, though, the Charnel Hounds vanquished their foes and carried on exploring the Grail Tomb. 

We'll see what else they find next time.

A Fine Pack of Krevborna Characters

The following entries are descriptions I wrote up for a party of characters I used in a Krevborna one-shot adventure in which all members were part of Sir Aubrek Salazar's retinue of "problem solvers." I like how they turned out, so I thought I might as well post them here for posterity.

Angelique Oleander

Backstory: Angelique Oleander is a Polnezna woman who grew up in a wandering clan caravan. Since birth, she has been “blessed” with a supernatural connection to the spectral world. She was apprehended and nearly executed after performing a fraudulent seance in Chancel; only Sir Aubrek’s intervention spared her from hanging. She has been part of Aubrek’s retinue ever since. Being on her own feels like a fatal liability. 

Appearance: A young woman of middling height with unruly black hair and dark eyes. She dresses in the fashion of her people, as she is proud of her heritage.

Fanlin O’Dale

Backstory: Fanlin was orphaned at a young age when his family was set upon by anti-fey vigilantes. His vengeance does not take the form of direct violence against the world that robbed him of his parents; rather, he gets his recompense one theft at a time–and he won’t stop until the scales are balanced. He joined up with Sir Aubrek’s retinue because Aubrek promised him that his tasks would put him in the path of great riches.

Appearance: Fanlin is a forest elf–tall and thin, with skin the color of tree bark. Strangely, people have a hard time accurately recalling the details of his appearance. Are his eyes brown or blue? Is his fair long and flowing or clipped short and militaristic? Who can say?

“Father” Severin Koslavik

Backstory: All his life, Severin Koslavik was told he was destined to serve in the Church of Holy Blood. Indeed, all signs pointed in that direction–he was apprenticed to a Church inquisitor, at least until an unnamed indiscretion caused him to be formally stripped of all standing within the clergy. Strangely, his miraculous powers have not disappeared since his defrocking. His miraculous talents have found him employment in Sir Aubrek’s retinue.

Appearance: A young man who still takes pains to appear to be a pious servant of the Church, Severin still wears the cassock of a cleric. It just makes life easier–people don’t ask too many questions of a priest.

Lady Jeanette de Winter

Backstory: Lady Jeanette de Winter hails from a family of hereditary knights who long-ago pledged their service to the Salazars. When Sir Aubrek Salazar appeared at her ancestral manor, Lady Jeanette found that she was willing to fulfill the terms of her familial oath. Which is strange, since Sir Aubrek Salazar supposedly died generations ago. She knows her time in the Mortal World draws to a close–better to go out in glory, she figures.

Appearance: Steel-haired, steel-eyed, and steel-backed–Jeanette is an aging woman who is still physically powerful, even if she experiences new aches and pains every day.

Damir Milosovek

Backstory: Whether or not he is a natural-born nobleman is irrelevant; Damir Milosovek plays the part of a dashing, fashionable highwayman with aristocratic bearing. Sure, he steals from the rich and gives to the poor–but he simply must make sure that he holds back enough coin to keep his garb stylishly outrageous. Luckily, the terms of his alliance with Sir Aubrek are generous; shame about all the danger it entails, though.

Appearance: A handsome man with long blonde hair and a meticulously trimmed mustache. He takes pride in three things: the sharpness of his blade, his debonair presence, and his colorful feathered hat.

Braelin Map

I realized I hadn't posted this yet. This is the map I made of Braelin, the starting town of the current Krevborna campaign.