The Death of Patchwork Jack

Before the holidays, we were able to reach a good stopping point for the current Savage Krevborna campaign. In this episode they found and defeated their quarry, the genius corpse golem known as Patchwork Jack, though this one could have gone either way depending on the dice. We'll see if or when we return to this in the new year, but if we don't I'm at least satisfied we got to a little moment of closure on it one way or another.

Characters

Panthalassa, a necromancer who summons primordial creatures

Daytona, a dhampir gunslinger fresh from Hell (again)

Garazi, a beautiful young witch with a bird familiar

Willard Corn, a man of mysterious circumstances

Heck, a revenant seeking vengeance on witch hunters

Khamaat, a newly awakened mummy

Events

When we last left the party, they were unlocking a large, metal-plated door with a key they had obtained in a lower level of the complex. Beyond the door was a cage elevator big enough to move equipment--or cadavers--from level to level. They noticed that the elevator shaft proceeded both up and down. They decided to first use the elevator to ascend the shaft. The ride terminated at the top of a low mountain peak, with an rocky overhang to shelter the elevator from the snowfall. From the deep wheel ruts tracing up the path through the snow to this area, they guessed that something had been transported into the complex via the elevator recently. 

The group then decided to try their luck descending into the shaft. The elevator moved down the shaft for a very long time, taking them much deeper into the complex than they had previously ventured. The short corridor leading from where the elevator came to rest joined an octagonal room decorated with statues of Vlaak surgeon-priests, each of which held sharp obsidian surgical implements of alien design. There was an iron-bound door behind head statue. Willard noticed that there were scratch marks leading to the easternmost door, so they approached and opened that one. 

The corridor leading from that room ended in a stone door carved with the face of a Vlaakish queen that was slightly ajar. Peering beyond it, they could see a large chamber with pillars carved into the likenesses of misshapen monsters supporting the vaulted ceiling. Inside, three of Patchwork Jack's corpse golems stood guard by an eldritch metal throne. These golems differed from the ones they had previously encountered in one respect: gas masks had been sewn in place where their faces should have been. 

Deciding that they wanted no part of that action for the moment, the group retreated back to the octagonal room to try the other doors. This was, in fact, a tactical mistake on their part that would leave them in bad shape for the confrontation to come because when Willard approached a door that did not have scratches in front of it--which were proof that the door they entered before was seeing regular use--he triggered the statues to wildly swing their obsidian blades, which wounded several members of the party quite badly. 

Their lesson learned, they returned to the octagonal room and opened fire on the corpse golems from the doorway. This may also have been a strategic error, as Daytona's gunshots simply caused the golems to seek cover behind the throne and the group quickly learned that the creatures were highly resistant to any long-range sorceries they might hurl their way. The only solution was to charge them and fight it out hand-to-hand. Which they did, and handily won.

(Well, technically they could have parlayed with the corpse golems because they belonged to a faction that wanted to be free of Patchwork Jack, but they didn't explore that angle; thus, violence.)

After a bit of further exploration, and tangling with a few more corpse golems, they discovered a chasm down which a waterfall cascaded into an underground lake below. There was a chain ladder fastened to the side of the chasm, going into the dark. As they climbed down the swaying chain ladder, Daytona received a vision about Garazi--but did not divulge its contents to the rest of the group. 

At the bottom of the chain ladder, the group found themselves on the far shore of the underground lake. There was an island at the center of the lake, and on that island was a small fortress over which electricity was arcing chaotically--an eerie repetition of Viktoria Frankenstein's island chateau at the center of Loch Riven. The shore had a small dock; the boats at the dock were strange, advanced technology, but Serafina was able to get one working so that they could head to the island.

Once docked on the island, Patchwork Jack and his compatriots--a man in an exoskeleton of steel and six corpse golems--emerged from the fortress to meet them. Checking his pocket watch, Patchwork Jack announced that he had expected their arrival ten minutes earlier--no matter, though, he was happy to send them to their graves NOW. 

The first round of this long battle did not go in the characters' favor. Panthalassa initially found herself unable to summon dinosaur aid. Heck found Patchwork Jack to be more than a match for his previously unassailable undead vigor--Patchwork Jack grabbed him by the face, threw him onto his back, and began pummeling him with steam-hammer fists. Worse, when Heck let himself slip into a berserk rage, Patchwork Jack followed suit with a murderous rage of his own! 

Beaten and bruised by the first exchange of blows, things appeared dire for the party when a demonic gate erupted from the ground, its portal filled with fire. However, this gate was help on the way, as their ally Nightsong emerged from it and immediately cast a spell that knit and cauterized their wounds, giving them the wherewithal to keep fighting and turn the tide. Panthalassa was finally able to summon her raptors, which tore into the corpse golems, and even a massive herbivore--though that was quickly put down by a blow from Patchwork Jack. Nightong threw down her Judas coin, exclaiming "Now you dance with me" to a corpse golem that was about to rend Khamaat in two--there was a flash of bright light and the smell of brimstone as Nightsong and the golem vanished to duke it out in Hell's arena. Serafina was able to sneak up on the man in the exoskeleton suit and assassinate him from behind. Heck was finally able to land some blows in return against Patchwork Jack, and Daytona was able to finish him off with a bullet to the head.

When they regrouped, Nightsong announced that she hadn't just come to aid them in their time of need--she had business with them as well. She told them that, in her capacity as Hell's Herald, she was entrusted with the duty of recruiting a team capable of pulling off a job that just might end the Hellwar before it spilled out onto the Mortal Realm in earnest. She had considered many options, but decided that this group of ragtag misfits might be the best candidates for the job. As such, she asked them to sign a black book and become satanic agents in return for a boon to be bestowed upon the completion of their task. 

Garazi was the first to sign the book, and she signed in blood. Everyone signed the book save for Willard and Khamaat, who are either suspicious of what is being offered or repulsed by the idea of getting a rich favor from a Dark Power.

In the end, the group decided to part ways for the time being. Panthalassa would accompany Serafina and Nightsong to retrieve Viktoria from her safe haven. After that, Pathalassa would set sail aboard the Dawnrazor with Thomasina to find Pendleton. Nightsong told Garazi that she should return to Hemlock Hollow and spend time with her family because "it might be some time before you are able to see them again." Ominous and cryptic. 

She also suggested that Heck accompany her and perhaps take the opportunity to get to know Ivara Graymalk better. Daytona would return to Lachryma and to Catarina--and also send the Widow and Viktoria's creations home. Khamaat was charged with keeping a finial safe--it would be needed in the task ahead. Also ominous and cryptic. And as for Willard...well, we assume he will keep looking for this three-legged dog in the interim.

A History of Horrible Experiments

The hunt for Patchwork Jack continues! This session brought some horrific revelations about the site they had been lured into by their quarry and the mystery of Willard Corn has also deepened. 

Characters

Panthalassa, a necromancer who summons primordial creatures

Daytona, a dhampir gunslinger fresh from Hell (again)

Garazi, a beautiful young witch with a bird familiar

Willard Corn, a man of mysterious circumstances

Heck, a revenant seeking vengeance on witch hunters

Khamaat, a newly awakened mummy

Events

When we last left our heroes, they were descending a spiral staircase down into the depths where they could hear a strange metallic buzzing. The sound was coming from a swarm of bio-mechanical bats, which surrounded the group and made them fight for their lives on the staircase. Judicious use of fiery blasts and necrotic bolts knocked the mechanical bats--which had been spying on them on behalf of Patchwork Jack--out of the air. 

While exploring this new level of the complex, they discovered a corpse that Khamaat determined had been exsanguinated via medical means. Additionally, many areas on this level of the complex proved to either be flooded or to have a fast-rushing stream bisecting the caverns they were trudging through. 

Garazi summoned Txori and sent the bird to scout one of the larger caverns. The cave was lit by phosphorescent fungi and was filled with over twenty Vlaak sarcophagi that were leaned against the walls. Willard was able to read the runes carved onto the stone sarcophagi; the runes indicated that the dead were "Doctor-Priests" of some fashion. 

Garazi sent her familiar into another cave--this one stinking of feral animal. Txori was able to relay that the cavern was inhabited by two ratman, each of whom was bearing an eldritch firearm fitted with a glowing green stone, before she was blasted into nothingness. (Don't worry, she can be re-summoned in ten days, good as new.) As the group stormed into the cave, one of the ratmen released a giant rat to attack them. Panthalassa responded by summoning a raptor, which took down the giant rat as it attacked Willard. Once the ratmen were dispatched, the group was able to determine that the eldritch weapons were now useless because they were powered by the life forces of their wielders. 

Heck volunteered to wade into a chamber filled with massive fungi since he is immune to poison. He found two ancient Vlaak corpses that had been covered in a carpet of fungal matter. He was able to obtain strange medical instruments (which he gave to Khamaat) and an alien sword (that was given to Willard). Since Heck was now covered in potentially deadly spores, the group made way so he could give them a wide berth and clean himself off in one of the cavern streams before returning to the party.  

Disappointingly,  neither Panthalassa nor Serafina could pick the lock of a large, metal-plated door that had the name Dahom-Ka inscribed in runes above it. They would need to find a key to open that door. There was also much dithering in the sarcophagi room over whether they should open one of the three final resting places of the Lord Doctors within the chamber. Ultimately, they decided to leave things alone in that room. 

However, on one wall they did find a relief carving of...Willard Corn and a three-legged dog?! The words accompanying the depiction indicated that they are dangerous escaped "experiments." 

Once a staircase was located, they descended to the next level. This set of stairs spit them out near a waterfall created by the rushing streams above. In a nearby room, they found barrels filled with human body parts preserved in formaldehyde for further experimentation. The floor in the room beyond the chamber smelled of vinegar and looked strangely wet. When Heck threw a piece of leather into the room, a translucent pseudopod extended and caught it; the leather sizzled in its acidic grasp! The group was soon fighting an unnatural ooze. 

Once the ooze was dealt with, they discovered another room that had been clearly been used for either surgery or butchery--or a combination of both. There were cleavers and anesthesia masks next to a scarred operating table. Other interesting surgical item was recovered from a flooded room. Panthalassa used her cephalopod familiar Happy to scout the room. After determining that there was a Vlaak skeleton and a floating sack in the water, Khamaat--also immune to poison and disease--waded in to retrieve whatever was in the bag. The item was a broken mechanical glove meant to assist during surgery. 

They also encountered a strange mollusk that was posing as a stalagmite, but they decided to avoid that monster. However, they did explore a series of rooms with broken white tiles on the floor that seemed to be some sort of hospital ward. Panthalassa picked the lock on one of the rooms and they discovered that there was a key jammed into a crack in one of the walls. In fact, Daytona had had a vision of a crazed, wild-eyed man hiding the key in that crack back in the past when this site was an operating medical facility. 

The key was a fit for the lock on the door on the previous level that they could not open. Now they are ready to find out what lies beyond the door.

The Trilobite and Vodyani Isle

Two final adventure locations on the Judas Sea. The Trilobite adds a mobile location and a different spin on "mad scientist" and "fearsome captain" as found elsewhere in the setting. Vodyani Isle is a seafaring take on Stephen King's "Children of the Corn"--the potential for a little island folk horror, if you will.

The Trilobite

Crewed by hardened revolutionaries liberated from oppression, the Trilobite is a submarine that serves as the ambulatory fortress from which Captain Jaivati Drakkar wages war against tyranny.  

    • Born to noble a family in a distant southern land and educated at Creedhall University, Jaivati Drakkar’s genius for science, engineering, and artificer magic led her to create a submersible vehicle bristling with weaponry. 

    • Horrified at the conflict that tears her homeland apart, Jaivati has devoted herself to fighting autocrats who abuse their power—she seeks to free the people of Krevborna from cruel despots and tyrannical rulers. 

    • In the heat of the moment, however, Jaivati cannot resist succumbing to her own authoritarian urges. 

    • Jaivati's nights are haunted by regret over the violence she has perpetrated in the name of liberation.

Vodyani Isle

Vodyani is a little-known jungle island surrounded by a razor-sharp, treacherous coral reef.

    • Vodyani is inhabited by a tribe of feral children and teenagers—visitors will be surprised to learn that no one over the age of eighteen lives on the island.

    • Indeed, when one of Vodyani’s islanders reaches their eighteenth birthday they are taken down to the reefs at midnight and left as a sacrifice for “the Hungry Ones.”

    • The Hungry Ones are rusalkas who devour the sacrifices brought to them by the youths of Vodyani alive.

    • Any strangers who happen upon Vodyani are also captured and offered to the Hungry Ones.

    • In return for the human flesh they crave, the Hungry Ones leave fresh fish on the beaches of Vodyani to keep the children of the isle fed and healthy—so that they might live long enough to reach their eighteenth birthdays, of course.

The Fall of the Vlaak

Generally speaking, I do not like writing the "ancient history" of my settings. I find that it often offers little return on time spent when it comes to actual play. However, in this case I've had enough people using Krevborna ask me for more information about the Vlaak that I find myself willing to bend my own rules.

***

The people of the Vlaak Empire originated as an ancient folk capable of traveling the planes of existence. Rather than submit to life as servitors and prey for the cosmic horrors from the Outer Dark that conquered their world, the progenitors of the Vlaak fled into the many worlds of the Mortal Spheres in their planar-faring craft. These alien beings now exist in a state of diaspora. When a fleet of their ships find a world suitable for colonization, they invariably attempt to defeat the native population and found a dynastic empire that echoes the former glory of their homeland.

When these planar travelers descended upon Krevborna they displaced both the pomenysh and humanity with their advanced technology and strange sorceries. In Krevborna, the Vlaak Empire arose to dominate the land for a thousand years until it was weakened by decadence and hedonism. The Vlaak priestly class fell into the worship of Dracula, who influenced the Vlaak to adopt the fouls arts of necromancy and blood magic. In particular, Lithka, the last empress of the Vlaak Empire, embraced transformative necromancy in her foolish pursuit of eternal life.

It is widely believed that the Vlaak died out and that their empire fell before the rise of mankind, but this is a historical inaccuracy. The human beings living with boundaries of what would become the Vlaak Empire were enslaved as servants of the Vlaak. Hidden within the Grail Tombs is evidence that the ultimate downfall of the Vlaak Empire came about due to a revolt by humans the Vlaak kept in abject bondage.

Furthermore, the blood-drinking rites practiced by the Church of Holy Blood are a debased tradition passed down by the humans who served the Vlaak Empire. The faith’s sacraments are based on distorted memories of Vlaakish blood magic. A few senior Church officials have discovered the awful facts of their religion’s origins, but they dare not express the truth for fear of toppling the Church from its corrupt foundations.

Into the Vivisectum

We have begun the arc of the current Krevborna campaign where the players decided they wanted to hunt down Patchwork Jack and finish him off once and for all. They joined forces with Serafina for this, but the majority of the players did not like her plan to take Patchwork Jack alive. That adventure would have been more of a Blades in the Dark style game of skullduggery. Instead, the majority voted for taking him out permanently, which means instead they are venturing into his lair on a mission of assassination.

Characters

Panthalassa, a necromancer who summons primordial creatures

Daytona, a dhampir gunslinger fresh from Hell (again)

Garazi, a beautiful young witch with a bird familiar

Willard Corn, a man of mysterious circumstances

Heck, a revenant seeking vengeance on witch hunters

Khamaat, a newly awakened mummy

Events  

The plan went well, until it didn't. As Serafina suspected, the touted attraction of the Frankenstein organ brought Patchwork Jack to the Skarnesti Circus. The trap was sprung, but that's when everything went wrong. Patchwork Jack escaped, trudging north through the wilds of the Vespermark.

Acting quickly, the party gathered their resources and pursued him across the wastes on horseback. The weather did them no favors; winter had now arrived in earnest, bringing with it lashing winds, relentless snow, and bitter cold.

When they lost Patchwork Jack's trail, he set fires or left signs so they would remain on his trail. At last, they came to where his trail led: a fissure in the base of a mountain. Beside the crevice leading into the mountain caves, the group found a lit bonfire and a stack of firewood yet to be consumed. We find a fire and stuff outside the cave. A number of items were placed around the wood--there proved to be full wineskins and cheese and sausage preserved in red wax. Willard determined that the food was both edible and untampered with. Along with the food, a letter had been left. It read:

To Those Who Seek My Death,

Your ruse drew me, but now you stand on the precipice of my gambit. If you continue on this path, you approach your own doom.

Doctor Jack Frankenstein

Garazi summoned her familiar to scout inside the cave. Through Txori's eyes, she could see that beyond the mountainside fissure, the tunnel went north before become a switchback that headed south. She saw that a large double door within was guarded by two corpse golems bearing greataxes--though these two golems appeared to be of a higher quality of workmanship than the one that Viktor Frankenstein had sent after them previously.  

There were a number of discarded wineskins strewn about on the ground, which gave Panthalassa an idea. She summoned a giant spider and strapped their full wineskins to it and sent it into the caves; the theory was that the corpse golems had a taste for vino, so it might be possible to lure them out of the caves so dispatch them in the open. Unfortunately, when the corpse golems saw the spider one of them took a bell from its belt and began ringing it. Both corpse golems then exited through the doors they had been guarding. 

The party missed a crucial detail as they made their way inside: there were arrow slits in the walls. They quickly discovered the existence of the arrow slits when crossbowmen began firing on them. Garazi and Kamaat were both injured. Now on the run, the group saw a shallow set of stairs running south; they took the stairs and found the sniper's nest of one of the corpse golem crossbowman. After dispatching the monstrosity, they traversed the snipers nest to emerge beyond the door and out of range of the archers. 

The chamber they found themselves in was not a natural cave, but rather a square room decorated with carvings of Vlaak wearing strange headdresses and operating unfathomable arcane machinery. The room also featured a rope bridge that spanned a massive chasm; they could hear water crashing in the depths below. The two corpse golem guards had fled to the other end of the rope bridge. The group opened fire on the guards from the other side of the chasm and Heck thundered across to bridge to protect it from being chopped down by the guards' axes. 

Once the guards had been dealt with via violence, the group proceeded east. They kept uncovering caches of water barrels and preserved foods, which was odd given that they knew that Patchwork Jack did not require food or drink to survive. 

Further in the caves, the group found two Vespermark plains barbarians imprisoned in an alcove behind a gate made of wooden slats. The woman offered to trade a stoppered gourd filled with potent medicine for their freedom. Heck attempted to shift the gate, but when he failed Serafina pushed past him and simply picked the iron padlock keeping it closed. 

The group offered to let the barbarians travel with them, but they preferred to take their chances escaping back the way they came. Before they left, they explained how they came to be in this predicament: they had been ambushed by rat-like humanoids while hunting and were dragged into the caves. The ratmen were armed, they said, with strange guns that emitted eerie auras. The party now had some of idea of the unseen dangers that lurked in the complex.

In another larger chamber they found haphazard stacks of crates, barrels, and sacks. Inside were all manner of "raw materials" for Patchwork Jack's experiments: metal devices, bolts and screws, beakers and chemicals. It appeared that Patchwork Jack may be using the complex as a laboratory.

As they explored further, they found a stone statue of a Vlaak wearing a strange nautilus-like mask. When approached the mask opened up and a greenish gas spilled forth. Garazi was the only one affected; the gas made her feel light-headed and when it cleared she was left feeling exhausted. 

After crossing through a door near the statue, the found a room full of pelts and tanned hides; the room had an almost overpowering acidic smell. Inside, a large leather arm emerged from a pile of tanned skins and smashed into Khamaat. A massive figure, which appeared to be a man-like creature sewn together from leather, emerged from the pile. Alongside it were two massive frankenwolves whose bodies appeared to have been pieced together from many different wolves. This battle was tough, and the party took a few wounds here, but ultimately they were able to destroy Patchwork Jack's creations. Panthalassa's summoned velociraptor was particularly deadly against the frankenwolves.

Further violence occurred when the group figured out how to access the second sniper's nest. Khamaat's fire was quite effective against the corpse golems, and the group now knew that they were afraid of flame--which might come in handy latter in the complex. The party also ambushed a lone teenage necromancer cooking meat over a fire; he had one of the Usher's stolen masks at his side, so they deduced that he was a member of the Fraternitie du Cadavre. He was quickly killed and knocked into his own fire. They did manage to recover his grimoire, and it contained a ritual for binding a ghost to a human body--perhaps a vital clue as to why this Cadaverite was in the caverns in the first place.

After barricading themselves in a chamber and keeping watch, the group was able to rest and heal their wounds. They located stone spiral stairs descending into darkness--from which they could hear both the crashing of water and a strange metallic buzzing sound--and went down into the next level of the complex. We'll see what they find next time. 

Felvolio's Carnival

We returned to the current Krevborna game. This one...has clowns. Thankfully, Savage Worlds has stats for "Evil Clowns" in one of the companion books. The folks over at Savage Worlds HQ always got my back.

Characters

Panthalassa, a necromancer with a missing arm

Daytona, a dhampir gunslinger fresh from Hell (again)

Garazi, a beautiful young witch with a bird familiar

Willard Corn and King Beebo, a farmer and his monkey (?)

Heck, a revenant seeking vengeance on witch hunters

Khamaat, a newly awakened mummy

Events

Autumn had ended and winter brought the first snowfall to Hemlock Hollow. Adrian Vergara and Ivara Graymalk crunched through the snow to pay a visit to Garazi's family home. Adrian brought a picnic basket of food and drink for Garazi's family, but more importantly he brought his translations from the book of necromantic lore they had obtained while in pursuit of the Fraternitie du Cadavre. Adrian explained that the book noted that the Nightmother bestowed the ability to raise the dead indirectly upon her cultists; to access that power, the cultists needed to construct an avatar of the Nightmother that she could inhabit--the "goddess" herself could then resurrect the dead on their behalf. 

Meanwhile, Ivara visited Heck in the lower level of the house. She gave Heck the results of her mother scrying the location of the witchfinder Grigori Trask; Trask was inhabiting an old fortress north of Chancel. She also gave Heck a note from her mother for Panthalassa the revealed that her missing arm was somewhere...on the Ghost Moon?! Finally, she gave him a letter to be opened later; this letter was from Ivara herself and she intimated that Heck, in his living incarnation, may be her father!

While en route to the Skarnesti Circus, the group saw firsthand evidence that the War in Hell had spilled over onto Earth. First, they smelled smoke--which proved to be coming from a village that was aflame. The cause made itself apparent: a number of demons were running amok, the chief of which was a corpulent demon with a massive maw. The demons were chasing a woman, who would turn out to be Khamaat. 

The party moved to fight the demons, but most of the party found themselves unnerved by their infernal presence. During the battle, Daytona was swallowed whole by the corpulent demon and it was only through the efforts of the dinosaurs that Panthalassa summoned that he was freed from the demon's gut. They did notice, however, that the demons bore the mark of Legion.

When the group arrived at the Skarnesti Circus, they found it far less bustling than they expected. They were approached by Melusine, the circus's "snake dancer" and former lover of Daytona, who explained that Zoskia Skarnesti, the circus's ringmaster, and Felvolio, the circus's star clown, had both gone missing. She brought them into a tent where an argument about what to do about that was already in progress. 

Of course, the group got themselves involved in the mystery. They got the sense that the circus had some odd visitors. The local constable had told them to move on; a woman (who was described as looking similar to Serafina) tried to join the circus, but Zoskia had turned them away; a trio had been seen stalking around the fairgrounds, seemingly uninterested in the circus's attractions. 

After searching Zoskia's wagon, they uncovered several clues--which they did not follow up on. Instead, they split into two teams: Panthalassa and Daytona went into town to talk to the woman who had wanted to join the circus and the rest walked into the northern woods to find the three strangers who seemed out of place at the circus.

Daytona and Panthalassa discovered that the town was populated with members of the Yezhuli, a heretical sect of the Church of Holy Blood that practices bigamy. After talking to the constable, they obtained the location of the Maitland residence--the home of the woman who wanted to run away with the circus. The constable also showed them that his jail was currently empty--he had not arrested Zoskia and Felvolio surreptitiously. 

Meanwhile, in the woods, Heck was able to track the three strangers to their camp, though only two--an older priest with an eyepatch named Father Ambroys and a young nobleman with a rapier at his side called Jean de Cote--were apparent. The third, the nobleman's Polnezna half-sister Winter was recalled from her sniper's nest to join the group. They explained that they are all members of the Hounds of Velun, a secret society that believes a tsar should be returned to Krevborna's throne. 

However, they disagree with Valton Blakely's quest to resurrect a dead tsar to lead the country--they want to find a living descendent instead. As such, they were led by the priest's mystical visions to the Skarnesti Circus--they were milling around the fairgrounds in search of the party because they wanted to give them a map to an old abbey on an island that Blakely is using as the headquarters of the Fraternitie du Cadavre. 

Back in town, Panthalassa made her way to the Maitland house. She knocked at the door, and when the man of the house answered she told him that she was having "woman problems." He promptly sent her around to the back of the house where one of his wives was taking laundry down from the line. Panthalassa immediately saw the resemblance between this woman, Agniezka, and Serafina--there could be no doubt that they were sisters. Agniezka confided that her husband was abusive and that she wanted out of the marriage; Panthalassa told her that if she could manage to sneak away that night, she would help her get to safety.

Both the group emerging from the forest and the group exiting the town were surprised to hear a discordant calliope playing on the circus fairgrounds. As they approached, they could see that the Skarnesti Circus's familiar black-and-white striped tents had been replaced by green-and-white striped canvas. A new sign was hung above the ticket booth that read FELVOLIO'S CARNIVAL. The sign also included the image of a sinister, god-like clown surrounded by animated laughing mouths. 

Once they had bought tickets from the elderly clown at the ticket booth, he let them in after saying "All hail the God of Dark Laughter!" which really set the tone for what followed. They saw their deceased friend Rudolpho in a monkey suit dancing to the sound of the calliope; Garazi was knocked into a mud puddle at the pillow fight contest; the ring toss proved to be obscene--they were meant to toss rings onto the upturned codpieces of gyrating clowns. Worse yet, entering the "Tragic Kingdom" exhibit shrunk the party down to size and forced them to face off against a giant ant for survival!

Eventually, they heard the sound of heralding trumpets and an announcement that the show in the big top was about to commence. Once in their seats, they found the spotlight trained on them and they were invited to the stage--where they were forced to fight many clowns to the death. The odds tipped against them when a mechanical contraption pulled up and even more clowns spilled out. Felvolio, the master clown and secret cultist of the God of Dark Laughter, also joined in the fray but ultimately the fools were defeated.

Of course, once defeated, the big top began to creak and groan--it was about to topple to the ground. The group ran for it, but as soon as they cleared the tent they could see that Felvolio's Carnival had been replaced by the Skarnesti Circus once more. The Skarnesti carnies were still trapped in glass bubbles floating in the nearby pond, but they were quickly freed.

That night, Serafina and Viktoria arrived in separate carriages. Serafina explained that she wanted the group's help in taking down Patchwork Jack. There was a wrinkle here, though--Serafina wanted to take him alive. The group balked at this and Serafina was outvoted. They have put themselves on the path of death.

Meanwhile, Viktoria presented Panthalassa with two replacement arms that she had crafted: one a perfect replica of the arm she had lost, the other decorated with raised scars depicting a variety of ancient fossils. Panthalassa chose the latter, and the doctor prepared to operate...

Skalloche Isle and Thornlight

Two more adventure locations on the Judas Sea! Skalloche Isle is as yet unexplored in any of my campaigns, but it might be fun to run a mini-game in which the players all take on the roles of Skalloche's raiders. Thornlight, on the other hand, is the location of one of the best adventures I've ever written. I think I've used it in three different campaigns so far.

Skalloche Isle

Skalloche Isle is a snowy, mountainous island in the northern waters of the Judas Sea. 

    • The island is home to merciless barbarians who set sail in dragon-prowed long ships to engage in piracy and raid Krevborna’s coastal settlements.

    • Skalloche Isle is also inhabited by a groups of outcasts, the Corvidians, who have been warped by supernatural forces.

    • The corvidians—crow-like birdfolk—are the descendants of humans who were cursed by the Word and the Light due to their heretical beliefs; they live within ruined cathedrals that they jealously guard against outsiders.

    • The island’s corvidians adopted the folk saint Vionka as their savior long ago.

Thornlight

Thornlight is a supposedly abandoned lighthouse standing on a lonesome island near Piskaro. 

    • Only the pirates contracted to supply the lighthouse’s owner, Doctor Hesselius Reichman, with foodstuffs and the “raw materials” he puts to macabre purpose in his laboratory visit the island and leave safely. 

    • Doctor Reichman uses the lighthouse’s beacon to trick ships into dashing themselves on the rocky shore; anyone who washes up alive on the island’s beach is used in his disturbing experiments.

    • Reichman experiments with vivisection and artificer magic, following notes left behind by Doctor Moreau, to create tortured hybrids of man and beast. 

    • Reichman uses the threat of pain and dismemberment to keep his creations subservient and docile.  

    • Although Reichman is clearly mad, his research has a tragic purpose—he hopes to find a technological or magical innovation that will allow him to restore his comatose wife to consciousness.

    • Until Reichman can find a cure for her condition, his wife Rebecca is kept alive by magical machinery of his own invention inside a glass coffin. 

Fathom's Reach and Flotsam

Two more adventure locations on the Judas Sea in Krevborna! The first one, Fathom's Reach, was invented as a location the characters visited in my previous Krevborna campaign. Flotsam, on the other hand, was inspired by the (criminally underused) Saragoss from the Ravenloft setting and the floating city of Armada from China Mieville's novel The Scar.

Fathom’s Reach

Though its presence is unknown to most, Fathom’s Reach is an accursed city lurking beneath the waves of the Judas Sea.

    • Fathom’s Reach is an undersea city whose buildings are made of a strange, greasy black stone. 

    • The black stone used in its construction leeches an inky miasma into the water surrounding Fathom’s Reach that obscures it from view.

    • Fathom’s Reach is inhabited by fish-like greshnik who were once human.

    • The first residents of Fathom’s Reach made a compact with Scylla, a primordial creature of the depths, in order to survive a terrible shipwreck; as part of their pact, they were transformed into their current degenerate, amphibious forms.

    • The greshnik of Fathom’s Reach continue to worship Scylla as their patron “goddess.”

Flotsam

Flotsam is an unnatural island east of Piskaro comprised of an amalgamation of seaweed, wrecked ships, the bones of the drowned, broken chunks of coral reef, and other bits of ocean-borne detritus. 

    • Flotsam's nutrient rich soil, made fertile by the rot of the island’s accumulation of refuse and debris, births a verdant jungle spreading over much of the island. 

    • Some claim that the overgrown jungles of the island’s interior are vaster than its spatial boundaries should allow for and that ruins belonging to ancient civilizations are hidden within them.

    • The isle serves as a neutral meeting ground for Piskaro’s pirate captains.

    • Many believe that a number of legendary pirate captains buried their treasure on Flotsam; maps purporting to lead to their hoards sometimes surface, but thus far all who have flowed their paths have failed to return.

    • Captain Laurant maintains a plantation farm on Flotsam, but its location is a closely guarded secret; the plantation is worked by zombie laborers under Vanessa Laurant’s control.

Abrigor's Triangle and The Annalise

Two adventure locations in Krevborna's Judas Sea.

Abrigor’s Triangle

Abrigor’s Triangle is an expanse of the Judas Sea regarded as its most dangerous and mysterious region.

    • An unusually high number of ships disappear without explanation in Abrigor’s Triangle.

    • Superstitious sailors attribute the treachery of the triangle to numerous causes: a demon named Abrigor who pulls ships to the bottom of the sea, magnetic and temporal anomalies that render traditional navigation methods useless, or a preponderance of sea serpents and krakens.

    • Many vessels that travel to or from Krevborna via the Judas Sea go out of their way to avoid Abrigor’s Triangle, even though it lengthens their voyages to skirt its edges.

The Annalise

The Annalise is an infamous ghost ship crewed by the undead that prowls the Judas Sea.

    • Legend has it that the Annalise was a pirate ship captained by a greedy cutthroat, now known only as the Phantom Mariner, who betrayed a coterie of buccaneer captains he was partnered with.

    • He absconded with the ill-gotten wealth meant to be split between them, leaving them to be captured and executed at the hands of privateers. 

    • The gold and jewels the captain hoarded did not serve him well; when a sudden storm cast its net over the sea, the Annalise was too heavily laden to maneuver to safety.

    • The Annalise sank with all hands on board dying amid the thrashing waves. 

    • However, during storms at sea, the Annalise is spotted cutting a ghostly path through rough waters; bathed in ghastly green light and crewed by the barnacle-encrusted dead, the Annalise attacks other vessels who stray into its path. 

    • The accursed captain of the Annalise is compelled to add to the wealth that doomed him to a watery grave.

Wombs and Teeth

This adventure was the completion of the previous week's scenario. This one had the potential to have a much more involved and tense combat encounter or two--but they avoided one by not picking that fight and the other ended absurdly early due to two extremely lucky rolls by King Beebo's player. That's something that just happens with systems with exploding dice; you can't be mad at it! Live by the exploding die, die by the...exploding die.

Characters

Aria, a paladin struggling with her true nature

Panthalassa, a necromancer with a missing arm

Daytona, a dhampir gunslinger fresh from Hell (again)

Garazi, a beautiful young witch with a bird familiar

Willard Corn and King Beebo, a farmer and his monkey (?)

Events

Daytona arrived back in Hemlock Hollow after his harrowing adventure in Hell. As he walked through the night market, he was hailed by the snow elf Eshrevaal, who was talking to a Graymalk witch he did not recognize. The witch was introduced as Ivara Graymalk, one of the daughters who was present for the rest of the party's dinner with her mother Helena. When Daytona asked where he could find his friends, Ivara offered to take him through the Forest of Loss to where they were. Daytona agreed, and they set off, with Ivara plucking a Halloween mask from a passerby and handing it to Daytona. The townsman balked at the theft at first, but when he realized who he was dealing with he apologized and scurried away.

The pair were quickly enveloped in thick gray mist within the Forest of Loss, but as they emerged from it they found that there were before a farmhouse from which Daytona's friends were now emerging--expect Heck was no longer with them. When Heck's absence was discovered, they ventured back inside the farmhouse and discovered that Kestra had snatched him from the cellar and was keeping him as "collateral" until they got her her womb back.

And so the group returned to the House of the Maiden to attempt to get Sadira to give up the womb. Sadira was not pleased that they had returned empty-handed without her teeth, which Kestra still had in her possession, so attempts to intimidate and persuade her into an exchange fell on deaf ears. Eventually, Sadira became enraged and her monstrous nature became apparent: massive spider legs burst from her sides and an arachnid head emerged from the other side of her head. She attacked the group by enwrapping Garazi in threads of sticky spidersilk. Daytona cut Garazi free, but it was King Beebo who settled the matter decidedly: he fired both of his pistols into Sadira, putting her down like a mad dog before the other prostitutes in the brothel could even think about joining the fray. 

The patrons of the House of the Maiden fled and the women of the brothel made themselves scarce, giving the group time to ransack the building in search of Kestra's womb. Daytona found a safe hidden in the wall behind a painting, and Panthalassa was able to crack it. There were gold bars and bags of coins inside the safe, as well as a large stained leather sack. Dumping the sack onto the floor revealed its contents to be an extremely large--and terrifyingly fresh--womb. Pondering its size, Ivara was able to determine that Kestra had been warped by anger and grief into a "gargantuan"--a monstrous, physical ghost of prodigious size. This probably explained why Kestra never left the dark of the cellar; she was too big and too solid to exit the lower floor.

With the womb stuffed back into the sack by the bravest of the adventurers, they returned to the farmhouse to give it back to Kestra. Aria really wanted to force Kestra into trading the womb for the teeth--on the presumption that Sadira would "come back"--but the rest of the party just wanted to be done with the vile task and get their reward. Garazi and Aria got into an argument about it--and Kestra didn't help matters by rattling the tin can she kept Sadira's teeth in to taunt her. Ultimately, Aria said something unkind about witches in Ivara's presence. Ivara used her diabolic magic to force Aria to her knees and whispered in her ear that she didn't want to hear that kind of talk.

The rest of the group decided to venture down the cellar steps and give Kestra the sack. Horrifyingly, they could hear her inserting the organs back into her body. She did, however, keep her end of the bargain--she sent a very dazed and bewildered Heck out of the darkness, a fistful of tickets to ride the last "iron beast of the Vlaak" clutched in his hand. 

She also made good on providing "one secret known only to the dead." The group asked her if there was a way to restore a revenant to life--and told them that that occult secret resided in a Grail Tomb within the corrupted bayou known as the Stain. 

As Ivara led the group back through the mists to the Forest of Loss, things came to head within the party and Aria stalked off on her own after arguing again with Garazi and threatening to kill to Ivara. The party is now hunkering down to figure out their next move, but a plan is in the works to lure their foe Patchwork Jack into an ambush to deal with him once and for all. But...there's a wrinkle or two there they don't anticipate so we'll see what happens when the campaign resumes.

Capitalism: A Horror Story

To be fair and spell out one of my biases at the outset of this post on my thoughts about Jon Greenaway's Capitalism: A Horror Story, I've long been skeptical of the idea of "Gothic Marxism" for a reason this book does little to dispel: it seems like either an attempt to make Marxism "sexy" or to align someone's taste in entertainment to their avowed political ideology. Perhaps it tries its hand at both at the same time. The concept of Gothic Marxism often feels like a manifestation of the impulse to rebrand your politics as "cool" and to politically justify your fandom.

The book's vision of "the Gothic" mellows and becomes diffuse as it proceeds, eventually transforming into a catch-all category for the various horror films and texts it analyzes. However, Capitalism: A Horror Story doesn't excel at illustrating how the Gothic, or horror more generally, is necessarily a Marxist mode. This is an especially vexing omission in light of several authors under discussion being notably not radically left-wing in their politics yet somehow still existing under the book's political purview. For example, Ann Radcliffe was a champion of the middle-class bourgeoisie; the polite moralizing of her "Gothic Romances" and her status as an upwardly mobile middle-class woman whose ascendance was deeply entwined with the rise of capitalism evidences that. As another example, despite his belief in home rule for Ireland, Bram Stoker was a monarchist and supporter of the British Empire--two facets difficult to reconcile to claims of Marxist potential within Gothic authorship. In general, the linkage between "Gothic" and "Marxism" does not feel natural or self-evident.

The book's desire for Gothic Marxism to possess a transcendental, utopian political value also strikes me as odd and feels like something that can only be conjured by avoiding the material conditions that made the Gothic, and horror more generally, a viable commodity in terms of cultural production. This seems like something a Marxist account would want to explore in detail, but those concerns are largely left dangling. 

My biggest complaint with the book is stubborn insistence that horror is essentially a "hopeful" genre. I have taken a screenshot of a relevant paragraph so that you can judge the book's rhetorical position for yourself. This desire for a hopeful utopian turn does, in fact, cause problems when the book tries to use the cited fictions as political examples. You can read the ending of Dracula as hopeful--but it is hopeful about the continuation of British patriarchal power. Dracula features a collective that defeats evil--but it is a collective of elite imperial agents reinscribing Western superiority over foreign otherness. 

On the other hand, the ending of Frankenstein is hard to read as anything but Romantically bleak; it is far more apocalyptic than utopian in both tone and intent. 

However, the chapter on witches best illustrates the major flaw in the book's utopian argument: it dearly wants figures of monstrosity to be positive, nearly messianic, figures of resistance to capitalism, but as such it is ill-equipped to deal with the actual monstrosity of the figures it valorizes. Take its analysis of The VVitch as an example. It reads the witches in the film as liberatory and the ultimate event of Thomasin joining the coven as a political act, which may be, but it does not--and perhaps cannot--grapple with the fact that the witches in the film are actually figurations of evil by almost any standard. A baby is stolen and is mashed up into a flying ointment by one of the witches; another child is seduced in the woods and returned only so that he might die a horrible death in front of his helpless family. The climax of the film also problematizes the anti- capitalistic reading of its context. What is it that Thomasin is offered by the Devil? Butter, a pretty dress--she is offered commodities. I somehow think Marx wouldn't approve.

What this means is that many textual elements have to be ignored to get where the book intends to go. The same problem occurs in the offered reading of Frankenstein; the monster's body is a "site of politics," which again is certainly true, but that site of politics is fraught and contradictory because the monster puts its body to use by killing the innocent. I suspect this complication is uncommented on because that would countermand the hope of utopian change through the symbol and cypher of monstrosity. 

Capitalism: A Horror Story ultimately leaves the reader empty-handed. The utopian project of the book wants us to believe that there is revolutionary hope in monstrosity, in horror, in darkness--but even if that is an unmined possibility, what are we to do with that epiphany? As with other books of this style, there is no roadmap forward provided. 

This is particularly galling because in one of its chapters two horror film franchises are criticized for being unable to move beyond the ideological confines of neoliberalism to imagine something better. And yet, this presentation of Gothic Marxism similarly suffers from an inability to realize its utopic dreams in anything approaching concrete terms. How does an embrace of the monstrous usher in a much-deferred revolution? What praxis flows from the disturbed burial ground of the Gothic? Where does the "radical imagination" touted on the book's move from dark dream to attainable action? By the end of the book, questions such as these remain unanswered. 

The Horror of Hook House

As part of this year's Halloween gaming offerings, I ran Kids On Bikes for folks on my Discord. I used the scenario in the second-edition rulebook, but I swapped the setting out for something Edweirdian: the kids were all residents of an orphanage looking into the disappearance of one of their fellow foundlings--a boy named Hieronymus. They knew he had been dared to enter Hook House, an abandoned home on the hill thought to be haunted. 

Here's what they had gathered before setting foot in the house: twenty years ago the house was owned by the Hook family, who were prominent back in the day. However, when the town's mines closed they went broke and had to live in this smaller house on the hill. The family consisted of a mother, son, and father, but there were always rumors of another child--who may have been hidden away due to being mad or deformed. The family was killed by an intruder or intruders--and the murderers were never caught. 

Characters

Pellinore Bonnet-Price aka Pell-Mell

Vincent Lazarus

Artemsia Grimmsby

Flossie Greenspurn

Cedric Mortimer-Shaw aka Ceddy

Lester Mire

Events

The kids abandoned their bikes on the front lawn of Hook House as a thunder storm threatened to break overhead. They found that the front door was unlocked, so they stepped inside into the foyer. The air smelled stale; dust coated every surface. They took note of the closet in this room, as that is where Mister Hook was supposedly found--beheaded. They also found a scrap of fabric on the floor that was embroidered with a large H. They recognized this to be part of Hieronymus's rucksack. 

Suddenly al the doors in the room slammed shut and their flashlight began to flicker. Gathering their courage, they opened the closet. One of the floorboards inside was cracked; wedged into the gap was a small iron ball--pitted and rusty. 

Through the glass in the door leading to the next room, they could see a family portrait of the Hooks, a roaring fireplace, and stately objets d'art, but when they opened the door the room proved to be empty. In this room they acquired a poker, an ash shovel from beside the fireplace, and a cryptic note. 

The dining room was scarcely better, as there was a rotten food smell wafting from the kitchen. Using the cryptic note as a guide, the kids spent some time figuring out which chair each family member sat at to take their meals. When they stood in the spots the family members had occupied, they could feel an icy grip on each of their necks. 

The kitchen was a room of damp, crooked cabinets, mold, and flies buzzing around a sludge-filled sink. However, they were able to recover the three cups the family used in life--a cracked wineglass, a chipped teacup, and a broken child-sized glass. Using the poker, the kids could tell that there was something hidden in the sludge in the sink, but the poker wasn't up to the task of dredging it out. A dented pot, the last of the family's cookware, proved useful for bailing the sludge out so they could retrieve the item--a key!

Before they left this floor, Vincent, Ceddy, and Artemesia arranged themselves so that one kid was standing in each family's members spot at the dinning room table, each holding that family's member's favored drinking vessel. This caused them to be momentarily possessed by the ghosts of the family, each of whom vented their anxieties about what happened that fateful night.

The key from the sink allowed they to unlock the door headed up to the next floor. When they passed a broken widow in the staircase they could see that the world outside was lit by broad daylight. Since the house looked down upon the town, it was in full view--but it appeared that they were looking at the town as it was twenty years ago. They also noticed clumps of fur snagged on the windowsill. 

They decided to explore the door with a sign on the handle proclaiming it to be "Harrison's Room." This was clearly the son's room, as the rug was strewn with wooden horse toys and lead soldiers. The mattress had been slashed open as if someone had searched for something inside of it. They also noticed a nail in the window frame, around which was tied fishing line that snaked outside. They pulled something up by tugging on the line, but could not see the object through the window. Inside of simply opening the window, they smashed it and hauled the tin pail attached to the line inside. Vincent cut himself in the process. 

Inside the pail was a rubber ball, some jacks, and a diary marked "Top Secret." The diary had several entries detailing Harrison's adventures with a friend named Charlotte; however, toward the end of the diary the writing became frenzied and frantic until it devolved into crude symbols. In fact, the symbols lifted from the page and resolved themselves in the air, forming a knife, a series of cubes, and a small key. 

They went to the water closet next. A cracked mirror hung over the sink, which clouded up--and caused Cedric to have a phantasmagorical hallucination. They could also hear a young girl's voice seemingly coming from the drain; she said, "It’s dark down here" and "I’m lost and hurt." They confirmed that the voice was Charlotte's; she claimed that the Hooks had put her down there because "bad men" from "the other place" were coming to the house--when they got there, these bad men killed the Hook family. The kids were justifiably skeptical of this account. When Flossie got mouthy with Charlotte, water erupted from the tub and knocked all the kids from the room and back down the stairs. 

Once they recovered and ventured back upstairs, the kids explored the parents' bedroom. There was a strange curio cabinet in this room holding a variety of elements on little stands with placards. Pell-Mell deduced that if the elements were placed in the right order, they would spell out KNIFE CUBES. (Groan.) When they did so and closed the cabinet's door, all the elements dissolved, ran together, and reformed into a small key. In his haste to get his hands on the key, Vincent burned himself on the still-hot metal. 

This key allowed them to open the trapdoor in a closet to pull down the stairs and ascend to the house's attic. However, when they entered the attic they found that they were no longer in the house at all--they were in a rainy, gray park they knew well from in town. The stairs had also vanished behind them. Since they already knew the park's layout, they knew they were near an infamous well in which a child had drowned years ago--for some Edweirdian reason, the well had never been sealed. 

They went to have a look at it and saw that Hieronymus was curled up in the fetal position beside it. Unfortunately, as they approached to wake him, thick ropes of wet hair emerged from the well, entangled them, and pulled them into the watery depths. 

When the kids awoke, they found themselves shivering and sodden in an unfinished basement. Their was a Victorian washing machine--the kind powered by a hand crank--from which Charlotte's voice emerged. She begged them to turn the crank to release her from the machine. They did so, and from the machine a thin sheaf of skin, hair, and fabric slopped down into the tub. Charlotte reformed herself and emerged from the machine. 

The door to the basement washroom began to thump and rattle as something on the other side was trying to break down the door. Whatever it was did not have proper hands to simply turn the door handle. Their act of altruism paid off, as Charlotte agreed to aid them to get past the creature--which Charlotte confirmed was one of the beasts the "bad men" had used to kill the Hook family. 

Lester had a very bright idea--since they knew from their misadventure in the attic that Charlotte could conjure illusions, they had her use her power to create an illusion of the kids standing against the far wall. They opened the door, giving the creature a nice look at the illusory kids. While it hurtled past to get at the false kids, they ran down the now-clear corridor, with Charlotte in the lead to show them the door out. 

Traversing the doorway felt like pushing through a veil of cold water--indeed, they saw fish made of teeth swimming in the "other place"--but when they exited it they found that they had just left the front door of the house. Gathering their bikes, they rushed to the real park, where they found Hieronymus huddled by the well. They gathered him, and Charlotte, and snuck back into the orphanage--a plan to get Charlotte taken on as a foundling already brewing in their heads.

Krevborna Threate Film Festival

This fall I did a Krevborna Theatre Film Festival for the folks on my Discord, streaming about one movie a week through September and October. To add a little fun to the proceedings, I made Krevborna's resident goth queen, Serafina, the "horror host" for the event. I had fun writing up little pun-laden teasers for each of the movies in Serafina's voice. I even drew a little picture of Serafina that I could slap on top of a Gothic backdrop to announce each movie in advance.

The only criteria for selecting a movie for Krevborna Theatre was that it had to have atmosphere similar to the setting. For posterity's sake, and so I don't repeat any movies if I do this again next year, here's what we watched:

Hands of the Ripper

Brotherhood of the Wolf

Captain Kronos--Vampire Hunter

I Sell the Dead

The Pit & the Pendulum

Black Death

Blood From the Mummy's Tomb

The Ghosts of Gallhart

We're back to our Savage Krevborna campaign with a Halloween-themed session!

Characters

Aria, a paladin struggling with her true nature

Heck, an affable revenant looking for answers

Panthalassa, a necromancer with a missing arm

Garazi, up and coming witch with a bird familiar

Willard Corn and King Beebo, a farmer and his monkey (?)

Events

With the departure of Daytona, and the relative safety afforded by Hemlock Hollow, the party had a bit of downtime to rest, recuperate, and run various errands. Garazi went to Adrian Vergara's house to return his calling card case and ask for a favor. She was surprised that her knock on the door was answered by Ilyona, the girl who had been melded with a tree outside of Borza. Ilyona explained that Adrian had offered her a job as his maid; when Garazi took her aside and asked if Adrian was a good master, the girl appeared genuinely happy with her current employment.

Over tea, Garazi brought up the compendium of death gods and grave spirits that they had found and needed translated. Adrian felt confident he could make a workable translation; Garazi directed him to focus on the entry for the Nightmother and the entry about revenants. She also produced the sheet music for the Hymn of the Nightmother but, being an unmusical sort, Adrian could not make heads or tails of it. As he walked her to the door, Adrian promised to visit her family's farmstead when he had a translation in hand.

Meanwhile, Panthalassa and Aria visited the Ushers to return the two masks they had recovered from the cemetery. This time, they were met at the door by a stoop-backed old woman who seemed blind. As before, they were lead to a parlor--but this one was littered with poorly maintained taxidermy. Panthalassa asked again whether the Fraternitie du Cadavre could have any motive for stealing her arm in particular. This Usher had a theory: if the Fraternitie was intent on creating an avatar of the Nightmother capable of raising the long dead, they would need specific body parts for its construction. Specifically, the woman said that six different arms would be required: the arm of "Everyone's Child," the arm of "The Grandfather" the arm of "The Soldier Boy," the arm of "The Preacher Man," the arm of "The Spinster," and the arm of "The Wretched." Additionally, such a working would require the "heart of The Widow," the "teeth of the Concubine," and the womb of The Mother."

The old woman assumed that Panthalassa's arm was the arm of "Everyone's Child."

Panthalassa was concerned about the sustainability of the Usher's vigil over Madeline, especially since the Usher woman they were talking to kept coughing up things that squirmed in the handkerchief she expectorated into. Panthalassa attempted to link her mind with that of the "sleeping" Madeline Usher; she saw a vision through the other woman's eyes--walking the halls of an ancient school where the instruction was presided over by a devil.

On the night before Halloween, Heck and company had been invited to dinner by Helena Graymalk, the matriarch of the Graymalk clan of witches. They were shown in by Ivara Graymalk, one of Helena's many daughters. Unlike her sisters, Ivara dressed very primly, more like a school marm than a witch. Some members of the group noticed that Ivara seemed to be searching Heck's face for something.

Understanding that Heck's condition as a revenant meant he had significant gaps in his memory, Helena told him that he had once been a powerful warlock in his own right and had been the leader of a coven adept at converting pagans to the worship of the Devil. Heck had met his demise at the hands of Grigori Trask and his witchfinders; Helena suspected that a member of Heck's coven had betrayed him. When asked about revenants, Helena admitted that most revenants returned to the grave once their vengeance had been attained, but also dangled the intriguing notion that some revenants persisted in their second life if they found a reason to continue living. 

Additionally, Aria's questions about her status as a creature made of song were answered by Helena as best she could. She conjectured that Aria may want to seek the Needle of Golgotha in the mountains, a structure said to enable communication with the elder gods of the Outer Dark.

Beebo announced that he wanted to go to the Skarnesti Circus. What on Earth could a monkey want at the circus?

During the course of dinner, Helena commended the group on the services they had provided by springing Coraline for Kholograt and saving Lorelei and her sisters from death in Borza. As such, she felt that she owed the group several favors. One of those favors was cashed in immediately: the group asked Helena to scry to the locations of Grigori Trask and Panthalassa's missing arm. Helena asked them what their plans were for Halloween night. Since they seemed to be in search of answers, she offered them a possibility: they could venture into the Forest of Loss, a popular place for suicides where the boundary between the living and the dead was especially thin on Samhain, because many people had reported finding the answers they were in search of in that unhallowed stretch of woods. Helena told them that if they did venture into the Forest of Loss on Halloween they should be wearing masks so that the spirits of the dead would not recognize them as the still living.

Upon venturing into the Forest of Loss on Halloween night, the group was quickly surrounded by a fog that separated them from the other groups in the woods. When they emerged from the fog, the found themselves cresting a hill overlooking a small village lit by jack o' lanterns and carved gourds. The first building on the path leading into the village was an eatery serving soup and dumplings. From the way the dumplings fell through the faces of the two elderly people "eating" at a table outside--only to plop back into their bowls--the group correctly ascertained that they were now among ghosts. The proprietor of the shack, a woman named Danila, knew that she was deceased, though she cautioned that not everyone in village was aware that they were specters. 

She also informed them that the town was caught up in a conflict between two vengeful women--Kestra at the old farmhouse and Sadira of the House of the Maiden. There was a third woman, the Widow, but she had somehow escaped being trapped in the cursed village of Gallhart. According to Danila, all three women were brought to Gallhart by a sorcerer named Valton Blakely. Blakely intended to sacrifice the women and use their body parts to construct an avatar of the Nightmother to--all to resurrect one of Krevborna's tsars. This eerily reflected the supposed goal of the Fraternitie du Cadavre. 

The group decided to explore the Widow's house first. They found it dark, but the front door was unlocked. Inside, everything was neat and tidy. There was a family portrait above the fireplace showing a man with dark hair parted in the middle, a tall woman with blonde hair and a beatific smile, and a young boy whose looks favored his mother. In the attic, they found trunks of clothes belonging to the man and the son; presumably, both had died and their things had been put out of sight.

The Widow's cottage was near a pagan shrine, so the group decided to poke around in there as well. The shrine had been vandalized; the altar was purposefully smashed, the ceiling was staved through, and the place had clearly received no visitors for many years. 

The party's next stop was the House of the Maiden. The building smelled of incense and was lit by a number of paper lanterns glowing with a macabre green light. The door of the House of the Maiden was answered by a slim woman whose hair was held in place by lacquered hair sticks. There was a series of pigeonholes behind the desk in the entrance room; each pigeonhole held a single cloth doll. Nine of the dolls were turned to face the back of the cabinet--only three faced forward. From this detail, the group correctly guessed that the House of the Maiden was a brothel and that the dolls signified which girls were currently "occupied" and which were currently available.

Abetta, the House of the Maiden's procuress, showed the group into the common room. The most notable "fixture" of the room was a nude woman suspended from the ceiling by fine thin threads. A woman with straight black hair, wearing a gossamer robe decorated with chrysanthemums, was playing a balalaika. This woman was introduced as Sadira. Sadira reiterated the facts of her conflict with Kestra at the farmhouse; the crux of the matter was that Kestra had stolen her teeth, a fact she underlined by removing her dentures. She had no real reply when asked why she and Kestra did not join forces against Blakely, who seemed to be the real cause of their woes. Ultimately, the group agreed to venture into the farmhouse and steal back Sadira's teeth with the reward of "a secret only the dead know" hanging in the balance as their payment. 

Kestra's farmhouse was surrounded by a metal fence, the gate of which creaked as they opened it. Similarly, the porch's boards moaned as they traversed them. There was a pitcher, its glass surface dotted with condensation, on a small table by the door. Aria tasted it and confirmed that it contained sweet tea. Garazi sent her familiar into the house to scout around; the bird reported that there was a strange sliding metal door just off the living room. 

The group crept in; predictably, the metal door made an awful racket as Heck slid it open. Just then, one of the other doors in the house crashed open and two figures, one a man in stained overalls and a pumpkin obscuring his face and the other a woman in a babydoll dress wearing a goat head mask, came barreling toward them. The man bore a sledgehammer and the woman held a cleaver in one hand and a butcher's knife in the other. The battle that followed was fraught, especially when a third participant--this man clad in Napoleonic uniform and his face painted like a clown--entered through the front door and began firing a pistol and swinging a cutlass. A few members of the party were injured, but ultimately they were able to kill their foes--even after a botched spell from Panthalassa briefly reanimated one of their attackers!

They then searched the house. The room beyond the sliding metal door was an abattoir, complete with human torsos hanging from hooks. They found the personal affects of their three attackers, including four unlabeled glass vials full of unidentifiable liquids. The darkness in the cellar proved impenetrable by the light of their lantern, but they could see two large yellow eyes shining in the shadows. They had found Kestra.

Kestra admitted that she had Sadira's teeth in her possession, but was equally uninterested in the question of why they hadn't joined forces against Blakely. However, Kestra added that she hated Sadira because the woman had stolen her womb--which she wanted back. In fact, she made an offer of her own: if the group got her womb from Sadira, she would give them a secret known only to the dead and tickets to ride the last "iron beast of the Vlaak." 

We'll see how they resolve this next time. 

DEAD GIRL SUPERSTAR

PLANET MOTHERFUCKER is back with a new supplement called DEAD GIRL SUPERSTAR that's full of thrills 'n' chills just in time for Halloween!

(You gotta have the "adult content" filter on at Drivethru for that link to work, homie.)

 Here's the blurb:

Welcome to a special midnight showing of PLANET MOTHERFUCKER. Get yourself a soda, a bucket of popcorn, and some Mike and Ikes from the concession stand. Then put on a poncho ‘cause you can expect a hefty blood spray this time around! Inside these pages, you’ll find a bunch of horror-themed Shticks, some bad guys to throw into the meat grinder, big pimpin’ villains, and a bunch of random tables for shit like Martian invasions and dumb Monster Mash crap like that. Viva la Wolf Man, bitches!

Inside you'll find:

• New character types like Spooky Scary Skeleton, Unnatural Symbiote, and Werewolf Heartthrob!
• New monsters like Hungry Hungry Himbos, Sheet Ghosts, and Wet T-Shirt Sirens!
• New Bad Guys like Bellatrix Lugosi, Guantanamo Bae, and Otto von Jizzmark! 
• Other crap for your game!

Get it today, it's spooktacular! And often really reprehensible and gross!