It turned out great!
You know it's free, right? Check it out if you missed it.
I've seen one other person's personal copy, but I want to see ALL of them. If you do a print version of the book, I wanna see what kinda cover you knocked out for it. Send images to totgad @ gmail dot com.
People who send in pics of their print copy might get something cool & free in their inbox in a couple months, just sayin'.
Lycans
Also known as “wolfbloods,” lycans are folk who have inherited the curse of lycanthropy in a minor, but persistent and incurable, form that sets them apart from other mortals. Lycans appear to be members of other ancestries, but their bodies possess obvious bestial traits, such as sharp teeth, yellow eyes, or hair as thick as a shaggy pelt. When angered, a lycan’s form becomes more animalistic and fierce.
Lycans as Savage World Ancestry
Lycans can usually pass as normal humans unless they are under close scrutiny. As a limited free action, they can transform into a more bestial, wolfish state; while in this form, they gain access to their Bite and Claw ancestral abilities.
Accursed Ancestry: Lycans suffer a -1 penalty to all Spirit rolls.
Bestial Rage: The beast is always ready to spring forth and cause carnage. All lycans possess the Berserk Edge.
Bite: In their bestial forms, lycan fangs cause Str+d4 damage and may be used on grappled foes.
Bloodthirsty: Lycans never takes prisoners unless under the direct order of the person they consider the leader of their "pack."
Claws: In their bestial forms, lycans have claws that cause Str+d6 damage and are AP 2.
Easily Angered: Lycans subtract 2 when resisting Taunt attacks.
Heightened Sense of Smell: A keen sense of smell gives lycans +2 to Survival rolls made to track if the target has a scent and the trail is no more than a day old.
Hunted: Lycans must always be wary of monster hunters who might mistake them for full-blooded werewolves.
Low Light Vision: Lycans ignore penalties for Dim or Dark illumination (but not Pitch Darkness).
Monstrous Weakness: Attacks made with silvered weapons deal +4 damage against Lycans.
Konrad Draghul
Konrad Draghul is the bastard child of Count Magnus Draghul. Konrad was sired upon a serf in Myrkrania; he was born a dhampir. Before his mother succumbed to a disease hastened by their poverty, she told her son the secret of his heritage. Enraged that his father had abandoned them after a loveless affair with his mother—a dalliance that Count Magnus soon forgot—Konrad vowed to become the sworn enemy of all vampires.
• Appearance: His features have a feminine cast, especially his head of unruly blonde curls, and he radiates physical prowess.
• Personality: Despite his desire to be different from his father, he can be snide and stereotypically aristocratic.
• Motive: The only thought that brings him joy is imagining what it will feel like when he plunges a stake into his father’s heart.
• Flaw: A particularly handsome man can distract him from his quest—but only momentarily.
Kassidy “Deathshot” Durango
Kassidy “Deathshot” Durango hails from a long line of members of the Knights Labyrinthian; her mother, in particular, was a famed gunslinger and High Warden of Fort Gilead. The last of her line, Kassidy Durango continues the family trade of protecting pilgrims traveling the wilds and righting wrongs where she can.
• Appearance: Kassidy is a freckled woman with long brown hair and a crooked smile.
• Personality: Despite the bloody-mindedness with which she pursues her mission, Kassidy is quite philosophical and loves to discuss the great mysteries of life.
• Motive: Kassidy feels evil is likely to triumph in the world, but she feels compelled to fatalistically wage war against darkness regardless of the eventual outcome.
• Flaw: Kassidy is plagued by an infirmity called blisterlung that sometimes causes her to be monetarily incapacitated as she coughs up blood.
Also, that time that juggalos were deemed a gang by the feds wormed its way in there.
The Gang Wards
Four gangs ruthlessly compete against each other for territory, wealth, and power in the fallen city. Unfortunately, the people of Veil are often caught in the crossfire as the gangs make war against each other. The following gangs hold multiple wards of the city under their control:
The Butcher Boys
• The Butcher Boys are dwarven thugs feared for their use of violence, terror, and intimidation.
• The Butcher Boys operate protection rackets and offer their services as bodyguards.
• Members of the Butcher Boys are immediately recognizable by the bloodstained leather aprons they wear.
The Firebrands
• The Firebrands are a gang involved in the production and sale of patent medicines of dubious efficacy, the operation of brothels, burglary, and arson.
• The Firebrands are notorious for hurling flasks of flaming oil in combat and setting their blades alight prior to engaging in skirmishes.
• The boss of the Firebrands is Jackdaw, a ruffian who claims to have once been a surgeon of repute.
The Harlequins
• The perverse Harlequin gang are motley-clad miscreants who run gambling houses and fighting pits throughout Veil.
• Their leader, Cyprian Wilde, is a disgraced nobleman who uses his inheritance to bankroll the gang’s criminal ventures.
• They disfigure the faces of those who cross them.
The Seamasques
• Veil’s river and its stretch of coastline is dominated by the Seamasques, barbarous pirates and smugglers.
• They also sell their services as mercenaries.
• The Seamasques are led by Gretha Sigurdsdottir, who is in turn guided by her lover Iska Gaskill, a Polnezna fortune teller with the gift of foresight.
Below, you will find a plague doctor turned plague spreader and a fortune teller trying to find an heir to Krevborna's vacant throne to please her father.
Lubek Crodescu
Once a selfless plague doctor who worked tirelessly to cure and comfort the afflicted, Lubek Crodescu’s worldview changed when he contracted a fatal illness that began to slowly kill him. In his desperation, he turned to an evil power to save his own life—he prayed to the demon Pazuzu, and his prayers were answered. He now acts as Pazuzu’s agent of destruction, spreading pestilence throughout Krevborna.
• Appearance: Lubek was formerly judged a handsome man, but his face is marred by pustules and buboes; he hides his visage behind a plague doctor’s mask.
• Personality: He is a deeply embittered man.
• Motive: Lubek has been hollowed of any recognizable human wants or goals; he merely seeks to spread contagion.
• Flaw: Part of him wants to die to end his misery; his death wish could be exploited.
Winter D’Averoan
Winter D’Averoan is a young half-Polnezna woman who is the illegitimate daughter of a nobleman named Jeremiah de Cote. The de Cote family is pledged to the cause of the Hounds of Velun. When her father realized that her oracular abilities could be harnessed to find a true heir to Krevborna’s vacant throne, he brought her into his household and set her to the task.
Winter is never without her velvet-edged deck of tarot cards. She uses them as a focus for divination and can conjure strange magics from the occult imagery depicted on the cards.
• Appearance: Winter’s mess of dark curls frame a face that is perpetually caught in a scowl.
• Personality: She is only loyal to those who are loyal to her; she is protective of her half-brother Jean de Cote.
• Motive: She hopes that if she finds an heir for the Hounds her father will formally recognize her as his daughter.
• Flaw: She views the Church as a hopelessly corrupt institution and is not shy in her criticisms of it.
Angolstad Cathedral
When heavily armored warriors calling themselves the Knights of Saint Othric emerged from badlands north of Veil and entered the city, they immediately seized the abandoned Angolstad Cathedral and made it their keep.
• The knights make every attempt to portray themselves as Veil’s benefactors, providing food and medicine for the needy and unwell.
• However, the knights secretly worship the demon Baphomet in the maze-like catacombs beneath Angolstad Cathedral.
• Their unwholesome rites involving trampling and spitting upon icons of the saints.
• Baphomet has commanded the Knights of Saint Othric to search Veil’s ruins for an extremely powerful artifact—the Spear of Longinus.
The Convent of Saint Rivka
Although Veil harbors many heretics and apostates among its population, it is also the home of the Convent of Saint Rivka, a religious community of female penitents who have chosen to withdraw from the world to repent of their sins.
• Despite the convent’s pous reputation, it holds a secret: it is haunted by a murderous ghost named Sister Agatha.
• In life, Sister Agatha was sent to the Convent of Saint Rivka against her will.
• Her parents, enraged at having caught her in the act of eloping with a mere miller’s son, brought her to the convent in chains, where she was forced to take the veil.
• Within the year, Sister Agatha had died of a broken heart.
• The truth of Sister Agatha’s death was covered up; unable to handle the melancholy of being separated from her lover, Sister Agatha took her own life by drowning herself in a fountain on the convent grounds.
• After her death, Sister Agatha rose again as a specter devoted to murdering lovers—she emerges from the convent at night to kill any trysting couples she encounters in Veil.
It’s time for Jack and Kate to explore their vintage paperback piles and trade tales from the yellowed pages of the past. Jack wades through the sweltering psychosexual Southern Gothickry of Donald Harington’s 1965 sex comedy (?) The Cherry Pit while Kate learns what happens when Hitler faces off with Dracula in Jon Ruddy’s 1990 shock-horror masterpiece (?) The Bargain.
Will we encounter the worst Van Helsings of all time? Why don’t the cool madams in exploitation novels get their own books? What are “big dinners” and how often will “big dinners” be referenced? All these questions and more will be explored in this episode of Bad Books for Bad People.
It took me a long time to figure out what Veil was really all about. It wasn't until I stumbled on the idea of a city given over to gang warfare coupled with Silent Hill aesthetic notes that things really got cooking for this area of the setting.
Veil
A Fallen City of the Downtrodden and Outcast
Once regarded as one of the jewels of Krevborna, Veil was originally a pomenysh city renowned for its beauty. Today, Veil is a shadow of its former self. Generations ago, the thriving city of Veil was put to the torch by the Church of Holy Blood’s Inquisition to flush out the blasphemous blood cult that had overrun it. It now consists of hastily repaired houses, looted ruins, and ramshackle shelters made from scavenged materials. The stout walls that protected the city in ages past are broken and in dire need of repair.
Greatly diminished from its golden age as a metropolis, Veil is haunted by the ever-present reek of smoke, soot, and ember, as the fire that razed it still burns in the tunnels beneath its streets due to the strength of a desperate man’s dying curse. Noxious fumes leak from cracks in the ground, and cold fogs obscure the city's ruined wards.
Veil is currently a haven for outlaws, heretics, and those who do not want to be found by the world at large. In Veil, the strong dominate the weak. It is expected that those with power will abuse it and that those without must suffer under oppression.
Hallmarks
The following elements and aesthetic notes define Veil:
• Veil was once a grand Vlaak city, but it has since fallen into ruinous decay.
• Veil is a vile den of crime and heresy; many of its residents are apostates and outlaws hiding from justice.
• The city is dominated by criminal gangs who wage war against one another for territory and ill-gotten wealth.
• A mercenary general has recently taken up residence in a former barracks; she is raising an army for an unknown purpose.
• A strange, opium-like drug known as midnight bell is peddled in Veil; using the intoxicant allows entry into a dreamlike portion of the city that is otherwise inaccessible.
• The smell of smoke predominates throughout Veil due to a curse that keeps a fire raging beneath the city streets.
I have a theory about the difference between mining ideas from "good" superhero comics (I'm thinking high-minded stuff like Daredevil: Born Again, Watchmen, Seven Soldiers) and mining ideas from trash-tier superhero comics: trash-tier comics actually make for better rpg idea-mines than the good ones.
My thought is that the intricate clockwork of a densely plotted superhero comic would likely fall apart at the table because of two factors:
A) The randomness of dice rolls in most game systems
B) Players inevitably making insane choices that throw the whole schemata out of whack because that's just what players do
Ideas gleaned from trash-tier comics, on the other hand, are already surprisingly resilient to dumb rolls and dumber decisions because they come from a place of inspired stupidity. They roll with the punches, they bob and weave like a drunkard, but ultimately they get the job done.
If anything, I think superhero rpgs are potentially the place where dumb comic ideas go to be redeemed and born anew.
Ivahn Katavarg and his clan were inspired by the crimes attributed to Sawney Bean. Plus, I knew I wanted a werewolf villain available in Krevborna, so this is how I fit that in--perhaps in a semi-novel way.
Ivahn Katavarg
Ivahn Katavarg is the patriarch of a clan of inbred werebeasts who prey upon travelers of Krevborna’s roads. The Katavarg clan’s victims are robbed and often eaten. Some are taken back to the Katavarg’s lair, a primitive haven within a trap-laden cave complex in the Silent Forest, to serve as slaves and future meals.
Each member of the Katavarg family bears a curse that makes them transform into a werebeast a night. The curse takes a variety of forms; werebears, wereboars, and wererats all number among the clan. In his bestial form, Ivahn is a gray-furred werewolf.
Among his family, Ivahn Katavarg lives like a king. He keeps the choicest riches taken from the family’s victims for himself, and treats his many wives and children as servants and playthings. His base desires and sensual appetites are both colossal and monstrous.
• Appearance: He is a slovenly man, stout as a barrel but as strong as a beast—even in his human form.
• Personality: His manners are coarse and he spares little thought for the wants and needs of others.
• Motive: He believes that growing fat upon what be pried from the fingers of others is preferable to honest work.
• Flaw: His love of secrecy is contested by his desire to be infamous and feared.
The Wychbog Cottage
A tumble-down cottage perched atop creaking wooden supports emerges from a flooded fen in the Silent Forest; the cottage’s occupants, the Wychbog Sisters, are three ancient crones who can miraculously restore the health of those who dare to visit them.
• The Wychbog Sisters are named Yubella Greentongue, Old Vasaga, and Mother Malaryn.
• All three sisters are corpulent and wear ragged dresses made of human skin, though they disguise their terrible natures under palatable illusions.
• When their aid is sought, the Sisters make their visitor a poisonous offer—they will cure whatever ailment besieges the sufferer, but in return that person must bring them a living child as payment.
Yrd Dolma
Within an obscure clearing in the Silent Forest stands a circle of weathered gray sarsen stones known as Yrd Dolma.
• In the center of Yrd Dolma, a sacred bonfire is kept burning by blind pagans of the old faith.
• The druids give credence to a prophecy that states that a great warrior will one day willingly sacrifice themselves to their holy bonfire; this martyr will die upon the flames and be born again, emerging from immolation as a sacred undead champion.
• The druidic priests of Yrd Dolma believe that their ordained champion is fated to free Krevborna from the grip of supernatural evil.
Between the threats of insane tariffs and other moves to destabilize the global economy, who knows what's gonna happen to the tabletop gaming industry.
Luckily, we can always DIY our good times.
To that end, below you'll find a link to PLANET MOTHERFUCKER: SATANICO PANDEMONIUM EDITION. This pdf contains the original PLANET MOTHERFUCKER zine and all four supplements for the game: BLACK SUNSHINE, DEMONOID PHENOMENON, DEAD GIRL SUPERSTAR, and PUSSY LIQUOR.
Oh, that last one doesn't sound familiar? That's because no one besides me has ever seen it.
Here's the link to PLANET MOTHERFUCKER: SATANICO PANDEMONIUM EDITION.
I'm making the game available to everyone who wants it, for free, in the spirit of "Fuck this nonsense, let's do fun shit with our friends just to spite every joyless moron trying to make the world a worse place." Yeah, that's right, a full game, a two-hundred page book, and you can just have it on the house.
That said, if you want to buy me a beer in thanks, I wouldn't say no. Here's my Ko-fi virtual tip jar.
Fair warning: PLANET MOTHERFUCKER is not for everyone. It's brash, crass, and patently offensive--just like America, baby. It's a post-apocalyptic rpg that is a love letter to trash culture, a scathing take on the peculiar strain of homegrown American madness, and a sadly prescient comment on the ways things are going.
Oh, you want a print copy? Here are some instructions on how to make one yourself that you can get here.
You're welcome.
But seriously, if you wanna buy me a beer you can do it here--lord knows I'm gonna need it. It's gonna be a long four years, like I said up top.
Got questions? Want to say 'sup? Email totgad AT gmail DOT com
Old Sepulcher Road
Old Sepulcher Road cuts through Vargovishta Pass in the Karthax Mountains, stretching from Hemlock Hollow to the Silent Forest.
• The road is the hunting ground of the Bloody Bishop, a dullahan searching for his severed head.
• In life, the Bloody Bishop was a defrocked priest turned bandit who offered his victims no mercy.
• When he was captured by a local militia, he was tortured and decapitated—as an undead rider astride an undead steed, he continues to terrorize the living.
The Seven Citadels
Seven tribes of heathen savages live within the Silent Forest. Each barbarous tribe’s territory centers around a tower of black stone that they both fear and protect from adventurers who wish to plunder the relics and ancient treasures within them.
• The members of barbaric tribes decorate their skin with swirls of blue pigment; they practice cannibalism and ritual human sacrifice.
• The tribes’ territories encircle the black citadels, but even the most foolhardy tribal members never venture inside them to explore.
• Each citadel is the prison of one of the Fallen Lords—witch queens and princely warlocks who now exist only as shadowy wraiths lost to madness and despair.
Bad Books for Bad People, Episode 83: Rogue Moon
Algis Budrys’s 1960 novel Rogue Moon is a masterpiece of Sweaty Sci-Fi, a freshly-patented subgenre that will be revealed during the course of this episode. Jack and Kate take a trip to the dark side of the moon to ponder the meaning of life, love, the universe, and manly perspiration.
What happens when you get some Jim Thompson in your moon mystery? Are women more dangerous than a murderous labyrinth on the moon? And what, exactly, characterizes a work of Sweaty Sci-Fi? All these questions and more will be explored in this episode of Bad Books for Bad People.
Lynbury
Lynbury is a small village on the outskirts of the Silent Forest. It is surrounded by a circle of eldritch standing stones inscribed with druidic runes and sigils.
• Once the circle of standing stones has been breached, is is impossible to leave Lynbury; any attempt to leave shunts those seeking an exit back into Lynbury.
• The people of Lynbury are unfailingly polite, kind, and welcoming. They encourage newcomers to make themselves at home and to consider settling down permanently.
• Amiable companionship is used as a lure; those who enter the Lynbury Circle find that the populace of the village coax them to join in nights of drinking and singing at the village pub and offer to induct them into the village’s troupe of folk dancers.
• Any unattached visitors will discover that an attractive and attentive villager has set their eye on them as a romantic prospect.
• The villagers of Lynbury are happy, but only because all other sentiments and emotional responses have been drained from them by horrid sorcery.
• Lynbury is a snare for the unwary and weak of will: Simon Glaston, Lynbury’s country squire and unofficial magistrate, taps into the magic of the standing stones to siphon away his fellow villagers’ emotions and feelings to feed an ancient pagan god.
• This “god” is actually an eldritch entity from the Outer Dark known as Crom Cruach—also referred to as the Crawling King and the Conqueror Worm.
• If an outsider probes too deeply into the nature of the standing stones or the villagers’ unnatural happiness, Lord Glaston hunts them down with monstrous worms gifted to him by Crom Cruach.
• The only way to escape Lynbury is to slay Simon Glaston and offer his blood to the standing stones.
• Although killing Lord Glaston will allow visitors to escape the confines of the Lynbury Circle, it does not banish evil from the village; once the current squire is dead, a villager will be elevated to his position and begin his malign work anew.
Aeldentree
Magical wards keep the once-proud city of Aeldentree hidden from the world. The city is built among the boughs of massive white birch trees and is home to a confederation of elves, goblins, and fairies from both the Seelie and Unseelie Courts.
• Aeldentree’s populace are descendants of fey who were victimized by human pogroms and usurped from their ancestral lands in Krevborna.
• Aeldentree is a sanctuary, kept secret from the prying eyes and vicious intent of mankind.
• The most militant of Aeldentree’s citizens belong to the Wild Hunt, a secretive cabal of insurgents.
• The Wild Hunt fights a guerrilla war against mankind in Krevborna, hoping to one day reclaim the land as their sole dominion.
• The Wild Hunt ventures forth from the safety of Aeldentree to raid human settlements and wage a war of terror against humanity.
• Powerful fey such as the Erlking, the Green Knight, and Baba Yaga support the Wild Hunt.
Camp Lovelorn Lake
Beside Lovelorn Lake, a placid pool of crystalline water in the Silent Forest, sits an eponymous campsite consisting of wooden cabins, a dilapidated dining hall, several fire pits, and a small jetty. A hand-carved sign hanging above the entrance of the site reads “Welcome to Camp Lovelorn Lake.”
• The cabins are well-constructed, but they show indications that they have witnessed violence in the past, such as aged bloodstains and the tell-tale marks left behind by a fearsome woodman’s axe.
• Something unnatural in Camp Lovelorn Lake calls to teenagers on the cusp of adulthood, exerting a pull that draws them to come and stay during the golden months of summer—even if that means shirking their responsibilities.
• The campsite is, of course, a trap; anyone who stays at the camp will be hunted by a demonic, mask-wearing killer who is bound to the site by a lingering curse.
• The masked killer believes that every soul he claims from a murdered victim furthers the goal of resurrecting his dead mother—whose decaying head he keeps in a woodland shrine deep within the Silent Forest.
Adventure Design Checklist
This is my checklist for designing an adventure:
Locations
These are the things I keep in mind while designing an adventure location whether I’m thinking generally of a whole building or site and when zooming in on specific rooms or chambers
NPCs
I make notes on each important NPC in an adventure in this format:
Events
Things that could happen outside of the players’ control–the world moves around the characters whether they want it to or not
Loot
What stuff might they pick up on the way to their goal? I think of this broadly, not just in terms of physical items
Characters
Willard Corn, a man of mystery looking for his three-legged dog
Panthalassa, necromantic dinosaur summoner with a grudge
Garazi, precocious witch with a possibly dark destiny
Heck, revenant out for revenge against witchhunters
Daytona, dhampir gunslinger always along for the ride
Khamaat, ancient mummy revived for unknown purposes
Events
The characters all emerged from a mental haze within a forested grove--with no idea how they had gotten there. It was night, and moonlight shone down from a gap in the trees. Khamaat had a vague memory of an unknown bearded old man putting his hands on her and Willard's shoulders as they did research at the university library at Creedhall, but everything else was fuzzy.
Peeking out of a gap between trees, they saw a downward slope leading to a long rectangular building. In front of the main door were six figures wearing bronze breastplates and bearing longswords; they stood beside a gnarled old tree. From the skull masks they wore, they were likely members of the Fraternitie du Cadavre.
Willard's attempt to approach the figures peacefully failed--they drew their swords and attacked! Additionally, the gnarled tree uprooted itself and joined in the fray. Their foes hit hard, but the party hit harder--although the armored guards were undead, they fell to the group's weapons and the animate tree was left little more than a burning stump. Panthalassa had summoned two raptors, and though they took down the tree, they were stuck to its sap-bleeding wounds as they also expired.
Now able to enter the building they saw that its name was etched in the stone above the doorway: GELDINGSTONE.
Garazi summoned Txori to scout the available windows so they an idea of what to expect in the rooms inside. In the library, among the theological works on the shelves, Panthalassa found one volume that just had a series of numbers on the spine as a "title." Removing it caused a section of the shelving to shift aside, revealing what appeared to be a small dungeon cell. The book was full of equations, but one--31-3=28-- was circled every few pages. It also matched a scrap of paper Panthalassa found in her pocket.
In the nearby office, they found a ledger with a list of boys' names and dates from long ago. Moving aside a painting revealed eyeholes that could be used to look into the next room unobserved. The room appeared to be a dormitory of monk-like cells.
When they entered the dormitory they discovered that hanging behind the desk was an iron rod and a number of switches. They also found a loose floorboard, under which was an old, folded-up piece of paper that read "Meet me by the tree tonight. Bring the book." in a childish scrawl.
In other rooms they found evidence of the Fraternitie du Cadavre's necromantic activities, such as bones laid out on work surfaces and a room with tables full of preserved meat. Heck smashed the skeletons to prevent future animation attempts. While the destruction occurred, Willard remembered the bearded man telling him that there were Vlaak in Geldingstone and that the Vlaak definitely remembered who he was--as it turns out, Willard Corn is something of a bogeyman to the Vlaak.
Additionally, Garazi remembered being paid a visit by a woman who kept one of her hands conspicuously out of sight.
As the ventured further into Geldingstone, three Cadavre cultists exited a room with their hands up. They just wanted to leave in peace, but Panthalassa wasn't having it--she summoned raptors and set them upon the three men, wrecking an unholy slaughter in revenge for them cutting off her arm months ago.
In the chapel, the uncovered the origins of the name Geldingstone. They found an ornate chair, with a hole cut out of the seat, that was used for turning boys into castrati for the Church's choirs.
Before they were killed, the three surrendering cultists had told the group that the key to the door they wanted was being guarded by a skinless monstrosity in the basement, so that's where they headed next. Wounding the creature caused it to expel a red mist that flooded the room; those within the mist found their vitality sapped. The skinless man killed every minion Panthalassa sent against it; each time it killed one it peeled a strip of skin from its victim, consumed it, and healed its wounds.
The group did eventually prevail, and they could see the key they needed within its corpse, but the mist still pervaded the room so they retreated for the moment. Heck eventually decided to draw upon his undead vigor and run in to grab the key, wrenching it from the corpse.
The key unlocked a chamber with a vast stone archway--the center of it was pure black. When they passed through the archway, they found themselves in a strange place. The ground beneath their feet was black. Emerging from a cave, they saw a fortress in the distance and heard the beating of great wings overhead.
They were now on the fabled Shadow Moon.
The Silent Forest
Forbidden and Accursed Woodlands
The Silent Forest is a deep woods of misshapen trees whose limbs resemble clawed, skeletal appendages. True to its name, the forest is ominously quiet. Old burial grounds—their headstones cracked and the names upon them effaced by time and the depredations of nature—are slowly consumed by the green hell of the Silent Forest.
Villages lurk at the edges of the Silent Forest, but the villagers warn their children not to enter the woods, as it is believed to cursed. When night falls, the malign creatures within the forest grow stronger, faster, and more ravenous.
However, the Silent Forest is not wholly uninhabited. Those who live in proximity to the Silent Forest report that elves, goblins, and fairies possess a secret enclave deep within the woods, hidden from the eyes of human kind. Tribes of wildlings, regarded as cannibals prone to scalping civilized folk who intrude on their enclaves, also make their homes among the Silent Forest’s twisted trees.
Hallmarks
The following elements and aesthetic notes define the Silent Forest:
• The forest is an accursed and unholy place; many sects of the Church forbid their parishioners from entering it.
• Elves, fairies, and goblinkin maintain a hidden city in the Silent Forest.
• The trees of the Silent Forest are often blackened and ominously shaped.
• Woad-painted wildling tribes live deep inside the woods.
• A family of bandits known as the Ulvarg clan hide within the Silent Forest.
Sir Edvard Hawley
For the past thirteen years, Madchapel—a borough of impoverished slums mostly inhabited by destitute immigrants—has been the site of a series of brutal murders that are believed to have occult significance due to the ritualistic nature of the slayings. Sir Edvard Hawley, a minor noble and fraudulent “gentleman surgeon” with an interest in black magic, was suspected by the Rooks as being the Madchapel Slasher, but those conjectures ended with Hawley’s death five years ago.
The truth is that Edvard Hawley was the killer all along and continues to stalk the residents of Madchapel after death as a murderous wraith. He prowls by night, sometimes driven in a spectral black coach lit by baleful green lanterns, to hunt for victims. Anyone slain by Sir Edvard Hawley’s ghostly postmortem knife rises from the grave as an unquiet spirit under his control.
• Appearance: Edvard Hawley appears as a grinning spectral man wearing a long overcoat and a top hat.
• Personality: He does not even attempt to repress his murderous impulses.
• Motive: He plans on branching out from Madchapel, adding unfortunate souls to his army of ghosts, until all of Krevborna is a spectral empire under his rule.
• Flaw: Sir Edvard Hawley relishes the thought of possessing a body to continue his murders in the flesh.
***
Dear Diary,
Jesus Camp is exactly as lame as I thought it would be--lots of singalongs and talks meant to get us "right with the Lord." My fellow inmates of Cabin Twelve are pretty cool at least. J.P. is hella gay, but he's good at all that outdoors shit. Mikaela is also hella gay and doesn't know it; bitch is constantly drawing lesbians munching rug and has not put it together that she's in the big acronym. Jessie Jesus is the only one who seems kinda lame, but she's all right, I guess.
No matter what, we're way better than Cabin Six. Fuck those guys.
***
Dear Diary,
Ugh, Counselor Josh called us to a campfire meeting and starting talking about how God "wrestles with his tool" or something. I swear to fuck that guy is a huge pervert. He told us that it was our turn to fight the Devil on some stupid island--I'm pretty sure the "Devil" in this case is just going to be Josh in a Halloween costume trying to, like, pop our cherries or whatever. Like I said--HUGE pervert.
***
Dear Diary,
We had some trouble getting to Molestation Island because this camp is so broke-ass that the canoe we were given only had the one oar. We drifted around for a while until J.P. figured out how to get us there. But in the meantime: BIG revelation on the Jessie Jesus front. Our girl was playing possum the whole time, which we discovered when she pulled out a massive blunt to pass around. All that Jesus Girl shit was a smokescreen--literally.
***
Dear Diary,
Our cabin on the Island of Perverts is fucked. The lights kept going off, which I helped fix 'cause I learned how to steal power to put on illegal punk shows, and the radio is playing some kind of "evil" sounding message. Josh really likes to set the mood before he deflowers the campers, I guess. Jessie blessed the weapons we assembled to fight Josh off if he shows up as "the Devil."
We found some booze under a floorboard at least. It's probably Josh's stash of "Jesus Juice" to make us pass out, but joke's on you, Josh--we're getting lit without you, creep!
***
Dear Diary,
Uhhh, bad news, fam: Josh isn't the Devil.
It turns out that I am the Devil. I don't get it, but--fuckin' cool, right? All the other scenesters are gonna flip when they find out.
Anyway, I knew I had to get the rest of my cabinmates on side with my satanic mission. I coulda beat them into it 'cause I feel demonic power flowing through my veins now, but I fuckin' like those guys.
J.P. was a pretty easy sell--I just don't him that instead of "pray the gay away" we should "gay the pray away" and he was on board. Mikaela was a tougher sell, but I let her wrestle around with me on the floor for a while so she could, like, have a sexual awakening or whatever. Jessie ran for it, unfortch--weed does make people paranoid, tho.
Long story short, we got back to camp and raised hell--either converting the other campers and counselors to our dark cause or making examples of 'em. Hell yeah!
Satan 1, Jesus 0.
Suck it, Cabin Six!
Treacle & Crouch’s Pie Shop
Treacle & Crouch’s Pie Shop is an eatery serving meat-stuffed pasties in Piskaro. It is frequented by the working class because the meals on offer are both cheap and filling.
• Some residents of the city suspect that Lovetta Treacle and Bartram Crouch, the shop’s joint proprietors, supplement the filling in their pies with rat meat, but the truth of the matter is much worse: both are serial killers who commit murder and use the flesh of their victims to make the pies they sell in their shop.
• Bartram and Lovetta are former sailors who sought the aid of a demonic force to help them escape the barren island they had been shipwrecked on once they ran out of the corpses of their fellow mariners to eat.
• The demon lord Baal promised to save their lives and usher them into prosperity—if they would make a pact with it and pledged themselves to furthering the practice of cannibalism through nefarious means.
The Wormwood Star
Operating out of a defiled and defaced chapel of the Holy Blood Church, the Wormwood Star is a salon catering to Piskaro’s decadent dandies.
• The Wormwood Star openly sells a number of exotic stimulants—both those imported from foreign shores and those alchemically concocted by the Skarabasca.
• The intoxicant that has brought a measure of infamy to the Wormwood Star is a special absinthe made on site.
• Some patrons of the Wormwood Star experience an uncanny visitation while in the grips of the absinthe served on the premises: they hallucinate a vision of the Green Fairy.
• The Green Fairy is a capricious fey being who is as apt to offer startling delirium and artistic inspiration as she is to send the imbiber on an ill-fated quest.
Characters
Vagal, Heretical Priest, wants to kill Silas the vagabond
Agn, Fanged Deserter, wants to kill Silas the vagabond
Merkari, Wretched Royalty, accompanied by the jester Poltroon, wants to rescue missing villagers
Karg, looking for a new home maybe there's one in the graveyard
Graft, looking for a new home maybe there's one in the graveyard
Events
The characters found themselves at the top of a hill, looking down at a vast, jumbled graveyard of crowded tombstones. Next to them on the hill was a large tree with corpses hanging from its bare limbs. From their spot on the hill, they could see a stone landing below. Vagal climbed the steps going up the trunk of the tree and peered into the stinking hole at its top. He dropped a caltrop inside, but did not hear it land. He did, however, find a rope strung up inside the tree that, when pulled, caused the limbs of the tree to bend and make it look like the corpses hung from them were dancing like marionettes.
The group decided to pick their way across the field of gravestones to the landing. The landing was covered in debris and at one corner was a throne made of garbage. Sitting upon the throne was a dirty, bearded bastard holding a whip. Kitten-sized roaches scurried at his feet. He introduced himself as the Roach King and explained that he wasn't allowed in the village anymore. He didn't know where Silas was, but he did offer to take them all to the undertaker's house.
On the way to the undertaker's house, they heard the disturbing sound of something human breathing in their left ears. Suddenly, four rotting ravens descended from the night sky and attacked! The ravens were intent on pecking their way through the characters' flesh so they could "nest" inside of them. A few injuries were taken, but the ravens were dispatched with haste. Unfortunately, the Roach King was killed by the birds. They looted his body, but nobody wanted to eat the jerky they found on his person.
They party decided to turn back at this point, but without a light source or the Roach King to guide them they were soon lost in the tangled cemetery. A soupy fog rose from the tombs and the group nearly stumbled into a plague pit filled with noxious corpses.
Eventually they found a large stone mausoleum. Inside, they discovered a plain stone sarcophagus standing upright against the back wall. Merkari ordered Poltroon to open the lid, which promptly fell on him--killing him under its heavy weight. RIP Poltroon the jester.
Inside the sarcophagus was a undecayed corpse whose flesh had the consistency of dough. In fact, when touched, it could be remolded. They also found that the skeleton inside the dough-flesh was made of iron. Removing the corpse revealed a tight passageway down into some kind of subterranean complex. The hole was too narrow for them to fit in while wearing their armor, but they weren't fooled by this puzzle: they simply dropped their armor down into the hole and followed after it.
The chamber bellow had a fungal stink...and was the home of a trapped ratbadger that needed killing. Once that was accomplished, they cleared debris from the floor and saw that it was covering a mosaic depicting corpulent priests feasting. In fact, all the stone doors they found in this dungeon were carved with similar scenes.
As they explored, they heard the sound of running water coming from somewhere. Karg ducked through a leather curtain in one corridor and triggered a stone block to fall on his head from above--he nearly had his skull caved in on the spot. The tinkling water sound proved to be coming from a fountain with a statue of a comely woman. The water in the fountain smelled weirdly sweet. Graft drank some of the water and felt invigorated by it; however, the fountain rapidly drained and the flow of water stopped.
In another chamber they saw a statue of the hated Silas standing in a pool of congealed sewage, fat, and greasy water. A single person knelt at the edge of the pool, "praying" to the statue. (They risked a look over their shoulder at the party and mouthed "help me." This was one of the villagers Merkari had hoped to rescue.) Behind the villager were three ceramic automatons wearing the same priestly miters they had seen in the art throughout this complex.
Vagal waded through the muck and stole the gem eyes from Silas's statue. Agn was unwilling to leave the villager to these strange constructs, the group battled them. The ceramic automatons were difficult to harm, but when their ceramic bodies were shattered it became apparent that they were filled with fatty tissue.
In a nearby room, they found Silas--but he had grown to enormous proportions. He was holding a silver fork in one hand and a silver knife in the other. He was now too fat to leave the room he was in. He tried to convince the group to bring him more villagers to eat, but they weren't buying it. When they realized that he couldn't come at them through the doorway, they began lobbing poison and bombs at him. Once reduced to a chunky slurry, they decided to hide out until morning and then head back to the village--approximately five silver pieces the richer.