That sultry summer sweat was in full effect over at the Tales of the Grotesque and Dungeonesque Discord server because I put on a little "Summer of Southern Gothic" film series for my pals and fellow travelers. Every Wednesday, we convened and watched a movie that fit under the broad theme of "the Southern Gothic." Recording what we watched for posterity:
Here's what the characters picked up:
Ulu took the Artificer edge
Morwenna increased her Spellcasting and Persuasion skills to a d6 each
Varro took the Block edge
Anastasia took the Power Points edge
Dario took the Counterattack edge
Imperious increased his Strength to a d10
Johanna increased her Fighting and Athletics skills to a d8 each
As for the Kaul House upgrade: they decided that it was time to recruit some troops of their own to counter Brother Jacob's soldiers. More on that at the end of this post.
In the Kaul House, Varro gathered the Hounds (except for Ulu) and told them that on the next day Raenessa was throwing a "Vaunkaeli" for the urska--a traditional cave elf celebration of a beloved matriarch. The expectation would be that the Hounds would show up for a lunch cooked by Raenessa, dress up a bit, say nice things about Ulu, and generally be on their best behavior. Which--for them--was a tall order.
As far as things that went on about town, Johanna paid a visit to Arabella at the bank. During their private conversation, Johanna learned that Arabella wasn't happy with Brother Jacob and the Thorn's takeover of Braelin. Arabella couldn't add any forces to the burgeoning resistance movement, but--she did offer clandestine funding.
Leaving the bank, Johanna ran into Wyatt. He reminded her of the invitation to dinner at the Kaul House she had extended, and they set a date for the meal. Wyatt also asked if he could bring a woman who would be visiting him at the fort. Johanna is a little apprehensive about who this woman might be, but we'll find out more in a session to come.
Anastasia and Morwenna paid a visit to Kole, the cauldronborn blacksmith. He was generally unbothered by Brother Jacob's men--they weren't asking for him to make them weapons and he had no interest in their religion. Nevertheless, Kole did not like that Embrelle's tavern had been burnt down. Anastasia extended an offer to Kole: if he ever needed to seek sanctuary, he could do so within the walls of Kaul House.
Ulu paid a visit to Doctor Ilsa about the possibility of using her laboratory for her artificing until she had a crafting place of her own. Doctor Ilsa took her to a ramshackle barn behind the Honeypot. The interior was pristine--it had surgical facilities, a forge, and an alchemical lab. Ilsa gave Ulu a key to the building and hoped she could be of assistance in Ulu's projects. Ulu also asked Ilsa to use her criminal contacts to track down Raenessa's son Anduin in Veil.
Dario, Varro, and then (later) the rest of the group descended upon Crispin Telimov's tailor shop for new clothes for the Vaunkaeli. Crispin was cutting in his remarks on the clothing made by Varro and Dario, but ultimately he settled on making Varro a severe, crisp, and militaristic dress shirt in dark gray, Dario a shirt with long, button-lined cuffs that would be worn buttoned up at the throat (in ALPINE WHITE), an ivory dress with split sleeves and a neck ruff for Anastasia, a wine-colored dress with a fur neck for Johanna, an ornate falcon hood piece for Morwenna. It was a lot of work to take on, but somehow he got it done before the Vaunkaeli and had it all sent to the Kaul House.
On the day of the Vaunkaeli, Raenessa went to Ulu's room and asked her for help--but what Raenessa really did was lead Ulu to where a meal had been set and the decked-out Hounds were waiting. They ate, drank, and celebrated their friend and unofficial mother. Ulu proclaimed it "the best day ever."
In the meantime, knowing that the Hounds needed more troops to address the current situation, Embrelle wrote to Serafina and Nightsong to tell them that that her tavern had been burned to the ground. In the old days, Serafina and Nightsong would have ridden to Braelin, bringing Hell with them, to deal with Brother Jacob personally, but as mothers that wasn't an option. However, that doesn't mean they were powerless to offer aid. Serafina contacted her compatriots in Boneyard, Inc., the group of soldiers and assassins formerly under her command, and sent them to Braelin.
On the day of their arrival, D'Orleac informed the Hounds that "a number of black-clad miscreants" were on their front lawn. When Anastasia opened the door, she saw that the miscreants had brought arms, their battle standard, and materials to build themselves a barracks. Their commander, a tall, gaunt man, introduced himself, "I'm Scav, and this is Boneyard, Inc. Death is our business."
The current campaign has no less than three different elf characters in it, so the time has come to roll up my sleeves and give elves some thought.
There are many ways to taxonomize the various flavors of elf: habitat, social caste, skin color/morality (uh oh), but for Krevborna I wanted to lean into the fantastical a little–so instead of elves choosing habitat that suits them, I wanted to play with the idea that the land itself changes the elves who live there, and that a “type” of elven existence may not be a permanent or fixed state.
I also wanted to do away with the notion of there being a single “bad” type of elf by both distributing “drow-ish” traits among several kinds of Krevborna elf (also known as the aelvani) and by letting the potential for any elf be gray-to-evil be obvious.
The Aelvani
All creatures are influenced by their environments, but none more so than the elves. The aelvani retain the infinitely changeable nature of their fey ancestors, but it manifests as a peculiar propensity for taking on the native character of the places where they live. As such, the elves found in Krevborna can be grouped into basic types depending on where they’ve chosen to reside.
An elf who moves from one environment to live in another may find themselves altering into a different kind of elf with time—but this is certainly not a given. The amount of time it takes for an aelvani’s demeanor, ways of thinking, and their physical body to alter themselves to match their new home is extremely individual. For some, it may happen quickly. For others who hold on to a fixed sense of identity, it may not happen at all.
The following types of aelvani are the most common in Krevborna, but other categories of elf certainly exist in the wider Mortal World. (All stats for Savage Worlds, since that's the system we're using in our campaign.)
Bog Elves
Bog elves live in desolate swamps and alongside isolated cranberry bogs. Even among other aelvani, they have a dark reputation for duplicity and viciousness. Their druids also pursue horrid necromantic magics that allow them to bind lost spirits to wicker men to make ambulatory servants.
Bog elves have sickly green skin, with hair that ranges from wine red to the light color of candy floss.
• Bloodthirsty (-2): Bog elves never take prisoners unless under the direct supervision of a superior. Their viciousness causes enemies to respond in kind, often costs vital information, and creates constant enemies.
• Bog Dweller (1): Bog elves can hold their breath for 15 minutes before checking for drowning.
• Deceptive (2): Bog elves may make foe resist with Smarts or Spirit when making a Smarts or Spirit-based Test.
• Haughty (-1): The thin-skinned bog elves subtract 2 when resisting Taunt attacks
• Immune Poison and Disease (2): Bog elves are immune to poison and disease.
• Outsider (-1): Bog elves subtract 2 from Persuasion rolls made to influence those who aren’t of their own kind.
• Ruthless (-1): Bog elves will do anything to accomplish their goals, stopping short of true harm to anyone except those who directly oppose them.
• Survivalists (2): Bog elves start with a d6 in the Stealth skill and d4 in the Survival skill. Their maximums of those skills increases to d12+1.
Cave Elves
The cave elves are descended from aelvani who fled the wars between the elves and mankind for the safety of their subterranean domains. Because of their retreat from the world, other aelvani sometimes disparagingly refer to them as “coward elves.”
Cave elves are generally gray skinned, with mossy green hair and bright eyes adapted to the darkness of the world’s deep places.
• Erudite (2): Descended from aelvani scholars, cave elves start with a d6 in Smarts instead of a d4. This increases maximum Smarts to d12+1.
• Low Light Vision (1): Cave elves ignore penalties for Dim and Dark Illumination.
• Outsider (-1): Cave elves subtract 2 from Persuasion rolls made to influence those who aren’t pomenysh.
• Recreant Glamour (2): The magical glamour of the cave elves add +2 to Stealth rolls in any environment (+4 if completely motionless).
• Timid (-2): Cave elves subtract 2 from Fear checks and when resisting Intimidation.
Forest Elves
The most numerous of the aelvani, forest elves live deep within Krevborna’s oldest woods. They are isolationist by nature, and fervently defend their secret enclaves.
Forest elves are usually tall, have a bar-like texture to their skin, and sport wild hair the color of autumnal leaves.
• Agile (2): Forest elves start with a d6 in Agility instead of a d4. This increases maximum Agility to d12+1.
• All Thumbs (-1): Forest elves have an inherent dislike of mechanical objects in traditional fantasy settings, giving them a −2 penalty when using mechanical devices. If they roll a Critical Failure while using such a device, it’s broken.
• Outsider (-1): Forest elves subtract 2 from Persuasion rolls made to influence those who aren’t pomenysh.
• Ruthless (-1): Forest elves will do anything to accomplish their goals, stopping short of true harm to anyone except those who directly oppose them.
• Woodskilled (3): Forest elves start with a d6 in Notice and Stealth, and a d4 in Shooting. The maximum for those skills increases to d12+1.
Snow Elves
During the aelvani diaspora, the people who would become the snow elves ventured into the frozen north to find the strength necessary to protect themselves from the scourge of mankind. They found the might they sought, but in the process became as cold and cruel as the environment they now call home.
Snow elves invariably have white skin and pale hair. Their eyes, however, range widely—from the color of rime to a vivid violet.
• Arrogant (-2): Winning isn’t enough for a snow elf. They want to dominate their opponents and prove there’s no one better. Arrogant individuals look for the greatest threat in battle, hacking their way through lesser minions only because they’re in the way.
• Born to the Cold (1): Snow elves receive a +4 bonus to resist cold. Damage from cold is also reduced by 4.
• Environmental Weakness (-1): Snow elves suffer a –4 penalty to resist heat. The penalty also acts as a bonus to damage.
• Outsider (-1): Snow elves are distrusted by most residents of Krevborna. They subtract 2 from Persuasion rolls made to influence those who aren’t pomenysh.
• Low Light Vision (1): Snow elf eyes amplify light. They ignore penalties for Dim and Dark Illumination.
• Tough (2): Snow elves are toughened by the harsh clime in which they live. They start with a d6 in Vigor instead of a d4. This increases maximum Vigor to d12+1.
• Warlike (2): Snow elves start with a d6 in either the Fighting or Shooting skills due to their culture's emphasis on martial training.
Spire Elves
The spire elves are the aelvani who have been changed by the time in the pomenysh city of Aeldentree. In the eyes of their “wilder” kin, they have become decadent and estranged from the world, though they still maintain a powerful connection to the magic of the fey—most notably through their powers of personal glamour.
Spire elves tend to be frail and beautiful. Many of their number are tall, possessing blonde or red hair, high cheekbones, and a certain undeniable allure.
• Aelvani Melancholy (-2): Due to their pronounced sadness over the fate of their people, spire elves have a -1 penalty to Spirit rolls.
• Attractive (2): Spire elves add +1 to Performance and Persuasion rolls if the target is attracted to their general type (gender, sex, species, etc.).
• Fey Glamour (4): The innate magic of the spire elves gives them a +2 bonus to Persuasion and Intimidation rolls.
• Frail (-1): Spire elves have a -1 penalty to their Toughness.
• Thin Blooded (-1): Spire elves are particularly susceptible to fatigue. They subtract 2 from Vigor rolls made to resist Fatigue
Town Elves
Town elves are those who have chosen to live side by side with mankind, residing in human-dominated villages, towns, and cities. More militant aelvani regard town elves as traitors to their people.
Though they often retain a few markers of their elven heritage, such as pointed ears and willowy forms, the act in much the same way as their neighbors and often find that their lives shorten to a more human-like span.
• Adaptable (2): Town elves begin play with any Novice Edge of their choosing. They must meet its Requirements as usual.
Sidebar: The Diminishing
Alevani can have incredibly long lifespans, but when an aelvani falls in love with someone not of their ancestry they may experience a phenomenon known as “the Diminishing.” An elf subject to the Diminishing finds that their lifespan shortens to match the natural time allotted to the ancestry of their beloved.
Additionally, elves who live in proximity to a loved one not of their ancestry sometimes take on physical traits associated with their partner’s ancestry. For example, an aelvani who lives with her cambion lover may eventually have horns or a tail of her own!
The Diminishing is the subject of many romantic ballads, but as with all things related to matters of the heart the reality is almost always far more tragic than it appears in art.
Characters
Dario Diego Durant, swashbuckling swordsman
Ulu, the party's urska mom
Varro, a young snow elf bearing a magical sword
Johanna, lycan bard and fallen noble
Imperious, a cambion adolescent with a big sword
Doctor Anastasia Nadya Strahov, a gun-priest
Morwenna, harpy devotee of St. Vionka
Events
A good chunk of the early portion of this adventure was about the characters coming up with various plans for the heist and discarding them as unworkable for one reason or another. For example, they floated the idea of hiding some of the party within a shipment of goods from the Nokovik's general store to get behind the compound's walls.
They also had an encounter with the Thorn, the bog elf who had assumed governing Braelin. Under a bit of forced charm, she was attempting to gauge where things stood with the Hounds. She even offered them a potential job--there was something killing miners in the silver mines north of the town, so she might be interested in hiring them to clear that out.
One thing the Hounds did agree on was that they wanted a decoy head to replace the genuine article with. They asked Doctor Ilsa if she could procure such a thing for them, and she provided. In a scene unwitnessed by the party, Doctor Ilsa waited until one of Brother Jacob's men was pissing on the fence outside her brothel; she snuck up behind him and broke his neck with her powerful hands. Doctor Ilsa then carried the man to her laboratory, sawed off his head, and placed it in a glass jar filled with fluid that was identical to the one Jacob's forces had stolen from her.
Ultimately, they decided to rely on the stealth and wings of their newest friend, the cambion Imp, and the potions of intangibility and invisibility cooked up by Raenessa, their alchemist in residence. Their plan had an elegance to it: Imp would fly into the compound under the cover of night, land on the roof of the building where the severed head was being held, drink the potion of intangibility to get into the building, swap the decoy head for the real one, drink the potion of invisibility (so the head would be invisible too), make a commotion inside to get the guards to open the door, slip past them and fly away into the night.
Morwenna was flying above the compound to keep an eye on things. The rest of the team was hidden in the nearby woods as backup.
The plan went off without a hitch--except Imp was unaware that something had spotted him flying into the compound. That something was one of the angel statues atop Brother Jacob's worship hall--and it took off into the air in pursuit of him and Morwenna as they flew toward where the rest of the party waited.
The stone angel crashed down through the trees into the party's midst, and combat began. Imp managed to sunder the statue's neck, but a strangely illuminated mist flowed out from the "wound." The statue collapsed, but now the Hounds had to face the alien presence that had been hiding within the angel. The eldritch creature was immune to everything but their handful of magical weapons, and its mere presence was causing them to take wounds as it leeched the life from them. However, over the course of the fight they discovered that exposing the alien mist to light would cause it to momentarily solidify--at which point it was vulnerable to them. They were able to leverage their light sources and scant few enchanted weapons to ultimately slay the creature.
The returned the head to Doctor Ilsa and returned to the Kaul House to ponder their next move against Brother Jacob and the Thorn.
Characters
Dario Diego Durant, swashbuckling swordsman
Ulu, the party's urska mom
Varro, a young snow elf bearing a magical sword
Johanna, lycan bard and fallen noble
Imperious, a cambion adolescent with a big sword
Doctor Anastasia Nadya Strahov, a gun-priest
Morwenna, harpy devotee of St. Vionka
Events
A gray storm turned the streets of Braelin to mud, but that didn't stop Anastasia and Morwenna from visiting the shrine to Saint Vionka--or what was left of it. The shrine had been thoroughly burnt, and the skulls that Sister Eliza kept had almost all been smashed to pieces. Morwenna positioned the remaining skulls so that she might see through them with her magic and keep an eye on the area in the future--which might prove useful since the remains of the shrine were so near the cemetery and the church.
Speaking of the churchyard, they also checked to make sure Kaul's grave was intact, which it was. They ventured over to the church, which was being renovated by a smattering of Brother Jacob's men and a few workers from the town. There, they met Eitori, an eastern swordsman who was supervising the reconstruction.
At the schoolhouse, they met Imperious--Embrelle's newly arrived little brother. Together, they investigated the schoolhouse. They found no evidence of Aivra inside, but it was obvious that the school was still in use--though it appeared that religious indoctrination was now part of the curriculum.
Back at the Kaul House, Johanna asked their butler D'Orleac about his strange situation. He took her down into the basement, to a lonely spot where his bones lay entombed beyond a brick wall. He explained that when the house was constructed, he was led to this spot and slain by Pandora Rue. She then used her sorcery to bind D'Orleac's spirit to the house so that it would always have a guardian. This, he claimed, was all part of whatever master plan the twins had in the works for the generations to come. Johanna offered to release D'Orleac from his eternal servitude, but he did not actually seem bothered by his status as a bound specter.
Most of the group reconvened at the Blue Room after checking with Embrelle that Imperious is actually her brother; they then watched as the tea house's owner fawned over the boy and plied him with more breakfast than he could eat. However, while at the Blue Room the group got their first look at the Thorn, one of Brother Jacob's allies. The Thorn was a bog elf woman with greenish skin and pink hair; she was with Eitori, who seemed to be her bodyguard.
Anastasia took her dress uniform to Crispin Telimov, the tailor, as a pretext to see how he was feeling about Braelin's occupiers. Telimov played his cards pretty close to his chest, but he may be ally for the Hounds if they delve a little deeper into Telimov's past or what he wants. They did, after all, suspect him to be a crack shot.
On the way to the general store, Ulu and Varro made conversation with Irenya, their maid. Importantly, they learned that she had taken shelter in the Kaul House while on the run from a bad situation; it was then that D'Orleac made her an offer of "employment." In return for a safe place to say, Irenya acted as the house's maid...and provided D'Orleac with a little of her life essence. It was by drinking her vital essence that D'Orleac was able to shape himself a physical body from the ectoplasm of his spiritual material.
At the shop, they saw that Yungfang had a black eye. It seems that Brother Jacob's soldiers were demanding discounts and not above getting physical in their bartering. While Varro helped Irenya shop for fabric (Raenessa was sewing the girl some new dresses), Ulu and the Nokoviks reaffirmed their commitment to aid one another. As Mei-Lin said, "You can only run so many times before you pick a patch to stand and fight over."
They also saw that Braelin's jail was in the process of being expanded by Jacob's soldiers.
Dario and Johanna paid a visit to the Honey Pot, which was a hive of activity now that it was the sole drinking establishment in Braelin. Doctor Ilsa was not exactly happy with this development; she had her reasons for being fond of Embrelle. They invited the doctor to visit Kaul House a little later--once there, they were able to reveal that Embrelle had survived the fire and the two old war comrades were reunited. Doctor Ilsa expressed a desire to help the resistance to Brother Jacob's reign, but she explained that the cult had stolen something from her and she couldn't really move against them until it was safely back in her possession. When pressed on what the item in question was, she admitted it was a preserved severed head that was crucial to her experiments. She clearly wanted to divulge as little about it as possible, The group began to hatch a plan to get it back.
Doctor Ilsa also recognized the name "Ugly Zillah." Zillah was not outwardly ugly, she said, but rather had an ugly, corrupted soul. The woman was also a sort of doctor--but she was infamous for concocting artificial diseases and plagues.
That very night, Morwenna and Imp flew into the cult's compound under the cover of night and the still-pouring rain. They figured out where the head was being held and learned that it was constantly under guard. That will give the group something to work with next time.
Things that brought me delight in August:
At the beginning of August I made a big Indian feast of saag paneer, bhindi masala, methi roti, rice, and samosas...and Tahkhana was the perfect movie to accompany it. Tahkhana (aka The Dungeon) is a Bollywood horror flick, complete with the requisite song and dance numbers. It is also an incredibly wild movie; I was not expecting the scene where bandits randomly show up on horseback and get their asses beat by the heroes. Yeah, there is a supernatural menace at work in this movie, but far more sinister is the rapist cousin lurking about!
I've written before about how I regard Laura Purcell as one of the modern masters of Gothic novels set in the Victorian era, and The Shape of Darkness just adds further evidence in support of my claim. Purcell is incredibly adept at loading a novel with tons of nineteenth-century Gothic oddity; this one's got silhouette cutting, seances, and phossy jaw. (Do not image search phossy jaw if you don't know what it it, it might ruin your day.) The ending of The Shape of Darkness could have gone in many directions; the course it did take was a pleasant, and disturbing, surprise.
The number of times I almost took The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave home from the video store back in the day is astronomical, but somehow I put off watching it until now. In a way, I'm glad I had this little grimy cinematic treasure waiting for me the whole time. The film begins like a grindhouse giallo: Alan, a rich aristocrat, lures a series of red-haired sex workers to his chateau so he can murder them to purge his lingering feelings of animosity toward the red-tressed (though now dead) wife who cuckholded him. The film then veers into Gothic territory when it appears that the deceased Evelyn's ghost is haunting him. Lurid stuff, to be sure, but beautifully lensed and not afraid to be sadistic.
Children of the Inquisition is an old supplement for Vampire: The Masquerade. It is essentially a book of NPCs, with no stats--just their histories, motivations, etc.--which may have left it as a strange book with limited utility in that game's line, but I'm sure enterprising "Storytellers" were able to do something with the prose. (It's also an oddly oversized book; it was clearly not meant for the table.) The real draw is gorgeous, moody black and white art throughout. I actually has a copy of this supplement when I was a teenager--even though I think we only ever played Vampire twice--so it was nice to take a walk down memory lane with it again.
It's not exactly a secret that Xandria's vast catalog of albums varies greatly in quality, an effect fueled by the fact that the project tends to operate on a revolving door of singers. That said, the Gothic symphonic metal formula hits right on their new one, Eclipse. The songs are compelling, the singer on point, and the addition of metalcore-esque breakdowns to add a bit more heaviness to the proceedings makes this a great album to throw on when you're driving around--you get the soaring beauty and the brutal chugs of a downtuned guitar, what more could you ask for?
Western + Fantasy - Guns = ??? Honestly, it's a tough brief to fulfill, but Joe Abercrombie makes it look easy in Red Country--a novel now tied with Best Served Cold for my favorite book in the First Law series. Red Country is about a young woman who comes back to her farmstead to find tthe place burned to the ground and her brother and sister abducted--so she sets off with a hired hand (who is not what he seems) to get them back. It's got the grit, the violence, but it's also got heart to it. Imagine two hulking Northmen staring each other down across a dusty streets, their hands on the pommels of their swords, Ennio Morricone playing in the background--that's the vibe in Red Country.
There was something about the poster for Dolly that compelled me to give it a try. In Dolly, a couple get attacked in the woods by a killer wearing a baby doll mask; the woman is imprisoned in a creepy house and made to play the role of a baby. This is definitely a low budget slasher movie, but I thought it was actually quite fun; it's got a certain charm and there's a nice chunk of some gross stuff here. I can appreciate a movie like that keeps things "classic," never really getting too meta or attempts to deconstruct the genre. This film felt like it was born to be played at a late-night drive-in.
Once in a while, I like to dip back into literary fiction for a change of pace. And with Julia Leigh's The Hunter, I'm glad I did. The Hunter is a terse novel about a man sent into the wilderness to capture the DNA of the last living Tasmanian tiger. This is not an action-packed novel by any stretch; rather, it is a masterpiece of interiority. The push and pull within the main character--his professionalism versus his savagery, his cold rationality versus some part of him reaching toward the divine--that's the real ebb and flow of the book. This is such an interior-focused book that I can't imagine how they made a movie adaptation from it. I guess I'll have to seek that out and discover it for myself, eh?
In Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, a young film maker tracks down the star of a slasher franchise in hopes of talking her into taking a role in the reboot she's helming. As with I Saw the TV Glow, I wouldn't call it a horror movie; it's more like Jane Schoenbrun is great at using the language of horror movies to make other kinds of films. Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma is...maybe more like...a queer rom com dressed up as horror. I really enjoyed this one--it's laugh-out-loud funny, with tons of deep-cut references, and Gillian Anderson absolute tears the screen up with her quietly charismatic performance.
Ethel Cain's Preacher's Daughter is an album to get lost in. There are a lot of sonic elements at work here, but you have to dig through the waves of despair and loneliness to get to them. There are touches of Gothic country, blues, piano balladry, and even some heavier quasi-doom moments. But predominant above it all is a wash of ethereal sadness that turns the entire song cycle into one lengthy walk through decaying fields in insolation.
I picked up this new blu ray set from Kino mostly because of what I knew about Malombra, but now having watched both of the films on the disc in sequence--I am perplexed. They're both erotic (and definitely not softcore) European period dramas, with the same director, and the same principle actors playing characters with identical names in both films. The events of the two films mostly line up in a way that would suggest that one is a sequel to the other, but the details are just off enough that they don't 100% line up--but it's so close. And yet, I can't find anyone talking about their congruence online?? Wild stuff. Of the two, I did prefer Malombra, which flies its psychosexual Gothic flag proudly.
Phyllis A. Whitney, The Red Carnelian
When a man who designs window displays for a department store returns from his honeymoon and is promptly murdered at work, everyone in the store is a suspect! Was it the woman he jilted? The coworker who was passed up for a promotion? The disapproving father-in-law? The unhappy new wife? A mysterious figure from the past? The Red Carnelian is a fairly ridiculous novel, but it's also incredibly fun. One noteworthy element: nobody in the book trusts the cops, so they're basically all withholding crucial information from the investigation. Kinda can't blame them, really.
I'm sure I'm not the only one who has this experience: a band you like slips an album past you, but when you discover it later you realize you've really been missing out because it is excellent. Such was the case with me and Federale's All the Colours of the Dark. All the Colours of the Dark has a perfect conceptual premise: it's the soundtrack to a giallo spaghetti western that doesn't actually exist. (You have to ignore the fact that there is an Italian horror film that does use that name, okay?) This is a pitch-perfect album: all the reverb and tremolo you could ever want is here!
Dixie Ghosts is an anthology of Southern ghost stories; the authors collected here run the gamut from big names like Madeleine L'Engle and Manly Wade Wellman to lesser-known authors or forgotten tale spinners. Overall, this is a well-curated book. Mostly, it sticks to folksy ghost stories, but then--you get hit with George Guthridge's "See the Station Master," a surprisingly grimy story about a pedophile child murderer that comes screaming at you out of nowhere. You have to admire the placement. Also noteworthy was Jack Cady's "Ride the Thunder," a strange tale of a cruel trucker with a load of tortured poultry and the price he paid on the highway, and Richard Hardwick's "Wish You Were Here," which had all the charm of those old stories published in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine.
For anyone local to the Owego, NY area--or perhaps traveling through the Southern Tier--you can now pick up a print copy of Ornamental Women at Riverow Books, the area's best independent bookstore! Find the shop at 187 Front Street, Owego, New York. They have a ton of great stuff in there.
The copies of Ornamental Women they have even come with a custom bookmark tucked inside. Get 'em while they got 'em.
Characters
Dario Diego Durant, swashbuckling swordsman
Ulu, the party's urska mom
Varro, a young snow elf bearing a magical sword
Johanna, lycan bard and fallen noble
Father Severin, a defrocked priest with a gobkin sidekick
Doctor Anastasia Nadya Strahov, a gun-priest
Morwenna, harpy devotee of St. Vionka
Events
As the group carried on exploring the Grail Tomb beneath the Chapel of St. Aiban, they found a tableaux of vlaak statues arranged in a scene depicting fealty. Dario noticed something gray move behind the statuary, and Johanna smelt an unwashed person in the chamber with them. Once corned, the person appeared to be an old man in threadbare clothes; strangely, he had a great deal of wax that had melted down over the top half of his head, covering his eyes entirely--the wax was the remains of candles, no less.
The man explained that he was the descendant of a group of heretics who had been imprisoned by the Church generations ago; he was not a lone survivor, either--his people had been living in the Grail Tomb and thriving in their penance. When asked about anyone else who might be down below, he told the group that Ratibor and his mercenaries had released creatures held in stasis that now had them penned in at the eastern extremity of the floor. They thanked the strange old man for his help and went on their way.
In this case, going on their way meant finding the shattered material that had once held the two now-marauding creatures. Father Severin used his holy magic to get a sense of what they might have to face; his vision showed him that the creatures were chimeras.
Indeed, in a further chamber they found the two chimeras scratching at the door that Ratibor and his group were hiding behind. Morwenna took to the air to throw her blade at one of them, but the winged creature was soon in the air after her. The grounded one spewed fire at the rest of the group, but they quickly closed on it and slew it without too much trouble. Johanna scrambled up a statue to leap at the airborne chimera. Dario followed suit. With both of them atop the creature, it couldn't maintain flight; as it got closer to the ground it was cut down.
The doors were thrown open, revealing Ratibor and his hired swords. When Ratibor's pistoleers and crossbowmen opened fire on the group, Varro charged in to thin their numbers--which necessitated the rest of the group piling in as well. The following melee was fairly brutal. Both Johanna and Ulu nearly met their ends at the blades of their foes, but healing magic from Anastasia and Father Severin saved their hides. Johanna went berserk and tore a Narskeman apart. The battle continued until only Ratibor and two heavily armored swordsmen remained. The soldiers determined that the likelihood of receiving the rest of their reward was now quite low, so they surrendered and the group let them leave.
Ratibor was not so lucky. On his person they found the missing gauntlets; he explained that they were necessary if someone wanted to handle the destructive orbs they had seen depicted earlier in the Grail Tomb's etchings. On his person they also found a letter from Brother Jacob that read as follows:
Ratibor,
My Dearest Brother in Arms! Greetings and salutations–may the glory of the Light fall upon thee and may the Word resound in thine ear. I hope all goes according to plan in Chancel, home of false promises and a Church that is little more than a gilded slattern, but I have no doubt it does as we are guided by a providence divine.
Once you’ve found the information sought by Sorrow’s Six, fly to us with all haste, brother, come on as quickly as though Hell followed your trail–for I believe it does. By the time you reach us, the Thorn will have fallen on Braelin and I will follow in her wake. The others come on, too leisurely for my tastes. Onquin will rove from the forest, Ugly Zillah will descend from the north, and that poppinjay Lucio Rinketti will traipse in when he feels like it. And the one they're calling the Blizzard–well, I have not had the pleasure of meeting him yet, but I hear he is a horror.
Among such unhallowed company, your pious presence will be a relief. I am sure between the two of us we shall convert them all, even our master, to the path of righteousness. Come soon! Your welcome will be warm, your promised redemption nigh!
Yours in God,
Brother Jacob
The group's hearts collectively sank as they realized that something bad had happened to their adopted home of Braelin in their absence. They recovered the missing pages of the books from Ratibor, questioned him thoroughly, then left him to the Church's tender mercies so they could rush back to Braelin.
On the sign that hung above Braelin's wooden archway, they saw two bodies hanging: Ulysses the sheriff and Sister Eliza from the shrine to St. Vionka. They decided to skirt around the town for now and head for Wyatt at his outpost in Fort Onataiga. On the way, they saw that the Wolf and Rose, Embrelle's tavern, had been burned to the ground.
Speaking with Wyatt, they learned that Brother Jacob and the Thorn's forces had descended on the town and basically took it over. There had been a number of executions. Wyatt had sent word of what happened to his fellow Knights Labyrinthian and was awaiting instruction on how to proceed. He also told them that Aivra (who they know to be the witch Ivara Graymalk) was missing, and that Ragdoll Ilsa was now doing a cracking business now that the Honey Pot was the only drinking establishment in town. He gave a letter to Ulu indicating that the Rue sisters had to travel on their business.
The group was relieved to discover that nothing had happened at the Kaul House--Morwenna used her skull magic to observe things through D'Orleac's skull and they called to him for a brief conversation in some sort of bricked up alcove. When they reached the Kaul House, they found everything in order--but Raenessa appeared and told them she had done something that may have exceeded her authority in the house. They followed her into her basement lair and found--Embrelle ensconced in a bedchamber of her own. Apparently, Raenessa had found Embrelle camped in the woods after her escape from the burning tavern and convinced her to stay at the house until a better plan emerged. The group were relieved that their friend was unscathed.
That night, Irenya made her way to Morwenna's roost and gave her Sister Eliza's skull helmet--which Irenya had scavenged from the destroyed shrine to St. Vionka under the cover of night.
How will the Charnel Hounds push back against the usurpation of "their" town? We'll see what machinations they set in motion in the next session.
Check it out, my pal Goose made me some art based on my novel Ornamental Women:
Characters
Dario Diego Durant, swashbuckling swordsman
Ulu, the party's urska mom
Varro, a young snow elf bearing a magical sword
Johanna, lycan bard and fallen noble
Father Severin, a defrocked priest with a gobkin sidekick
Events
The characters arrived in Chancel, where they hoped to find and question Ratibor Bron--a man somehow connected to the machinations of Yavor Mikalek, who had betrayed their mercenary band. To that end, Cassie Mabcrowe let them use a flat she kept above an herbalist's shop. At the flat, they met Father Severin and his gobkin factotum Slink, who were to help them in their search.
One place that seemed a likely place to start was the Vagabond's Shield, a tavern frequented by mercenaries and sellswords. As they arrived, the barkeep was tossing a musician out the door with his accordion. He explained that the only thing that could help him when he had one of his headaches was music, but the ejected bard couldn't even hold a tune. Luckily, Johanna stepped up and performed a song that got them on the barkeep's good side. The barkeep knew of Ratibor as "the librarian" and was able to offer up the location where he seemed to be employed. They also learned that Ratibor had been hanging about the Vagabond's Shield, trying to recruit mercenaries for an "expedition."
At the library of the Divine Mercy, they found a nervous-looking monk who admitted to letting Ratibor conduct his researches among the stacks, even though Ratibor had been ex-communicated from the Church. Ratibor claimed to have been writing a manuscript on "unholy abominations." The monk allowed them to look at the two books Ratibor had spent the most time with: a collection of horror stories called The Opener of the Gate & Other Tales and A Treatise on Profane Magics. Both proved to be missing pages; the anthology was missing a story called "The Krusikan Gambit" and the treatise was missing a chapter on the mountain cults of Krusikal.
Then, over at the Chanticleer, a molly house, they learned quite a bit about Ratibor's sexual proclivities. The madame of the house also offered to buy Dario from the party. They declined.
The Chapel of St. Aiban the Pious was a more productive visit. The blind priest in attendance within the small, forgotten church admitted that Ratibor and his hired swords had ventured into the extensive crypts below--and had yet to return to the surface. He offered to admit them as well, which they took him up on.
However, these were no normal crypts--below the Chapel of St. Aiban was a vlaak Grail Tomb made of a strange, glass-like, but altogether alien material. Dario wisely left an offering of coins at the feet of the vlaakish statue they discovered in an alcove, which ensured it did not stalk them throughout the complex.
They had much more trouble with the colored doors within the Grail Tomb, as they missed the artwork that would have clued them in to how vlaakish color theory works. They did, nevertheless, find four color-coded keys around the necks of vlaakish mummies--though the order to apply them initially eluded the group, causing more than a few magical wounds through their trial and error attempts to figure it out, until Father Severin used his prayers to get a glimpse of the ancient vlaak using the keys as intended.
Also confounding were the jagged holes in the complex that either had air forcefully rushing into them or being pushed out of them like a vacuum. They threw a few levers they found in a control room, but what that accomplished was not immediately clear.
In one chamber, they found an eerie mural depicting vlaak forging metal gauntlets, then a vlaak figure wearing the gauntlets and commanding two orbs to unleash cataclysmic energies on an army. Behind the figure lurked an ominous presence. Within the same chamber they found a wooden box; the interior of the box looked to have been made to fit two glove-like objects.
The next room they entered featured another of the structural holes with air streaming into it. The chamber also featured a number of vlaak automatons made of the same glass-like substance as the complex; the statues attacked and gave the party a run for their money. Ulu threw one out of the hole, but because of the air current it was thrown back into the room where it shattered against the far wall--and the explosion of shrapnel set up a bad situation that almost cost Dario his life. Ultimately, though, the Charnel Hounds vanquished their foes and carried on exploring the Grail Tomb.
We'll see what else they find next time.
Angelique Oleander
Backstory: Angelique Oleander is a Polnezna woman who grew up in a wandering clan caravan. Since birth, she has been “blessed” with a supernatural connection to the spectral world. She was apprehended and nearly executed after performing a fraudulent seance in Chancel; only Sir Aubrek’s intervention spared her from hanging. She has been part of Aubrek’s retinue ever since. Being on her own feels like a fatal liability.
Appearance: A young woman of middling height with unruly black hair and dark eyes. She dresses in the fashion of her people, as she is proud of her heritage.
Fanlin O’Dale
Backstory: Fanlin was orphaned at a young age when his family was set upon by anti-fey vigilantes. His vengeance does not take the form of direct violence against the world that robbed him of his parents; rather, he gets his recompense one theft at a time–and he won’t stop until the scales are balanced. He joined up with Sir Aubrek’s retinue because Aubrek promised him that his tasks would put him in the path of great riches.
Appearance: Fanlin is a forest elf–tall and thin, with skin the color of tree bark. Strangely, people have a hard time accurately recalling the details of his appearance. Are his eyes brown or blue? Is his fair long and flowing or clipped short and militaristic? Who can say?
“Father” Severin Koslavik
Backstory: All his life, Severin Koslavik was told he was destined to serve in the Church of Holy Blood. Indeed, all signs pointed in that direction–he was apprenticed to a Church inquisitor, at least until an unnamed indiscretion caused him to be formally stripped of all standing within the clergy. Strangely, his miraculous powers have not disappeared since his defrocking. His miraculous talents have found him employment in Sir Aubrek’s retinue.
Appearance: A young man who still takes pains to appear to be a pious servant of the Church, Severin still wears the cassock of a cleric. It just makes life easier–people don’t ask too many questions of a priest.
Lady Jeanette de Winter
Backstory: Lady Jeanette de Winter hails from a family of hereditary knights who long-ago pledged their service to the Salazars. When Sir Aubrek Salazar appeared at her ancestral manor, Lady Jeanette found that she was willing to fulfill the terms of her familial oath. Which is strange, since Sir Aubrek Salazar supposedly died generations ago. She knows her time in the Mortal World draws to a close–better to go out in glory, she figures.
Appearance: Steel-haired, steel-eyed, and steel-backed–Jeanette is an aging woman who is still physically powerful, even if she experiences new aches and pains every day.
Damir Milosovek
Backstory: Whether or not he is a natural-born nobleman is irrelevant; Damir Milosovek plays the part of a dashing, fashionable highwayman with aristocratic bearing. Sure, he steals from the rich and gives to the poor–but he simply must make sure that he holds back enough coin to keep his garb stylishly outrageous. Luckily, the terms of his alliance with Sir Aubrek are generous; shame about all the danger it entails, though.
Appearance: A handsome man with long blonde hair and a meticulously trimmed mustache. He takes pride in three things: the sharpness of his blade, his debonair presence, and his colorful feathered hat.
I realized I hadn't posted this yet. This is the map I made of Braelin, the starting town of the current Krevborna campaign.
Thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone who has already rated, reviewed, reposted, read, and promoted my work. It truly means a lot to me. Response has been positive, but I'd still love to reach more readers--and for that, I need your help.
The first few reviews of Ornamental Women are in, and it's been pretty great thus far. Eight five-star ratings on Amazon at the moment:
