#RPGaDAY2026: Day 30 Pride

 Today is Pride.

I am proud of Jackson, West Haven, Yog, and Advanced Witches & Warlocks. But for this prompt, Pride means something more specific.

With Jackson and Carbon Vale I draw heavily on Monsterhearts. Not so much the mechanics as the emotional core of it. Teenagers are a mess. So is desire. So is figuring out who you are. The horror and the magic lie in who you love and want, who makes you afraid, and who is watching you become something new.

Take Larina in Jackson: she is bisexual in this version and not particularly fazed by this. She has made out with Grant, Stephanie’s older brother, and with Candy. Faye is a lesbian, but there is more confusion and conflict about it; after all, it is 1985-6 in the Midwest. Candy and Denise are probably what we would call poly now, but that still does not quite explain them (and let's be honest, what DOES explain them??). But Denise does not like anyone touching her, and yet she and Candy are in love in ways that are both platonic and romantic. They do figure it out, after a couple of failed marriages, spectacularly bad divorces, and some ex-husbands they no longer talk to. They finally get married to each other when they are 50. But they belonged to each other long before that.

Vera Rook is what you could term "hetero-flexible," simply because Vera does as she wants and is happy to put someone on edge if the occasion calls for it. Roderick Morgan appears to have little interest in anyone. Andy and Rowan are soulmates, and the model Jackson Public High Couple. They are also an interracial couple, not a big deal today, but in 1985 small-town Midwest, this was still rare.  

You find a supporting cast all over the spectrum around them, just like you would in real life. And they all are not confined to the student body.

Teacher Thomas Avery knows the perils of a rumor in a small-town high school in the mid-80s. He is cautious, and he listens for what is left unsaid. Elaine Bellweather is no front-line warrior; she teaches her music and keeps an open eye, allowing the students some space to breathe.

It is important.

You do not have to be swinging a sword or working a spell to be heroic in a horror game. There is heroism in making sure a kid has a room where he is safe for five minutes.

Queer characters in horror should not be reduced to subtext, a joke, or some kind of cautionary tale. Yes. That is exactly what often happened in horror movies in the 1980s but I can do better. They can be witches, scholars, jerks, saints, monsters, parents, teachers and everything in between. In short, people. And in a game of witches, those on the fringes of society are exactly where they ought to be: in the middle of the action.

Jackson NPC

We are at Day 30, Sunday, Emotion and Blessed. 

Andrea Thompson is Andy and Rowan’s future daughter, blessed because Andy and Rowan never thought they would be able to have children after so many failed attempts. Why am I talking about her even though she isn't born until the 2000s? She makes an appearance in my games where she is also Jackson's Spirit Rider. In a town where everyone says they want Andy and Rowan to succeed but wishes they would fail behind their backs, Andrea was wonderful proof that they make it and do well. 

Jackson Soundtrack

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#RPGaDAY2026: Day 29 Labor

Magic is labor.

One can be forgiven for forgetting that magic is work. In many games, a spell goes off simply because the character sheet has a box for it. Yet for a witch it ought to be felt as labor, as work. The genuine article, with all the time and attention and repetition it entails, not to mention the sweat and the errors and the practice.

Consider what a witch does. She is copying spells, mixing oils, gathering herbs and learning names. There is cleaning of ritual tools and study of the moon. She prepares charms, sits with those who are ill, makes tea, and keeps her notes. If something does not go to plan, she starts over. She will listen to the dead or watch a candle burn itself out.

For Advanced Witches & Warlocks, this is significant.

A witch is more than a pointy hat and a list of spells. She is one who puts in the work. It may be mystical or emotional in nature, but there is also the physical side to it. Carrying books, hauling water, digging where others would not, or just staying up when one wants to sleep.

In Jackson, IL, such labor could mean a bit of research at the library, a dark walk home, or seeing to a friend. Or perhaps dragging someone from an abandoned building before whatever is in the basement has a chance to wake up. Or it could be bartering bits of your soul for knowledge so dangerous that there is no other way.

Again, it is Saturday, and Zatanna is still a good example. In the comics, she speaks backward, and the magic happens. But as an example, try reading this sentence backward...while you are getting someone to try to hit you. Not that easy now. She puts in the work to practice this. 

Magic is built on the labor.

People tend to notice the magic. But it is the labor that makes it possible.

Jackson and Carbon Vale NPC

Today is Day 29, Saturday, Emotion and Works Hard. And I have the perfect NPC.

Lars Nichols: Larina's father, trying to hold a family together while pretending he does not see all the impossible things. Trying to be both father and mother to a teenage girl is hard enough; trying to do that for a teenage witch? While still grieving your recently passed wife? One would be forgiven for thinking I hate Lars.

Jackson Soundtrack

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#RPGaDAY2026: Day 28 Devotion

Devotion is more than just belief. 

It is a distinction I make with my religious characters, the witches in particular. Take Stephanie and Faye; they are witches in every sense of practice. They put in the work, they learn their craft, they take their place in the circle as required. But Larina is not so simple. While she is a witch by trade and practice like Steph and Faye, you will find her more often in the role of a Wiccan priestess. For Larina, it is not simply an activity but the lens through which she views the world. She is as devout as any cleric or paladin I have played (and I have played a lot of clerics and paladins).

Étaín Moonshadow takes that even further. Her commitment to the Threefold Goddess is absolute. The Maiden, Mother and Crone represent mystery and unity in equal measure, and Étaín’s whole existence revolves around that. It is in her scholarship and her discipline, in her strength and even her blind spots. To Étaín there is no grater mystery, and no better way to live, than this.

Consider also Kyra Bellamy in Jackson. As a preacher’s kid, faith was something done to her, explained and enforced, at times like a cage. Yet what Kyra has is not her father’s faith. She believes with all of herself, only to also believe that God and Jesus have more to offer her than her father can put into words. In time, she demonstrates as much, putting down roots as a minister with a congregation and a calling of her own. Her faith is even stronger than that of her father's, which is saying something.

This is what I mean by devotion in a game. It is not a matter of alignment or some box to be ticked on a character sheet. A character gives herself to it, and it demands a price in return.

They are devoted to what they believe is true. It colors everything they see and everything they do. And it can produce surprises. Kyra is a Jackson girl, and she knows her cross can protect her from various monsters. What she doesn't understand is why Larina's triple moon pendant works the same way.

So sometimes the greatest act of magic in Jackson is saying "I believe."

Iriandor and West Haven NPC

Day 28, Friday, Emotion and Loving & Giving. 

Aurelian "Auri" Starling. A seraph-born child of an angel and a witch, moving between Iriandor and West Haven with a devotion so gentle it looks like kindness until someone threatens the people under their protection. 

Jackson Soundtrack

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#RPGaDAY2026: Day 27 Hunger

 Hunger is not always about food.

In the realms of horror and fantasy, it is usually the subtext, the want that remains once the polite explanations have been put aside. The thing under the thing.

Roderick Morgan is driven by a need for order. He has no use for justice or peace in the abstract; he wants a Jackson that will behave, a town in its place, and a world where the dead are left in their graves, and the witches do not make needless noise. Nothing supernatural is to be allowed to encroach on what is his.

Then there is Larina and her voracious appetite for knowledge. She is after the book, the hidden name, the story behind the lie. It is what makes her brilliant, but also puts her in the way of trouble since some truths have a way of biting back. If there is knowledge to be gained, she will leap long before she looks.

Veyra Shadowraven hungers for vengeance, which is easy enough to fathom on Yog. Perhaps too easy. Vengeance will keep one going when grief would have you rooted to the spot, but it is a poor meal and never quite fills the void. 

Amaranth in West Haven is another matter. Being a half-succubus, hunger is inherent to her, yet it is not the sum of who she is.  That distinction is what makes a character like Amaranth compelling; the hunger is as real as the person who has to live with it. Even when she is trying to hide it or deny it, but it is always there. If Amaranth were in NIGHT SHIFT or Wasted Lands, she would have a "Feed" option. 

Over on the other side of the spectrum, you have Étaín Moonshadow with a hunger for truth. It can be a noble pursuit, even holy, but it is ruthless as well. Étaín has no other attachments, especially no other romantic ones that would keep her from her mission and goal. Everything else isn't secondary. They don't even make her list.

Hunger is a handy tool in a game for that reason. Get to the bottom of what a character is hungry for, and you will have your answer as to which door they will open.

Jackson and West Haven NPC

Another special one today for Day 27. Though she has been more than just an NPC. It is Thursday, so Emotion and Far to Go. 

Taryn Nichols is Larina’s daughter, always between worlds, always further from home than anyone would like. In this version, Taryn is sent back in time by her mother (or maybe one of her mother's Shards) to help out Larina, Faye, and Stephanie in 1986.

Jackson Soundtrack

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#RPGaDAY2026: Day 26 Regret

Every witch has some form of regret and her own way of bearing it.

It is Witchcraft Wednesday as well, so the word regret seems apt.

Ash Witch died with regret on her lips. In the course of leading refugees from Yog to West Haven, she had done much, but at the end what was of any consequence were the ones she failed to save. Her dying words were an apology. "I'm sorry."

Veyra Shadowraven’s regret is of a different order. She chafes at not being as great as the Ash Witch, or perhaps kind enough. One could say she is simply not enough. Such feelings have a way of sharpening a person, though they can leave you hollow if you allow them to. Veyra is very nearly hollow now.

And in Jackson, there is Larina, who for years has been defined by the fact that she did not save her mother. Even if there was really no way for her to have known. It made her brilliant and driven, angry and impossible to deal with at times. But that sort of emotional intensity has a way of crossing over into other universes. When she spoke to her "shard" in Carbon Vale of how things had gone, she found a version of herself there who had been able to see her mother survive.

Larina of Carbon Vale has no such regrets. Or at least none of that.

You find that in a multiverse, regret is a curious matter. 

In one place it is a wound, in another a warning, and in some cases it is what keeps a person alive. For a witch, it is perilous because it puts the same question before you: what would you do differently? And then you are left to wonder whether you would come to regret the change, or the fact you did not make it sooner.

Jackson NPC

It is Witchcraft Wednesday, so let's do someone special for Day 26, Wednesday, Emotion and Full of Woe. 

Mai Voss: Faye Thorne's (original name "Fiona Voss") mother, a ghost of grief, love, regret, and everything stolen too soon. Her husband, Arthur Voss, traded them to the Blackthorne Hags for power, but they killed him and Mai and kept baby Fiona instead. Renamed her Faye Thorne and raised her as their "niece."  Faye does not discover this for many years. 

Jackson Soundtrack

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