Urban Fantasy Fridays: Occult Detective (2026)

 Occult Detective is a newer game to me. In fact, I didn't even know about it until the author posted about it in his #RPGaDAY2026 posts on Bluesky. Sadly, you will not find the game on DriveThruRPG, and I got my copy via Amazon. 

Doing a bit of research on the game before I bought it, I saw it had been in development for while, with some evidence of an early version going back nearly 10 years.  They took their time to get exactly the way they wanted it and I can respect that.

The Occult Detective

by Bob Freeman and Connor Freeman.
2026. Bordermen Games. 352 pages (6" x 9" format).

There are two central themes/ideas baked into this game. The first is that magic, the supernatural, and all that is real but hidden (the Occult part), and the characters play the part of investigators of the occult (the Detective part). It is a very solid premise. But as long-time readers of my blog already know, we have no end to games that do this. What does Occult Detective do that is different?

The feel of the game is very Noir. IT could take place in the 1930s, 1990s, or last week. The timeline is not as important, I think, as the stories it is trying to tell. Stories is a good word for it, too. The game master is called "The Author," and the player characters are "The Protagonists." So already you get the feel that is a detective novel you will try to bring to life. There is some merit to this, but I have been watching a lot of Masterpiece Mystery on PBS. Sure, many of these began as books, but maybe the feel I want is more "The Director" and "The Characters."  Yes, Occult Detective can do this, and that's how I'd play it.

The World Building chapter supports the idea of any sort of world/time. The equipment chapter, though, is more focused on 21st-century items and prices (as expected).

The intended audience for this book/game seems to be people who only have a passing familiarity with role-playing games. But maybe more than a starting interest in the Occult. That is fine. Any game can be someone's first game. I certainly get the feeling that author Bob Freeman has played a few games of his own, so he is familiar with how different games work.

Resolution is a d20 vs. target; roll high; 20s and 1s are criticals. But it is not a d20-as-in-D&D game. There are places where the DNA of D&D comes through, but that is true of every game.

Character Creation is fun and pretty easy. I did have to go back and forth just a little. But I kinda expect that with a new game. I do have to say I rather like the character sheets. 

All characters have a Trope, or what amounts to an archetype. Not a class really, but it does let you know how your character will respond in certain situations and might give you a bonus to your rolls in other situations. For example, I gave Larina the Trope of Scholar, which will help her in her research tasks.

After that, you choose your Kith. This is similar to other games' species or even races. Think of it this way: Trope is what you Do; Kith is what you Are. They are Natural (your normal Humans), Preternatural (your magic users), and Supernatural (vampires, ghosts, and the like). There are rules for moving up. A Natural can learn some magic to become a Preternatural or become a werewolf (Supernatural). They are handled well enough and work well for this game. 

All characters get a score in Fire, Air, Earth, Water, and Spirit. Each of these has different applications. For example, a high Spirit score gives a bonus to magick checks and other supernatural abilities, while Earth adds to your health. I have to admit it is my favorite part of the system. 

Everyone starts at Level 1, and you level up after a successful case. Sometimes, for longer cases, you could level up in between. It is essentially a "milestone" style experience, and it works well here. Different Kith get different things at different even levels, and everyone gets something at different odd levels. (Or that might be the other way around; I'll have to check.

There are no long list of spells or psychic effects, but there are some to give you a start. The idea here is that each and every character might do things a little differently. I also like that. 

Characters can also have curiosities. Like a Book of Shadows or a pentagram necklace.

If you are getting a "Dresden Files" vibe from this game so far, you are not wrong. I would say that the world of Occult Detective is a little more rain-swept and both darker and not as dangerous as Harry Dresden's Chicago. For example, the focus is on the "Protagonists," so the world bends around them. That doesn't mean they are "safer"; it is just that the mysteries they are going to solve will be ones that they can potentially solve. Also not saying they *will* solve them, but that they *could* solve them. This isn't Call of Cthulhu. Nor is it the sweeping universe that built up in the Dresden Files or even Antia Blake or Rachel Morgan. This is Harry, Anita, and Rachel in their first three books or so. The world of Occult Detective is dangerous, but it is also one the Protagonists can relate to. 

The strength of this game comes from the notion that many occult traditions are true, even the contradictory ones. Use what you want and ignore the rest. The World Building chapter is the most flexible, but if you squint, you can see the "intended setting." That's fine, really, nothing at all wrong with that. There is enough here to make it your own. 

Which is what I did.

My Jackson Kids

I mentioned last week that one of the takeaways from these playtests was the shocking revelation that Vera "Raven" Rook is a lot of fun. The game I played with her and my family was back in August. We only did one game of this before we came down with a cold. No. I don't blame the game. But Vera really started to become someone fun to have around.

Given the book is filled with various bits of occult symbolism and ideas, I am going to stick with my witches.

The first character took me a little bit, but after that the rest went extremely fast.

Larina Stephanie Nichols

2nd Level Preternatural (Magician)
Trope: Scholar
Tradition: Folk Magic

Earth +1
Air +5
Fire +0
Water +2
Spirit +3

Wellness 12
Defense 12

Immunities: None
Resistances: None
Weaknesses: None

Resources: Upper Middle Class

Spells (Folk Magic)
Warding, Wild Speech, Scrying

Her Air is higher, reflecting her intellect.

Faye Thorne

2nd Level Preternatural (Magician)
Primary Tradition: Chaos Magick
Trope: Ghost Hunter

Earth +2
Air +2
Fire +1
Water +3
Spirit +3

Wellness: 13
Defense: 13

Immunities: None
Resistances: None
Weaknesses: None

Resources: Lower Middle Class

Spells (Chaos Magick)
Pyromancy, Dwimmering, Summon (Chaos)

Faye is a Chaos Magician to reflect her upbringing.

Stephanie Wren Vale

2nd Level Preternatural (Magician)
Primary Tradition: Ceremonial Magic
Trope: Investigator

Earth +2
Air +2
Fire +1
Water +4
Spirit +2

Wellness: 13
Defense: 14

Immunities: None
Resistances: None
Weaknesses: None

Resources: Upper Class

Spells (Ceremonial Magick)
Compel, Magic Circle, Mesmerize

Investigator works really well for the later game Stephanie. She wants to know what is going on. Not to understand it like Larina, but to stop it.

Vera Diane Rook 

2nd Level Preternatural (Magician)
Primary Tradition: Mysticism
Trope: Thrill Seeker

Earth +1
Air +4
Fire +0
Water +2
Spirit +4

Wellness: 12
Defense: 12

Immunities: None
Resistances: None
Weaknesses: None

Resources: Upper Middle Class

Spells (Mysticism)
Mesmerize, Mind Reading, Scrying

This is where Vera began to shine for me. She is a "Thrill Seeker" because she likes the idea of these adventures. She also likes to hang out with Faye and annoy Larina and Stephanie. 

Larina (reading): "Hic locus mortuorum est."
Vera: "Is that some Christian thing I don't get because I am Jewish?"
Larina: "No, it's Latin. And I am not Christian either; I'm Wiccan."
Vera: "There is hope for you yet, Nichols."
Laria: "It says, 'This place belongs to the dead.'"
Vera: "Less hopeful now."

Faye, Vera, Stephanie, and Larina investigate.

Links

• Bordermen Games
• Occult Detective RPG on Amazon
• Wordpress
• BlueSky
• Facebook
• Instagram
• Twitter/X
• YouTube

Urban Fantasy Fridays: The Unexplained (2009)

 AH! It is October again. My favorite time of the year. Last year, on my Fantasy Fridays, I spent some time with urban fantasy games and, in particular, with the idea of using games as a sort of life-path development for my various characters. I actually did a few characters, but I only posted one, my witch, Larina. 

Something very interesting happened while I was doing that. I grabbed a couple of Pathfinder characters and was doing the same experiment on them. I remember sitting in my car one night, waiting for my oldest to get off work, and I began writing a bit on what those two characters would have been like as teens. Then I took it a step (ok, a big step) further and thought: what would they have been like as teens in high school, not in a fantasy world, but in an American high school, specifically in the Midwest.

Those two Pathfinder characters became Stephanie and Faye. I resurrected a bunch of other ideas, and by December of 2025, I had a very good idea about what my town of Jackson, IL, was starting to look like. It has been my obsession ever since, and here I am nearly a year and several thousand words later. If you go through those posts, you can see the ideas that eventually took shape as the Jackson I am talking about now. 

With this collection of Urban Fantasy Fridays, I want to explore other games in my collection that do similar, but not quite the same, things as NIGHT SHIFT does for my Jackson setting/Night World. I am committed to Jackson as a NIGHT SHIFT Night World, no other game fits it quite so well. But, I do want to see what these other experiences give me. I want to make sure I am capturing not only what makes NIGHT SHIFT special, but what makes Jackson so special to me.  For the Fridays in October I am going to pull some Urban Fantasy/Horror RPGs from my shelves and see how they work for me. Some are older games, others are newer but obscure, but all approach the "modern magical world" from different points of view, and all can teach me something.

Last year I went in order, more or less, of life span development. This year I am generally going in order of involvement with the supernatural. From least to most. For example, today's game, The Unexplained, largely deals with normal people dealing with abnormal things. In the last game, Night Life, the characters are the "abnormal things."

So lets get to it!

The Unexplained

by Bradford Younie, 
2009 Carnivore Games, 298 pages.

I talked about the FUDGE game, The Unexplained, way back in 2010. Or, more to the point, I talked about its sister game, Now Playing. Back then, I described it like this: if The Unexplained is the reality, then Now Playing is the TV series based on it. Both are FUDGE games and use FUDGE dice. They are 100% compatible with each other and both top my list as my favorite FUDGE games to date.

While I am looking at this game for possible ideas, I do want to point out that it is, by itself, a perfectly wonderful game. I have not looked at it in detail for over 15 years, and I am surprised at how playable it still is. 

Character creation is easy using a simple point-buy system. I was able to generate NINE characters in under an hour. Likely, I would have been faster, but I was trying to maximize the differences in my characters. 

The Unexplained posits that the characters are part of an organization dedicated to hunting supernatural monsters. Now, the nature of my Jackson kids kinda precludes this. That is fine; it is not a requirement of this game, merely a feature they are adding. 

The Foundation for Paranormal Investigation

The FPI is an in-game conceit that allows the players to get their characters together. It is part "You characters meet in a tavern" and part "You have been recruited by S.A.V.E. or A.R.T.E.M.I.S. or the FBI or SCP or whatever alphabet organization the characters need to join. 

That said, there are some really good ideas for putting together an organization like this and using it in a game. Maybe I'll revisit them someday, but right now I don't need them. My characters meet because they are all in the same school. 

But if this is your thing, then The Unexplained is worth picking up for these ideas. The underlying system is FUDGE, but really, as I showed already, replace the words with numbers, and you can play this almost as if it were Unisystem.

My Jackson Kids

Character creation was so fast and easy that, instead of doing one or two of my Jackson kids. I stated them all. Well. Most of them.  Plus the Character Concept Questionnaire I used from Now Playing was also a huge help. 

I won't add all of them here, but I will give two examples. My witch, Larina, and the reluctant ally, Vera. Why? Vera Rook is becoming a LOT of fun over here. She is just a great frenemy who adds some tension to the group. Plus, she irritates Stephanie and Larina, and that is always fun.

Larina Stephanie Nichols

Profession: The Scholar* (I am using the Professions more like archetypes)
Paranormal Society: Jackson Public High School
RankAge: 16 
Income: Good
Luck: 3
Size: Medium/0

Attributes
Brawn: Mediocre
Agility: Fair
Stamina: Fair
Reasoning: Superb
Perception: Good
Will: Fair

Gifts
Attractive
Single Minded (Magic)

Faults
Curious
Obsession: Magic
Quick-Tempered

Psychic Abilities
Mental Psi: Psychometry (Fair), Telepathy (Fair)
Physical Psi: Telekinesis (Fair)

Skills
Astrology (Fair), Athletics (Mediocre), Concentrate (Good), Computers (Fair), Decipher Script (Fair), Drive (Mediocre), Gather Information (Good), Language, Greek (Poor), Language, Latin (Poor), Mythology (Good), Occult (Great), Parapsychology (Fair), Research (Good), Ritual, Wicca (Fair), Search (Good)

Vera Diane Rook

Profession: The Reluctant Ally* (I am using the Professions more like archetypes)
Paranormal Society: Jackson Public High School
RankAge: 16 
Income: Great
Luck: 3
Size: Medium/0

Attributes
Brawn: Fair
Agility: Fair
Stamina: Fair
Reasoning: Good
Perception: Great
Will: Fair

Gifts
Attractive
Increased Income
Patron: Rook Family

Faults
Blunt and Tactless

Psychic Abilities
Mental Psi: Psychometry (Good)

Skills
Astrology (Good), Bluff (Fair), Cryptozoology (Fair), Drive (Good), Gather Information (Fair), Ghost Hunting (Fair), Intimidate (Good), Occult (Fair), Persuade (Good), Religions (Good), Research (Fair), Ritual, Wicca (Fair), Sense Motive (Good)

This run is where we learn that Vera's family is Jewish. She is a witch yes, but her religion is Jewish. Much like Larina's religion is Wicca. Vera is a bit of a lapsed Jew, but I think I want to work more of it into her character later on. 

The images, as it turns out, are from the day after Larina's 16th birthday. Her birthday was on a Friday, and this would have been the next Saturday. 

Remember, with all these "Poors" and "Fairs," they are still just kids.

Though looking at the art of these two, they seem to be less Larina "Nix" and Vera "Raven" of Jackson and more Larina "Creepy" and Vera "Shadow" of Carbon Vale. 

-- 

The Unexplained is a lot of fun. I have never really connected with FUDGE, but this game makes me want to try it again.

Links

• PDF from DriveThruRPG
• Carnivore Games
• Sheets
• Facebook
• Willow & Tara stats

Mail Call Tuesday: Larina Nix KibiFig

A little bit ago, I was approached by KibiFig after they saw my review here about the figures I had ordered. I had also spoken out online about how pleased I was with the figures in general.

They offered me an upgraded figure, 6" or 15 cm. There was no expectation of a review afterward so I dug through some images and found one I liked.

Last Friday, the figure came in the mail. 

I already knew what it looked like because Kibifig had been using my little Larina in their most recent ads. I have to admit, it is always kind of fun to see her out and about.

The ordering process was simple, and I opted to spend the extra five or so dollars to get the custom box. In retrospect, the box is better for giving these figures as a gift than, say, a collector's box.  Besides, she is going to sit on my desk.

I had considered this an older version of my Jackson Larina, say circa 1995. But this Larna isn't wearing glasses, and she has a red cell phone that was not in the original image. That's fine. They got her necklace and her T-shirt right, so this very easily could be my WitchCraft RPG or Chill RPG version. In the end, though, it doesn't matter; she looks fantastic.

I went ahead and stuck her to her base. She stands well enough without it, but I tend to knock over figures on my desk all the time, and the base will keep her from falling over.

The online ads. These showed up online around September 7. I got my figure notification the day before and delivery on September 18. Considering it was shipped from China and it went through the Chicago mail system, I call that pretty good.

Yeah. I am pretty happy with her.

Star Trek at 60: Fine, I’ll Do My Own Crossover

I love Star Trek.

I say that without any irony at all, I love all Star Trek. 

This week marks the 60th Anniversary of Star Trek. The show premiered on September 8, 1966, and television, science fiction, and honestly, my own imagination have never really been the same since.

I have talked about Star Trek a lot here over the years. My various USS Protector, Mercy, and Challenger projects, my affection for old FASA Trek, my recent dive into Star Trek Adventures, and, of course, my love for the mythology and storytelling Star Trek has always given me. 

But. And let's be honest. Paramount has kind of dropped the ball on Trek over the last couple of years. There are no new Trek series in production right now, and the current series are wrapping up, ending prematurely. Not to mention, there is almost nothing on TV to celebrate 60 years of the show.

Sound familiar? 

Yeah, the exact same thing that was going on with Doctor Who. For two shows that have defined what science fiction television can be, both anniversaries felt like they should have been bigger. 

Now, maybe that is unfair. Maybe no celebration could have matched what these shows mean to me.

Or maybe, just maybe, the answer is obvious.

So, if I can't rely on the creators of my two favorite sci-fi shows to do things right, I'll do my own 60th Anniversary celebration and have that Star Trek and Doctor Who crossover I have been promised.

Crossovers

One of the very, very first zines I ever bought was a Doctor Who zine that was being sold as local sci-fi convention. It featured a Star Trek (TOS) and Doctor Who (Tom Baker) crossover. I honestly could not tell you what the story was about, except that it required Spock to mind-meld with the Doctor. But it stuck with me.  It must have stuck with others too, but later on in the Star Trek: The Next Generation/Doctor Who: Assimilation² comic featuring the 11th Doctor and the TNG crew, a previous encounter featuring Kirk, Spock, and the 4th Doctor was alluded to. Granted, that is a very obvious choice.  I also recall reading an actually rather good fan-fic on one of the Star Trek Usenet groups featuring the TNG crew and the 7th Doctor. Wesley and Ace even went on a date. I also recall the 8th Doctor tapping the replicator with his question-mark umbrella to order a sandwich. 

Crossovers are baked into the wider fandom of both shows, and the possibilities are nearly endless. So many Trek shows and stories. So many incarnations of the Doctor. 

The real question becomes, what mix do I want? AND what system to play it in.

If I were going to do Star Trek TOS with the Fourth Doctor then answer, to me, is obvious. I have to use FASA rules. Likely some brain-numbing combination of both the FASA Trek and FASA Doctor Who. Part of me wants to do that just for nostalgia's sake. And maybe one day I will. A one-shot would be great. Have the Doctor with Sarah Jane Smith. I loved Sarah Jane.

But if I am going to do this one properly, I want something longer. Something more episodic.

The Blue Box Directive

If I am going to do this, I want Trek and Who at its newest. I considered Strange New Worlds for about a minute or two. But it is still running, and they have come close on their own many times. A real crossover is not likely to happen now, but I suppose I have not given up hope. 

So, I am setting it after Season 5 of Star Trek: Discovery, in 3192-93 CE. The Doctor is the Fifteenth Doctor, played by Ncuti Gatwa, with Ruby Sunday, played by Millie Gibson. A temporal anomaly appears, Discovery investigates, and the TARDIS arrives.

I like this idea because both runs were cut short, and both pissed off some of the worst fans of the shows on the internet. So if I am doing a crossover to spite people, I am going all the way.  BUT, that is not 100% the reason either.

The Doctor and Ruby would LOVE Discovery. It is exactly the sort of humanity the Doctor loves. A Federation that survived disaster. A ship thrown impossibly far from home and still doing the right thing. Scientists, explorers, found family, and people who keep choosing hope even when hope is wildly inconvenient. I mean, that is the heart of both shows, really. 

Not all the details have been worked out. I know there is an anomaly (there always is), and after the Flux (Doctor Who) and the Burn (Discovery), there have to be weak points in the multiverse for things to go through. The Doctor and Ruby show up, materialize in the cargo bay. I would say that some crewman tells the bridge that a "Blue box just appeared out of nowhere" which would trigger an alert to Starfleet HQ, still several hours away on subspace.

Also, I DO want Tilly to be there, maybe with a group of cadets on a training exercise. Hell. If I plan it right, they could be Cadets from Starfleet Academy, and they could be the PCs. Have not worked it all out just yet. Why? Tilly would be the ultimate Doctor fan-girl. And I adore Tilly.

The adventure begins when another temporal signal is discovered. The Doctor comes to the bridge with Ruby, yes, he convinces Burnham that a civilian should be there. They track the signal and get there via conventional warp drive. There is a lot of <insert really cool technobabble here> interference. Burnham tells Bryce to clean it up and put it on audio. Burnham is about give her "we are here to help" speech when the audio breaks in.

"EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE!"

The Doctor pulls out his sonic screwdriver and activates the spore drive, sending the entire ship into panic.

Before Burnham can question the Doctor or Stamets can ask who is messing with his spore drive, Admiral Vance breaks in via hologram, ordering Burnham to invoke "the Blue Box directive."

Because, of course, Starfleet has protocols for dealing with the Doctor.  

The idea is to follow the Discovery premise of a chase across space. The bad guys are the Daleks since the 15th Doctor never got a chance to encounter them. AND I was thinking of using the New Paradigm Daleks, since we haven't seen them in a bit. The Daleks would be a natural enemy of the Federation. The Federation brings all these different species together to work together, celebrating their differences. This is an abomination to the central Dalek creed. These Daleks are here to destroy the Federation in a universe without their greatest enemy. And now they have set their sights on Discovery's spore drive.

I have an idea for Discovery's crew to capture a Dalek and interrogate it to discover what their plan is. The Doctor thinks this is a terrible idea, and it is, because this isn't a repeat of the Ninth Doctor episode "Dalek"; it is more "Silence of the Lambs" with the Dalek in the Lecter role. The Dalek wants Discovery's crew not to trust the Doctor by talking about all the deaths that can be laid at the feet of "The Oncoming Storm."

Ultimately, the crew (aka the PCs) defeat the Daleks, and the Doctor and Ruby get back to their own universe. I just have not figured out how that all happens yet! But isn't that also part of the fun? 

The System

This is important because is tells me the tone of the game. If I use Star Trek Adventures 2nd Edition, that means I am expecting Star Trek logic. If I choose Doctor Who 2nd Edition, that means I am expecting less fighting and more talking. 

I have considered going back and forth between the two. My players would not mind, but it would mean a lot of extra work for me. 

Given Mōdiphiüs' support for Trek, and the 32nd Century Trek in particular, I am likely to go with this game. Though, as an exercise, I might have everyone generate their characters in both systems. 

I am nothing if not a glutton for punishment.

If I am going to make my players do it, then I should as well. And there is an obvious choice for a test run. The person who likely wrote the Blue Box Directive in the first place. The immortal Valerie Beaumont.

Valerie would come aboard the Discovery as a Specialist because she knows the most about the Doctor. I have already set her up for Doctor Who Second Edition, so let's see how she fares as a Star Trek Character.

Agent Valerie Regina Beaumont

Species: Human (Immortal) 
Career Path: Starfleet (Intelligence)
Role: Intelligence Agent
Department: Security
Intelligence Grade: Commodore-equivalent
Assignment: Starfleet Intelligence, Special Operations
Era: 32nd Century

CONTROL 11
DARING 9
FITNESS 8
INSIGHT 9
PRESENCE 9
REASON 10

COMMAND 4
CONN 2
ENGINEERING 1
SECURITY 5
MEDICINE 1
SCIENCE 3

Stress 10
Reputation 5

Focuses: Blade Weapons, Espionage, Infiltration, Earth History, Survival, Anomalous Phenomena

Talents: Cautious (Security), Close Protection, Tough, Veteran

Species Ability: Faith of the Heart

Role Benefit: Intelligence Agent

Grade: Commodore-equivalent

Values

"I am immortal. Everyone else is not."
"History is memory, and memory carries obligations."
"Sometimes a secret saves more lives than the truth."
"The mission matters. People matter more."

Attacks

Unarmed Strike (Melee), Stun 2, Size 1H
Shadow-Steel Sword (Melee), Deadly 3, Size 1H
Phaser Type-2 (Ranged), Stun/Deadly 4, Size 1H, Charge

Gotta admit, she looks pretty good at 1,623 years old.

And because I can.

Specialist Larina Stephanie Nichols

Species: Human (Psychic)
Career Path: Civilian (Official)
Professional Trait: Civilian Specialist, Xenolinguistics & Behavioral Sciences
Role: Xenotranslator
Starfleet Status: Civilian specialist attached to Starfleet
Administrative Rate: Crewman First Class
Division: Sciences
Actual Function: Psychic intelligence, reconnaissance, and subterfuge
Era: 32nd Century

CONTROL 10
DARING 9
FITNESS 8
INSIGHT 11
PRESENCE 9
REASON 9

COMMAND 3
CONN 2
ENGINEERING 1
SECURITY 5
MEDICINE 1
SCIENCE 4

Stress 8
Reputation 4

Focuses: Linguistics, Psychology, Espionage, Infiltration, Survival, Martial Arts

Talents: Extrasensory Perception, Telepathy, Psychokinesis, Martial Artist

Species Ability: Faith of the Heart

Role Benefit: Translator

Grade: Crewman First Class

Values

"Every mind has a language."
"Never ignore the feeling that something is wrong."
"People matter more than procedure."
"Underestimating me makes my job easier."

Attacks

Unarmed Strike (Melee), Stun/Deadly 2, Size 1H
Psychokinetic Strike (Ranged), Stun/Deadly 3
Phaser Type-1(Ranged), Stun/Deadly 3, Size 1H, Charge, Hidden 1 (a gift from Valerie)

To be clear, this is not Larina from Jackson, IL. That girl had a nice long life and likely passed away sometime in the late-21st century. That is, if this is the same universe at all. This Larina could be a reincarnation of that Larina. 

This Larina grew up on Earth, and Valerie found her and noticed Larina's talents for both language and her psychic powers. She serves as an aide to Agent Beaumont, where her cover is that of a xenolinguist, but in truth she is an expert in psychic espionage. 

There is a Jackson connection here. Jackson Larina once saw this Larina in her mirror. She didn't know what she saw, and I described it as a "psychic storm wearing her face." 

I also opted to teach her martial arts, thinking she had something like a psychic punch. 

Maybe Valerie and Larina served aboard the USS Jackson. Exactly the sort of strangeness I expect to see in the multiverse. 

One thing is certain. I want to do a lot more with this game. I barely left the character generation chapter, and I REALLY wanted to build some starships.

Well. I have the Protector, the Mercy, the Challenger, and more to still build.

Happy Birthday, Star Trek! Here is to many, many more.

Fantasy Fridays: The Dying Earth

 Today marks the 110th anniversary of Jack Vance's birth. Back in May, I covered his Dying Earth books for my Witches of Appendix N. Today I want to look at the RPGs of the Dying Earth. There are essentially two published ones, Pelgrane Press' and Goodman Games for Dungeon Crawl Classics. I will consider both today.

Games at The End of the World

I have been spending quite a lot of time lately thinking about dying worlds.

Not post-apocalyptic worlds necessarily. That is something different. I mean worlds that are simply old. Very old. Ancient. Worlds where civilizations have risen, fallen, been forgotten, and had new civilizations built on top of their ruins. And those have fallen and been forgotten as well. Worlds where the sun itself is old, and everyone knows, at least somewhere in the back of their minds, that eventually it is going to go out.

Such is the world of Jack Vance's The Dying Earth.

Vance began the series with The Dying Earth in 1950, followed by The Eyes of the Overworld, Cugel's Saga, and Rhialto the Marvellous. These stories helped give a name to the entire "Dying Earth" genre, although Clark Ashton Smith had already been exploring similar territory with his tales of Zothique in the pages of Weird Tales. (I'll get back to this...)

For gamers, though, Vance is particularly important because his fingerprints are all over Dungeons & Dragons.

The most obvious is magic.

The classic D&D Magic-User studies spells, holds a limited number of them in memory, casts one, and then loses it from memory. That system comes directly from Vance. Gary Gygax openly acknowledged the influence, and The Dying Earth and The Eyes of the Overworld appeared in the famous Appendix N of the AD&D Dungeon Master's Guide. Even things such as the Prismatic Spray and Ioun Stones have Vancian ancestors.

But reducing Vance's influence to "Vancian magic" misses a lot.

The Dying Earth is full of dangerous ruins, forgotten technologies that might as well be magic, bizarre monsters, petty magicians, decadent city-states, amoral adventurers, strange customs, ancient artifacts, and people willing to undertake extraordinarily dangerous journeys because someone told them there might be something valuable at the other end.

Sound familiar? It should. 

Plus, there is the feeling of overwhelming dread that the sun could go out tomorrow or next week or in a thousand or a million years. The people, though, are not letting that stop them. Party like it is 1,999,999,999. 

That mixture of wonder, decadence, fatalism, absurdity, and danger makes the Dying Earth a fantastic place for gaming. It also makes it surprisingly difficult to get right.

There are currently two major licensed attempts to bring Vance's world directly to the gaming table. One comes from Pelgrane Press. The other comes from Goodman Games.  Both have their merits and take remarkably different approaches.

And I think both approaches tell us something useful about the Dying Earth.

Pelgrane Press - The Dying Earth

When Pelgrane Press put out The Dying Earth Roleplaying Game in 2001, they were putting the first officially sanctioned version of Vance’s world into print. And this one is nearly as legendary as the stories it is based on. Robin D. Laws was the chief designer on the 192-page core book, with John Snead and Peter Freeman.

Laws was quick to see that a straightforward adaptation of D&D would not do for his game. There is no denying the debt D&D has to Vance, but for all that, a D&D character does not act like one of Vance’s creations. That was the problem Laws intended to put right.

Combat is there, of course, but so are Persuade and Rebuff, and they are just as vital. An argument is made into a mechanical contest; with the right style of persuasion or resistance, you can be as effective at talking an opponent into some folly as you would be with a sword. It has the right feel.

The mechanics are built around a d6 and point-rated abilities, which can be spent to tip the odds, giving the narrative play a light touch of resource management. One should not confuse this with GUMSHOE, even if Pelgrane has become synonymous with that system in later years. The Dying Earth RPG has its own rules and predates GUMSHOE entirely.

Then there is the matter of power levels, perhaps the most interesting thing about the design. A campaign is broken down into three tiers. You have the Cugel level, where you are an adventurer or a rogue, and survival is as much about a well-told lie as it is about your fighting prowess. Move up to Turjan, and the characters are magicians of note, delving into ancient places and wielding serious spells. At the Rhialto level, you are dealing with the likes of the sandestins and commanding extraordinary power.

It is a fine way to handle the source material. Cugel and Rhialto may share a world, but they are hardly of the same genre or power level, and Pelgrane makes no pretense that one evolves into the other by the ordinary process of advancement. They are simply different ways to play.

Pelgrane has also been thorough in their treatment of Vance’s world, from the oddities of Kaiin to lost civilizations and the more eccentric corners of the Dying Earth. They have backed the game with a good number of supplements and The Excellent Prismatic Spray magazine over the years.

There is an obvious weakness to it all, however. This is a game keen on staying true to Vancian behavior, and the player has to come to terms with that. The long list of abilities is a telltale sign of the late 90s/early 2000s design school, and even some adherents of the game wish it were shorter (the Revivification Folio has since put some order to the rules).

But the basic aim is met. If the players start quibbling over armor class and marching order when a monster turns up, they are missing the point. But when one player declares that character must go in first by virtue of his education, and the player is hard put to make the case for another’s superior qualifications, then we are on to something.

Pelgrane is not after D&D’s take on Vance. They are after Vance himself. There is a difference. Understanding that is the key to playing this game.

Dungeon Crawl Classics - Dying Earth

Then there is Goodman Games, which takes almost the opposite approach.

With Dungeon Crawl Classics Dying Earth, you are not put to the task of learning some new game built for the express purpose of emulating Vance or a Vancian world. The question posed here is far more intriguing: what if we were to take Dungeon Crawl Classics (DCC), with its Appendix N pedigree, and shove it headlong into one of its own source materials?

As it happens, quite a bit comes of it, and the results are quite fun.

The 2023 release from Goodman is a substantial boxed set for the DCC RPG. You will find a 64-page Player’s Libram, the 104-page Primer of Practical Magic, a bestiary, and other resources in the set. It is an expansion and a setting, not a stand-in for the core game; the regular rules are still required.

Four new classes make up the bulk of the mechanical changes: the Magician, Wayfarer, Witch, and Vat-Thing. You already know this has my attention.

Take the Wayfarer. He is your Cugel type, a rogue and opportunist, a confidence man who is as much a survivor as a traveler. Since Luck is already a defining feature of DCC, Goodman has made much of it. A Wayfarer’s Luck can be wonderfully volatile, and the class has the rhetorical tools for the verbal manipulation a Vancian scoundrel requires. In a way it is a clever solution to the problem Pelgrane noted, that Cugel is apt to talk someone else into having his problems for him. Only here it is done in DCC fashion.

The Magician is another matter. DCC wizards have always been something of a risk; spell checks are unpredictable and dabbling in the supernatural leaves its mark. The Dying Earth version of the class goes further. The designers have made for an exceptional offensive caster where spells are not so much a curriculum as fragments of lost knowledge handed down by some eccentric sorcerer. Very Vancian.

Then you have the Witch and the Vat-Thing, which move things away from standard DCC fantasy. The latter, in particular, is well suited to a world where magicians will putter about making life in vats with little more than a vague notion of what they are at. It underlines the fine line between magic, old science, and monstrosity.

New rules, patrons, and creatures are in order, as well as grudge tokens, which I like. There are rules for grudges because this is Jack Vance. The petty feuds and betrayals get some mechanical heft. And with fresh treatments of rhetoric and Luck, the DCC mechanics acquire a Dying Earth edge.

You could make a case for criticism. After all, it is still DCC.

Someone on the RPG subreddit put it well: with Pelgrane, you have the Cugel stories where everyone is out to swindle each other, whereas DCC is more like the early Dying Earth where the world wants to eat or deceive you. Another felt Goodman was simply forcing the setting into DCC rather than making a system for Vance. That is certainly the mission statement of the original Dying Earth RPG.

I would say both are fair points. But I don’t see the second as a flaw. DCC is already in the neighborhood with its desperate tomb robbers, its inexplicable artifacts, and its wizards playing with forces they do not comprehend. There is no need to force the fit. DCC was already halfway there on its own. It is largely one of tone and personal choices.  

Pelgrane has you playing Vancian characters. Goodman provides the Vancian adventure. They are not the same, but they are close enough that I could see myself drawing on either for a campaign.

In fact, the best Dying Earth experience likely lies somewhere where these two games intersect. Either is fine on its own, really, but together they provide a truer picture.

No. I am not going to attempt conversion notes. 

The Ash Witch

Since I first read Clark Ashton Smith's "Zothique," I have had this image of a witch walking out of the desert where no one should have survived. She has a staff with a skull on top and covered in ash. I'll also admit the idea of her walking out of the desert and into a city-state was largely influenced by Black Sabbath's "The Wizard."

Jack Vance's "Dying Earth" has done nothing to dissuade me from this vision.

Eventually, the Ash Witch became someone important in my Yog setting, even if just as a tale or legend, but that legend starts somewhere. So here she is, for the DCC Dying Earth (fits her the best).

This is very much a "Dying Earth" version of this character; I even have The Murthe, the Sorceress Llorio, as her Patron. 

Larina, the Ash Witch

Larina Eschata, the Ash Witch
10th-level Neutral Witch
Pact Entity: The Murthe, Llorio the Sorceress
Occupation: Scholar of forgotten religions
Alignment: Neutral

Str 10 (+0)
Agi 15 (+1)
Sta 14 (+1)
Per 18 (+3)
Int 17 (+2)
Luck 16 (+2)

HP: 38
AC: 13

Init: +1
Speed: 30'
Attack: +5
Action Dice: 1d20 + 1d20
Crit: 1d20/II

Saves: Fort +4, Ref +7, Will +7

Spell Check: +13
Maximum Spell Level: 5

Ritual Weapon: Dagger
Birth Augur: Survived beneath the Dying Sun.
Birth Gift: Second Sight.
Known Squalms: 14.
Demonic Taint: 3

Starting Animus: Syncretic Heretic

Larina has publicly denied the divine authority of the Priest-Kings and incorporated forbidden rites, dead gods, and the teachings of Llorio the Murthe into her witchcraft. Priests, inquisitors, and agents of the Priest-Kings regard her as a particularly dangerous heretic.

Ensqualm: Curse

First level: Charm person*, comprehend languages, detect magic, demon summoning, magic missile, ropework, sleep, ward portal.
Second level: Detect invisible, ESP*, forget*, invisibility, levitate, scorching ray.
Third level: Consult spirit, dispel magic, fireball, paralysis*, write magic.
Fourth level: Control fire, polymorph, wizard sense.
Fifth level: Magic bulwark.

* The Murthe's Favor

Transfer Vitality: d20 + Personality modifier + class level check.

#RPGaDAY2026: Day 24 Distance

I have two modern horror campaigns. They let me play with similar ideas under different assumptions and even different rules. My oldest calls this "save scumming." It is from video games: if you don't like a particular outcome, you go back to your previous save and start back from there. For me, I think it is more about having two separate but equally enjoyable outcomes.

Jackson, IL, and Carbon Vale, IL, are about 220 miles apart. That is their physical Distance.

That is not nothing, but it is not exactly the other side of the world either. You could drive it in an afternoon. Different roads, different towns, different exits, but still Illinois. Still the Midwest. Still close enough to feel familiar, but still far enough to be different. I know, I drove to and from their real-world counterparts many times. 

Except they are not in the same world.

For me, Jackson and Carbon Vale are separate universes. They even use different game systems, which makes the distance between them feel larger than any map can show. They are not just separated by miles. They are separated by rules, histories, assumptions, and the kinds of monsters waiting in the dark.

And yet magic makes them closer.

A mirror, a spell, a book, a dream, or the right impossible moment can cross a distance no highway can. That is what I like about using both settings. They are far enough apart to be different worlds, but close enough that one girl can still reach for the other.

In this case, it is a battered-up copy of "A Wrinkle in Time." Notes left in the pages are transported to a similar book 220 miles and a universe away. I talked a little about this back on Day 12.

So what is the difference between Jackson and Carbon Vale?

More than distance, honestly. But also less than distance.

Jackson, IL and Carbon Vale, IL NPC

Today is Emotion and Fair of Face.

Siân Nichols is Larina’s mother in the worlds where she lives, beautiful, warm, and emotionally central in ways Larina does not always admit. Siân died in the Jackson, IL campaign, but thanks to Nix and Creepy communicating via "A Wrinkle in Time," she is alive in the Carbon Vale, IL campaign.

There will likely be some repercussions to this act, but I am not sure what they are going to be yet. But I know they will happen.

Jackson Soundtrack

https://www.autocratik.com/ • https://www.castingshadowsblog.com/

#RPGaDAY2026: Day 13 Strain

Strain is what happens before something breaks.

In Jackson, IL, everyone is under some kind of strain. The students are trying to act normal. The parents who know less than they think, or the ones who know more than they let on. The teachers pretending the old building is just old. The witches holding wards, secrets, friendships, and bad dreams together with both hands.

It is good for horror gaming. Fear is the easy part to come by. Strain is more subdued. It is in the poor grades and the lack of sleep, the tremor in one’s hands or a hallway argument born of exhaustion and fear for which there is no ready explanation.

For a witch, this strain takes on a magical quality. There is a price to be paid for every spell, a demand for focus with each ritual. Hold onto a secret for too long, and it begins to weigh on the soul. A witch has her limits; one can bear much, but not indefinitely.

Eventually something has to give. In Jackson at least, it tends to happen at the worst possible moment.

In fact, "the worst possible moment" for the characters is often the best possible moment for the game.

I have an adventure outlined, but not developed yet. Something to get all the characters in the game to distrust each other to distract them from the problem of my big bad, The Hollow King, attacking Rowan. It's an old trope, but an effective one. I am ratcheting up the stress and strain. These are teens. Sturm und Drang. The idea is to have them confront their personal demons before confronting actual demons. 

Jackson, IL or Carbon Vale, IL NPC

Still in Associates Week, and today is Thursday Far to Go. 

Tessa Marr: A runaway from Jackson who keeps turning up in towns where witch trouble is about to start. She has traveled most of Southern Illinois and so far has avoided becoming a sad statistic. This is because of her uncanny ability to avoid trouble and be where she needs to be. 

Her older sister Selene, a woman with pre-cognitive gifts of her own, has been looking for her.

Jackson Soundtrack

https://www.autocratik.com/ • https://www.castingshadowsblog.com/

#RPGaDAY2026: Day 12 Loss

Another Witchcraft Wednesday. Let's talk about my favorite witch. 

In most versions of Larina, she has lost both of her parents.

I have used that for nearly forty years now, and honestly, I have come to realize it is a little lazy. Dead parents are easy character development. Too easy, sometimes. They explain the pain, clear the stage, and give the hero a wound without making the writer work too hard. And gives them a reason to be away from their homes. I mean it works, and everyone does it.

But loss has defined Larina for a long time.

So now I am experimenting with it. In Jackson, IL, Larina has lost her mother, but not both parents. In my Carbon Vale, Illinois setting, she still has both. The question becomes less "what did she lose?" and more "who is Larina when that loss changes?"

That is the useful part for gaming.

And since this is all about occult associations, there is another thing to consider. Jackson Larina, aka "Nix," and Carbon Vale Larina, aka "Creepy," communicate back and forth via notes slipped into a copy of "A Wrinkle in Time." And Nix warned Creepy what was going to happen. So Creepy stopped it from happening. There will be a debt to be paid here; I am not sure what, and I am not sure when or even who will need to pay it.  

But it will come due.

A character’s loss can be canon, variant, rumor, retcon, or alternate timeline. What matters is not whether every version has the same tragedy. What matters is what the loss taught her, what it cost her, and what she refuses to lose next.

Jackson, IL NPC

Still in Associates Week and Wednesday's Child is Full of Woe. 

Evan Harrow is a Jackson teen descended from a family everyone whispers about, but no one confronts. Evan is from a long-suspected witch family, which is true, but not for a generation or two. It is not something they are happy about, and they still get a lot of grief in Jackson, but no one quite remembers why.

Jackson Soundtrack

https://www.autocratik.com/ • https://www.castingshadowsblog.com/

Witchcraft Wednesday: Daggerheart Witches

 A while back, when I was talking about my witch Elowen Hale, I said that the Daggerheart playtest witch played a big role in who she is and what her character was like. I also said then, "When the new Dread add-on for Daggerheart is out, I'll come back to this and detail a bunch of witches." 

Well. It is out now. And it's not just witches; it has warlocks as well.

Elowen Hale

I have posted Elowen once before, but I wanted to check how well the playtest matched the final version. So far I have not noticed much difference, but granted, Elowen is only first level. Elowen really typifies what I think of when someone says "Hedge Witch." She is not about power, or flashy magic. She like tea, a pastry, dancing in the rain with her friend Dori, oh, and figuring out why she returned from the dead. The new Daggerheart: Hope & Fear has a "returned" character type that almost, but not quite, fits her. Maybe I'll adapt some of it later on for her. She isn't a reanimated corpse nor is she a ghost or a vampire. She is...well, she is Elowen, and she is fairly unique among my witches. 

Elowen Hale

Level 1
Class & Subclass: Witch (Hedge)
Ancestry & Heritage: Loreborn human
Pronouns: She/Her

Agility: 0
Strength: -1
Finesse: 0
Instinct*: +2
Presence: +1
Knowledge: +1

Evasion: 10
Armor: 3

Minor Damage: 7 Major Damage: 14

Weapons: Wand. Trait and Range: Knowledge Far. 1d6+1 (Magical)

Armor: Leather 6/13 +3

Experience
I See Dead People +2
Fate Always Has a Price +2

Class Features
Hex
Commune (with ghosts only)

Talisman (the spoon she was holding when she died.)
Dagger (she rarely uses it)

Spells (Spell casting: Instinct)
Blightning Strike, Level 1 Dread
Umbral Veil, Level 1 Dread

For her experiences. "I See Dead People" should be pretty obvious. She sees ghosts. Everywhere and all the time. Even the harmless ones. She sees them, and they see her. This can given her clues as to something going on. She can look at an ancient burned building and see it filled with tavern patrons and know that it was a tavern at some point in the past. When? Well, that depends on her rolls. 

Her "Fate Always Has a Price" is there to help me find creative ways to deal with the fact that maybe she didn't really come back in one piece. There is something strange still going on. This lets her tap into her strangeness.

Skylla

Skylla is not always my go-to Warlock, but in this case she works very well. Especially if I am planning to use my Iriandor setting. She is largely the same as her AD&D/D&D counterpart down to my idea that she is somehow a clone, duplicate, or something related to Charmay. Daggerheart has enough flexible weirdness for me to explore this more. Giving her the Pact of the Wrathful is my way to represent her own internalized anger issues. I also have worked up my other warlock, Taryn, a little, and she is also Pact of the Wrathful, but in her case it is because her father is a warrior defending a realm.

Skylla

Level 3
Class & Subclass: Warlock (Pact of the Wrathful)
Ancestry & Heritage: Loreborn human
Pronouns: She/Her

Agility: +1
Strength: -1
Finesse: 0
Instinct: +1
Presence*: +2
Knowledge: +0

Evasion: 12
Armor: 3

Minor Damage: 9 Major Damage: 16

Weapons: Dual Staff. Trait and Range: Instinct Far. 2d6+3 (Magical)

Armor: Leather 6/13 +3

Experience
I Will be a Master of Magic: +2
I am More then Charmay's Shadow: +2
More Power: +2

Class Features
Patron's Pact
Favor (3)

Talisman (the spoon she was holding when she died.)
Dagger (she rarely uses it)

Spells (Spellcasting: Instinct)
Blightning Strike, Level 1 Dread
Umbral Veil,  Level 1 Dread
Voice of Dread, Level 1 Dread
Hideous Retribution, Level 2 Dread
Invisibility, Level 3 Grace

Skylla has some anger issues and a huge case of imposter syndrome. She thinks she knows who she is, but is plagued by nagging self-doubt. This causes her to throw herself into her magic. She has to be better, more powerful, and then and only then can she feel like she is truly herself. 

Her experiences reflect this. She craves more power, she craves validation, and she can't help but do the things she needs to do to survive and become more powerful.

Daggerheart is nothing if not a great place for some really good conflicted characters. Maybe she needs therapy and not an adventuring career. 

Larina Nix

I have not worked out all the details yet of the Larina of Iriandor, save that I know she is powerful. Did she fight in the Last War? Certainly. This would be a reflection of her D&D version that Unmade an Archduke of Hell. I think, given the nature of Iriandor she would be part of the group that seeks to rebuild the world into someplace better. That is very much her. 

Also, her focus would be protecting witches and warlocks. Post-war, these spell casters are mistrusted and thought to have sided with the fiends who had controlled everything. While many did, not all, and Larina is here to make sure they are protected, though there are still some witches who conspire to bring back the fiends and return to power.

Larina Nix

Level 10
Class & Subclass: Witch (Moon)
Ancestry & Heritage: Loreborn human
Pronouns: She/Her

Agility: 0
Strength: -1
Finesse: 0
Instinct*: +5
Presence: +2
Knowledge: +3

Evasion: 11
Armor: 3

Minor Damage: 16 Major Damage: 23

Weapons: Dual Staff. Trait and Range: Instinct Far. 4d6+3 (Magical)
Dagger. Trait and Range: Finesse Melee. 1d8+1 (Physical)

Armor: Leather 6/13 +3

Experience
Scholar of the Occult +5
Affinity for Languages +4
Commanding Presence (Witch Queen) +3
Witches are Everywhere (Contacts) +2
I have seen Horrors +2

Class Features
Hex
Commune

Talisman (Book of Shadows)
Handcrafted Besom

Spells (Spellcasting: Instinct)
Blightning Strike, Level 1 Dread
Natural Familiar, Level 2 Sage
Terrify, Level 3 Dread
Healing Field, Level 4 Sage
Spectral Mists, Level 5 Dread
Dire Strike, Level 5 Dread
Darkness, Level 6 Dread
Sage Touched, Level 7 Sage
Rejuvination Barrier, Level 8 Sage
Eldritch Flesh, Level 8 Dread
Fane of the Wilds, Level 9 Sage
Avatar of Terror, Level 10 Dread

This feels right for a scholar-turned-warrior witch-turned-healer sort of Larina. Iriandor is a world after the Last War, and it needs healers more than warriors. She is 10th level, so she is not likely to be a PC but rather an important NPC.

But so far, I really like these characters, and they bring something a little different to the table. I might also build versions of Étaín Moonshadow and, of course, Taryn. Étaín is easy enough, to be honest; the hardest part is translating her quest to discover an ancient religion tied to the moon goddess. Or maybe not...after all, during the rule of the Arch Fiends all other religions were stamped out, and maybe Étaín's Threefold Goddess was something only passed down via an oral tradition.

Though...there is a lot with each character here, but especially Étaín, that ties them directly to their own worlds and not Iriandor. Maybe I need a new bunch of witches just for this world. Wouldn't hurt that is for sure.