Monster Monday Round-up #4

Last Round-up of the Monstrous Mondays!
Next week follow the bloghop links to see all the monsters.

• The Wesker, http://towerofthearchmage.blogspot.com/2012/10/new-monster-wesker.html
• Dreams of the Lich House has a Gaki, http://dreamsinthelichhouse.blogspot.com/2012/10/monstrous-monday-gaki-hungry-ghost.html
• Two great tastes! Scarecrow Ninjas, http://madavid13.blogspot.com/2012/10/monster-monday-scarecrow-ninjas-for.html
• Christian has Giant Rats, http://unknownzine.blogspot.com/2012/10/giant-rat.html
• Hit Adjacent Ally has Black Hornets, http://hitadjacentally.blogspot.com/2012/10/monstrous-monday-black-hornet-of-green.html
• Bessie, The Hellcow! http://punverse.blogspot.com/2012/10/mastermind-monday-marvels-hellcow.html
• Drowned Sorceress, http://talesofthegrotesqueanddungeonesque.blogspot.com/2012/10/monster-monday-drowned-sorceress-of-far.html
• Savage Menagerie: Bro'ding, http://www.savageafterworld.com/2012/10/mutated-monday-savage-menagerie-broding.html
• The Lorf of the Stickmen, The HORRIBLE Mr. Sticks, http://gothridgemanor.blogspot.com/2012/10/monstrous-mondays-horrible-mr-sticks.html
• Pyre wraiths, http://greyhawkgrognard.blogspot.com/2012/10/13-days-of-halloween-day-four.html
• A Field Guide to Doomsday has a ton of monsters! Not just on Monday, but most days, http://afieldguidetodoomsday.blogspot.com/
• FATE SF has Lunar Rock Aliens, http://fatesf.blogspot.com/2012/10/monstrous-mondays-lunar-rock-aliens.html
• More bugs with The Everwayan:The Eurypterid Kings, http://everwayan.blogspot.com/2012/10/monstrous-mondays-eurypterid-kings.html
• Serpent Tiger at …and the sky full of dust., http://www.theskyfullofdust.co.uk/2012/10/monster-monday-serpent-tiger/
• The disgusting Bloat Zombie, http://thedwarvenstronghold.blogspot.com/2012/10/monstrous-monday-bloat-zombie.html
• The Boneflower Skeleton (Template), http://seaofstarsrpg.wordpress.com/2012/10/22/new-monster-boneflower-skeleton-template/

I am sure there are some I have missed. If so, just let me know.

October Challenge: Young Frankenstein (1974)

Young Frankenstein (1974)

Well. I had not set out to watch this one, but it was on TV, I was looking for something Halloweeny to watch, but not a horror flick cause the kids were still up.  I landed on this.

So happy I did.

Now, unlike some of the other movies that I have seen more than once I have seen this one something like a dozen times.  It is one of the favorite movies of both my dad and my father-in-law.  Anytime I have visited either of them in the last 20 years I was running a good chance of seeing it again.  My dad had it on old VideoDisc and my Father-in-law has it on VHS, DVD and BluRay.

Watching this now, especially since I have recently watched the Universal Frankenstein, gave me a totally new perspective on this movie.  First off I will say it.  Mel Brooks is a genius. He really is.  He captures every cliche of the 1930s Horror films and turns them up to 11.  No. 15.  Plus there is always fantastic social satire of the times.  This movie pokes as much fun at 1930s films as it does about the 1970s.

Back to the movie. It plays as sequel to any of the Frankenstein moveis of the 30s and 40s.  The cast is fantastic. Gene Wilder in the titular role ("That's Franken-STEEN!!") and Peter Boyle as the Creature.  Along the way we pick up Marty Feldman as Igor ("Eye gore") and Cloris Leachman as Frau Blucher.  Teri Garr and Madeline Kahn also join the cast as a love interest and the fiancee of Victor.

If you ever have seen a Frankenstein movie, then you have seen this one, at least in terms of plot and pacing. But this one goes over the top with comedy and is very close to a Brooks masterpiece.  Only Blazin' Saddles might be better.  There is so much here for the horror fan to enjoy.

Tally: Watched 25, New 19

What are you watching?

Wicked After Dark / Spread the Witch

Wicked After Dark Blog Hop

I am participating in the Wicked After Dark Blog Hop and Give Away. The hop takes place over October 24th to November 1st and is hosted by Close Encounters with the Night Kind.

You can find more information on it here:
http://closeencounterswiththenightkind.blogspot.com/2012/07/wicked-after-dark-halloween-giveaway.html

This Blog Hop will run over the same time as my own Monstrous Monday Blog Hop so I hop to get a lot of great crossover.  There are a TON of good blogs on both lists.

The Wicked After Dark though is a giveaway bloghop.

I will give away a PDF copy of The Witch.

I was considering giving it to anyone on my "Followers" list.  But I have people on that list that do not have email addresses  and others that I know follow me on Google+ or Facebook.

Given that the Wicked After Dark is also full of books on erotica and paranormal romance I think I am going to run a contest for this.

So without further ado, the Spread the Witch contest!

Here are the rules.

1. On your own blog, Facebook page, or Google+ page put a link up to my blog, http://timbrannan.blogspot.com. This can be for the one post only.
2. Talk about  The Witch.  You do not need to link to the DriveThruRPG page, but if you like you can.  This can be something as simple as "Hey check out Tim Brannan's new book The Witch at http://timbrannan.blogspot.com".
3. POST the link to your site in comments section of this post OR the post I will be making on this on October 23rd, 11:59PM.  Posting the link to your entry on my site is my way of knowing you are entering this contest.

Entries will be judged by myself with the help of my wife. I am looking for clever, cute or creative ways to get people's attention.   While I am not going to say avoid NC-17 ads, I will say please keep in mind your audience and mine.  I don't restrict my blog due to content mostly because I think my demographic skews 25+.

The winner will be chosen the week of Oct 29th.  I would like to give it away on Halloween to be honest.

So link here, spread the word and maybe you too can get a free copy of the Witch!

Listed below are the other participants in this blog hop.  They are all giving away things too!

Monstrous Monday #4: Witch Monsters

For today I want to do something a little different.

The Witch came out over the weekend and I want to talk about the relationship between witches and monsters and why there are monsters in a "class" book.

There are essentially two types of monsters that come up when talking about witches in myth, legend and fairytales.
1. Monsters that are associated with witches.  These would be things like familiars or created monsters.
2. Monsters that are witches.  The hags and crones of myth, but also some vampires and werewolves.

I'll cover these both with some examples from The Witch.

Monsters Associated with Witches
Witches have a number of "monsters" that are often associated with them.  Familiars and created monsters are the most common.  In The Witch I cover familiars quite a bit as a character option, but I also include a lot of special familiars.  The Brownie, or brown man, is known to many gamers. What many people don't know that the mythology of the brownie is tied to old pagan beliefs.  The Cait Sith, or faerie cat is another type of creature that indicates the presence of a witch, or in the case sometimes is a witch.
Other  creatures pose an interesting problem because of how they are portrayed in myth  is sometimes different from how they are portrayed in the rules.  Gnomes are a good example.  In the games (and SRD) they are a player character race, but in many pagan myths gnomes are creatures of earth, something like an elemental, that can aid a witch. To split the difference I made their magic more witch like than other portrayals.  Witches are often found in the company of trolls since both are fairy tale and fantasy staples. These trolls are not the green, rubbery type, but more of the creatures of earth found in Norway.
For created creatures, I have included the Druther, which is a special form of a wood golem that I created in my games years and years ago.  Another original monster is the Batling, a monster created by witchcraft, but has an ecology of it's own.
Plus we should not forget flying monkeys as a more recent example.

Monsters that Are Witches
Witches in fairy tales are often monstrous looking women and not normal human women with a particular career choice.  These monsters are covered well by the Hag monster in the rules, but there are a lot of different types of hags.  There are swamp hags, hags that live in ginger bread houses at the edge of forests, hags that live under the sea, or rivers, cold wastelands or ones that steal into homes to take your souls, breath or children.  I want to cover as many of these as I could and enhance them with rules I have in the book.
There are other creatures too that often blur the lines between creatures.  The Baobhan Sìth blurs the line between witch, faerie, and vampires. The Strigoi is described as a witch and a vampire.  The Boroka is witch  that under a curse and is also a cannibalistic monster.  The Rusalka is an undead witch.

There are many more, and I still have quite a few on my hard drives.  These though I think represent a good cross section of with related monsters.

For your consideration, the monsters from the Witch.


Baobhan Sìth
Banshee
Batlings
Bendith Ý Mamau
Boroka
Brownie
Cait Sídhe
Druther
Earth Troll
Elf, Gypsy (Ranagwithe)
Fen Witch
Green Jack
Hags
 - Annis
 - Cavern
 - Green
 - Ice
 - Moon
 - Sea
 - Storm
 - Swamp
 - Wood (Makva)
Imp
Jack-O’-Lantern
Night Hag
Rusalka
Scarecrow
Strigoi
Winged Cat
Winged Monkey


The Witch is out now at DriveThruRPG in ebook format.  Print copies are on the way.

October Challenge: Prometheus (2012)

Prometheus (2012)

Well. I had high hopes for this one.  I know, me, you and everyone else.  But I had hoped that against all hope that the bad reviews were because people just didn't understand it.

Boy was I wrong.

Now it's not that this is a bad movie.  It just has so many plot holes and there are too many answered questions. It is also no where near the suck-fest that was Alien: Resurrection, but it was also no Alien either.

The acting is good. The pacing is a bit slow in the beginning, but I think that is on purpose to set the last acts.

There are some nice thrills in the Engineer's base.  Still have no idea what they were all running from in the holo-recording.  The creatures were interesting of course.

I noticed a lot of nods to the first two Alien movies.  And because I had heard about it, little nods to Blade Runner as well.

There are some scary moments. I mean they won't rank up there with Alien.  Though this movie did make me want to re-watch Alien.

Tally: Watched 24, New 19

What are you watching?

Witch book

The Witch is out!

And I could not be more pleased.  Here are a few photos of my first proof copy.  It's hard bound, but the ones at DriveThruRPG will all be softcover to keep the costs down.

A little extra flash to see the watermark image on the back cover.

Inside.

Compared to Liber Mysterium my 3.0 D20 witch book.

The Witch is on sale now at DriveThruRPG.

October Challenge: Girl vs. Monster (2012)

Girl vs. Monster (2012)

So I was not originally going to count this one till my wife pointed out that it is actually better and scarier than  some of the other movies I have forced her to watch with me.  This one was obviously my kids' choice but it turns out it is kinda fun.  There are homages to Buffy, Ghostbusters (lots), and Beetlejuice in this.

Skylar, a fearless teen discovers near her 16th birthday that she is a 5th generation monster hunter. Not a bad premise really. Her mom and dad have a Steampunk-looking Ghostsbusters like lab. Where they keep all the ghosts, vapors and spooks they catch.

The special effects are not bad. Not great mind you, but not bad.  The message is not a bad one either; you are going to have fears, but they don't have to control you.

From my point of view it would make a cool game for kids.  I can certainly see Disney doing a sequel to this one.

I'll count this one as a horror movie, but I am going to have watch something scarier soon.


Tally: Watched 23, New 18

What are you watching?