Furious Friday!!

I have a lot going on today!  So let's get to it.

First a reminders about the MONSTROUS MONDAY Blogfest on Monday.
If you are participating you need to have your  image and link back here by Monday 12:01 AM CST.
I will be checking and sending out emails over the weekend.  You can still sign up after that time.

If you are not participating, then please stop by and see my post and visit all the sites.  If you are a gamer there will be a lot of great monsters for your use.  If you are not a gamer but are here as an author or horror fan then maybe there will be something here to influence you!

I am still in the middle of the WICKED AFTER DARK Blogfest.  Please visit these sites to win something cool.  Every site is giving away something, usually a book, but I have seen all sorts of things.

I am giving away a PDF copy of The Witch!  Go to my sign-up page for a chance to win!  I opened up some more options for you to get some entries.

So not only can you win some cool prizes and visit some site outside the normal OSR Blog Realms, but you can win a copy of the Witch for your self!

If you don't want to enter you can still purchase a copy of the Witch on your own.  It is on sale now for $5.00 at DriveThruRPG / RPGNow.  A little bit later today or this weekend I am going to go into some of the history of this project.

DriveThru is in the Halloween mood as well, so don't forget their Halloween sales. Look for the pumpkin to get your own Halloween treat!

Finally I am still participating in the October Challenge.  I have seen a bunch of horror films at will be talking about them every night.

October Challenge: Crush (2009)

Crush (2009)

Crush was a bit of a random one.  Promising a supernatural twist and obsessions.  We got all of that.  To bad the beginning of the movie was so slow.

Julian is an American living in Australia and going to school.  He takes a job house sitting against his girlfriend's wishes and soon he can't tell what is going on anymore.  He is visited by Anna, who he assumes is the owner's niece. They have sex and things go downhill here from there.
It is a rule in horror, never have sex with someone you are not supposed too.  Julian spends the movie forgetting he is in a horror movie and makes all sorts of mistake that readers of the this blog never would.

Anyway Anna isn't what she appears (of course) and now Julian is really in trouble.

I don't want to give away the end since that really is the best part.

Not a bad little flick really.

Tally: Watched 27, New 21

What are you watching?

Review

My first review for the Witch is up.

http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/107132/The-Witch%3A-A-sourcebook-for-Basic-Edition-fantasy-games?affiliate_id=10748

I got a 4/5, which I think is fantastic.  The reviewer did mention a couple things that they would have liked to see, but I think all in all the review is quite fair.

If you grabbed this, let me know! A review is great way to share the love.

Halloween Sales

It is that time of year.

DriveThruRPG is offering a Halloween Sale.

The one that caught my attention was the sale Troll Lord is having on Castles and Crusades.

If you ever wanted to try out the C&C system, this is a great time.

October Challenge: Blood and Roses (1960)

Blood and Roses (1960)

Blood and Roses, or Et mourir de plaisir, is one of those movies I have know about for years and I have always wanted to see.  Well I found it on Amazon Instant Video and thought this was a good of time as any.

After dealing with The Twins of Evil earlier in this challenge I have to admit my hopes for this one were low.
Well this one certainly has it's moments, even if it is a touch slow.  I was thinking if it were redone today the narration would have been dropped.

This movie takes place in the modern day and plays a little like a sequel to the Vampire Lovers, with Twins of Evil as a prequel.  This one though introduces a male lover for Carmilla/Millarca which will have any long time reader to this blog scratching their head like me.

The movie though is good.  The lesbianism is as underplayed as the vampirism.  This easily could be about a girl going crazy because the man she loves is marrying someone else.  It is only at the end is their a supernatural (maybe) twist.

I now think I have seen all the film adaptations of Carmilla, but it is possible that one is still out there.



Tally: Watched 26, New 20

What are you watching?

Slasher Flick: Jenny Two-Bags

I am a fan of Shon Richard's Erotiterrorist site.

If eroticism or even mostly R and X rated stories bug you, then don't go.  But among many other things Shon has a great imagination and can write a good tale.

His Halloween feature this month have been tales from the Succubus, Sukubeth.  Today's tale was about this serial killer that comes back from the dead.  It is a great mash-up of Carrie, Friday the 13th and any nameless college-age porno.  Of course in my twisted mind I think it would make a a great Slasher Flick bad guy.

I reviewed Slasher Flick a couple of weeks back (here) and even posted some characters.  What I never posted was a Killer to go along with the story.

So, presented here, is the horrific, but ultimately sad, tale of of a Girl known as Jenny Two Bags.
You can read her story here, http://erotiterrorist.blogspot.com/2012/10/fiction-jenny-two-bags.html
I will not attempt to retell it.


Appearance: Jenny appears as young women, roughly college age.  Her body would be the envy of most supermodels and she usually does not spend much time covering up.  Her face though is completely hidden by a sexy red devil mask.  If you were to remove her mask (which is a suicidal idea) you would see her face.  While Jenny was not attractive in life, death has done nothing to improve her.  In fact she bares the marks of every kill and every time she has been killed on her horrific face.

Components: Fearful Visage, Feeds on Fear, Hard to Kill, Linked Location (the cemetery where her body was dumped and the nearby colleges), Punish the Promiscuous (this is her Raison d'être), Superhuman Strength

Plot Hooks:
• Jenny Two Bags only shows up on Halloween.  If there is a high school or college party with alcohol (which means EVERY party) then expect Jenny to show up.
• Don't call her that! If a character calls Jenny by her name "Jenny Two-Bags" then she will go into a mindless killing frenzy.
• Last Boy.  If one of the last characters is a somewhat average male (the Nerd Archetype works best here) and he tries to be nice to Jenny she will forget why she is there.  This is treated as an attack.

Jenny can be killed by normal weapons and has been killed many times.  But she is always back by next Halloween!

Read about Jenny Two-Bags here: http://erotiterrorist.blogspot.com/2012/10/fiction-jenny-two-bags.html
Get Slasher Flick here: http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/82728/Slasher-Flick%3A-The-Director%27s-Cut?affiliate_id=10748

White Dwarf Wednesday #37

White Dwarf #37 opens up 1983 with what will be the first full year of monthly issues for WD.
At this point in time I was DEEP into D&D and AD&D, often mixing the games as was our wont.

The cover art is a small faerie, perfect for the article coming up.

We start off the issue with a large number of ads (more Judge Dredd) and then the editorial.  Ian Livingstone laments the lack of British RPGs, complaining that the recent downturn of the Pound vs the Dollar have made American RPGs kind of expensive.  o for myself I would have sworn there were British RPGs out at this point, but I guess I was wrong.

First up we have the aforementioned article on Faeries.  This is an attempt by the author, Alan E. Paull to bring AD&D in line with the land of Fae; or at least close to it.   This first entry is short (2 pages) but a great start really.  Faerie should be so much more than what it typically is in *D&D.  Next issue will have stats.

Andy Slack is back with An Introduction to Traveller.  This issue is Part 2: Refereeing.   He covers a lot of the published material out there and how to use it to help your game.

Open Box is next with reviews of Soloquest from from Chaosium. This little gem helps you run a solo RuneQuest game.  It has some interesting ideas (DreamQuest, Maguffin Hunt) that I think might be interesting to try  in D&D or even CoC.  Clive Bailey gave it a 9/10 all by himself.  Star Frontiers is next. I had just gotten this one for Chistmas so I was quite excited to build my own adventures from Star Wars, Star Trek and Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.  Yes my very first character was a Vrusk named Zaphod.  Andy Slack likes the rules and what you get in the box,  but does not like the lack of space travel rules, (Night Hawks was still a bit away) and gives it a 7/10.   Eventually my issue with Star Frontiers was the same as one of my issues with Traveller; it degraded into D&D in Space. Er, wait, sorry. D&D in SPPAAAAAACE!  Lastly we have a Play By Mail game, Crasimoff's world "The International game for the modern thinking mind".  Trevor Graver likes the detail and gives it 8/10 but dislikes the poor English and slow  turnaround time (2 weeks).

Marcus Rowland, of future Forgotten Futures fame, http://www.forgottenfutures.co.uk/ has a GREAT article on Vampires.  This article is a great companion piece to the old Dragon article Varieties of Vampires. This article was fodder for me and my games.  I don't think I had a single vampire that was 100% like another in my games.  Great things about this article, vampires getting more powerful with age, variations on powers and weaknesses.  Great, great stuff really.

City in the Swamp was another one of those articles that made their way into my world myths.  My Necromancer from a few issues back had his base of operations in a swamp. Actually a lot of things went into making that character, but this was one of those pieces.  Graeme Davis gives us this adventure for 5th to 7th level characters.

Letters are up next.  A reader LOVES the Necromancer, calling it the best class White Dwarf has done yet. Not so says Don Turnbull, putting on his official TSR cap, he calls the Necromancer "most distasteful".  Which gets a note from the editor reminding him (and us) that the class is an NPC class. Another reader dislikes Infravision based on what he knows about infra-red cameras. Another dislikes the constant D&D focus of everything and one more asking for better Traveller material.

Lewis Pulsipher is back with D&D Scenarios, or what we would call adventure seeds today.

Fiend Factory has some odd monsters that cross species.  Some land dwelling reptilian cephalopods that seem to worship the god Pyaray from the Elric books.  We also have chameleon cats, bird  men and ant men.  None are bad, I like I the cats, the Crestcats, but also none of them fill me with any desire to use them.  This has been the case for Fiend Factory for a while now.

RuneRites has two new Battle Magic spells from Richard Case and edited by Oliver Dickson.
Starbase has more new vehicles for Traveller.
Treasure Chest deals with AD&D encumbrance.

We follow with the ads and classifieds.  One that was brought to my attention was this one:

Help!
15-yr old male AD&D player wishes to contact very attractive female AD&D players to discuss adventures.  Please send current photo (if possible) or letter to...

I wonder if he ever got a response? I found someone the same age and grew up in the same area.  I can report he seems successful and happily married.  No I am not posting his name here.

We end with a few more pages of ads.

White Dwarf of 1983 is certainly taking a page or two from Dragon.  The layout is cleaned up more and and there seems to be a great deal of professionalism as well.  83 was a big year for RPGs for me.  Interesting to see this all again in the pages of WD.