Review: Adventures Dark & Deep A Curious Volume of Forgotten Lore

A Curious Volume of Forgotten Lore is the first of Joseph Bloch's Adventures Dark & Deep books.  It is presented as an add-on or supplement to OSRIC, Labyrinth Lord or any other "Old School" game.  But its roots are obviously in AD&D 1st edition.

The book works under the premise of what would 2nd Edition have looked like if Gary Gygax had stayed at TSR.  Joe has taken articles, interviews and discussions and something like an anthropologist pieced it all together to get something new and yet familiar.
At a modest 140 or so pages, this book packs in a lot.

We begin with some level limits of some newer races. By newer I mean ones that did not appear in the Player's Handbook/OSRIC.

We quickly move into classes.  First up it should be noted is a usable Bard class.  No more advancing as a thief, fighter and then druid to get to the bard, this is a straight out bard class.  Already makes it worth it.  The bard also has some nice powers too.  I will be honest, when playing in my "old school" games this is the Bard I look to the most often now.
We also get a Jester class, which is nice because it is one of those classes I remember Gygax talking about wanting to use all the time.  Same with the Mountebank.
The mystic class seems closer to the BECMI/RC version than it does to the monk.  Which is fine by me really.
The last class is a savant, another one I recall reading about back in the day.  This one is more of your occult investigator/sage with some magic type.

So far as a "class book" it is shaping up real nice. Lots of ones I'd like to try out and they fill niches that /could/ be filled by other classes, but they make it their own.

The next section is on Secondary Skills, which seems to refine the system in AD&D, but not quite a full blown skill system.  Very much in the vein of "your class is what you do, but you have this extra thing" philosophy.
We end up the characters section with monthly expenses and starting ages.

The next section is on combat with an alternate combat system.  Again I seem to recall talk of such a thing, but it is more vague in my memory that the classes.
The system is detailed and should appeal to anyone that like more flavor to their AD&D combat.

We get a page on Social Encounters.
Next is an expanded Treasure listing and a section on ships and waterborne adventures.  Something I could have used at the close of my AF&F 1st ed games to be honest.

The next 25 pages are dedicated to magic including a number of new spells for the new spell casting classes.

The Game Master's section is next, though it is not specifically called that.
New dungeon hazards are covered and then we get to magic item descriptions.

We end with some new monsters which include various Angels, Demons and some dragons.

All in all this is a good addition to the AD&D/OSRIC/LL-Advanced game.  Even if you don't use everything here there is enough to make it worth your while.

October Movie: I Spit On Your Grave (2010)

Remake of the cult "classic".

I Spit on Your Grave is part of what is commonly known as a Rape and Revenge film.  Someone is wronged, tortured or raped and in the next act rain down unholy vengeance on the perpetrators. It is a voyeuristic exercise.

This is new version is better acted and for a bit seemed to be shooting from the same script.  The acting is much better and that only makes the scenes seem worse.  The violence is more than recall from the original as well, though I think there were actually more scenes of brutality in the original.

I would have liked to have contrasted it more with the original, but stayed up too late watching this one.

Tally: Watched 18,  New 14

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Adventures Dark & Deep Week

Joseph Bloch is one of those rarities in the OSR side of the RPG biz.
He has a blog (nothing new there), has a retro clone (also nothing new) and he runs some Kickstarters to get his product to the presses.  Also nothing new.

What Joseph and BRW games DOES do that is noteworthy is how quickly he gets his Kickstarters done.
The rewards for the Adventures Dark and Deep Players Manual shipped more than a month early.
And now the rewards for Adventures Dark and Deep Bestiary are shipping now, about 6 months early.

That is great, then add in the fact that Adventures Dark & Deep is also a fun game and worth the money then you have the recipe for a very happy fan base.

I want to spend some time this week talking about all the products Joe and BRW has to offer.

A Curious Volume of Forgotten Lore
Adventures Dark and Deep Players Manual
Adventures Dark and Deep Game Masters Toolkit
Adventures Dark and Deep Bestiary
Darker Paths 1: The Necromancer
Darker Paths 2: The Witch

Adventures Dark & Deep is built on the premise of "What If".  In this case, "What if Gary Gygax had still been with TSR and produced 2nd Edition AD&D?"

Joe has spent a lot of time coming through Dragon magazine articles, interviews and then taking all of that and making some logical assumptions about the game.  You get something that might have been the 2nd Edition game of a parallel universe.

So join me this week as we go over this game.

October Movie: Subspecies (1991 - 1998)

I remember seeing the first Subspecies movie while in grad school.  It was great fun even if it wasn't very good.  What set it apart from other Dracula-related vampire movies was this one actually was shot in Romania, which I felt gave it an air of authenticity. Or at least atmosphere.  While no big now, back then the Iron Curtain was still recently fallen and growing up in the midst of the 80s and nuclear war fear it was a big deal.

The other interesting twist to this movie is the stop-motion animation of Radu's minions.  I always felt I Was watching two different movies with this.  One was a vampire movie about a family of vampires and the other was a movie about these puppets from the same folks that gave us Puppet Master.  I liked the little dudes, but they seemed under used or at best ill used.

Subspecies 2 came along and there were some cast changes, but we still got Anders Hove as the evil Radu. The myths are turned up a bit, but I always felt it was half the movie it should have been. By the end I found out why. Subspecies 3 continued the story of Michelle, Radu and the Bloodstone.  Except I never got to see the third movie till just this past weekend.

Subspecies 3 continues right where #2 left of.  All three movies when watched as the proper trilogy are more enjoyable.  I did rewatch #1 and #2 since they came on the same DVD set with #3.  There are a lot of call backs to the old Nosferatu movie and Radu and Michelle are no Edward and Bella. Michelle even kills a few people even though she obviously doesn't want too.  Radu is just evil through out the whole thing and it is nice to know that someone out there still remembers that vampires are supposed to be monsters.

Taken as a Trilogy, Subspecies is not a bad time.
There is a Subspecies 4 as well.  This one ties in with another movie from Full Moon, Vampire Journals, not to be confused with The Vampire Diaries.  As myth building it is fun, but there is precious little of Michelle in this one.  There are interesting twists on the nature of Michelle's and Radu's love/hate relationship.  Michelle does hate Radu, but she needs him and she is becoming more like him.  Radu on the other hand loves Michelle. So much so that he kills his entire family to have her.  Vampire love is fucked up.

Vampire Journals is not a sequel to Subspecies, but it is a spin off.  I didn't enjoy it as much, and you don't need to watch it to enjoy Subspecies 4, but it helps.

The first two movies had an undue influence on my then Gothic Earth game.  I included both Radu and Stephan as sons of Dracula in my game.  I also had a few Daughters thrown in for good measure.

So for this weekend that in 5 with 3 new.

My wife wants to know if I am vampired out yet.

Tally: Watched 17,  New 13

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Virus

Really late on postings for today.

I am cleaning up the kids homework computer from some really nasty malware they picked up on a Minecraft site.

Hope to have something for you all soon!

October Movie: Virgin Witch (1971)

So this movie begins by going through the cast in the nude scenes. Interestingly enough sisters Vicki and Ann Michelle (playing sisters) never mention this movie on their own websites. Well Ann does, but only as an "experience she doesn't want to remember".
The girls play aspiring models in 70s London and they get caught up in a coven of witches.
Pretty much all the tropes and stereotypes are here. Copious amounts of nudity. Bizzare ritual sex scenes, predatory older lesbian/high priestess.  Virgin sacrifice.  Just a trippy sort of movie

For me it really captures my memories of  what the 70s occult craze was about. Mind you that is my memories, not how it actually was (to my knowledge  anyway).
Movies like this really formed some of the ideas that still live on in my witch game books today.
It's not a great movie, but it is a fun one.

Tally: Watched 12,  New 10

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What is 'Eldritch Witchery'?

I rather enjoy writing about Witches.

You might have noticed that.

After all the books and blog posts I have written over the last few years, this should be obvious.  What isn’t obvious is how much more I learn and enjoy with each book.

Eldritch Witchery is something of a homecoming for me.  Like many, I started out playing the “Basic” set of the late 70s-early 80’s and then moved on to the “Advanced” version of the world’s most popular role-playing game.  At some point I learned of this “other” version, an original version.  It came in little brown books with names like Men and Magic.  One day, I was going through the mail-order hobby catalog I used to get and saw a copy of this game.  It was, of course, beyond my means to get at the time, but there was a supplement called Eldritch Wizardry and I knew I had to get it.

Eldritch Wizardry introduced demons, the druids and psionics to the Original game, and to my 12-13 year old self heavily into all things paranormal this sounded like a treasure trove.  Well the book I got was not what I expected, but I was still so glad to have it.

Eldritch Witchery, then, is my chance to write the book that my 13 year old self wanted to buy.  There are some obvious parallels with that original book; this book features Witches naturally, but also some demons and things that I think made the late 70s and early 80s an interesting time in gaming.

To fully capture what I want, I am writing this for the Spellcraft & Swordplay rules.  S&S is a great little game that is a prime example of economy of rules, just like I pictured the Original Rules were.  Plus it has given me the chance to work with Jason Vey, creator of the game.

Eldritch Witchery is written to help recapture that sense of wonder of the unknown.  Designed to be both familiar and yet brand new at the same time.

While the book covers a lot of the same ground as does The Witch, there are some new traditions, a handful of new spells, and of course a bunch of new demons, devils and the like.  Plus there is an entire Warlock class and the warlock lodges.  Some of what was going to go into some other books I had planned and have shelved for now also made it in.  

It should be out here in the next few days (maybe Halloween!) depending on how long it takes me to build the files.

I hope you all enjoy it.