October Movie Challenge: Dracula Untold (2014)

It's nice to see a movie in the theaters for the challenge every so often.
Dracula Untold is the "untold" story of how Vlad Dracula Tepes became a vampire.

I am not going to say a lot on this to be honest.  I don't want to spoil anyone.  But I will say there is more "300" and "Lord of the Rings" in this than in Bram Stoker's classic.

Still, it was a very fun movie and I am looking forward to talking about more soon.

We took the kids to see it and they really enjoyed it.  Now I will need to have them watch one of the classic Dracula movies.

I'll pick this up on BluRay.











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Tally so far:  12 Total Watched / 11 New

What do you find scary?
October Horror Movie Challenge hosted by Krell Laboratories.

Averoigne via Ravenloft

Chances are we are going to go see the new Dracula movie tonight.  But tomorrow I would like to get in some gaming.  My home group is nearly done with Castle Amber so given the season (and their levels) I want to segue right into Ravenloft.

For those that have played it you know that Stephen Amber send the party back to their own reality once they free him.  But what if he didn't? What if didn't have the power to do that since freeing him also meant letting go of all his power.  Stephen fades, Château d' Amberville crumbles to dust and the party is left standing in the mists.  Where are they to go?

Easy.

Castle Ravenloft.

I have for years talked about the similarities between Château d' Amberville and Castle Ravenloft and the connections between Mystara and the Demi-Plane of Dread.  It is likely that this is all taking place in the Demi-plane of Dread (Ravenloft) or the Dimension of Nightmares (Mystara) where even the Immortals fear to go.

Why do this?

I was thinking about the Doctor Who Series 2 episodes "Rise of the Cybermen" and "Age of Steel".  The Doctor, Rose and Mickey (who had not traveled with them before except for one episode) get stuck in an alternate universe.  Mickey stays behind.
The pay off on this is when we get to the Series 2 Finale and Mickey is back, and not just back, but since he traveled through "the Void" he and Rose are saved from being killed outright by the Daleks and it was Mickey who passed on his time travel energy (or void energy) to the Genesis Ark.

What's the point of this?  Well the reason they went to the parallel universe were not apparant at the time, but paid off in the finale.  From a story arc they all, including and especially Mickey, needed to go to that parallel universe when they did.

My players are in Ravenloft because they have to be.  They needed to free Stephen Amber and stop the Amber family because that gets them to Castle Ravenloft which in turn gets them the Sunsword and the Holy Symbol of Ravenkind.   They are going to need those in the coming darkness.

October Movie Challenge: Return of Count Yorga (1971) & The Deathmaster (1972)

Return of Count Yorga brings back Robert Quarry as Count Yorga and Roger Perry as a different character.  Brudah, the maybe-a-werewolf servant of Yorga is also back.  No real explanation is give as to why or how Yorga and Brudah are back.  Mariette Hartley stars and even Craig T. Nelson has a small role.

If anything this is a better movie than the first Count Yorga.  The story is more original, not just a copy of Dracula, though I guess it is similar to Dracula's Guest.
Plus the horror element is heightened.

The Deathmaster is a Yorga sequel in all but name really.  Robert Quarry now has a beard and he is playing a vampire named Khorda, but the shtick is the same. So are most of the make-up effects.  Khorda now takes control over a group of hippies to turn them into his death cult.
The movie is slower than Return, but it does feature a nasty death scene where leeches are thrown onto a vampire and they kill him.

Interestingly enough. The posters for Count Yorga and Return of Count Yorga refer to the Count as "the Deathmaster" and then next year he was in "The Deathmaster".

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Tally so far:  11 Total Watched / 10 New

What do you find scary?
October Horror Movie Challenge hosted by Krell Laboratories.

PWWO: Calidar

Calidar is out and I reviewed the PDF a couple of days back.  It really is awesome, but I am struck by how well it can be used pretty much anywhere.

Plus look at these awesome maps.

So for this edition of "Plays Well With Others" I want to focus on what you need to do to make Calidar work for your current favorite system.

Calidar and D&D 5
This is kind of a cheat really. One of the implicit design goals of D&D 5 was "D&D your way".  So given that Calidar works well with Pathfinder, working with D&D is not a stretch.  Plus the "default" world of D&D 5 might be the Forgotten Realms, but enough Greyhawk, Dragonlance and even Mystara names are thrown around  it should be obvious that you can play this  on any world.  D&D 5 does a much better job of capturing that high fantasy feel than previous edition's "Points of Light" or "Dungeon-punk" attitudes.  So does Calidar. Plus both D&D 5 and Calidar are new and can "grow up together" in the inventive mind of a DM.

The best thing about this marriage is you don't even the "full" version of D&D 5!  You can use the free D&D 5 Basic edition. The races are the basic four (human, elf, dwarf, halfling) and the basic four classes (cleric, fighter, wizard, thief).  This stripped down version of D&D5 works perfect with Calidar.  The races all have their own respective planets and the classes cover all the bases.

Calidar and Original D&D
Or you could go the other direction and use the original D&D rules. The same reasons apply from D&D 5, but I have something specific here in mind.  I would play Calidar more as a Planetary Romance.  One thing I always to do was play OD&D as a Barsoomian game.  I loved the Edgar Rice Burroughs books and I always felt that OD&D and Barsoom would be a perfect fit.  Calidar would be the glue that holds it all together.
Plus Calidar has a Mars-like planet now, but sadly not a Barsoomian one.  Barsoom would be a nice fit and give the Calidar game something a little bit different.
Here are some links I have been using to get my Mars/Barsoomian fixes.

• Original Edition Fantasy tagged Mars
• Warriors of Mars from Grey-Elf (PDF)

Looking forward to trying this out with my current game.

October Movie Challenge: Count Yorga (1970)

Count Yorga aka The Loves of Count Iorga was something on my list forever but for some reason just never got to it.

It is a 70s retelling of the Dracula story set in America.  Pretty straight-forward really. There are some twists though.  Yorga's ability to hypnotize is played up more.  And of course since this is the 70s there is more of an occult connection.

I thought I had watched this one a long time ago, but now I am not so sure.  The ending is not at all what I remembered.  So I think I am going to need to watch the Return of Count Yorga as well.

There was not as much sex as I suspected, but I also think the version I watched was an edited one.

Count Yorga does make a dashing vampire and there was a great 70s vibe to it.

I am going to call this one new even though I would have sworn I had seen before.  I am going to wait till after I watch the Return of Count Yorga first.


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Tally so far:  9 Total Watched / 8 New

What do you find scary?
October Horror Movie Challenge hosted by Krell Laboratories.

Top 10 Movie Witches

Found this and thought I would share.

The Top 10 Movie Witches.



And of course that lead me to this:

Top 10 TV Witches and Wizards


Not sure if I agree with all these, but they certainly were fun.

Owl & Weasel Wednesday #13 February 1976

Owl & Weasel Wednesday #13 comes to us from February 1976. In a nice coming together of my hobby and that of my younger brother.  The 1976 National Scrabble Championship is mentioned with instructions of how to enter.  My brother is a huge Scrabble geek so he might find this one interesting.

Over on the Editorial page they celebrate 1 year of the Owl & Weasel.  They mention a few of the places you can now get O&W and call out one hobby store that doesn't carry them.   They also talk about NOT wanting to go bi-monthly (as White Dwarf will do in the future) asking for more letters and submissions.   "SF/F" (Sci-Fi/Fantasy) games are the big rage now.  They will continue to use this term well into their White Dwarf days till eventually being replaced by the more common RPG.

Page 3 gives us a review of Cartel the American Stock Market Game.  I remember this game and I think I have seen it at previous game auctions.  Other games discussed are Top Rat and Rail Way Rivals.

The British International Toy Fair in Brighton is covered.  I looked for games that a.) might have survived to today and b.) any indication of the coming RPG and Video game booms.  But really nothing.

Page 10 features a great little "coupon" for The D&D Society.  Send in your name, address and whether or not you have designed your own dungeons to the O&W and they will send you 10 character sheets! That's a bargain at any price.

Page 11 gives us a handy index to games covered and what issues they appeared in.  Dungeons and Dragons is covered in issues 5 through 12.

Back cover has items for sale including a Games Workshop sweatshirt.  Either Medium or Large and the the prince is only £3.25.