Kick Start Your weekend!

End of Quarter, new one start on Monday.  Busy as hell today.

Here is a Kickstarter you should check out.

Of Dreams and Magic
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/887885342/of-dreams-and-magic

I think they have something cool here and worth checking out.

October Movie Challenge: Satanic Rites of Dracula (1973)

Also known as "Count Dracula and His Vampire Bride" this is one I was supposed to watch in 2010 when I did mini-Dracula thon.  My disk was a piece of junk and the movie never worked.  No big deal really, I had seen it back in the 70s or 80s. But I always wanted to re-watch it.  I loved the scenes of Satanic Black Mass combined with vampire mythos.

Plus I really liked (then and now) the idea that the descendants of Van Helsing keep popping up to fight Dracula.   This time we are treated to "Lorrimer Van Helsing" and his granddaughter Jessica.  Ah the mental gymnastics I went through to figure out modern Hammer canon and Marvel Comics Dracula Canon; Jessica Van Helsing vs. Rachel Van Helsing. Rachel was either Jessica's daughter or her niece.  But that is just my crazy head-canon.

Additionally there was the high tech/medical science aspect of this.  It is takes a lot of influences from James Bond (which also had Christopher Lee as a bad guy). This movie is also so in tune with the 70s occult revival it is hard to know nearly 40 years later which influenced which.

There really is a lot I love about this movie.  Christopher Lee as Dracula and Peter Cushing and Van Helsing, really it is the best team up in the history of the genre.

The bit about the "Undead Sabbat" is a little silly, but the bubonic plague is a nice way to up the ante a bit.

I used this movie as a basis for my introduction of Dracula to Mutants & Masterminds.

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Tally so far:  20 Total Watched / 13 New

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

Witch Crafting ... Celebrating Halloween AND Christmas. RPG Care Packages

I am participating in Magaly Guerrero’s Pagan Culture Crafting Blooming Howls today and the challenge is to come up with something witch fiction related that you have been meaning to finish.

Really, I didn't just want to upload yet another witch character stat block (though I am sure I still will later today).  I wanted to do something special and something different.

Well this year I am finally completing something I have wanted to do for a while.
I am putting together care packages of OSR and Witch fun for our troops serving overseas.

A bit back I posted my thoughts here: http://timbrannan.blogspot.com/2014/10/christmas-really-brannan.html
I have tried to do this in past and didn't get my act together in time so I just sent money to my local VFW and American Legions.

Here is what I have so far:

Copies of Basic Fantasy as the core rules.  I think it one of the better interpretations of the OSR rules and a nice sweet spot between Basic and Advanced D&D.  Plus it is also the one that is most compatible with my own Witch book.   I know there are a lot of great rule sets; OSRIC, S&W, LL...but enough people have also asked to participate or do something similar I figured those rules would be represented.

I am also including copies of The Witch by yours truly.  This is a Witches in Fiction crafting blog challenge so this is what makes it "Witch".

At the moment I still need to get some bags to put both books in and get some dice.  I want to include some character sheets, a pre-gen witch character (because I can). I will include a letter thanking them for their service and some links to my blog and some others, likely +Erik Tenkar's since that is a good place to start anyway.

I would also like to include an adventure and maybe a dice bag.  Make it a complete package.

If this goes well I might do a couple of sets of Spellcraft & Swordplay plus Eldritch Witchery.  The nice thing with this is the dice sets will be cheaper and the bags can be smaller.

I am also open to more ideas.

The Blooming Sponsors

- Alchemy & Ashes
- Diandra Linnemann
- Eliora
- Gothic Miniatures
- Judy's Photos
- Rue and Hyssop
- Sarah H. Original Art & Gifts
- Touch of the Goddess
- Ye Olde Crones Gazette
- and Magaly Guerrero’s Pagan Culture

Working Here...What is your Favorite OSR adventure?

Hey.

So between working on Strange Brew, the Horror Movie Challenge and oh yeah the Day Job, I kinda feel like I have been phoning it in lately.

Well today is no different!!

Actually though there is something you all can do to REALLY help out.  I will post the reasoning tomorrow as part of a larger post.

But what I would like to know today is this.

What is your favorite OSR adventure module?

By this I mean a new adventure, published say since 2007 (I am flexible on that date), by a third party publisher for use with one of the OSR* rulesets or the Original Rules (OD&D, BD&D, AD&D).

(*I guess unless that is a tautology above I am saying that the "R" in OSR does not mean "Rules".  That's about as close as a definition as you are going to get around here.)

I would prefer stand alone adventures, but a trilogy is also fine.

Tell me what it is and why you like it.

Myself I am rather fond of some of the Dragonsfoot Adventures, but mostly I like the ones from Troll Lords' Castles & Crusades line.

Post in the comments below or on Google+.

Thanks!

October Movie Challenge: Vampire Diary (2006)

Not to be confused with the teen soap on the WB, this movie is a 2006 "found footage" movie about vampires. But don't go into it expecting "Blair Witch" or "Paranormal Activity".

The star of the movie is Holly and she is making a documentary on "weekend vampires" or people that dress up as vampires to go to clubs.  In the process she finds Vicki (a pre-Hellboy Anna Walton) recording her and she is recording the crowd.  Vicki tries to seduce Holly, but Holly instead just lets her sleep on the couch.  Eventually Vicki worms her way into Holly's life. And that is when the bodies start showing up.

Vicki and Holly eventually do have sex and we discover that Vicki is a "real" vampire.  She has been feeding on people close to Holly and the club scene.  We learn that Vicki had been raped by a male vampire and left to die. Now she was pregnant and needs to feed more and more.

The interesting facet of this movie is guessing whether or not Vicki is in fact a vampire or just insane. She uses a bolt gun, like what you use to kill animals for slaughter, and you never see fangs.  Holly is dragged right on down with her and you are left guessing till the end.

The "found footage" aspect is very interesting. Giving it a good solid indie feel but also a very intimate one.  You really can see Vicki and Holly's downward spiral into madness and depravity.

There are some notes missing, but the acting is top notch and the direction is great.

I won't spoil the ending for you since I feel this one I would recommend.  


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Tally so far:  19 Total Watched / 13 New

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

Owl & Weasel Wednesday #14 March 1976

Today we head back to March of 1976.

In what is a first for me, and for O&W, a variant set of rules are presented for Diplomacy.  It covers the entire first page.  (Click over there for larger).

The Editorial deals with the falling value of the Pound vs. the American Dollar and the effect it will have on buying some games from the US.  Bottom line here is that GW will try to stock more D&D so people can buy it without having to pay for the shipping.

I became very interested in American and British economies in the 80s.  There was always "perception" that the recession in Great Britain was Thatcher's fault. But this points to the seeds of that time starting right here.

Page 3 has something of a milestone of several sorts. First it is the introduction of Don Turnbull as a new fan of the D&D game. Also covered is the first set up of what would later be know as Play By Mail games.

Page 5 is the first article of the D&D Society News.   Several people send in their addresses, but no phone numbers.  Ian Livingstone plays to make this a regular feature.

Four longer reviews follow, one for "Feds 'N' Heads", "Bust", a railway game "1869" and "Fast Carriers".   It seems that the reviews are picking up some now.  I hope this is a trend that continues since it was one of my favorite parts of White Dwarf.

We end with the usual batch of games for sale from "T.S.R."

Could it be that the "D&D High" at O&W is over and they are getting back to board games?  Maybe, but history teaches us something different.

October Movie Challenge: Billy the Kid vs Dracula (1966)

Well I am going to start out by saying that this movie was no where near as bad as I remembered it.
Ok.  The bat is still crappy. And the "night" scenes are more like afternoon scenes.

Let's start with some of the good points.
The timing is about right really.  Dracula could have left England to visit America.  And John Carradine does a good Dracula.
I could see Billy the Kid/William Bonny deciding to play it legit too.  It makes as much sense as a vampire really.

All in all it is pretty much a typical Dracula plot.  Dracula sees a pretty girl, decides he wants her, goes after her, killing dozens along the way.  Hero protects girl.

I do like the change of the typical Victorian England or even the "Hammer Hamlet" to the American West.
There are plenty of differences in setting a horror film in the American west rather than say Victorian era Europe. For starters everyone (well not really...) has a gun. And the Americans generally don't believe the old superstitions.  This was something I always felt was done well in George Hamilton's "Love at First Bite".

If anything there are a lot of wasted potential here, but I can't say if that is just my take on it looking at nearly 50 years later or if it is an actual defect of the movie.

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Tally so far:  18 Total Watched / 12 New

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