October Horror Movie Challenge: The Antichrist (1974)

Another 1974 flick.  I was not kidding when I said it was a good year for horror.  But is this one a good movie?

It is almost like the creators of this movie saw The Exorcists and thought "yeah, that's good, but it needs more sex. And maybe a dash of incest too."

You would be excused if on the surface this one sounded like "Enter the Devil" from the same year. There are religious overtones, demonic possession, incest, psycharity, and lots of demonic activity. 

Briefly, Ippolita (Carla Gravina) was paralyzed in a car crash that had killed her mother. While she goes to holy shrines in hopes that God will heal her, her father Massimo (Mel Ferrer) is busy cavorting with his new young lover Greta (Anita Strindberg).  

All the doctors have told Massimo that Ippolita's condition is psychosomatic. So on the advice of his brother a Cardinal they take her to see a psychiatrist Dr. Sinibaldi (Umberto Orsini). Under hypnosis, Ippolita talks about her past life as a witch and how she was burned at the stake. The hypnosis is successful, Ipplolita is able to walk again, but she is possessed by her past life that gave her soul to Satan.  So in addition to walking Ippolita now spits up green goo, has telekinesis, and has sex with her own brother. You know. The usual. 

There are at least three different attempts to exorcise her. Meanwhile, she manages to kill a few people. Finally in the end the devil (or witch, it is unclear now) is forced out by church bells and puts her hands on an iron cross.

So. There are some neat things here and certainly an attempt at some special effects. 

It's not a bad flick, but suffers too much from Exorcism Envy really. It also has long stretches where nothing at all is really moving the plot forward.

Use for War of the Witch Queens

Like I mentioned with "Enter the Devil" there is not enough of the common folk being afraid of demons and devils for what they represent (Eternal Evil) and not as "Monsters with a lot of XP."

Use for NIGHT SHIFT

This would be a good history one too. Come back 48 years later. Ippolita had a daughter from her incestuous affair. They gave that girl for adoption to the church who tried to raise the demon child. One night she escaped. When she was discovered again she was pregnant. Now that baby, Ippolita's granddaughter, is back looking for her grandmother. Maybe she is now possessed of the same witch but can better control it. 

October Horror Movie Challenge 2022
Viewed: 7
First Time Views: 6

Kickstart Your Weekend: OSE Style

A couple of Kickstarters designed for Old-School Essentials (the new hotness in the OSR scene) are up.  Let's have a look.

Dark Places & Demogorgons for Old-School Essentials

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ericfrombloatgames/dark-places-and-demogorgons-for-old-school-essentials?ref=theotherside

This one is the Peanut Butter and Chocolate of the OSR right now. Dark Places and Demogorgons is a fun setting, OSE is a great rule system. Two great tastes that are great together.

Honestly, outside of NIGHT SHIFT, these are the only two games that excite me right now. AND they both live on the same shelf, so this is kind of a no-brainer for me.

And this one has now hit its funding goal and headed for stretch goals!  And the stretch goals look FANTASTIC.  I am in on an early bird special, so I am looking forward to all the great stuff this one is going to get for me.

Gateway To Adventure Trilogy For Old-School Essentials

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/gamersandgrognards/gateway-to-adventure-trilogy-for-old-school-essentials?ref=theotherside

Appendix N is kickstarting a trio of books for Old-School Essentials. So the "Gateway to Adventure" is quite appropriate.

From the campaign page,

Within the Gateway To Adventure trilogy you will receive optional rules and classes based on the Mid-Realm campaigns of R.J. Thompson, as well as lore for the various kin and classes. All of this information will be presented in a way that will be easily transferable into any campaign setting! These books are meant to be cherry picked by referees and players alike to create the campaign that they want to have! Similarly to how we present our adventures, so that every table's experience is different, so too with our rules variants, we want everyone to have their own unique game! All of this in an A5 format so these books fit on your shelf right next to the core Old-School Essentials line!

Sounds like a lot of fun and OSE is my current OSR clone of choice.

100 Days of Halloween: Winter of the Witch

My search for my Winter Witch for War of the Witch Queens continues. Today's candidate comes in two flavors 4e and 5e. She gets a few extra bonuses as well.

As always I will be following my rules for these reviews.

Dungeon #162 (4e) - Winter of the Witch

PDF. 111 pages, color covers and interior art.

I am not reviewing the entire issue of Dungeon here, though I will briefly talk about the other contents. Robert J. Schwalb has two adventures here. A Scales of War Adventure Path adventure and “Depths of Madness” from the Madness trilogy. Schwalb does great work and I am sure these are both top-notch. 

Winter of the Witch is by Stephen Radney-MacFarland with illustrations by Dave Allsop, Eric Deschamps, Izzy, William O'Connor, Wayne Reynolds, Amelia Stoner, Sam Wood, and cartography by Jason A. Engle, and Sean Macdonald. 

This adventure calls the characters back to Winterhaven to the Keep on the Shadowfell. The plot is similar to what we would later see with the Night King and Winterfell in Game of Thrones. (But this was published in 2009.) Koliada is marching south with her army of Undead and winter follows after her. This could easily be tied in with the HPE series of adventures from 4e if you could find a way to slot them in. All the right elements are here it is a matter of working it out. OR it would make for a great epic-level adventure for some other D&DF 4 campaign. It is set for levels 21-30.

Personally, the adventure is fine, but the true star here is Koliada the Winter Witch. She is so much fun that I have used her in BECMI D&D and made my own D&D 5 stats for her. I also thought she might make a great Dark Lord if part of Pathfinder's Irrisen got sucked into Ravenloft as Ikkesen.  She is a standout character and one I love to keep coming back to.  The fantastic Wayne Reynolds art doesn't hurt either.

The adventure is a tight 34 pages.

Winter of the Witch (5e)

PDF. 32 pages. No art.

This conversion is from Michael "solomani" Mifsud making use of the WotC fan license to convert older products. This is a conversion of the Monsters (and just the monsters) from the Winter of the Witch adventure from Dungeon 162.

Monster stats are limited to one per page to make printing easy with the notable exceptions of our white dragon Kurikveaeri and Koliada herself.  His stats don't match mine save where we both drew from the original, but he has a some good ideas here to be sure.

The product doesn't not try to convert the whole adventure. It also doesn't claim to try to convert it all either, this is just the monsters.  For just under $2 that's not bad, but I would have liked some more. Still this is a lot of work and plenty to get me going.

--

For use in War of the Witch Queens

I can use this adventure largely as is, I would drop the Orcus involvement altogether. She is interesting enough on her own.

Why is Koliada invading now? Simple the High Witch Queen, whom even she feared, is now dead and she thinks there is no one to stop her. Even the PCs should have time trying to stop her to be honest. Regardless of how I use her, she is too interesting to NOT use.

October Horror Movie Challenge: Devil's Possessed (1974)

When is a Paul Naschy movie not a Paul Naschy movie?  When it is directed by León Klimovsky and it is 1974's the Devil's Possessed.

The movie is a semi-retelling of the story of Gilles de Rais with Naschy as Barón Gilles de Lancré.  His wife, Georgelle (Norma Sebre) is in cahoots with alchemist/charlatan Simon de Braqueville (Eduardo Calvo).  At first, de Lancré doesn't want to participate in the killing of virgins (I feel this one is going to come up a lot this month; save yourself from demonic sacrifice, have sex early and often).

Returning war hero and friend of the Baron, Gaston de Malebranche (Guillermo Bredeston) returns to town and quickly learns of de Lancré's crimes.  He joins up with a group of bandits to go after the Baron. 

At this point, I am halfway through the film and I have not seen many horrors or any of the other things I normally associate with a Naschy movie.  Hardly any blood, no nudity, and honestly very little in the terms of creep factor.   The movie is better classified as a horror adventure.  A good one (ok maybe not "good") to get some ideas on how to run a village attacking a vampire lord.  

The movie is from 74 but it feels older, like from the early 60s only not in bright technicolor despite what the poster claims.

In the end it just isn't very good.

Use for War of the Witch Queens

I think one of the things that gets lost in heroic fantasy is how much the thought of the Devil terrified the common folk. They were ignorant and filled with superstitions and living in a world that was designed to keep them that way. PCs hear "the Devil" and think "that's a whole lot of XP!" and not "our immortal souls are at risk!" 

Use for NIGHT SHIFT

This one is more a "Dark Age" setting, but Gilles de Rais is a perennial favorite among occultists today, so maybe this can be the history piece of a new tale.  Essentially the same thing but having the descendants repeating the actions of their ancestors. Sounds like a Giallo movie to me. 

October Horror Movie Challenge 2022
Viewed: 6
First Time Views: 5

Board Game: Wizards (1982)

I was reorganizing my shelves trying to find some room for some new books when I found this little gem hiding in my lower shelves.  I totally forgot I had this!

Wizards (1982)

Wizards is described as "Avalon Hill's game of fantasy adventure."  It is easy to see why they would want to make this game too.

1982 was some prime years for Fantasy RPGs and D&D in particular. 

There are board game elements to this as well as plenty of RPG elements.  For example you can choose what sort of wizard character (Order) you will play; Wizard, Sorcerer, or Druid. Each also has four levels (Ranks).

The first part of the game is setting up all the locations of the various islands on the hex grid sea map.

After that the various wizards race around the map to collect various gems for the High Druid. There are seven, six are needed to win.

While this is going on there are various Event and Task cards that send your wizard on quests, trap them or other hazards. These add time it takes to complete your missions but they can also raise your Wizard rank and make you more powerful. 

From the rule book. Here is what is needed to play and win.

1. Join a Magical Order. Without that, you may not accept any Tasks or gain points of any kind.
2. Acquire Tasks and complete them for points of Knowledge, Power and/or Perception.
3. Fight the Evil Powers that take over the islands, making them inaccessible.
4. Advance to Rank 4 in your Order. 
5. When you are at Rank 4, collect all 6 Gems from the High Wizards.
6. When you have the Gems, pass them to the High Druid Rüktal in the Center of the Sacred Circle to win the game.

The game uses two six-sided dice.  

I love the *idea* of this game, but while I enjoyed the set up I could not get anyone to play it here.  My wife does not care for board games with RPG elements and my kids would rather play D&D.

I am adopting some ideas from this game though for my own games, most notably the War of the Witch Queens, but certainly others as well.

Traveller Envy and the Avalon Isles

I have talked a bit about my Traveller Envy here in the past. To finally overcome this I am taking all the various board games I am going to cover this month and create a new area of my world; the Isles of Avalon. The origins here should be pretty obvious, I am going to base a lot of the mythology of the lands on England, Ireland, and the various islands around them. Also, I am drawing heavily from the Avalon Hill games, so much so that the currently unnamed main island has a place called Avalon Hill. It will be my world's Glastonbury Tor.  There is a volcano on one of the islands (this will be an archipelago) where a famous Warlock lives.  With a volcano I can also get representations of all the elements; Earth, Water, Air and Fire.

There will be a smaller island nearby that I am calling the Island of the Necromancers.

I will spend this month detailing this place further.

If I get nothing else out of these board games then I think I will be fine.

100 Days of Halloween: The Witchwar Legacy

Switching worlds, editions, and even systems now.  

This adventure was released in 2010 and is a prelude to their Reign of Winter adventure path released in 2013.

I am not entirely sure to be honest, but I think this is the adventure that prompted Paizo to make the Reign of Winter adventure path. 

The Witchwar Legacy

PDF and Print 32 pages. Color covers and interior art.

This adventure is for characters level 17 and essentially is a MacGuffin hunt for the Torc of Kostchtchie. The characters can choose to aid Elvanna, the Witch Queen of Irrisen gain the Torc or the demon-lord Kostchtchie. 

It is a short adventure, essentially a single location with a lot of monsters and NPCs.

It is a quick one, to be honest for such a high-level adventure. If it wasn't so high level it would be a great introduction to the Reign of Winter series. 

I feel like it could be run in the afternoon, but I also think I would like to adjust the threats to make it a little lower level. I would also tweak it a bit to fit the Reign of Winter series. 

My Snow/Ice/Winter Witch?

Elvanna is fantastic, but she never shows up here. She is a good witch...well an evil witch, but she is great at that. The Reign of Winter also features Elvanna but in a different sort of role and she dies in the end...or at least could die. Plus she is so wrapped up in everything I would have to change the Reign of Winter to work for War of the Witch Queens.

Still, she is rather great and I really want to use her. BUT I am also covering the "Reign of Winter" campaign in a couple of days and that, well, changes things. Tune back in for that.

October Horror Movie Challenge: Enter the Devil (1974)

1974 is a sweet spot for cheesy Italian Giallo horror. I don't think I have seen them all, but I have seen a lot.  

This one is also known as "L'ossessa" and "The Eerie Midnight Horror Show" (complete with Rocky Horror-style lips) it revolves around a religious statue of crucified Jesus purchased by Danila (Stella Carnacina). Luisa (Lucretia Love) It is obvious from the start that the "statue" is an actor (Ivan Rassimov) in heavy makeup but that is fine.

It is 1974, so the Exorcist is on EVERY Horror filmmaker's mind and this movie is no exception. 

Danila is some sort of art expert so she is working with the statue.  But while at a party she watches her mother,  in some sort of S&M affair with a younger man she leaves to go back to work. There she is all alone with the statue.  When he starts to move it is no surprise, but I wonder what the audiences in 1974 thought?  Likely they saw the same things we do now.   Eventually, the statue transforms into a human and in one stroke rips off ALL of Danila's clothes (neat trick that) they have very enthusiastic sex while the place burns...or not. It could all be in Danila's mind.  But she does keep experiencing things and no one believes her.   

Naturally, she is possessed and tries to seduce her own father. They bring over a psychiatrist whose professional opinion is that she is unduly affected by her work. They head out to the country ("Better than any medicine" according to the medical professional) but they get a flat and Danila wanders off into an "Etruscan temple to Baal" where she sees an ancient ceremony to Satan.  In mid-hallucination, she is back in her own bed again freaking out. When the doctor examines her she does have the stigmata wounds inflicted on her in her hallucination.

I give the movie credit, they try really hard to make this a serious movie about an exorcism.  They get a priest in and I can't help but notice her room is set up similar to Regan's in The Exorcist.

The later half is basically Danila going crazy and various priests trying to exorcise her and it sorta falls apart here. 

Still, a neat idea even if not executed as well as the filmmaker might have liked.

Use for War of the Witch Queens

I love the idea of the old statue coming to life and the "Etruscan temple to Baal" just screams Orcus to me for D&D use.

Use for NIGHT SHIFT

All I could think of while watching this one was I need to figure out a way to do a psychiatrist or psychologist in NIGHT SHIFT.

October Horror Movie Challenge 2022
Viewed: 5
First Time Views: 4