100 Days of Halloween: DL15 Mists of Krynn

When I talk about witches and D&D one of the last places that usually comes to mind is Krynn and Dragonlance. BUT believe it or not, there are some strong connections between my witches and the first Dragonlance Trilogy.  Usually this can be summarized with me thinking that "this could use some more witches" where the "this" is the trilogy.  Witches are mentioned in the first book but that was only a tease.

So. How does DL15 Mists of Krynn fit into all of this? Glad you asked.

DL15 Mists of Krynn

PDF. 128 pages. Color covers and maps. Black & white interior. 

This book contains 12 mini-adventures (pages 2 to 100), nine discussions on various creatures and races unique to Krynn with adventure hooks or lairs, and eight NPCs. I printed the monster section out and stuck it into my Dragonlance Monstrous Compendium binder.

I am going to be upfront here and say this is not a review of the entire book, but rather just of the mini adventure The Tanglewood Keep, and I'll briefly touch on one of the NPCs, Ladonna.

The Tanglewood Keep

This adventure is a basic MacGuffin hunt, but it has some nice features about it. First off it was written by a friend of the Other Side Vince Garcia. I have featured his Quest of the Ancients RPG many times here.  Secondly, while the adventure is simple, that is its greatest strength. It is not really about the quest to find a stone, it is about getting the PCs from their home world (Greyhawk or now the Realms) to Krynn via the magic mirror in the adventure.

The characters are introduced to kender, tinker gnomes, and draconians in short order. They get the full Dragonlance introduction before the mud on their boots from their home world is even dry.  

I ran this one for my family at home and at Gen Con 2021 and in no short order they all wanted to kill poor Twil Topknot! It was a fun adventure and I am glad I got to do it.

The book itself does have an "Adventure Path" feel about it with adventures to take the characters from the 1st to 15th level. Tanglewood Keep is for adventurers of 1st to 3rd level. If you want to play in Krynn and don't want to do the War of the Lance, or do what I did and have it as a "background noise," then this is a good choice.

This adventure also introduces us to the magic-user cough*witch*cough Stevie. I'll get to her later.

Ladonna

I admire the layout of this book. Everything is rather modular with the monster/race bits fitting on a front and back page (reading the PDF) and the NPCs fitting one per page. It makes printing this out rather convenient.

Ladonna is another entry from Vince. She is a 17th-level black robe (aka evil) wizardess. But you would be forgiven if you read her entry and didn't think she was a witch. I mention her here since, well she is witchy and from Vince Carcia.

Stevie aka Sarana

In the adventure, we meet Stevie. She is a 12th-level white-robed Grey Elf wizard. Given the adventure is for characters levels 1 to 3 there is no way the PCs are going to mess with her. Her description is pretty much Krynn's Stevie Nicks. I mean she is better qualified to go get her rock than the characters are. So is Twill for that matter. But none of that is important really. What is important is the fact she is here. 

Stevie also has a not-too-coincidental resemblance to another Garcia character, this time it is Sarana from his Quest of the Ancients.  

For my run of this, I combined Stevie (grey-elf) and Sarana (human) into one character, Sarana (half-elf). Seriously if I had pulled out a witch-like character named Stevie in front of my family they never would have taken her seriously. They know who I am.  Much like the PCs, Sarana is trapped here from her own world. Unlike the PCs she has decided to remain.

War of the Witch Queens hook

At the end of the adventure Sarana/Stevie tells the group she fears the Queen is dead.

Honestly. If I never get to the other adventures these NPCs, the little adventure, and the monster pages has all made this a great choice for me. 

October Horror Movie Challenge: Warlock Trilogy

The first movie is a fun one I won't deny it. It is not exactly horror, but it has all the tropes. The others, well let's see how it goes. Its the weekend, so let's go on a Warlock bender.

Warlock (1989)

This is the movie that introduced most of the world to the hammy overacting of Julian Sands.  Ok, my not all that over the top, but he does chew up the scenery with gleeful abandon.  It also features a young Richard E. Grant and Lori Singer who was at the time the biggest star on the cast. 

The plot is thin but fun. Julian Sands plays the Warlock, the one true son of Satan. Grant plays Redfern the witch hunter.  The Warlock escapes judgment from Redfern by traveling in time from 1691 to 1991 (presumably) Los Angeles. He runs into Lori singer who has a part of The Grand Grimoire. He curses her to cause her to age 20 years. If she doesn't find a way to stop him (with Redfern in tow) she will die of old age in a matter of days.  There are some nice witchcraft hijinks like the warlock needing the fat of an unbaptized boy to make his flying potion, nails in the witch's footprints will hurt the witch, using salt to keep the warlock away, and using the witch's blood in a compass.  You know. Fun stuff.

The Warlock travels from LA to Boston putting together the Grand Grimoire so he can summon Satan to Earth, but he stopped at the end. 

Warlock II The Armageddon (1993)

A sequel was inevitable. Julian Sands is back as The Warlock, but that is it. This one is kind of a mess. There is a bit about a group of Druids in modern-day being charged by God (yeah...I don't know either) who are supposed to protect the world from the forces of Satan.  Anyway, our two leads, Kenny and Samantha, learn they are the last two Druid warriors. Though they have to die first before they can fight the warlock.  

So there is this bit with these elemental stones that can only be used during a lunar eclipse. Again the goal here is bring Satan to Earth. But he is defeated finally by, no joke, the lights of a truck.

So I saw this one when it was new and completely forgot most it. Now I remember why.

Warlock III The End of Innocence (1999)

Ok. So this one is completely different. Bruce Payne is in for Julian Sands, but I am not sure if he is supposed to be the same character or not.  Ok in this case back in the past the Warlock needs to sacrifice a particular girl to well...not entirely clear on that. More power I think. Anyway, a young woman named Kris Miller (Ashley Laurence) learns she is the heir to an old house that is about to be torn down. Since she doesn't know anything about her family she opts to go. She goes to the house, alone, and surprise she gets some scares. Actually, some of the scares are pretty good ones. This one already ups the scare content. 

Eventually, her friends show up and stay the night. The next day the Warlock shows up pretending to be an art historian. One by one he turns her friends against her by magically granting them what they want most.  Only Robin, played by the always wonderful Botti Bliss, sees the warlock for what he is. She is a witch and has a magic battle with him. She is no match of course and is killed.   One by one her friends fall leaving only Kris.  We learn that Kris was the girl from the past and her mother, a powerful witch, sent her to the present and gave her the means to kill the warlock, a knife hidden inside her old doll. 

 So this one, while off from the formula of the first two, might actually be a better movie. 

Use for War of the Witch Queens

I know that real murderer of the High Witch Queen is a wizard, so I plan to use some ideas about warlocks to inform this particular character though I don't think I want him to be a warlock per see as defined by D&D.

Use for NIGHT SHIFT

There is a lot here. Warlocks in NIGHT SHIFT are broadly defined, so I can do with them as I need. A warlock like this would work great for my Ordinary World setting. The careful balance of the witches, vampires and other monsters in hiding is disrupted by a new Warlock coming to town to, I don't know, raise up the Devil. He the warlock thought dealing with witchhunters was bad wait till he deals with a family full powerful witches that don't want their nice lives disrupted by this nonsense. 

October Horror Movie Challenge 2022
Viewed: 10
First Time Views: 7

100 Days of Halloween: Reign of Winter

When Pathfinder wanted to introduce us to their witch class they did so with a lot of pomp, circumstance, and many great adventures. The Magnum Opus of this has to be their Adventure Path: Reign of Winter.

Once again we are taken to Irrisen and to the court of Witch Queen Elvanna. Only now her reign is at an end and she won't go quietly.  The PCs have to intervene.

Reign of Winter Adventure Path

Six adventure books, print (oop), and PDF. Full-color covers and interior art. Each book 100 pages.

First a bit about the adventure paths. Paizo created their adventure path idea largely as a means to to support  D&D 3.5 and then their Pathfinder Core RPGs. They were a direct competition the D&D Adventure League (in format anyway).  While D&D has moved on to larger hardcover adventures for 5e now, Pathfinder was still doing the Adventure paths in six or so various softcover adventures for characters 1 to 20.  

Land of Ice and Snow

Reign of Winter dealt with the Witch Queen Elvanna, daughter of Baba Yaga, and her machinations to keep control of Irrisen now that her reign of 100 years is over. There is involvement with Baba Yaga, her dancing hut, the Demon Lord Kostchtchie, The Mad Monk Rasputin, AND none other than THE Anastasia Nikolaevna Romanova.  Now I have been a fan of Baba Yaga for decades, but I also am a huge fan of the whole mystery of Anastasia Romanova and whether she could have still been alive.  So all of this and add world hopping on top of it all?  Yeah! Sign me up!

While I have all of the adventures and supplementary materials in PDF, I am missing a couple of the physical books.  I did grab as many of the minis as I could.

Each adventure has an overview outline of the major events to help explain what will happen. Lots of new monsters, NPCs, great-looking maps, and more. I will say this, Paizo goes all out on these.

Each Adventure path module is released every month, so a half of a year from start to finish.

Adventure 1 (of 6): Snows of Summer

The PCs start at 1st level and should end the adventure at or around 4th level. This is the adventure that introduces them to Irrisen.  The hook is winter is moving southwards and encompassing more lands.  It is here that we learn that the Great Witch Baba Yaga has been captured and imprisoned. 

Adventure 2 (of 6): The Shackled Hut

Here the PCs must find Baba Yaga's famous hut and use it to find her. But there is an entire city filled with monsters between them and the hut. And then they have to deal with the Winter Witches. This adventure is for PCs 4th to 7th level.

Adventure 3 (of 6): Maiden, Mother, Crone

The PCs are transported around the world. They end up in another frozen wasteland of Iobaria on the far-off continent of Casmaron. Here they find three magically linked dungeons and the secrets of the Demon Lord Kostchtchie the Deathless.  
A note about Kostchtchie. Back in the late days of TSR the notion came about that Orcus was once a human. I always hated that notion. Now we get the same thing here with Kostchtchie and I like it. It works so much better for him than for Orcus.

This adventure is for PCs levels 7 to 10.

Adventure 4 (of 6): The Frozen Stars

In a true world-hopping adventure the PCs will take the Hut to Triaxus, the seventh world in Golarion’s solar system, now in the midst of its decades-long winter (of course!). Here the gain useful information on the whereabouts of Baba Yaga.

This adventure is for PCs levels 10 to 13.

Adventure 5 (of 6): Rasputin Must Die!

Now THIS is an adventure! You have to go to Baba Yaga's home world of Earth in 1918 to retrieve her and stop her captor the Mad Monk Grigori Rasputin himself. The PCs have to face him, his minions and 20th-century tech of WWI. 

I have to admit for a lot of reasons this one might be my favorite out of all six. 

This adventure is for PCs levels 13 to 15.

Adventure 6 (of 6): The Witch Queen’s Revenge

The PCs have found Baba Yaga but she is trapped in a matryoshka doll. They have to free her AND still defeat Queen Elvanna and put a new Witch Queen on the throne.

This adventure is for PCs levels 15 to 17. Leaving the last three levels for something else I guess. 

Adventure 7? Witchwar Legacy

Interestingly enough the adventure I reviewed a couple of nights ago, The Witchwar Legacy, is for characters level 17 and up. It also features contact with the Witch Queen Elvanna of Irrisen.  In fact it reads like a rough draft to this adventure. It was written by Greg A. Vaughn who wrote the Witch Queen's Revenge.  If I used this then it would need to be the new Queen of Irrisen or Baba Yaga that sends them on their way.  I am safe in saying "new Queen" because if the PCs don't defeat Elvanna in Adventure 6 they will surely be dead.

Personally, I like this plan. Given that I have an overabundance of Winter Witches I could run this independently of my War of the Witch Queens.

Maybe I'll convert the whole thing to Pathfinder 2 or D&D 5/One D&D someday and run that. There is just too much fun stuff here NOT to use.

 

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