This Old Dragon: Issue #76

Last week I talked about Dragon Magazine #75 and how packed full of material it was. Today I breaking my own rule and going for the very next issue because it has Part 2 of the Devils article. But there is a lot more here than just that. So once again let's sit back, put on a copy of The Polie's "Synchronicity" and drift back to August 1983 for Issue #76 of This Old Dragon.

Ah. Not only do we have a Clyde Caldwell cover this issue, but it is one of my favorites. Sure the redhead is in boob-plate, but at least she is not wearing high heels. The wizard in the background would also be the visual I'd use for my NPC Magnus until it was replaced by another Caldwell piece.  

Letters covers the woes of computer programs, in particular trying to translate BASIC from one system to another. 

An interesting little bit about the Ares magazine appears on page 4. TSR had just bought SPI in 1982 and their magazine Ares. The plane was, in 1983 at least, to keep them separate with Dragon handling the fantasy content and Ares the SciFi. Readers here will know of course that was short-lived and by April of 1984 Ares became a section within Dragon.

Ed Greenwood and Roger E. Moore are up first with The Ecology of the Beholder. Maybe one of my favorite "Ecology of..." articles ever. The "Sage" of the article is doubtless Elminster, though he lacks his normal archaic form of speech. One of the true joys of doing these "This Old Dragons" has been the rediscovery of these Ecology articles. One day I need to track them all down and do a retrospective. One thing I love to do with them is to put them into my Monstrous Compendiums.

Yeah, that might feel like blasphemy to cut up my old Dragons, but I have multiples of this one, and the one I cut up was water damaged anyway. On that Beholder mini? Yeah more on him later.

Ahh...speaking of Magnus. We have the late, great Len Lakofka and his masterpiece, For NPCs Only: The Death Master. Magnus was my NPC Death Master and damn was he great. I mean this was such a great class. There is just so much about this class that just hits right. I am so pleased I am doing this issue in October. 

Up early is the SF/Gaming Convention Calendar for August 1983. Gen Con 16 gets a mention. 

Here we go. The main event. 

Ed Greenwood is back with The Nine Hells, Part II. This one covers the next four layers Malbolge to Nessus. Also featured here are 21 new Devils including Other Side favorite Lilith as the consort to Moloch of all people. Once again Ed is dropping hints about witches here (they serve Lilith).In addition to all the new devils and information on the layers we get seven pages discussing how magic is changed in the Hells.

This would be enough for any other issue, but we are only to page 45.

Next, we have The Dragon Magazine index. A complete index of Dragon magazine issues #1 to #74 and all seven issues of the Strategic Review. It covers 8 pages and would have been fantastic to have. Today it is superseded by the DragonDex and even that doesn't cover everything.

Ads for the Palladium Role-Playing Game and The RPGA take out middle section. 

Carl Smith provides us with a Boot Hill article about the Army in Saved By the Cavalry! Boot Hill largely gets forgotten these days as people remember D&D, Gamma World, and Star Fronters rather fondly. 

Sage Advice answers questions about Baba Yaga, mithral and adamantite, why AD&D Rangers are not Tolkien Rangers. Oh and how to deal with pregnancy in game. I assume they mean characters and not players.

Page Advice covers questions on how to submit articles and get published. 

Off the Shelf gives us some reviews of what was hot in Sci-Fi and Fantasy in the summer of 1983. Of these, I remember reading Spellsinger by Alan Dean Foster and Storm Season by Robert Lynn Asprin, the fourth book in the Thieve's World series.

There is a feature, not really a review, on the Gangbuster game in Expanding the genre of RPGs.

Long ad or review or feature on Eon Publications in Borderlands is Worth the Price. It is a type of fantasy wargame.  Reviews for Cities, Judge Dredd, and Federation Space also appear.  There is another review, a re-review of the Dragonmaster card game.

Nice big ad for AD&D books. Again featuring one of my favorite bits of D&D art.

Small ads are next, Wormy, Snarf Quest #2, and Phil and Dixie go to Sham Con V.

Nice ad in the back for Star Frontiers minis.

So once again we have a Dragon that hits so far out of the park that all you need is the first 45 pages. Yes the index was great for 1983 and everyone still loves the comics, but for $3.00 you could get a mini-rulebook here and that was something special.

100 Days of Halloween: Vengeance of a Burned Witch

Tonight we have a slightly different take on the "Witch comes back for Vengeance" adventure. But is it different enough from what we have seen all month?

Vengeance of a Burned Witch

PDF. 15 pages. Color cover and interior art. 

Or more properly, "Gregorius21778: Vengeance of a Burned Witch" with Gregorius21778 the label of Kai Pütz. 

This is a tight little investigation adventure. The premise is simple, the PCs will stumble onto this village of Hillsgreen Crossing where last year they burned a witch, Ginniver by name, and now her ghost is back.

It is billed as a Halloween adventure, so perfect for this time of year.

I could go over the plot, but we have seen this sort before here. Instead I want to talk about what makes this one good.  The idea is the PCs know nothing. Zip. Nada. If they want to know anything they have to go ask the mostly terrified villagers. They need to investigate, ask around, and piece the history and the present together. Plus they will need to figure out how to rid the village of this pesky witch.

Ginniver comes back not just as one, but two creatures. The first his her burned skeleton (which needs to be destroyed) and as a "Witch-Wraith" the ghost of a burned witch. 

So to destroy this witch you have to destroy her skeleton and destroy the contract she signed, gives her something of what I would call a Unique Kill in other games. 

Note we are warned up front that English is not the author's first language, but I did not find that to be an issue really. There is some canned text, but I use that only as a suggestion anyway. 

All in all there is a lot of fun packed into just 13 pages of content.

It is PWYW with a suggested price of $1.00. Following my guidelines (which I haven't all year,b but whatever) a $1.50 is better. I say to encourage more like this toss them $2.00. 

Use in War of the Witch Queens

I like this one. I don't think I would run as is for the War of the Witch Queens though. One reason, and this is the easy one, it relies on the PCs coming to this village. Yes yes I know I can put her anywhere and with any village, but my point is that for this particular campaign it is a bit too random. But that is the small reason.  The bigger reason is I have already lost track of the number of dead witches coming back for vengeance adventures I have.  What I will do is take the best ideas this one has and overlay it with one of the weaker adventures in my collection. Maybe weaker is the wrong word. I have a lot of bare-bones adventures and maybe this one is something that could help the others. 

October Horror Movie Challenge: Witches of Blackwood (2020)

Is anyone up for Australian Witches? Sure, let's give it a go!

Witches of Blackwood (2020)

Originally released as The Unlit in Australia.  

Claire Nash (played by Cassandra Magrath) is having trouble. We know right away she is on leave for the police force and it has something to do with Luke and her fellow officers think she had something to do with it. Either way, she is depressed and feels guilty.

While she is under investigation she hears from her uncle that her father has died and she should return home to clear up his affairs. Leaving her boyfriend at home she drives to the idyllic town of Blackwood.  She begins to notice right away that the town seems empty. All she finds are listless, hollow-eyed women. No men. No children.

After talking to her uncle she goes to the local police station, but no one is there. She goes to the local bar and sees that there are only women there.  Walking out she meets up with an old high school friend who seems in a daze while pushing a baby stroller. They talk, but Claire notices that there is only a stick in the stroller. Her friend tells her that "She" took her son, but the trade was worth it.  There is a subtle hint that the "She" might be Claire's long-dead mother.

We get flashbacks to Claire's childhood. Her mother was likely a little crazy (something later confirmed by her uncle) and there were Pagan overtones to her upbringing.  She also has flashbacks to the time when she found Luke getting ready to kill himself.

Claire begins to see things in the woods, thinking it is her mother. There is some sort of meeting of all the women in town that she feels drawn too where the only cop left in town is sacrificed.

Her pasts and present all get mixed up. She ends up talking to her mother's ghost who appears all evil. Then to the ghost of Luke who is happy she "killed" him.   Though we see the scene where he does kill himself in flashbacks, it looks almost like Claire has him talked down and he is going to go back then a force possesses Clair making her look and sound all evil and demonic. She then convinces Luke that he should die and he has been asking for it for a while.

It is all rather slow going until the last 20 minutes when it really turns up the horrors. Claire's mom is alive, but has been hiding out. There is some sort of malevolent force and the only way to stop is for Claire's mom, the witch with the force in her, to kill herself by burning. This will stop it from going into Claire. 

We end six (or so) years later. Claire has a new daughter (no husband in sight) and it looks like she is free of the force, but we are not 100% sure her daughter is.

So not a bad movie really. A bit of folk horror and a southern (WAY southern) gothic feel to it all. 

It's not a scare-fest, but certainly a slow burn. So slow though that I almost gave up on it a couple of times, but it did pay off in the end. 

This is another pick from my list of "movies with a pentagram on the cover" though I will admit the original poster is much cooler.

October Horror Movie Challenge 2022
Viewed: 28
First Time Views: 21

AFFLICTION: Salem 1692 (2017)

A witch-themed board game that I have had forever it seems. 

AFFLICTION: Salem 1692 (2017)

This game was successfully Kickstarted back in 2016. I picked up my copy soon after. 

In the game you try to influence the powers of Salem (Judge, Magistrate, Governor, Minister) to either exonerate or damn others to set them free or arrest them.  The game features many of the famous names from the Salem Witch Trials. 

The game itself is rather gorgeous, as you can see from the pictures below.  But for us there was too much going on in the game to really enjoy it. Now I could see my family having fun with this at Gen Con with someone knowledgeable to show us all the rules. 

The game is well-reviewed and I can tell a lot of work went into the design, it just wasn't a good fit for my family mechanically speaking. The theme though was fun.

You can get a copy at the publisher's webstore.

Use in My War of the Witch Queens / Traveller Envy

Obviously I got to fuel my Traveller Envy. I wanted an experience that was a little more than what we get in the Witch Hunt RPG from 1983  (which I just now realized I have never reviewed!). Somewhere between this board game and the Witch Hunt RPG is the perfect Salem game for me.  I haven't found it yet and I might need to write it myself.

Still kudos to the designers of AFFLICTION: Salem 1692. 

100 Days of Halloween: The Dark Eye - Witch's Dance

Yesterday I reviewed The Dark Eye. Tonight I want to cover an adventure for it that I might want to make work for my War of the Witch Queens.

The Dark Eye - Witch's Dance

PDF and Print. 16 pages. Color cover and interior art.

This is actually a rather good adventure to introduce people to The Dark Eye game. 

Briefly, we have an evil warlock taking control of a small coven of witches. But one witch, Alevtia, refuses to submit. Luckily she finds the heroes. That's you all.

This is a detective story and wilderness adventure. So social skills are just as important as combat here. The characters will need to meet with the other members of the sisterhood to get all the details they need. But that also puts them in contact with the Warlock Codax, and he needs items from the heroes (hair, blood, saliva) to make his curses work.

There are plenty of interesting tables of rumors and various locations all throughout the area including a forest. There is even an ogre nearby (and stats for him) and "Predatory Mushrooms!" The adventure feel like a fairy tale. 

Of course, the goal is to stop the warlock. He doesn't have to be killed even, there is a potion to turn him into a toad for example.

It is perfect for a couple of afternoons and even better for new players.

For My War of the Witch Queens

Well, you can set the village of Wireslhome anywhere. Well since I already have the characters popping all over the multiverse I'll even change the name to Westhafen.  But I would still keep it in the northern half of Aventuria, where witches are more common.

The plot here, a warlock taking over a coven, is nearly the same plot of the War of the Witch Queens writ on a local level.  One could even make parallels of what is happening here and to what is happing with the larger cosmos of witches. As above, so below.  Even our cover girl Alevtia's grandmother has just died. In parallel to the Witch Queen herself. 

For me, this adventure is to essentially tell my players what is going on but on a smaller scale.   

There are no stats for Alevtia, but I feel that NPC stats on page 148 of the Core book would be perfect.  In the adventure though, she is listed as part of the Sisterhood: Beauty of the Night or a Cat Witch (p. 146).  The art in the book is closer to 148, so that is what I'll use. I should point out that all the NPCs in the core do have a name attached to them, though in the case of the Toad Witch the description does not match the art.

She is listed in both the core and the adventure as "Inexperienced" so for my purposes that works as 1st level. 

So let's give her a go.  Described as an (Apparently) Simple Country girl (spoiler isn't simple or all that innocent), which would make her a good fit for the Pagan, Green, or even Classical traditions. I am more inclined to go Pagan. But she will get cantrips. This works well since my Pagan Witch book and my Warlock book are both for OSE. 

Alevtia

1st level Witch (Craft of the Wise tradition)
Human Female

Strength: 12
Intelligence: 15
Wisdom: 14
Dexterity: 12 
Constitution: 13
Charisma: 17

Saving Throws
Poison: (+1) 11
Wands: 14
Turn to Stone: 13
Breath Weapon: 16
Spells: 15

THAC0: 20
AC: 9[10]

Occult Powers
Familiar: Toad ("Kitty")

Spells
Cantrips: (5) Clean, Mend, Open, Palm, Spark
1st level: (1+2) Control Face, Glamour, Toad

Since I could not make up my mind whether she was a "Toad" witch or a "Cat" witch, I gave her a toad, as in the picture, but decided she treats her toad like it was a cat.

She could be a fun witch to come back to after she has gained some levels.

October Horror Movie Challenge: Return to the Witchouse

I already covered Witchouse* and it was...well not great. I went into Witchouse 2 with low expectations.  Did it live down to them? What about the hard-to-find Witchouse 3? 

Witchouse 2: Blood Coven (2000)

So this one has a couple of things working for it. Ariauna Albright is back as Lilith, this time in the flesh, not just a voice. Horror mainstay (and frequent Trek actor) Andrew Prine stars as both Sheriff Jake Harmon and Angus Westmore (it makes sense in the movie) and is easily the best actor in this lot. Yet I never felt like he was "Slumming it" he gave this one the same level of professionalism I see in all his movies.

The plot is simple. A university professor and her grad students are sent to this old house where bodies are discovered. The city wants to tear down the old house to make way for a new shopping mall and the city can't wait. So when the bodies are found and deemed to be too old for a cold case they bring in the archeologist and her students. 

Right away you can see the effect The Blair Witch Files had on this movie with all of the "first person video" shots. It is not effective here.

The bodies are dug up and soon the professor is processed by the ghost of Lilith and so are her students with the ghosts of her coven. Only the willing sacrifice of an innocent can stop Lilith, but Andrew Prine goes along as well after being wounded.

Good bits: For an RPG guy and former grad student like me the good bits are showing all the different avenues of research the students go though to get all their data information. 

Bad bits: most of the acting is not great. The "interviews" with the locals (while likely fun to make) was dull and rather pointless. 

*I noticed I had watched Witchouse (1999) back in 2015 and completely forgot it. Since I counted it this year as an "FTV" I am going to count this one as a rewatch, even though it is new to me to balance my tally.

Witchouse 3: Demon Fire

Annie (Tanya Dempsey) is in an abusive relationship with Burke (Paul Darrigo). Three minutes in and I already want the guy dead. She goes to see her friends Stevie (Debbie Rochon) and Rose (Tina Krause) and stays at their place. Stevie and Rose are filming a witchcraft ritual when she comes in. They tell her she can stay with them as long as she likes.  

Stevie has a grant to film a witchcraft documentary. Which they have to discuss in the hot tub of course. After a night of drinking Stevie convinces them to try one of the rituals she found curiously enough in an antique store in Covington County, MA, the location of the other movies. 

They start the ritual and summon Lilith LeFey. But it turns out the book was something that Stevie got at gag shop and all the pages are blank. She made up the ritual on the fly. 

The next day they all wake up hung-over, except for Stevie who is excited about filming some wiccan at a festival. Soon they all begin to see things in the house. It is Lilith, this time played by horror icon Brinke Stevens.

Annie and Rose are all freaked out about the video. Stevie tells them they are overreacting. Soon even Stevie is seeing things. Soon Lilith is talking to both Stevie and Rose, but doesn't let them see her.

Stevie runs into Burke and he tells her Stevie is crazy. He never hit her and she was the one writing "Witches Burn" on her mirror. We later see Burke in a car watching the house and someone, presumably Lilith, films him while his car fills with exhaust fumes. Coming home Rose and Annie see a "Play Me" sign on the TV and watch it.

Rose and Annie run out, but Rose goes back into the house and is attacked by an unseen assailant. Annie returns to the house to see Stevie crying over Rose's bloody body.  

There is a video of Rose getting killed. Stevie and Annie watch it and it revealed that Annie was the killer all along (shocked I know), BUT she actually WAS possessed by Lilith.  Turns out Annie wanted revenge because Rose and Stevie both slept with Burke. 

Angry at the death of Rose, Stevie does the most un-horror movie thing I have seen in a while. She beats the living shit out of Annie.  Lilith is impressed and offers her a deal.

Not sure what happened but Stevie is no long worried about getting caught for Burke and Rose (assuming she is leaving Annie to take the fall) and now she is in league with Lilith.

Ok. The acting is not great here, but it is better and this is a much better movie. Debbie Rochon had some good moments. While it was no shock that the killer was Annie, the procession by Lilith was a good switch-up.

For use in NIGHT SHIFT and War of the Witch Queens

Now, more than ever I need to work on an adventure where one of the evil witches from the War of the Witch Queens comes back to plague the characters of NIGHT SHIFT.

Just gotta figure out who and how.

October Horror Movie Challenge 2022
Viewed: 27
First Time Views: 20

Review: The Dark Eye

I have known about this game for a while, both The Dark Eye and the original German Das Schwarze Auge. I always wanted to own the original German, having taken German in both high school and college, but not using a language for, well longer than I care to admit, you lose it. Das tut mir leid.

The Dark Eye always attracted me as a sort of darker fantasy RPG.  A game where Mirkwood is replaced by the Black Forest.  

I picked the 2nd Printing of the English edition at my local game auction.  I grabbed the core rules and a bunch of add-ons that I suspect came from Kickstarter. There is a lot and it all looks so good. There is even a basic QuickStart.

The Dark Eye - Core Rules

Hardcover & PDF. 414 pages. Full-color cover and interior art (and all of it is gorgeous).

For the purposes of this review, I am considering both my hardcover version and the PDF from DriveThruRPG.

There is so much about this book and game that I love. Before I go into my deep dive I want to say that this game is wonderfully crunchy; this is not a rules-light game. BUT, and I can't stress this enough, it works so well here.  This easily could have come across as an artifact of the mid-80s with some early 2000s notions added on, but it doesn't. It actually all holds together rather well. I can well imagine that this is what D&D would have been like if instead of the wilds of Wisconsin it grew up in the wilds of Germany.  In both cases, the beer and brats would have been good. The adventuring world, Aventuria (and I will be discussing that more), is a dark place but the characters seem lighter for it. It is a nice antidote for the "Grimdark" worlds where the characters are equally grim. 

Chapter 1: Introduction 

This chapter gives us the basics of the game including what an RPGs are. We also get some background on the adventuring land of Aventuria including the lands of Middenrealm and surrounding lands. There is a nice map too. We get a brief on all the gods and demigods and even the five major dragons of the world. 

Chapter 2: Basic Rules

Covers what it says, basic rules. The game mostly uses d6s and d20s. There are eight attributes; Courage (Cou), Sagacity (Sag), Intuition (Int), Charisma (Cha), Dexterity (Dex), Agility (Agl), Constitution (Con), and Strength (Con). Remember I said it was wonderfully crunchy. Attribute checks are rolled on a 1d20, rolling under their score. Pretty easy. There are modifiers to these rolls as to be expected. A roll of "1" is a success and "20" is a botch.  If a modifier ever brings an attribute below "1" then it can't be attempted. This chapter also covers the basic of Skill checks and combat. 

There are also various Conditions, like confusion, pain, paralysis and so on that also modify various rolls and even combat and movement. 

I think this great to have all of this up front since it helps with the Character Creation section next.

Chapter 3: Hero Creation

This chapter details character creation. There are 15 steps outlined. Sounds like a lot, but character creation is quite detailed. It is a 4-page character sheet after all. There are many human cultures that provide some roleplaying differences and some mechanical ones. Additionally, there are Elven and Dwarven cultures too. By Step 5 we are getting to allocating points to our Attributes. Going pretty fast so far. This is a point-buy system and like many modern RPGs you can set caps on attributes and the total number of points.  You can choose a Profession (detailed in Chapter 6), as well as choosing Advantages and Disadvantages. You can then modify abilities, calculate combat techniques, choose any special abilities, calculate your derived characteristics, buy equipment, choose your starting age and name. 

There are some sample characters given and some details of how they were made. With all these cultures, professions, advantages, and disadvantages you can make a wide variety of characters. 

I created one for a Character Creation Challenge last year, the process was long but really fun.

Chapter 4: Races

This gets into detail on the races available to us. In addition to the Humans, Elves and Dwarves we have met there are also Half-Elves (who use elf or human culture).

Chapter 5: Cultures

Cultures are the more important aspect of your character's background. So there is more on culture than on race. The cultures are highly detailed and have some Earth analogues, but not exact copies which is nice. 

Chapter 6: Professions

These are the "classes" of The Dark Eye. And there are a lot of them here. They are divided into three types, Mundane, Magical, and Blessed.

Mundanes include Bard, Courtier, Gladiator, Guard, Healer, Hunter, Knight, Mercenary, Merchant, Performer, Rogue, Sailor, Spy, Tribal Warrior, and Warrior. 

Magical professions are: Spellweaver, Wyldrunner, Cat Witch, Raven Witch, Toad Witch (three witches!), Black Mage, Gray Mage, Guildless Mage, and White Mage.

Blessed professions are your cleric and religious types. They are: Blessed One of Boron, Blessed One of Hesinde, Blessed One of Peraine, Blessed One of Phex, Blessed One of Praios, and Blessed One of Rondra. Or, the various gods of the land, but not all of them.

Chapter 7: Advantages and Disadvantages

This covers the same lists found in character creation, but much more detail.

I am a huge fan of Advantages and Disadvantages. We used them all the time in Unisystem and became a great mechanic. I would love to see them ported over to D&D in someway.  But I guess modern D&D has feats, so there is that. These are great here and hit all the ones I expect to see.

Chapter 8: Skills and Chapter 9: Combat

Both chapter deal with how to run skills, non-combat, and combat respectively.  Chapter 8, like Chapter 7, provide more detail than what was presented in Character Creation, Chapter 3.

Chapter 10: Magic

My favorite part of any fantasy RPG is Magic. This one is no exception. In the Dark Eye we have two basic methods of controlling arcane power, Spellcasting and Rituals. 

Now various spell-casting checks rely on different combinations of attributes, so no one mage is going to be great at everything unless all their attribute are high. Point-buy mostly assures this won't happen. Magic is a highly detailed affair, as to be expected. So one magic-using class is certainly not like the other. 

There are rules for traditions, artifacts, illusions. Just tons of details here. It is certainly one of the most robust magic systems I have seen in a while. Even elves have a complete different set of magics. 

And of course, there are spell listings. 

Chapter 11: Works of the Gods

This is similar to the Magic chapter, but for the Blessed Ones.  The magic here has different mechanics as to be expected really. While the "Spells" are largely similar format (for ease of reading) they feel very different.

Chapter 12: Detailed Rules

Covers all sorts of other rules. Healing, disease, poisons, heat and cold, and gaining experience. Also how Arcane Energy and Karma are replenished. 

Chapter 13: Bestiary

Usually, my next favorite chapter after Magic and this one is great.  We get all sorts of demons, elementals, animals, and familiars listed here. Obviously room for much more. The monsters are built like characters, so have similar statblocks.

Chapter 14: Equipment

All the gear your characters will need.

Chapter 15: Game Tips

Both tips for the Players and the GMs. Kudos to them showing apples as the game snack.

Appendix

This includes a checklist for optional rules (with page numbers), common abbreviations, and tables.

There is just SO MUCH with this game.

I am overjoyed AND overwhelmed with all the options.  I can easily see why this game is so popular here and in Germany.  It is a game I would love to do more with. There is just so much material to be had, both to buy and for free. There is even a Community Content section for fan-produced works.

I could spend another year with it and still be finding something new. My only regret is not having anyone I can play this one with.  

Well. I suppose I will mine it for ideas.

This game will not be everyone's cup of tea, but it will be the perfect game out there for some groups.