Monstrous Mondays: Haunted Dolls

Spider Baby.
I was assured it was not haunted when I bought it.

 I watched Annabelle: Creation last night, and it was fun. Like the rest of the Conjuring movies, it is based on "real" events and, in this case, a real doll. The real Annabelle is a "Raggedy Ann" doll that came into the possession of the Warrens. I am not surprised it is haunted; those things are creepy enough, completely mundane. My mom, who was a seamstress, had made them for people. Creepy-looking things. 

Haunted dolls are not a new phenomenon; they have been around as long as dolls have existed. Which is to say, forever. Shamans would use them to capture spirits, good or bad, and even the small idols of ancient religions could house the real soul of a god. Or so believers claimed.

Annabelle, both the movie version and the real life version, is said to house a demonic spirit, and because of its evil presence, other spirits are attracted to it. In the Warrens' home, Annabelle is locked in a box with glass from a church, and a priest comes out to bless it twice a month.

Of course, they make for great antagonists. 

Haunted Doll (NIGHT SHIFT)

Number Appearing: 1 (1-4 in some cases)
DV: 8 [4]
Move: 20ft [40ft]
Vitality Dice: 2 [8]
Special: Strangle attack, weapon attack (1d6-1), [summon Class 0 Demons**], telekinesis, Unique kill

A haunted doll is a doll possessed by a spirit, usually the ghost of a child or rarely a mother, or by a demon [stats in brackets].

These dolls attach themselves to families, in particular one with a young girl, and proceed to cause havoc. Often their goal is only mayhem and fright, but on occasions a doll will exist whose desire is to take over the soul of a child to replace it or consume the soul, or even just to murder all in the family so the child is blamed.

All Haunted Dolls have a unique kill and can only be destroyed in this manner. This is most often tied to it's creation.

** A Type 0 demon is a least demon with VD 4 and DV 6 and only 1 demonic power. 

Haunted and Cursed Dolls are given more details in the NIGHT SHIFT Night Companion book. NIGHT SHIFT is also on sale!

October Horror Movie Challenge: Annabelle: Creation (2017) - The Conjuring Series

 Moving on to the next movie in the series, we come to the cursed doll Annabelle. There is something scary about creey dolls, so this should be fun.

Annabelle: Creation (2017)  - Conjuring Timeline 1955

Samuel Mullins (Anthony LaPaglia) and his wife Esther (Miranda Otto) are mourning the loss of their daughter Annabelle, nicknamed "Bee" (and played briefly by Samara Lee). Among the orphans is Janice (Talitha Bateman) and Linda (Lulu Wilson, no relation to Patrick Wilson of The Conjuring and better known for her role in Becky)

What works here is the slow build. Director David F. Sandberg (who also gave us Lights Out) knows how to stage a scare. Instead of cheap jolts, the movie leans into atmosphere: shadows moving just out of sight, doors creaking open on their own, the doll staring blankly from across the room or from under the staircase. When the horror finally ramps up, it feels earned. 

Our Nun in this one, Sister Charlotte (Stephanie Sigman), has a connection to the cloister in Romania from The Nun. 

The performances are solid, especially from the child actors. Lulu Wilson stands out, bringing both innocence and terror to the role. The kids feel like real characters, not just cannon fodder, which makes the haunting all the more effective.  There are not as many jump scares as in The Nun, but this film features a very effective slow-burning horror that works well.

The Raggedy Ann doll at the end was a nice touch.

Occut D&D and NIGHT SHIFT

Creepy dolls have long been a staple in Ravenloft and constantly come up in horror stories and movies, so adapting them NIGHT SHIFT is easy.

For my Occult D&D possession is always fun, and a haunted house is a time-honored classic.

October Horror Movie Challenge 2025
Viewed: 6
First Time Views: 5

October Horror Movie Challenge: The Nun (2018) - The Conjuring Series

This year I am doing something I have been wanting to do for a while. I am going to watch all The Conjuring movies in chronological order, instead of release order. Now I have not seen all of these movies, so I might miss out on some details, but I still think it is going to be a lot of fun.

The Nun (2018) - Conjuring Timeline 1952

We start this movie with two nuns attempting something, one dies, and the other commits suicide. This movie introduces us to the demonic nun Valak.

The film follows Sister Irene (Taissa Farmiga, one of my favorite actresses and whose casting creates an unintended but interesting echo of her sister Vera’s role in The Conjuring films) and Father Burke (Demián Bichir, looking like the son fo Christopher Lee and Gabriel Byrne) as they investigate a string of dark happenings at a Romanian abbey. They meet local guide Frenchie, played by Jonas Bloquet.

The scares start early, and often, with Valak lurking around every corner, doing the heavy lifting of the scares. There’s a lot of candlelight, a lot of whispering in the dark, and a lot of “Is it behind you?” moments that would work better if they weren’t so telegraphed.

What the movie nails is the creepy atmosphere. The abbey and lands look like they stepped straight out of an old Hammer Horror film. The fog, the forests, the decaying stone walls, it all feels like an RPG adventure hook waiting to be written. (You could drop this abbey into Ravenloft tomorrow and no one would blink.) Unfortunately, the script doesn’t give that backdrop much substance. Characters explain the lore more than they actually uncover it, which makes the whole thing feel less like an investigation and more like a tour with jump scares. Still, it is a fun tour, and the jump scares are effective. For example, while investigating, we hear about Father Burke's failed exorcism, the history of the Abbey, and so on. It is all fun, but it doesn't push the plot forward.

Valak herself is terrifying. The plotting could use some work, but a demon nun with sharp teeth stalking around in torchlight is always effective. You don't even need to be Catholic. In fact, it makes me think there is an entire sub-genre of "religious horror" of which The Exorcist would be the lead example. 

I do love the period feel of this movie, something I know extends to the rest of the series. 

Our heroes do defeat Valak, but since the first, we know it doesn't last. We even get a "flash forward" of Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga as Ed and Lorraine Warren documenting the possession of Frenchie 20 years later.

NIGHT SHIFT & Occult D&D Ideas

Obviously, each movie is an adventure in a long campaign. The occult aspects primarily come from the need to investigate long-forgotten lore.  Of course the demon Valak/Valac is always good hook, a reminder that even a "low level" demon should be terrifying. 

October Horror Movie Challenge 2025
Viewed: 5
First Time Views: 4

October Horror Movie Challenge: Late Night with the Devil (2023)

 Oh. Now this one was so good. I had been waiting to do this one for a bit, and it did not disappoint. 

Late Night with the Devil (2023)

Late Night with the Devil (2023) is one of those movies that grabs you from the very start and doesn't let you go until the very end. It takes the form of a “lost” late-night talk show broadcast from Halloween night, 1977, and gradually descends into chaos, possession, and live-on-air damnation. It is rather great to be honest.

The always amazing David Dastmalchian gives the performance of his career (so far) as Jack Delroy, a talk show host desperate for ratings. He is part Carson and part Jerry Springer. His Halloween special promises seances, psychics, skeptics, and, of course, Lilly D'Abo, the young survivor of a Satanic cult. Played with equal amounts of innocence and horror by newcomer Ingrid Torelli. As the broadcast unfolds, things start to go very wrong. The brilliance of the film lies in its commitment to the format: the cheesy set, the awkward banter, and the canned applause, all slowly giving way to dread as the occult elements seep through the cracks. The cinematography is an art of its own. The on-set show, the backstage, the unfolding horror, all seen via a different lens.

What makes it work is the restraint. For most of its runtime, the horror is suggestive: a flicker on a monitor, a sound from offstage, a psychic’s nervous glance. Then, when the supernatural finally takes the stage, the gloves come off. By the finale, we’ve left the safety of “TV land" and "Standards and Practices” and plunged into something raw and terrifying.

Thematically, it hits a sweet spot. It’s about the start of the 70s Satanic Panic, the exploitation of trauma for entertainment, and the cost of ambition. But it never feels preachy, it’s too busy building atmosphere and keeping you glued to the screen. Dastmalchian is excellent, walking that fine line between smarmy showman and desperate man circling the drain.

There is no way this movie would have been as good as it was without the talents of David Dastmalchian. Though even then it would have been good. This one is my favorite movie of the challenge so far. 

NIGHT SHIFT

Found footage is a great tool. We saw this in "The Blair Witch" and now in "Late Night." Found footage of, well, anything, is a great hook. Found footage of demonic possession? That's a golden hook.

Occult D&D

This movie is the Occult era gift wrapped. It is the start of the modern occult era, so to speak, and everything I want to try to capture here. I love it.

 

October Horror Movie Challenge 2025
Viewed: 4
First Time Views: 3 

Urban Fantasy Fridays: Little Fears

It is October! You know what that means around here. For all of October, I am going to focus my "Fantasy Fridays" on Urban Fantasy and Horror. These will be more about accenting and supplementing your games with horror and less on these games being a "D&D Replacement."

Little Fears: Nightmare Edition

When was the last time you were really, really afraid? Most people would say childhood.  Little Fears is exactly about that.  Little Fears is a game of childhood fears.  The monsters are real; they hide in your closet and under your bed. The scary old lady down the street really is a hag. But don’t worry. You are protected by Belief, and items that seem mundane or meaningless to grown-ups can help you.   Little Fears is based on a simple system, as befitting its nature of school children fighting monsters that adults can’t see. 

Little Fears also has the notoriety of being one of three RPGs that one of my FLGS will not sell openly.  You can order it, but they don’t stock it.  I disagree, but I respect their choice.

Little Fears is a game of Childhood Horrors.  Simple enough.  As a father, I have been up many nights, sleepily fighting one bogeyman or another.  Thankfully, most bogeymen are terrified of my "huh? go back to sleep" speech cause I have never seen them.  But maybe once upon a time I did.  I am reminded of a Charmed episode where a little girl was being attacked by little bogey-like creatures, and the Charmed Ones, being adults, could not see them.  They had to cast a spell to be more childlike (with accompanying wackiness) to see the threat.  That was the hook I was going to use to get my group to play Little Fears one day.  Turn their characters into kids, and to keep them off guard, I was going to take their Unisystem sheets and give them Little Fears sheets instead, and then not tell them all the rules.  The Little Fears book makes a big issue about kids living in an adult world and not knowing or understanding the rules.  Frankly, I thought it was brilliant, but it never happened.

Little Fears plays like that.  Only more so.  Monsters are defined by the character's fear but also by their belief.  In some ways, playing LF with adults is a bit like playing D&D with really young kids.  They want to be the player AND the DM.  In LF the characters and players can change the nature of the game in overt or subtle ways.

The rules are very simple, really.  The system is a d6 dice pool based on abilities or qualities.  Monsters are built similarly to characters, though they are tougher, generally speaking.  The damage system reminds me of Mutants and Masterminds a bit and is also pretty simple.   Emphasis, though, in this game is not how many monsters you can kill, but how well you role-play the monster you nearly escaped from and lived to tell your friends about (because they have seen the same monster, but have been too afraid to tell you).  Little Fears is one of the most role-play-heavy games I have read in a very long time.  If you only like to hit things with pointy metal sticks or throw fireballs, then this might not be your game.  If the idea of playing something that is akin to "Kult Jr." or "C.J. Carella's WitchCraft Babies," then this is the game for you.

There is an overarching malaise, though, over Little Fears.  I get depressed reading it, I have to admit.  Maybe it is because I am a father and I know how those little kids feel to be afraid, alone, and powerless.  I guess the counterargument is that they are not powerless or alone, really.

The Lifespan Campaign

One idea I’ve toyed with is the Lifespan Campaign: taking characters from childhood through adolescence, young adulthood, and into older years across different horror systems. Each stage of life would utilize a different RPG: Little Fears for childhood, perhaps Dark Places & Demogorgons, Monsterhearts or Buffy for the teenage years, WitchCraft for adulthood, and Kult or Call of Cthulhu for the endgame. I love this approach because each game has a distinct “rule set” that reflects how life feels at different ages. 

Childhood is governed by Belief. Adolescence by Drama. Adulthood by Responsibility. Old age by Fragility. Or something like that. I reserve the right to tweak these ideas.

It’s a long campaign dream, but Little Fears is the perfect opening chapter.

Larina Nichols for Little Fears

Let's try out this idea. I have already established that Larina began to hear The Call of the Goddess when she was six years old. Around the same time, children have imaginary friends. In this universe, that would be the same time a Little Fears game would begin.

Little Larina and a ghost.

My name is Larina Nichols
I am a 6-year-old girl.
My birthday is October 25.

Concept: Outsider/Quiet kid

Abilities

Move: ØØOOOO 2

Fight: ØOOOOO 1

Think: ØØØOOO 3

Speak: ØØOOOO 2

Care: ØØØOOO 3

Traits

Good: I can Fight well when I am angry.

Bad: It’s hard for me to Think when I'm scared.

Virtues

Belief 7

Wits: scared ØØØØØ|ØØØOO calm

Spirit: dark ØØØØØ|ØØØØØ light (whole)

Qualities

I am the smart girl  +2
- I know words the teacher hasn't taught yet. +1
- I love books. +1

I am Curious +1

I am Brave +1

I see Scary Things -2

I don't fit in -1

I feel (Care)

fine ØØØØØØØ|OOO
sore ØØØØØØØ|OOO (-2)
bad ØØØØØØØ|OOO (-4)
cold ØØØØØØØ|OOO (-6)

My Stuff

My "Book of Monsters" +3
- "Names" monsters so they can't hurt me +1 to Armor
- Gives me advice on how to beat them +1 to Fight
- lets me talk to Monsters +1 to Speak

Pendant +2
- Glows when danger is near
- Protects me +1 to Wits

"Dragon tooth" (really some baked clay) +2
- Lucky +1
- Protects me +1 to Care

Questionnaire

My best friend is...Aurora. She is a year older.
The One Grown-up I can Trust is...Mrs. Jess, my 1st grade teacher. I think she used to be a witch.
Once I Lost...my stuffed bunny Jackson. 
He was special because...he would protect me from ghosts.

The One Place Monsters can't get me is...Dad's library. They are afraid of his books and music.
The One Thing Monsters can't touch is...my star pendant. 
I Don't Go near...basement.
Beacuse...the Shadow-girl lives there and she is not like other ghosts.

My biggest fear is...fire. 

A Little About Me
The Thing I like Least about Myself is...kids make fun of my hair and nose.
The Thing that always gets me into trouble is...when the ghosts bother me and I yell at them to stop.
When I get scared I...bite my nails. My mom hates that.

Family
I live in a one-story house with an attic and a basement that's a bit scary. With my mom (Stephanie) and my dad (Lars). I have a kitten named Cottonball who is small, white, and super fuzzy. The ghost of an old woman lives in the attic, but she is not mean and keeps the other ghosts away.

The Shadow-girl lives in the basement. She looks like a ghost, but isn't. She tells me she is going to take me and live as me. Shadow-girl will sometimes do bad things around the house, and I get blamed for it.

Goals

Short-term: I want to be braver around the older kids.

Long-term: I want to get rid of the Shadow-Girl

Secret

Knows her friend Aurora is being abused. She told a teacher, and then Aurora was gone for a long time. 

-

This is quite a good system for figuring out who your character is, or rather, was back then. There are things here I have thought about for Larina that I have never actually explored in other games; her fear of fire yes, but also how she sees ghosts all the time, and her interactions with "The Shadow-girl" a demonic presence in her early life. 

Going through this, I also decided that in a modern game, she would have been advanced a grade due to her intelligence, but was she emotionally ready? AND how does all of this affect the character I would play in Buffy, Chill, or Kult?

As a reminder that it is a weighty game with some weighty issues, I went ahead and put in Larina's secret about Aurora. Larina feels like it is her fault that Aurora was gone for so long. As mentioned above, this game challenges you to confront a range of childhood fears.

Final Thoughts

Little Fears: Nightmare Edition isn’t just “kids fight monsters.” It’s about capturing that liminal space between innocence and terror, where imagination and fear are indistinguishable. It’s a heavy game, sometimes even depressing, but it’s also brilliant in its design and focus.

While it is a game about children, it is not a game for children.  The subject matter of abuse and death can be a bit much for some adults, let alone kids.  So consider this your warning about the issues covered here. 

Little Fears might also be one of the most effective horror games I have ever played. Chill, Kult, WoD, CoC, WitchCraft are all great and I love them all, but Little Fears is different and the power structure between what you can do and what you need to do is such that it is a scary, scary game.

If you want a horror RPG that digs deeper than gore and jump scares, one that makes you feel vulnerable again, this is it. Buy it. Play it. Even if it unsettles you. Because once you’ve cracked open Little Fears, you’ll never look at butterflies (or teddy bears, or shadows) quite the same way again.

October Horror Movie Challenge: Demons (1985)

Again, this October Horror Movie Challenge, I am going "themeless." Well, not entirely themeless, I am going to hit some movies I have been wanting to see for a while. I am going to hit some movies with a strong occult themes to help with my Occult D&D ideas. And a lot of movies that are random picks. 

Tonight's movie is a bit of all the above. It was on my list, so when flipping through Tubi (Tubi is a GOLD MINE of old horror!) I figure, let's give it a go. 

Demons (1985)

One of the things about my Occult D&D project that I keep coming back too is I want it to feel like a book I would have been able to by in 1986. So in addition to reading all the Appendix N books, I am filling my brain full of events from the mid-1980s and horror movies that would have had an enfluence on my writing. Demons for 1985 seems to fit the bill well.

Some movies are subtle. "Demons" is not one of them. This Italian splatterfest from Lamberto Bava (with Dario Argento producing) is pure, unfiltered 1980s horror excess: neon lights, heavy metal, gore by the bucket, and a “plot” that’s basically just a vehicle to get from one outrageous set-piece to another. And you know what? It’s great. I love it. 

The story is simple: a group of people are invited to a special screening at a mysterious Berlin movie theater. During the film, a cursed mask displayed in the lobby starts turning viewers into ravenous demons. Soon, the audience is fighting for their lives as the theater itself becomes a trap, sealing them in with the growing horde. From there, it’s a descent into chaos, blood sprays, limbs fly, and at least one person rides a motorcycle through the aisles swinging a samurai sword while a metal soundtrack blasts in the background. It’s that kind of movie.

Gods, I love the 80s.

What I love about Demons is how it feels like watching someone’s horror RPG campaign go entirely off the rails in the best way. You start with a spooky hook (a cursed mask, a haunted theater), then unleash wave after wave of enemies until the players stop caring about logic and just lean into survival mode. It’s less about character development and more about whether you’re going to get your head ripped off before the next guitar riff kicks in. It FEELS like the Nightlife RPG or the way I like playing NIGHT SHIFT.

The effects are gloriously practical. The transformations are gooey, gross, and wonderful, faces bulge, teeth sprout, and eyes ooze in ways that would make even David Cronenberg nod in approval. The demons themselves are nasty, feral things, closer to zombies than elegant vampires, but with enough supernatural menace to keep them distinct. 

Of course, none of this makes a bit of sense if you think too hard about it. Why is the theater cursed? Who set it up? How does the mask work? Don’t worry about it. Demons isn’t here to answer questions. It’s here to drench the screen in gore while Claudio Simonetti’s score and a soundtrack full of 80s metal make sure your head keeps banging as the blood keeps flowing.

It has been years since I have seen this and I admit I got it all mixed up in my memories with other, similar movies, from the time.  Still, it was nice to come back to this one after so long. 

NIGHT SHIFT

If I were to drop this into a NIGHT SHIFT game, the Metropol Theater would be a perfect one-shot dungeon: a closed environment with escalating waves of monsters, random NPC allies turning into enemies, and no real “solution” except trying to survive until dawn (or until you blow the place to pieces). It’s survival horror at its most distilled.

Occult D&D & NIGHT SHIFT

Demons is not high art. It is not even low art. But I do love the 1980s, Lamberto Bava, and Dario Argento movies. Argento gave me a lot with his Mothers Trilogy, so I am not looking for a lot here except for atmosphere. 

October Horror Movie Challenge 2025
Viewed: 3
First Time Views: 2

October Horror Movie Challenge: Jennifer (1978)

Tonight's movie is a complete attack of opportunity, but I am glad I found it.

If the Exorcist spawned hundreds of imitators, then Carrie (1976) spawned at least a dozen or so as well. 

Marketed at the time as a kind of Carrie knock-off (and yeah, the comparisons are impossible to avoid), this one has a twist: instead of telekinesis, the outcast girl at the center of it all has the ability to control snakes. This comes seven years before Jennifer Connelly's bug-controlling powers in Phenomena (1985).

Lisa Pelikan stars as Jennifer, a poor girl from West Virginia who earns a scholarship to an elite girls’ school. She doesn’t fit in, wrong background, wrong accent, and, well, she has that weird “snake thing.” The wealthy students torment her endlessly, and like in Carrie, the cruelty builds until it finally explodes in a climax where Jennifer unleashes her reptilian powers in full. The bullies learn the hard way that mocking the psychic girl is always a very bad idea.

The movie sits in an interesting middle ground. On one hand, it wants to be a serious supernatural thriller, and there are moments where it almost works, Pelikan does a great job selling Jennifer as fragile but simmering with potential rage. On the other hand, it’s also a 70s exploitation horror film, which means you get plenty of lurid bullying sequences, nudity, sexual assault, melodramatic overacting, and snakes crawling across every possible surface. The tone veers from tragic to campy to horror, sometimes in the same scene.

Star Lisa Pelikan was quite good in this. Better than the movie actually deserves to be honest. I can't help but think I have seen this one already; something about her performance was so familiar to me. I may have seen a lot of 70s/80s horror featuring a redhead outcast girl with psychic powers.  I am going to say "First Time View."

Occult D&D & NIGHT SHIFT

One of the big bads of the various Appendix N books are Snake Men and Serpent Men. Jennifer could very well be the offspring of these serpent men surviving into modern times. Or at least the 1970s.   

October Horror Movie Challenge 2025
Viewed: 2
First Time Views: 1