October Horror Movie Challenge: The Gate (1987) and The Gate II (1990)

Heading into the last week! The double feature for tonight is 1987’s The Gate and the follow-up The Gate II. The sequel was made in 1990 but did not see a U.S. theatrical release until 1992. While both are about teenagers opening doors they ought to leave alone, they have very different ideas about how to handle the demons that come through them. I enjoyed The Gate. The Gate II does not quite measure up, but I can appreciate what it set out to do.

The Gate fits my theme, so I figure adding the sequel was okay.

The Gate (1987)

It has a wonderfully simple premise. After a tree comes down in Glen’s (a very young Stephen Dorff in his first movie) backyard, he and his friend Terry (Louis Tripp) find a geode in the hole it leaves behind.  Through a combination of blood, strange writing that appears on one of those "magic-slate" tablets. 

Of course, Terry has a heavy metal album from the band "Scarifyce," whose lyrics hold the key to what they have let loose. It is not long before the boys comprehend they have made a gateway for demons called "The Old Ones". 

The whole thing is very much 1987. One can feel the Satanic Panic in the air, yet the film has some fun with it. Terry has the metal records and the occult knowledge to tell when things are going wrong. The heavy metal album in question is more useful than corrupting. The boys have called forth demons, all right, but the music isn't the evil.

I also enjoyed the practical effects quite a bit. Randall William Cook oversaw a combination of miniatures, matte work, forced perspective, and other visual effects, and the movie is all the better for it. The little minions are particularly creepy because they feel like physical entities in the room with the kids as they crawl and swarm.

What I liked the most is the model rocket. When the climax comes around, Glen figures the rocket is a symbol of "love, light, and purity" and can be turned on the demon. He launches it into the creature to shut the gate. It is a fine idea. Most horror films would have the characters cast a spell or hold a relic or weapon. Here they take something of Glen's, something from his family and youth, and make it the means of destruction. The film isn't cynical about it. Love and light have their place. If the story is pushed hard enough, a kid’s model rocket can end an ancient demon. I like that. The symbolism is what is important.

Then there is the matter of the heroes being real kids. They are not twenty-something actors playing at being teens. Glen and Terry are young enough that the situation is truly overwhelming, so it is more satisfying to see them fight back. A modest horror movie, for sure, but it knows what it is and, for the most part, does it well.

The Gate II (1990)

Also known as "The Gate II: Trespassers." The sequel gets off to a good start with Louis Tripp returning as Terry, or Terrence as he is now called. Glen and his family are gone, and Terrence is older and lonelier, with a home life to match. His mother is dead, and his father is an alcoholic. He makes a point of returning to where the first Gate was because he thinks the demonic power there can set things right.

Its a good idea for a sequel. The first film had the children opening the gate by accident; this one has one of them doing it on purpose once he is older. Terrence understands the danger and does it anyway. That puts a darker cast on the proceedings. There is no curiosity here, only desperation.

They have also altered the demon. Instead of a horde of faceless minions, Terrence calls up a single entity to grant wishes. They are appealing at first but are bound to go bad or become repulsive. The filmmakers wanted this one to be a trickster of sorts, not the swarming type in the original. Very good thinking.

Only the execution is an issue. Even with a more ambitious premise, the film is slower and less imaginative, and it has lost some of its charm. The wish-fulfillment side of things ought to open up all sorts of possibilities for the movie, but in too many ways it comes off as smaller and flatter than the original. But I like what they set out to do, though.

In truth, the sequel has more horror than The Gate was. There is a greater focus on the cost of having your way, on desperation, addiction, and corruption. Terrence’s father seems to work a miracle in getting sober and his life back, but we are left in no doubt that anything from the Gate will require payment. That is the film at its best. Terrence has no designs on power, he just wants his dad to get his life back. 

It recycles the notion of pitting light and love against the dark, this time via Terrence’s mother's jewelry box. Its a good enough thematic carry-over even if it does not have the same impact as the model rocket.

So, yeah, The Gate II is not as good. I respect it nonetheless. 

NIGHT SHIFT and Jackson Connections

You could put either of them in NIGHT SHIFT without much trouble. The first provides the sort of occult mishap that would happen in Jackson. Two kids find something odd in the yard, read what they shouldn't, add some blood and a measure of incomplete knowledge, and before you know it, there is a hole in the Veil. It almost writes itself!

I like how The Gate uses the heavy metal record; in Jackson, the parents would be quick to point the finger at the music and D&D as the source of any demons. They would be wrong for the most part. The record isn't evil; the kids have simply stumbled onto something real that everyone else took for fantasy. That is a more serviceable form of Satanic Panic for NIGHT SHIFT. The adults blame the music out of ignorance of the mechanics, while the kids know enough to compound the problem. Terry would be right at home with the occult kids in Jackson.

But the sequel offers me something I like even better: the kid who grows up and figures out that the power that nearly put him under can still be useful. Very NIGHT SHIFT really. One of the Jackson survivors returns after his life has gone to pieces, remembering the demon or ritual that was his undoing and what it was capable of. This time it is not an accident; he opens the gate by choice. Much darker. That's how I want the supernatural in Jackson to be. Magic is hazardous but not without value. If it didn't deliver, nobody would be drawn to it. The finest kind of temptation is one that works. For a while anyway.

In fact, Terry is a bit like my Darren Vale. In his first adventure ("Am I Evil?"), he is just a little jerk who happens on some real magic. In his next adventure, "Land of Confusion," he has made better use of his power and trapped all the PCs (and a lot of NPCs) in his own world. 

Final Thoughts

I have had more fun with The Gate than with some of the movies I have put in front of me lately. The practical effects hold up well, the kids are likable, and the heavy-metal occultism is entertaining. I am fond of the straightforwardness of putting down an old demon with a model rocket of love and purity.

The Gate II is a step down, but I admire the ambition. Bringing Terry back and having him put himself in the path of the Gate, rather than stumbling into it again, is a far better concept. The first is the more enjoyable movie. The second is the darker one and perhaps the superior horror idea. But it is not the better film.

Still. I have spent worse than three and a half hours. 

October Horror Movie Challenge 2026
Viewed: 40
First Time Views: 27

Working the NIGHT SHIFT: Biology is not Destiny, The Supernatural Lessons of Lost Girl

There is a good reason I have chosen October 25 as the date for this post. It marks the series finale of Lost Girl on this day in 2015. One might expect me to go with the premiere anniversary for something like this, but the finale feels more appropriate for what I want to talk about here. 

For one thing, by the time Lost Girl was over, we had a clear view of what Bo had put behind her and what she had achieved. 

Lost Girl (2010-2015)

Bo, Anna Silk’s character in Lost Girl, discovers she is a succubus and that there is a whole supernatural world she was never aware of. More to the point, she finds that this world has its own set of rules as to who you are to be, who you are to keep company with, and which side you have to pick. She is forced to choose.

Bo’s response to all of that is a resounding "No."

And that is the most valuable thing the show offered me.

The Fae that inhabit the world of Lost Girl are not a single species. The term does not denote a single type of creature. They may hail from different mythologies, have powers that are worlds apart, or act in entirely different fashions. The only commonality is their place in the larger supernatural ecology. That, and there are two camps: Light and Dark Fae.

Lost Girl ran for 5 seasons, mostly focusing on Bo and human Kenzi, and their ability to move between the Light and Dark worlds of the Fae to investigate crimes in both and in the human world. Along the way, she meets and falls in love with Dyson, a male werewolf and cop, and Lauren, a female human doctor. Bo's bisexuality is a mirror to her ability to move between Light and Dark worlds, and the Fae and human worlds.

Much like Charmed, we developed playtest characters based on Bo and Kenzi. Bo was a good test of the supernatural character type. Kenzi became our de facto human survivor.

Lost Girl and NIGHT SHIFT

I wanted NIGHT SHIFT to be a game where one could play a supernatural character without having to codify every conceivable creature as a distinct species. The Fae in Lost Girl provided an excellent model for that. Two such characters need not resemble one another or even share a mythological pedigree to be of the same broad category. That concept was instrumental in developing the basic Supernatural species for the game.

It is a freedom of design. Rather than making a separate species for every horror movie or urban legend monster, I could put in place a framework that lets the player and Game Master make of the character what they will.

Lost Girl also underlined a notion that has taken on greater significance for me: biology is not destiny.

You will find in some older fantasy games an assumption that an orc is evil by virtue of being an orc, or that a demon is evil because it is a demon; the rules would even put a number on it with alignment. Lost Girl does not see it that way. 

Bo is a succubus by birth. Fine. That says what she can do, not what kind of person she must be. She makes the choice.

As the series goes on, that becomes all the more relevant. Her actions affect those around her. Other characters begin to doubt things they have taken for granted for centuries. Boundaries in the Fae world are crossed. It turns out many of the so-called natural and inevitable rules were just choices made by someone else at some point.

Which is why the finale is a better anniversary for this piece than the premiere. At the outset, Bo is the one insisting on her right to choose. By the end, she has changed the world around her. Even the next generation is afforded the option of deciding for herself what she wants to be, or of flatly refusing the options on the table.

That is a potent concept for a role-playing game. A character’s powers or ancestry may well matter, but they do not have to dictate who he or she is. What is of interest is what is done with them.

Not just great for drama. A necessity for RPGs.

Succubi

Then there is the matter of succubi. Lost Girl has given me plenty of food for thought on the subject.

They are traditionally demons, and I still use them as such, but the show reminds us that this doesn't have to be the whole story. A succubus can also be fae or vampiric (as in the WitchCraft RPG).

I care less for the label than for what the creature actually is in the world it inhabits. Is it feeding on blood or sexual energy? Does it have to cause harm to get by? Or are we calling several unrelated beings by the same name because humans are not adept at telling the difference?

Much more useful than the simple equation of "succubus equals demon equals evil." 

A supernatural being may have instincts or needs that are frightening to a human. Those are fine problems for a story to have. But they do not settle the question of good or evil.

That is for the characters to decide for themselves.

But once you remove the idea that a character has to act or be a certain way, it opens up a world of potential for the characters, the game masters, and the game designers like me.

Lost Girl and Jackson

You can't always see the influences of Lost Girl in my Jackson psts, but it is there, and a good deal of it can be found when you start to dig.

Take Larina, for example. The link is quite direct. During some early playtests, I was looking for something in her past that would account for certain qualities: her temper, or how at ease she has always been with magic of the more dangerous sort. There are magical avenues she will take that would give another witch pause. It is not as though these things make her evil, yet they pointed to something there, I just had not quantified it yet. 

I concluded that a little succubus blood in her lineage would do the trick. Not enough to turn her into one, or define her, but enough to add a dimension to her family history and account for those traits. And maybe that red hair too. 

In that regard, Lost Girl gave me a new perspective. Bo is a succubus, true, but that says only so much about her powers and biology. Who she is, she makes for herself. I wanted the same for Larina. Her demonic side is no excuse for her actions; it does not mean her temper is written in the stars or that dangerous magic is luring her to ruin. She is a witch, a student, a daughter, a friend and, in time, a mother. That is the sort of world I want to build. 

Then there is the matter of the cast. Lost Girl made it obvious to me that a group of women protagonists can be done right in genre fiction. For years, the convention in gaming was to have a room full of men with a woman or two for measure. Lost Girl had none of that. Either hero or villain, lover or rival, the characters were very often female, and it worked. They did not have to stand in for "the woman" of the piece; they could be as foolish as they were brilliant, as cruel as they were compassionate. You will find the same in Emily Andras’ Wynonna Earp. You saw this in Charmed as well. 

Jackson is no different. Larina, Stephanie, Faye, Vera, Rowan, Candy, Denise, Ami, Valerie, Kiera, and the rest are not here to tick a box. Some are witches, some are mundane, some run toward trouble, and some would rather be elsewhere. They are simply the ones with the most compelling stories.

If there is a through line between the two works, I would say it is the opening words from Bo: "I will live the life I choose." That might as well be inscribed over the doors to Jackson Public High School.

Larina will not let her bloodline dictate who she is. Faye is not going to let the hags who reared her have the last word. And while Stephanie has the weight of money, social standing, and family expectations on her shoulders, she will decide for herself who she wants to be. Vera has similar issues with money and family obligation on top of religion and a father who doesn't want his daughter to be a witch. She still has choices to make. Even the more ordinary folk have to make their call.

There is plenty of inherited trouble in Jackson. Old bargains, family histories, the town’s own debts from past generations. But that is not destiny. The characters must choose. It is not easy to do, and there are consequences, which is precisely why the choice is so important.

You can have the power, the history, and the problems handed down to you. But in the end, you have to determine what to do with them. Lost Girl knew that, and I want Jackson to as well.

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NIGHT SHIFT^® is a Registered Trademark of Elf Lair, LLC. Used by Permission.

October Horror Movie Challenge: Midnight Triple Feature

 It's the weekend, so I figure a TRIPLE feature is in order. These movies are not going to be accused of being classics. No. But they all put me in mind of what has been on my mind this month: 1980s small-town horror with a side of witches. Plus two of these have some great casts.

There is The Midnight Hour (1985), Midnight Offerings (1981), and The Dark Side of Midnight (1984). One will have its share of witches, vampires, zombies and Halloween; another puts teenage witches in suburbia; the third has a serial killer making trouble for a small town. Three films but they are all asking the same thing: what when the horror is not over there? What if it is in your town?

The Midnight Hour (1985)

This made-for-TV Halloween affair concerns some teenagers in the New England town of Pitchford who put their hands on some old costumes and artifacts from the local museum. In the course of a prank they inadvertently bring back Lucinda Cavender, a witch put to death centuries ago, and an assortment of monsters including vampires and zombies. A Halloween party runs amok.

It is not a very good movie, but it has a peculiar charm. It knows exactly what it is: television Halloween horror with its requisite teenagers, graveyards, curses, and a soundtrack yearning for a bit of Thriller magic, with some of the same special-effects people.

And then there is that cast.

Shari Belafonte is Melissa Cavender, the original witch’s descendant. LeVar Burton (Star Trek:TNG) plays Vinnie, Peter DeLuise (21 Jump Street) plays Mitch, Dedee Pfeiffer plays Mary, and Cindy Morgan (Tron) plays Vicky. Dick Van Patten and Kurtwood Smith as parents, Kevin McCarthy (at his Kevin McCarthyist!) is Judge Crandall (he even gets a 'those damn kids and their loud music!'), and Wolfman Jack as a radio DJ. Macaulay Culkin is here in his first role, uncredited, as a kid for Halloween. I mean seriously? Did they all have contract obligations to ABC?

Then Shari Belafonte as a witch? OR at least witch-adjacent. 

I had a massive crush on her then. Seeing her as a witch felt like she was reading my letters to Santa.

What I like best about the small-town horror in The Midnight Hour is Pitchford. The whole town has a history regarded as civic trivia until it isn't. The old witch is legend, the museum has the artifacts, and everyone knows the stories but doesn't believe them. Then comes Halloween and the dead come home.

That is the kind of small-town horror I prefer. There are always tales of the old cemetery or the house left to rot or the woman said to be a witch or the road one should not be on after midnight. They are just stories. Unless they are not.

If there is one gem in this movie, it was Jonna Lee as the undead cheerleader Sandy Matthews. She feels like she walked straight out of Jackson for me. I would do the same for Keely, but in truth I can't bring myself to do that to her. 

The movie isn't good, but it does have charm. It also has a great soundtrack.

Yes, that was The Smiths' "How Soon Is Now" playing when Sheri Belafonte's character talked to her witch-turned-vampire ancestor. See, this movie does have some redeeming value!  

Midnight Offerings (1981)

I reviewed this in 2019, and I still have a soft spot for it. Another made-for-TV piece on teenage witches from the early 80s is precisely what I am in the mood for.

Melissa Sue Anderson (Little House on the Prairie) plays Vivian Sotherland, a young witch with no qualms about using her powers to harm or kill anyone who stands in her way. The new girl in town, Robin Prentiss, played by Mary Beth McDonough, discovers she has magic too. Patrick Cassidy plays David, the boyfriend caught in the middle. And you have Marion Ross, Gordon Jump, and Cathryn Damon in a cast that makes you think someone went through the 1981 TV listings and called every name they could think of. 

My 2019 review described the plot as simple and, to some extent, weak, but very entertaining. I would stand by that assessment today. Juanita Bartlett is intent on putting in nearly every well-worn notion of witchcraft she can into a television movie, and for the most part it works.

What I find more to my liking these days is the normality of everything surrounding the witchcraft. Vivian is not ensconced in a dilapidated mansion at the town’s edge. She is a teenager with a boyfriend, parents, teachers, and classmates to deal with, along with the standard high-school troubles. She just has a way of resolving them with witchcraft.

A fine model for small-town horror. The supernatural need not be sequestered in a distant Gothic setting; it can be beside you in chemistry. Jackson no doubt sees the appeal.

The Dark Side of Midnight (1984)

The Dark Side of Midnight is a different matter altogether.

With an estimated price tag of $10,000, this one has a detective on the trail of "The Creeper," a serial killer making short work of people in a small town. You will not find any witches, psychic youths, or zombies here (I didn't know that when I started it). Only a killer and a community slowly realizing danger is among them.

It is regional filmmaking on a shoestring, and you can tell. The acting is unrefined, the pacing worse for wear. At times, the film feels less like a finished feature and more like someone put down a camera and some friends in a town willing to be filmed.

I appreciate that sort of thing. We did a fair share of that back in the 1980s ourselves. 

Would not go so far as to say it is a good movie. In fact, it is fairly bad, but it has its moments. 

Slicker productions often lose what regional horror has as an advantage. The streets are real, the houses look lived in, and the police station doesn't have the air of a set because it wasn't one. That ordinariness makes a small-town killer all the more effective, since it blurs the line between horror and daily life.

I can forgive the movie for any shortcomings with this layer of authenticity. Plus it is a Troma movie, so that has to count for something. 

Small-Town Horror and the 1980s

Put the three together and they are three takes on the same 1980s premise.

In The Midnight Hour the town’s old supernatural past is something no one remembers to be afraid of. In Midnight Offerings it is part and parcel of a teenager’s existence. The Dark Side of Midnight requires no such things. The town affords the isolation and false sense of security needed for the horror to take hold.

That comes back during this marathon. Small towns feel safe because everyone knows each other.

Horror inverts it.

Everyone knows where you live, which means the monster does too. Everyone knows your car, the road you take home, and when your parents are away. And in a town of some age there is an old story nobody puts much stock in anymore. Hell. Growing up, we memorized everyone's license plates so we could recognize them. Something my kids have never done. That is small-town logic.

This is Jackson.

It is not a cursed hamlet cut off from the rest of the world that is scary. It is the fact that it is utterly ordinary: the schools and diners and churches, the record stores and football games and old homes and the local legends and the people who have been around for years.

And then the impossible occurs.

Good small-town horror doesn't obliterate that normality; it shows what was there to begin with. All three of these movies get that, even if they aren't all that good on their own.

October Horror Movie Challenge 2026
Viewed: 38
First Time Views: 25

October Horror Movie Challenge: A Slumber Party Massacre Double Feature

The grindhouse classic deserves a double feature. So for tonight’s viewing I have queued a double feature of the 1982 The Slumber Party Massacre and its 1987 follow up, Slumber Party Massacre II. They are good examples of the slasher genre, maybe even some of the best, but I am watching them more to gather ideas for my West End Girls adventure.

The first film has an interesting pedigree. Rita Mae Brown (the author and feminist activist) wrote it, and Amy Holden put it on screen; a slasher flick originally made by women. Fairly progressive for the 1980s. One could be excused for not figuring that out with all the long, lingering shots of naked young ladies on display. Brown's screenplay was meant as a parody of the genre, but Roger Corman, the producer, had other ideas and wanted a straight horror movie. The result is a film that falls between those two poles. I mean, Corman has a reputation to live up to. Though I would have liked to have seen Brown's original treatment, Sleepless Nights, before it got "Cormanized."

The Slumber Party Massacre (1982)

The premise is as simple as it gets. Trish, a high schooler (though we do hear she is 18), throws a slumber party while her parents are away. And there is Russ Thorn, an escaped murderer, making his way through the neighborhood with a huge power drill. 

I will leave you to imagine the rest. Don't tax yourself; you'll do more work than the movie does.

Ok. So, in practice, the movie is better than it sounds. It is quicker than your average early eighties slasher and has a good deal of humor. The girls are convincing as friends and not just a roster of victims biding their time. It has some self-awareness without tipping into full parody. Then there's the drill as a weapon, hardly subtle.

It has all the worst of the genre too, the nudity and the voyeurism, which makes the fact that Brown and Jones were behind it all the more of an oddity. They do not so much subvert the formula as work within it, giving the exploitation market what it wants while having a word or two with its assumptions.

You will see some familiar faces in the cast. Robin Stille is Valerie, Debra De Liso is Kim, and Brinke Stevens is one of the party guests. Stille, in particular, would make a name for herself as a scream queen in films like Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama, which, oddly enough is not on my list of movies to watch.

Valerie is one of the better characters. For most of the running time, she stays away from the main party, but when the killing starts, she becomes much more central. I like that the girls are not left to wait for rescue.

It is a cheap, at times ridiculous movie, very much of its era, but also efficient. Russ Thorn is an escaped killer with a drill, no need for any complicated mythology. The peril is in how fast a night out with a group of ordinary girls can become a nightmare. That is why it works.

Slumber Party Massacre II (1987)

By the time the sequel comes around five years later, subtlety is seen as unnecessary. This movie was also unnecessary, but here we are. We also lost the "The" somewhere. 

Valerie’s younger sister Courtney Bates is now a teenager and still reeling from what befell her sister. She has nightmares of a rockabilly type in leather who has an electric guitar with a huge drill on it.

Yes, it is what it is.

Crystal Bernard (before her run on Wings) plays Courtney (replacing Jennifer Meyers from the first film), and Deborah Brock wrote and directed. The film takes the original concept and heads straight for A Nightmare on Elm Street country, muddling dreams, trauma, and reality until you can hardly tell where one ends and the next begins. Atanas Ilitch is the Driller Killer, and he is nothing like Russ Thorn. He will sing, dance, and put the boot in to Courtney like someone who's part rockabilly frontman, part Freddy Krueger, and has been given a guitar of no practical use whatsoever.

It is all rather absurd. I cannot say it is good, but it is memorable enough.

Courtney is what makes it work. The trauma has not left her even if she was spared the first movie’s events by dint of her sister. Her friends dismiss her visions as nightmares until the impossible shows up. In that way, the sequel is less an exercise in the escaped-murderer genre and more about the dread of something from your past coming back for you.

The Los Angeles Times made the same observation in their review of the day, drawing a line to the Nightmare on Elm Street movies and asking whether Courtney is seeing things or in the grip of a hallucination. I find that more useful than the guitar drill.

Jackson Connections and West End Girls

I get some mileage out of both these films for my West End Girls adventure, if not quite what they set out to give.

From the first I take the closeness of young women in a space where they ought to be secure. It matters, since I have no wish for the victims in West End Girls to be just another name on Edwin Harrow's (my slasher) tally. They are college freshmen with their friends and routines, their jokes and summer plans and the odd complaint. Some share a room; others share a wardrobe. There is always one studying while the rest want to go out.

When the killings come, the ordinariness of it before then only heightens the intrusion.

The Slumber Party Massacre gets this right on its own. The girls go about their business, and the horror comes anyway.

Slumber Party Massacre II offers a different thing: the reiteration of trauma. That is nearer to the supernatural heart of West End Girls. What happens in 1985 is not some other killer emulating Edwin Harrow. It is the same horror from 50 years ago.

Edwin was fixated on Marian Ashcroft and Clara Deane, but his anger reached out to other freshman women he though were laughing at him. From May 25 to 30, 1935 the original murders ran their course. Marian lived to tell of it, some did not.

Now history haunts the present.

I want the adventure to read as a haunting in a slasher's outfit. At first, the characters spot the usual: a girl alone at night, a tail, a body left on the emptying campus. All the signs of a slasher-killer.

Then it does not add up. A man is seen in clothes from another era. A victim says she can hear music from 1935. A dorm room seems older for a moment. One has a dream of a stranger and finds her picture in the yearbook.

The past isn't recalled so much as attempted again.

These two movies make that clear to me. The Slumber Party Massacre has the social world of the young women. Slumber Party Massacre II suggests that one can survive a horror and still not be free of it; trauma can become something of a supernatural affair.

The trick with West End Girls is to put those together and keep the women as people and not mere victims. 

Edwin had no such qualms, viewing them as objects for his resentment. The adventure must do better.

October Horror Movie Challenge 2026
Viewed: 35
First Time Views: 23

Urban Fantasy Fridays: Coven & Crucible (2023)

 I feel a little bad about this one. It has been sitting on my desk to the left of me for a very long time on my TBR pile. I wanted to get a review of it done back when it was new. Then, when the revised edition was out on Kickstarter. Now we are in between editions. This particular edition is no longer available on DriveThruRPG (which is disappointing, to be honest), and the new one isn't up yet. 

It is a good game and perfect if you are like me and want to have a focus on Witches and Witchcraft in your game. But how does it hold up?

Coven & Crucible

Raechel Henderson and Stephan Kelly
2023 13th Moon Games, 196 pages.

The product is from 13th Moon Games and the work of Raechel Henderson and Stephan Kelly. Henderson is behind the story and setting, while Kelly has put together the mechanics. The two saw the game through playtesting in 2022, and it was funded the following year. They are married and their kid does the art. The art is actually pretty good.

A word before we proceed: this review is of the original core rulebook. A second edition, Coven & Crucible: Reforged, was funded in early 2026 and should be in fulfillment soon. That version will preserve the original's collaborative spirit while streamlining the rules. For now, then, this is an examination of where the game started.

The World of Coven & Crucible

What you will find is that magic is not secret. That is the one thing that puts Coven & Crucible apart from most of the urban fantasy/horror games I have been turning over for previous Urban Fantasy Fridays like WitchCraft or Mage. There is no Veil, no Masquerade, no grand secret war to keep the rest of us in the dark. Everyone is aware of witches and what they can do. You can go online and hire one.

The game puts it on a par with martial arts, cooking, or computer programming. You could become a witch if you wanted, but it is a matter of study and discipline. I have to say I am fond of that. It means if there is some magic work to be had, you can just put out a contract to a witch.

That choice ripples through the whole of the setting and changes the tenor of the game. You get your magical businesses and professions, your occult markets and currencies, and organizations with enough history to have built up their share of wealth, grudges, and bureaucracy. The introduction paints a picture of specialists who might be stockbrokers using divination or working at a place like the Magic Beans coffee chain. The latter alone gives you a sense of the tone. It can be a dark affair but not everything supernatural has to be evil.

Chicago

I was drawn to the default setting of Chicago for the obvious reasons. And it feels right. You have old neighborhoods and the new construction all in a pile with the witch politics. This is not one of those settings where "Chicago" is reduced to the Sears Tower and deep dish pizza because someone has seen The Untouchables or Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Here, the architecture, the lake, and the weather are part of the fabric of things. The supernatural is layered on top of the mundane rather than in some other dimension, which is how I prefer to run the city in my own games.

There are good details too. Take the Midnight Market, a black market for the magically inclined that runs parallel to the regular flea markets. Or the fact that witches deal in Pentacles; not because paper money is no good, but because in magical commerce discretion has a price. Favors will do as currency in some cases. It is the kind of thing that makes a world feel lived in.

The Coven and the Crucible

As for the name, it is a nod to the two big institutions. The Coven is the international organization with its Houses and internal squabbles. The Crucibles are another matter entirely, an independent network of sorts to offer neutral ground and services. You could describe it as a magical hotel, an embassy and concierge service, a meeting place and sanctuary all in one.

Then there is the matter of the Coven and the Crucibles. The Coven would be only too happy to have control over them, but does not. The two put up with one another for the simple reason that any attempt at absorption would come at too high a price. It is a fine source of tension; neither has to be evil for there to be conflict. People are after influence, organizations want their territory, families are concerned with prestige and witches with their independence. One does not need an ancient Dark Lord to rouse himself from his slumbers to make for a compelling setting.

While the focus of the book is Chicago, other Crucibles are mentioned.

The System

Coven & Crucible makes do with just two d12s, which is enough to put it in my good graces right off the bat. Characters are defined by four Attributes (Will, Body, Agility, Magic) along with nine Skills and sixty-three Sub-skills. Resolving an action is straightforward: add Attribute plus Skill and Sub-skill, factor in modifiers, and a Difficulty set by the Storyteller equals the Target Number. Roll 2d12 to come in under or on this Target Number. So higher skills are still better since they increase the Target Number. A 13 is a special case, resulting in a critical of some sort depending on the circumstances. Since we are talking about 2d12 here, 13 is the most likely result.

The formula has its flexibility, though, and that is where the system becomes more engaging. A Sub-skill may be listed under a certain Skill, but the game is open to the player and Storyteller to put together whatever combination of the three best suits what the character is set on doing. This is of paramount importance when it comes to magic. This makes it more akin to Unisystem than say a d20 based game.

Character creation is a bit more of an undertaking than the core rules might imply. With Attributes starting at 3 and Skills at 4, and a pool of 63 levels to put into Sub-skills or Traits, one has to make no end of decisions. I don’t mind that. The payoff is a degree of specialization. The game is looking for characters who are very capable in their own right, not blank slates that will take twenty sessions to become interesting. They know when they are out of their depth and will call on others.

Though, like many games I am looking at this month, it is easier since I know what I want to end up with and after doing it a couple of times. 

Magic

Unsurprisingly, this is the part of the game I like best. Forget spell lists or slots or even “named spells” in the way most RPGs have them. The witch tells you what she wants to do and the Storyteller works out the formula. Say you want to turn invisible. The book will put forward a number of options: Magic + Magical + Disguise, or perhaps Stealth or Larceny. If it is a case of evading a camera rather than a person, even Security Systems might be called upon.

Two witches can end up with the same result while going about it in entirely different ways. That is how I prefer my witchcraft. The effect may be the same mechanically, but the intent and symbolism should be the character’s own. Faye is not going to ward a house the way Sylvia does, any more than Larina will go about making herself invisible as another would. Larina would bend light around herself; Faye would simply make people not see her. Coven & Crucible handles that nicely.

There are two ways to cast: Improvised for the quick fix in combat, and Ritual for something with more staying power. You will also find alchemy, materia magica, familiars, grimoires, summoning, and all the other accouterments one expects from a game of this sort. Grimoires are of particular note. They are no run-of-the-mill spellbooks but a record of a witch’s research and discoveries. I was reminded of Larina’s Book of Shadows straight away.

The System at Its Best

One could make the case that the magic system is the game’s most compelling mechanical conceit. It delivers on what so many systems promise and then don't: a form of freeform casting that does not forgo structure in the process. There are still numbers to be had, and character specialties matter. Try something hard, and there will be consequences. Yet you are never put in the position of poring over a list to see if you have the right spell for the job. In that way, your characters come across as witches rather than mere assemblages of powers.

Teamwork fits into this nicely. Put a Divination specialist with one who is good at Warding and an investigator of some note, and the system is happy to reward them for acting like a coven of specialists. I would hazard a guess that is by design.

Where It Gets Rough

That very flexibility is a double-edged sword. Some groups will find it wanting when the player and Storyteller have to hash out which combination of abilities is in play. A group inclined to talk through their intentions will be fine with it; others may want to argue over the most advantageous mix for every roll and put a damper on the pace. Magic only magnifies the problem. The absence of a spell list is liberating but it forces the Storyteller to make judgment calls on what can be done and how taxing it should be. I have no trouble with that, though those in need of tightly codified powers might.

Then there is character creation, which is more of an undertaking than the resolution mechanic. With sixty-three Sub-skills and Traits to account for, there are plenty of little numbers to wade through before you start. Once the character is put together, however, things move along much faster.

As for the book, in spots it has the feel of a first core offering from a smaller publisher. The visual design is striking enough with its black-and-white art and sharp color in the chapter pieces, but some of the rules are dense and call for a re-read. It did not deter me from wanting to get behind the table. If anything, it left me curious to see what the designers would put in place after a few years of use, and that is what makes Reforged so interesting.

Building my Characters

I went with a couple of the Jackson teens for this one; the setting suggested another approach. So I put the clock forward (from Jackson, backward for us) to 1990. I have been considering a "sequel game" for some time, and I know it will be set in Chicago in the 1990s.

Sylvia is here because she causes trouble and this is exactly where she would end up after being chased out of Jackson.

In my "Jackson Universe" version of Chicago, I have Larina Nichols and Faye Thorne. They are both twenty. Larina is at the University of Chicago and well on her way to being the scholar she will become. Faye is new to the city, having transferred to the University of Illinois at Chicago from the sister school, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Faye is still Faye, but you can see the growth that will cause her to reclaim her birth name, Fiona Voss. She has found her life increasingly tied up in music and the supernatural side of the city’s nightlife. And there is Sylvia, the older witch with experience to spare. Three different witches with three different goals.

Building Larina was almost too simple. Her character sheet says it all:

Will 7
Magic 7

Academics 7
Magical 10

You have your extremely intelligent, strong-willed, and magically potent type, physically unremarkable but with a head for Academics. Add in some solid Occult, Linguistics, History, and the like for Divination or Warding, and you have her. 

Since the poor girl was always getting her ass kicked in physical fights, she is taking a judo class now. She is not very good at it, but at least she won't get knocked down as much. 

Faye is the other side of that. Less concerned with theory, she is more physical and instinctive, a streetwise sort. Athletics, Underworld, Hexing, and Warding are where her strengths lie, as is the nascent Artistic side that will take on greater significance in time. Then there is Sylvia, the Veteran. She puts decades of experience to work alongside her natural talent and shows me what those rules mean in practice. It is a good thing she does; it keeps Larina and Faye from coming across as finished products. They are very good, but Sylvia makes plain how much ground they still have to cover.

What Did I Learn About My Characters?

I have been going round and round with this for some time (with many games), but Coven & Crucible has put it into perspective: a witch is not made by her spell list. Her approach to magic is what defines her. Larina will research and name things, looking for precedent. She needs to know who first did the magic and why, what language or symbols were involved, if anyone put it to paper. Faye goes about it by feel. And Sylvia has done it enough times to tell you which rules are worth following and which can be let slide. The end result may be the same, but the method should not be. Coven & Crucible offers a rules language for that kind of distinction, and one I can put to use elsewhere.

What Can I Use in NIGHT SHIFT and Jackson?

More than one might think. I am not going to bring the whole setting over; the assumptions do not hold up, and my NIGHT SHIFT magic is not so open. But there are ideas I want to make my own.

Take Formula Flexibility. Not the mechanics per se, but the notion that two characters versed in protective magic need not employ it in identical fashion. Or the idea of coven specialization. A coven ought to be like an adventuring party: one for spirits, another for wards or divination, one for combat, one for the old books. It is far more compelling than having five people with the same Witch class.

I already do this, to be honest. Stephanie’s protective magic looks like blue flames. Larnia’s like a mult-sigiled ward, and Faye’s looks like a growth of thorns and brambles. 

The concept of the Crucible is also something I can put to work. I won’t use the institution itself; it is too tied to this setting, but a neutral piece of supernatural turf is excellent for lending a setting instant history and politics. Be it a hotel or a club where factions agree to certain terms, it is useful. As is the magical economy. Favors, obscure ingredients, information, introductions. Occult types have their priorities, and money is not always at the top of them. It is an idea I have toying with in Nightlife as well. Another game set in Chicago.

Final Thoughts

It is no surprise I am fond of Coven & Crucible. It is a game of witches and d12s that gives me a supernatural Chicago and lets me build a character based on what they know rather than a prewritten selection of spells. What I value is its particular view of a witch. Here, magic is not a superpower or a religion. You learn it, study it, improve upon it. In theory, anyone could, but most will not put in the effort. It has a different taste to the mages of Mage or the arcanists of Beyond the Supernatural.

That is what I was after for this year’s Urban Fantasy Fridays. I have no interest in five games that are cut from the same cloth. I want to see how the supernatural exists in our world. Coven & Crucible says it has a job and bills to pay and family troubles and a favorite coffee shop. And it has politics. And before lunch, it might hex someone. That is fine by me.

This does make me want to pick up the new edition of Coven & Crucible when it comes out. Maybe I'll give these characters a run set in 2027 when they are all close to 60. Sylvia will be a lot older than that, but I am not asking her age, and neither should you.

My Jackson Chicago Kids: Larina, Faye, and Sylvia

So I created sheets for many of my witches in Jackson, IL. But since this game is set in Chicago and I already had some ideas about who would be there, I decided to focus on just Larina and Faye. Both are growing in different directions, which is about to cause a rift that won't be addressed until 1995. Vague, I know; it's supposed to be. These are just broad strokes that I'll figure out at the game table. But 1990 is still a few years away from my current year of 1986.  

I threw Sylvia into the mix because I want an NPC who would know things. 

Larina Nichols

Gender: F, Age: 20
Height: 5'4", Weight: 125

Pentacles: 18

WILL 7
BODY 2
AGILITY 3
MAGIC 7

Initiative 10
Speed/Sprint 18/6
Health 17
Magic Resistance 24

Magic Resistance (Tattoo) 3
Linguist 2
Attractive 1

Skills and Sub-Skills

Academics 7
 - Computers +1
 - History +3
 - Linguistics +3
 - Lore +1
 - Psychology +1
 - Theology +1

Magical 10
 - Alchemy +4
 - Divination +2
 - Forging +1
 - Hexing +5
 - Occult +7
 - Summoning +5
 - Warding +6

Strategic 6
 - Awareness +1
 - Tactics +1

Artistic 5
 - Dancing +1
 - Drawing +1
 - Performance (Sing) +1
 - Writing +2

Martial 3 
 - Unarmed (White-belt Judo)

Technical 5
 - Animal Handling +1
 - Survival +2

Athletics 4
 - Sleight of Hand +1
 - Stealth +1

Social 5 
 - Appearance +1
 - Conversation +1
 - Ettiquette +1

Underworld 4
 - Intimidation +2

Faye Thorne
Gender: F, Age: 20
Height: 5'3", Weight: 114

Pentacles: 11

WILL 5
BODY 3
AGILITY 4
MAGIC 6

Initiative 10
Speed/Sprint 30/12
Health 19
Magic Resistance 23

Impulsive 2
Fearless 2
Creative Soul 2
Sneaky 1

Skills and Sub-Skills

Academics 4
 - Lore +2
 - Psychology +1
 - Theology +1

Magical 8
 - Alchemy +2
 - Divination +2
 - Forging +2
 - Hexing +7
 - Occult +4
 - Summoning +3
 - Warding +7

Strategic 4

Artistic 5
 - Drawing +1
 - Performance (singing) +4

Martial 5 
 - Dodge +4

Technical 4
 - First Aid +1
 - Survival +2

Athletics 7
 - Acrobatics +1
 - Endurance +2
 - Sleight of Hand +2
 - Stealth +2

Social 5 
 - Conversation +4
 - Persuasion +3

Underworld 4
 - Deciet +4
 - Force Entry +1
 - Intimidation +2

Stephanie is at UIUC. Vera is still in Jackson. And Renee is back home in Finland.  I have Sylvia's sheet, but I wanted to redo her numbers again. She should be more powerful than the notes I have written. But I like how these two came out. 

Links

• 13th Moon Games
• ... on DriveThruRPG
• ... on BlueSky
• ... on Patreon

October Horror Movie Challenge: A Sorority House Double Feature

Heading into the homestretch here, and I like doing more double features. Just like being at the old 67 Drive-in! For tonight’s double feature I am going back to my college days with a pair of slashers set in sorority houses, namely 1982’s The House on Sorority Row and the 1986's Sorority House Massacre.

They are not subtle films by any means; honestly, they are just excuses to have college girls run around in various stages of undress, but both have ideas I can get behind, especially for my own West End Girls adventure for Jackson.

The House on Sorority Row (1982)

Mark Rosman directs this one, with Kate McNeil as Katey and Eileen Davidson as Vicki, and Janis Ward, Robin Meloy, Harley Jane Kozak, Jodi Draigie, and Ellen Dorsher playing the rest of the sorority. The film opens on seven sisters getting ready for graduation under the thumb of their house mother, the imperious Mrs. Slater. When a mean-spirited prank turns deadly and appears to have killed her, the girls put the body out of sight so the graduation party can go ahead.

Then someone starts killing them off.

What makes it a better-than-average early-eighties slasher is that there is more to it than a killer in a room full of young women. The crisis is of the girls’ own making. They do something terrible, then panic and compound the problem in an effort to cover it up. The murders have some consequence to them instead of being random. In trying to hold onto the secret and the party, they only open themselves up to more trouble. It is a trope I have seen many times, but it works.

There is history to the house as well, which gains in importance over the course of the movie. It is not just the apparent death of Mrs. Slater that is the horror, but the older secret tied to the place and its inhabitants. That is what holds my interest. A sorority house is a location with memory, not just where the characters reside. By the final act, the girls are not being made to pay for a prank so much as having come across a story that was underway long before they got there. Very effective horror.

This movie is also a great example of the Generational Horror that I really want to achieve in Jackson. The sins of the past are not necessarily revisited by the younger generation, but most often it is the younger generation that has to pick up the bill. This one also has that empty college campus I am looking for in West End Girls.

Sorority House Massacre (1986)

Four years on we have another bunch of college women in a house with a past. Beth comes to the sorority following the passing of the aunt who brought her up and at once has nightmares and déjà vu about the building. At the same time, Bobby, a murderer in a mental institution, feels that she is back at the house and gets out.

Beth/Laura is a psych major, but she also has a lot of visions and/or memories. Could be both given the bad psychology in this one. But it's a horror movie and not my PSYCH 212 lecture I used to give. 

He has his reasons. Bobby is Beth's brother. He killed the rest of the family some years back and went after her too. She lived and was raised somewhere else, repressing the memory to the point where she does not know the sorority is her old home. Yeah. We have seen this plot device as well.

Then, of course, all the girls stay the night in the house he killed everyone in.

Carol Frank wrote and directed the film for Roger Corman's New Concorde. Having done The Slumber Party Massacre with Amy Holden Jones, Frank's hand is evident. One can also see Halloween all over it. Bobby is your typical escaped killer coming home to put things right and Beth has her psychic warnings and dreams. I find the psychic side of it the most compelling. Beth has no conscious recollection of Bobby. Her mind does, however. She will have dreams of the murders before she can put any meaning to them. The house is what brings back the memories she has put away, and Bobby in some fashion is aware of her from miles off.

Once more, the building has the memory before the person. In that way, the sorority house is something more than mere scenery. It is almost a character in its own right.

West End Girls

These two films have me thinking about West End Girls right away.

The setting for that one is set during Memorial Day week in 1985 by which time the students at Illinois Beecher and MacAlister Colleges have for the most part vacated their dorms. A nearly deserted campus is what makes it work. The buildings are there, and the few students left are in them, but the college’s ordinary social life has run its course. It is not unlike the sorority houses in the other movies, only you do not need a sorority for it. The women’s dorms turn into isolated communities where all are privy to each other's routines, yet there are not many witnesses on hand should anything come to pass.

Then there is the buried history.

With The House on Sorority Row, the violence is set off when present day students let an old family secret tied to the house get in the way of them. In Sorority House Massacre, Beth goes back to the scene of her family’s murder without really knowing she is doing so.

West End Girls covers the same ground, if on a bigger scale. I still need to detail more of the adventure, but it is based on a rumor that used to float around my hometown. In some ways this is the Ur-Adventure of Jackson.  Some fifty years back, Edwin Harrow killed five freshman women and Clara Deane in an attempt on Marian Ashcroft. The colleges did their part to cover up the truth, putting Edwin down as one of the victims instead of the killer.

In 1985, that kind of violence starts to happen again.

It is the notion I find with these college slashers. From a student’s vantage point, the place is transitory; you live there for a while, get a degree, and leave. The building endures and with it the stories.

The girls in West End Girls are not targeted because they were unwise or went into the wrong house. They have come to a spot where something awful was done and never properly put to rest. There is a difference. They are living in the wrong place and it is up to the player characters to stop it.

Edwin is not just another slasher after college girls. He is what remains of a wound the institutions refused to acknowledge, half a century ago. It lends the piece more of a ghost-story air than your average slasher, even though I want it to start like one.

Again. If I am waxing political in the adventure, well, no one lives in a vacuum. 

The opening death(s) should be of a type we are very familiar with. A young woman by herself in a largely vacant dorm at night. A figure at the end of the hall. A door that ought to have been locked.

After that, the PCs try to find out that the pattern predates them, and the adventure takes a turn. This isn't a slasher movie. This is a ghost story.

For the most part, the girls in these two films are hemmed in by someone else’s secret. With West End Girls, my girls will try to get to the bottom of it and put an end to the role history has for them. That is how they are not like the ones Edwin put to death long ago.

The old tale has five young women dying. But not the West End Girls.

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Tales of Jackson: Edge of Seventeen

 It might be fairly obvious now, but I am not doing any adventure here in order. Some are playtests; others are fully thought-out ideas...in my head, if not on paper. And some start out as one thing and then become something very, very different at some point.

Such is the case with Larina's birthday on October 25, 1986. 

Aaron and Larina share chips in her VW Bug.

The Edge of Seventeen

"Sometimes the ghost doesn't want to haunt you or scare you. Sometimes it just wants to share a bag of chips or for you to hold your hand before they move on."

One of the things I have been working on for my Jackson, Illinois setting is making sure that not every adventure follows the same formula. Yes, Jackson is a town filled with witches, ghosts, demons, monsters, and all sorts of supernatural trouble. And yes, the teenagers living there seem to have an uncanny ability to find themselves in the middle of it. But not every encounter with the supernatural needs to end in a fight. Not every ghost needs to be busted, every demon defeated, or every mystery solved.

Sometimes the supernatural is simply part of life in Jackson. Sometimes it can even give someone something wonderful, if only for a little while.

That is the idea behind my Season 2 adventure, "Edge of Seventeen."

Honestly, I was always going to do this adventure.

A Birthday Near Halloween

The adventure takes place between October 19 and November 1, 1986, during the 1986–87 school year. Larina Nichols, our resident teenage witch, is about to turn seventeen. Her birthday falls on Saturday, October 25, just six days before Halloween. 

Of course, she is just a stand-in for your characters, but it works well if their birthday is near Halloween.

For most teenagers, having a birthday that close to Halloween might mean a costume party, some scary movies, and plenty of candy. For a witch living in Jackson, Illinois, it means something else entirely.

The Veil between the worlds of the living and the dead is exceptionally thin around Halloween. Spirits can cross over more easily, strange things happen in places that are normally quite ordinary, and the dead sometimes walk among the living.

Naturally, a character would like to have a birthday party without anything supernatural getting involved.

Naturally, that isn't going to happen.

In my game, Larina is a 16-year-old senior at Jackson Public High School who has been advanced academically, and she also attends advanced Greek classes at St. Michael's Catholic School. One afternoon, while eating lunch alone in her purple Volkswagen Beetle, she is approached by a handsome young man wearing a St. Michael's school uniform.

His name is Aaron Michaels. He's seventeen, with blond hair, green eyes, and a friendly smile. He sees Larina sitting alone and asks if she would like some company. Soon they are sitting in her Beetle, sharing a bag of potato chips and talking.  It's a perfectly ordinary meeting between two teenagers.

My players immediately distrusted him, calling him "Witch Bait."

And for Larina, who spends an extraordinary amount of her time dealing with extraordinary things, that's rather nice.

The Boy Who Wasn't There

Aaron and Larina hit it off almost immediately. He's intelligent, funny, thoughtful, and genuinely interested in her. They start spending time together, going on dates, listening to music, and doing all the things teenagers do when they discover they really like each other.

For once, Larina has a boyfriend who isn't intimidated by her intelligence, doesn't expect her to solve some supernatural crisis, and doesn't seem to have any ulterior motives.

So yeah.  Aaron has a secret. Aaron Michaels is dead.

He was the son of Professor Michaels, a chemistry teacher at MacAlister College and attended St. Michael's Catholic School. He died in a chemistry laboratory accident while saving two children who snuck in from exposure to chlorine gas. Aaron wasn't a criminal, a villain, or someone whose death was the consequence of some terrible supernatural bargain. He was a good kid who saw two children in danger and did what he could to save them.

Now, with Jackson's already thin Veil growing thinner as Halloween approaches, Aaron has somehow returned.

And this is where I want the adventure to depart from the usual ghost story.

Aaron isn't trying to haunt anybody. He isn't seeking revenge. He isn't possessing someone or attempting to drain the life out of Larina. For approximately two weeks, he is, for all practical purposes, alive again. He can eat, laugh, feel the autumn cold, hold Larina's hand, and experience the ordinary pleasures of life.

When he's with Larina, he even sometimes forgets that he's dead.

Is that because of Larina's magic? Is it because the Veil is particularly thin? Or is it because the two of them have formed a genuine emotional connection?

I don't know.

More importantly, I don't think I want to know. Some mysteries are better left unanswered.  Besides, all the other characters spend their time trying to figure it out. That is when they are not trying to plan a birthday party.

That is my design hook here. I have split the party. I have one character away (the Birthday girl) and the others planning the party and noticing this new guy who is taking all her time. Which is convenient since they use the distraction to get the party planning done.

Happy Seventeenth Birthday, Larina

Larina doesn't discover Aaron's secret until her seventeenth birthday party on October 25.

By this point, she has been dating him for almost a week and has developed genuine feelings for him. Aaron has become someone important to her, and suddenly she discovers that the boy she's falling for has been dead for years.

Naturally, Larina didn't take the news particularly well.  Though better than I expected.

She is hurt that Aaron kept the truth from her, confused about what is happening, and more than a little frustrated that the first decent boyfriend she's found in a while turns out to be a ghost.

Her friends, of course, have opinions. But here is the important part of the adventure. Larina doesn't reject Aaron because he's a ghost.

After they talk about it, she decides she still wants to be with him. She likes Aaron for who he is, not whether his name appears on a list of the living.

For the next week, they continue dating. Aaron even gets to give Larina a birthday present, a silver pentagram necklace that shows how much he respects her beliefs, despite his Catholic school upbringing.

They spend time together knowing that the approaching end of the Halloween season will separate them.

And that knowledge changes their relationship. They no longer need to pretend that everything is normal, but they also don't need to spend every moment worrying about what comes next.

Sometimes they just want to sit in her car, listen to the radio, and share another bag of chips.

Happy Birthday Larina!

The Ghost Who Doesn't Need Busting

Originally, Aaron wasn't supposed to be the main story of Edge of Seventeen.

My first idea involved a ghost girl who had died before her seventeenth birthday. With Larina's birthday approaching, the girl's spirit would return, threatening to steal the life or future she had been denied. That would provide the supernatural mystery and danger, while Aaron would serve as the romantic B-plot.

It was a perfectly serviceable supernatural horror adventure. There would be a mystery to investigate, a dangerous spirit to confront, and some sort of climax at Larina's birthday party.

But the more I developed Aaron, the more interesting his plot became. The more I had him show up, the more the players wanted to know more about him. 

I found myself spending more time thinking about the boy who had died saving two children than the ghost girl who was supposed to be the antagonist. Aaron didn't have an evil agenda or a sinister secret beyond the fact that he was dead. He was just a good kid who had been given an unexpected opportunity to experience some of the life he had lost.

And Larina was giving him that opportunity without even realizing it.

Eventually, I decided to drop the ghost girl entirely.

Aaron was promoted from the "B plot" to the "main plot", and Edge of Seventeen became a very different adventure.

There is no evil ghost to defeat. No demonic mastermind is manipulating events. No sinister ritual is required to send Aaron back to the grave.

Instead, the adventure is about two teenagers who find each other under impossible circumstances and decide to make the most of the time they have.

That doesn't mean there isn't a mystery. The characters can investigate Aaron's death, explore the circumstances of his return, and try to understand what happens when Halloween ends. There are opportunities for the other characters to become involved, particularly when Larina learns the truth.

But solving the mystery isn't the point.

The point is just two teens getting to be regular teens for a little bit. It doesn't matter that one is a ghost and the other is a witch. It is the type of adventure you can have in Jackson and nowhere else.  

Everyone Needs a Hand to Hold On To

On November 1, the Veil begins returning to normal, and Aaron can no longer remain in the world of the living.

Larina cannot prevent this. Despite her considerable magical abilities, she cannot simply make Aaron alive again. Nor should she have to. There is no mystery to solve here, but I don't need the players to know that right away.

One of the lessons I want Edge of Seventeen to explore is that magic cannot, and perhaps should not, solve every problem.

Aaron isn't asking Larina to resurrect him (she couldn't anyway). He isn't demanding that she find some way to keep him in Jackson forever. He just wants to spend what time he has with her.

And when that time ends, he wants someone to hold his hand. Neither wants to say goodbye, but they both know they have to.

And then Aaron is gone.

No explosion of supernatural energy. No terrible curse. No triumphant spellcasting.

Just a girl standing alone on an autumn evening, missing a boy she loved for a little while.

I don't plan to bring Aaron back in a future adventure. His story has an ending, and I think it should remain that way. Not every character needs to return, and not every loss needs to be reversed.

Sometimes that is simply how life works.

Aaron says goodbye

What I Want from Edge of Seventeen

I want this adventure to demonstrate something important about Jackson and about the kinds of stories I want to tell with NIGHT SHIFT. 

This likely reads more like a Monsterhearts game than an OSR-adjacent NIGHT SHIFT game, but that is the point. 

Not every supernatural encounter needs to be a combat encounter. Not every ghost is evil. Not every mystery must be solved, and not every adventure needs a villain.

There are plenty of monsters in Jackson. The teenagers will have more than enough opportunities to fight vampires, confront demons, break curses, and save the town from terrible things.

But sometimes the supernatural gives us an opportunity to tell a different kind of story.

A story about kindness, first love, friendship, loss, and growing up.

For Aaron Michaels, the extraordinary event isn't coming back from the dead. It's getting to experience things he thought were gone forever. A first date. A birthday party. A girl who really likes him. The simple pleasure of being seventeen.

For Larina, the adventure is about learning that something doesn't have to last forever to matter, and that loving someone sometimes means accepting that you cannot keep them.

And for the players, I hope it becomes a reminder that the characters in Jackson are teenagers first and supernatural investigators second. Their friendships, romances, heartbreaks, and ordinary lives deserve just as much attention as the monsters lurking beyond the Veil.

Because sometimes the ghost doesn't need to be busted.

Sometimes it just needs someone to share a bag of chips with, and a hand to hold before moving on.