Tales of Terror
by Editors of Time-LIFE Books, 1987 (144 pages)
ISBN 0809452774, 0809452782 (US Editions)
This one moves away from the established format and gives us 13 chapters of tales.
Chapter One: The Walking Dead of Brittany
A tale of two lovers and an not-so-dead, dead man.
Brittany has always been a land caught between the Mortal realm and the Lands of the Dead, and this chapter dives right into the Ankou, the skeletal cart-driver of souls. The imagery is dripping with fog and grave dirt, and you can practically hear the creak of his wagon on the cobbled paths. As a first chapter, it sets the tone perfectly: folklore that is not quaint, but deeply unsettling.
Chapter Two: An Implacable Army
This short German tale begins with a mass-murder and ends with the invasion of an army of vengeful rats. I can't help but think of the movies "Willard," "Ben," and "Food of the Gods."
Chapter Three: In the Body of the Beast
This one’s all about possession, the unsettling idea of losing one’s body to another spirit or force. Unlike Hollywood exorcisms, the folkloric accounts here are more ambiguous: sometimes it’s a demon, sometimes a restless ancestor, sometimes something nameless. The takeaway is the horror of being a passenger in your own flesh.
Chapter Four: Harvest of Horrors
Iceland's horror tales are often as bleak as their landscape. Few things feel more old-world than the fear of crops failing or harvests being tainted. This chapter ties together famine, curses, and a time when the Old Gods still ruled. Reading it, I’m reminded that “horror” doesn’t have to be gothic castles, it can be watching your children starve because something inhuman blighted your barley.
Chapter Five: The Goblin's Guest
Japan has some wonderful tales of terror and these goblins are not the mischievous faerie creatures of lore, nor are they even the dreadful orc-like creatures of Tolkien. These goblins are more akin to demons, and even having their heads cut off is not a stop to their evil.
Chapter Six: An Unfinished Death
A dead husband seeks revenge on his widow after death, but a stranger intervenes.
Chapter Seven: Furies of the Far North
Cold lands and bitter winds bring tales of vengeful spirits who stalk the snow. The terror here, though, is not freezing to death, but the insatiable craving for human flesh due to starvation.
This one treats us to the lore of the Angiak, monstrous children left to die in the cold and now craving their mother's flesh.
Chapter Eight: Bloodguilt of a Royal House
This chapter plunges into Greek tragedy at its rawest: the cursed House of Atreus and the cycle of blood that no god nor mortal could halt. We see Agamemnon sacrificing his daughter, Iphigenia, for favorable winds to Troy, and Clytemnestra’s smoldering hatred that blooms into bloody revenge. The narrative is lushly violent, brimming with betrayal, murder, and the grim reminder that no war ends when the armies return home.
As a horror tale, it’s less about ghosts and more about inevitability—the horror of family doom written in blood. For a gaming table, this is the blueprint of the “accursed bloodline” trope. A campaign built around such a house isn’t about who wins or loses, but whether anyone can break the curse before the next ax falls.
Chapter Nine: A Stormy Reckoning
The killing a seal is the beginning of tale of woe of Elias and his family.
Chapter Ten: Bride of the Ghost-Chief
A promised bride to the Chief of the dead leads to a strange bargaining between two worlds. But unlike Persephone, the Bride had to stay in the land of Ghosts. When she breaks this contract, the land of the ghosts is forever sealed off from the land of the living.
Chapter Eleven: The Kiss of Evil
Seduction, corruption, and deals with devils. This chapter reads like the dark sibling to old fairy tales, where the kiss isn’t salvation but damnation. Folklore doesn’t shy from the sexual undertones here, and neither should horror gaming. There’s room for succubi, but also more subtle lures: the temptation of comfort in exchange for corruption. Here, an evil djinn tempts a man with riches and sex, only to lose everything.
Chapter Twelve: Demons of the Dreamtime
The book goes global with Australian Aboriginal myths and monsters, exploring spirits of the Dreamtime that slip into nightmares. The imagery is stark and strange, very different from European hauntings, and it adds real weight to the “Enchanted World” premise.
In a campaign, this is where planar adventures meet primal myth. Bring dream-demons into play when players think they’re safe at rest.
Chapter Thirteen: The Healer's Secret
Death offers to become the Godmother to man's child. The father was given gold, and Death would return when the child turned 20. On his 20th birthday Death gives the man a plant that cures all ills, but conditions are given. Of course these conditions are broken and Death comes for his new bride. When he tries to rescue his Bride from the land of the dead, Death gives him the only gift she has.
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This one is less on the mythology or the ever present theme of the "Dying of the Enchanted World" and instead just gives us 13 (well 12 and so) stories of death and the spectre of dying. No surprise really, we are no closer today to understanding death or what happens after.
Each one can act as inspiration for an adventure or side-quest.
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