Witchcraft Wednesday: Coven 13, Issue #2

Last week I started my October look at the short-lived occult horror magazine Coven 13. Issue #1 came out in September of 1969 and established what editor Arthur H. Landis wanted the magazine to be: a modern successor to magazines like Weird Tales and Unknown Worlds, but one firmly grounded in the contemporary world with modern takes on horror and the occult. 

This week we move on to Issue #2.

Coven 13, Issue #2, Nov. 1969

Our second issue is dated November 1969 and still has the 60-cent cover price. Once again we are promised WITCHCRAFT, HORROR, and THE SUPERNATURAL, along with Part Two of James R. Keaveny's Let There Be Magick! The lineup this time includes werewolves, witchcraft, ghosts, old gods, transformations, and more of the occult in modern life. Or pretty much my Christmas list.

Arthur H. Landis' editorial is worth revisiting because he further defines what he wants Coven 13 to be. He talks about contemporary witchcraft, including the very real occult revival going on around him in 1969, and argues that religions and occult beliefs exist within and influence the modern world. For Landis, the closer supernatural fiction gets to both the phenomena themselves and the actual world people live in, the better and more meaningful it becomes. He even uses Ray Bradbury's "The Foghorn" as an example of how a fantastic creature can be treated as something more than just a monster smashing things.  

Honestly, this editorial might explain why I am enjoying Coven 13 so much. His experiences also track with my own. Well, not at the time. When Coven 13 #2 came out, I was just about five months old. But it tracks with my writings here about the 1970s Occult Rival.

Landis isn't interested in just putting a werewolf in a story because werewolves are scary. He wants to know why the werewolf is there and what it means that it exists in the same world we do. That is something I have been doing in my own games for years, especially recently with Jackson and Sunny Valley.

Up first is Once Upon a Werewolf by Robert L. Davis, with art again by William Stout. This is a comedic werewolf story set firmly in contemporary Los Angeles. Henry Thorndyke has managed to turn himself into a werewolf, and his friend Ed has to deal with the consequences. We get Laurel Canyon, bars, cars, Hollywood, and all the other trappings of late-1960s California right alongside lycanthropy and occultism.  

This is exactly the sort of story Landis was talking about. The werewolf doesn't live in some remote European village. He's hanging around Los Angeles drinking rye and causing trouble. Exactly the sort of things I am looking for in my games and the overall theme of my current 1980s Horror Movie Marathon.

A Message for Brother by John Lipford takes us back toward the macabre. Our narrator awakens confused and slowly remembers his life, particularly his rather unpleasant relationship with his brother. It becomes increasingly obvious that there has been a long history of the two attempting to do kill each other, culminating in a dinner involving some very dangerous mushrooms. The narrator has one final message to deliver to his brother. 

Not really witchcraft, but it fits the old Weird Tales tradition of the gruesome story with a supernatural twist.

Then we get Double Hex by Samuel M. Clawson, and this one is much more interesting for what I am doing here.

The story takes place in Pennsylvania and concerns Amanda Spiegell and her brother Reuben, who are engaged in what amounts to a magical feud. The introduction describes Pennsylvania as rivaling New England in spells, enchantments, and what it calls "garden witchcraft." Amanda uses folk magic, charms, timing, animals, and sympathetic magic against her brother, who knows enough magic to protect himself and strike back.    

This is the kind of witchcraft I love seeing in stories.

It isn't flashy fantasy magic. Nobody is tossing fireballs around. This is household magic, inherited practices, signs, charms, bits of animal and plant lore, and the constant question of whether the magic caused something or whether events just happened that way.

There is a lot here I can use for Sunny Valley in particular. Pennsylvania isn't Appalachia (exactly, but you can see it from there), of course, but there is enough overlap in American folk-magic traditions and rural supernatural storytelling to make this feel familiar. It also fits Jackson, where magic can be happening in someone's house while the neighbors are completely unaware.

The new Bell, Book and Tarot feature by Jean Cirrito is especially important. It promises to explore witchcraft, sorcery, lycanthropy, Druidic lore, spells, enchantments, the Evil Eye, and whatever other bits of occult lore the editors can uncover. They even invite real covens to send in contact information.  

The first installment, About Witches and Such: An Objective Peek, is a very 1969 look at the history and practices of witchcraft. There is a lot here that stems from the Margaret Murray/Gerald Gardner understanding of witchcraft that was common at the time, so I wouldn't treat all of it as reliable history.  Ok, actually not much of it at all. But as a snapshot of what people interested in witchcraft were reading and thinking about at the end of the 1960s, it is fascinating. Plus, as I have said many times about Murray, it makes for a great element in a game. 

We get covens, sabbats, the athame, circle, chalice, wand, cauldron, pentacle, cords, scourge, elemental correspondences, nature worship, and the idea of modern witchcraft as the survival or revival of an older religion.

I have been writing witches for RPGs for a very long time, so quite a lot of this is familiar territory.

Next is The Transmogrification of Ridgely P. Winters by Joseph Harris, another bit of supernatural satire. Ridgely's trip into the infernal becomes a mixture of Hell, mythology, psychology, sex, psychiatry, and bureaucracy. Like Potlatch in the previous issue, it shows that Coven 13 wasn't above having some fun with all of this. Horror and the occult don't always have to be deadly serious.

The Shadow Trader by Wylly Folk St. John is another one that really caught my attention. A modern newspaper is constructing a new multimillion-dollar building and creating a "Crypt of Culture" as its cornerstone. That leads us to the much older belief that buildings require a sacrifice for their their foundations, and to a man who claims his shadow has been stolen by a professional Shadow Trader.    

This one is pure Jackson to me.

A new office building is going up. There are architects, newspapers, publicity stunts, and all the things you expect in a modern American city. But underneath all of that is a very old magical idea that never went away. That is exactly how I like the supernatural to work. The modern world didn't replace the old one. It was built right on top of it.

Then we get the best-known writer in this particular issue, Harlan Ellison, with Rock God. Here we have an ancient stone or earth deity, Dis, associated with Stonehenge and an older world that modern people have largely forgotten. Unlike some of the more conventional supernatural creatures in these issues, this feels genuinely ancient. The point isn't that Dis fits neatly into some mythology. The point is that something very old is still there.

That works extremely well for Sunny Valley.

Some things in the world are older than the names people have given them. Calling something a god, demon, spirit, or monster might say more about us than it does about the thing itself.

That is also one of the lessons I keep coming back to in my games. D&D, by necessity, likes categories. This is a demon. That is a devil. This is an undead. That is a fey. Those categories are useful at the game table, but older weird fiction is often much less interested in telling us exactly what something is.

There is a Letters section, which is kind of fun.

Next is Part Two of Let There Be Magick! by James R. Keaveny. We are back on the planet Camelot, where magic and dark sorcery really work. We have castles, knights, strange creatures, kingdoms, magic, and more of the Science Fantasy/Sword & Planet mixture from the first issue. One particularly fun detail is the Collegium in Glagmaron, where students can study Minstralism, medicine, philosophy, law, theology, and, because this is Camelot, introductory magick, sorcery, and astrology. 

Again, this is 1969, almost five years before Dungeons & Dragons, and nearly 30 years before Harry Potter.

I am not claiming any influence here. I have no evidence of that. Indeed, I feel Coven 13 was largely ignored by many at the time. But this is exactly the sort of literary environment that makes the arrival of D&D a few years later seem much less like something that sprang fully formed out of nowhere. Fantasy, science fiction, sword & sorcery, occultism, and weird fiction were already happily stealing from each other.

Finally, we have Pia by John Donaldson, which gives us another werewolf story. Unlike the comedy Once Upon a Werewolf, this one takes the idea seriously and turns lycanthropy into a story of paranoia and suspicion. Same supernatural creature, completely different effect.

That might be the best demonstration of Landis' point in the entire issue.

A werewolf isn't a story.

It is something you can build a story around.

We end with a great ad for the Unverse Book Club.

It feels very much like the Science Fiction book club, and many of my searches brought up both. 

With Issue #2 done, I think Coven 13 is beginning to show its real strength. Issue #1 established the sort of magazine Landis wanted to publish. Issue #2 starts showing us the rules of that world. Magic exists in modern America. Old gods might still be around. Folk traditions didn't necessarily stop working just because people got televisions and automobiles. Werewolves don't have to behave like movie werewolves, and witches don't have to live in fairy tales.

And perhaps most importantly, the supernatural needs a context.

If there is a troll under the bridge, I want to know why it is there.

That is something I can absolutely use.

October Horror Movie Challenge: Witchboard (1986)

Tonight’s movie is one I have not seen in a very long time.

I saw Witchboard when it first came out, but I have not watched it since. I remembered the Ouija board, obviously. I remembered Tawny Kitaen. I remembered that it was one of those movies that seemed to be everywhere on video shelves for a while.

Witchboard (1986)

Jim (Todd Allen) and Linda (Kitaen) are throwing a party at their new place when Brandon (Stephen Nichols), Jim's friend and Linda's ex-boyfriend, produces a Ouija board.  He wants to show how he has been in touch with "David", the spirit of a ten-year-old. Linda can’t take her eyes off it; Jim is far from as enthralled. After Jim has a word or two insulting the spirit, the tires on Brandon’s car are found slashed in response. One would think that was the moment to put the board away and be done with it. 

Yeah. Then we wouldn't have a movie, now would we?

Left to her own devices after Brandon forgets the board, Linda begins to use it. At first, David is amiable, if not a little too helpful. He will answer her questions, tell her things she could not possibly know, and even lead her to a missing engagement ring. We also learn that Linda is pregnant.

And then the deaths begin.

We learn that Linda has really been talking to a spirit with the impossible name of Carlos Malfeitor (seriously, just call him "Gary Evil" while you are at it).

Brandon dies. Jim and Linda defeat Malfeitor and live happily ever after. Until their landlady finds the Ouija board in the trash and wonders aloud if "it still works."

Kevin Tenney wrote and directed this one, and had penned the script at USC under the working title Ouija, but legal and production issues forced a name change to Witchboard. The film is built on what Tenney calls "progressive entrapment": the notion that a person is worn down by repeated contact with a spirit until possession becomes possible.

That concept at the heart of the movie. It is not as if Linda is taken over with a single touch of the board. The spirit goes about its work. It is of service to her at first, then it becomes something of a confidant. She starts to depend on it, using the board in private and growing more isolated. Her behaviour alters; she is left physically and emotionally drained. By the time those around her notice the trouble, the spirit has made itself at home.

It is a more compelling approach than to view the Ouija board as some kind of supernatural telephone. The board is the bait, and Linda is the one who keeps answering.

This movie was made before Tawny Kitaen's famous Whitesnake video appearances.

Jackson Connection: The Spirit in the Room

There is an odd fascination with the Ouija board as a tool of horror, given that one can hardly find anything to be scared of in its design. It is simply a board with its letters and numbers, the words "yes," "no," "good-bye,"and a planchette. Nothing more. You will not find any skulls or human bones here, nor some Latin tome bound in dubious leather and put there by a curse. On the face of it, it is a game.

Perhaps that is the source of the unease it engenders. I have been in conversations with people well on their way to sixty who will recount a fright they had with a Ouija in their youth. Or they will begin to. They stop short. Something happened, they will say, and they are under no illusion that they will ever put one to use again. But the details of the story are not for you to know.

As a rationalist I do not make the mistake of thinking a piece of plastic and a factory made board from Parker Brothers (now Hasbro!) can call up the dead; the ideomotor effect is explanation enough for most Ouija sessions, and it is easy enough for someone to spook themselves in a dark room if they are primed for it.

Horror does not care for such logic though. The fear is what counts.

Take four teenagers and an Ouija board at midnight. Extinguish the lights and light a single candle. Pose the question: "Is anyone here?" and let them wait on the planchette. The scene is set. The screaming will start soon enough. 

I am reminded of a slumber party happening at a house in my neighborhood. A bunch of preteens were out in their yard after dark using an Ouija board (my wife and I had walked by) and by the time we got down the street a bit they were all screaming. We had to laugh.

The film has this down. Witchboard is smart in that it need not make Linda out to be a fool for the spirit to gain her confidence. David appears to be nothing but a harmless child who will answer your questions and put his hands on things. Which makes the truth of the matter all the more jarring.

David is not who he seems. Malfeitor is the one in contact with Linda, a murderous type wearing the dead boy’s name to work his will. The whole affair has been an elaborate deception to put him in position to take her over. That is the stuff of good occult horror. The peril is not in the existence of ghosts, but in the fact that what is on the other side is capable of lying.

I can lift this whole cloth and drop it into my Jackson setting with hardly an edit.

Again, this movie follows my established theme of horror coming home. 

Kinda wish I still had an Ouija board around; I'd pull it out as a prop for the game night.

October Horror Movie Challenge 2026
Viewed: 19
First Time Views: 10

Games Plus Fall 2026 Auction Haul

 Went to the Games Plus Auction this past week. I was not expecting to pick up much, which naturally means I bought a lot.

Some of that belongs to my oldest kid. He grabbed the Dune games, the magnetic tiles, the cookbook (natch), and the monster books. I am going to give Savage Worlds another try. 

I picked up Dark Age Vampire for us both, he has been wanting to try it out more.

But the real surprise in the lot was the game Fledge Witch. 

Described as a non-combative, cozy Japanese RPG, it is about creating apprentice witches who try to impress their teacher, an older witch. Already, I am thinking of Elown, Ainsling, and the rest of my West Haven coven with Larina as the teacher. 

I ended up with what can only be described as the "deluxe set," possibly a Kickstarter exclusive. ETA: It looks like this is the $80 version. 

It came in s very sturdy box, with dice, a nice-looking rulebook, a notebook to put spells in, a collapsible dice tray, and some signed art.

It is on DriveThruRPG for the PDFs, but that is about how much I got if for at the auction. So yeah, it was a steal. I did grab some character sheets. I printed two pages per page in landscape, and they fit into the box. I can have multiple apprentices and multiple teacher witches.

Though, knowing the group I have here on Sundays, they will decide the best way to impress their teacher is by sabotaging the other students. 

Still, it looks like it could be fun!

October Movie Challenge: The Stuff (1985)

It tastes great.

It has no calories.

Everyone loves it.

It is also alive.

This is an odd one. It's an obvious dig on 80s consumerism. Its commentary is spot on really. I can't fault it for that. Not quite as good as "Robocop," but still good. But is it good horror?

The Stuff (1985)

Larry Cohen’s 1985 horror-comedy, The Stuff, concerns a new dessert that has become the talk of the nation. It is irresistible. No calories, great taste, and everyone is fond of it. There is only one catch: it is alive.

We start the film with some workers who come across an odd white matter oozing from the ground. One of them, being a man of reason in the face of an unknown substance, decides to put it in his mouth. Because that is what you do. 

Before you know it, the material is on shelves across the country under the name "The Stuff." As a kind of miracle confection, it is putting ice cream makers out of work, leaving other food companies in a tizzy. Instead of looking into what their rival is up to, they put money in the pocket of David "Mo" Rutherford a former FBI agent, now an industrial spy, to see how the product is made.

Mo gets to the bottom of it. The Stuff is not something you should be eating. In fact, it is eating us.

Cohen has written and directed a film that is as much a conspiracy thriller and body horror as it is a sci-fi monster piece. It is an unapologetic satire of the way we in America will consume anything if it is well packaged and marketed. Roger Ebert saw the ambition in it, though he felt the satire had more impact than the scares. It was even reviewed in White Dwarf #77. 

You could not ask for a better fit than Michael Moriarty for this role. His Mo Rutherford is an odd one, with a certain relaxed strangeness about him. When he tells you he goes by Mo because he is always after "Mo'" whenever someone hands him cash, that is explanation enough. Contrast this with his turn in Dark Tower. 

 "No one is as dumb as I appear to be." - David "Mo" Rutherford

He is no hero set on saving the world. He is an employee of competing interests who stumbles into an apocalypse because he was paid to check out a dessert. In fact, he is kind of a jerk. 

He ends up with Nicole, an ad exec, and a boy named Jason. Jason has seen The Stuff moving in the fridge and knows there is trouble. But then again, his family is very partial to it and has been putting away large amounts of late, acting rather peculiar. Jason can tell people are being changed by it, but the adults will have none of it. They never do in these films. Par for the course in the 1980s really.

As for the Stuff itself, think of it as an alien take on marshmallow creme or yogurt. It has a mind of its own, will crawl up a wall, and pour from its container to finish off its host. Some of the effects are fine; at times, it looks like shaving cream forced through a hole in the plaster. I mean, what can you expect?

The body-horror is where the movie excels. You watch as The Stuff pours out of people who split open, leaving nothing but an empty shell. It does not merely have control over you; it replaces you.

The Stuff is somewhere between "The Blob" and "Invasion of the Body Snatchers," with catchy television commercials playing continuously in the background.  In a way those are the best joke in the film. Cohen knew he did not need the monster in pursuit if he could get advertising that made you want to put it in your mouth. There is a marketing department for the monster, one with a colorful logo to put on The Stuff. You will see celebrity endorsements, health claims, product placement, and some rather catchy commercials. Competitors are even at work trying to ape its success. It is all extraordinarily 1985. 

One can almost see parallels to New Coke here. 

The satire is not in the least bit subtle. Cohen is plainly enjoying himself as he takes on the excesses of consumer culture and corporate America. Not only that, he gets the "Where's the Beef" woman, Clara Peller, to ask none other than Abe Vigoda, "Where's the Stuff?"

Then the heroes realize that The Stuff is making its way across the country at a speed no one can contain. Who is left to save America? Paul Sorvino and his private militia, because why not. Sorvino is in fine form as Colonel Malcolm Grommett Spears, a right-wing military type who hears Mo’s tall tale and figures this is the kind of problem he has been waiting for his whole life.

As Cohen transitions from consumer satire to paramilitary action in the final act, things get more and more ridiculous. But they should. This is a film where killer yogurt is in charge of America; restraint would be uncalled for, really.

Released in U.S. theaters in June 1985 alongside a cast featuring Andrea Marcovicci, Garrett Morris, Danny Aiello, Patrick O’Neal, and a cameo from young Mira Sorvino, I find The Stuff to be better for its ideas than its execution. The story has a way of wandering (a lot); the tone constantly oscillates between broad comedy and real horror, and some of the effects are hit-or-miss. I also can't help but think that the version I am watching (on Tubi) has been hacked up. Or maybe it was really this disjointed. Hard to say.

Yet Cohen makes his point. The true monster is not The Stuff but the system that sees an unknown organism coming up from the ground and wants to know how to put a price on it and whether they can make a commercial for it.

It is the commentary that really saves this movie for me. I also love the idea that in the 1980s the horror comes to you in your home, and sometimes you invite it in.

I actually liked this one more than I expected. Mostly for how weird it is. 

Jackson, IL Connections

This is an easy one to put together.

Something new has taken hold in Jackson. A diet drink, frozen yogurt, or some protein snack is being given away for free at the public high school. It has everyone in town raving about it. Larina won’t touch it, finds the smell off. Faye will have none of it precisely because of the crowd. Stephanie has half of one before she gets a bad feeling about it. Andy puts down three. Val has eaten an entire box.

And then you notice people are not quite themselves.

Make sure the threat seems absurd at first. There is no haunted house or demon here, just an item on the grocery shelf. The characters may find out it is a parasitic ooze or an alchemical experiment, or something that has been under Illinois for eons. And the company behind it might be completely in the dark. Which is frankly worse. 

There is a line at the end of the movie where the execs talk about the new product "The Taste" tested in a "small Illinois town." Kinda writes itself, doesn't it. 

In an Occult D&D campaign, let us say it is an intelligent slime from the caverns below, marketed as a wonder food that cures fatigue and restores your hit points while tasting good. Every portion also allows the thing inside you to grow. In time, it will no longer need you and start wearing your body like a skin suit. Honestly, this might be the better idea. 

The Stuff is gross, funny, and messy, but far too clever in places for a movie about a dessert that kills, and in others not clever enough. It offers a nice 1980s horror lesson: the monster doesn't need to find its way into your home. It can simply wait for you to purchase it.

Ok. Not even halfway through and I am dragging. This was a lot easier 10 years ago. 

October Horror Movie Challenge 2026
Viewed: 18
First Time Views: 10

Mirror Mondays: When the Mirror Becomes a Door

 Back in May, when I put out the first of my Mirror Monday pieces, I was preoccupied with two projects: Advanced Witches & Warlocks and Jackson, IL. I called that first post "Two Books, One Spell," and it was highly appropriate. I still think it is a pretty good description of what I was doing. One book was about what the Witch should look like in AD&D. The other was about what it would actually be like to be a witch, particularly a teenage witch, in 1986.

I made the case then that the two were informing each other. If anything, the case is stronger today.

The fundamental question for each remains unchanged: what does a witch look like through a 1986 lens? With Advanced Witches & Warlocks, I am after the kind of Witch class and occult mechanics that would have been at home with the AD&D books I was running back then. With Jackson, I take Larina, Stephanie, Faye, and company, and consider their type of witchcraft: the old school building is your dungeon, the road out of town is the wilderness, and a curious volume from the library is all the occult knowledge you have.

Those sound like very different questions and lines of inquiry. They are not.

Two Books, One Spell, Again

My job on Advanced Witches & Warlocks is to put on my old-school game designer hat. What sets the Witch apart from a Druid or an Illusionist? What are her spells and her limitations? How do you handle covens, pacts, rituals, and familiars? AD&D demands answers, if not always perfectly drawn ones. But *I* need to be able to say how something works or why the witch can’t do it. The distinction between her magic and the Arcane or Divine must be more than just something in my notes.

Jackson allows for some ambiguity, which is often preferable in horror. Larina has no use for the percentage odds of a ritual’s success. There is no spell list on Stephanie’s character sheet when she steps in front of a friend to shield them from danger. And Faye doesn’t care to know which page of the rulebook details what the Blackthorne Hags have done to her soul.

But I do need to know. Or have some idea of it, at any rate.

In that respect, Advanced Witches & Warlocks has been of great service to me in writing Jackson. It compels me to get under the hood of the supernatural. Where is the power coming from? Why can one witch do what another can't? Is it inherited or given? What are the terms of a bargain with something beyond her? Jackson can let the characters wonder about such things while the other project makes me think about what is going on behind the curtain.

Then again, the dynamic is not one way.

What Jackson Has Taught My Witches

This has been a big one. I am not sure I can adequately capture what I have learned over the last few months. 

I have been at this long enough to have written witches for most of my life, longer than some of my readers have been around. Over the years, I have put pen to paper (or, more to the point, fingers to keyboards) for Basic-era games, AD&D, d20, Unisystem, NIGHT SHIFT, and many others in between. In the course of that work, I have produced Witch classes, traditions, spells, and monsters; I have written Witch Queens and more than my share of demons, enough to last a few lifetimes.

Jackson keeps reminding me that witches are people.

It is a painfully obvious statement, but one game design has a habit of making you overlook. It is all too simple to view a Witch as a collection of class abilities: at this level she has this spell, at that one she has those restrictions on her magic items, and so on. When I am crafting an AD&D-compatible class, these details are vital, yet they say little about who she is.

Jackson makes me deal with the questions in a different order.

Who was her teacher? Who can she trust? And when things go horribly wrong, who does she call? What does she make of her own magic? What is her friends' reaction when they are afraid of what she is capable of, or, worse, how does she handle being afraid of it herself?

I have let some of those considerations seep back into Advanced Witches & Warlocks. A coven is no longer just an organization bestowing abilities; I think about what it means for a witch to have a place to belong. Pacts have real consequences rather than simply being a way to "gain power X." And a familiar is a relationship, not a list of bonuses with fur.

Jackson has been adept at getting me to consider why a Witch would act a certain way, not merely if the rules permit it. The reverse is true as well. Putting together the AD&D Witch has made me examine Jackson with a critical eye. Larina, Stephanie and the rest cannot do as they please because "witchcraft" demands it. If anything can happen at any moment, magic ceases to be magical and is little more than an excuse. There is value in limits and costs; they give weight to a choice.

The two projects end up correcting one another.

And so to Land of Confusion.

Welcome to the Land of Confusion

I have mentioned the Land of Confusion adventure before; if somewhat obliquely. The basic idea is exactly the sort of thing that happens when I am left unsupervised with my own characters for too long. With my villain Darren's help, the folks from Jackson have been transplanted into a proper Dungeons & Dragons world.

Yes. As in "Hey, look, A Dungeons & Dragons ride!"

Not some D&D-ified version of Jackson with orcs out by Sal’s Pizza. An actual fantasy world.

In that sense, Land of Confusion is the most straightforward crossover I have done between Jackson and Advanced Witches & Warlocks. I have taken people built to confront supernatural horror in 1986 small-town Illinois and put them where the assumptions of AD&D are fact.

This creates a problem I find absolutely irresistible.

Strip away Jackson Public High School, Paula’s Book Store, Strawberry Fields, the telephones, and the cassette tapes, and what is left of Larina Nichols? Or Stephanie, for that matter? Rowan? Vera? Candy?

The easy answer is to convert their character sheets. I mean, many of these characters began as D&D characters. Give them classes, assign some ability scores, figure out their equipment, and move on. I am doing all of that, naturally. I am a game designer. Stat blocks are one of the ways I amuse myself. But the easy answer is not the interesting one.

What I want to know is what makes the journey through the mirror.

When the Reality of Magic Is Common Knowledge

I find there is a certain distinction that is worth noting. In Jackson, magic is kept under wraps. You could say it is not the best-kept secret in some quarters, but for the most part people live their lives with the firm belief that witches and demons and the like are figments of the imagination. Should something odd occur, social mores will see to it that an alternative explanation is found. It is, in every sense of the word, Occult.

This is what gives Jackson its character; the inhabitants are privy to truths the rest of the world is not.

Put those same characters in an AD&D setting and the dynamic changes. Everyone is aware of magic. The fellow at the tavern table next to you could be a bona fide Magic-User. The priest in his temple has the power to heal with a touch. An old woman on the edge of the village might curse you if she is so inclined. There are monsters in the woods, and the local lord would have no qualms about publically putting a price on their heads for any adventurer willing to do the job.

Which raises the question: what is it that makes Larina stand out?

It is a good question, and one that brings to mind Advanced Witches & Warlocks. If my Witch is just another spellcaster she will be indistinguishable in a fantasy world teeming with them. She needs to be different, not more potent, not more knowledgeable, but certainly different. One finds that in the pacts, the rituals, the traditions, and the kind of old magic that does not belong in a Cleric’s church or a Magic-User’s tome.

In Jackson, these things set her apart from the common world. In D&D, they set her apart from her peers.

The witch is the same, only the mirror is different.

Consequently, Land of Confusion is evolving into something of a stress test for both endeavors, rather than simply an opportunity to put fantasy versions of my Jackson NPCs. I have to be able to explain what makes her a Witch in an AD&D context, as well as in Jackson. Or if an ability in Advanced Witches & Warlocks works on paper but is not something Larina would ever put to use, then I need to re-examine it. The rules put the characters to the test and vice versa.

1986 Through the Looking Glass

Somehow this always leads me back to 1986.

There was a reason for choosing that year for both projects. It is an interesting juncture in D&D history and in my own. AD&D was well established yet in flux. Rules were being added. Some of the original designers were out. Locally, we call the post-Unearthed Arcana era AD&D 1.5 (note: Not then, but now). I was busy playing the game and making up characters, devouring any horror or fantasy I could find, taking in the movies and the music and all manner of ideas without any inkling which ones would be with me forty years down the line.

Larina herself is a product of that time. A character made for AD&D in the eighties (July 1986) became the teenage witch of Jackson, Illinois in 1986. Now I am sending that girl back into a D&D world. I could not have planned that in 1986 if I had tried.

Then again, Land of Confusion is not an exercise in determining which Larina is real. I have long since let go of such concerns. The one in AD&D and the one in Jackson are both Larina, shards of the same concept fashioned by different games and even different versions of myself. My characters were always a bit of a psychological experiment.

Placing the Jackson version in a D&D world does not make her the AD&D character.  It doesn't even make her the younger version of that character. That would be too simple. I want to see what happens when the girl from Jackson is forced to be an adventurer. That is where the fun is.

With all these "looking glass" metaphors, I can't help but think I need a character named Alice. Or Brandy. ETA: I figured out who Alice and Brandy are.

The Mirror Opens

Mirror Mondays began with the mirror as a metaphor. On one side was Advanced Witches & Warlocks, on the other Jackson. I could look at the Witch in one and see something of value reflected from the other.

Over the last few months, that has become less metaphorical than I expected.

My work on Jackson has altered how I view the witches in Advanced Witches & Warlocks, while the latter has provided a way to understand the behind-the-scenes workings of Jackson. Answer a question for one project, and I seem to spawn two for the other.

Land of Confusion is where they meet.

What started as a reflection between the fantasy witch and the teenager is now seeing one of them cross over.

The mirror was never just a mirror.

It's more of a door.

October Movie Challenge: Other Worlds

 Ok, this weekend is a complete cheat. Of sorts. I have watched these movies over the last week or so but have not talked about them because I want to get them all together to talk about them today. I saved the only "new" one for tonight and will talk about it last. But the others are all rewatches. 

This mini-theme here is all about people from our world and time going to another place and time of sorts. These movies are the horror versions of the Dungeons & Dragons cartoon. Though with some, the only horror was having to sit through them all. 

House II: The Second Story (1987)

House was very much within my regular boundaries of movies, and I decided that House II would work as well. In truth, it was my rewatch of this that got me onto this idea. This one really doesn't have much to do with the first House movie, and that is fine. It has some fun lines ("Isn't Madonna the Madonna of the 80s?") and some good ideas. The basic premise is simple enough. Spooky house. Crystal skull (always fun!), and protals to other worlds/dimensions. What is not to love. This one, though, is less "horror" than House I.

Why I included it here: The portals to other lands/times/dimesions are absolute Jackson fodder. Plus I have not had a horror RPG where a crystal skull was not some sort of source of evil. I will admit, I own a couple of small ones myself. 

A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987)

This one, and really all the Nightmare movies, deserve their own mini-marathon. I have seen all of them multiple times. But this one is one of my favorites. I have talked about this movie here many times before, but largely because of Jennifer Rubin and her portrayal of Taryn. I really loved the character. So much so that later I would have a character of my own named Taryn with questionable hair choices. She was so important to me that she is no less than Larina's own daughter. 

Why I included it here: In this movie, the kids are being plagued by Freddy, and they learn to fight him by taking on aspects of their Dream Warriors. Taryn becomes a knife-wielding badass who may have imprinted a little too deeply into my psyche. But the connective tissue here is also Will Stanton, who becomes the "Wizard Master" in his dreams. Stupid name, but the idea works for me and what I need.

The Nightmare on Elm Street movies became less and less about horror and more about Freddy's one-liners and gore.

Waxwork (1988)

Outside of my theme boundaries, but only by a little bit. This one has a group of teens stuck in a wax museum where every display is a pocket dimension. The trouble is that each display is an homage to the "eighteen most evil beings" in literature, with the always-great David Warner as the Wax museum owner. It's a fun little flick with Zach Galligan and Deborah Foreman as our two stars, and Patrick Macnee playing... well, Patrick Macnee, but that is fine. 

Why I included it here: Well, the pocket universe idea had a serious impact on how I played Ravenloft 2nd Edition. I would go so far as to say that this is one of the more influential movies on my Ravenloft games outside of Hammer Horror. Which is either cool or sad.  The movie is not great, but it has it's moments. Though I was (and still am) a little indignant about how Dracula was killed. 

Prisoners of the Lost Universe (1983)

Is this one horror? It has some horror elements, to be sure, but I am not 100% sure I can call it horror. Anyway, this one was an attack of opportunity a couple of nights ago from American Horrors. It features Richard Hatch and John Saxon, so make of that what you will. 

Why I included it here: Time travel and dimension hopping were reason enough. I'll count it as a "watch" but not a first-time view for this since I am having a hard time justifying it as horror.

The Dungeonmaster (1984)

Ok. So the first shock is I have never seen this one. I think I was avoiding it due to the name. It obviously has Dungeons & Dragons and Tron as its main sources of influence. That is the nice way to say "ripped off shamelessly." Ok, "ripped-off" might be too strong. Borrowed heavily might be better, but still no worse than any other movie from the time with this sized budget.

Also known as Ragewar and Excalibrate, it is ambitious in one respect. The movie is built around seven sequences, each by a different director and writer, though often the same person. Representing seven different worlds/levels/challenges. 

They all focus on Paul Bradford (Jeffrey Byron), his supercomputer "Cal" (X-CalBR8), and his oft-ignored girlfriend Leslie Wing (Gwen Rogers). They get sucked into a fantasy world/computer world by Mestema, played to the hilt by Richard Moll (with hair).  And he really plays it up. 

So Paul and Cal (now in wrist-wear format) must fight through the seven different challenges.   

There is only about 8 minutes per challenge. I would say the challenges are uneven in writing and directing, but the same can be said about the Twilight Zone movie, which is generally pretty good.  

This movie does give us the immortal quote "I reject your reality and I substitute my own." Though I had no idea it was spoken by our hero to Richard Moll cosplaying as Satan in front of a demon puppet named Ratspit. And right before he summons a dragon that looks like Trogdor and WASP shows up...as WASP. 

Metal, gratuitous nudity, dragons, magic, a stop-motion giant monkey, and computers? This is the most early 80s movie ever. We are just missing some ninjas. 

It could have been more interesting, but it just kind of ends. Oh well. Still fun, but only minor horror trappings.

Jackson, IL Connections

Ok. This one is a little different. I have an adventure coming up that these movies are the foundation for. I am not ready to share it yet; I haven't finished it yet let alone played it. But the genesis of this adventure began with a snarky comment followed by "Look, A Dungeons & Dragons ride!"

In all of these movies, people from the 1980s get stuck in another world of horror or fantasy adventure. That is what I have planned.

These were also chosen because of how many of them influenced my actual D&D games back then, as I detailed above. Horror icons, crystal skulls, dreams, portals to other worlds. I think you all can still see some of that in these pages.

Ok. That is enough for one weekend. Work is going come very early and very rudely in the morning. 

But more on this idea tomorrow.

October Horror Movie Challenge 2026
Viewed: 17
First Time Views: 9

October Movie Challenge: Biohazard (1985)

While this movie really has nothing at all to do with my themes of "local" and "high school horror" it is on the spot for the time period, 1985, and a great (if that word can be used here) example of 80s sci-fi, horror schlock. It has an alien, a psychic, the military, weird tech, and manages to rip off both Alien and E.T., and features Star Trek-connected actress Angelique Pettyjohn. 

Starting this one late since tonight was the Games Plus RPG Auction.

Biohazard (1986)

The movie is fairly notorious. Though not for any good reason, really, the movie is fairly bad. The effects are cheap, the acting is mediocre, and the plot is weak.

So yeah, it's fun.

But it is also exactly the sort of schlock I would have loved back in 1985. 

So we have some scientists working with the government or the Army (not really clear here) and a psychic (Pettyjohn) to transfer matter from "another dimension." Of course, it goes wrong, and an alien creature is brought over instead. Though kudos to the writer-director-producer Fred Olen Ray for predicting the touch-screen display seen before Star Trek: The Next Generation. 

The monster runs through town, killing the locals while being chased. The ending...well. I can't say it was a disappointment. The movie didn't engage me enough to disappoint me, but honestly, I should have seen it coming. No I won't spoil it for you if you haven't seen it. I hope the SpoilerText works below. Just highlight to read.

Spoiler: Lisa is an alien in disguise. The other creature's commander no less. She even rips off her own breasts to show the alien skin underneath. It's a bit gratuitous. End spoiler.

Rather famously, Ray's 8-year-old son Christopher Ray played the alien creature.

This was also one of Angelique Pettyjohn's last roles.

Jackson, IL Connections

Much like last night, the obvious connection is an alien invasion via some sort of psychic experiment gone wrong. Jackson does not have a military base, and the two colleges are not well funded enough to feature anything like the research shown here. 

Again, I go with Thirteen Parsecs for aliens, NIGHT SHIFT for demons. But that line is really blurred here in this flick. Yeah, it is an alien, but it does act very much like a classical demon. 

For Jackson, I could always say that psychic activity summons some sort of extra-dimensional creature. Hmm, now that sounds fun, let's make it all Morgan's fault!

October Horror Movie Challenge 2026
Viewed: 12
First Time Views: 8