October Horror Movie Challenge: Witchcraft (1988)

Here is one that has been on my list forever it seems. I had dismissed it because the later entries into this series were barely more than soft-core.

Witchcraft (1988)

Grace (Anat Topol) is a new mother. During her delivery she has visions of two witches, a man and woman, getting burned at the stake.  Her baby, William is fine and to help her out her husband John (Gary Sloan) suggests they move in with his mother Elizabeth (the impossibly named Mary Shelley). Grace already suspects something strange about Elizabeth. She keeps having bad dreams and Elizabeth keeps pushing this tea onto her.

Grace asks her priest, who took care of her after her father killed her mother and himself when she was a child.  But when he gets to the home he sees visions of Hell. When we see him next his face is covered in boils. 

John is avoiding Grace, and spending more time with his mom. Grace finds a secret room with a weird mirror that shows her the same vision she saw before but now the man and woman are seen to be John and Elizabeth. 

She tries to leave but learns her home has burned down, she reaches out to her priest, but he hangs himself, and she gets her friend to come over to help her, but she gets beheaded.

We learn that John and Elizabeth are the reincarnations of the witches burned and her baby is the baby Elizabeth was pregnant with when she was burned.   Grace is about to sacrifice to Satan when their butler stabs John and Elizabeth kills the butler (with a great practical effect). Grace kills Elizabeth and leaves with her baby.

The movie is not great, but it has good points. Ok not a lot, but given what I know about the sequels it does put them in a better light.

October Horror Movie Challenge 2022
Viewed: 37
First Time Views: 27

100 Days of Halloween: Witchblood

I have reached the end of all the adventures I have on hand for War of the Witch Queens and before I pivot onto my next, and last series for this #100DaysOfHalloween, I really wanted to do something special. I had not found anything perfect yet. I had about four or five different ones that I kept rotating through.

Then I was contacted by Rose Bailey. The author of the great "Die For You" RPG, which I reviewed five years ago to this date in fact. That, and what her game does makes it the perfect choice for today's #100DaysOfHalloween.

Starting today and through the rest of these till Halloween I am moving my posting to the day and exploring the topics in more detail.

Witchblood

PDF. 237 pages. Color cover, black & white interior art.

There is a hardcover option for this book, but I do not have it. Yet. 

I knew this game was going to be good when I started reading it. First off the authors list Howard's Conan and Tanith Lee's "Kill the Dead." Seriously. I LOVE Kill the Dead. I love Tanith Lee. We are off to a great start. Also listed are Russian Folk Tales and Gimm's Fairy Tales.  Also mentioned is Ron Edward's Sorcerer, a game I do rather enjoy.

Rules Basics

Ok we learn that this game is based on One Roll Engine.  Knowledge of that game is not needed here, which is good because while I know it I have never played it.

This is a character focused game so we are going to focus on that.  All characters (called Wanderers here, more on that) have Identities and Qualities. Identies come in pairs and characters have three of them. They are numbered from 0 to 5.  This is a dice pool game where you will roll a number of d10 based on the Identities and one of the Qualities. So anywhere between 3 and 10 dice. Successes, Critical successes and failures are also detailed. 

The Fiction

The world of Witchblood is the Forrest. A giant forest that covers an area about the size of Europe, which tech levels about late 18th early 19th century. Ok another plus for me.  The game discusses how to being to create the world.the 

The game is divided into this Basic Introduction, the Player's Guide, and  Storyteller's Guide.

Player's Section

Chapter 1: We start here with some background setting fiction to get a feel for this world. It sets the mood and stage well. For me it already feels familiar.  I have seen this world before. No. Not in print, but it is the world you see in fairy tales.

Chapter 2: Character creation follows.  The characters are known as Wanderers, people who wander the world to learn more about their world and themselves. You build a character in 6 steps. 1. Name and Concept, 2. Birthright. 3. Calling. 4. Profile. 5. Bonuses. 6. Finishing touches. 

Each Birthright is like your species or race. We have Changeling, Commoner, Ghostborn, Noble, Troll, Witchblood (thus the name), and Zver.  Each gets two pages and helps decide your Indenties and advancement paths. 

Callings are like classes or professions though they go deeper than that. They are the Balladeer, Devoted, Fortune Teller, Robber, Sellsword, Trader, and Wise One. Birthright is balanced against Calling. 

Chapter 3: We get the section on Identies and Qualities. Identities as mentioned before are in pairs, Patience and Cunning, Vigor and Grace, Understanding and Persuasion.  These are subdivided into two more pairs. For example Patience and Cunning also has aspects Generosity and Selfishness and Demonstration and Observation. 

Points in these allow the characters to perform actions.  

Chapter 4 covers these actions. The identies and qualities give you points that you then roll d10s. Roll these and look for matches or sets. So things like riding a horse in a dangerous situation would be Graceful Endurance. Just riding a horse would need no to roll.  Various sorts of rule situations are covered.

Chapter 5 is the chapter on Magic. Magic here is not the organized magic of D&D. Its not even the emotional but structured magic of say Mage. Magic is, in the words of this book, bloody, blunt, and feral. There are many ways magic can manifest. There is "Petty Magic" or minor magics and anyone with a supernatural birthright can have Petty Magics.  Charms are things you can pick up along the way and allow characters to do things others can't. Hunches are ways the characters can manipulate magic around them into effects.  They are not something the character "does" but rather "discovers."  Divination, Pacts,  Lineage and Deeds, Sorcerery, Spoiling,  Gifts and Shapeshifting are all magical talents that have their own means of working.  The variety here is amazing and paints a picture of a world steeped in magic.

Storytelling Section

Chapter 6: This starts our Storytelling section or GMs section. It explains again that this world is largely a combination of two genres; pulp fantasy and fairy tales. This first chapter goes over the elements of these two genres and how the designers break the down the themes and rebuild them in the world of Witchblood. It is an interesting breakdown of both genres and what makes them work.   

We also get some Storytelling tips. There is section on NPCs like Companions, or characters essential to the Wanderers and how they fit into the story, and Locals, or the NPCs that don't interact all the time with the Wanderers. Antagonists are those NPCs that work against the Wanderers. So exactly what they sound like.  Each of these types get their motivations defined. A good guide for any game really.  

Given the nature of magic in this world/game, Enchantments are the NPCs of magic.  They are continuing or permanent magics. So Sleeping Beauty's sleeping curse is a good example of what this sort of thing is.  They are defined more or less like other NPCs. Now this is a FANTASTIC idea. 

Chapter 7: Covers "The Village" or "Where the Mild Thing Are." Ok that is a bit glib on my part. It is about where the humans live.  This covers the various people living in the "Village." There are various roles like Butcher, Miller, Fisher and so on.  There are also people outside the Village, like Bandits, Creeping Trees (LOVE THIS), Predators and so on.

We get themes going on in the Village, like Abuse of Authority, Domestic Violence, Human Sacfrice and more.  This can be a dark game if you choose. 

Chapter 8: Encounters. This covers what is in the Woods outside Village. What I love about this is everything I wanted to be here, is here; So Spirits, Ghosts, and Witches. And things I didn't like The Aunts, the Burned Man, the Dead Robbers, the Hearteater, the Mancutter and more. 

This chapter is great. These encounters are so well detailed and thought out that I would love to add them to other games. Just so much flavor here.

--

This game is so rich in flavor and depth. I once said that even in D&D I don't explore dungeons, I explore characters. This is one of the better character exploration games. The Villiage, the Forest, even the Burned Man and the Mayor. They are all there for the sole purpose of exploring your character.  Think about the fairy tales you know, most are named for the lead character. This is what we have here. 

This game lets you do that. And to do that there is plenty of adversity here. Not just in terms of the features in the Woods but in the themes you are expected to explore. Not all of them will be comfortable or nice. It is Grimdark, but not always nihilistic. Characters work towards making things better OR at least that is their expectation.  In many ways this makes things much darker than say Dungeon Crawl Classics (no slight on DCC).

This would be a great game for a group of good friends to explore. I also think it is a good game for people to use to explore different aspects of themselves. I talked about notions where the characters we make are different extensions of our own psyche. For example my Paladin character Johan is a manifestation of a Freudian Super-Ego and my Witch character Larina is a manifestation of my Jungian Anima. Just to add some armchair psychology to it. This game would do the same.  

The game is fantastic and I am going to have to come back to it later this week.  Maybe create a character.

There is not a ton of art (though the cover is fantastic), but I don't see this as a negative thing. Reading this reminded me of a book of fairy tales and legends I had as a kid where the only art was on the chapter pages. It invoked that same feeling in me and that is likely exactly what the designers wanted.

This not a game to do in an afternoon and be done. This one should be played a few times. I would even suggest on a regular interval; much like you read to your children before bedtime every night, this should be done at the same time in the same place. Really get that feeling you are leaving this world and move into one that sits in that liminal place between dreams and nightmares and being awake.

Can't wait to explore it more.

100 Days of Halloween: Fane of the Witch King

I have spent all month long so far on "Witch Queen" adventures, I thought maybe a Witch King might be nice. Spoiler. There is still a Witch Queen here. 

Fane of the Witch King

Print and PDF. 68 pages. Color cover, black & white interior art.

So this one goes all the way back to the 3.x days from Necromancer Games. It is an adventure for 4 to 6 characters of 10th level and higher. 

The adventurers investigate the site of an ancient and evil city where the minions of the now-dead Witch King reside and plot his return. Among them is his former lover, the Witch Queen Kytara Bane.

"Witch" in both cases just means "evil spell-caster" but I can work with it. So this is a Necromancer Games product so expect there to be plenty of monsters to kill, deep forgotten dungeons and everything that made 1st Edition adventures so much fun. The NPCs are also great in a "how can we make something so evil" sort of way. The Witch King Osenkej for example was the product of a Balor father and Red Wyrm mother. Kytara Bane, his queen, was/is a Half-nymph/Half-demon. There is the Ghul Legion a band of dark elves and gnolls working for a group of evil Stone Giants and their Black Dragon leader Ghul Lacronus. All who they have to fight to get into the Black Fane and then to get out they have to face Kytara Bane herself.  Along the way they can also run into the Covenant of the Claw, they are a half-elf/half-dragon, a half-human/half-dragon and a half-gnoll/half-dragon.  Really giving those half-dragon template rules a workout.

Not to mention all the demons and undead running around including a demonic triceratops! This adventure is a meat grinder and the characters are assumed to be level 10. I think they need to be a little stronger.

The appendices are full. A new spell. New magic items including new artifacts. Five maps.

The locations are great, and that is what the adventure gives top billing, but for me, it is really about these NPCs.

Use in War of the Witch Queens

Again, it is the NPCs here that interest me the most. The locations are fun but I can put those anywhere, or re-do them as I need. The NPCs are just too much not to use. The adventure is fun as it, but what if I add this twist for my world/campaign. Kytara Bane learning of the death of the Witch Queen decides to make her move.

It could be fun really. Certainly near the end of the campaign.

October Horror Movie Challenge: Hex (2017)

I was not expecting a Cavaliers and Roundheads movie tonight, but here we go. 

Hex (2017)

This movie belongs to a genre that I am starting to call "The Real Monsters are Humans" which of course if you read any horror, or even just watch Scooby-Doo, you will realize is actually a lot of horror. But movies want to have a monster, whether that monster is a literal one like Godzilla, a transformed one like Freddie, or a metaphorical one, like the Babadook. This movie sets up one monster but really it is the one in front of us the whole time.

Set during the English Civil War (1642–1651) we have a Parliamentarian, Thomas (played by William Young) and a Royalist, Richard (Daniel Oldroyd). They encounter each other in the woods after a long and bloody battle. Thomas is obviously religious, taking time to pray. Richard though is extremely loyal to the King. When they meet Thomas suggests they don't have to fit, but Richard decides the best way to do that is to kill Thomas quickly.

These two chase each other through the woods and there is very little to no dialog for several stretches of minutes. Richard obviously wants to kill Thomas much more than the other way around.  The whole time they are playing this cat-and-mouse game (including Thomas hiding in an old churchyard) you get the feeling there is something sinister here. Both soldiers catch glimpses of a hooded figure just outside of sight.

Eventually, Thomas stumbles onto a camp and arms himself with a rifle. When Richard finds the camp their stand-off is changed. Thomas tells Richard he needs him alive to fight the evil in this forest, an evil they have both felt. Thomas at this point declares it is a witch.

The two reluctantly work together and keep seeing things. Are they real, are they dreams or visions?

Finally, they decide to reconsecrate the church to force the witch out.  Here it is learned that Richard may have killed Thomas' brother, and they fight some more, but now Richard seems to be the level-headed one while Thomas is unhinged. 

They do find the witch (played by Suzie Frances Garton), but she turns out to be an old woman that is just trying to scare them from her woods. They corner her in a cave and she tells them of a life where she had basically been brutalized for as long as she could remember. Richard puts away his sword and wants to talk, and offers a quick and painless death.  Thomas is not having that. He pushes her out of the cave where she falls and hits her head. She tries to crawl away, but Thomas (in the name of God no less) gets on her back and stabs her repeatedly while she screams.

The cast is quite good and if these were less capable actors then this would have been pretty dull. Thomas' turn from seemingly innocent bystander in this war to a blood-thirsty monster is only eclipsed by Richard's man of unflinching, and unthinking duty, to one that tries to understand his place in this war. 

Of course, the "witch" is no monster, but Richard and Thomas are. 

This film was reportedly made for just about £1,000.00. I don't know if that included the actors' pay of not, but it does show you can do an effective movie without a big budget.

October Horror Movie Challenge 2022
Viewed: 30
First Time Views: 23

100 Days of Halloween: The Witch's Daughter- Adventure Module GSAM01

I have spent all month so far working with adventures from various systems, tonight I think I will try a systemless one tonight. 

The Witch's Daughter - Adventure Module GSAM01

PDF. 68 pages. Color cover, black & white interior art. 

This is a systemless adventure centered around a village where a witch was attacked and killed leaving her daughter behind. The adventure is a quasi-sandbox. There are 60 some-odd pages of backstory and details of the village, its people, and most importantly the NPCs.

There is a lot here to be honest, maybe more than needed for an adventure? This is more of a mini-setting. 

The strength of this adventure is the lack of stats. Why? I think by having go through the effort to stat ups the NPCs like Count Ducas Fellbane and the titular witch's daughter. For example, I might make Count Ducas a vampire. I know I shouldn't it would be so cliche, but I kinda want to do it to be honest. And the thing is. I can do this if I want. 

Again, like some of the other adventures I have reviewed this month I might use this one to shore up some of the others that are not as rich in background as this one is.  Yes. This adventure is perfectly fine on its own and it can be used anywhere.  But my time is limited on how many adventures I can run; 14th level is going to be the max level. 

I think I might try starting this up for a couple of systems to see which ones feel the best.

October Horror Movie Challenge: Sorceress (1995)

I should lose my horror street cred for this one. In my defense, it meets some good horror elements. It has Linda Blair. It has witches in it. There is mayhem, magic, and murder, and I am sure another "M" word will come up. Also, it does have a pentagram on the cover, so it makes this year's cut.

Sorceress (1995)

Where even to begin on this one? Well in the first few frames we treated to a full frontal of Julie Strain (as Erica) performing some sort of magic ritual. She stabs a picture of Howard Reynolds (Edward Albert). Howard is driving home talking to his wife Amelia (Linda Blair) on the phone. Amelia gets some sort of psychic warning and tells Howard to pull over now!  He gets out of the car before it crashes and explodes! Maybe she should have told him not to carry so many explosives in his car.

Anyway, Larry Barnes (Larry Poindexter), a partner in Howard's law firm comes home and his wife is Erica! He catches her casting the spell and next thing we know she is taking a dive off of the second story and is dead on the pavement below. Wow. We have not even rolled the credits yet and Julie Strain is dead. Oh and for *reasons* Toni Naples as Maria leaves with them. 

Later on Larry is getting over Erica's death. He talks about her as if she had cast some sort of spell on him. We get flashbacks of them having sex in the living room, them having sex in the bedroom, them having a threesome with Maria. Meanwhile Howard is at home still recovering and telling his boss John Geiger (played by none other than William "Blacula" Marshall!) he isn't going back to work and the promotion he got can go to someone else. Guess who gets it? Yup. Larry, who is probably remembering a time he and Eric had sex at a 7-Eleven. Ok that is not in the movie.

Larry does start dating fellow lawyer Carol (Rochelle Swanson). He tells her about the threesome, to which she immediately says she won't do that. They fall asleep and Amelia uses her evil altar to invade Carol's dreams. She has her in a threesome with Erica and Maria. 

Amelia is using magic to make Carol act more like Erica including dying her hair brunette. She tells her husband she doing this out of revenge for what Erica did to him. She just about has Carol killing everyone when Howard shoots and kills Amelia and frees Carol. 

THEN Larry sits up in bed in shock and sees Erica standing there asking if he had a bad dream!  Well, I guess they needed her for the sequel.

Ok. So. This is not a great movie, but entertaining in the same way a Russ Meyer film is. You don't go into looking for a plot. There is one here and I will get to that in a bit.

One of the things I noticed while I was looking people up for this is how many of the stars are now dead. Yeah, it is a 27-year-old movie, but still. Julie Strain, William Marshall, Edward Albert, Michael Parks, all gone.

For Use in NIGHT SHIFT and War of the Witch Queens

Oh. I'll make lemonade from this one. The basic plot here are two witches, Erica and Amelia, both fighting a magic war with each other using their men as proxies.  It becomes obvious really fast that while Larry and Howard are the ones bringing in the money, the real power lies with their wives.

For War of Witch Queens, I take this as the default approach. Once the High Witch Queen is dead then the gloves come off and the pointy hats go on. This is what has everyone so afraid. 

For NIGHT SHIFT, well it can kind of work as-is really. The threesomes are up to you and your group.  Elf Lair Games makes no guarantee that playing NIGHT SHIFT will increase the number of threesomes in your life.

October Horror Movie Challenge 2022
Viewed: 29
First Time Views: 22

100 Days of Halloween: Vengeance of a Burned Witch

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

Vengeance of a Burned Witch

PDF. 15 pages. Color cover and interior art. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Use in War of the Witch Queens

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

October Horror Movie Challenge: Witches of Blackwood (2020)

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

Witches of Blackwood (2020)

Originally released as The Unlit in Australia.  

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

AFFLICTION: Salem 1692 (2017)

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

AFFLICTION: Salem 1692 (2017)

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

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

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

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

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

Use in My War of the Witch Queens / Traveller Envy

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

Still kudos to the designers of AFFLICTION: Salem 1692. 

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

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

The Dark Eye - Witch's Dance

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

For My War of the Witch Queens

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

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

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

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

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

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

Alevtia

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

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

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

THAC0: 20
AC: 9[10]

Occult Powers
Familiar: Toad ("Kitty")

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

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

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

October Horror Movie Challenge: Return to the Witchouse

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

Witchouse 2: Blood Coven (2000)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Witchouse 3: Demon Fire

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

For use in NIGHT SHIFT and War of the Witch Queens

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

Just gotta figure out who and how.

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

Review: The Dark Eye

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

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

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

The Dark Eye - Core Rules

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

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

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

Chapter 1: Introduction 

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

Chapter 2: Basic Rules

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

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

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

Chapter 3: Hero Creation

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

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

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

Chapter 4: Races

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

Chapter 5: Cultures

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

Chapter 6: Professions

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

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

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

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

Chapter 7: Advantages and Disadvantages

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

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

Chapter 8: Skills and Chapter 9: Combat

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

Chapter 10: Magic

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

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

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

And of course, there are spell listings. 

Chapter 11: Works of the Gods

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

Chapter 12: Detailed Rules

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

Chapter 13: Bestiary

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

Chapter 14: Equipment

All the gear your characters will need.

Chapter 15: Game Tips

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

Appendix

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

There is just SO MUCH with this game.

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

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

Well. I suppose I will mine it for ideas.

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

100 Days of Halloween: The Priest, the Witch, and the Lost Temple: An Adventure

Tonight we have a DMsGuild adventure for 5e. It has a lot great things going for it for my ongoing campaign so let's see what it can do for me.

The Priest, the Witch, and the Lost Temple: An Adventure

PDF. 40 pages. Full-color cover and interior art. 

This adventure is for characters levels 2 to 3. This fits the archetype of the "strange newcomers who MUST be witches" deal. Our two "witches", Ashali and Lathna, one a Red Wizard of Thay and the other her apprentice and lover, are not really witches, but everyone around them is treating them as such.  Quick aside, I wrote a one-shot years ago when I first wanted to run something in the Realms about an underground of would-be good Red Wizards trying to escape Thay. They had help from a group in Aglarond. This ties in so perfectly to that adventure I might dust it off as an opening.

The focus of the adventure is to investigate the witches and find out they are mostly harmless but discover a bigger evil along the way. It works for me.  It is a nice little adventure I can fit in nearly anywhere If I want. Though I do have some specific ideas. And let's be honest, who DOESN'T like stopping a bunch of undead? 

There are some new magic items and new NPCs (featured for the adventure). The art is from DMsGuild so it is good, but the layout is something the author did and it looks good. So really a good-looking adventure.

The town of Whitehaven is just detailed enough to make it usable and enough detail left out to make it flexible. I really appreciate that bit. And much like the Villiage of Hommlet for Greyhawk, this would make for a good base of operations for low-level characters.  I get why the adventure is for the 2nd to 3rd level, but I wonder if a bit of work could make it more suited to 1st to 3rd level for a true starting feel.  You are far enough away from the Sword Coast to make it feel like a different world but still close enough to know where you are. If that makes sense. 

Kudos to the author for taking a chance on a "good" or at least redeemed Red Wizard. 

Is this a perfect adventure? No, but it is perfect for what I need it for.

For My War of the Witch Queens

There is so much here that fits right in, even if the witches themselves are not really witches. The "Whitehaven" of this adventure is a perfect stand-in for my own "West Haven."  Indeed, much as I used "Haven" from Krynn as the alternate universe of West Haven in my world, the character will find themselves later in "Whitehaven" in the Realms and "Winterhaven" in the Nentir Vale.

Ashali and Lathna also fit in perfectly as a Red Wizard and her maid turned lover and apprentice that they are almost exactly like the characters I made (no plagiarism here, I never published mine!) so close in fact that I will drop the location I had them in (in Rashmeen) and instead have them here. 

For a stronger link I might have them mention they knew the Witch Queen (but don't yet know she is dead).

So yeah, this one will work great for me.

100 Days of Halloween: Tomb of the Witch Queen

I obviously had to buy this one as well. Though if you have been following me all week you know we have gone to many tombs of many witch queens.

This one has the unenviable task of following up on all of those. 

As always I will be following my rules for these reviews.

Tomb of the Witch Queen (5e)

PDF. 13 pages. Color cover and interior art. 

Truthfully it is not fair to compare this one to ones done by professional teams with Kickstarter money. This is just one guy, Jon Paget, doing things on his own.  The adventure is for 5e and claims to be for characters 1st to 12th level. Ok.

We start this one like so many of the other witch queen tomb adventures. The PCs hear of about the tomb and the riches within. Officials have gone to seek it out but never returned. So it decided that expendable experts are needed. That's the PCs. 

The adventure can be scaled to three different levels Low (levels 1-4), Mid (levels 4-8), and High (9-12). The adventure is divided into four separate "layers." Each follows the last and increases in difficulty. Until you reach the tomb of Sassaya herself.

I can see this being a good Convention style game when people could bring their own characters. 

But I am not sure if even this idea overcomes some of the shortcomings of this adventure. The adventure is as linear as it can get. While I am ok ignoring this in some older adventures, this is a 5e one published in 2021. The rewards at the end are uninspired. Sure there is a table to scale the rewards, but this sort of thing comes right out of the DMG of many editions. I don't need an adventure for that. Give me some new magic or something interesting. NOW there are some here. There is a d12 table of interesting additional rewards. THAT should have been the model for the main rewards. Again I have said it many times, if I am going to plunder a witch's tomb I better find some cool spell books.

I mentioned the adventure was linear. Well it is so much so that there are no proper maps. The Labyrinth, Level (or Layer previous) 3 has a kind of a flow-charty color-coded thing that the author obviously is proud of AND it is a neat idea in theory. I am not sure how it acts in practice though. Maybe I am getting hung up on the word "Labyrinth". This piece does look like it scales well. 

The list price is just under $5. Even by my revised guidelines of 25 cents a page for content (this has 10 pages of content for 13 overall pages) that only gets us to $2.50. There is not much in the way of art; no imagery of what the characters might see for example. Only one newish monster with a stat block. Mostly skill checks really. If it had been at or under $2.50 I could have merited giving it another star.

October Horror Movie Challenge: Pagan Night

I love tales of the struggle of Pagans against Christianity and the resulting Folk Horror that would later grow up in the aftermath. So tonight are two different movies from two different points of view on the same topic.

Midsommar (2019)

Believe it or not, I had not seen this one yet. I had heard a lot about it, both good and bad, from a lot of people whose opinions I trust, so that was my hesitation. I also wanted to save it for a night my wife and I could watch it. We had been watching a lot of "Vikings" so I thought she might like this. 

The basic plot I think is pretty well known by this point and I really don't want to spoil it. I just want to say that Florence Pugh is amazing in this. She was wonderful both when her character was low (and there is a lot of that, poor Dani) and especially at her highs. The movie reminded me a lot of the original Wicker Man in a good way.

I am also one of the ones that loved the ending. Dani smiling at the end was all about her release from all the toxic relationships she had been in; her sister, her boyfriend, her friends.

I am really, really getting to love the movies from A24. 

Black Death (2010)

During the first round of the bubonic plague in England and Sean Bean needs Eddie Redmayne to help find a village that is protecting a "necromancer" and does not suffer from the plague.

Redmayne plays young monk Osmund who is secretly in love with a local girl. They plan to run off together as soon he can get free, but he wants her out of their village now to protect her.  They plan to meet at a shrine in the woods.  She leaves and Bean, looking every bit like Boromir and Ned Stark, plays Ulrich a man charged by the Bishop to seek out and kill this Necromancer.  Osmund volunteers.

We meet Ulrich's men, a band of cutthroats and killers, who are charged with hunting witches.

They travel through the land with Osmund as their guide. Osmund sneaks off one morning to find Averill but only find her bloody clothes and local bandits.  The bandits chase him back to the camp where they all fight. They manage to kill most of them but the last two make off with their horses.

The band enters the village where no one is dying from the plague.  They are greeted by Hob (Tim McInnerny) and Langiva (Carice van Houten) and then it becomes a game of "Spot the Game of Thrones actor." 

Langiva has all the men drugged while she takes Osmund to see her villagers in full pagan get up raise Averill from the dead. Osmund cries out in terror. Next thing we see is Osmund, Ulrich and the rest all in a pit full of water tied up. Langiva tells them they can go free if they renounce god. Unwilling she starts having them killed one by one. She allows Osmund to see Averill while they tie Ulrich up to horses.  Osmund finds Averill alive, but feeling she is in Purgatory he kills her to free her soul.

Langiva seeing this tells her village this is Christian love and they should have no part of it. She has Ulrich drawn and quartered, but before he dies he reveals to Osmund he has the plague and has brought death to this village. He is killed and in the chaos two of his men escape and pretty much kill everyone.  Osmund chases Langiva into the marsh where she tells him that Averill had only been drugged, she had been alive all this time and it was he Osmund who killed her.  She escapes.

Osmund and the remaining witchhunter return to the monastery and we learn later Osmund left the brotherhood to become a witchhunter on his own and a particularly cruel and violent one.

This one was also pretty good. Carice van Houten was nearly unrecognizable as a blonde but once she began to speak you knew it was her. Eddie Redmayne was great in both aspects of his role, the innocent but fallen monk and the vengeful, hard hearted witchhunter. And as always Sean Bean dies in the end.

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It's been a full Pagan and Folk Horror weekend really. This solidifies my desire to maybe do a Coda for the War of the Witch Queens in NIGHT SHIFT.  I might to drink some of my mead to think about it.

October Horror Movie Challenge 2022
Viewed: 24
First Time Views: 19