Fantasy Fridays: Symbaroum

 Today at 9:46 Central Time, the March, Vernal, or Spring Equinox takes place. The moment of equal day and equal night. Now the sun gains ascendance. The perfect metaphor for the Dark Fantasy RPG Symbaroum.

I have been fascinated with Symbaroum, along with Vassen, ever since I saw them at Free League's booth a couple of Gen Cons ago. I grabbed the hardcover of Vassen since the Victorian era interested me more, but I grabbed the PDFs of both. Both cover that Fantasy-meets-Horror feel I love in my games. Also, both cover a theme I revisit time and time again: magic in the face of something new. In Vassen, the Old Ways are confronted by the Industrial Revolution. In Symbaroum, it is magic, and its corrupting effects in the face of the new, Sun-based, monotheistic faith.  Given that today is the day when day and night are equal, Symbaroum edges out in terms of theme.

Symbaroum is a Swedish dark fantasy tabletop RPG set in a world where a fragile human civilization clings to its borders, and just beyond them lies Davokar, an ancient, sprawling forest saturated with ruin, magic, and corruption. It's equal parts high fantasy adventure and creeping nature horror, drawing on Nordic, Celtic, and Slavic mythology to tell a story about the price of ambition.

If the Vernal Equinox represents the perfect, fleeting moment between day and night, Symbaroum is the RPG that lives in the twilight. Created by Free League, it is half High Fantasy and half Folk Horror, wrapped in some of the most evocative art the hobby has ever seen. 

I do want to mention the art first. The illustrations by Martin Grip are extraordinary: haunting, earthy, and alive with dread. It's not just the look of the art, it is the feel. This game feels like a cold, rainy day in an unknown Scandinavian village. Winter is over, but this is still not spring or summer. 

The premise is simple: A people have fled a dead, war-torn land to settle on the edge of the ancient forest of Davokar. They want to rebuild their empire, but the forest is not a passive backdrop. It is a living, breathing, and deeply vengeful entity. 

Fantasy

Knights, queens, treasure hunters, witches, and wandering barbarian clans; Symbaroum has all the archetypes of classic fantasy. The world of Ambria is richly detailed, with political intrigue, warring factions, and ancient lineages. There are ruins to explore, artifacts to recover, and a vibrant cast of cultures that feel genuinely distinct from generic Tolkien-esque fare.

Horror

The forest is the horror. Davokar is not simply dangerous; it is wrong. Every spell cast, every ruin disturbed, every artifact pocketed risks accumulating Corruption: a creeping darkness that twists body and soul. The elves of the Iron Pact do not protect the forest; they enforce its quarantine. Something ancient sleeps beneath the trees, and the game's entire mechanical design keeps reminding you that you are trespassing. Think Princess Mononoke, but the forest wins.

Most horror-fantasy hybrids bolt the genres together. Symbaroum weaves them into the same thread. The Corruption system means magic, the engine of fantasy, is also the engine of horror. Every powerful choice leaves a mark. 

Dark Fantasy

This game is not one of high fantasy or even low-magic, gritty dungeon crawls. You are not on an epic quest. You might be a hero, but you are not Conan, or Frodo, or the Grey Mouser. You are not even really Elric, though Elric would understand this world better than the previous three. You are searching for ancient secrets, you are going to go into that forest for the same reasons characters have been going into dungeons. But now the stakes are higher and darker. 

Symbaroum does something quietly different from most fantasy RPGs. Instead of presenting a world waiting to be explored and conquered, it gives us a world where exploration feels like trespass. Civilization stands on the edge of something ancient and dangerous, and every step forward risks awakening powers that should perhaps remain buried.

It is a game where the heroes are not simply explorers. They are intruders.

While not strictly "Old School" in its math, Symbaroum shares the OSR soul. It is deadly. Combat is fast and often ends in a single well-placed blow. It rewards caution, preparation, and a healthy respect for the unknown.

There are hints of dark fantasy, reminiscent of the grim worlds of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. At the same time, the folklore elements feel closer to Scandinavian myth and old fairy tales, where the forest is mysterious, alive, and often dangerous. In ShadowDark, there is the Dungeon-as-living-thing, or maybe more to the point, Darkness. Symbarous does the same thing for the forest, or, again, more to the point, the unknown frontier. 

The Old Ways are not lost. They are still out there, and they don't care about your sun god.

There is also a subtle echo of cosmic horror. The ruins of the old empire hint at terrible magical forces that once reshaped the world. Many players discover that the deeper secrets of Davokar may be far older and stranger than anyone suspects.

It creates a world where curiosity and dread walk hand in hand.

Rules and Mechanics 

Symbaroum is a d20-based system where you want to roll under your attributes. Attributes give you "bonuses" in terms of negative numbers (what you subtract from the die roll). Low attributes can even give you penalties for positive numbers you add to the die roll. Mostly the scores are between 5 and 15, with an average of 10. A 15 gives you a -5, and 5 gives +5, and so on. Pretty simple, really. 

The Game Master never rolls dice. Players roll for their attacks, and players roll to defend. This shifts the focus entirely to the players’ choices and their struggle to survive.

The core of the game is the Internal Balance. Every time a mystic (magic-user) casts a spell, they gain Temporary Corruption. If that total exceeds their Threshold, the corruption becomes Permanent. Once your Permanent Corruption reaches a certain point, you transform into an "Abomination" or a monster of the night. I am sure there are lots of ways to get corruption, but I focused on the mystics 

It is a literal struggle to keep the "light" of your humanity from being overtaken by the "darkness" of the forest’s influence.

Sometimes it is fine to take a point of corruption for a greater good. This is pretty typical of how the witches in the game work. They will sacrifice some humanity or light if it means a great goal is met. For me that is kind of a key element in playing a witch and one I really like. 

The rules themselves are divided up between Setting, Player's Guide, and Game Master's Guide. Not a bad division by any means. Though there is some flipping required. To create a character, I kept going back and forth between sections of the Player's Guide. So this part could be streamlined a bit. It is no worse than, say, the rules for the WitchCraft RPG and better than the rules for AD&D 1st edition.  

The system really supports the setting well. The corruption, as I mentioned, is a key element and really sits well within the setting. Moreso than say Fear and Horror in old Ravenloft. It is more akin to how Sanity works within Call of Cthulhu, or Taint in WitchCraft/Armageddon. The setting and the mechanics support each other well. 

Larina and Elowen

Normally, I try out a character for a new game, typically my "Drosophila melanogaster" Larina. But since witches are assumed to have a witch-in-training with them, I am opting to add Elowen as well. For this I gave Larina another 80 experience points (roughly 5-6 adventures worth) to boost her up. In this darker world of Symbaroum, I don't think a witch like Amaranth would work. BUT oddly enough, I could easily do Grýlka and Doireann. Ogres and Goblins are among the races you can pick. Ok, Grýlka is a troll and not an ogre, but what are the differences really?

In this, I am saying that Larina was already living on the edges of the Davokar forest and has gone somewhat native. Ok. Feral might be a better word. Elowen is still from the civilized lands and has gone to learn witchcraft because she sees ghosts everywhere. 

Larina Nix
Human (Barbarian) Witch

Shadow: White with flecks of rust and ash, appears as her reflection (Nature).
Quote: "I have dedicated my life to witchcraft, and it has given me a life in return."

Toughness: 10*/10
Pain Threshold: 3

Corruption: 1/1
Corruption Threshold: 7

Defense: 7

Experience: 80 (0)

Accurate: 10 (0)
Cunning: 15 (-5)
Discreet 9 (+1)
Resuasive 10 (0)
Quick 7 (+3)
Resolute 13 (-3)
Strong 5 (+5)
Vigilant 11 (-1)

Contacts (Witches)
Witchcraft (A)
Witchsight
Loremaster (N)
Ritualist (A)

Curse (Evil Eye) (A)
Lay on Hands (A)
Nature's Embrace (N)
Storm Arrow (N)

Familiar (Ritual)
Fortune Telling (Ritual)
Witch Circle (Ritual)

Age: 30
Height: 5'4"
Weight: 125 lbs
Red hair, blue eyes

Larina here is a "barbarian" only because she has been living on the edge of civilization for a while. I could have given her more experience points to bump up her powers, but I thought this was pretty good.

Elowen Hale
Human (Ambrian) Witch

Shadow: White with ash-gray flecks, appearing as a ghostly image (Nature).
Quote: "I died once. I am not looking forward to doing it again."

Toughness: 10*/10
Pain Threshold: 4

Corruption: 1/1
Corruption Threshold: 8

Defense: 5

Experience: 25 (0)

Accurate: 10 (0)
Cunning: 11 (-1)
Discreet 9 (+1)
Resuasive 10 (0)
Quick 5 (+5)
Resolute 15 (-5)
Strong 7 (+3)
Vigilant 13 (-3)

Privledged
Witchsight
Alchemist (A)
Witchcraft (N)
Ritualist (N)

Curse (Evil Eye) (A)
Inherit Wound (N)

Familiar (Ritual)
Necromancy (Ritual)

Age: 19
Height: 5'5"
Weight: 114 lbs
White hair, gray eyes

Ok, both of these work really well for me, to be honest. I figure Elowen's power manifests as ghosts rising up to perform her actions. Yes, she still sees ghosts.

Who Should Play This?

With today's theme, this game has equal parts light and dark, fantasy and horror, civilization and the great wild unknown. So, regardless of which side of the old-school/new-school divide you come from, know that this game is darker than most new-school games and is closer in tone to many old-school ones. 

This is a game for players who prefer tension to triumph.

If your idea of fantasy is leveling up, clearing dungeons, and becoming untouchable heroes, Symbaroum is going to feel uncomfortable. Progress here is real, but it always comes with a cost. Power is never clean. Magic is never safe.

But if you enjoy games where every decision matters, where the question is not "can we win?" but "what will it cost us if we do?" then this is the game for you. 

And maybe most importantly for me, this is a game for players who like their witches a little dangerous.

Not safe, not sanitized, not "spellcasters with a theme," but witches who bargain, who risk, who take on corruption because sometimes that is the only way to get things done. If that resonates with you, then Symbaroum is not just a good fit. It feels like it was made for you.

In Search Of...The SIU Connection and the Illinois RPG Pipeline

“I am a Saluki, you fools. I am a Saluki, and I will destroy you.” 

- Bob Odenkirk, SIUC Grad 1984

Growing up in the Midwest in the 1980s was interesting. I was far away from both Chicago and St. Louis, the two largest cities, which I didn't get to very often, and stayed relatively stuck in my smallish town.  We had our own run-ins with the Satanic Panic, and generally speaking, I couldn't wait to get out, thinking that if I moved away, I could at least find better access to cool RPGs.

How little I actually knew back then.

I later learned that I actually lived near what I have started calling the Illinois RPG pipeline. Games would flow down from Lake Geneva via Chicago to universities in Champaign-Urbana (U of I), Bloomington-Normal (Illinois State), and Carbondale (Southern Illinois University, SIUC). Mostly via I57. Of course, SIUC was the Alma Mater of Tim Kask and, later, yours truly. 

Given the availability of material, I also assume that there was a pipeline that went through Springfield, IL as well. That route would have been Lake Geneva to Chicago, down I55 through Bloomington to Springfield, and then on to St. Louis and again, Carbondale. 

From the early 1970s through the 1990s, these contiguous corridors stretching from Lake Geneva through Chicago and central Illinois to Carbondale functioned as a sustained creative and distribution spine for tabletop role-playing games, linking publishers, university clubs, conventions, retailers, and designers into what can reasonably be called the Illinois RPG Pipeline.

The Illinois RPG Pipeline was not just a metaphorical flow of ideas, but a physical corridor of products and ideas.

Gen Con in particular was not just an event. It was the first distribution node. Designers, retailers, and university gamers attended in person and brought the product home. Its position in late summer was ideal for purchasing content and then packing it up to take back to school in a few weeks. 

What I once thought was isolation in southern Illinois was in fact proximity to one of the most important role-playing game corridors in the country: a 400-mile pipeline that carried ideas, designers, products, and play culture from Lake Geneva through Chicago and central Illinois to SIU, shaping the growth of tabletop gaming for decades.

Talking with Tim at Gary Con 2025, I learned even more. 

Tim Kask from Little Egypt

Before he was TSR’s first full-time employee and editor of The Dragon, Tim Kask was a married student at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale. From there, he cold-called Gary Gygax, having found the Lake Geneva address in the back of Chainmail. Chainmail was popular with the Strategic Games Society then, as it was when I got there a decade later.  Kask got invited up, dropping his wife and daughter off in the Quad Cities, and the rest is history. Kask’s own reminiscences place that contact in late ’73/early ’74, while he was at SIUC. During this time, Kask would talk with Gygax about what a "mess" the rules were and how he taught the SGS how to play, but needed to figure them out himself first. This is key: the rules, given their state, lent themselves to being taught in play rather than being read to play. This became a viral campaign long before that term was coined and is still one of D&D's greatest strengths; people who watch it being played want to play more.

This area of the state in known as "Little Egypt." SIUC's school mascot is a Saluki, an Egyptian running dog. The school's daily newspaper is called "The Daily Egyptian." This dates back to the 1830s, when severe weather caused crop failures in Northern Illinois. The Southern Illinois area (today anything south of I-70) became very attractive to settlers due to the fertile land and rivers (the lower Mississippi and Ohio) that rarely froze. The richness of the soil there is so deeply ingrained that 150 years later, when I was there, people still talked about it.

Kask and I talked a lot about SIUC. Salukis never forget their erstwhile home. Tim lived in married housing while his brother lived in the dorms called "Triads," and he would go and visit him and play D&D. I also lived in the Triads. He was in Boomer Hall, and I was in Wright Hall, separated by about 13-14 years. Sadly, Boomer, Wright, and Allen halls, the Triads, were all demolished in 2012. I guess sometimes you can't go home again. 

But that time was influential in shaping how D&D grew beyond those three little rulebooks. 

Kask refereed the "Qualishar campaign," described in local coverage as the first Dungeons & Dragons campaign played at SIU and likely one of the first outside Lake Geneva. That’s a huge claim, but it’s coming from a contemporary profile built around Kask’s Carbondale years. Note the spelling drift you’ll see in fan histories: Qualishar in news pieces vs. Kwalishar in later forum posts and anecdotes.

Side Note: Kask has also said his first PC was named Kwalish, which fans often connect (informally) to the item name Apparatus of Kwalish. Treat that as apocrypha-but-plausible; it’s sourced to Kask comments preserved in community threads, not a primary TSR memo or publication.

The Strategic Games Society and The Egyptian Campaign

The Strategic Games Society was the gaming group that formed back in the early 1970s at SIU Carbondale. They would meet in the Student Center (3rd floor if I remember right) and play war games. At the time, prior to 1974 their membership was only about a dozen. Tim Kask and his brother were members 14 and 15, according to his recollections. 

Back then, SGS at SIUC was a wargaming RSO (registered student organization) that bridged the pre-D&D and early-D&D eras. Exact rosters are hard to pin down in print, but the through-line is clear: SIU had an organized strategy gaming scene in the early 1970s, and by the mid-to-late 1970s that group was already intersecting with the brand-new role-playing hobby. There’s an active SGS presence today; they still meet in the Student Center.

The Egyptian Campaign (1987–2007)

If you gamed around Carbondale, you probably remember The Egyptian Campaign, the local convention that ran from 1987 to 2007, peaking at around ~750 attendees. It was anchored at the SIU Student Center and, for years, was the spring gaming date on the regional calendar. Even recent DE coverage of successor shows calls out Egyptian Campaign’s footprint and dates.

I went to it in April of 1988. I missed the preregistration and was unable to get into any games.  It happened around the time of Spring Fest and Carbondale's famous "Cardboard Boat Regatta," so I often missed it. 

What the SGS was doing through the late '70s and into the '80s, as D&D exploded, is harder to document; rosters and meeting records from that era haven't surfaced publicly, but the convention scene that emerged in 1987 didn't spring from nothing. Conventions do not appear ex nihilo. A 750-attendee show requires a pre-existing culture.  One thing is certain: there was quite a bit of D&D being played there.  A side effect of this? Cheap D&D books at 2nd hand book stores. I picked up a near-mint looking Deities & Demigods with the Cthulhu and Melniboné mythos for just $18. And it was not the only one. 

An Aside: The Trampier Thread

Then there’s the Carbondale connection we can't escape: David A. Trampier (DAT) the AD&D 1st edition artist and creator of Wormy. After vanishing from the hobby in the late ’80s, he resurfaced in a 2002 Daily Egyptian ride-along story… as a Carbondale cab driver. He later died in Carbondale in 2014, just weeks before he was slated to surface at a local con (yes, Egypt Wars). If you’ve ever wondered why Carbondale keeps coming up in old-school circles, that story alone would do it. 

Back in the early to mid-90s, I walked by that Yellow Cab depot all the time. There was this bar that all the TAs went to as soon as we were done teaching. There were more than a couple of occasions I left the bar, walked by the Yellow Cab, and got on the Amtrak to see my girlfriend in Chicago. The cabbies all sat outside and smoked. I can't verify this at all, but I know I walked by Tramp more than once.

The Pipeline

From the mid-’70s through the ’90s, a contiguous corridor of publishers, conventions, and university clubs, TSR and Gen Con in southern Wisconsin; Chicago-area publishers and retailers; UIUC’s Winter War; Judges Guild in Decatur; and SIU’s convention scene and retailers in Carbondale, created a reliable Midwest supply chain for RPGs. That infrastructure, plus TSR’s 1979 Random House book-trade deal and later Midwest distributors like Chessex/Alliance, made new D&D material easier and faster to find along this route than in regions that lacked equivalent clusters.

I have no sales figures. I have no hard data. What I do have is the recollections of many gamers and some other anecdotal evidence. But here is what I do know.

Mayfair Games (Chill, Role Aids line) was founded in Spring 1981 by Darwin Bromley, his brother Peter Bromley, and friends, and Darwin Bromley himself had practiced law in Chicago from 1975 to 1981 before starting the company. It was named for the Chicago neighborhood in which it started.  Darwin Bromley was involved with the Chicago Wargaming Association and its CWAcon convention, where the first Role Aids fantasy adventures were debuted and run. Chicago had its own organized wargaming association running its own convention. That's not just a waypoint, that's an active gaming culture node.

FASA (founded in 1980 in Chicago) pumped out Traveller material early on, then Star Trek, Doctor Who, BattleTech, and Shadowrun. Further concentrating RPG/miniature culture (and distribution reps) in Chicagoland. Founder Jordan Weisman was first bitten by the gaming bug in the mid-'70s when he began playing D&D at a summer camp. The game followed him all the way to the Merchant Marine Academy and the University of Illinois at Chicago, where it ultimately pulled him away from his degree and led him to found FASA in 1980.  Weisman and Babcock sold those first Traveller adventures to a local Chicago store before sending them to nationwide distributors. 

FASA brought William H. Keith, Jr. and his brother J. Andrew Keith into the company from freelancing for Game Designers' Workshop. The downstate node was feeding back into the upstate one.

Games Plus (Mount Prospect, IL) has been serving the region since 1982, one of the Midwest’s longest-running RPG FLGS anchors. I would order minis from them and have them shipped to me when I was living downstate. 

Moving south.

Champaign-Urbana (UIUC) as the mid-corridor node. Winter War launched in January 1974 and is still running, often cited as the Midwest’s longest consecutively running independent gaming convention.  This is where Marc Miller tested out some of his classic Traveller adventures. Game Desinger's Workshop actively playtested here as well. My first connection with the Call of Cthulhu game was the summer a friend's older brother brought it back from Urbana. 

Bloomington-Normal, IL was the home of Game Designer's Workshop (1973) and Illinois State University. The GDW collection at the McLean County Museum in Normal, IL shows central Illinois as a parallel wargame/RPG publishing hub feeding the same stores and cons. 

Marc Miller, creator of Traveller, attended Illinois State University (in Normal), where he joined the ISU Game Club, created by future game designers Rich Banner and Frank Chadwick.  ISU is as important to the development of Traveller as SIU was to Dungeons & Dragons. GDW did not advertise locally but instead focused on conventions and word of mouth. 

Decatur, IL as the south-central publisher node. Judges Guild began publishing in 1976 and became the premier third-party for D&D in the late ’70s–early ’80s; TSR’s formal license lasted into the early ’80s. 

Bob Bledsaw was born and raised in Decatur, Illinois, and in 1975 began running a D&D campaign after friends asked for help after four failed attempts to run the game themselves. On July 4, 1976, Bledsaw and partner Bill Owen traveled to Lake Geneva to visit TSR, where they met with Dave Arneson and received verbal approval to produce play aids for D&D. At the time, TSR's general feeling was that no one would be interested in supplemental materials.

By 1980, Judges Guild had scaled to a 14,000-square-foot facility in Decatur with a staff of 42. At that time this central Illinois town was home to one of the world's largest RPG publishers.

Springfield, IL, White Oaks Mall (Center of the State) had two book sellers (Waldenbooks, B Dalton's) that kept a regular high stock of D&D/RPG items from the early 1980s on. This was due to the Random-House distribution deal that put D&D and other games into malls all over. Many other stores also carried D&D and Wargame titles within the city. At one point, a city of just 100,000 people had five sources of D&D books. 

I have talked to gamers from all over. Some had to hunt for books, drive long distances, or rely on mail order. Here, I had choices of a couple of locations in my own small hometown, and I could drive the short distance to Springfield to have even more choices. 

Carbondale, IL, Castle Perilous. Coming full circle, Castle Perilous opened up in Carbondale in 1990 by SIU alum Scott Thorne.  Steve Chenault of Troll Lord Games played games here while searching for Trampier.  

Continuous convention calendar along the route. Gen Con (WI), Winter War (UIUC), and the Egyptian Campaign (SIU) created a reliable annual circuit for retailers, designers, and GMs to move product, run events, and cross-pollinate.

Time Line

1968–1978: Gen Con grows in southern WI (Lake Geneva to UW-Parkside).
1973: GDW founded (Bloomington-Normal, IL).
1974: Winter War launches at UIUC (Champaign-Urbana, IL)
1974: Tim Kask attends first GenCon, begins playtesting D&D at SIUC
1976: TSR opens Dungeon Hobby Shop at 723 Williams St. in Lake Geneva.
1976–83: Judges Guild (Decatur) is a primary third-party D&D publisher under TSR license, then beyond.
1979: Random House distribution deal with TSR begins (book-trade availability).
1980: FASA was founded in Chicago.
1981: Mayfair Games was founded in the Chicago area (Role Aids 1982).
1982: Games Plus opens (Mount Prospect, IL).
1984: Pacesetter was founded in Delavan, WI (near Lake Geneva, WI).
1987–2007: Egyptian Campaign runs in Carbondale, peaking ~750 attendees.
1990: Castle Perilous opens in Carbondale. Second only to Games Plus in size and sales. Still open today!
1987–98: Chessex (Fort Wayne, IN) expands Midwest distribution; Alliance forms through a 1998 merger.

The PLATO Bonus

There was another, parallel pipeline. Gary Whisenhunt and Ray Wood at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale wrote the first role-playing video game in the TUTOR programming language for the PLATO system between 1974 and 1975. Called dnd, it was named after Dungeons & Dragons and is notable for being the first interactive game to feature what would later be called "bosses." 

This makes Carbondale and SIUC part of the earliest lineage of digital RPGs. Dungeons & Dragons and computers go all the way back to their origins and are interlinked. While computers will be forever associated with "Silcon Valley," RPGs will forever be associated with the Midwest. 

The Midwest did not merely birth Dungeons & Dragons; Illinois sustained and propagated the hobby through a connected north-south corridor of publishers, universities, conventions, and retailers that formed a durable cultural infrastructure from Lake Geneva to Carbondale.

Selected Sources / Bibliography

Tim Kask Interview, Part I - Grognardia (2008) https://grognardia.blogspot.com/2008/09/interview-tim-kask-part-i.html Kask's account of his SIUC years, the Chainmail cold call, GenCon '74, and his hire at TSR.

Tim Kask Interview, Part II - Grognardia (2008) https://grognardia.blogspot.com/2008/09/interview-tim-kask-part-ii.html Kask on the development of Basic and Advanced D&D, viral spread of the game, and his role as "midwife" to AD&D.

Bill Owen on Bob Bledsaw - Goodman Games https://goodman-games.com/remembering-bob-bledsaw-sr/ Co-founder of Judges Guild's first-person account of the Decatur wargaming scene and the founding of the company. Essential primary source for the Decatur node.

Bill Owen's ICD/Judges Guild Precursor Blog https://wargamecampaign.wordpress.com/2017/06/10/icd-judges-guilds-precursors/ Owen's detailed account of the pre-Judges Guild wargaming club scene in Decatur and Springfield, including connections to other Illinois clubs.

Marc Miller Interview - The Escapist, "A Perpetual Traveller" https://v1.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/tabletop/columns/days-of-high-adventure/7023-A-Perpetual-Traveller-Marc-Miller Miller in his own words on returning to ISU on the GI Bill, founding the ISU Game Club, and how D&D instantly made sense to him because of prior political roleplaying at U of I.

Dragonsfoot Tim Kask Thread https://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=92246
Primary community source for Kask's SIUC recollections and the Kwalish/Apparatus connection outside of my own conversations with him.

"An SIU Gaming Club Played an Integral Part in the Development of Dungeons & Dragons" - The Southern https://thesouthern.com/news/local/an-siu-gaming-club-played-an-integral-part-in-the-development-of-dungeons-dragons/article_a2c8bcd5-0d4c-5df3-a4cf-1f3a4225286d.html Local news coverage of the Strategic Games Society and Kask's Qualishar campaign at SIUC.

"Club Part of Dungeons & Dragons Creation" - Jacksonville Journal Courier https://www.myjournalcourier.com/news/article/Club-part-of-Dungeons-amp-Dragons-creation-14341261.php Additional local coverage of SIUC's role in D&D history.

"Exchange Club Played Part in Dungeons & Dragons Creation" - Daily Herald https://www.dailyherald.com/20190818/news/exchange-club-played-part-in-dungeons-dragons-creation/ Third regional news source documenting the SIUC pipeline connection.

Winter War - About Us (official site) https://www.winterwar.org/about Confirms 1974 founding by the Conflict Simulation Society on the UIUC campus.

"A Winter War for Gamers" - Smile Politely https://www.smilepolitely.com/culture/a_winter_war_for_gamers/ Detailed history of the Conflict Simulation Society's founding in 1969 and the birth of Winter War. Confirms the UIUC origin and the 1974 launch.

"Annual Winter War Gamers' Convention Returns to Champaign" - Herald-Review https://herald-review.com/entertainment/local/annual-winter-war-gamers-convention-returns-to-champaign/article_5f22fea4-2a5b-11e0-9c99-001cc4c03286.html Confirms Winter War as one of the oldest continuously operating wargaming conventions in the world, 38 years without a break.

Books

Gary Gygax, Empire of Imagination by Michael Witwer (Bloomsbury, 2015).

Ben Riggs, Slaying the Dragon (St. Martin’s Press, 2022).

Jon Peterson, Playing at the World (Unreason Press, 2012).

Jon Peterson, The Elusive Shift (MIT Press, 2020).

Shannon Appelcline, Designers & Dragons: The ’70s (2015)

Fantasy Friday Boxing Day: Dragonbane

A special combined Fantasy Friday with Boxing Day. Today I am diving into the Dragonbane boxed set. I picked this up my local RPG auction, still in the shrink wrap. This is less a traditional review and more an overview, a brief dive into the history of the game, and my thoughts after spending some time with it.

Dragonbane

Dragonbane is Free League’s modern reworking of the Swedish Drakar och Demoner. I picked it up last fall, primarily out of curiosity about Drakar och Demoner and out of a long-standing appreciation for Free League’s production values. After reading and reflecting on it, my conclusion is fairly measured: this is not a D&D replacement for me, but it is a very credible alternative to games in the RuneQuest family and adjacent BRP-style designs.

That distinction matters. Well, at least to me.

A Brief History of Drakar och Demoner

To really understand Dragonbane, it helps to step back and look at its predecessor, Drakar och Demoner (often abbreviated DoD), one of the most influential tabletop roleplaying games in Scandinavia.

Drakar och Demoner first appeared in 1982, published by Äventyrsspel (known internationally as Target Games). Mechanically, it was based on Basic Role-Playing, the same rules engine that powered RuneQuest and Call of Cthulhu. For many Swedish players, DoD was not just their first RPG, but the RPG, occupying the same cultural space that D&D held in the United States.

Over the 1980s and early 1990s, Drakar och Demoner went through multiple editions, gradually drifting away from strict BRP roots while retaining its skill-based core. These editions emphasized low fantasy, dangerous combat, and practical adventuring over heroic power escalation. Magic was present but restrained. Characters were competent but fragile. Survival mattered.

Importantly, DoD also helped shape a distinctly European approach to fantasy roleplaying. Its adventures often leaned toward folklore, exploration, and moral ambiguity rather than epic destiny. Humor existed, but it was dry and situational rather than cartoonish. The infamous duck-people, later echoed in Dragonbane’s mallards, originated here as a surprisingly durable example of the game’s tonal flexibility.

When Target Games ceased operations in the late 1990s, Drakar och Demoner passed through several publishers and revisions, including later editions that experimented with d20 mechanics and more modern design sensibilities. None of these fully displaced the affection players held for the earlier versions.

Dragonbane: Design Lineage and Intent

Dragonbane wears its DoD and BRP influences openly. It is a skill-based fantasy RPG with a roll-under d20 core mechanic, clear ancestry in early percentile systems, and a design philosophy that prioritizes table flow over mechanical density. Unlike modern D&D, it does not attempt to be a universal fantasy engine or a lifestyle game. Instead, it aims to be playable, approachable, and complete within a single boxed set.

From a game design perspective, this is one of Dragonbane’s strengths. It knows what it wants to be.

Rules Structure: Conservative but Clean

Mechanically, Dragonbane is restrained. Characters are defined by skills rather than classes and levels, advancement is incremental and use-based, and resolution is intentionally binary. Rolling under your skill succeeds; rolling a 1 or a 20 introduces structured extremes of success or failure. I am normally not a huge fan of d20 roll-under systems, but this one works surprisingly well.

This approach avoids both the escalating power curves of D&D and the granular complexity of RuneQuest. Combat is dangerous without being punishing, magic is flexible without being dominant, and the overall system encourages cautious decision-making. In play, the rules largely stay out of the way, which is not a small achievement.

If anything, the rules err on the side of being slightly under-explained in places. Veteran gamemasters will fill in the gaps easily, but newcomers may occasionally wish for more explicit guidance. This feels intentional. Dragonbane trusts the table.

Setting

The Misty Vale setting provides just enough context to anchor play without overwhelming it. It is functional rather than exhaustive, offering locations, factions, and adventure hooks rather than a dense metaplot. This makes Dragonbane especially suitable for referees who prefer to build outward from play rather than absorb a setting bible before starting.

Compared to D&D’s Forgotten Realms or RuneQuest’s Glorantha, this is a much lighter touch. That may disappoint lore-focused players, but from a usability standpoint it makes the game easier to adopt and adapt.

You could easily create your own setting for this game or drop it into an existing one. I think that flexibility is a key strength.

Tone and Aesthetics

Dragonbane’s art direction is worth noting, not because it is flashy, but because it is consistent. There is a slight fairy-tale quality to the visuals, softened by humor (yes, including the infamous mallards), but it never collapses into parody. The tone remains grounded enough to support serious play, even when the aesthetic leans whimsical.

From a design history perspective, this places Dragonbane closer to early European fantasy RPG traditions than to modern epic fantasy branding, which makes sense given its origins.

The result is a game that looks both new and old at the same time. It feels distinctly European in presentation and sensibility.

The result is a great-looking game that looks new and old at the same time. It looks European to me. 

Where It Fits for Me

Dragonbane does not threaten D&D’s place in my gaming life. D&D occupies a different conceptual space: broader genre reach, stronger character archetypes, and decades of accumulated expectations. Dragonbane is not trying to compete there.

Where it does shine is as a cleaner, faster alternative to RuneQuest and similar systems. It delivers many of the same benefits—skills over classes, grounded combat, emergent narrative—without the overhead that sometimes makes those games harder to get to the table.

In that sense, Dragonbane succeeds not by innovation, but by refinement.

RuneQuest is wonderful. I love it. But Dragonbane does what I often want RuneQuest to do, with fewer rules and a lower bar for entry.

Dragonbane vs RuneQuest vs BRP

At a mechanical and philosophical level, Dragonbane, RuneQuest, and Basic Role-Playing all share a common DNA in skill-based resolution and grounded, consequence-driven play. Where they diverge is in density and expectation. BRP functions best as a toolkit, offering maximum flexibility at the cost of referee labor and system mastery. RuneQuest, particularly in its Glorantha-centric forms, layers that toolkit with extensive cultural, religious, and mythic structures, resulting in a rich but demanding play experience. Dragonbane deliberately strips this complexity back, favoring speed, clarity, and approachability while preserving the core logic of skill-based play.

Nearly Final Assessment

Dragonbane is a well-considered fantasy RPG with a clear design goal and the discipline to stick to it. It is accessible without being shallow, traditional without being dated, and complete without being bloated.

It may not become the center of my gaming ecosystem, but it has earned a permanent place on my shelf, and more importantly, at my table when I want something thoughtful, grounded, and efficient.

That alone makes it worth serious consideration.

As I mentioned when I first picked this up, I need to create a Mallard wizard. I just need to figure out who he is and what he is about. I like the idea of a wandering wizard; I have not done that since I was playing Phygor. For this character, I would probably borrow ideas from RuneQuest and maybe even port him over into my D&D games. And yes, he is a wizard, not a witch.

So yeah, I certainly want to play this some more.

October Horror Movie Challenge: Queen of Bones (2023)

 Another pick by my wife. Now, typically when she picks the movie, I get a veto power if it is under a certain IMDB or Rotten Tomatoes rating. She doesn't like to look at the ratings beforehand. This one did not have very good ratings at all, 4.6 on IMBD and no rating at all on Rotten Tomatoes; neither a good sign. But we watched it anyway and really liked it. This in a large part due to the performances by  Martin Freeman and Julia Butters. 

Plus, it is a perfect Witchcraft Wednesday movie.

Queen of Bones (2023)

Fearful or religious men (often the same thing) have always feared women’s autonomy. History has shown that whenever a woman becomes too independent, too willful, too curious, too powerful, someone slaps the word witch on her and decides she needs to be “saved.” That’s the heart of Queen of Bones, a quiet, moody folk horror film that takes place not in the 1600s but in 1930s rural America.

Martin Freeman plays Malcolm, a widowed father raising his daughter Lily (Julia Butters, who’s fantastic) and son Samuel (Jacob Tremblay) in a house thick with secrets. At first, Malcolm seems decent enough, even tender in his grief. But as Lily begins to change, both in body and in strange, supernatural ways, his love curdles into fear. We slowly realize that he’s not just haunted by what happened to Lily’s mother… he’s terrified his daughter might become her.

That dynamic drives the film’s tension. Lily starts having dreams, visions, and odd encounters in the woods. The line between puberty and possession blurs. Is she cursed? Chosen? Or simply awakening to her own power in a world that can’t tolerate that? By the time the third act arrives, the answer feels almost inevitable: Malcolm would rather destroy her than let her become something he can’t control.

It’s not subtle, but that’s fine, it isn’t supposed to be. Queen of Bones plays like a postscript to Robert Eggers' The Witch, set 300 years later but fueled by the same fear: that the feminine divine, if left unchecked, would upend the patriarchal order. It’s witch panic dressed in Depression-era grief, with dust, silence, and old ghosts in every corner.

There’s a scene late in the film, no spoilers, where Lily finally confronts what her father did to her mother. It’s devastating, not just for the violence but for the certainty behind it. Malcolm truly believes he’s doing God’s work. That’s what makes him the monster.

What I loved about this film, and what I think most critics seem to have missed, is how subtle its magic is. It’s not a jump-scare movie. It’s an awakening movie. The horror here isn’t in the witchcraft, it’s in the control. Freeman gives one of his best performances as a man eaten alive by righteousness, and Butters is mesmerizing as Lily, teetering between innocence and fury.

This isn’t The Witch, no. But it shares the same DNA: a girl’s coming-of-age framed as an act of rebellion against divine tyranny. The difference is, this one suggests the witch’s power was always there just waiting for her to claim it.

Queen of Bones might not be perfect, but it’s important. It’s quiet horror with something to say about generational trauma, religious oppression, and the terror of becoming yourself. The final moments hit like a benediction and a curse all at once.

NIGHT SHIFT & Occult D&D Ideas

Let's be honest here. 

I you can't see the RPG potential here I am not sure you are reading the right blog. Generational witches are a topic I discuss frequently here. Like obsessively so.

I wonder what Lily's life would have been like after the movie? She would have been 23 near the start of WWII, in her 40s when the Beatles came to America, her 60s when the 80s began and so on. Interesting. 

For NIGHT SHIT, it’s a modern folk-horror story transplanted to a rural, Depression-era America where witchcraft is whispered about in sermons. A perfect slow-burn scenario: something ancient stirs in the woods, and the townsfolk are eager to call it Satanic. The PCs could arrive as outsiders—teachers, doctors, or priests, only to discover the true evil that resides within the house. Or a perfect Call of Cthulhu game that doesn't involve the Mythos. 

For my Occult D&D ideas, it is a good example of how witchcraft is inherited via bloodlines, and there are witch families.

October Horror Movie Challenge 2025
Viewed: 25
First Time Views: 23

Urban Fantasy Fridays: Chill

The depth of my love for Chill knows no bounds.  

I am continuing to focus my Fantasy Fridays on Urban Fantasy and Horror. These will be more about accenting and supplementing your games with horror, and less on these games being a “D&D Replacement.”

And for me, no game sits more firmly in that sweet spot of horror and urban fantasy than Chill.

Chill was my first RPG after D&D, and it has stayed with me ever since. I still remember flipping through the Pacesetter box and realizing this game wasn’t about dungeons or dragons, it was about the dark places just outside your door. It’s a game about the things you whisper about, the shadows you hope never notice you, and the brave (or foolish) people who stand up to fight them.

The Core of Chill

Across its three editions, the spirit of the game has remained intact. The secret society of SAVE, the Societas Argenti Viae Eternitata, provides players with an immediate reason to join the fight against the supernatural. The Unknown itself is the real adversary, a collection of folklore and fear that resists easy definition. Unlike Call of Cthulhu, Chill does not end with despair. Unlike World of Darkness, it does not try to make the monsters alluring. Most importantly, it doesn’t require the “epic heroics” of D&D or Pathfinder. The Unknown is terrifying and often lethal, but it can be fought.

The tone of play always reminded me more of Kolchak: The Night Stalker than Lovecraft. Later, when shows like X-Files, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Supernatural came along, they felt like they could have been written as Chill campaigns. It is a game about mysteries and folklore, about investigating hauntings and cryptids, and about facing the terrors that slip into our world when no one else will. The monsters are not just stat blocks to be defeated; they are creatures that feel like they have stepped out of legend and into your story. More importantly, each monster was special. Even when it was just a "monster of the week" it still meant something. From vampires and Wendigos to Elizabeth Bathory herself, the creatures of Chill are more than just stat blocks. They feel like they crawled out of real-world legends and onto your gaming table. 

What You Can Do With Chill

Chill is wonderfully adaptable. I have used it to run Buffy-style adventures before there was a Buffy RPG, Kolchak investigations, and even material that began in Ghosts of Albion. It thrives in the modern day, but it also works in Victorian gaslight, or the occult revival of the 1970s with its bell-bottoms and Ouija boards. The mechanics are approachable and lean toward story, so it is a natural fit for short Halloween one-shots as well as longer campaigns.

One of the joys of Chill for me has been bringing recurring characters into it. I have created versions of many of my characters for many systems, but Chill has always felt like one of the most natural homes for them. Characters in Chill are ordinary people thrust into extraordinary danger, and that is exactly the kind of story I have always enjoyed doing.

Why Chill Stands Out

What makes Chill endure is the way it carves out its own place among horror RPGs. Call of Cthulhu leans into inevitability and madness. World of Darkness often leans into seduction and corruption. Dungeons & Dragons calls for epic heroics and high fantasy. Chill stands apart. It is a game about people who could be your neighbors, co-workers, or friends, suddenly forced to confront the shadows that lurk behind familiar walls. Victories are rare, but when they come, they feel earned. That balance of fear and fight is what keeps me coming back. 

It gives you ordinary people with extraordinary courage, standing in the dark with nothing but a flashlight, some folklore, and the hope they can survive until dawn.

Chill is available in both the 2nd Edition and 3rd Edition rules.  The mechanical differences are minor. Chill 3rd Edition is a bit better organized and presented. 

The Early-Middle Years Campaign

If Little Fears is a childhood belief made into rules, then Chill feels like the story of what happens when those childhood terrors never really go away. It is a game for the middle years of life, when you are old enough to understand that monsters should not be real, yet still young enough to feel the raw shock when you discover they are.

In this sense, Chill is the perfect start to a “middle chapter” of a larger horror Lifespan Campaign. Dark Places & Demogorgons can cover the later childhood and early teen years. Monsterhearts or Buffy can cover the chaos of all the teenage years, but Chill is where the players step into early adulthood. Bills need paying, jobs need doing, but there are still nights when something crawls out of the dark, and it is up to you to stop it. Adulthood in Chill is defined not by power or responsibility, but by resilience.

Characters are rarely specialists or superheroes; they are people in over their heads who choose to fight back anyway. That resilience is what makes victories against the Unknown so satisfying. Chill is about holding on to courage, even when everything around you insists you should not. 

A starting Chill character is a fragile thing, but it is assumed they have what it takes to survive. 

Larina Macalister, nee Nichols, for Chill

So we have been moving through the years. In this, I am opting for the Chill 2nd Edition timeline, circa 1992. Larina is 22 years old. She has been living in Scotland for a couple of years now. She was an exchange student from the University of Chicago to St. Andrews University. She graduated with a degree in library sciences and early medieval history. She is currently a GA at St. Andrews. While here, she met, fell in love with, and married Eric Macalister. An Irish ex-pat living in Scotland. She later learns he is on the run because he is a former IRA sharphooter. I had watched Patriot Games when I came up with all of this in the late 1990s. In fact, this setup is all based on a WitchCraftRPG game I played with her. At the time, I worked out conversions in Excel for Chill, WitchCraft, and AD&D. These Chill stats are some of the oldest I have shared.

While I am basing all this background on Chill 2nd Ed, I am going to present her newer Chill 3rd Edition stats below. 

This Larina is fresh out of her undergrad days and working on her MA. She married, but life is not all marital bliss (she will be divorced and back in America by the time she is 25). She works with her friend Prof. Scot Elders and his wife, and her best friend Heather.  At some point, Larina learns that Elders worked for S.A.V.E. She is brought in, but she isn't trusted since her training in "The Art" has been haphazard and largely self-taught since she was 13. 

S.A.V.E. wants to evaluate her, but they had their own troubles in the early 1990s. 

Larina Macalister
22 years old, American citizen (married to an Irish citizen) living in Scotland on a student visa.

Larina in 1992.

Attributes

Agility AGL: 60
Strength STR: 50  (Injury: __)
Stamina STA: 55

Focus FOC: 80
Personality PSY: 70
Willpower WRP: 75   (Trauma: __)

Dexterity DEX:  60
Perception PCN: 80
Reflexes REF: 70

Sensing the Unknown STU: 40

Skills (Specializations)

Movement 30
Prowess 25
Close Quarters Combat 25

Research 40, Academics (E+30), Occult (E+30)
Communication Empathy (E+30), Deception (B+15)
Interview 38 Academic (E+30), Counselor (B+15)

Fieldcraft 30
Investigation 40 Relics (B+15)
Ranged Weapons 35

The Art

Communicative (PSY)
  Attunement: Follow the Strings
  - Telepathic Empathy (B)

Incorporeal
  Attunement: Eyes of the Dead

Kinetic (DEX)
  Attunement: Schematic
  - Hidden Hand (E)

Protective (FOC)
  Attunement: Disrupt
  - Blessing (B)
  - Line of Defense (B)

Sensing
  Attunement: Third Eye
  - Clairvoyant (B)

Edges and Drawbacks

Attractive 1, Highly Attuned 1, Pet (cat) 2
Hunted (Shadow Girl) -2, Marked -1, Reluctant to Harm -2

Drive To understand The Art and The Unknown

History

1975: Visited by ghosts and other spirits (gains Incorporeal ART)
1983: Develops Kinetic and Sensing Arts
1989: Travels to Scotland
1990: Recruited by S.A.V.E., same year married Eric Macalister
1991: Begins MA program at St. Andrews.

--

New to 3rd Edition are Focus and Reflexes. Also, Luck is now gone.

Her stats are pretty high for a starting character, but not high if you consider the Lifespan Campaign. She was seeing ghosts at 5 or 6, had control of various Arts by age 13. Because of this, she is largely self-taught. Her magical aptitude is a mile wide, but only inches deep at this point. 

I am bringing back the Shadow Girl, who, she had forgotten, from Little Fears. Maybe this creature is Larina's Never Was? And something happened in either DP&D or Monsterhearts that has caused her to decide she can use her Art to harm anyone. She hurt someone and has not gotten over it. 

Herein lies the most significant issue surrounding the Lifespan Campaign: moving characters and their abilities/powers from one game to the next. It can be done, but it is a challenge. Or, more to the point, a challenge to do it and not break some of the fundamental tenets of the game. Larina above should almost be a threat to S.A.V.E., not a consultant. Part of this balance also influences the narrative structure. What is real for that game world? You have to strip all that out and build your own world where the games fit.

Final Thoughts

Chill is not just another horror RPG for me. It was my first real step beyond D&D, my second RPG ever, and the one that showed me roleplaying games could be more than fantasy adventures. They could be mysteries, ghost stories, and urban legends made real.

Whether I’m reading the battered Pacesetter books, the sleek Mayfair volumes, or the modern 3rd edition, the heart of Chill never changes: ordinary people, extraordinary courage, and the eternal struggle against the Unknown.

For all the years and all the editions, that is why Chill remains one of my all-time favorites.

Links

• Chill,
• Cryptworld, 1st Edition clone
• 2nd Edition
• 3rd Edition
• My Chill Reviews,
• 1st Edition Pacesetter
• 2nd Edition, Mayfair Games
• 3rd Edition, Growling Door/Martin Carron
• Frightshow Classics Adventures
• My adventures, Golem and The Nightmare
• Other Reviews,
• The Children of Chill (Cryptworld, Majus, RotWorld)
• Chill 3rd Ed Quickstart - Good Fences Make Good Neighbors
• Characters
• Megan O'Kelly (Spirit of '76)
• Wayward Sisters (Supernatural)
• Fran & Miriam, the Vampyres
• First Edition
• Third Edition
• Willow & Tara

Urban Fantasy Fridays: Little Fears

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

Little Fears: Nightmare Edition

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Lifespan Campaign

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

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

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

Larina Nichols for Little Fears

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

Little Larina and a ghost.

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

Concept: Outsider/Quiet kid

Abilities

Move: ØØOOOO 2

Fight: ØOOOOO 1

Think: ØØØOOO 3

Speak: ØØOOOO 2

Care: ØØØOOO 3

Traits

Good: I can Fight well when I am angry.

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

Virtues

Belief 7

Wits: scared ØØØØØ|ØØØOO calm

Spirit: dark ØØØØØ|ØØØØØ light (whole)

Qualities

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

I am Curious +1

I am Brave +1

I see Scary Things -2

I don't fit in -1

I feel (Care)

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

My Stuff

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

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

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

Questionnaire

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

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

My biggest fear is...fire. 

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

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

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

Goals

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

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

Secret

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

-

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

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

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

Final Thoughts

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

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

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

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

Urban Fantasy Fridays: Supernatural (Special Edition)

 This year I have been celebrating various Fantasy RPGs and judging them on their ability to replace D&D. For October I am going to focus instead on Urban Fantasy games with Horror elements to them; something I rather love. 

This past week, instead of gaming, my son and I worked on characters. I was working on characters for my Urban Fantasy Fridays and he was doing Call of Cthulhu 7th ed. We got to talking while listening to his "D&D Classic Rock mix" when the subject came around to the Supernatural series. We both commented on how this September was the 20th anniversary of the show's premiere (September 13, 2005). We all agreed we had a lot of fun watching it. It was the last show we all watched together as a family, you know, before the kids got their own lives. Liam lamented that there was no Supernatural RPG. To which I corrected him and pulled it out.  He was pretty excited about it, to be honest. 

So we dropped the games we were working on (him CoC7, me Chill 3rd Edition) to recreate the same characters in Supernatural.

Supernatural RPG

2009. by Jamie Chambers. Published by Margaret Weiss Productions.

Supernatural: The Role Playing Game came out in 2009 from Margaret Weis Productions, back when they were adapting a lot of TV properties into RPG form. Like Smallville and Battlestar Galactica, this one used the Cortex System (the pre-Cortex Plus version). That alone puts it in a particular place in RPG history, when licensed games were less about “crunch” and more about catching the mood of the show.

I am somewhat hesitant to review this one. The big reason is that it is long out of print. You can find it on eBay for some really insane prices. The other reason is it only covers Supernatural up to Season 3; so about 20% of the show. There is a lot in the show that is not covered by these rules. Lastly, and this one is hard, it doesn't really *do* anything that other games can also do. The system itself, Cortex, is like a bastard child of Unisystem and Savage Worlds. 

The book is great looking and there is a lot here in terms of use and layout that will later be seen in the Dresden Files RPG. 

So I am taking this one out of my "Urban Fantasy Fridays" proper, but still giving it its own due by placing it in Supernatural's premiere month. 

As you’d expect, this game built for monster hunting, salt, shotguns, and a healthy dose of bad family drama. The book does a good job of introducing newcomers to the Supernatural world, but if you were watching the show back then, it was a nice way to immerse yourself in that universe at home. Characters are hunters, of course, though not necessarily Sam and Dean. You can make your own, or play with archetypes drawn right from the show. Sam, Dean, John (their dad), and Bobby (their other dad) are the only featured NPCs.

Mechanically, it’s pure Cortex: roll a couple of dice based on your traits and hope for the best, with plot points to keep the action flowing. It’s not a heavy system and fits the episodic structure of Supernatural really well, you can knock out a “case of the week” in a session or two. The downside is that it doesn’t dig too deep into campaign longevity; it’s really tuned for one-shots and short arcs rather than sprawling epics. Which is ironic given the show's eventual 15-year-long life. 

Looking back, the game is a time capsule. The series was still early in its run (season three), so it reflects Supernatural before it got truly cosmic. So no Crowley, no Castiel, and sadly no Rowena. That makes it more urban horror and road-trip mystery than angels, Leviathans, and end-of-the-world plots. In a way, that’s a strength, it captures the weird Americana vibe that made those early seasons fun.

It’s out of print now, and not easy to find at a reasonable price. Still, as a piece of the Cortex lineage and a reflection of Supernatural’s monster-of-the-week roots, it’s worth a look for fans. For me, it sits on the shelf next to Chill, NIGHT SHIFT, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer RPG, a reminder of when urban horror TV and RPGs crossed streams in fun and exciting ways.

Expanding the Supernatural RPG Universe

I mentioned above Cortex in this version feels like the bastard child of Unisystem (Buffy, WitchCraft) and Savage Worlds (Rippers, etc.) so expanding the RPG options of Supernatural are fairly easy.

I even have a few posts about it already, back when this game first came out.

• Supernatural RPG
• Cortex and Unisystem
• Magic in Cortex, Savage Worlds and Witch Girls Adventures
• Supernatural & Smallville
• Cortex, Part 1

I have used these ideas at varying degrees to make some new characters, espeically expanding the Supernatural universe to include witches and even succubi. 

• Wayward Sisters for the Supernatural RPG
• Cortex: The Hex Girls
• Willow & Tara: Cortex

Each one uses a slightly different type of witchcraft/magic system, and that works fine with me. None is "perfect" as far as I am concerned, but I am sure I could craft one.

In truth if I was going to play Supernatural these days, I would just use NIGHT SHIFT. 

But, I'll give magic/witchcraft one last try for Supernatural/Cotrtex.

Larina "Nix" Nichols for Supernatural

Would my witch be in the Supernatural universe? I have to say honestly, not likely. Witches are generally evil or at least up to no good in Supernatural. And anything she would do in the game can already be done by the witch and future Queen of Hell, Rowena MacLeod. But hey, this is my universe.

Larina Nichols

Concept: Witch (Seasoned)

Attributes
Agility: d6
Strength: d4
Vitality: d6
Alertness: d12
Intelligence: d12
Willpower: d12+d2

Derived Attributes
Initiative: d6+d12
Endurance: d6+d12+d2
Life Points: 20
Resistance: d6+d6

Weapons
Knife d2
Arcane Blast d8, Range: 40 Ammo 6 (Vitality)

Skills
Animals d6, Artistry d4, Craft d6, Discipline d4 (Concentration d6), Influence d10, Knowledge d8 (Linguistics d10, Occult d10), Lore d6 (Demons d8), Perception d6 (Empathy d8, Intuition d8), Performance d4, Ranged Weapons d4, Science d6 (Social Sciences d8), Unarmed Combat d4

Traits
Allure d6
Witch d8 (Telekinesis, Arcane Blast, ESP)
Obsessed (Magic) -d2
Dark Secret (Witch) -d4

Honestly, I like this build. I need to refine the magic system further, but this will certainly suffice. I don't think she would show up on the main Supernatural series. Witches end up in a bad way when Sam and Dead are around. No, if she is going to be a "guest star," then it has to be on Wayward Sisters. Avoids her and Rowena from sharing the same scenes. The group would seek her out for occult advice, not knowing she is a witch. And in proper Supernatural fashion, she even has her own soundtrack to choose from!

I should post Rowena, but she is basically similar to this, only more powerful (as she should be). 

Doing this does make me nostalgic for the show.