100 Days of Halloween: A Witch's Desire - Adventure for Old-School Essentials

Honestly, I could not pass this one up. It is a low-level adventure featuring a witch, it is quick and it is for Old-School Essentials.  So yeah, I had to grab it.  But how does it play?  Let's look into it.

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

A Witch's Desire - Adventure for Old-School Essentials

PDF and PoD. 27 pages. Color covers and interior art.

The designed levels for this are 1 to 3, but I find that it works well as an "interlude" adventure, that is as the characters are moving from one major adventure to the other.  Not to say that this can't be a major adventure, it can. But for me, I wanted to feel more like the characters "wandered into a dream" sort of deal. 

To start with, and what helps fuel this notion of an interlude, are some rules for travel.  While the PCs are moving from their last adventure to this one using these rules helps give this one it's own feel. Yes they can be used elsewhere and adapted. Adding to this is the section after the travel and before the adventure proper, and that is the influence the witch has on the lands near her. I have been using something similar for my War of the Witch Queens based on the old superstition of Hex Signs, but the rules here are more explicit in their application.

 The adventure is a "straightforward" mission to get some water for the Witch of the Wilds they meet at the start of the adventure. I say "straightforward" because obviously, it isn't.  They are plenty of hazards along the way and foes to fight. The adventure is scaleable so that is also quite good. 

There are no stats for the witch herself, nor should there be. The PCs should not be fighting her.

This adventure is set in the Forever Winter setting. Honestly a name like screams to be used.  Also, there is mention of the Ice Queen and her rivalry with the Witch of the Wilds.  The Ice Queen is not mentioned much here save for a sidebar, but the potential is great.  So great in fact that I have an idea of how to work the Ice Queen (also a witch in my world naturally) into my War of the Witch Queens.  I'll discuss her tomorrow. It is likely that their A Wintry Death adventures could be used in conjunction with this one, but I am pretty pleased with it as is to be honest.

While the art is wonderful for this it does make you think the Witch of the Wild could be something of an evil-ish character, certainly otherworldly.  While reading through this I kept asking myself, what if this witch was good and just really needed the character's help?

Suddenly all I could think of was Ginny Di's character Morelia the Wood Witch.  She would need the water for her potions obviously. Changes the whole tenor of the adventure.   Not that I have any problems coming up with witches. It would also change the nature of the relationship between the Witch of the Wilds and the Ice Queen. They are still rivals, but now it is different.

VS

Note: I just noticed that Morelia's familiar Crimini is a cat with white fur and gold eyes. Much like the art for the Witch of the Wilds. Maybe Morelia polymorphs Crimini to act as the scary Witch of the Wild? She then hides in the background so that the PCs she is hiring don't know she really is about as dangerous as a bunny. A lot like Balok in the classic Trek episode "The Corbomite Maneuver."  Instead of tranya she offers them tea of course. Yeah, I like this idea. 

In either case, the Witch of this adventure would need to be a potential ally for the characters in my game.  I can't actually see Morelia getting mad with them anyway. And I really want to use Morelia. I just don't think I can pull off the voice Ginny Di uses for her!

In any case a fun adventure with a lot of ideas for use in my home campaign. The PDF version comes with separate maps. The PDF also features layers so you can turn on the background image for readability. That's worth an extra star in my book to be honest. 

October Horror Movie Challenge: Witchouse (1999)

My "soft theme" this challenge is "films with pentagrams on the cover." Silly I know, but I have subscribed to a few streaming services and I was adding a bunch of movies and noticed many of them had pentagrams on the covers. So I decided to just kept going with it.

Tonight I am already questioning the logic of this plan.

Witchouse (1999)

This comes to us from 1999 and Full Moon Features. Now I love Full Moon. Their movies are short, silly, and usually fun. You can expect some kids to get themselves into stupid situations and usually dying in dumb ways.

Our plot concerns Elizabeth LaFey (yes that is her name) inviting a bunch of her old high school friends to her new house for a party. The house has a "dark history" as does LaFey.  It also has copies of "Le Necronomicon." The characters are less than characters and really little more than clichés. But that is fine because you are not really supposed to be relating to them as characters but rather as relatable archetypes. The stoner, the football player, the cheerleader, the hot girl who doesn't know she is hot, the juvenile delinquent, the nerd, and so on. 

Elizabeth plans to sacrifice her friends on May 1 to resurrect her ancient witch ancestor.  Nothing shocking or surprising here really, but it was still kind of fun. The acting, for the most part, is pretty terrible. Honestly, it looks like it was filmed in a single night. 

This one has been on my list for a bit largely just based on the name. 

Directed by David DeCoteau, responsible for, I have no idea how many Full Moon movies.  This one even features scenes from Dark Angel: The Ascent. Actually, the scenes of Hell here have been in at least two other movies.

October Horror Movie Challenge 2022
Viewed: 3
First Time Views: 2

Monstrous Mondays: Fiend Folio (3e)

Welcome to October. If there is any time of year to remind me of my love of monsters it is now. Watching horror movies (or "monster movies" as my dad and I used to call them when I was little) is so deeply tied into my love of both Halloween and D&D that it is hard to tease them apart.  

This month I want to cover some horror-themed monster books for review. My ultimate goal here is to get a good feeling of what makes a monster book "good" and what doesn't. Or maybe what makes them good for me. All year I have been focusing on D&D monster books of all sorts. My second goal is to wrap up this process before 2023 when I do something a little different.

Given I have some D&D 3.x books still cover and five Mondays in October I am going to cover some of these or at least the ones that have the most horror elements to them.

Up first, the Fiend Folio.

Fiend Folio (3e)

PDF and Hardcover. 226 pages. Color covers and interior art.

This is the third "Fiend Folio" we have gotten for *D&D over the last 20+ years.  Like the first one for 1st Ed AD&D, this one is a hardcover book. Like the second one for 2nd AD&D, this one expands the list of monsters. 

This Fiend Folio lives up to its title a little bit more by giving us a lot more fiends. There are demons and devils here as well as the demodands (originally from the AD&D Monster Manual II). Here they get the alignment of "often Neutral Evil."  There are plenty of new demons and devils here too.

There are some Fiend Folio "repeats" here, or my updates is the better term.Just eyeballing it there is the Blood Hawk, Caryatid Column, Dark Creeper and Stalker, Death Dog, Disenchanter, Flame/Fire Snake, Fossergrim, Huecuva (now a template), Iron Cobra, Kelpie, Necrophidius, Skulk, Slaad, Yellow Musk Creeper, and Zombie.

No flumphs though. 

There are also plenty of new monsters too, like the Bacchae and Feytouched which are fun. All in all 167 monsters for D&D 3.0 (3.5 is still a couple of months off).  We are a point in the 3.x development cycle where the monsters still run from one to the next, like the original Fiend Folio. 

This book also includes some Prestige Classes, some Grafts and Symbionts, 

There was a free "Web Enhancement" back when this was new called Fiendish Fun which extended some of the ideas in the Fiend Folio. It is still out there thanks to Archive.org.

This is one of the books I consider central for a D&D 3.x horror campaign. The rest, well that is what the rest of this month is for. 

100 Days of Halloween: When Comes the Witching Hour

Another adventure from casl Entertainment featuring the "Witch Queen" which may or may not be Iggwilv. 

When Comes the Witching Hour

PDF and Print. 80 Pages. Color covers. Black & White art.

This adventure is designed for levels 9 to 12 for the OSRIC game, which is the clone of AD&D 1st Edition.

I grabbed this adventure back in February after reviewing The Witch-Queen's Lament, a later, but lower-level adventure.

There is a nudge-nudge-wink-wink commentary on how to fit this adventure into the World of Greyhawk. But it is also fully usable in any world. 

The adventure is overtly the search for a missing princess. What makes this different is the missing princess is likely in the Dungeons of the Mad Archmage and might have something to do with the Queen of Witches.

Now. Before I get too much further let me point out what this adventure can do. Obviously, there are the fans of the World of Greayhawk who can use this to expand on their game worlds. You can grab nearly any other version of the Castle or Dungeons of the Mad Arch Mage.  It is really a nice piece that could fit into a lot of campaigns. 

The adventure is a wonderful romp through some of the storied locations of the World of Greyhawk, if in a thinly veiled manner. Also, anything that involves Iggwilv or the Witch Queen is a must-buy in my mind.

The adventure covers the first half of the book. The last half has new monsters including many unique demons, new magic items, pre-gen characters, and finally the maps. Note. The print version maps are a little difficult to read. I have the PDF so I printed them out.

One other nitpick. There are no page numbers printed on each page. 

--

For Use in War of the Witch Queens

This one is so on brand for my War of the Witch Queens that I am shocked how well it works for me. It covers several bases for me. For starters, it is OSRIC thus satisfying my need to involve all sorts of OSR rule sets. It is set in Greyhawk which satisfies my desire to involve many of the game worlds as I can. And most of all it features the machinations of not just "A" Witch Queen, but "THE" Witch Queen. I mean really. If I have any complaints about this adventure it is I didn't write it myself.

For Use in NIGHT SHIFT

While I love to use some of these adventures for NIGHT SHIFT not everything will fit. This is a perfect example, while I love the idea of this adventure it would not be good for NIGHT SHIFT. This adventure is too deeply tied to the World of D&D and especially Greyhawk.

October Horror Movie Challenge: Hagazussa (2017)

This one had been on my radar for a bit. Described as a "gothic folk tale" I knew I had to check it out. The name of the movie also comes from the old German word for "Witch."

Hagazussa (2017)

Told in four acts with very little dialog we see how the local villagers treated a goat-herding woman and later her daughter, Albrun, as witches.

In the first act young Albrun begin to menstruate, but before she can even talk about it with her mother all sorts of strange things happen. They are accosted one night by men wearing masks. Soon after Mother comes down with the Bubonic plague.

While attending to her mother Albrun is sexually assaulted by her mother, who is losing her mind.  At some point, Mother runs out of their cabin and dies in the night. Alburn finds her dead mother the next day covered in snakes. 

Act 2 takes place 15 years later. Alburn is still living in her cabin and now how has a baby of her own. She lives alone and is a little strange now. She is treated as a pariah in the local town where the local boys pick on her, and the local priest gives her the decorated skull of her mother.  She befriends another local woman, Swinda. But when Swinda sees the skull of Alburn's mother set up on an altar. Swinda later takes Alburn up into the mountains where they encounter a man Swinda knows. Swinda holds down Alburn while the man rapes her.  In revenge, she takes a dead rat and blood and poisons the water supply.

Act 3 Alburn comes to town with her baby and sees a lot of people dead and dying. She walks into the woods and eats some mushrooms. She begins to hallucinate and accidentally drowns her baby. 

Act 4 Alburn wakes up and discovers her baby is dead. So she cooks the baby in a stew and eats it. She gets sick. Her hallucinations come back as she hears her mother talking to her. She wanders outside and catches fire in the rising sun.

The horror of this movie is the abuse of Alburn from her childhood to her adulthood. She would be considered a witch or hag in the legends of the local village and that is the tragedy of this tale.  It is not a feel-good movie. 

Use for War of the Witch Queens

This movie has something of a timeless feel about it. It takes place in the 14th century or thereabouts, so it would be a good background for any sort of lower-level witch. To quote the TV show Magicians "magic is pain" and Alburn knows pain.  From this, you can assume there is really no such thing as a happy witch.

It is also a good example of how others treat these women, outside of outright hate. 

October Horror Movie Challenge 2022
Viewed: 2
First Time Views: 1

100 Days of Halloween: The Coven

Tonight I am starting my deep dive into a bunch of witch-related adventures, many of which I would like to use with my War of the Witch Queens campaign.

The adventures will come from the various versions of D&D and the retro-clones in the OSR. They all have or feature witches in them.  Sometimes these witches are the antagonists, other times they are allies or even friends. The point is to show this rise in witch-related activity.  The players would see this rise but only later learn the reason is that the High Witch Queen had been murdered and now the witches are running wild.

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

The Coven

PDF. 45 pages. Black & White cover and B&W and color interior art.

This is a 0-level or 1st-level "adventure". In fact the adventure covers creating a coven of new "witches" (1st level magic-users).  There are a lot of random tables to help generate these characters including their background, patrons, enemies, and more for these witches. You also generate the lands and homes of these witches and their enemies.

This book is designed for Lamentations of the Flame Princess, but that is close enough to B/X that you can use that or OSE instead. 

I say "adventure" in quotes because there is not an adventure here. There is a setup for future adventures and there are plenty of ideas here to create your own. But no "going to point A to point B and kill monster X."

What it might lack (and I don't think it is lacking) in structure it makes up for in style and detail.

For Use in War of the Witch Queens

I would use this as a session zero for a future run of WotWQ (right now my characters are around 3rd level) but this would be a fun start.

Instead on 1st level magic-users I would use my witches, with a random table to also help choose their tradition.  

For Use in NIGHT SHIFT

So this is set up for LotFP, but with some tooling, I could make it work for a modern-age NIGHT SHIFT game. Certainly something for Ordinary World or even Generation HEX.

October Horror Movie Challenge: Day Shift (2022)

Starting off the Halloween October Horror Movie Challenge with a brand new one.  

I watched this for the Monster Movie Fun Time Go podcast. You can hear it all here. 

So I am not sure whether to consider this as part of the challenge or not. I am going to count it as a "Previously Watched" for today.

The premise is simple. Jamie Foxx plays Bud Jablonski, a divorced father who works as a pool cleaner. In truth, he is a vampire hunter who had worked for The Union. He kills vampires and sells the teeth on the black market to Troy played by the always fantastic Peter Stormare.

Now I have this sort of love/hate relationship with Jamie Foxx. Typically he is playing the exact same character in every movie he is in. This is not really that big of a deal. I mean it worked for Bruce Willis. Here is playing that same character. But I do have to remind myself this is the same guy that played Ray Charles and was amazing.  So here, he is good.

So the only way Bud is going to get all the money he needs for bills and his daughter's braces is to rejoin The Union that kicked him out. He gets the help of his friend, and vampire hunting legend, "Big" John Elliott, played in scene chewing wonder by Snoop Dogg. 

They let him rejoin and he is saddled with desk jockey Seth played by Dave Franco.  

Turns out the vampire Bud kills in the opener was the daughter of this higher-up vampire in LA, Audrey San Fernando played by Karla Souza.  We know Audrey is not at the top of the Vampire hierarchy (seriously has White Wolf completely saturated all Vampire mythology these days??) but she is striking out on her own to control as much of LA as she can.

The title comes from the shift Bud is assigned to; the safer, and less profitable, Day Shift.

The vampires here were all played by Cirque du Soleil acrobats and contortionists who were out of work due to the pandemic. The result is some really fun fights with the vampires as they bend, flip, and generally look inhuman.  We also learn there are different vampire clans (there you go again) and finding a nest full of vampires from different clans is something that concerns our heroes.

The movie is fun, but not great. It has all the tropes of horror but none of the scares. It leaves a lot of room for sequels.

In a scene that pays homage to Lost Boys, Snoop's Big John says "That's what I love about LA. All the damn Vampires!" 

"Welcome to the motherfucking Night Shift!" - Bud Jablonski

This movie is tailor-made for a NIGHT SHIFT game. Freelance vampire hunters working for a mysterious organization is the stuff of great roleplaying games. Exploring the vampire hierarchy and even the history of the Union would be fun.

October Horror Movie Challenge 2022
Viewed: 1
First Time Views: 0* (but it was new to me just last month)