On the edge of civilisation lies Lake Onda, pregnant with rain, its waters ready to break. Already, they gulp at its banks, choking the earth and saturating the trees and the plants and subsuming them into a mire that spreads and spreads. The inhabitants of the surrounding villagers eke out what life they can, drowning from the moment they were born on the hot, moist air, never knowing the comfort of a respite from the rot and the stench. The lucky few escapes to a life of poverty elsewhere, free of their sodden origins. The unlucky few falls prey to a coalescence of mouldering vegetation and undergrowth into a brain sparked into life by the violent storms that wrack the skies above the lake, its only feeling being one of hunger. The villagers only know it to be something foul and want it ended. King Fathmu’s royal biologist wants a cutting from the creature for his gardens. Some have had visions of a nascent godling born in the swamps and know they would be well rewarded were they to nurture and protect it to its intended status. There is said to be a temple in the swamp with an entrance to the underworld where great riches lie ready for the taking. The right flowers of the swamp can be harvested for useful remedies.

This is the set-up for The Thing from the Swamp. Published by Loot the Room, this is a scenario for Mörk Borg, the Swedish pre-apocalypse Old School Renaissance style roleplaying game designed by Ockult Örtmästare Games and Stockholm Kartell and published by Free League Publishing. The scenario focuses not on the swamp, but on the remains of a building that has slumped into the swamp and what lies underneath its cracked roof. This is a complex of rooms dedicated to researching and testing the creature that lives in the fetid caves beyond, that with the building’s collapse have succumbed to the stagnant waters of the swamp, the walls pierced with tough roots and dripping slime and mould, the air thick with spores ready to infest the lungs.
The remnants of the research and experimentation can be found throughout the complex, but they are not the only things to be found in the waterlogged ruins. There are riches to be recovered—but this is a scenario for Mörk Borg, so not very much, and the fabled flowers to be harvested, but there are also signs of Frankenstein-like experiments too and encounters with various parties with an interest in the creature, perhaps to capture it, perhaps to kill it, and there is also a worshipper of the creature, bidden to tend unto godhood. Most of these will be encountered at random. Perhaps the strangest thing that the Player Characters will find is ‘The Walker’, a mobile mecha suit powered by a human heart, which could be used to attack the creature, but is almost as dangerous to operator as it is to anyone it attacks.
As atmospheric as The Thing from the Swamp is, it is poorly set up. Like other scenarios for the Old School Renaissance, it is designed for emergent play, but it suffers from emergent comprehension too. In other words, the elements of the story that can come into play as the Player Characters explore the complex, also emerge as the Game Master reads the scenario. This is poor design that hinders the Game Master’s preparation efforts. The Game Master should have been given this information upfront as a necessity. However, the technological elements of the scenario, including the obvious signs of pseudo-scientific research being conducted in the complex and ‘The Walker’, make the scenario far more flexible than one would think. Of course, it is easy to plonk almost anywhere remote on the island of Tveland, the default setting for Mörk Borg, but with adjustments, The Thing from the Swamp could work just as well with CY_BORG or Pirate Borg.
Physically, The Thing from the Swamp is well presented. There are some nice touches away from the scenario such as its content warnings being presented as The British Board of Film Classification film classifications from the 1970s. Away from this, the layout is clean and tidy with the map presented on each two-spread marked with the locations being described. It is light on artwork, but the descriptions make up for that. It does need an edit though.
The Thing from the Swamp is an atmospherically soggy dungeon whose secrets will emerge as the Player Characters explore, though they should have been signposted earlier for the Game Master. It otherwise is a classic self-contained dungeon for Mörk Borg, easy to add to a campaign or run on its own.

 I have been spending a lot of time going back to my roots and re-evaluating and even re-writing things I have done in the past. Case in point, my first real release, The Complete Netbook of Witches & Warlocks.

First "published" in 1999, I remember sitting in the hospital room after my first child was born and clicking on the button to "FTP" to my website. That was 26 years ago.

Re-reading through it now, there are a lot of things I would have done differently, but they all made sense to me at the time. But that doesn't mean I can't play a little "What If?"

One of the things I really liked about my AD&D 2nd Edition witch was that it was a Cleric subclass. I always liked clerics and played a lot of them (despite being an atheist in real life and at least one person calling me I am a pagan). AD&D 2nd ed provided me the framework in which to explore my witch ideas as a "Priest of Specific Mythoi."

These days, I am pretty set on witches being a Charisma-based caster, but that doesn't mean I can't still play around with these ideas. 

I have no intention on re-publishing the CNoW&W; it exists as a moment in time both to what I wanted at the time AND what the DIY D&D movements were doing back then. 

I can, however, share new ideas here.

THE WICCE

The wicce is a sub-class of the cleric, devoted not to a singular deity but to the Old Religion: an ancient, earth-centered faith that honors the divine as immanent in nature, the turning of the seasons, and the cycle of life, death, and rebirth. Wicce are priestesses (and priests) of balance, healing, fertility, and mystery.

Rooted in the remnants of ancient cults, the Wicce uphold sacred rites passed down in secret circles and moonlit groves. Their power flows not from divine commandment but from attunement to the cosmic rhythms, the lunar phases, the wheel of the year, and the spiral dance of creation.

Wicce are communal and nurturing, often found tending sacred springs, offering blessings, leading seasonal festivals, or guiding others through spiritual transformation. Though often misjudged as eccentric or harmless, the Wicce are fierce defenders of harmony, life, and the sacred divine aspects of all life.

Like druids, Wicce are nature-connected, but their magic is symbolic, intuitive, and ritualized. Unlike clerics, they serve no formal church but gather in circles, groves, or sky-thatched temples.

Photo by Marina UtraboRequirements: Wisdom 13+, Charisma 11+

Prime Requisite: Wisdom

Hit Dice: d6

Armor Allowed: Any non-metal (leather, hide, padded, wooden shields)

Weapons Allowed: Staff, dagger, sickle, sling, club, spear, crescent blade

Alignment: Typically any non-evil

Spell Use: Divine and Occult (custom spell list, see below)

Special Abilities

Moon-Blessed Magicks: The Wicce may perform circle magick tied to the lunar calendar. When casting beneath the full moon or during seasonal festivals, any healing or protective spell gains +1 per die of healing or +1 to saving throw modifiers. (Modified per the GM’s world)

Shared Ritual Craft (2nd Level):  Beginning at 2nd level, the Wicce (or Magus) may participate in a ritual casting alongside a witch (of any Tradition) as if they were a witch of the same level. This applies only when performing Occult Rituals that require multiple casters.

The Wicce/Magus must meet all material and ceremonial requirements and must be aligned in intent with the witch leading the ritual. In all such workings, the Wicce or Magus contributes fully to the spell's power, as if they were a witch of equal experience level.

This ability does not grant the ability to lead witch rituals or cast witch-only spells unaided, but reflects the shared cosmology and deep resonance between these occult paths.

Sacred Circle (3rd Level): Once per day per 3 levels (3rd, 6th, 9th…), the Wicce may consecrate a space with herbs, salt, and chant. This functions as a Protection from Evil (10' radius) and grants +2 on saving throws vs. possession and charm for allies within. Takes 1 turn to cast.

Blessed Be: The Wicce may offer a benediction to any creature once per day. This acts as a Bless spell (single target) but also grants +1 to Wisdom checks or saving throws vs. fear and despair for 1 turn.

Coven Bond: Wicce gain +1 to all saving throws when within 30 feet of another Wicce, Druid, Witch, or Cleric of aligned faith. This effect stacks up to +3.

Wicce may use all clerical magic items, unless tied to a particular faith, and some witch (occult) magical items. They do not worship a deity in the traditional sense, but honor the Goddess and God, the Triple Moon Goddess, or Nature Herself. Their spells are granted through alignment with the sacred cycles and the ancestral wisdom of the Old Ways.

Wicce do not build churches, but found groves, stone circles, mystic retreats, or earth temples. These sites often become places of pilgrimage for the disenchanted or spiritually seeking.

Though often dismissed as flower-wearing mystics, the Wicce represent a potent force for healing, guidance, and resistance against spiritual decay. They greet friend and stranger alike with warm smiles, words of blessing, and quiet power.

9th Level

Upon reaching 9th level, a Wicce becomes a High Priestess (or High Priest) and may establish a Circle, Grove, or Sacred Temple of the Old Ways. This site may be a stone circle, secluded glade, hilltop shrine, or ritual sanctuary aligned to lunar phases or natural ley lines. It must be consecrated by sacred rites and protected from profanation.

Once the Circle is founded, the Wicce will attract 2d6 1st-level Wicce initiates within 1d6 months. These are not servants or soldiers, but spiritual students and co-celebrants who come seeking guidance, initiation, and training in the mysteries of the Old Religion. These initiates are loyal, but not blindly obedient; they are part of the Wicce’s extended spiritual family.

In addition to initiates, the Wicce may also draw:

• Healers, herbalists, and wise folk
• Fey-blooded or nature-touched seekers
• Occult scholars, druids, or Witches of compatible Traditions
• Pilgrims or supplicants in search of spiritual insight, healing, or blessings

The Circle functions as both a spiritual retreat and a center of influence, granting the Wicce status in the hidden pagan networks of the world. It may even attract attention, welcoming or hostile, from organized religions, nobles, or inquisitors.

A Circle may hold sabbats and esbats, sanctify marriages and births, banish malevolent spirits, and maintain harmony with nature spirits or the local fae. The DM may treat the Circle as a minor religious stronghold, but it does not generate income like a clerical temple unless ritual services are offered to the surrounding community.

Wicce XP Progression Table

Level Title Experience Points Hit Dice
(d6) Spell Level Access 1 Initiate of the Circle 0 1 1st 2 Seeker of the Spiral 1,750 2 1st 3 Blessed Sister/Brother 3,750 3 2nd 4 Priest/Priestess of Light 7,500 4 2nd 5 Guardian of the Grove 15,000 5 3rd 6 Weaver of Fates 30,000 6 3rd 7 Voice of the Goddess 60,000 7 4th 8 Spiral Elder 110,000 8 5th 9 High Priest/Priestess 180,000 9 6th 10 High Priest/Priestess 260,000 9+1 6th 11 High Priest/Priestess 380,000 9+2 7th + High Priest/Priestess +120,000 +1

--

1st-Level Spells

• Bless (PHB)
• Command (PHB)
• Cure Light Wounds (PHB)
• Detect Evil (PHB)
• Faerie Fire (UA)
• Invisibility to Undead (UA)
• Light (PHB)
• Purify Food & Drink (PHB)
• Remove Fear (PHB)

2nd-Level Spells

• Augury (PHB)
• Chant (PHB)
• Barkskin (UA) 
• Cure Moderate Wounds (UA)
• Resist Fire (PHB)
• Slow Poison (PHB)
• Speak with Animals (PHB)
• Spiritual (Hammer) weapon (PHB) reflavored as moon-blessed weapon

3rd-Level Spells

• Create Food and Water (PHB) 
• Cure Disease (PHB) 
• Dispel Magic (PHB)
• Locate Object (PHB) 
• Meld into Stone (PHB) 
• Prayer (PHB) 
• Protection from Fire (PHB) 
• Remove Curse (PHB) 

4th-Level Spells

• Cure Serious Wounds (PHB) 
• Divination (PHB) 
• Lower Water (PHB) 
• Neutralize Poison (PHB) 
• Protection from Evil, 10' Radius (PHB) 
• Speak with Plants (PHB) 
• Spell Immunity (UA) 

5th-Level Spells

• Commune with Nature (UA)
• Cure Critical Wounds (PHB) 
• Dispel Evil (PHB) 
• Flame Strike (PHB) 
• Plane Shift (PHB)
• Quest (PHB) 
• Wall of Fire (PHB) 

6th-Level Spells

• Aerial Servant (PHB) 
• Forbiddance (UA) 
• Find the Path (PHB) 
• Heal (PHB)
• Speak with Monsters (PHB) 
• Weather Summoning (PHB) 
• Word of Recall (PHB) 

7th-Level Spells

• Astral Spell (PHB) 
• Earthquake (PHB) 
• Holy Word (PHB) 
• Regenerate (PHB) 
• Reincarnation (PHB) 
• Symbol (PHB)
• Wind Walk (PHB)

I'll add more spells, I am sure. 

Behind the Scenes

This is obviously my ode to the nature-loving neo-Pagan style witch. These characters are also closer to how I used to play Druids back in the AD&D days. Less the shape-shifting guardians of nature and more the dancing in circles priests and priestesses honoring what nature provides form them.

How does it differ from the Craft of the Wise? The Craft of the Wise or Pagan Witch is a witch first and a follower of a Goddess or God second. This one is the other way around. 

How does it differ from the Witch-Priestess? They serve similar purposes and even have similar spell lists but the difference is intent. 

Both the Wicce and the Witch-Priestess walk a sacred path, but their focus, source of power, and approach to magic are notably different. Choosing between them depends on the kind of spiritual figure you wish to play.

Wicce: The Gentle Shepherd of the Old Ways

The Wicce is a cleric subclass who serves the Old Religion as its community priestess. She leads sabbats, blesses fields, heals wounds with herbs and chants, and welcomes all who seek comfort, renewal, or wisdom. Her spells are granted through alignment with the rhythms of nature, the moon, and life itself, not a single deity. The Wicce is intuitive, nurturing, and grounded in spiritual service.

• Role: Community priestess, healer, celebrant
• Serves: The wider community
• Power Source: Divine and Occult; seasonal and lunar forces
• Connection: Tied to place, people, and the turning of the Wheel
• Ideal For: Players who want a wise village witch, spiritual counselor, or mystical healer

Witch-Priestess: The Devoted Flame Within the Circle

The Witch-Priestess is an Advanced Class for witches who place their Patron or Tradition at the center of their life. She is a witch first, but one whose devotion elevates her to a position of sacred authority. The Witch-Priestess blends occult mastery with religious fervor. She may serve as oracle, cult leader, sacred warrior, or ritualist of deep mysteries. Her path is more arcane, personal, and potent, but also more demanding.

• Role: Religious leader within the witch’s Tradition
• Serves: Their Patron/Goddess/God and the Tradition
• Power Source: Occult (primarily), with divine undertones
• Connection: Bound to a specific Patron, Rite, or Mystery
• Ideal For: Players who want a high-stakes mystic, zealous devotee, or visionary prophetess

Also, the Wicce can only be non-evil in alignment. Witch-Priestess as a class have no restrictions.

Both are my attempts at a revision (both in the sense of revise and to look at again) of my AD&D 2nd Ed Witch Class. 

If I were to expand this I would grab some spells from my CNoW&W and some of my other sources. Maybe along the lines of 12 or so spells per spell level. 

As always, let me know what you think.

Much like the Jonstown Compendium for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha and The Companions of Arthur for material set in Greg Stafford’s masterpiece of Arthurian legend and romance, Pendragon, the Miskatonic Repository for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition is a curated platform for user-made content. It is thus, “...a new way for creators to publish and distribute their own original Call of Cthulhu content including scenarios, settings, spells and more…” To support the endeavours of their creators, Chaosium has provided templates and art packs, both free to use, so that the resulting releases can look and feel as professional as possible. To support the efforts of these contributors, Miskatonic Monday is an occasional series of reviews which will in turn examine an item drawn from the depths of the Miskatonic Repository.

—oOo—
Name: Hot Bro SummerPublisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Rina Haenze & Evan Perlman

Setting: West Coast, USAProduct: One-shot
What You Get: Twenty-five page, 2.37 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: “Now you watch reality TV, you watch them in all those pools or Jacuzzis, and I say to myself, was I that stupid? But that was me then.” – Marcel DionnePlot Hook: A reality television series that is really going to work the body beautifulPlot Support: Staging advice, six pre-generated Himbos, two NPCs, six Mythos monsters, and a bevy of ‘Hot Young Things’.Production Values: Serviceable
Pros# Narcissistic horror in front of the world’s cameras (and beyond)# Body beautiful versus body dysmorphic disorder# Can the himbos be the heroes?# Dysmorphophobia# Venustraphobia# Androphobia

Cons# Some players are going to need ‘How to Himbo’ guide# Single session stress test# No house floorplans# Needs a slight edit
Conclusion# Himbo Horror! Mythos horror! Reality television! Which is worse?
# Quite possibly the biggest roleplaying challenge your players will ever face, bro!

Much like the Jonstown Compendium for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha and The Companions of Arthur for material set in Greg Stafford’s masterpiece of Arthurian legend and romance, Pendragon, the Miskatonic Repository for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition is a curated platform for user-made content. It is thus, “...a new way for creators to publish and distribute their own original Call of Cthulhu content including scenarios, settings, spells and more…” To support the endeavours of their creators, Chaosium has provided templates and art packs, both free to use, so that the resulting releases can look and feel as professional as possible. To support the efforts of these contributors, Miskatonic Monday is an occasional series of reviews which will in turn examine an item drawn from the depths of the Miskatonic Repository.

—oOo—
It is true to say that titles such as De Vermis Mysteriis, Unaussprechlichen Kulten, and of course, The Necronomicon lurk in the darkest corners of our collective gaming consciousness—and even beyond that, promising knowledge and power of the most profound and revelatory nature. Each exposes truths as to the nature of the cosmos and humanity’s place within that cosmos and the power to manipulate the cosmos, as well as the secrets of those who seek such power, who despite the revelations of humanity’s insignificance in cosmos still want to lord it over them, and who want to manipulate the universe in ways that no sane man would. Yet they also offer salvation if the reader is prepared to pay the price to his equilibrium and overcome the difficulty of finding and gaining access to works of such a dreadful and blasphemous nature that they have in the past, been banned, burned, locked away, or simply hidden. Let alone the fact that such a book might require the reader to know Latin, Ancient Greek, Arabic, or an obscure or lost language in order to read it. For as much as they offer truths that can set a man on the road to arcane and awful power, they may offer another man the means to thwart those who would tread such a path. Drawn from the imaginations of authors including H.P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, and Ramsy Campbell, they have appeared in fiction numerous times and in gaming likely as many times, if not more. The influence of Call of Cthulhu in spreading the names of such Mythos tomes cannot be underestimated and perhaps the best sourcebook for describing what they are, what their significance is, and what they contain, remains The Keeper’s Companion vol. 1.

From the Library of the Playhouse: a catalogue of Mythos tomes presents another sixty-five new titles that lie in wait, ready to illuminate, inform, and inculcate the overly curious and the immoderately ambitious. Most entries in the supplement are a page long each and most are illustrated, often to chilling effect such as the Prophecies of Cizin, written in Myan glyphs incised on human skin whilst the owner was still alive and later flensed, the illustration showing that skin hanging up.
Every tome is given a title and details of the language it was written in, who wrote it, and when. This is followed by a detailed description and the roleplaying game stats. They include the ‘Sanity Loss’ incurred for reading the book and the possible amount of ‘Cthulhu Mythos’ skill gained in the process, both the amount gained from an initial reading and later prolonged study. The ‘Cthulhu Mythos Rating’ represents the percentage chance of a reader finding a specific reference in a Mythos tome, whilst ‘Study’ is the actual needed to read the tome from start to finish. ‘Suggested Spells’ gives the spells that might be found in a Mythos tome, for which the Keeper will need access to the Call of Cthulhu Keeper’s Rulebook. In addition, The Grand Grimoire of Cthulhu Mythos Magic will also be useful. Some entries have their own spells, new to Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition. Lastly, each entry is categorised according to its ‘Rarity’ from ‘Common’—available in most book shops or libraries, to ‘Unique’—there only being one known copy.
The supplement is organised by era. These are Prehistoric (before 3000 BCE), Ancient (3000 BCE–499 CE), Medieval (500–1499), Early Modern (1500–1799), Late Modern (1800–1945), and Contemporary (1946 to present). The collection opens with Echoes of Eternity, the billions of years old pattern within the radiation left over from the Big Bang that might truly be understood only by reading the notes made by the Mi-Go and if thoroughly read might end in the instant death of the reader and ends with the Unknown Data Crystal found in the Polaris system in the twenty-third century that if meditated upon, will give answers to astronomical or navigational questions. In between, The Writing on the Wall can be found on great blocks of marble in the Australian desert, written in languages from far away, but encoded within is a hidden message that if read, will swap the reader’s mind of the Yithian scientist who wrote and allow him to escape his species’ doom; the Incolae Profundorum, a book found in the wake of the Venice floods of 1966 and which to this day remains damp and smelling of mould and salt and which describes the great benefits of aquatic civilisations; and the Isi Aldranna, the Norse runes carved into the hull of a Viking longship found quite well preserved found in an ice cave that tell the story of its great voyages, the inference being that they took the crew far beyond given that one of the spells it imparts is Brew Space Mead! There are versions of Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus and Edmund Spenser’s Excursions into Faerie, and even The Book of Uncommon Prayer, whilst Le Culinaire Macabre is a book of macabre recipes written by the notorious ‘Cannibal Chef of Lyon’ that if cooked and eaten provide surprising benefits. Zimmer’s Marchen is a coda to Grimm’s Fairy tales, providing very much darker interpretations of the German folktales; Quaint and Curious Tales of Bodmin Moor collects Cornish tales of witches and the Devil and causes the reader to dream after reading a story of being visited by a witch, different each time, who offers the dreamer a new spell; and Brearley's Railway Time Tables and Assistant to Railway Travelling for September 1892 is so comprehensive a collection of railway timetables and local travel details that includes routes and stations that do not yet exist and includes the spell Ghost Train! Jahrila Phool—or Flowers of Death—is a cheap pulp novel in Hindi that imposes its plot upon the reader’s life; Hawker Brothers Ltd.’s Super Fun Party Time Activity Book is a children’s puzzle book with bizarre geometric join-the-dots puzzles (example included) and Oперация Mышеловка—or Operation Mousetrap—is set of microfilm canisters containing kompromat material on a large number of foreign dignitaries, celebrities, and world leaders performing unspeakable rites from just up until Glasnost and subsequently lost in the fall of the Soviet Union. Perhaps the weirdest is Nettleton’s Gourmet Alphabet Soup, a cheap, but popular brand of alphabet pasta shapes in tomato sauce that when heated forms messages of either forbidden knowledge or tips for cooking the perfect soup! The most delightful entry is An Ultharian Treasury: Prose and Poesy of Catkind, a collection of songs, stories, and poems from the literary and folk traditions of the Cats of Ulthar from The Dreamlands, all telling of their triumphs over the vile entities of the Mythos and meant to impart lessons of morality or practicality to young kittens. Of course, such tales are best appreciated when performed orally and in the language of Cat!
Threaded through the supplement, effectively serving as chapter or era breaks, is Ex Libris. This is a classic cautionary story of the dangers of taking too much of an interest in strange books. The conceit is that it takes place at the same theatre where the Miskatonic Playhouse—actually a podcast that performs content from the Miskatonic Repository—performs its plays. In addition, the first of two appendices summarises all of the Mythos tomes in the book, whilst the second provides a set of tables to ‘Build Your Own Tome’.
The second appendix does highlight the issue with From the Library of the Playhouse. One of the tables allows a Keeper to roll for the affiliation of the Mythos tome. However, there is no such affiliation listed for actual entries in the supplement, which would have made them easier to use. Physically, From the Library of the Playhouse is well presented and laid out, though it does need an edit in places.
From the Library of the Playhouse: a catalogue of Mythos tomes is an engaging showcase of invention and creativity. Its entries are as much additions to the Mythos as new iterations of it and its influence, but above all, it is a collection of potential hooks that might spur further creativity on the Miskatonic Repository. There in lies a challenge. How many of its entries will form the basis of new scenarios?

Much like the Jonstown Compendium for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha and The Companions of Arthur for material set in Greg Stafford’s masterpiece of Arthurian legend and romance, Pendragon, the Miskatonic Repository for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition is a curated platform for user-made content. It is thus, “...a new way for creators to publish and distribute their own original Call of Cthulhu content including scenarios, settings, spells and more…” To support the endeavours of their creators, Chaosium has provided templates and art packs, both free to use, so that the resulting releases can look and feel as professional as possible. To support the efforts of these contributors, Miskatonic Monday is an occasional series of reviews which will in turn examine an item drawn from the depths of the Miskatonic Repository.

—oOo—
Name: Calamity in Drywater Canyon: A Wild Wet Call of Cthulhu ScenarioPublisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Raul Longoria

Setting: Texas-New Mexico border, 1870sProduct: Scenario
What You Get: Twenty-one page, 27.28 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: Butchery in the Badlands will lead to blood!Plot Hook: Opportunities aplenty, but frontier fears face the unwaryPlot Support: Staging advice, six pre-generated Investigators, three NPCs, two handouts, two maps, and four Mythos monsters, and a horse.Production Values: Serviceable
Pros# Invasion of the cannibal zombies in the Wild West!# Open rather than plotted investigation# Can be run using Down Darker Trails: Terrors of the Mythos in the Old West# Combat focus suggests that Pulp Cthulhu: Two-fisted Action and Adventure Against the Mythos could be an alternative rules set# Osophobia# Speluncaphobia# Kinemortophobia

Cons# Open investigation will careful handling by Keeper# No backstory for the Investigators

Conclusion# Hell comes to take a bite out of Drywater# Rootin’ tootin’ shootin’ brawlin’ showdown against the forces of evil!

 Another Halloween for the history books.

I didn't do as much this year, and I took an easier path with my "No Theme" October Horror Movie Challenge, but I still had a great time.

For my October Horror Movie Challenge, I watched 38 movies, with 26 of them as first-time views.  I adjusted this total when one of the movies I thought was a FTV was really a repeat.

I watched all of the Conjuring movies and that was a lot of fun, but the best movie of the Challenge was The Substance with Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley.

You can see the movies I watched on my Pinterest board. Next year, I should hit over 600 movies for the Challenge. The Pinterest board is nice, just scrolling and looking at all the movie posters is fun.

One year I need to stick to the central theme of this blog and do nothing but Witchcraft movies. The biggest issue with that is, can I find 25 witch horror movies I have not seen already?  I'll have to up the number of movies I watch per day, I think. 

Something to mull over these next few months. 

Much like the Jonstown Compendium for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha and The Companions of Arthur for material set in Greg Stafford’s masterpiece of Arthurian legend and romance, Pendragon, the Miskatonic Repository for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition is a curated platform for user-made content. It is thus, “...a new way for creators to publish and distribute their own original Call of Cthulhu content including scenarios, settings, spells and more…” To support the endeavours of their creators, Chaosium has provided templates and art packs, both free to use, so that the resulting releases can look and feel as professional as possible. To support the efforts of these contributors, Miskatonic Monday is an occasional series of reviews which will in turn examine an item drawn from the depths of the Miskatonic Repository.

—oOo—
Name: Where Dreams Take Root: A 1930s Call of Cthulhu ScenarioPublisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Matt ‘Doc’ Tracey & Keeper Doc

Setting: 1930s Miskatonic UniversityProduct: Scenario
What You Get: Fifty-two page, 91.36 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: Invasion of the Body Snatchers meets Little Shop of HorrorsPlot Hook: An ‘unofficial academic assignment’ turns into a nightmarePlot Support: Staging advice, five pre-generated Investigators, seven NPCs, ten handouts, five maps, two Mythos tomes, and four Mythos monsters.Production Values: Excellent

Pros# Sweaty sense of unreality amidst academic ambition
# Excellent addition to any Miskatonic University-based campaign# The Dreamlands as a threat, not a destination# Almost psychedelic thirty years early # Can be run as part of A Time to Harvest: Death and Discovery in the Vermont Hills – A 1930s Era Campaign Across New England and Beyond# Oneirophobia# Anthonophobia# Botanophobia

Cons# Needs a slight edit# No bungalow map
Conclusion# Paranoid puzzler turns into hothouse horror
# Unreal treatment of the ‘plant as invasive force’ theme
# Reviews from R’lyeh Recommends

Much like the Jonstown Compendium for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha and The Companions of Arthur for material set in Greg Stafford’s masterpiece of Arthurian legend and romance, Pendragon, the Miskatonic Repository for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition is a curated platform for user-made content. It is thus, “...a new way for creators to publish and distribute their own original Call of Cthulhu content including scenarios, settings, spells and more…” To support the endeavours of their creators, Chaosium has provided templates and art packs, both free to use, so that the resulting releases can look and feel as professional as possible. To support the efforts of these contributors, Miskatonic Monday is an occasional series of reviews which will in turn examine an item drawn from the depths of the Miskatonic Repository.

—oOo—
Name: The Forbidden BeatPublisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Robert J Grieves

Setting: The Second Summer of Love, LondonProduct: One-shot
What You Get: Twenty-three page, 8.75 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: A conspiracy of sound of Olympic proportionsPlot Hook: “Off with your headDance ’til you’re deadHeads will rollHeads will rollHeads will rollOn the floor”– Heads will roll, Yeah Yeah Yeah’sPlot Support: Staging advice, ten NPCs, three maps, one ‘Mythos’ monster, and a playlist.Production Values: Serviceable
Pros# Hedonistic horror on the London rave scene# Lowlife on the edge of national gentrification# Opportunity to create some interesting Investigators# Melophobia# Pharmacophobia# Chapodiphobia

Cons# Needs an edit# DJ Eric Z gives it all away
# No pre-generated Investigators
Conclusion# Scuzzy Saturday Night Squatter’s Rites # ‘All your base are belong to Azathoth’

Much like the Jonstown Compendium for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha and The Companions of Arthur for material set in Greg Stafford’s masterpiece of Arthurian legend and romance, Pendragon, the Miskatonic Repository for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition is a curated platform for user-made content. It is thus, “...a new way for creators to publish and distribute their own original Call of Cthulhu content including scenarios, settings, spells and more…” To support the endeavours of their creators, Chaosium has provided templates and art packs, both free to use, so that the resulting releases can look and feel as professional as possible. To support the efforts of these contributors, Miskatonic Monday is an occasional series of reviews which will in turn examine an item drawn from the depths of the Miskatonic Repository.

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The Menagerie of Forgotten Horrors: A Role-Playing Scenario Set in the Classic 1920s Era is set in New York City and its surrounds in the summer of 1923. It opens in classic fashion a missing persons case, Mary Cobbler being concerned about the disappearance of her younger brother, John. She will alert the Investigators by telegram and then in person, they will learn that of later John has been sleeping poorly, spending time at the local library conducting research of some kind, and had received a letter that he avoided talking about. He has been gone a few days after leaving to conduct his sister thought was more research at libraries in New York. A simple search of his room turns up multiple clues as to his paranoid state of mind, a preoccupation, and some correspondence with a Doctor Edward Huntingdon who like the Cobblers, lives in New York suburb of Greenwich. Unfortunately, by the time the Investigators get to Doctor Huntingdon’s house, he is lying dead in a congealing pool of his own blood, on the floor of his office, his face and the front of his skull missing, as large, black maggots writhe in what remains of his brain!
It is a striking opening scene to the scenario—the earlier interview with Mary is more like an extended cold open—which sets the tone for the rest of the scenario. It is clear that there is something strange, not to say ghastly, going on and it is equally clear that John is somehow mixed up in it. This is confirmed when men come to the house shared by John and his sister and break into search it in the middle of the night. Ideally, the Investigators will be staying there, the default being they are actually based in Arkham, several hours’ travel away in New England, so that the Keeper can run a creepy cat and mouse encounter in the dark of the Cobbler residence. Further investigation upon the part of the Investigators will lead to a farm on the outskirts of Greenwich and into New York itself. There are other nasty encounters too, again with the strange men who broke into the Cobbler house, at a church and then later in a New York warehouse before the plot leads into scenario’s final revelation and climax in an unexpected location, some ‘distance’ from the city. A handful of endings to the scenario are given, at least one of them having a very nasty sting in tale.
So what is going on in The Menagerie of Forgotten Horrors? The scenario revolves around an attempt by a group of occultists and members of an extended family, led by a wealthy industrialist, to lift a curse that has plagued the family for centuries. They are not the villains of the piece though. The villains are the cultists who originally placed the curse and the cultists that now want to keep it in place. There is a pleasing bait and switch here. The occultists and family members and their plans that John Cobbler has got himself wrapped up look like traditional Call of Cthulhu cultists at first, whereas they are merely well intentioned, and of course, misguided, since they are, after all, dealing with the Mythos. The actual cultists, the ones which want to prevent the industrialist and his cohorts from lifting the curse, are the evil, monstrous ones here. Effectively, this is not just a case of a bait and switch between occultists and cultists, but also what looks like cult on cult action. All of which is going to look mighty mysterious and downright confusing to the players—especially if they are veteran players of Call of Cthulhu—let alone their Investigators.

More than half of The Menagerie of Forgotten Horrors is dedicated to supporting the Keeper. The Mythos monsters are surprisingly detailed, and the scenario includes thirty maps and handouts. The scenario also comes with six pre-generated Investigators including a biology professor at Miskatonic University, a private investigator, a journalist and author who writes about the occult, a boxing coach, a historian, and a vaudeville performer. All six come with detailed backstories, but how they are connected to each other, let alone John Cobbler, to come together to investigate his disappearance is a mystery in itself and really, the scenario’s biggest weakness.

Physically, The Menagerie of Forgotten Horrors is very nicely presented with decent artwork and excellent maps and handouts. In fact, there are some thirty maps and handouts, and they are really very good. However, it does need an edit in places. It is decently organised, and each scene ends with the clues and links to other scenes and locations.
The Menagerie of Forgotten Horrors: A Role-Playing Scenario Set in the Classic 1920s Era is a richly detailed, clue dense scenario that takes a classic Call of Cthulhu situation and switches things around to rightfully confusing effect. This is a surprisingly cunning, but well put together scenario.

Much like the Jonstown Compendium for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha and The Companions of Arthur for material set in Greg Stafford’s masterpiece of Arthurian legend and romance, Pendragon, the Miskatonic Repository for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition is a curated platform for user-made content. It is thus, “...a new way for creators to publish and distribute their own original Call of Cthulhu content including scenarios, settings, spells and more…” To support the endeavours of their creators, Chaosium has provided templates and art packs, both free to use, so that the resulting releases can look and feel as professional as possible. To support the efforts of these contributors, Miskatonic Monday is an occasional series of reviews which will in turn examine an item drawn from the depths of the Miskatonic Repository.

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Name: Pulp Cthulhu: Heroes’ New Talents!Publisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Davide Quatrini

Setting: 1930sProduct: Supplement for Pulp Cthulhu: Two-fisted Action and Adventure Against the Mythos
What You Get: Three page, 2.70 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: When some Talents are not enough, then you need more!Plot Hook: More Pulp Action Talents for Pulp Action heroes.Plot Support: Twenty-four Talents for Pulp Cthulhu: Two-fisted Action and Adventure Against the Mythos Production Values: Plain
Pros# Twenty-four Pulp Cthulhu Talents
# Broken down into four categories—Alternate Physical Talents, Alternate Mental Talents, Alternate Combat Talents, and Alternate Miscellaneous Talents# Some very specific, so suit specific character types, such ‘Miner’ who always knows depth underground and time of day outside, good for a miner or a spelunker
Cons# Needs an edit# Some very specific, so not always useful such as ‘Chopper’ which reduces fumble chances when using a chainsaw as a weapon or ‘True Singer’ which lets a character counter any music- or song-based spell or eldritch power with a Hard Art and Craft (Opera Singer) roll
Conclusion# If you absolutely have to have more Pulp Cthulhu Talents# Cheap

Much like the Jonstown Compendium for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha and The Companions of Arthur for material set in Greg Stafford’s masterpiece of Arthurian legend and romance, Pendragon, the Miskatonic Repository for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition is a curated platform for user-made content. It is thus, “...a new way for creators to publish and distribute their own original Call of Cthulhu content including scenarios, settings, spells and more…” To support the endeavours of their creators, Chaosium has provided templates and art packs, both free to use, so that the resulting releases can look and feel as professional as possible. To support the efforts of these contributors, Miskatonic Monday is an occasional series of reviews which will in turn examine an item drawn from the depths of the Miskatonic Repository.

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Name: Shadow & IllusionPublisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: John Almack

Setting: Jazz Age ChicagoProduct: One-shot
What You Get: Twenty-four page, 2.70 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: Some dummies are no fools Plot Hook: What’s the trick when a magician dies performing a magic trick?Plot Support: Staging advice, four pre-generated Investigators, seventeen NPCs, two handouts, one map, and one ‘Mythos’ monster.Production Values: Serviceable
Pros# Magic murder mystery?
# Easy to adjust to other settings or time periods# Magic and the Mob don’t mix# Detailed staging for some scenes# Option for running as a more mundane scenario# Chance for some Investigators to shine on stage# Rhabdophobia# Automatonophobia# Stagefright

Cons# No Mythos# No real introduction for the Investigators
# A lot of NPCs to keep track of# Underwritten Investigators# Needed more creepy venting

Conclusion# The perils of performing in a tale of murder and magic# Tonight’s performance is not going to go off like clockwork, it going to go like hackwork!

Much like the Jonstown Compendium for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha and The Companions of Arthur for material set in Greg Stafford’s masterpiece of Arthurian legend and romance, Pendragon, the Miskatonic Repository for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition is a curated platform for user-made content. It is thus, “...a new way for creators to publish and distribute their own original Call of Cthulhu content including scenarios, settings, spells and more…” To support the endeavours of their creators, Chaosium has provided templates and art packs, both free to use, so that the resulting releases can look and feel as professional as possible. To support the efforts of these contributors, Miskatonic Monday is an occasional series of reviews which will in turn examine an item drawn from the depths of the Miskatonic Repository.

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Name: For King and CountryPublisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Michał Pietrzak

Setting: The Dreamlands, 2025Product: Scenario for H.P. Lovecraft’s Dreamlands – Beyond the Wall of Sleep
What You Get: Twenty page, 1.49 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: When your dreams of roleplaying turn against youPlot Hook: Rescue the princess, save the Game Master!Plot Support: Staging advice, six pre-generated Adventurers, five NPCs, one map, and one monster.Production Values: Plain
Pros# Winner of the Stars Are Right Scenario Outline Writing Contest# Involves trauma as a roleplaying mechanism# Straightforward, classic fantasy set-up# Oneirophobia# Rhabdophobia# Pantophobia
Cons# Needs an edit# The Game Master as deus ex machina# Involves trauma as a roleplaying mechanism# Investigators do not have the ‘basics’ of fantasy skills for The Dreamlands# Should the climber have the climb skill?
Conclusion# Deus ex machina versus deus ex machina# Interesting concept with underwritten player agency

Much like the Jonstown Compendium for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha and The Companions of Arthur for material set in Greg Stafford’s masterpiece of Arthurian legend and romance, Pendragon, the Miskatonic Repository for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition is a curated platform for user-made content. It is thus, “...a new way for creators to publish and distribute their own original Call of Cthulhu content including scenarios, settings, spells and more…” To support the endeavours of their creators, Chaosium has provided templates and art packs, both free to use, so that the resulting releases can look and feel as professional as possible. To support the efforts of these contributors, Miskatonic Monday is an occasional series of reviews which will in turn examine an item drawn from the depths of the Miskatonic Repository.

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The Grindhouse: Volume 4 is a duology—a ‘double feature’—of scenarios within the grindhouse genre of cinema—low-budget horror, splatter, and exploitation films for adults which had their heyday in the seventies. It is a sequel to The Grindhouse: Ultimate Collection – Vol. 1-3, and like that anthology presents short scenarios that can be played in a single session. However, unlike the scenarios in the anthology, the two presented in The Grindhouse: Volume 4 are not locked room situations. Nevertheless, they are still action and horror focused and involving bloody and brutal horror. Each scenario is presented in full colour, comes with its own set of pre-generated Investigators, and follows the same format. This consists of ‘Prelude’, ‘Objectives’, ‘Secrets’, ‘Cast’, ‘Signs’, ‘Threats’, and ‘Changes’. The ‘Prelude’ sets up and explains the scenario, the ‘Objectives’ the Player Characters’ involvement, ‘Secrets’ reveals what is really going on, ‘Cast’ lists minor NPCs, ‘Signs’ details clues which can be found, ‘Threats’ the dangers both Mythos and mundane, and ‘Changes’ the major events which occur during the scenario.

The first of the two scenarios in The Grindhouse: Volume 4 open with ‘Nazi Bikers Must Die!’. As the title suggests, this is definitely a scenario that is far from the traditional Jazz Age, tweeds and pipes-style of Lovecraftian investigative roleplaying. As is made clear on the duology’s back cover, this is not, “…[Y]our typical Call of Cthulhu scenarios where some classy, well-dressed investigator sips tea and pours over leather books in some wood panelled library.” Instead, this is a muscular, bruising brawl of a scenario that ends in a knockdown bar fight and a showdown to prevent a summoning in dusty New Mexico, not all that far from Roswell. It takes place in the sleepy town of Dexter, where the Player Characters, the members of a biker gang called ‘The Devil’s Pistons’ ride into town in search of a book. They have been commissioned to intimidate or persuade a local dealer in antiquities and rare books to sell an eighth century Sumerian manuscript called The Eshnunna Rubbings. It appears to be a simple job, well within The Devil’s Pistons’ capabilities and they have been promised a solid pay-out.
Unfortunately, things begin to look bad for the Player Characters when ‘The Reichers’—a rival gang whose members’ bikes, clothes, and bodies are emblazoned in neo-Nazi symbols—rides into town. By the time the Player Characters get to the bookseller, it is clear that he does not have the book, but with some due diligence, they can learn that it is in the possession of a local bar owner, a friend of the bookseller. Fortunately, the Tread Mark bar is the kind of rough establishment where the Player Characters like to hang out. Unfortunately, so do ‘The Reichers’ and add in a Jewish occultist hell bent on revenge and what you get is knockdown, stand-up barroom brawl that Robert Rodriguez would be proud to stage.
In some ways, this is a nasty scenario, a dirty mix of Nazis, Nazi ideology expressed by the NPCs, occultism, and a criminal biker gang—and it is the members of that criminal biker gang that the players roleplay. To be fair, the scenario clearly advises that it is not for everyone and plus, the bikers of ‘The Devil’s Pistons’ are not evil themselves, just happy riding alongside and over the edge of the law and none of them are without a conscience. Further, the scenario is fun and the Player Characters get to punch Nazis—a lot! This is a very physical scenario, involving far more combat than most scenarios for Call of Cthulhu. Given that, a few tweaks to adjust to Pulp Cthulhu: Two-fisted Action and Adventure Against the Mythos might be worth considering and the big barroom brawl would also work with miniatures and a map given its focus on combat. Lastly, and as an aside, the scenario does miss a trick by not being set in the town of Castronegro from the scenario, ‘The Secret of Castronegro’, found in the Cthulhu Companion – Ghastly adventures & Erudite Lore.
‘Cold as Hell’, the second scenario shifts to the New England of Lovecraft Country and the long-blighted town of Dunwich in the heart of winter. It takes place in The Wayward Inn, a historic building in the heart of the town, where contractors employed to carry out some necessary renovations have made an important and of course, dangerous, discovery in the building’s cellars. The Player Characters are “private couriers of unusual items” hired to collect the item that was discovered during the initial work and deliver it to the archaeology department at Miskatonic University. Since they work across New England, they are pretty much used to transporting the weirdest of items, no questions asked. There is a fair bit of backstory and set-up before it is revealed what is going on.
Very quickly, the Player Characters and the patrons of The Wayward Inn find themselves under siege by members of the Dunwich community dressed with no regard for the frigid temperatures and hellbent obtaining the item that the Player Characters have come to collect and committing as much bloody mayhem and inflicting as much suffering as they can in the process. There is a handful scenes to set the situation up and highlight the cruelty of the threat that the Player Characters face, but after that, the Keeper is feel to proceed however she wants the monstrous Dunwichers to act.
‘Cold as Hell’ is a trapped room, survival horror scenario, though there is nothing to stop the Player Characters from making a run for it in their Chevy Impala. There are some secrets to be found in, or rather below, the inn, but they will not really help the Player Characters. The scenario is ably detailed and combines elements of John Carpenter’s The Thing from Another World with a classic zombie film, but it never rises above being okay for what it does. There is familiarity to it, to its set-up, and to its pacing. There is nothing to stop the players embracing that familiarity and playing along with it, but unlike ‘Nazi Bikers Must Die!’, none of those players are going to come away from playing ‘Cold as Hell’ shouting, “Hell, yeah!”.
In addition, ‘Cold as Hell’ gives the Keeper a lot of NPCs to maintain a track of and whilst there four pre-generated Player Characters for the scenario, four feels like too many for their backstory and occupation.
The duology comes to a close with rules for vehicle chases—since either scenario could involve a vehicle chase of some kind—and ‘News and Culture: 1973-74’, a quick guide to what the background period was like and what was happening, particularly in the USA. Both are useful in their way.
Physically, The Grindhouse: Volume 4 is decently presented. It is well written, and it decently illustrated throughout. In fact, some of the artwork is very good. The cartography is also good throughout. of the two, ‘Nazi Bikers Must Die!’ is the easier to prepare.
The Grindhouse: Volume 4 is a duology of two halves. One is a little too icy and lacks that certain spark on the page. The other is a grab ’em by the cojones, stone-cold dust-up in the sands of New Mexico that will have the players cheering on the action and their bikers pounding on the Nazis in a thriller of a showdown.  

Much like the Jonstown Compendium for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha and The Companions of Arthur for material set in Greg Stafford’s masterpiece of Arthurian legend and romance, Pendragon, the Miskatonic Repository for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition is a curated platform for user-made content. It is thus, “...a new way for creators to publish and distribute their own original Call of Cthulhu content including scenarios, settings, spells and more…” To support the endeavours of their creators, Chaosium has provided templates and art packs, both free to use, so that the resulting releases can look and feel as professional as possible. To support the efforts of these contributors, Miskatonic Monday is an occasional series of reviews which will in turn examine an item drawn from the depths of the Miskatonic Repository.

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Name: The Kofun Closes to the West: An island Hopping Scenario in Edo Japan for the Call of Role Playing GamePublisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author Steven Goodison

Setting: Edo period JapanProduct: Scenario
What You Get: Thirty-two page, 57.22 MB PDFElevator Pitch: Grave robbers of the OrientPlot Hook: Against the clock, body snatching mysteryPlot Support: Staging advice, ten handouts, four maps, twelve NPCs, one spell, and four Mythos monsters.Production Values: Underwhelming
Scenario Title: Overwhelming
Pros# Set in Edo era Japan# Second part of a five-part mini-campaign
# Interesting clash between ‘civilised’ and ‘uncivilised’# Sequel to Thing Torments Poet, Daimyo calls on Greatest Help, Will the Players Fail?# Could be adapted for use with Japan – Empire of Shadows: A Call of Cthulhu sourcebook for 1920s Imperial Japan# Necrophobia# Phasmophobia# Osophobia
Cons# Needs a strong edit# Plot could be much clearer# No suggestions as to how to create the Investigators
Conclusion# Interesting period for Lovecraftian investigative roleplaying is left unsupported# Decent mystery hindered by messy layout

Much like the Jonstown Compendium for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha and The Companions of Arthur for material set in Greg Stafford’s masterpiece of Arthurian legend and romance, Pendragon, the Miskatonic Repository for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition is a curated platform for user-made content. It is thus, “...a new way for creators to publish and distribute their own original Call of Cthulhu content including scenarios, settings, spells and more…” To support the endeavours of their creators, Chaosium has provided templates and art packs, both free to use, so that the resulting releases can look and feel as professional as possible. To support the efforts of these contributors, Miskatonic Monday is an occasional series of reviews which will in turn examine an item drawn from the depths of the Miskatonic Repository.

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Name: Split TicketPublisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: Steven Goodison

Setting: Wales, 2025Product: Scenario
What You Get: Twenty-two page, 46.95 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: Trên Cannibal i GymruPlot Hook: It’s in the blood!Plot Support: Staging advice, two NPCs, six handouts, and three Mythos monsters.Production Values: Cartoonish
Pros# Easy to run with any type of character# Straightforward one-shot# Cannibal Combat in Spaaaaace!# Kinemortophobia# Siderodromophobia# Ososphobia
Cons# Needs an edit# No maps
Conclusion# Expect three weird shifts in tone in an otherwise straightforward one-shot# Anyone from anywhere, survival horror in the last place you would expect

Much like the Jonstown Compendium for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha and The Companions of Arthur for material set in Greg Stafford’s masterpiece of Arthurian legend and romance, Pendragon, the Miskatonic Repository for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition is a curated platform for user-made content. It is thus, “...a new way for creators to publish and distribute their own original Call of Cthulhu content including scenarios, settings, spells and more…” To support the endeavours of their creators, Chaosium has provided templates and art packs, both free to use, so that the resulting releases can look and feel as professional as possible. To support the efforts of these contributors, Miskatonic Monday is an occasional series of reviews which will in turn examine an item drawn from the depths of the Miskatonic Repository.

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Name: The Sea Chest: A One-Shot for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh EditionPublisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Author: John Baichtal

Setting: Anywhen from the Victorian era onwardsProduct: Scenario hook
What You Get: Three-page, 2.03 MB Full Colour PDF
Elevator Pitch: A locked box mystery!Plot Hook: “Fifteen men on the dead man's chest—...Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!Drink and the devil had done for the rest—...Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!”– Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure IslandPlot Support: Staging advice, one ‘Mythos’ artefact, and one Mythos tomeProduction Values: Decent
Pros# Nicely detailed and well-written description# Potential scenario/campaign set-up# Easy to insert into a campaign# Would work well with Cults of Cthulhu# Kleidariaphobia# Xenophobia# Kleidiphobia
Cons# Short and needs development# A scenario/campaign starter rather than a one-shot
Conclusion# Entertaining description of a locked-box mystery and its contents # Pleasing single session waiting to be developed into something more

Here we are, the last day of the Horror Movie Challenge! I figure I'll work in some vampire movies.  Special note: You lose something when watching movies with night and darkness as major plot points during the daylight hours.

30 Days of Night (2007) 

Few horror films capture isolation and predation like 30 Days of Night. Barrow, Alaska, already cut off from the world by a month of darkness, becomes a perfect hunting ground when a pack of feral, ancient vampires descends. These aren’t tragic romantics; they’re apex predators, clicking and shrieking in a dead language, as elegant and pitiless as sharks beneath ice.

The concept alone feels built for NIGHT SHIFT or Occult D&D: a frontier town swallowed by night, a handful of survivors fighting with dwindling light and sanity. It’s brutal, but beautiful too, snow turned red, the silence between screams, the steady unraveling of faith and logic. Josh Hartnett’s Eben becomes the archetypal reluctant hero, giving himself to the darkness just long enough to kill it.

If I ever needed a model for my Valhalla, Alaska, this is it. Swap Barrow for Valhala, add a few protective runestones, a psychic waitress, and maybe a were-bear or two, and you’ve got an entire campaign arc: “The Long Night.”

This one is quite good, and if Danny Huston is in it then I know I am in for some fun. 

30 Days of Night: Dark Days (2010)

Ok. This one is not as good, but it had one thing going for it; Mia Kirshner as Vampire Queen Lilith. I just wish she had more screen time.

The sequel trades arctic survival horror for urban vampire noir. Stella (played by a different actress) still haunted by Barrow becomes a reluctant vampire hunter in Los Angeles, trying to expose the coven that orchestrated the slaughter. It’s grittier, smaller, and not nearly as haunting, but it expands the mythology nicely. The idea that the Barrow massacre was just one act in a long, secret war fits perfectly in a world where monsters stalk the forgotten edges of modern life.

The implied mythology here reminds me of the Blade movies, except that Dracula is replaced by Lilith. Which Lilith? No idea, she could have been any one of a hundred different interpretations, or just a powerful Vampire Queen who took her name as her own.

It is not as bad as the reviews online have led you to believe; it just falls very, very short of the first movie.

NIGHT SHIFT & Occult D&D Ideas

This is another great example for my Valhalla, AK setting for NIGHT SHIFT.

Less for Occult D&D, unless you work in a ritual the vampires are going to perform to blot out the sun. I did that as the main premise behind my "Come Endless Darkness" campaign. 

October Horror Movie Challenge 2025
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First Time Views: 27

Much like the Jonstown Compendium for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha and The Companions of Arthur for material set in Greg Stafford’s masterpiece of Arthurian legend and romance, Pendragon, the Miskatonic Repository for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition is a curated platform for user-made content. It is thus, “...a new way for creators to publish and distribute their own original Call of Cthulhu content including scenarios, settings, spells and more…” To support the endeavours of their creators, Chaosium has provided templates and art packs, both free to use, so that the resulting releases can look and feel as professional as possible. To support the efforts of these contributors, Miskatonic Monday is an occasional series of reviews which will in turn examine an item drawn from the depths of the Miskatonic Repository.

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Contrary to what the title might suggest, The Bride of Pendle has nothing to do with witches or the Pendle Witch Trails of 1612. Rather, it is a scenario set during the Jazz Age, the classic period for Call of Cthulhu, which takes place around, in, and on Pendle Hill in the county of Lancashire in the north of England. The year is 1922 and a group of friends are attending the wedding of their friend, Thomas Byrne, to Mary Osegawa, whom he met as an Embassy Clerk whilst posted to Japan during the Great War. They all met whilst studying at University College London following the war. This sounds like the start of a classic country house murder a la Agatha Christie or Dorothy L. Sayers, and whilst it has a little of the schemes and rivalries of that subgenre of detective fiction, it is far from that. The Bride of Pendle combines what would be a joyous event and local folklore with horror and revenge that have been brewing for centuries, and which will explode in the bloodiest of massacres since the Red Wedding on the day before coming to a climax on the magnificent, windswept Pendle Hill.

The Bride of Pendle: 1920s Folk Horror in Rural Lancashire is divided into three substantial sections. The first gives the background to the scenario, describing in some detail the NPCs and then in even greater detail, the scenario’s various locations. The maps of each are excellent, but the standout being that of Pendle Hill, imparting its sense of scale and bleakness, and how it imposes itself upon the landscape, whilst the scenario rips open the hillside to reveal its secrets hidden under layers of peaty morass. There is a lot of information that the Keeper will need to work through as part of her preparation to run the scenario.

The plot to the scenario itself concerns the long gestating plans of the daughter of a local cunning woman who turned to black magic when she fell under the influence of and began worshipping Selfæta, the ‘Self-eater’, a god of gluttony and narcissism, trapped behind a gate below Pendle Hill, and whose presence in local folklore is that of a boar god due to his appearance and a reaper of the Autumn Harvest. Every three centuries, at the Autumn Equinox, The Veil Between Worlds weakens enough that his cult can open the gate and allow him into our world to let him feast. She failed to bring this about the first time she tried and now is trying again—and of course, in 1922, a certain wedding takes places on the Autumn Equinox. Backed up by her cultists, she will trigger events that nobody will forget and potentially involve the loss of many lives.

The scenario plays out over the course of the Friday and Saturday of the wedding weekend. The Investigators arrive in the village of Downham below Pendle Hill where Tom Byrne and his brother have family. The events of the weekend are unsurprisingly tightly scheduled, but there is room in the schedule for the Investigators to look into the strangeness that pervades the village. The stampede by a herd of bedraggled sheep, the surreptitious manner of their host’s daughter, the unsettling outburst of the vicar, and so on, perhaps combined with a bracing walk up Pendle Hill or undertaking some light ecclesiastical research at the village church. Nevertheless, the Keeper will need to maintain an eye on timing as the Investigators are expected to be at certain places at certain times. That is, up until the scenario’s penultimate scene, the very strange, quite macabre events at the wedding. After that, the Investigators are free of the timetable, but will have a greater urgency to act.

The Keeper is ably supported throughout. Sections advise the Keeper on what to do if the cultists’ plot does not go to plan through the efforts of the Investigators and there are notes too, if the Keeper wants to run the scenario using Pulp Cthulhu: Two-fisted Action and Adventure Against the Mythos. In the third part of the scenario though, there are stats and names for generic NPCs as well as the named ones and the Mythos entities, as well as table for ‘Bouts of Madness’, descriptions of the various Mythos tomes, artefacts, and spells. There are versions of the maps for both the Keeper and her players, and six pre-generated Investigators, all friends of the groom, and representing a good mix of character types and origins.

Physically, can be no doubt that The Bride of Pendle is exceedingly well appointed. It is an attractive looking affair with a stylish layout and judicious use of period photographs. The few pieces of artwork are reasonable, but the handouts are also particularly good, but what really stands out are the maps of the various locations for the scenario. These are of near professional quality, barring the lack of lavatories at the town’s public house and inn!

If there is quibble with The Bride of Pendle, then it is that the Sanity loss for the bloody wedding scene is low given how shocking it is. If there is an issue with The Bride of Pendle, it is that is almost overly detailed which gives a lot for the Keeper to study and prepare in order to run the scenario. Also, as written it suggests that it is a one-shot scenario, but it is long for a one-shot, likely taking four or so sessions to complete. One thing that the scenario does not address is the aftermath, that is, what happens as a consequence of the Investigators’ actions. Depending upon the group, this can be explored on a player-by-player basis, but some suggestions in the scenario would not have gone amiss.

The Bride of Pendle: 1920s Folk Horror in Rural Lancashire is a richly detailed, very well appointed scenario. Although that detail does require a high degree of preparation and it is tightly scripted in places—as befitting the event at its heart, The Bride of Pendle serves up a weekend of rural oddity and genteel propriety and joy, undone by the squealing horror of the boar from beyond!

 It is Halloween! The best day of the year. For that, I want to share one of my all-time favorite Urban Fantasy Horror RPGs.

C. J. Carella's WitchCraft RPG

WitchCraft is, hands down, my favorite game.  Period.  Picking up a copy of this book back in 1999 was just like picking up a copy of the Monster Manual in 1979.  Everything I ever wanted in a game was right there. Everything.

WitchCraft had such a profound effect on my gaming that I can draw a rather clean line between what came before and what came after it.  Granted, a lot was going on in 1999/2000, both gaming-wise and personally, that may have added to this effect; it was an effect all the same.

Back in 1999, I was really burned out on AD&D. I was working on my own Witch netbook and reading various games when someone, I forget where, must have been the old RAVENLOFT-L that TSR/WotC used to run, told me I really needed to check out WitchCraft.  At first, I balked.  I had tried Vampire a couple of years ago and found I didn't like it (and I was very much out of my vampire phase then), but I was coming home from work and my FLGS was on the way, so I popped in and picked up a copy.  This must have been the early spring of 2000.

I can recall sitting in my office reading this book over and over. Everything was so new again, so different.  This was the world I had been trying, in vain, to create for D&D, but never could.  The characters in this book were also all witches, something that pleased me to no end; it was more than just that.  Plus, look at that fantastic cover art by George Vasilakos. That is one of my favorite, if not my most favorite, covers for a game book. I have it hanging in my game room now.

WitchCraft uses what is now called the "Classic" Unisystem system.  So there are 6 basic attributes, some secondary attributes (derived), skills, qualities, and drawbacks.  Skills and attributes can be mixed and matched to suit a particular need.

WitchCraft uses a Point-Buy Metaphysics magic system, unlike Ghosts of Albion's levels of magic and spells system. Think of each magical effect as a skill that must be learned, and you have to learn easier skills before the harder ones first. In D&D, for example, it is possible to learn Fireball without having previously learned Produce Flame.  In WitchCraft, you could not do that.  WitchCraft, though, is not about throwing around "vulgar magics".  WitchCraft is a survival game where the Gifted protect humanity from all sorts of nasty things, from forgotten Pagan gods, to demons, fallen angels, and the Mad Gods; Cthulhoid-like horrors from beyond.  WitchCraft takes nearly everything from horror and puts it all together, and makes it work.

The Eden Studios version was the Second Edition, I was later to find out.  The first one was from Myrmidon Press. I manged to find a copy of that one too and it was like reading the same book, from an alternate universe.  I prefer the Eden Edition far more for a number of reasons, but I am still happy to have both editions.

The first edition (from Myrmidon Press) is like an alternate-universe echo of the later Eden Studios release. I own both, but Eden’s version is definitive. It’s cleaner, more playable, and it feels like the book C. J. Carella meant to write.

The central idea behind WitchCraft is the same as most other Modern Supernatural Horror games.  The world is like ours, but there are dark secrets, magic is real, and monsters are real. You know the drill.  But WitchCraft is different.  There is a Reckoning coming, everyone feels it, but no one knows what it is.  Characters then assume the roles of various magic-using humans, supernatural beings, or even mundane individuals, and they fight against the threats.  Another conceit of the game (and one I use a lot) is that supernatural occurrences are greater now than ever before.  Something's coming...  (dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria).

It is most often compared to World of Darkness, but there are aspects of WitchCraft that I prefer.  Unlike (old) Mage there is no war between the (good) Mages and the (evil) Technocracy.  There is a war certainly, but nothing so cut and dry.  Unlike the new Mage, there are rarely clean divisions between the factions.  Yes, yes Mage players, I am being overly simple, but that is the point, on the simple levels new Mage dives everything into 5 because that is how the designers want it.  There are factions (Associations) and different metaphysics for each, but they also overlap, and sometimes no clear and defined lines are to be found or established.  It feels very organic.

In my opinion, C. J. Carella may be one of the best game designers out there.  WitchCraft is a magnum opus that few achieve.  I took that game and I ran with it.  For 2000 - 2003, it was my game of choice above and beyond anything.  The Buffy RPG, built on the Cinematic Unisystem, took over till I wrote Ghosts of Albion, which also uses the Cinematic Unisystem.  I mix and match the systems as I need, but WitchCraft is still my favorite.

WitchCraft, in fact, is what got me into professional game design.

Back in the Spring/Summer of 2001, I started up a new game.  I had just purchased the WitchCraft RPG book about 16 months prior, and I was looking for something new.  That something came to me in the guise of Willow and Tara.  I had been watching Buffy for a bit, and I really enjoyed the character of Willow.  When she got together with fellow witch Tara, I thought they were perfect.  I had become very involved in the online Willow/Tara fandom, so I created a game, focusing on just them.

The game would focus on just these two, no one else from the show (which I would soon become an ex-fan of, but that is a different story).  Plus it gave me something to try out in a modern setting, something I have not done since my early days with the Chill RPG.

The trickiest part of developing game stats of any fictional character that belongs to someone else is knowing how to strike a balance between the game's rules and the fictional portrayal. A lot of "artisitc" license needs to be used in order to get a good fit. For example, how do you determine what some one's strength is when there is little to no on screen evidence? What spells would the girls have?

In the end, I decided to play it a little loose, but I love where their stats ended up.  In many ways, this is who Willow and Tara are to me, not the characters on TV or in comics, but the ones who were my characters since that day back in May 2001, when I decided they needed their own chance to shine.

After this, I worked on the Buffy the Vampire Slayer RPG.  It should be no surprise then that the Willow and Tara stats that appear there are not that much different than my own.  I can be pretty vocal in play tests.  That got me the chance to write the Ghosts of Albion RPG. This also allowed me to meet, work with and remain friends with Christopher Golden and Amber Benson.

WitchCraft paved the way for so many other games for me, not just in terms of playing but in writing.  If it were not for WitchCraft, then we would not have had Buffy, Angel, or Army of Darkness. Conspiracy X would have remained in its original system. There would be no Terra Primate or All Flesh Must Be Eaten, and certainly there would be no Ghosts of Albion.  This game means that much to me.

But you don't have to take my word for it, Eden Studios will let you have it, sans some art, for free.

Download it.  If you have never played anything else other than D&D then you OWE it yourself to try this game out.

My thing is I wish it was more popular than it is.  I love the game. If I was told I could only play one game for the rest of my life then WitchCraft would be in my top 3 or 2 choices.

Larina Nichols for WitchCraftRPG

Like Willow and Tara, I consider the WitchCraft version of Larina to be the "main" or even "true" one. Not a shock. I was reading the WitchCraftRPG after completing my first publication, "Complete Netbook of Witches & Warlocks," which featured a six-year-old Larina learning she would become a witch.  

Later on, I played her in an online game where she went to Scotland, got married, got divorced, and moved back. In fact, it was her "return to America" stage of her life that I tried to capture with the Buffy the Vampire Slayer RPG. It was here that her "modern age" counterpart had made contact with her "fantasy age", aka D&D counterpart. 

Larina "Nix" Nichols

Wicce Seeker of Knowledge Gifted
Age: 30 (circa 2000/2001), Ht: 5'4", Hair: Red, Eyes: Blue

Attributes: Str 2 Dex 3 Con 3 Int 5 Per 5 Wil 6*

Life Points:  33
Endurance: 29 (27)
Speed: 12/6

Essence Pool: 76
Channeling Level: 10

Survival: 10
Lifting Capacity: 100 lbs

Qualities & Drawbacks

Gifted (+5), Attractive (+2), Essence Channeling (+5),  Hard to Kill (+1), Increased Essence Pool (+8), Nerves of Steel, Old Soul* (+3), Resources (+1), Emotional Dependency: Fear of Rejection (-1), Honorable (-2), Recurring Nightmares (-1), Obsession Magic (-2)

Skills

Cooking (1), Craft, Simple Crafts (2), Driving, Car (2), Humanities, History (2), Humanities, Religion (2), Humanities, Wicce Theology (2), Humanities, Psychology (1), Language, Latin (4), Language, Greek (3), Language Italian (3), Language, Gaelic (2), Magic Bolt (3), Magic Theory (3), Myth and Legend, Celtic (2), Myth and Legend, Greek (2), Folk Magic (4), Occult Knowledge (2), Play Instrument, Clarinet (2), Research (3), Rituals, Wicce (2), Singing (1), Survival, Urban (3), Trance (2)

Metaphysics/Powers

Affect the Psyche (Influence Emotion, 2), Blessing (Good Luck, 2; Protection, 2), Create Ward (2), Flame (2), Insight, One with the Land (1), Perceive True Nature (2), Protection vs. Magic (3), Soul Projection (4), Soul Fire (3), Sending (1)

Weapons

Knife d4x2
Baseball bat d8x2 / d8x3 (two handed)

Possessions: Books on magic, spell components, crystal ball, laptop computer (Mac PowerBook G3 "Lombard"), 1998 Volkswagen Beetle. 

As with Chill, this is not a starting character. I have said it already, but I consider this to be the "Prime" modern Larina, that is, until I wrote NIGHT SHIFT. I use the Old Soul quality not only to have her connect to past lives, but also to her "alternate lives." This would include her D&D and Mage versions. This is what allows her to exceed the human limit of 5 in Willpower. 

Larina's Timeline

Since this is the last post in this particular series, I decided to look back on the lifespan development campaign idea. 

• Childhood
• Tween
• Teenager
• Young Adult
• Adult
• Later Adult

There are certainly more games I could use to fill in some more. Even if I never play all these games, using them is a better solution than a huge backstory. It gives you the chance to build that backstory. 

WitchCraft as a D&D Replacement

I have talked about this one as much this month, even if it is a central feature of my Fantasy Fridays. But the WitchCraftRPG can be used as a replacement for D&D. Eden even published a book for it, Dungeons & Zombies. Overtly for the All Flesh Must Be Eaten RPG.

It is no surprise then that Dungeons & Zombies comes from Jason Vey. Vey and I would later take all that we knew from WitchCraft, AFMBE, and Buffy and Ghosts, and design NIGHT SHIFT.

I even ran the Ravenloft I6 adventure using WitchCraft. It was fantastic.

Final Thoughts

Revisiting WitchCraft after Mage: The Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition feels like returning to the root system after tracing the branches. Mage is about transcendence, belief shaping reality. WitchCraft is about endurance, belief surviving reality.

In Mage, Larina questions the structure of the cosmos; in WitchCraft, she defends it. Both games explore the same axis of power and consequence, but WitchCraft speaks to something older and more intimate: the soul’s stubborn refusal to go quietly.

Twenty-five years later, WitchCraft still reads like a love letter to the people who look at the dark and light a candle anyway. It’s hopeful without being naïve, mystical without losing its humanity.

When I flip through those pages now, I can still feel that same spark from 1999. The moment I realized that “urban fantasy” wasn’t just a genre; it was a worldview, and it was where I wanted to spend my gaming days and nights.

And Larina’s still there, at her desk, cup of tea beside a stack of grimoires, scrolling through student papers by day and summoning protective circles by night. The Reckoning may come, or it may not, but she’ll be ready either way.

Links

• C. J. Carella’s WitchCraft RPG – Eden Studios (DriveThruRPG)
• Ghosts of Albion
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer / Angel
• Eden Studios
• WitchCraft
• Ghosts of Albion
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer / Angel

I also love catching a Godzilla each Challenge. Tonight I picked one of the few I have never seen. 

Godzilla vs. Biollante (1989)

Like many of Godzilla movies of the Heisei era, this one has high-tech government agencies, weapons that we still don't have, and psychic girls who can communicate with the Kaiju. And like many of the movies of this era it starts off with a Godzilla attack, gets really slow in the middle and then picks up for the final battle.

This monster in this one, Biollante, is a hybrid of some sort of plant, bacteria, Godzilla cells, and a human. The message here is the dangers of genetic manipulation. 

The setup begins in the aftermath of The Return of Godzilla (1984). Scientists recover Godzilla’s cells, “G-Cells,” of course, and everyone wants a piece of them. These cells can regenerate, adapt, maybe even save humanity… or destroy it. Likely destroy it. Enter Dr. Shiragami, a geneticist mourning his daughter Erika, who died in a terrorist bombing. In a moment of heartbreak and hubris, he fuses her DNA with that of a rose, and, later, with Godzilla’s. Because in classic mad-scientist logic, that’s the only way to preserve her soul.

What grows from that grief is Biollante, a massive, vine-choked, glowing-pollen monstrosity that’s part plant, part kaiju, and maybe part human spirit. When Godzilla awakens, drawn by psychic resonance and nuclear energy, the two meet, and the result is one of the strangest, most melancholy battles in the franchise.

Biollante isn’t a villain. She’s a tragedy.  Her screams sound like wind through broken reeds, and when she blooms into her second, more monstrous form, it’s both horrifying and gorgeous, a radioactive Triffid/Venus flytrap. This isn’t just a monster fight; it’s Frankenstein by way of environmental horror.

There’s an undercurrent of the occult here, too, whether intentional or not. The merging of human, plant, and kaiju DNA echoes alchemical transmutation, the philosopher’s dream of uniting matter and spirit. Maybe I have been reading too much occult theory lately. Erika’s soul literally becomes immanent in nature. If that isn’t animism bordering on witchcraft, I don’t know what is. In a way, Biollante is Gaia’s vengeance, the blood-rose born of man’s arrogance and nuclear sin.

The psychic subplot, with Miki Saegusa’s debut as a telepathic young woman attuned to both monsters, only deepens the theme. She’s the first true occult scientist of the Heisei era: part medium, part empath, part early warning system for apocalypse. 

Visually, the film is stunning. The Biollante effects still hold up: the massive puppet dripping with sap and smoke, the way her vines coil like serpents, the glowing spores that drift into the night sky at the end. The music swells with mournful choirs and synthetic dread. 

When Biollante dissolves into glittering spores and ascends to the heavens, we glimpse Erika’s face in the light. The effects are not great and maybe a little sappy, but they are par for the course.

NIGHT SHIFT & Occult D&D Ideas

Maybe not for either idea, but I do love Kaiju.

October Horror Movie Challenge 2025
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