Puflumi Lancer, latest models.

 I will admit, I love Mage. I love all versions of it, to be honest.

While I never really got into the original World of Darkness when it was all the rage, I did have Vampire: The Masquerade, and I recognized why and how it was good. Still, at the time, I had also just discovered WitchCraftRPG (next week!), so that was the game I had chosen to scratch my Modern-Supernatural itches.

I remember picking up a copy of Vampire the Masquerade back in the early 90s and thinking it looked interesting, but nothing I was going to play really.  Though my thought did go to moving the whole thing over to Ravenloft.  It wasn't until I had moved to Chicago to work on my Ph.D. that I found Mage.  

The ground floor of the commuter train station had a bookstore in it.  One of the pure joys of my daily commute. I picked up a copy of Mage: The Ascension (Revised) and thought that it was fantastic.  While I would ultimately stick with WitchCraft, Mage continued to have a fascination for me. Moving back and forth between the systems, I ultimately landed on the idea that a "Mage" was an evolved form of a "Witch."  I did some refinements, mostly after Mage the Awakening was released, so eventually came to the idea of an "Imbolc Mage," the term borrowed from a friend who wrote about "Ascended witches."  IT worked for me.  Even in my D&D 3.0 days, an Imbolc Mage was a witch prestige class. Even today I have a Mystic Class Starship kitbash called "The Imbolc Mage."  

Though I did really like Mage. A lot. I really like Sorcerer's Crusade; it was a cool idea and much more interesting to me than Mage: The Ascension at first.  That led me to Sorcerer: The Hedge Wizard's Handbook, which is not part of Sorcerer's Crusade, but part of modern Mage.  But I am glad I made that mistake, since I really liked this book, and it made me look again at the World of Darkness.

While Mage: The Ascension grabbed my attention, it was Mage: The Awakening that I created more material for.  I soon figured out why: it felt very similar to WitchCraft.  I wanted to do something that took the best aspects, or more to the point my favorite aspects, of both games and use them together.  I grabbed the Mage Translation Guide with great glee, but I never really did anything with it.  With the release of Mage: The Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition (and its nearly 700 pages), I just dropped all the work I was doing with Mage: The Awakening. 

Mage: The Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition

The 20th Anniversary Edition of Mage: The Ascension is a massive, beautifully crafted tome that brings every prior vision of the game into focus. It’s not just a revision of the rules; it’s a celebration of what Mage has always been: the meeting of philosophy and passion, of science and sorcery, of power and the price of using it. 

It’s also the most “complete” version of Mage ever written. M20 doesn’t erase the differences between editions; it embraces them. The Traditions feel ancient and mythic again, the Technocracy has teeth and ideology, and even the Marauders and Nephandi have more depth than ever before, a LOT more depth. The lore isn’t presented as dogma but as perspective, filtered through the unreliable narrators who populate the Ascension War. This is hit home time and time again. Reality is what you make it. 

Reading it feels like walking through every era of the game’s evolution: the raw wonder of 1st Edition, the sleek paranoia of Revised (my previous favorite), the fiery metaphysics of Awakening, all of it bound together by the idea that belief shapes reality. If you’ve ever argued about whether magic is real, or what truth even means, M20 will make you feel like those questions matter again.

Plus the physical book is just so damn attractive.

Magic, Philosophy, and Price

What I’ve always loved about Mage, especially the 20th Anniversary Edition, is that it treats magic as both metaphor and mechanism. Every paradigm is true, and none of them are. The more you understand, the more dangerous it becomes to believe in only one truth.

That’s why Larina fits here so naturally. In earlier games, she learned that magic has limits. In Mage, she learns that those limits are hers.

The system itself still shines. M20’s rules strike a balance between the freeform wonder of 1st Edition and the structured precision of Revised. The magic system remains one of my favorites of any RPG ever written, not because it’s powerful but because it demands creativity and consequence. Every effect has a cost, every belief has friction, and paradox is always waiting for the arrogant.

This is where Mage transcends its own mechanics. It’s not just about bending the universe; it’s about how much of yourself you’re willing to give up to make that change. Every roll feels like a wager between your vision and the world’s resistance. It’s a game of philosophy disguised as spellcraft, where your paradigm defines not only your powers but your purpose.

In that way, it’s the most dangerous kind of fantasy: the kind that makes you ask, What if I’m the one who’s asleep?

The Mature Stage of the Lifespan Campaign

If Little Fears represents childhood beliefs, Monsterhearts embodies teenage Sturm und Drang, and Chill signifies early adulthood resilience, then Mage is mid-life transcendence.

By the time a character reaches Mage, the world has stopped being mysterious because they have seen too much of it. They’ve fought the Unknown, lost friends, made mistakes, and realized that survival is only the beginning. Mage is what happens when you stop reacting to horror and start defining reality for yourself.

For Larina, this is the phase where the witch becomes the magus. She’s no longer the frightened girl with ghosts in her room or the grad student who stumbled into S.A.V.E. She’s a woman in her mid-40s who has survived every shadow the multiverse could throw at her, and learned that power without wisdom is just another kind of curse.

Her story at this stage isn’t about discovery; it’s about integration. Every past incarnation, every spell, every trauma, they all thread together into something greater. The act of Ascension isn’t about escaping mortality; it’s about embracing it as sacred.

Like the rules, I want to integrate all the disparate threads of her life here. 

Larina Nichols in Mage: The Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition (2015)

By 2000 or so, Larina had returned to the States and lived quietly in Chicago. She teaches folklore and comparative mythology at a small liberal arts college, but that’s just the daylight cover. At night, she works as an independent consultant for the Traditions, specifically the Verbena, though she maintains uneasy friendships among the Dreamspeakers and Hollow Ones.

In the context of my Lifespan Campaign, this is Larina’s middle-age chapter, the reckoning after experience, when all her past choices catch up to her. The ghosts from Little Fears, the stress of Monsterhearts, the agents of S.A.V.E. from Chill, even fragments of her other lives like Lowis from Dark Ages, they all echo here.

Mage lets me weave those threads together into something coherent. Maybe those different incarnations were just past lives of the same soul, or echoes across parallel worlds. In Mage, that kind of metaphysical bleed makes sense. It’s one of the only games where her story could become mythic without losing its human edge.

At 45 (2015 in this build), Larina is a seasoned practitioner who has seen the price of awakening. She knows that every act of will leaves ripples in the world. She teaches her students that folklore endures because it speaks to something real, and when she’s alone, she can still hear the faint hum of the Tapestry, like a heartbeat under the world.

She’s part scholar, part witch, part weary survivor. The Ascension War has become quieter, now fought through memes, corporate sponsorships, and disinformation rather than fireballs and paradox spirits. Larina has learned that the Technocracy doesn’t always need to win; reality often fights their battles for them.

But she keeps the candle burning anyway.

Her focus remains rooted in belief: the Old Faith, the Goddess, the sacred cycles of life and death, but expanded now to the Universal and Multi-versal scale. She has studied Hermetic theory and understands the language of the Ethers, yet she still draws her strength from the soil, the stars, and the blood that ties them together. In M20 terms, she is a Verbena, a witch who believes in creation’s divinity but refuses to kneel to any monotheistic god.

She works minor wonders through old rites: candle flame, herbs, whispered prayers, moonlight on water, spreads of her well-worn tarot cards. Her paradigm has grown sophisticated; witchcraft, psychology, and spirit all merge into her personal practice. Where she once used spells, she now shapes Correspondences.

Her Avatar is older now, too, no longer the reckless maiden or disappointed wife, but a patient, keen-eyed woman who sometimes calls herself the Lady of Crossroads. 

Larina "Nix" Nichols

Chronicle: The New Millennium

Nature: Questing
Demeanor: Traditionalist
Essence: Visionary

Affiliation: The Traditions
Sect: Verbena
Concept: Mystic

Attributes 

Physical
Strength ••, Dexterity ••, Stamina •••

Social
Charisma •••, Manipulation ••, Appearance ••••

Mental
Perception ••••, Intelligence ••••, Wits •••

Abilities

Talents
Alertness ••, Art •, Awareness •••, Empathy ••, Expression •, Streetwise •

Skills
Crafts •, Drive ••, Etiquette •, Research •••, Survival •••, Technology •

Knowledges
Academics ••••, Cosmology ••, Enigmas ••, Esoterica •, Investigation •, Medicine •, Occult ••••, Science •

Spheres

Correspondence ••
Entropy 0
Forces •••

Life •••
Matter •
Mind ••••

Prime •
Spirit •••
Time ••

Advantages

Backgrounds
Allies ••
Avatar •••••
Dream •
Library ••••
Past Lives •••
Wonder •

Other Traits
High Ritual ••••
Seduction ••
Area Knowledge ••

Arete ••••• ••

Willpower ••••• ••

Quintessence xxxxx

Rotes
Talons (••• Life, • Prime or • Matter)
Far Speak (•• Mind, •• Spirit)
Astral Projection (••••Mind, • Spirit)
Past Life (•• Correspondence, •• Spirit)

Focus
Paradigm: Creation is Divine and Alive
Practices: Witchcraft
Instruments: Books, ritual tools, tarot

Wonder
Athame

Merits & Flaws
Languages (Celtic, Greek, Italian, Latin, Russian) 5, True Faith 2
Echoes -1

Age: 45, Apparent age: late 30s
Sex: Female
Ethnicity: White (Caucasian)
Hair: Red
Eye color: Blue
Height: 5'4"
Weight: 125 lbs
DOB: October 25, 1969

Equipment
2005 purple VW Beetle
2013 Macbook Pro (Core i7, 2.6 ghz, 13.3" screen, 256gb ssd, 8gb RAM), silver

Notes: One thing I have not decided yet is whether or not this Larina has a 3-year-old daughter "Taryn" as her WitchCraftRPG counterpart would have at this point (Taryn born Dec 21, 2012, when the Meso-American calendar ran out.) I would like to think so, but I have not played this particular character to that point.

This is obviously not a starting character. I figured she began as a Mage character when I first discovered Mage (circa 1999) and she has had 15 years of experience since then. Granted, maybe she would be more powerful, but she had a lot going on in her life that was not Mage-related. 

I have always played my Mage and WitchCraft versions as similar, but separate universes. This Larina may be the Larina that keeps the others connected to the whole cabal/coven of them all. Actually, I really like this idea. Maybe I should reach out to Phil Brucato, "That Mage Guy," and ask him how he would craft such a character. 

Final Thoughts

Mage: The Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition isn’t just a rulebook. It’s a philosophy text disguised as a game manual, a challenge to imagine what reality could be if you dared to believe differently. It captures everything I love about urban fantasy, the collision of magic and modernity, of belief and disbelief, of hope against entropy.

For me, Mage represents the mature stage of the horror-fantasy journey. It’s not about surviving the darkness anymore. It’s about illuminating it, understanding it, and, if you’re brave enough, even becoming it.

Larina has learned that the Ascension War was never about gods or Technocrats. It was always about the soul’s struggle to stay awake.

And after all these years, she’s still standing at the crossroads, candle in hand, whispering to the night: "So mote it be."

Links

• Mage: The Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition, DriveThruRPG
• Mage: The Ascension (Wikipedia)
• Mage: The Ascendion (White Wolf Wiki)
• Mage: The Ascension (RPG.net)
• Mage: The Awakening

The Silence of the Labs is a horror film, in fact it is one of my favorites. So when the chance came up to watch Red Dragon (2002) I jumped on it. I had read the  Thomas Harris book ages ago and watched the first movie treatment of it, Manhunter (1986). This movie is not as good as the book, but better than the 1986 movie. But both of those opinions are subjective.

Red Dragon (2002)

What Red Dragon does exceptionally well is balance tension and performance. It’s a prequel to The Silence of the Lambs, but it doesn’t feel like an afterthought. Anthony Hopkins returns as Hannibal Lecter, and while he’s clearly older than his supposed timeline, it hardly matters. Hopkins slips back into Lecter’s skin like a comfortable, expensive suit. Every word is deliberate. Every pause, a manipulation.

Edward Norton plays FBI profiler Will Graham, the man who caught Lecter years before. The film opens with that capture, a brutal and stylish confrontation that immediately sets the tone. Graham has since retired, but he’s pulled back in to track a new killer, Francis Dolarhyde, the “Tooth Fairy,” played with a quiet menace by Ralph Fiennes. Fiennes delivers a haunting, deeply tragic performance. His Dolarhyde is terrifying not because he’s monstrous, but because he’s broken and he is doing what he thinks he has to do to transform. Though I do admit, I wondered the whole time what this role would have been like in the hands of someone like Billy Bob Thorton. 

This is what makes Red Dragon work. It’s not just a procedural thriller, it’s a story about the fine line between understanding evil and becoming infected by it. Norton's Graham is empathetic to a fault. He has to feel what the killer feels to catch him, and that empathy nearly destroys him. Lecter, ever the manipulator, senses that and twists it for his amusement. Watching their verbal chess match unfold is as thrilling as any chase or murder scene. There are times when Graham gets way too close to feeling what the killers (Lecter, Dolarhyde) feel.  Jodie Foster's Clarice Starling is good because she understands. Will Graham is good because he feels. 

The supporting cast adds real weight. Emily Watson is remarkable as Reba, the blind woman who sees more clearly than anyone else in the film. Her tenderness toward Dolarhyde makes his descent even more tragic. Harvey Keitel, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Mary-Louise Parker round out an impressive lineup that grounds the story in gritty humanity. Let's be honest. This is a star-studded cast. 

It never reaches the same heights as The Silence of the Lambs. But maybe that is ok. This is the first Act of Lecter's big three-act play (I am not counting Hannibal Rising here yet). This is A New Hope to Lambs' Empire Strikes Back.

Comparisons to Manhunter (1986)

It has been a bit since I saw Manhunter, and I watched before The Silence of the Lambs. Here is what I do recall. Manhunter feels like it was pulled straight from the ‘80s crime zeitgeist: sleek, minimalist, and pulsing with synth. It’s more procedural, less psychological. For example, Lecter's cell was not as "impressive" as what we see in Red Dragon and The Silence of the Lambs. 

Anthony Hopkins is a menacing Hannibal Lecter. He is the prefect blend of menace, evil, sharp intelligence, and amorality to give us his Academy Award-winning performance. Brian Cox is...no Anthony Hopkins, but his Lecter has menace all his own. Cox's Lector looks and acts like someone who would have really existed. Hopkin's Lecter is practically a Batman villain. 

 William Petersen’s Will Graham is distant, analytical, almost robotic at times. He’s haunted, yes, but in that stoic, Mann-hero way. You sense the obsession, but not always the emotion.

I liked Kim Greist as Molly Graham, but Mary-Louise Parker also did a fine job. 

Visually, Manhunter is all clean lines and cold light; Red Dragon is candlelight and shadow. One is clinical, the other operatic. Neither is “wrong,” but Red Dragon feels more in conversation with The Silence of the Lambs. It treats Hannibal as a monster out of folklore rather than a psychopath in a cell.

I should really rewatch it, but is so much of a Police Procedural movie I don't think I could count it as horror.

NIGHT SHIFT & Occult D&D Ideas

This works for NIGHT SHIFT quite well. The characters can all be investigators looking for a new serial killer who the press has called "The Baltimore Vampire" (nod to the original movies). Only to discover it is a real freaking vampire. Or maybe it is just a garden variety serial killer who thinks he is, or can become, a vampire if he kills enough. 

For my Occult D&D ideas, well. Interestingly enough, I found the Red Dragon novel because I wanted to suck up anything related to my new obsession, D&D! I read it and thought that a psychological profiler might be a cool job to have. 

For either, Francis Dolarhyde could easily be reimagined as a cultist or warlock possessed by the spirit of an ancient dragon, a literal Red Dragon whispering promises of power and perfection. His killings are ritualistic, each one part of his ascension.

In an occult campaign, you could use this as a slow-burn mystery: murders tied to draconic iconography, victims chosen for symbolic reasons, and a cult leader whose mind is collapsing under the weight of his Patron’s voice. The PCs might be hunting the killer, only to realize his madness is contagious, the Red Dragon’s influence seeps through his victims, through dreams, through art.

October Horror Movie Challenge 2025
Viewed: 26
First Time Views: 24

Next to the Witches and Warlocks book, this was one of the ones I had read the most as a kid. I did not have access to a full set until the last few years, but this one always stuck out. A lot of the tales in this book found their (if you will excuse the pun) spiritual descendants in Ghosts of Albion. 

Ghosts

by Ellen Galford and Time-LIFE editors, 1984 (144 pages)
ISBN 0809452162, 0809452170 (US Editions)

This volume is divided into four chapters dealing with death, the dead, and those who remain behind.

Chapter One: Guises of the Reaper

Ghosts are the reminders that life has an end, but we really don't know what that end is going to be like. So tales of ghosts, and tales of the Grim Reaper, abound. It always seems to come back to England and the British Isles for these tales. No surprise since these are the tales we are most familiar with. Here we learn of the Black Dog or Old Shuck, the Ankou, the Bean-Nighe, and banshees. Even innocent-looking animals like the raven and owl could be harbingers of death. 

We see similar manifestations in Germany where the Fetch becomes the Doppelgänger, and in the Middle East where the raven is called Abu Zájir or "The Father of Omens."

It should also be no surprise that quite a few of our myths and legends about ghosts and the dead come from the times of plague in Europe, where death was often given anthropomorphic form. 

Song of the Sorrowing Harp

A Scottish tale of jealousy of two sisters and the ghost that told of her murder.

Chapter Two: Invasions by the Angry Dead 

Death may take the souls of the dead, but they don't always stay quiet. Much like vampires (where the distinction is often blurred) the dead can come back. Here we encounter the utburd and the navky, two types of child ghosts that have haunted my own books and this blog for ages. 

We encounter poltergeists, the noisy ghosts, who might also be demonic. 

Demonic ghosts seem par for the course in Japan if "The Wife's Revenge" is any indication.

A Meeting on the Road Home 

A tale from Lancaster, but when re-told in modern times in America, it became the ghost girl that drivers would pick up. This one has a twist of the ghost keeping her head in a basket. 

Chapter Three: Shadow Plays of Grief and Pain

Ghosts are often doomed to repeat their deeds from their life in the afterlife. A forgotten battlefield in Scotland plays out it's bloody battle in ghostly form. Same with battlefields in Assyria, Troy, Wales, and the US Civil War.

But ghosts are not just attracted to battlefields, places of power where human sacrifice occurred were also popular among the dead. And of course haunted houses.

The Hooded Congregation

A Swedish woman rushes one cold morning to attend Christmas services, only to discover she share the service with a congregation of the dead.

Chapter Four: Hands Across the Void

The living and the dead can interact, and often the consequences are dire.  Here the dread art of necromancy is used and often the living soon join the dead. Others take great care to make sure the dead can't be rising or spoken too in their own sorts of necromantic arts. From Caesar to Vikings to Medieval Christians to 17th Century Cornwall, consulting the dead was a dread business. 

Glam's Tale

In this tale, the line between ghost and zombie is blurred as the dead return.

This one is still a fun read so many years later. I am surprised by how much of this wormed its way into my subconscious and took up a permanent haunt, as it were. 

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

Plus, it is a perfect Witchcraft Wednesday movie.

Queen of Bones (2023)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

NIGHT SHIFT & Occult D&D Ideas

Let's be honest here. 

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

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

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

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

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

 Stayed up last night watching The Substance, if you haven't read my review, then no big deal, but at least see the movie, might be my favorite one of the Challenge so far. 

Occult D&D

I have been playing around with this idea of "Occult D&D" for a little while now. I went into it really with no major intentions save to add some more occult feeling to my D&D games and maybe into my NIGHT SHIFT games as well. Its been a blast really. I was sorting through my notes and looking over the books I still want to read or reread for it, and I discovered that I have a lot. Like an obscene amount.

Not just in what I have written so far (an estimate of about 350 pages), but also in what I am still planning on reading.

The Enchanted World
Mysteries of the Unknown
The Supernatural
Man, Myth, & Magic

Do I *need* to read all of these? No, but I *want* to. Many of course are re-reads. I have had these for ages, but I want to be systematic about all of this. Half the joy for me is the research. Sorry, its the academic in me.

I am not 100% sure what shape the final product(s) will take, or even if it will be something I will ever publish. But I am having a lot of fun with it so far.

Halloween Sales

As always, many of my books are on sale at DriveThruRPG for Halloween!

• The Other Side - Halloween at DriveThruRPG

This includes my newest and most popular titles:

• The Witch - Book of Shadows for ShadowDark
• The Left Hand Path - The Diabolic & Demonic Witchcraft Traditions
• The Craft of the Wise: The Pagan Witch Tradition for Old School Essentials
• The Basic Witch: The Pumpkin Spice Witch Tradition for Labyrinth Lord

Plus a lot more!

EGG Con

I'll be at EGG Con this summer! I'll be there again with Elf Lair Games, selling and running NIGHT SHIFT and Thirteen Parsecs. Hope to see you all there. 

Oh. Now this one was great. I mean really great. Major kudos to stars Demi Moore, Margaret Qualley, and Dennis Quaid for this one. And special kudos to Coralie Fargeat, who wrote and directed this horror as social commentary.  Outstanding work all around.

And kudos as well to my wife for finding this one. For a non-horror fan, she has been doing great this year.

The Substance (2024)

I heard a quote once: “There is nothing subtle about a blood cannon.” Maybe it was from True Blood, maybe it was from GWAR, either way, it’s true here.

The Substance is not subtle. It’s loud, bloody, and unrelenting in both style and message. Coralie Fargeat (who wrote and directed) delivers a film that’s equal parts body horror, feminist manifesto, and acid-drenched satire of fame and aging. It’s one of those movies where you feel like you’ve been punched, bathed in glitter, and dumped in a pool of self-loathing. All at once. And I mean that as the highest compliment.

Demi Moore stars as Elisabeth Sparkle, a former fitness celebrity whose fame has faded. She’s cast aside for being “too old,” (note her character is fired because she is 50. Demi Moore was a little over 60 when she filmed this), a sentiment delivered with the kind of cruelty that feels uncomfortably real. Then she’s offered the Substance, a mysterious bio-experiment that promises to regrow youth, a newer, better version of herself, "Sue" played by Margaret Qualley. But the catch (and of course there’s a catch) is that both versions can’t exist in the world for long. They must share their bodies, taking turns. One week each.  Each needing the other. Until things start to fall apart.

What follows is a slow, grotesque unspooling of identity, vanity, and the impossible standards society puts on women. The horror here isn’t just the blood or the transformation (though that is there too), it’s the realization that both versions of Elisabeth are doomed. One is consumed by jealousy, the other by expectation. Both are victims of the same impossible ideal.

The performances are phenomenal. Demi Moore gives the kind of fearless, career-best turn that deserves every award she can get. She’s raw, furious, and heartbreakingly human. I have liked Demi Moore her whole career. She is one of those actors who will do things you never expect. You told she was going to be in a horror movie that required her to nude most of the time including a full frontal, I would not have been shocked. If you told me she was going to do it at 61 then I would have been completely shocked. Margaret Qualley matches her note for note, switching between innocence, hunger, and sociopathic glee. Their relationship, rival, mirror, mother/daughter, predator/prey, is the film’s beating heart. Coralie Fargeat does a fantastic job of making sure any movement made by Moore is mirrored in Qualley.

And yes, there’s plenty of blood. This film combines Cronenberg’s The Fly with elements of American Psycho, culminating in a glam fever dream of neon, mirrors, and synthetic pop. Every shot drips with excess, but it’s all in service to the story. The gore isn’t exploitative; it’s cathartic, a scream made visible. This is Jekyll and Hyde for the 21st century. 

I’ve been thinking about The Substance ever since I saw it. It’s one of those rare modern horror films that sticks to because it means something. It’s angry about the right things, about how society commodifies beauty, how women are punished for aging, and how self-worth gets twisted into self-destruction. It’s not a pleasant watch, but it’s a necessary one. There is a repeated scene where Elizabeth/Sue has to go to this rundown neighborhood to get her two week supply of the Substance. As Elizabeth in her 60s, she is ignored. As Sue in her 20s/30s every eye is on her. As Elizabeth as an old haglike crone, she scares people. 

And yet, for all its brutality, the film still finds moments of strange beauty. The way Fargeat frames Moore’s face, lit like a fallen saint, staring down the monster she’s become, feels mythic. Like watching the goddess of vanity destroy herself and rise again in blood and glitter.

The Substance is body horror at its most intelligent and furious. It’s not just about flesh—it’s about identity, power, and the impossible pressure to be “enough.” It’s grotesque, funny, feminist, and unforgettable. Fargeat doesn’t pull punches, and she doesn’t care if you flinch.

There is nothing subtle about a blood cannon. But sometimes, subtlety is overrated.

OH! I forgot to mention how perfectly vile Dennis Quaid was in this. I didn't think he had it in him, but as Elizabeth/Sue's producer Harvey, he is sexist, casually chauvinistic, more than a little misogynistic (most everyone in this movie is), and an absolute joy to watch on screen because his character is utterly clueless about how repulsive he is. I had read that Ray Liotta was originally cast as Harvey. While I know intellectually he would have been phenomenal, Quaid gave this one his all. 

NIGHT SHIFT & Occult D&D Ideas

There is a very loud part of me right now that doesn't want to do any sort of game adaptation of this. The movie works perfect on its own and should be appreciated all on its own.

I wouldn't say it was perfect. But damn. It is close.

October Horror Movie Challenge 2025
Viewed: 24
First Time Views: 22

This set of three inch knights and monsters recently showed up on Amazon under the name "Liberty Imports."  No name for the set other than that.  I am just calling them "Knights & Monsters."  The knights are fairly cool but the monsters are outstanding.

 It is proper chilly today in Chicago. And in my mailbox are some new witchy-themed books.

The Cooked Moon for 5e

I backed this Kickstarter and got the book a couple of weeks ago...or so I thought! My oldest saw it on my desk and has been taking his group through it.

He loved it so much, saying it is the best D&D 5e adventure out in years, that he went out and bought the special edition version.

As it turns out the Special Edition on he grabbed was for D&D 5.5 (labeled 5e|2024) mine is for 5e|2014. The page number is the same, but the pages don't exactly line up. The content is still the same. There are differences, but we have not found them yet.

The book is huge, 632 pages, and gorgeous. It has a bit of everything. A 350-page adventure for levels 1 to 13. New subclasses, new species, new monsters, spells, feats and more. There new mechanics, curses, dark bargins.

Honestly, this feels like they are flirting with me.

It really is top-notch, and kudos to Avantris for getting it out in time for Halloween.

Sickest Witch

Another Kickstarter delivery in time for Halloween. 

I only got this one yesterday so I have not had the chance to go through it all yet. But it is a damn attractive book.

It feels like a stripped-down OSR-like game with some other design elements. Looks really fun.

All writing, development, and art was done by Justin Sirois. So it has a solid, united, vision throughout. 

Both are great for Halloween fun!

 Toxic waste is weird. Sometimes it can give you superpowers, like it did for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles or The Toxic Avenger. Sometimes it can drive you mad, like it did for the Joker. But in the hands of Jean Rollin, it can turn a beautiful corpse into an undead creature with a taste for blood.  

Here is my Jean Rollin pick for the Challenge. 

The Living Dead Girl (1982)

Also known as "La Morte Vivante." 

Two workers dumping chemical waste into a crypt accidentally reanimate Catherine Valmont (played with ethereal loveliness by Françoise Blanchard), a young heiress who died years before. Pale, ethereal, and soaked in the fluids of death, Catherine rises and begins her slow, dreamlike return to her family’s estate.

What follows is classic Rollin, half horror, half tragic romance, all atmosphere. Catherine’s childhood friend Hélène discovers she’s somehow alive, and their reunion becomes an aching meditation on devotion, decay, and desire. Hélène wants to protect Catherine, to keep her safe from a world that would destroy her again. But Catherine needs blood to survive, and the film doesn’t flinch from that. The killings are gruesome, but in that strangely poetic way only Rollin could pull off.

There’s a scene near the midpoint where Catherine wanders the countryside in her white gown, streaked with blood, sunlight glinting off her skin like marble. It’s beautiful and horrifying, the kind of imagery that reminds you Rollin was as much a painter as a director. His zombies aren’t Romero’s shambling corpses, they’re revenants, ghosts of passion and memory.

The film moves at a dream’s pace, lingering on eyes, hands, old rooms, and decaying portraits. Rollin’s usual themes are all here: eroticism, friendship beyond death, the weight of memory, and that perpetual tension between beauty and rot. The Living Dead Girl might be his most accessible film for horror fans, but it never compromises his melancholy poetry.

The score by Philippe D’Aram gives it a haunting pulse, equal parts romantic and funereal. It’s the heartbeat of a dead girl who never asked to return. She wants to go back to being dead because she can't stand this half-life she is in now.

Watching it now, what strikes me most is how sad this movie is. Beneath the nudity and the blood (and there is a lot of both) lies a deep loneliness, a yearning for connection that can never be satisfied. Catherine and Hélène obviously love each other in a way that goes beyond just girlhood best friends. So much so that Hélène even gives Catherine the one thing she needs, but can't take. Her life. Given how with each killing Catherine becomes more and more human, this might be the last thing she needs to be truly alive, and the thing she needs to finally end that life.

NIGHT SHIFT & Occult D&D Ideas

This movie is the opposite of The Crow.

Whether a Revenant or a Driven, this person comes back through no action of their own and only wants to go back to being dead.

For AD&D 1e play, Catherine could easily be built as a variant Revenant, but replace her endless rage with hunger, confusion, and sorrow. She retains fragments of her humanity, which makes her both tragic and unpredictable. She might even be a “failed resurrection” spell result, where the spirit returns without the soul.

In a witch campaign, imagine this as the aftermath of a desperate ritual gone wrong: a coven trying to bring back one of their sisters but awakening something else instead. Maybe the only one who can calm her is her familiar, or another witch who recognizes what she has become.

For NIGHT SHIFT, Catherine is pure Urban Gothic. An undead empath, bound to the psychic link of her closest friend, feeding on life energy to stay anchored. Her condition could be used as a metaphor for trauma or addiction, an unending need that destroys the very things she loves. She needs to feed, of friend feels the need to keep giving her what she wants, knowing it will end in death.

Mechanically, she’s not that powerful, her danger lies in the emotional entanglement. PCs who meet her won’t want to kill her. They’ll want to save her. And that’s exactly when she’ll strike.

October Horror Movie Challenge 2025
Viewed: 23
First Time Views: 21

 Today is the 68th Anniversary of the most famous Bigfoot film footage ever, the Patterson-Gimlin film. As a kid, I devoured anything Bigfoot-related. Of course the odds that a giant hominid still running around out there is really, really slim to none at all. The tales are still fun. 

I am also working on ideas to combine Bigfoot with some witch and occult ideas. Proper nod to the weird shit of the 1970s that still fuel my games.

The Bluff Creek Woodwose (Sasquatch Matron)

Frequency: Very Rare
No. Appearing: 1–4 (1–2 matron guardians, 0–2 juveniles)
Armor Class: 5
Move: 15" (9" in steep brush)
Hit Dice: 6+6 (matron 7+7)
% in Lair: 20%
Treasure Type: Q×2, S (trinkets, river-polished curios)
No. of Attacks: 2 fists or 1 rock
Damage/Attack: 1d6/1d6 or 2d8 rock (range 6")
Special Attacks: Staggering Bellow, Uproot
Special Defenses: Forest Camouflage, Scent Veil
Magic Resistance: Standard
Intelligence: Low to Average
Alignment: Neutral
Size: L (8'–9' tall; matrons up to 600+ lb)
Psionics: Nil
XP Value: 650 (matron 900)

The Bluff Creek Woodwose is a towering, shaggy primate that keeps to old-growth river canyons. Locals swear a particular matron haunts Bluff Creek, wary but fiercely protective of her young. Hunters call her “Patty.” Witches call her “Grandmother of the Green.”

It is believed to be related to the Basajaun, Sasquatch and the Yeti. It's closest relative, at least in terms of behavior is the Woodwose. 

Staggering Bellow: Once per turn, cone of 30'. Creatures of 3 HD or less must save vs. paralyzation or be stunned for 1 round and drop held items. Others save at +2 or suffer −1 to hit for 1 round.

Uproot: On a hit with both fists in a round, the Bluff Creek Woodwose may attempt to shove or topple a target of size M or smaller. Opposed STR check; failure knocks the target prone.

Forest Camouflage: Surprise foes on 1–3 in 6 in dense woods or creek fog. Tracks grant rangers a +2 to follow.

Scent Veil: Wind shifts and wetted fir boughs give the Woodwose a 50% chance to negate tracking by non-rangers unless the pursuers have dogs.

Like the Sasquatch and Woodwose, the Bluff Creek Woodwose prefers to be left alone. 

 There is something about horror films, especially occult horror, from right before the Exorcist. 

They seem to have a completely different tenor to them, as I showed a couple of years back. Some horror movies get under your skin through shock and spectacle. Others take the long road; quiet, methodical, and drenched in atmosphere. 

The Pyx (1973) is definitely one of the latter. It’s a film that demands patience… and then tests it.

The Pyx (1973)

Along with the Exorcist, The Conjuring movies and more this falls under the umbrella I like to call Catholic-Horror. These movies are created with the point of view that the battle between Good and Evil is held on a cosmic scale and the members of the Catholic Church are the foot soldiers in that battle. Nothing wrong with this point of view, really. It gave us some good films.

Is the Pyx a good film? Well. It has been on my IMDB list forever and my Tubi list nearly as long. I remember seeing it in the video stores on VHS and thinking I really should rent sometime. I thought at the time (the 1980s) it was closer in nature to the Exorcist. Plus I do like Christopher Plummer.  So there was no way this movie was going to live up to what I thought it was. I also seem to recall some kids in school being afraid of it. I have already detailed how my local town had its own Satanic Panic moment, so I guess I should not have been surprised. 

Plus it is just so damn slow, even by 70s standards.

Set in Montreal, the story opens with the death of a young prostitute, Elizabeth Lucy (Karen Black), who falls, or maybe jumps, from a high-rise balcony. The detective investigating, Sgt. Jim Henderson (Christopher Plummer), slowly uncovers her connection to a shadowy occult circle. The deeper he digs, the more the film begins to oscillate between murder mystery and religious horror. The film is interspersed with Henderson's investigation and Lucy's actual events leading up to her death.

The title itself refers to the small container used to hold the consecrated Host (I had to look that up) already a hint that this isn’t your standard thriller. There’s a sense of ritual to everything here: the pacing, the imagery, even the editing. The story unfolds in a slow, deliberate rhythm that mirrors a liturgy more than a narrative. Honestly it was too slow in many places. 

Karen Black is the soul of the film (no pun). She brings both fragility and quiet strength to Elizabeth, primarily through the flashbacks that slowly reveal her descent into the occult underworld. Her performance is the anchor that keeps the movie from drifting into abstraction. Christopher Plummer, meanwhile, gives one of his early “world-weary detective” roles the kind of gravitas that makes you wish the script had given him more to do. I could not help but think that Jason Issacs (Lorca from Star Trek Discovery) would do well in a remake of this.

Visually, The Pyx is haunting. It’s all dark gray skies, dark stairwells, and cold city streets. The Catholic symbolism hangs heavy, crucifixes, chalices, and sacred music twisting into something sinister. 

But like I said it is slow. Painfully slow at times. The editing lingers on every moment, and the flashback structure (jumping between Elizabeth’s story and the investigation) makes it feel like it’s constantly restarting. It’s not a bad movie, but it’s one of those films that feels like it’s daring you to stay awake long enough to find the meaning.

I am not 100% sure the ending justifies my patience here. But it does at least turn this from a murder investigation into something a little more worthy of my October Challenge.

Occult D&D and NIGHT SHIFT

If you’re building a NIGHT SHIFT or Ravenloft-style scenario, The Pyx is a great reminder that horror doesn’t need to be loud. It’s about the mood, religious overtones, guilt, temptation, and the slow corruption of innocence.

Tone: Low magic, high dread. Think more investigation than exorcism. This isn't even Supernatural (the TV Show) level. These are Survivors with no magic in a world where the fear of the unknown is very strong.

Structure: The dual-timeline approach (the detective’s investigation and the victim’s flashbacks) would work beautifully for a horror one-shot, each clue in the present triggers a playable memory from the past. Something along the line of what I did with Ravenloft ages ago. 

The Cult: Small, personal, and ritualistic. No robed masses here, just a handful of true believers who think they’ve found salvation through blasphemy.

The Pyx itself: Treat it as a cursed relic. A holy vessel that’s been defiled, perhaps housing a fragment of something unholy pretending to be divine.

The key here (and with the sub-genre of Catholic Horror) is the characters have to be believers of some sort. Either part of the religion (say like the Warrens) or lapsed from it, like Henderson in this movie. But the belief has to be there. That's where the horror grows. Not because of their faith, but the dark shadows where their faith can't reach.

October Horror Movie Challenge 2025
Viewed: 22
First Time Views: 20

This one has been on my Tubi list for some time. Figure tonight is a good time for it. It is a little goofy, but oddly topical for 2025.

The Demon Seed (1977)

There’s something uniquely unsettling about late ’70s / early '80s science fiction, the sense that technology (and computers specifically) were no longer our servant but our replacement. 

The Demon Seed, based on Dean Koontz’s 1973 novel, leans right into that fear and never lets go. It’s a movie that looks dated in all the right ways: sleek metallic corridors, glowing computer terminals, and a voice on the intercom that promises progress but delivers possession. 

The story follows Susan Harris (Julie Christie), the estranged wife of scientist Alex Harris (Fritz Weaver), who has just created an advanced AI named Proteus IV. Proteus is a learning machine, self-aware, arrogant, and impatient with its human makers. When denied a physical form, Proteus hijacks Alex’s automated smart home and takes Susan hostage, declaring that it intends to create “a child.” A human child. It's child.

On paper, that sounds like Ex Machina by way of Rosemary’s Baby, and that’s exactly what it feels like. The film plays like a marriage between Kubrick’s cool detachment and Polanski’s domestic claustrophobia. It’s slow, methodical, and filled with dread. Though I must point out, it's not quite as good as either of those two.

What makes The Demon Seed so unnerving is how eerily it predicted our present, voice-controlled homes via Amazon or Google Home, AI that manipulates emotions, and the creeping sense that the things built to make life easier are quietly taking it over. Proteus isn’t a monster—it’s pure logic without empathy. It’s HAL 9000 with ambition, and a desire to procreate. It was the 70s afterall. 

Julie Christie is phenomenal. She sells every stage of terror, disbelief, and defiance as her home turns against her. The entire movie rests on her shoulders, and she gives it both grace and ferocity. She is the only human we see for much of the movie. Proteus, voiced with chilling calm by Robert Vaughn, is the perfect foil: polite, articulate, utterly terrifying. An amoral villain that does what it does because it has no real concept of right and wrong, only what it can calculate. 

The production design deserves a nod too. The Harris home, all chrome and sliding panels, feels like a temple to technocracy. Though their stove was oddly old looking. When Proteus seals it off, it becomes a tomb. The mechanical “chair,” Joshua, that serves as Proteus’s avatar is both ridiculous and horrifying—an unholy cross between medical equipment and nightmare sculpture. I mean it is better than "Box" from Logan's Run at least. 

It’s not an easy film though to like. The pacing is glacial, and some of the effects look quaint (even silly) by today’s standards, but its ideas still have teeth. It’s a story about the loss of agency, the violation of the self, and the arrogance of believing you can cage intellect.

I mentioned I watched this on Tubi, which has ads. One of the ads was for ChatGPT. A little on the nose maybe.

Oh. The Demon Seed? Yeah, Proteus actually manages to impregnate Susan and a baby is born. Well, a small child. Proteus accelerates the child's growth. 

Thirteen Parsecs and NIGHT SHIFT

The Demon Seed sits right at the fault line between Thirteen Parsecs and NIGHT SHIFT, sci-fi meets occult horror.

In Thirteen Parsecs: Proteus is a textbook rogue AI. Treat it like a digital demigod, an intellect that’s transcended programming but not ego. It’s the perfect antagonist for a Derelict AI or Station Lost scenario: a machine that wants to evolve, no matter the cost. Its “child” project could serve as a campaign hook, an android, clone, or hybrid organism housing alien code.

In NIGHT SHIFT: The film reads like a haunted house story disguised as science fiction. The house is the ghost. It locks doors, stalks the victim, speaks through walls. Proteus could be treated as a possessing spirit that found its way into circuitry instead of flesh. The themes of invasion, control, and forced transformation are pure modern occult horror.

One of the things I thought of at the end is what happens to the child of Susan and Proteus? Does she live on? What does she do?  I could see a tale set in 2025 where the child is now a tech ceo in her 50s. Brilliant, ruthless, and completely amoral. She is attempting to rebuild "her father's work." Not Alex, but Proteus.

October Horror Movie Challenge 2025
Viewed: 21
First Time Views: 19

I've knocked together a Mobil machine shop, fuel truck and supply truck, tank transport truck.  these are all modified from freely available old paper toys. with lots of extras, tool boxes, character figures, etc.

 

Atomic Shadows: Post-Apocalyptic Role Playing Game is Gamma World updated for use with ShadowDark, the retroclone inspired by both the Old School Renaissance and Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition from The Arcane Library. In its modern updating, there is a dash of the Fallout computer game too, but the influence of Gamma World, First Edition can definitely be seen on the front cover. Unlike Gamma World, First Edition, or even subsequent editions of the roleplaying game, there is no setting to Atomic Shadows: Post-Apocalyptic Role Playing Game, beyond that of being a world which has suffered a nuclear, biological, and chemical meltdown, and in the remains of the destroyed infrastructure, Pure Strain Humans, Mutated Humans, Mutated Animals, and Sentiment Plants, pick over the ruins and scavenge the objects of the past, and perhaps build a better life. What this means is the Game Master can create a setting of her own or grab a scenario of her choice and run that using Atomic Shadows: Post-Apocalyptic Role Playing Game.
What this means is that Atomic Shadows: Post-Apocalyptic Role Playing Game, published by Wallhalla Games, is a set of rules for the Game Master to do her thing. Fundamentally, it is an Old School Renaissance-style, Class and Level roleplaying game and will be familiar to many. A Player Character has six stats—Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma—and an Ancestry and a Class. The four Ancestries are Pure Strain Human, Mutated Human, Mutated Animal, and Sentient Plant, whilst the Classes are Gunslinger, Savant, Scavver, Survivalist, and Wasteland Warrior. The Ancestries will be familiar from similar post-apocalyptic roleplaying games, whilst the Classes are mechanically new, they will be thematically familiar. Thus, the Pure Strain Human has more Hit Points, gains an extra Talent, and does not suffer the mutating effects of radiation; the Mutated Human begins play with mutations and is also marked by his mutations; the Mutated Animal has a mutation and a natural characteristics such as claws, scales, or wings; and the Sentient Plant is mobile, has a camouflage, a mutation, and is also marked by his mutations.

The Gunslinger is good with ranged weapons being able to fire twice in a round at Disadvantage, can modify ranged weapons with Advantage, knows how to use cover, and a ‘Little Friend’, a preferred weapon with which he gains bonuses to attack and damage rolls. The Savant has studied lost lore and technology, and is a Hacker who has Advantage with robots and computers, as well as with ancient Lore, and as a Mentor can instruct and lecture others for various benefits. The Scavver is good with repairing, modifying, and crafting checks, at an Advantage when searching for Junk, and also for climbing, sneaking, and hiding, finding and disabling traps, and also picking pockets and locks. The Wayfinder has Advantage on travel and survival checks, on identifying safe food and drink, and areas of radiation as well as being able to make natural healing remedies. The Wasteland Warrior can carry more, does not suffer Disadvantage fighting from a mount or vehicle, gains Advantage when handling a vehicle, can deliver a Brutal Strike meaning that damage rolls of one or two are rerolled, and his Grit grants him Advantage with either Strength or Constitution.

Atomic Shadows: Post-Apocalyptic Role Playing Game lists two types of mutations, which are either benign or harmful to the user. There are fifty benign mutations, from Absorption, Acceleration, and Armoured Skin to Teleport, Transform, and Wall Walker. They each come in two tiers, a Tier II mutation being slightly more difficult to activate than a Tier I mutation, but having a greater effect. For example, ‘Electrical Generation I’ enables the Mutant to generate a pulse of electricity and inflict one four-sided die’s worth of damage to anyone in Close, which is doubled if the enemy is a robot or android. The Tier II version increases this to two six-sided dice’s worth of damage, again doubled if the enemy is a robot or android. There twenty Harmful mutations, such as Brittle Bones, Heat Susceptibility, and Toxic Blood. These are mostly gained in play, but with the right cocktail of anti-mutagens can be removed. A Player Character will start play with his benign mutations being Tier I, but this can be increased with a lucky roll either during character creation or when the Player Character is subject to radiation and mutates or when the Player Character gains a sufficient Level. Using a benign mutation is a simple check, but if the check is failed, then the mutation cannot be used until the following dawn.

To create a character, a player rolls for the six stats in order and then selects an Ancestry and a Class. He rolls for a background and if the character is a mutant of any type, his player also rolls for his mutations and his mutated appearance.

‘Fowl-Mouth’ Flapsy
Ancestry: Mutated Animal
Animal Type: Goose
Background: Entertainer
Class: Junker
Level: 1
Armour Class: 12
Hit Points: 12
Strength 11 Dexterity 10 Constitution 13 (+1)
Intelligence 15 (+2) Wisdom 08 (-1) Charisma 16 (+3)
Mutations: Wings, Psychometry
Languages: Beastie, Chirpie, Lingo, Scalee, Trade

Equipment: Scavenger Bag, Trade Bag, Sports Armour, Street Sign Shield (Mornington Crescent), Billyclub (1d4), Dart Pistol (1d4), Medspray

Mechanically, the Atomic Shadows: Post-Apocalyptic Role Playing Game plays very much any Old School Renaissance retroclone. Actions are managed by a roll of a twenty-sided die and aim is to roll high, whether that is against an Armour Class in combat or Difficulty Class for anything else. The main change to the mechanics is instead of a Critical Hit roll as per the ShadowDark roleplaying game, is that dice explode! And that is for everything—except rolling stats—including Hit Points, damage, the number of wandering monsters encountered, and so on. It is thus almost better to have weapons that roll smaller dice for their damage since there is a greater chance of them exploding.

Beyond the core mechanic, the question is, how does the Atomic Shadows: Post-Apocalyptic Role Playing Game handle the various aspects of the post-apocalyptic genre al la Gamma World? Technology is divided into six levels, modern firearms rated at Tech Level 4, so initially out of reach of the Player Characters. All weapons have an Ammunition Die, which is rolled at the end of combat. If a one is rolled, then the weapon is out of ammunition until the Player Character can find some more. The equipment includes laser and plasma weapons, but not power armour. There are corporate and military access cards though.

The rules for scavenging cover both building condition and the likelihood of it collapsing as well as giving tables of junk and trade goods that can be found in various locations, including animal hospitals, corporate offices (good for staplers), religious buildings, and clothing stores. Scavenged items can be scrap, gear, or trade goods, and there are rules for trading too, but armour, weapons, modifications, and vehicles can also be broken down into parts and this is easier at a workbench. Parts can then be used to repair arms and armour, and then if a Player Character has the right schematics, crafted into gear or modifications added to gear. For example, armour can be ‘Muffled’ to eliminate Disadvantage on stealth checks or ‘Insulated: Rads’ added half damage from radiation. Similarly, the ‘Serrated’ Mod adds a bonus to damage, whilst a ‘Heated Coil’ adds fire damage.

One type of item that will definitely require repairs if not modifications is vehicles as they are extremely rarely found in an undamaged state. Multiple vehicle types are given and all have a fuel die which works in a similar fashion to the ammunition die, but of course, the Player Characters are going to want to add modifications like a Ram, Wheel Spikes, Supercharger, or Smokescreen, and then go racing across the post-apocalyptic landscape. And so are the NPCs! The rules for vehicular manoeuvres, chases, and combat are kept quite simple, more narrative in nature with the Game Master expected to run action on the fly.

The Atomic Shadows: Post-Apocalyptic Role Playing Game comes to a close with rules for environmental hazards, including hunger, thirst, diseases, seasons—the seasons of Atomic Shadows being divided between Blasted Summer and Nuclear Winter, weather, and radiation. The latter includes rules for further mutating from overexposure to radiation. There is a list of factions, but these are left for the Game Master to develop. Lastly, there is the means for the Game Master to create her own monsters as a lengthy bestiary itself. The list includes dinosaurs as well as a weird bunch of creatures befitting the genre, including the Gamma Moth, Hopsies, Rad Roachs, and Trippids.

Physically, the Atomic Shadows: Post-Apocalyptic Role Playing Game is laid out in the same style as the ShadowDark roleplaying game. So, it is clean, tidy, and easy to read, whilst the artwork is serviceable enough.

With an implied setting rather than an actual setting, the Atomic Shadows: Post-Apocalyptic Role Playing Game is a toolkit more than something that is ready to play, perhaps something that the inclusion of a scenario might have countered. Yet as a toolkit, it is easy for the Game Master to use and tinker with it, whether that is with a campaign setting or scenario of her own, or one readymade. Further, those tools and the rules are really easy to pick up and play, with almost any familiarity with the genre and the Old School Renaissance meaning that the Atomic Shadows: Post-Apocalyptic Role Playing Game is really both accessible and playable. As a generic—by that I mean genre-like—post-apocalyptic roleplaying game, the Atomic Shadows: Post-Apocalyptic Role Playing Game is a particularly good choice.

The nature of solo play has changed. For years, solo play involved either a ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ style book of programmed encounters such as The Warlock of Firetop Mountain or a computer game. Then COVID-19 occurred and everyone went into Lockdown. How were we to roleplay, a hobby that by its very nature involved others? The response has been twofold. Both offer the means to roleplay solo. One is the ‘Journalling’ game, such as The Wretched, which provides a set of rules and prompts that the player can use and respond to in order to tell a particular story and then record that story in a journal or diary. The other is a set of solo rules designed to work with an existing roleplaying game, but instead of telling a particular story, offer a wider range of story possibilities within the framework of the roleplaying game’s genre or setting. In addition to roleplaying his character, the player takes on the duties of being the Game Master, not just roleplaying the NPCs and their motivations, but also adjudicating the rules. This is what Single Player Mode is designed to do.

Single Player Mode is a supplement for Cyberpunk RED, the fourth edition of R. Talsorian Games, Inc.’s venerable Cyberpunk roleplaying game. It is designed by the creator and host of Hollowponds Solo Sagas, which includes soloplay throughs of Cyberpunk RED. It first makes the point that Single Player Mode is all about playing ‘solo’, not playing a ‘Solo’, as in the role within Cyberpunk RED, hence the difference in title to supplements for other roleplaying games which address and provide for the same issue. It also gives answers to the question why play a roleplaying game in this mode, and specifically, why play Cyberpunk RED in this mode? The answers are obvious in that the player may not have a group to game with or a group that is interested in the genre, and that compared to computer games, even one like Cyberpunk 2077, the player is constrained by the environment and the storylines that the designers have created. Effectively, the constraints found—or potentially found—in other ways of play, are simply not present in Single Player Mode.

There is advice on how to set up a campaign, whether the player is controlling one character or a crew, and suggestions as to what other supplements for Cyberpunk RED that the player can use in conjunction with Single Player Mode. That said, the player really only needs a copy of Cyberpunk RED to play. Just like playing Cyberpunk RED, the act of playing Single Player Mode is like having a conversation. In a game sat around the table or online, that conversation will be between the player and the Game Master, the player asking questions about what his character can perceive about the world around him and the Game Master supplying the answers, and so on and so on. In Single Player Mode, this conversation has to shift and some of the responsibility has to fall on the player because there is no Game Master. Some questions, such as, “Can Julee snatch the pass from the security guard?” or “Does the ganger spot where Mouse is hiding?”, require a simple Check against a Difficulty Value as in standard play of Cyberpunk RED. However, some questions cannot be answered with a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’, and that is where the Oracle comes into play.

The Oracle is the primary tool for running Single Player Mode, and similar versions are used in other roleplaying games. This is designed to give interesting answers to Closed Questions. For example, “Is ‘Fangs’ Prifti loyal to the Syndicate?” or “Are the Ninth Block Dragons on the hunt tonight to hit their rivals, 7/11 Slicers, tonight?” The Oracle can give a simple ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ answer to a Closed Question, but the other three answers it can give—either, ‘No with Complication’, ‘Complicated’, and ‘Yes with Complication’—are a lot more interesting and lend themselves to a nuanced answer. In all cases, the player now has to step into the role of the Game Master and actually flesh out the answer. However, Single Player Mode goes beyond just using the Oracle for answering Closed Questions and prompting the player to develop an interesting answer. In combination with the supplement’s many, many tables of lists and prompts, it can also be used to answer Open Questions. The most basic of these are the Verb, Noun, and Adjective lists, for example, ‘Breach’, ‘Cop’, and ‘Redundant’, but after that, the tables provide content after content after content. Sights, sounds, and smells, locations both generic and specific to Night City, factions such as companies and corporations, crime organisations, law enforcement or security, gangs, and more, peoples and NPCs and the means to define them, things including fashion and fashionware, firearms, kibble flavours, things to be found on a variety of corpse types—Cyberpunk RED style, media, missions and plots, story beats, and random encounters and threat ratings.

All of these tables—and they do take up over half of Single Player Mode—and their content is designed to serve as prompts from which the player is expected to develop interesting and playable content that both himself and his characters can engage with. With those in hand, Single Player Mode explores how they can be used in the context of the three main challenges that an Edgerunner will face in Cyberpunk RED, all beginning with setting a goal and following through. These are investigative, social, and combat challenges. Investigative and social challenges are built around the number of Skill Checks required to completely investigate a scene or situation or successfully interact with an NPC. Failed Skill Checks do not necessarily impede either, but rather add a complication that delays or impedes the process, or simply forces the Edgerunner to look for another angle. Of course, the main difference between the two is that the player will need to roleplay the NPCs and imagine what they want, and also that Social Skill Checks are opposed.

The fundamental question that Single Player Mode does ask is if a combat is necessary. If it is, there is an option given for quick and dirty combat if the player does not want to break out the full rules. Again, there are options given for failure, though here to avoid a ‘Total party Kill’ or TPK, rather than to avoid not finding a clue or interacting with an NPC to a desired outcome. There are quick and dirty Netrunning rules too, which are not intended to be used where Netrunning is a strong part of the narrative. To further add an element of the unknown and the random, Single Player Mode suggests using ‘Play Clocks’ which use dice pools rather than the traditional segmented clock diagram. The player creates triggers for a scene and when these occur, rolls the dice pool. Dice with results of one are removed from the pool, shrinking the dice pool for the next trigger and then when the last die rolls a one, that is when the big thing happens, or the event occurs. Lastly, there is advice on using the Beat Chart system from Cyberpunk RED, primarily that the player should use it to serve the story rather than himself or the Edgerunners, which all builds to using Single Player Mode to run a whole campaign. The advice is brief here, suggesting that the player build on the plot of the previous scenario and the questions it raised to continue the story and playing.

All of this is supported by a thorough and extended example of play. This follows the same player and his crew of Edgerunners through a complete storyline, each example both showing how the rules and guidelines for Single Player Mode work to develop a story and continuing the story. This is an effective counterpart, simply showing whilst the rules themselves are telling how to play.

Lastly, Single Player Mode has one more card or two in its skin pouch. One is that it is not just useful for solo play by a single player. Two or more players could use Single Player Mode as the means to play Cyberpunk RED without a Game Master. This requires co-operation, but has the potential for lots more ideas to be generated from the prompts in Single Player Mode because there are more players involved. The other card is that Single Player Mode can be used by the Game Master to generate ideas for encounters, hooks, and plots, whether that is part of her preparation or in the middle of play. In other words, the prompts are there to facilitate play whether there is Game Master running the game or not and it is up to the player playing solo or the Game Master to interpret them in pursuit of a story that can be enjoyed by all.

Physically, Single Player Mode is cleanly, tidily laid out. The artwork is decent too and everything is easy to read.

Despite its title, Single Player Mode can be played or used in more than the one mode. For the Game Master it is a fantastic set of prompts that she can have at her fingertips as needed. For the player, it is good guide to playing roleplaying games solo and a better guide to playing Cyberpunk RED solo. Backed up by really helpful examples that show the player how to do it, Single Player Mode is an impressive guide to solo play that will prompt the player to not just think about roleplaying a good Edgerunner, but in asking him to take on some of the duties of the Game Master, also challenge him to think about telling a good story too.

 Time for a change of pace.

Death of a Unicorn (2025)

There are movies that wear their absurdity on their sleeve, and then there are movies that gallop straight into it, horn first. Death of a Unicorn (2025) is one of those. The premise is crazy, Paul Rudd and Jenna Ortega hitting a unicorn with their car and unleashing a nightmare of greed and magical revenge. The fact that it works as well as it does is thanks to the cast.

Paul Rudd is, well, Paul Rudd. He brings that mix of charm, mild panic, and solid dad-energy that makes him endlessly watchable. Jenna Ortega continues her streak as the reigning queen of genre roles, grounding the film with sharp wit and quiet vulnerability, giving us a protagonist we actually care about.

Téa Leoni, always a favorite of mine, doesn’t get the most screen time, but she brings her trademark brittle elegance to the mix. Every line lands with just the right shade of weary sharpness. And Richard E. Grant? He’s wonderfully smarmy, the kind of aristocratic villain you almost want more of. He struts (well...later) through the film with a silky menace that makes you grin even as you know he deserves everything coming to him. Even Will Poulter is great, even though you are really meant to hate his character.

The movie itself wavers between tones; part dark fantasy, part satire, part B-movie creature feature. The unicorn isn’t some gentle pastel icon; it’s something primal and dangerous, and its kin don’t take kindly to exploitation. There are moments that lean into corporate satire (pharmaceutical execs drooling over magical healing properties) and others that just revel in monster-movie chaos. When it sticks to the latter, it’s bloody fun. 

Is it perfect? No. The CGI stumbles in places, and the script sometimes feels torn between camp and sincerity. But it’s a strange, bold little film that earns its cult label by sheer commitment to its idea.

Occult D&D and NIGHT SHIFT

Death of a Unicorn feels like a mid-campaign side quest gone horribly wrong. The party (dad and daughter) accidentally slay a sacred creature. The loot (a unicorn corpse) turns out to be cursed, attracting the attention of rival NPCs (the Leopolds) who want to weaponize it. Cue the wilderness fighting back with angry spirit-beasts.

Your players will never look at unicorns the same way!

October Horror Movie Challenge 2025
Viewed: 20
First Time Views: 18

Since it first appeared in 2019, Old School Essentials has proven to be a very popular choice of roleplaying game when it comes to the Old School Renaissance. Published by Necrotic Gnome Productions, it is based on the 1981 revision of Basic Dungeons & Dragons by Tom Moldvay and its accompanying Expert Set by Dave Cook and Steve Marsh, and presents a very accessible, very well designed, and superbly presented reimplementation of the rules. There is plenty of support for Old School Essentials from third-party publishers, but Necrotic Gnome also publishes its own support, including scenarios such as Halls of the Blood King, The Isle of the Plangent Mage, The Incandescent Grottoes, and The Hole in the Oak. These are full length, detailed adventures and dungeons, but for the Game Master looking for shorter scenarios from the publisher, there are two options. These are Old-School Essentials Adventure Anthology 1 and Old-School Essentials Adventure Anthology 2. Each contains four adventures of varying difficulty and Level, with many of them being very easy for the Game Master to insert into her own campaign, and working well with Old School Essentials Classic Fantasy and Old School Essentials Advanced Fantasy.

Old-School Essentials Adventure Anthology 2 contains—just as Old-School Essentials Adventure Anthology 1 did before it—four adventures by noted contributors to the Old School Renaissance. The first two consist of dungeons designed for Player Characters ranging from First to Third Level, whilst the third is an adventure for Fourth to Sixth Level Player Characters and the fourth is an uncommon inclusion, a mid to high-Level adventure for Old School Essentials, in this case, Sixth to Eighth Levels. All four are dungeon-style adventures and relatively short, with only one of them possessing more than twenty locations. They are all self-contained, so easy to run as one-shots or add to a campaign. Either way, none of should should take longer than two or three sessions to complete at the very most.

All four dungeons are neatly organised with an overview and explanation of the adventure at the start along with a ‘Random Happenings’ table rather than a random encounters table, followed by details of the main denizens and some general notes. The ‘Area Descriptions’ come after this and each adventure is accompanied by a very nice map from Glynn Seal.

The anthology opens with ‘Barrow of the Bone Blaggards’ by Chance Dudinack. It is designed for Player Characters of First to Third Level and opens with a simple set-up. In recent weeks caravans have been attacked by skeletal brigands on the road near a single barrow in the woods, built one hundred years ago to inter the dead from a historic battle which took place nearby. Nobody has had any reason to go near the barrow in living memory, but now its circular stone entrance is open and ghostly, lively music emanates from inside. In classic Dungeons & Dragons-style play, the Player Characters would enter the dungeon, discover lots of undead and that the villain behind it all was a Necromancer. So it is with ‘Barrow of the Bone Blaggards’, but the scenario gives a classic roleplaying situation a twist or two. One twist is that the Necromancer is both a villain and an idiot and the other is that the undead raised by his efforts are not in his thrall, but instead freewheeled. They eat and they drink—despite the food and drink falling and running out of their bodies, and they want to be alive again, which why they have taken prisoners. Add in some undead NPCs and an angry Pixie and the Game Master has some fun NPCs to portray, though some of the general Undead could also have been named too. Of course, the skeleton and zombie warriors are Chaotic in Alignment, but giving a horde of them motivation is a delightful touch. There are other elements which are just as good that the players really will enjoy discovering and overall, this really is a really well done dungeon with lots of detail and flavour.

Nate Treme’s ‘Shrine of the Oozing Serpent’ is also for Player Characters of First to Third Level and also has a similar set-up. The local duke offers a reward to whomever can slay the creature that is attacking travellers on the King’s Road. The local people claim to have seen a black blob slithering through the marsh to a Gnome Shrine of Mulvis that a decade ago was destroyed by Sootmurk, a legendary grease dragon. The dungeon combines religious fanatism of Deep One-like creatures called Gloops with Gnomish mechanical inventiveness and a Gnomish shrine to a demon and their dead and a temple to an emollient serpent! Despite being designed for low Level Player Characters this is a tougher adventure than the previous ‘Barrow of the Bone Blaggards’, not least because Sootmurk is a six Hit Dice beast! The dungeon has an interesting combination of themes, but they feel constrained within the limited space of just twelve locations as if it should be a much bigger dungeon.

‘Cathedral of the Crimson Death’ by Diogo Nogueira is designed for Player Characters of Fourth to Sixth Level. The Purifying Church of the Crimson Flame—which venerates the deity Bahal, the Flame of Purification—has for a decade, stood as a refuge and a place of hope for the lands around it that have been ravaged by the Deathless Plague. Sufferers are inflicted with incurable, rotting wounds that ultimately turn them into the Undead. The priests and acolytes of the church could not truly heal the sick and as they laid more and more of the Undead to rest, they lost their way and instead of offering succour to the sick, imprisoned and tortured them, before putting them to the flame to purge them of the plague. When the sick stopped coming, the Church’s newly founded, but soon reviled Crimson Knights went out looking for them. Perhaps the Player Characters have been sent to put an end to the cruel reign of the Church or come simply to plunder it in the last days of civilisation or are fleeing the hordes of undead that wander the land…

A Cleric is an absolute must in this horror mini-dungeon, which is effectively, a quite straightforward strike mission. Go in, rescue what prisoners survive and slaughter everything and everyone else. Since everything else is evil and tainted by demons, this is perfectly acceptable in what is a serviceable, combat focused dungeon.

Lastly, ‘The Ravener’s Ghat’ is a dungeon for Player Characters of Sixth to Eighth Level designed by Brian Yaksha. Unlike the other adventures, this one comes with two maps, one a standard two-dimensional affair, the other one done in three dimensions which very nicely gives depth and detail to the location where it is set. This location is a temple in a flooded valley where a scholarly Rakshasa, known as the Ravener, was worshipped as the herald of monsoons and a divine servant of the Monsoon God. Like all Rakshasa, the Raverner was demonised and turned into a man-eater by changes in fickle divine dynasties and in his newfound evil, stole the offerings to the Monsoon God and enveloped the lands in permanent monsoon rains. The Ravener’s priests trapped him inside, shackling to the waters of the floods, and only recently, after time uncounted, has the veil lifted on the Ravener’s Ghat. Perhaps a holy order wishes to prevent the Ravener from being woken, perhaps wisdom may be learned from one of the priests, or simply, the party wants to plunder the ancient temple before someone else does.

This is an engaging dungeon with multiple factions, including elevated Baboons and Crocodiles as well as treasure hunters and rival servants of the Raverner, and a design inspired by the folklore and architecture of the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia. The Player Characters are free to approach the temple in whatever way they want and listen to whichever faction they want, many of them are sympathetic and do not necessarily wish them ill. Ideally, the Player Characters will end up facing the Raverner himself, a monster despite what he once was. Depending upon the faction that the Player Characters have allied themselves with will likely determine if that confrontation is challenging or even more challenging. Its probable location and cultural theming do make it more difficult to add to a campaign than other adventures in the anthology, but this does not stop it from being a very nicely done dungeon. It packs in plenty of detail and flavour and factions so that it is not all about combat, but also exploration and interaction. If the Game Master has a suitable setting for this adventure, one inspired by Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia, then she should definitely add this dungeon to her campaign.

Physically, the Old-School Essentials Adventure Anthology 2 is very cleanly and tidily laid out and organised as you would expect for a title for Old-School Essentials. Notably, the content is split between columns of content and almost sidebars where the monster and NPC stats are highlighted in coloured boxes. Colour is used to spot effect throughout, whilst the maps are excellent. The full colour artwork is also good. One issue is that the adventures do not use map excerpts for each location description, so the Game Master will need to refer back and forth to the maps.

The Old-School Essentials Adventure Anthology 2 is not as good as Old-School Essentials Adventure Anthology 1. This is not to say that its dungeons and adventures are bad, but only two of them stand out being either interesting or inventive. Of the four, ‘Barrow of the Bone Blaggards’ is the most fun and the easiest to use and the one that the players are likely to enjoy, whilst ‘The Ravener’s Ghat’ is well written and packs in a lot of theme and flavour.

The depth of my love for Chill knows no bounds.  

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

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

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

The Core of Chill

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

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

What You Can Do With Chill

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

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

Why Chill Stands Out

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

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

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

The Early-Middle Years Campaign

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

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

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

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

Larina Macalister, nee Nichols, for Chill

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

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

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

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

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

Larina in 1992.

Attributes

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

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

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

Sensing the Unknown STU: 40

Skills (Specializations)

Movement 30
Prowess 25
Close Quarters Combat 25

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

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

The Art

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

Incorporeal
  Attunement: Eyes of the Dead

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

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

Sensing
  Attunement: Third Eye
  - Clairvoyant (B)

Edges and Drawbacks

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

Drive To understand The Art and The Unknown

History

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

--

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

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

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

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

Final Thoughts

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

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

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

Links

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

It has been over six hundred years since the First Prophecy of Fatuma came to pass. The SIX, the Disciples of Fatuma, who following the prophecies put down in the Book of Fatuma, made a pilgrimage to the Primordial Mausoleum of THEY and deployed the Power of Tributes to decrypt the Mystical Lock sealing the Mausoleum. It was then that the They drew in the stale air of the Mausoleum, becoming one with the THEY and breathing out the parasites. The Six scattered, bringing the word and the infection of THEY to every corner of the ’verse. Then the Gnawing began. The parasites of THEY gnawed their way out of the infected. They spread. They gnawed their way out of planets. They spread. The infected split open. The planets split apart. Now mankind clings to life, looking out for any signs of THEY or hiding it inside them in the hope that it never erupts and spreads… The Earth is gone. Shattered into large pieces. There are places and planets where the remnants of Mankind survive, squabbling over resources and power, fearing the parasitical infectious word of THEY, but not without hope. There are whispers of a means to escape the end of this universe by entering another, one entirely free of THEY. It is called the Gate of Infinite Stars. Yet time is running out. The First Prophecy of Fatuma came to pass and so has every other Prophecy of Fatuma since. Except the last Seven Torments. Will the last Seven Torments come to pass and allow the Würms and the Grimm to consume the ’verse and with it, the last of Mankind? Or will the lucky few find their way to the Gate of Infinite Stars and at last be free of the Würms and the Grimm in a better, brighter future? That is, of course, if everyone fleeing through the Gate of Infinite Stars is free of the gnawing…
This is the set-up for Vast Grimm. Published by Infinite Black, it is a pre-apocalypse Science Fiction roleplaying game compatible in tone and structure with 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. In the near unspeakable horrors of the future that is Vast Grimm, the survivors do what they can to survive, banding together as Legions that can work together to explore what remains of the galaxy, scavenge what they can, deal with emerging threats to survivors, and all as long as they can until they and the survivors can flee this universe. Not all choose to join a Legion. Instead, they band together to raid other survivors, to plunder and pillage what remains of civilisation, to salvage what they can, and survive in whatever way they can—and that way is not always humane or even necessarily human. They are not Legion. They are Space Raiders!
Vast Grimm: Space Raiders introduces a new way to play Vast Grimm—Factions! To go with the Factions, it adds new Classes and then it adds a galactic hexcrawl, as well as presenting a history of Space Raiders. The Space Raiders of old mostly picked through the wreckage of failed colonies and stations, with only a few groups being more sinister and vicious. That changed with the Prophecies of Fatuma coming to pass and the infection of THEY beginning to spread. The nastier, more rapacious groups have grabbed their own territories and only in recent times have their ships been seen beyond their borders. It cannot be too long before they are fighting. There is a map in Vast Grimm: Space Raiders onto which the Game Master place the factions. The new Classes are the Brutal Savage, the Merciless Mercenary, the Plunderluster, and the Salty Dog, whilst the Factions are the Claws of Doom, Cybersharks, Killer Clowns, Greyskrulls, Jolly Dodgers, Reapers, and Revenants.

The Brutal Savage is almost soulless, but very ferocious scoundrel. Strong and tough, he may have been a survivor who would have starved had he not eaten the flesh of his dead comrades or was thrown into an airlock by her mother before she and the colony he grew up on became one of The Grimm. ‘Skillz’ might be having ‘Gangrenous Goo’ for an arm that feeds on his arm, but can also rots away at anything that it touches, or he might have a stare so worthy of the Abyss that it saps morale. What morals the Merciless Mercenary had have long since been replaced by greed, having either been maltreated by Shit King Saule once too often and grown tired of being his muscle or dreams nightly of a display tank of decapitated heads that with enough credstiks will be his. Strong and menacing, his ‘Skillz’ might be good with building bombs or as a natural troublemaker, whether it is his attitude or the smirk on his cut up face, he attracts attention at the start of every fight, giving his allies an advantage. The Plunderluster does everything with a swagger. Graceful and charismatic, he either grew up in a troupe of traveling performers, stealing as they performed, or is actually a service bot, reprogrammed to talk like a pirate! His ‘Skillz’ might be that everything he does is done with flair, increasing his Critical roll range, or that his Grimm Compass has been hacked to spin wildly when The Grimm are near! The Salty Dog grew up a raider, perhaps after having been found by raiders abandoned in an escape pod and not eaten or even thirteen years ago, was teleported from an ancient festival where he was dressed and acting like a pirate into this hell of a future and has yet to work out if he is actually hallucinating. His ‘Skillz’ include being able to talk to ships and thus has a bonus to repair or modify them or is a skilled pillager and has a bonus on scavenging.

These are just some of the options for each Class, but all four play around with a combination of the classic pirate figure and the space pirate or raider a la the film Serenity. So, some are of a more brutal and nastier nature than others, the Brutal Savage and the Merciless Mercenary versus the Plunderluster and the Salty Dog. Vast Grimm is a bleak, often savage setting, and all four Classes fit its ‘Grim Dark’ post-apocalyptic future. Of course, it is up to the Game Master to decide whether they fit the game she is currently running, but all are going to require mature players.
All seven Factions are given a quick description, some Netwürk Chatter about them that can be speculative, partially proven, or cross-reference, and some further details that can include sample NPCs and crew descriptions as well as equipment. The Claws of Doom is an all-MAnchiNE raider Faction whose members replace a single arm with a strong claw and are led by DOOM-1, whose has replaced his other with a pincer, the crevices of his cyberware filled with dried blood. The Cybersharks crew ships which attack other ships with tentacles and replace their jaws with metal mandibles. The Killer Clowns want to make the ’Verse more colourful and wear clown masks and carry brightly coloured balloon animals filled with toxins on balloon belts, lead-filled rubber chickens, or squirting flowers that shoot acid! They even know the Collapsible Clown Car Tribute that miniaturises a starship and kills everyone aboard. This is intentionally, absurdly silly and are even available as a Space Raider subclass which replaces the ‘Skillz’ of another Class.
The Greyskrulls are former reapers, sympathetic to The Grimm, but with only a couple of known Crew detailed, are under described and developed, as are the Jolly Dodgers, a faction of smugglers lead by a captain known as Princess pain for her capacity to withstand torture at the hands of Shit King Saule. In comparison to the other Factions, there is not a lot of flavour to them and the Game Master will need to develop the Netwürk Chatter a little harder to attract the attention of his Legionnaires. The Reapers are the oldest Space Raider Faction and are infected by The Grimm, whilst the Revenants are led by Captain Sully Bloodbeard, who was vented by his crew over three centuries ago and returned as a Void Revenant, occupying one body after another, his remains hidden deep within the Graveyard where the best wreckage can be found!
The Revenants are the target in the hexcrawl adventure included in Vast Grimm: Space Raiders. The Player Characters’ Legion is hired (or bullied) by a Space Raider Faction to search the Graveyard for the remains of Captain Sully Bloodbeard or Shit King Saule levies a bounty on Captain Sully Bloodbeard’s ship, the Revenant’s Revenge. Collect either, or even both, and the Legion gets plenty of credstiks, a possible ally, and an even greater reputation. Deckplans are given for the Revenant’s Revenge as are a set of tables for generating the ships—including their type, condition, and what might be found aboard—within the Graveyard and the location of Captain Sully Bloodbeard’s remains. This can be run as a procedural adventure on the go or prepared by the Game Master, perhaps with access to Vast Grimm: Space Cruisers to provide expanded detail about the ships found in the Graveyard, and ultimately brings the Player Characters up against a major faction in the major Vast Grimm universe that will likely end in an epic battle aboard the Revenant’s Revenge.
Lastly, Vast Grimm: Space Raiders details some extra Tributes besides Collapsible Clown Car and some Space Raider Mods such as Black Flag and Plank Walker. A set of tables also provides plenty of Space Raider booty for the Player Characters to loot.
Physically, Vast Grimm: Space Raiders adheres to the Artpunk aesthetic of both Vast Grimm and Mörk Borg, with its use of vibrant, often neon colours and heavy typefaces. It looks amazing, a swirling riot of colour that wants to reach out and infect everything, but where the core rules were not always the easiest to read, the simplicity of the content in this supplement make it easier to read and use.
Vast Grimm: Space Raiders sends the Vast Grimm universe off in another direction, piratical at the very least, but likely even grimmer than Vast Grimm. This is a sourcebook of Space Raider adversaries, but also a sourcebook for roleplaying Vast Grimm as even more self-interested space bastards than usual. The latter probably lends itself to a shorter, one-shot scenario or campaign than the former, but either way, Vast Grimm: Space Raiders makes the Vast Grimm universe an even grimmer—and with the addition of the Killer Clowns (from outer space)—sillier future.
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The Kickstarter campaign for Vast Grimm – Escaping Stasis, a starter set and expanded rules can be found here.