Quick-starts are means of trying out a roleplaying game before you buy. Each should provide a Game Master with sufficient background to introduce and explain the setting to her players, the rules to run the scenario included, and a set of ready-to-play, pre-generated characters that the players can pick up and understand almost as soon as they have sat down to play. The scenario itself should provide an introduction to the setting for the players as well as to the type of adventures that their characters will have and just an idea of some of the things their characters will be doing on said adventures. All of which should be packaged up in an easy-to-understand booklet whose contents, with a minimum of preparation upon the part of the Game Master, can be brought to the table and run for her gaming group in a single evening’s session—or perhaps too. And at the end of it, Game Master and players alike should ideally know whether they want to play the game again, perhaps purchasing another adventure or even the full rules for the roleplaying game.

Alternatively, if the Game Master already has the full rules for the roleplaying game for the quick-start is for, then what it provides is a sample scenario that she still run as an introduction or even as part of her campaign for the roleplaying game. The ideal quick-start should entice and intrigue a playing group, but above all effectively introduce and teach the roleplaying game, as well as showcase both rules and setting.

—oOo—

What is it?
The Space: 1999 – Breakaway Quickstart Guide is the quick-start for Space: 1999 – The Roleplaying Game the post-disaster Science Fiction roleplaying game based on the British television series Space: 1999 which ran for two seasons between 1975 and 1977. Created by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson, famous for their Supermarionation television series such as Thunderbirds and Captain Scarlet, Space: 1999 is a live action series which told the story of the men and women of Moonbase Alpha. Just as mankind was set to launch a manned probe to investigate a signal from deep space, disaster struck and the Moon was blasted out of Earth’s orbit and hurled into deep space. The series told of the encounters and challenges that the personnel of Moonbase Alpha would face as they were thrust into the cosmos. It includes a basic explanation of the setting, rules for action and combat, setting rules, the adventure, ‘Breakaway’, and six ready-to-play, Player Characters.

It is a fifty-one-page, 23.94 MB full colour PDF.

It needs a slight edit in places.

The quick-start is decently illustrated with a mix of stills from the television series and excellent artwork. (The reader should be warned that the colour palette matches that of the television series, and since it was made in the seventies, this involves a lot of orange and tan, though no avocado.)* The rules are clearly explained and are a less mechanically detailed version of the 2d20 System.

* No bathrooms appear in the Space: 1999 – Breakaway Quickstart Guide so there is no way to be certain.
How long will it take to play?
The Space: 1999 – Breakaway Quickstart Guide and its adventure, ‘Breakaway’, is designed to be played through in one session, two at most.

What else do you need to play?
The Space: 1999 – Breakaway Quickstart Guide requires at least two twenty-sided dice per player and two sets of different coloured tokens, one to represent Momentum, one to represent Threat.

Who do you play?
The six Player Characters in the Space: 1999 – Breakaway Quickstart Guide consist of a a Team Commander, an Operations Officer with a penchant for a ‘Nice Cup of Tea’, a Security Officer, a quiet and dedicated pilot, a hard-working Scientist, and a Doctor with experience of working on frontiers.
How is a Player Character defined?
A Player Character in the Space: 1999 – Breakaway Quickstart Guide—and thus the Space: 1999 – The Roleplaying Game—will look familiar to anyone who has played a 2d20 System roleplaying game. A Player Character has six Skills and six Attitudes. The six Skills are Command, Flight, Medicine, Science, security, and Technical. These also cover Charm, Athletics, Cool, Education, Strength and Perception, and Practical Intelligence and Dexterity. The six Attitudes are Bravery, Compassion, Dedication, Improvisation, Mystery, and Perseverance. Both skills and attitudes are rated between four and eight.
A Player Character will also have several focuses, plus Traits, Assets, and possibly, Complications. Focues, such as Charm, Observe, Stealth, Space Pilot, Dance, and Virology, grant grant an advantage in skill tests. Traits are describe aspects about the Player Character (and sometimes the environment); Assets are equipment or other items that can help a Player Character in a situation; and Complications are negative factors, such as the environment or an injury, that can hinder him. Lastly, a Player Character will have a Signature Asset, personal to him, that can be used once per session to gain Momentum.
How do the mechanics work?
Mechanically, the Space: 1999 – Breakaway Quickstart Guide—and thus Space: 1999 – The Roleplaying Game—uses the 2d20 System seen in many of the roleplaying games published by Modiphius Entertainment, such as Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20 or Dune – Adventures in the Imperium. To undertake an action in the 2d20 System in Space: 1999 – The Roleplaying Game, a character’s player rolls two twenty-sided dice, aiming to have both roll under the total of a Skill and an Attitude. Each roll under this total counts as a success, an average task requiring two successes, the aim being to generate a number of successes equal to, or greater, than the Difficulty Value. Rolls of one count as a critical success and create two successes, as does rolling under the value of the Skill when a Focus is involved. A roll of twenty adds a complication to the situation. Successes generated beyond the Difficulty value generate Momentum.
Momentum is a shared resource. It can be used to purchase extra twenty-sided dice to roll for an action, to create or remove a Trait, create an Asset, and to obtain information. The Player Characters have a maximum Momentum of six. If a Player Character has access to no Momentum, he can instead give the Game Master Threat to gain the same options as spending Momentum. Threat can also be generated in return for a Player Character ignoring a Complication, causing Escalation in a situation, being in Threatening Circumstances, and also for the Game Master rolling extra successes for an NPC. The Game Master can spend Threat to purchase extra twenty-sided dice for her to roll for an NPC, to increase the Difficulty of a skill test, to create or remove a Trait, create an Asset, to ignore a Complication affecting an NPC, and to trigger Environmental or Narrative Effects.
In addition to access to Momentum, a Player Character has his own resources to fall back on. One is Spirit, which is used to resist a defeat, to turn the result of one die into a ‘one’ or critical before the roll or reroll several dice after a roll. If a Player Character has no Spirit, he must rest, unable to do anything until he does and recovers some Spirit.
How does combat work?
Combat in the Space: 1999 – Breakaway Quickstart Guide is kept simple with a narrative outcome rather than than a mechanical one. A player declares what he wants his character to do, for example firing stun gun to stop a charging alien or persuading a crazed scientist not to open an airlock door and vent everyone into space. A typical Difficulty is two Successes. If the skill check generates enough Successes, the defendant has two choices. One is to accept defeat, the other is to expend Spirit in order to ignore the defeat.
What do you play?
‘Breakaway’ is set on the very day that the Moon is blown out of Earth’s orbit and into deep space. It enables the players and their characters to play out the events of the first episode of the television series and so set them up for the adventures to come made possible by the publication of Space: 1999 – The Roleplaying Game. When disaster strikes and the first explosions occur at the nuclear waste silos, the Player Characters are assigned to a survey Eagle and handle communications for the other Eagle crews assigned to move the canisters of nuclear waste before there is another exposition and the magnetic radiation grows too high. After their Eagle is forced to crash land, the Player Characters must make their way back to Moonbase Alpha where they find turmoil and uncertainty, panicking crewmen, and worse...
Is there anything missing?
No. The Space: 1999 – Breakaway Quickstart Guide includes everything that the Game Master and six players need to play through it.
Is it easy to prepare?
The core rules presented in the Space: 1999 – Breakaway Quickstart Guide are relatively easy to prepare. A Game Master who already run a 2d20 System roleplaying game will have no problem with this.
Is it worth it?
Yes, with minor caveats. The scenario, ‘Breakaway’, does follow the plot of the opening episode of the television series and will feel familiar t0 fans of Space: 1999. Also, Space: 1999 is not a well-known television series, being almost as old as Dungeons & Dragons! This has the benefit of the plot to ‘Breakaway’ not going to familiar to everyone, but the disadvantage of being seen as old and obscure by some. Nevertheless, the Space: 1999 – Breakaway Quickstart Guide showcases the setting and the rules in a solid session of Science Fiction survival
Where can you get it?
The Space: 1999 – Breakaway Quickstart Guide is available to download here (Coming Soon).

Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #11: The Rats of Ilthmar is a scenario for Goodman Games’ Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game and the tenth scenario for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar Boxed Set. Scenarios for Dungeon Crawl Classics tend be darker, grimmer, and even pulpier than traditional Dungeons & Dragons scenarios, even veering close to the Swords & Sorcery subgenre. Scenarios for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar Boxed Set are set in and around the City of the Black Toga, Lankhmar, the home to the adventures of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, the creation of author Fritz Leiber. The city is described as an urban jungle, rife with cutpurses and corruption, guilds and graft, temples and trouble, whores and wonders, and more. Under the cover the frequent fogs and smogs, the streets of the city are home to thieves, pickpockets, burglars, cutpurses, muggers, and anyone else who would skulk in the night! Which includes the Player Characters. And it is these roles which the Player Characters get to be in Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #11: The Rats of Ilthmar, small time crooks trying to make a living and a name for themselves, but without attracting the attention of either the city constabulary or worse, the Thieves’ Guild!
Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #11: The Rats of Ilthmar is a scenario for Third Level Player Characters and is slightly shorter and slightly different scenario to others released for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar Boxed Set. Not in terms of what the Player Characters have do, which is perform a robbery, but in terms of who the robbery is being performed for and where it is being performed. The who is the Overlord, the ruler of the City of Sevenscore Thousand Smokes, and somehow, the Player Characters have fallen foul of the law, or at least the authorities, because either is very likely, or somehow come to his attention. Thus, the where, which is the city, the notoriously dirty, trash-ridden city of Ilthmar. This lies to the east of Lankhmar, on the coast of the Sea of the East. Then the why. Ilthmar is home to the cult of the Rat God, a cult barely tolerated in Lankhmar. The Overlord recently learned that the cult of the Rat God has recovered a holy relic, the Hand of St. Heveskin, and worse, instends to have it smuggled into Lankhmar where doubtless it will attract untold numbers of rats which will get into the city’s grain stores, leading to likely food shortages and possible famine and unrest. Fortunately, Lankhmar is home to some of the greatest cut-throats, sorcerers, and alley-fighters, not to save thieves, in all of Newhon. Of course, since neither Fafhrd or the Gray Mouser are available, the Player Characters will have to do. As the scenario opens, they find themselves in alley close to the Temple of the Rat on Ilthmar Harbour, observing a number of barefoot worshippers dressed in rat hair robes and carrying slender whips, followed by priests naked except for the rat masks they wear and the bigger whips they carry. This is definitely not a scenario for anyone who suffers from musophobia!
From this set-up, it is entirely up to the Player Characters how they proceed. They can climb over the walls, they can waylay some of the worshippers and attempt to mingle with them in what is an important ceremony, and so on. They only have tonight as today is the Day of the Rat and tomorrow the artefact is going to be shipped out to cultists in Lankhmar. Of course, because the priests and worshippers are attending the ceremony, the rest of the temple is going to be quiet—perfect for a bunch of ne’er-do-wells to sneak in, grab the reliquary, plus what treasure they can fill their pockets with, and sneak out again. And if they are successful, have the Overlord owe them a favour when they get home!

What follows from this great set-up, is a solid enough dungeon for the Player Characters to explore and plunder, although this time, they will be mostly sneaking their way through its various rooms and corridors. The various locations only number twenty, split between above and below ground, and are all nicely detailed. Never once does the reader and thus players when it is run, not get the feeling that the characters are in a grubby, rat-infested, and rat-themed temple. Signs of the Rat God are everywhere, including manipulation of some worshippers to be more rat-like. They include berserkers partially altered altered through ghastly surgery and worse to believe they are rats and a very nasty Catacomb Guardian, a ghost of what appears to be a tortured priest of the Rat God with the chittering heads of rats sown into his eyes and mouth, that still protects the catacombs. There is a random chance that he will appear, but if he does, he is a very difficult monster to defeat. There are several traps too, to catch the unwary, and the final encounter has a nice sense of energy to it, although a very agile Player Character may be able to get past it. Throughout, there are suggestions adjusting the threats and challenges for a smaller party of Player Characters.

The adventure is concluded with details of how the Player Characters might escape from the temple and what form their possible rewards might take if they return to Lankhmar with the Hand of St. Heveskin. Full details of the Hand of St. Heveskin are provided in the scenario’s first appendix. All together, Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #11: The Rats of Ilthmar is a short adventure that should take no longer than a session to complete and the criminal nature of the Player Characters means that it is easy to set-up and inset into a campaign using the Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar Boxed Set. Interestingly, Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #11: The Rats of Ilthmar began life as a special adventure for the winners of the Lankhmar Trivia Contest held in 2015 and then played at Gen Con 2015. Which means that it actually predates the release of Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar Boxed Set by two years! All ten questions from that trivia contest are included in the scenario’s second appendix, along with their answers.
Physically, Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #11: The Rats of Ilthmar is well presented. The artwork is good, having a suitably rattish, grubby feel to it. The cartography is rather plain, if workable.
Dungeon Crawl Classics Lankhmar #11: The Rats of Ilthmar is a scenario with a great set-up and potentially great rewards for the Player Characters. In between, it is solidly themed heist which the players can enjoy without having to win a trivia contest.

How do you like your GM Screen?

The GM Screen is a essentially a reference sheet, comprised of several card sheets that fold out and can be stood up to serve another purpose, that is, to hide the GM's notes and dice rolls. On the inside, the side facing the GM are listed all of the tables that the GM might want or need at a glance without the need to have to leaf quickly through the core rulebook. On the outside, facing the players, can be found either more tables for their benefit or representative artwork for the game itself. This is both the basic function and the basic format of the screen, neither of which has changed all that much over the years. Beyond the basic format, much has changed though.

To begin with the general format has split, between portrait and landscape formats. The result of the landscape format is a lower screen, and if not a sturdier screen, than at least one that is less prone to being knocked over. Another change has been in the weight of card used to construct the screen. Exile Studios pioneered a new sturdier and durable screen when its printers took two covers from the Hollow Earth Expedition core rule book and literally turned them into the game’s screen. This marked a change from the earlier and flimsier screens that had been done in too light a cardstock, and several publishers have followed suit.

Once you have decided upon your screen format, the next question is what you have put with it. Do you include a poster or poster map, such as Chaosium, Inc.’s last screen for Call of Cthulhu, Sixth Edition or Margaret Weis Productions’ Serenity and BattleStar Galactica Roleplaying Games? Or a reference work like that included with Chessex Games’ Sholari Reference Pack for SkyRealms of Jorune or the GM Resource Book for Pelgrane Press’ Trail of Cthulhu? Perhaps scenarios such as ‘Blackwater Creek’ and ‘Missed Dues’ from the Call of Cthulhu Keeper Screen for use with Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition? Or even better, a book of background and scenarios as well as the screen, maps, and forms, like that of the RuneQuest Gamemaster Screen Pack also published by Chaosium, Inc. In the past, the heavier and sturdier the screen, the more likely it is that the screen will be sold unaccompanied, such as those published by Cubicle Seven Entertainment for the Starblazer Adventures: The Rock & Roll Space Opera Adventure Game and Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space RPG. That though is no longer the case and stronger and sturdier GM Screens are the norm today.

So how do I like my GM Screen?

I like my Screen to come with something. Not a poster or poster map, but a scenario, which is one reason why I like ‘Descent into Darkness’ from the Game Master’s Screen and Adventure for Legends of the Five Rings Fourth Edition and ‘A Bann Too Many’, the scenario that comes in the Dragon Age Game Master's Kit for Green Ronin Publishing’s Dragon Age – Dark Fantasy Roleplaying Set 1: For Characters Level 1 to 5. I also like my screen to come with some reference material, something that adds to the game. Which is why I am fond of both the Sholari Reference Pack for SkyRealms of Jorune as well as the RuneQuest Gamemaster Screen Pack. It is also why I like the The Doctor Who: The Roleplaying Game Second Edition, Gamemaster’s Screen published by Cubicle 7 Entertainment for use with The Doctor Who: The Roleplaying Game Second Edition, the roleplaying game based on the world’s longest Science Fiction and adventure series made by the BBC.

The Doctor Who: The Roleplaying Game Second Edition, Gamemaster’s Screen comes with a three-panel screen and a ‘Gamemaster’s Guide’ for use with Doctor Who: The Roleplaying Game – Second Edition. The three-panel screen is in landscape format and boasts a handsome collage on the front, player-facing side of the screen, the eight—bar the most recent Doctor, the Fifteenth Doctor—most recent Doctors, including the last of Doctor of Classic Who, the Eighth Doctor, last to appear in The Night of the Doctor, and also the War Doctor and the Fugitive Doctor, all bookended by flying Daleks! On the back, or inside of the screen there are various tables taken for the rules to help the Game Master run her game. The left-hand panel covers journeys and adventures with ‘Adventures on the Fly!’ enabling the Game Master to create encounters on the go, whilst the ‘Random Journeys’, ‘Vortex Hazards’, and ‘System Damage’ tables all throw the Player Characters—the Time Lord and his Companions—into the dangers of travelling the Vortex through time. At the top of the middle panel is the ‘Chase Tracker’, for which the Game Master will need to provide some clips to keep track of where the chased the chasers are relatively to each other, plus the ‘Difficulty Levels’ and ‘Success Levels’ tables for handling skills. This is the right place to have them as they probably going to be the most used tables in the game. There are also tables for ‘Improving Your Character’ and ‘Technology Levels’. The right-hand panel is devoted to combat, including the ‘Weapon Damage Table’, ‘Where Does It Hurt?’, ‘Armour’, ‘Cover’, and also ‘Conditions’. Necessary, of course, but also to some extent not as important, as The Doctor Who: The Roleplaying Game Second Edition is very much a roleplaying game—as in the television series it is based upon—in which violence is always the last answer to any situation.

To be fair, Doctor Who: The Roleplaying Game – Second Edition is not a mechanically complex game and tends to be fast-playing and light in its play. So, in some ways, not all of the tables on The Doctor Who: The Roleplaying Game – Second Edition, Gamemaster’s Screen are going to be useful, or at least, constantly useful. Certainly, the ‘Improving Your Character’ is not going to be used very often, and similarly, the combat tables on the right-hand panel are not going to be used regularly. This does not mean that they are not useful tables, but rather that they useful to have when the Game master needs them, rather than needing them all of the time. However, one issue is that the none of the tables have page references to their relevant rules and use in the core rulebook. This is an annoying omission. Otherwise, a solid, sturdy screen with all of the tables that the Game Master is going to need.

The ‘Gamemaster’s Guide’ is a short three-guide to being a Gamemaster for Doctor Who: The Roleplaying Game – Second Edition. It opens with ‘What Makes a Doctor Who adventure?’. This is a guide to creating adventures and examining the elements typical to a Doctor Who adventure. This includes their episodic nature, the variety of genres from light-hearted romps to dark horror stories and much in between, iconic monsters, and so on. Some of the fundamentals of a Doctor Who episode includes a sense of wonder at the universe, confusion and understanding upon arrival in the TARDIS at any location, multiple factions, the looming threat, and more. It is a solid overview, though ripe for expansion on any one of its various pointers were Cubicle 7 Entertainment to publish a companion volume for the Game Master.

What ‘What Makes a Doctor Who adventure?’ does nicely complement is the ‘Random Adventure Generator’ that follows, which would also work well with the content and tables to be found in Doctor Who: Adventures in Space. Essentially, the set of tables here are designed to inspire the Game Master or help her create a setting, a threat and plot, and an adversary. Beginning with the ‘Setting Table’, the Game Master determines if the adventure is set on Earth, in Space, both, or somewhere special. Subsequent tables expand on each of these options, whilst the ‘Threat/Plot Table’ suggests themes such as Invasion, Societal Disaster, and Caper. The ‘Old Adversary Table’ lists lots of classics, such as Cybermen, Daleks, Sea Devils, Weeping Angels, and more, whilst the there is a set of tables for creating new aliens. It is all very useful and the Game Master can quickly create lots of adventure ideas and elements that she can thread together into something that she can run for her group.

‘Adventure Hooks’ includes four fun adventure hooks, the first of which, ‘Swine and the Rani’, is not only a great play on words, but also developed from the example worked through at the end of the ‘Random Adventure Generator’. The Rani is a fun villainess and here she is in the Classical Greek era up to no good. It opens with the Player Characters landing on a Greek ship in a storm and getting shipwrecked on an island guarded by pig-faced men who serve the Rani in her classical Greek temple which happens to be bigger on the inside. If ‘Swine and the Rani’ feels a little like H. G. Wells’ The Island of Doctor Moreau, then ‘Capture and Release’ feels a bit like The Time Machine with the Eloi and the Morlocks. However, it nicely subverts that relationship and the plot has a very pleasing twist to it. In ‘The Visitors’, the Player Characters get to runaround early sixties London, get caught up in pop mania, and chase down some nasty aliens—including a creepy man in a bowler hat and some popstars! Lastly, in ‘It Takes a Village’, the Player Characters arrive at a seventeenth century tavern to discover the locals discussing the very latest in galactic events! It is a great set-up and dies involve a witchfinder, but the epilogue does leave the Game Master without any suggestions as to how to resolve it, which is disappointing. All four scenario hooks are good and though some require a little more development than others, it is not difficult to imagine them being portrayed on screen.

Physically, The Doctor Who: The Roleplaying Game – Second Edition, Gamemaster’s Screen is well presented. The screen itself is sturdy and easy to use, whilst the ‘Gamemaster’s Guide’ is clean and tidy and easy to read. If there is an issue, it is that the Game Master will need a bag in which to store its various parts and not lose them!
The Doctor Who: The Roleplaying Game – Second Edition, Gamemaster’s Screen is useful, but not necessarily all of it and not necessarily all of the time. Primarily this is due to the fact that the roleplaying game demphasises combat, so those tables are not always going to be needed. This does not mean that they not useful, just useful when needed. The advice in the ‘Gamemaster’s Guide’ is broad, but nevertheless, also useful, whilst the ‘Random Adventure Generator’ is a very handy tool, and of course, adventure hooks are always useful, and the four adventures in the ‘Gamemaster’s Guide’ are fun. Overall, The Doctor Who: The Roleplaying Game – Second Edition, Gamemaster’s Screen is a useful access for Doctor Who: The Roleplaying Game – Second Edition.

Achtung! Cthulhu is the roleplaying game of fast-paced pulp action and Mythos magic published by Modiphius Entertainment. It is pitches the Allied Agents of the Britain’s Section M, the United States’ Majestic, and the brave Resistance into a Secret War against those Nazi Agents and organisations which would command and entreat with the occult and forces beyond the understanding of mankind. They are willing to risk their lives and their sanity against malicious Nazi villains and the unfathomable gods and monsters of the Mythos themselves, each striving for supremacy in mankind’s darkest yet finest hour! Yet even the darkest of drives to take advantage of the Mythos is riven by differing ideologies and approaches pandering to Hitler’s whims. The Black Sun consists of Nazi warrior-sorcerers supreme who use foul magic and summoned creatures from nameless dimensions to dominate the battlefields of men, whilst Nachtwölfe, the Night Wolves, utilise technology, biological enhancements, and wunderwaffen (wonder weapons) to win the war for Germany. Ultimately, both utilise and fall under the malign influence of the Mythos, the forces of which have their own unknowable designs…

Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Operation Falling Crystal takes place on the Home Front with the Player Characters, or Agents, suddenly rushed to the Scottish coast where a strange discovery has been made. With the Battle of France over and the Nazi war machine readying itself for Operation Sea Lion, Britain is frantically preparing defences against imminent invasion. In Scotland, this includes teams of coast watchers keeping an eye for roving U-boats, whilst just inland, near the sleepy village of St Abbs, an archaeological dig led by Professor Angus MacLeary, has made a discovery in an ancient cave system below a hill that sits behind a megalithic stone circle that stands looking over the sea. This is a highly valuable cache of the Blauer Kristall—or Blue Crystal—much coveted by Nachtwölfe, which uses it to fuel its increasingly weird weapons of war. Section M has been alerted to the discovery and quickly despatches a team of Agents, that is, the Player Characters, north to investigate and secure what could be a war-winning resource for analysis by the boffins at Clemens Park.

From the outset, Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Operation Falling Crystal sounds quite a bit like Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Under the Gun and in a great many ways, it is. Both scenarios are set on the Home Front and both take place in August—Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Under the Gun in August, 1940 and Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Operation Falling Crystal in late August/early September. Both scenarios are intended as sequels to Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Operation Vanguard, and thus both scenarios have the issue of the latter taking place in August, 1940. So there is a tight timeline involved. Both scenario involve a discovery being made underground which first attracts the attention of Section M, then the associated forces of the Mythos—in Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Under The Gun it is Deep Ones, whereas in Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Operation Falling Crystal, it is the Mi-Go—and both end in a three-way tussle between the Agents, the agents of the Mythos, and one of the Nazi factions in the secret war. Surprisingly, Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Operation Falling Crystal, it is Black Sun and not Nachtwölfe. Since it involves the Black Sun, it can be run after the events of ‘A Quick Trip to France’ found in the Achtung! Cthulhu Quickstart: A Quick Trip to France.

This is not to say that there are no differences. The Agents will have the opportunity to engage a little with the locals at the village pub at one in the scenario and there is an engagingly Hitchcockian feel to the train journey from London to Scotland. The Agents will also have their first encounter proper with the Mi-Go, one of the utterly alien factions in the Secret War, and may be able to parley with them in order to persuade them to work as allies, if only temporarily, against the Black Sun soldiery which has landed on the coast to take control of everything. There is more scope for roleplaying too, with the villagers, with the members of the coastal watch, with the members of the archaeological team, and even with the Mi-Go! What Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Operation Falling Crystal also does is introduce the Agents to both two more factions in the Secret War—Black Sun and the Mi-Go—and to the fact that the relationship between the Nazi factions, Black Sun and Nachtwölfe, is actually a rivalry.

Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Operation Falling Crystal is another short, sharp scenario which can be completed in a single session. There is a bit of clean-up in terms of what happens to the members of the archaeological dig and any captured Black Sun agents or troops, and the success of the Agents is measured in just how much and who they can get back to London. Success is not guaranteed through as the Agents face some tough Black Sun forces for a small group and they may make any potential successes less guaranteed by not making allies in the scenario. This a tough little scenario, high on combat and action over investigation.

Although Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Operation Falling Crystal is not a complex scenario, like the previous Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Under The Gun, its climax does involve a big battle with multiple opponents and factions, so it does feel a little like a mini-wargame rather than the climax of a roleplaying scenario. Certainly, the Game Master might want to have the factions involved in this tunnel and cave-based confrontation divided between herself and the Player Characters to make it easier to run and give her fewer dice to roll and NPCs to keep track of.

Physically, Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Operation Falling Crystal is cleanly and tidily laid out. It is not illustrated, but the maps of the various locations are decently done.

Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Operation Falling Crystal is a short and serviceable scenario, more action and combat than investigation. Its main problem is that it feels too much like Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Under The Gun, so the Game Master may want to run at least one scenario, if not more between the two if she is running the Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20 scenarios in chronological order. Otherwise, Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Operation Falling Crystal is an easy scenario to add to an early war campaign for Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20.

Have you wondered what would happen if a group of squatters looking for a place to stay or estate agents showing around prospective buyers got trapped in a haunted house? It is an intriguing idea, perhaps more interesting than the traditional trick or treating kids or new homeowners. After all, we already know how desperate either group is. The squatters desperate enough to break into an old house looking for somewhere to sleep and the estate agents desperate to make a sale and get the property off their books. If you are intrigued, then This House Is F*+#@%G HAUNTED is what you want. This House Is F*+#@%G HAUNTED is roleplaying game of ordinary folk being trapped in a haunted house, scared, petrified, and even dying from the frights that the spiritual trauma bound into the building are inflicting upon them. Initially uncertain, the protagonists—or victims—will over the course of three acts, suffer creepy events such as footsteps in another room or a music box playing by itself and then face obstacles like the lights going out and having to scrabble about in the dark or the faces in all of the portraits or photographs suddenly breaking into screams, before confronting the ghostly or ghoulish doings with a séance to appease a spirit’s woes or one of their number becomes possessed and begins to stalk everyone else in a murder spree!

This House Is F*+#@%G HAUNTED is a micro-game published by Parable Games, the British publisher best known for the horror roleplaying game, Shiver – Role-playing Tales in the Strange & the Unknown. It was funded as part of the publisher’s Parable Games ZineQuest RPG Buffet on Kickstarter. It pitches very ordinary—quite literally, each one is an everyman—into a terrifying situation, puts them through the ringer, and sees which ones survive. And survival is the prize. It is designed to be played in a single session, is very light in terms of mechanics, and comes packed with a bunch of prompts to use at every stage of the game. Some preparation is required in terms of the Housekeeper—as the Game Master is known in This House Is F*+#@%G HAUNTED—deciding upon the type of haunted house the Player Characters will be trapped in. Will it be a classic gothic mansion, a crumbling castle on the hill, or some irritating millionaire tech bro’s mansion? The choice will help the Game Master decide upon the nature of the haunting and how it will manifest over the course of the game. Beyond that though, This House Is F*+#@%G HAUNTED is a very low preparation roleplaying game, so good to have as a back-up or impromptu game.
In terms of the Player Characters, what the Game Master and her players need to decide is what the characters are. Several options are suggested, including the squatters and the estate agents, and beyond that, nothing. No Player Character has any skills to speak of, at least in a mechanical sense and the only stats are Harm and Will, like this:

Margorie Whittingham (Mrs.)
Estate Agent
Harm: 10
Will: 3

Mechanically, for a player to have his character overcome a challenge in This House Is F*+#@%G HAUNTED, he rolls two six-sided dice and attempts to get a result of seven or more. If he succeeds, fine. If not, he fails and bad things happen to him. The player is free to decide if his character is above average at this task or below average. In which case, he receives a bonus or penalty of one, respectively. The difficulty of the task can levy a penalty ranging from Difficult and -1 to Why Bother? and -4. Combat is primarily narrative driven, and since the Player Characters are ordinary folk, they rarely have the initiative or an advantage. If the threat is incorporeal, then the Player Characters will need to use the occult or some other means, to inflict harm upon them.

A Player Character suffers physical damage to his Harm and mental damage to his Will, including being scared. Both physical damage and frights can come from creepy events, obstacles, and confronting the danger itself, as well as from failing a roll on occasion. Reducing his Harm to zero will kill a Player Character, but when his Will is reduced to zero, he will become petrified. This imposes a further penalty on all rolls. However, if the player succeeds at a roll when his character is petrified, some Will is recovered and he is no longer petrified.

This is the extent of the rules to This House Is F*+#@%G HAUNTED, just two pages out of its twelve-page running length. The rest of the roleplaying game is dedicated to helping the Housekeeper create her haunted house and decide upon its nature. There is some advice, actually decent advice given the length of the game, and then lots of tables with lots of entries. These include reasons why the house is haunted and the ‘Minor Creepy Events’ for Act One, the ‘Haunting’ events for Act 2, and the nature of the final confrontation in the ‘Finale’ for Act 3. This is accompanied by a long list of ghostly enemies, from Poltergeist, Banshee, and Ghoul to Demon, Hellhound, and Legion. The Player Characters are supported by a list of possible weapons, from the mundane, like the rolling pin and the cleaver, and the magical, like the ritual dagger and Latin Dictionary (although the latter has a one-in-six chance of working, and a one-in-six chance of the Player Character failing in a Latin word salad).

Structurally, This House Is F*+#@%G HAUNTED is played out over three acts. In the first act, the Player Characters explore the house and suffer minor haunting effects. By the end of this, they will realise that they are all trapped inside and cannot escape—and of course, there is a table for this—and then in the second act, the serious haunting begins. This is when the Player Characters scramble for resources to survive and the means to overcome the threat they will confront in the third act, the finale.

Physically, This House Is F*+#@%G HAUNTED is simply, cleanly laid out and written. It is easy to read and the tables easy to use, since the Housekeeper is going to be referring to them on a regular basis. It is pitched as a fanzine, but really, that is only because the roleplaying game is short rather than the the format or inspiration.

This House Is F*+#@%G HAUNTED is a quick and dirty horror roleplaying game—low preparation, easy-to-play, and packed with prompts and ideas. Perfect for a gaming group in need of a fast game now and for the Housekeeper happy to improvise.

1974 is an important year for the gaming hobby. It is the year that Dungeons & Dragons was introduced, the original RPG from which all other RPGs would ultimately be derived and the original RPG from which so many computer games would draw for their inspiration. It is fitting that the current owner of the game, Wizards of the Coast, released the new version, Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, in the year of the game’s fortieth anniversary. To celebrate this, Reviews from R’lyeh will be running a series of reviews from the hobby’s anniversary years, thus there will be reviews from 1974, from 1984, from 1994, and from 2004—the thirtieth, twentieth, and tenth anniversaries of the titles. These will be retrospectives, in each case an opportunity to re-appraise interesting titles and true classics decades on from the year of their original release.

—oOo—
“Good luck. You’re on your own, now” It is perhaps one of the most famous opening lines of any scenario or campaign for any roleplaying game. It is an opening line—and its consequences—that all players of the roleplaying game have been faced with and have explored. It gave ultimate control to the players in deciding what their characters did next and where they went. Five years ago, the Cold War went hot. First in China, between the People’s Republic of China and the invading forces of the USSR, and later the Warsaw Pact. Continuing calls for support from Moscow a year later led to increasing dissatisfaction in East Germany and then an invasion by West Germany and an anti-Soviet coup in East Germany. West German forces were joined by U.S. forces and conflict quickly spread along the line of the Iron Curtain as NATO held off attacks by the Russians in Scandinavia and the North Atlantic. The war quickly spread as old rivalries ignited into armed conflict. First between Turkey and Greece, the latter with Italian support, then India and Pakistan, the latter being invaded. As NATO drove into Poland as far as Warsaw, the first nuclear weapons were used by the Soviets. In limited fashion at first with tactical nuclear weapons, on the Western Front, but on a huge scale on the Eastern Front, shattering Chinese forces and its industrial base. That was three years ago. In the west, the nuclear exchanges escalated, but did not yet tip over into full scale launches of intercontinental ballistic missiles. The destruction of industrial facilities and extensive disruption of trade was followed by famine and pandemic, and in the USA, a wave of refugees crossing the Rio Grande border. Unable to deal with the crisis, the now military-led government in Washington responded with arms and incensed, Mexico sent its army across the border to protect its citizens. By the end of the year, Mexico would occupy much of the U.S. southwest. Breakdowns in government and disputed elections in the USA ran right to the top, resulting in two governments, one civilian, one military. That was a year ago. The war in Europe bogged down into one of raids and attrition. A month ago, NATO forces in southern Poland launched a new offensive. It was met with unexpectedly fierce resistance by Warsaw Pact forces. Today, the last units from that offensive were destroyed or overrun. It is Tuesday, July 18th, 2000. The Third World War is over. Now you have to survive its consequences.

This is the set-up for Twilight: 2000, the military survival, post-apocalyptic roleplaying game published by Game Designers’ Workshop in 1984. The Player Characters are soldiers of the former United States 5th Infantry Division (Mechanised), left to fend for themselves and survive in southern Poland in an environment rife with danger—radiation, enemy forces, rival allied forces, bandits and marauders, limited supplies, desperate civilians—and limited intelligence. Of any roleplaying game released by a major publisher, it is arguably the most controversial. Most obviously due to its subject matter of nuclear war, and surviving that nuclear war and what it leaves behind, but also its militarism, its survivalism, and its Americanism. It would also win a major award, the H.G. Wells Award for ‘Best Roleplaying Rules of 1984’, in 1985, prove to be highly popular, be subject to over forty scenarios and supplements, a board game, a computer game, and three further editions, not always of the best quality or playability. This included the Twilight: 2000 2nd Edition Version 2.2 from Game Designers’ Workshop and the Twilight: 2013 Core Rules from 93 Games Studio. More recently, Free League Publishing would release its own version using the Year Zero Engine with Twilight: 2000 4th Edition. There is a lot to unpack and explore in Twilight: 2000—and not just in the game itself. However, that is the starting point.

The original Twilight: 2000 is a boxed set. Under its green ‘Contents of this Box’ sheet it contains a twenty-four-page Play Manual, a thirty-two-page Referee’s Manual, Players’ Charts, ten-page Referee’s Charts, twelve-page Equipment List, Price List, eight-page Beginning Adventure: Escape from Kalisz, Adventure Handout: Escape from Kalisz, Intelligence Briefing, A5-size Campaign Map depicting southern Poland, and three Record Sheets. The latter consists of the Character Generation Worksheet, Character Sheet, and Vehicle Record Sheet. There are also dice—four six-sided and one ten-sided—and an errata sheet. The latter is never a good sign… The Play Manual introduces the setting of Twilight: 2000 and details character creation, time and travel, upkeep, and the first part of combat. The Referee’s Manual examines skills and attributes, contains the second part of combat, looks at encounters, provides additional rules for radiation, disease, trade and commerce, repairs, electricity, and swimming, a chronological background, and a broad description of Poland. The latter is actually a breakdown of the military forces present in the remnants of the country rather than a description of it, and the advice for the Referee—just three quarters of a page long—suggests preparing a combat and a vehicle trek as training missions before play starts and identifies the need for the players and their characters to have a long term, but really only discusses one. Which is, of course, going home. The Players’ Charts lists the personal weapons for each nationality—including the West German Bundeswehr being armed with the Heckler & Koch G11 ‘submachine gun’, skill lists, languages, service branches and specialities, and languages by nationality. The Referee’s Charts contains tables for movement, terrain, encounters, vehicle damage locations, combat with a plethora of weapons, language lists, diseases to be found in encampments and settlements, armour values for cover, equipment availability, NPC motivation, radiation illness, and encounter stats. The Equipment List gives the ammunition type, weight, magazine size, and price of every weapon in the setting from the longbow through to the 120 mm mortar. It does similar things for all of the equipment and all of the vehicles that the Player Characters might also encounter too. It is an extensive list and most items are given at least a basic description. Vehicles are given a more detailed description, though no more than a paragraph, whilst weirdly, the Heckler & Koch G11 is given three whole paragraphs of its own.

The starting adventure in Twilight: 2000, Beginning Adventure: Escape from Kalisz describes the region fifty or so kilometres east of the city, the various Soviet forces present and their disposition. For the most part it details what units are where and the relationships between the Soviet forces and the civilians and where they are present, the civilians and marauders. There are some rumours and radio transmissions too, and some suggestions as to what the Player Characters might do as part of their efforts to escape the region, which primarily consist of ways to disrupt any attempts by the Soviet forces to follow them. The Adventure Handout: Escape from Kalisz provides a description for the players and their characters of the last month leading up to the radio transmission that leaves them on their own. The Intelligence Briefing is for the highest-ranking Player Character and gives an intelligence estimate of the forces still active in the region. Beginning Adventure: Escape from Kalisz is not a fully-fledged scenario in the sense that it has a plot with a beginning, a middle, and an end. Instead, it is a set-up that the Referee will need to develop during play, likely with the need to create some ready-to-encounter NPCs and enemy forces beforehand to make it easier to run all dependent upon what the players have decided what they want their characters to do. There are not really any hooks or adventure ideas in the traditional sense, and honestly, it feels more like a wargaming sandbox reduced to a personal scale which the Referee will need to develop a lot of further detail. Even then, beyond the limits of Beginning Adventure: Escape from Kalisz, like the Adventure Handout: Escape from Kalisz ends with, the Referee is on his own. (However, the official campaign, beginning with The Black Madonna, and continuing east with The Free City of Krakow, before turning north with Pirates of the Vistula, The Ruins of Warsaw, and lastly running west with Going Home.

A Player Character in Twilight: 2000 has six attributes—Fitness, Agility, Constitution, Stature, Intelligence, and Education. These range in value between one and twenty. An Education of nine or more indicates that the Player Character has graduated from high school, thirteen for a college, fifteen for a master’s degree, and eighteen or more for a PhD. Derived factors include Strength, Hit Capacity, weight, Load, and throw range. The Military Base Experience represents a Player Character’s basic military experience and will be lower for a Player Character with higher attributes, but higher for a Player Character with lower attributes as a balancing factor. From it is determined the number of dice rolled to find out how many months the Player Character has spent in combat. If this is higher than sixty, then the Player Character is a veteran, including of previous wars. Coolness Under Fire measures the Player Character’s reaction to stress and gun fire and is derived from the number of months spent in combat. Lower is better than higher. The Military Base Experience also determines how many Rads the Player Character has suffered. Rank is based on Education and Intelligence, plus a random roll, as are possible second languages.

Twilight: 2000 allows for a wide variety of nationalities, including those from the Soviet Bloc. The Service Branch and Specialities cover support services, infantry, engineer, medical, artillery, armour, and aviation, as well as special forces, rangers, and intelligence. Most have a straight roll requirement which must be equalled or bettered, but without any modifiers. The various specialities provide bonuses to certain skills or simply make one or two cheaper to buy. Every Player Character has some basic skills, but receives skill points to assign based on his Military Base Experience and Education, and then some Background skill points. Some skills are restricted to either being Military, Education, or Background skills, but all are purchased at a cost of one point per percentage point, and then two points per percentage points over fifty. Every Player Character gets his nationality’s basic equipment and then is free to buy any further equipment with the money earned based on his time in service. Vehicles are rolled for rather than purchased. Choice of equipment is limited depending on whether it is rare in the East or the West. However, this can lead to the Player Characters accruing a lot of equipment—and that much vaunted Heckler & Koch G11 is only $400!

Kevin Mongeau
Age: 27 Nationality: American
Service: US Army Branch: Engineer
Rank: Captain
Fitness 13 Agility 10 Constitution 18
Stature 17 Intelligence 13 Education 14
Strength: 15
Hit Capacity
Head: 18 Chest: 50 Abdomen: 35 Left Arm: 35 Right Arm: 35 Left Leg: 35 Right Leg: 35
Load: 50 Throw Range: 30
Military Base Experience: 5 Time in Combat: 24 Months
Coolness Under Fire: 5
Rads: 14
Skills
Body Combat 50, Chemistry 50, Civil Engineer 65, Combat Engineering 75, Combat Rifleman 50, Computer 50, Electronics 50, Farming 50, Foraging 50, Instruction 50, Mechanic 50, Melee Combat 20, Metallurgy 50, Motorcycle 50, Nuclear Warhead 20, Pistol 20, Scrounging 50, Swim 20, Thrown Weapon 20, Tracked Vehicle Driver 50, Wheeled Vehicle Driver 40
Base Hit Numbers
Combat Rifleman 30/15/10, Pistol 12/6/2
Body Combat Damage: 8
Equipment
M16 Assault Rifle, 9mm pistol

The character creation process is not particularly difficult, although it does involve a fair degree of arithmetic and it is far from quick. The Character Generation Worksheet is there to make it easier. The main issue is perhaps learning all of the three letter acronyms that the roleplaying game’s skills are reduced to.

Mechanically, Twilight: 2000 is a percentile system.* Attributes are multiplied by five when they need to be rolled against and tasks are either easy, average, or difficult. An easy task doubles the value, average keeps it the same, and difficult halves it. Combat uses the same core mechanic and plays out over six five-second rounds per combat turn. A Player Character can typically conduct one action per round, some of which can be combined with a move action. However, some of these have to be Hesitation actions when the Player Characters can do nothing. The number is dependent on the Player Character’s Coolness Under Fire. The lower the Coolness Under Fire, the fewer the number of Hesitation actions a Player Character is forced to do. Certain actions, such as repetitive ones and drivers under direction can avoid Hesitation actions under certain circumstances. Initiative order is determined by skill, higher skills being better. Combat is treated comprehensively, including rate of fire, aimed shots—all shots are assumed to be quick, but a round spent aiming doubles the base hit chance, firing from and at vehicles, and so on. The rules also cover indirect fire and antitank missiles. Damage can be slight, serious, or critical. Damage that does less than the Capacity in a location is counted as slight damage, serious if it exceeds it, and critical if it is twice the Capacity. Critical hits to the head are fatal.

* Which begs the question, why was only one ten-sided die included in the box?
The Play Manual also covers time, and more importantly, upkeep. This includes food requirements, foraging and fishing, hunting, fuel, and vehicle maintenance. All of this is important because the Player Characters no longer have access to regular supplies as they would normally. So, fuel includes consumption of different types and changing from one fuel type to another, also distilling alcohol, which typically takes three days to complete. Vehicle maintenance is also important; they are likely to break down especially since the road networks have been severely damaged and soldiers no longer have access to vehicle bays for checks and preventative maintenance. In many ways, Twilight: 2000 is a roleplaying game of technical survival, and as important as combat is in the play of the game because it is a military roleplaying game, so Player Characters who have technical, mechanical, and similar skills are as important as those who are crack shots.

The Referee’s Manual expands upon the use of skills, notably allowing for Outstanding Success and Catastrophic Failure. An Outstanding Success is equal to ten percent of the skill or attribute roll, whereas a roll of ninety or more, followed by a second failure, is counted as a Catastrophic Failure. What these are in game terms is left up to the Referee to decide. There are also some suggested skill rolls. As well as expanding on skill use, the Referee’s Manual expands on combat. It adds rules for explosions and explosives, chemical agents, mines, and vehicles. Vehicle combat is the most complex aspect of the roleplaying game, especially when it comes to component damage after a shot has penetrated a vehicle. The nature of Twilight: 2000 means that vehicle combat is a possibility, since the remnants of both sides are capable of fielding a mixture of light and heavy armour, and both the Player Characters and NPCs are likely to have access to anti-armour weapons. Encounters covers random encounters, settlements, and NPCs, though in the case of the latter, the drawing two cards from an ordinary deck of playing cards to determine their motivations. For example, clubs indicates violence, diamonds wealth, hearts fellowship, and spades power. The face cards indicate particularly strong motivations and drives, such as ‘heart Queen’ for love or ‘Club Jack’ for murderer. It is a very broad treatment, but works well enough should the Referee need an NPC quickly. The additional rules cover the extra dangers of the post-apocalyptic setting of Twilight: 2000, including radiation and disease, in particular a lot of diseases that are rare in highly advanced societies, such dysentery and typhoid fever. None of this is particularly pleasant as you would expect. The Referee’s Manual is rounded out with some notes on trade and commerce and on repairs, something that the Player Characters will need to do for reasons already explained, and the timeline and overview of Poland in the year 2000.

Physically, Twilight: 2000 is decently presented. There is some good writing in places. For example, character creation in the Play Manual is supported with some colour fiction that serve as the source for the examples of the process. Both the Play Manual and the Referee’s Manual are illustrated with a range of scenes and characters done in greyscale. When the artwork is not depicting an over-the-top combat scene, it is actually decent, depicting the difficulty of life and survival in this dangerous new world with some delicacy and also diversity. However, the rules would have certainly benefited from some more fully worked out examples of play and combat, especially vehicle combat.

Of course, as contemporary a roleplaying game as Twilight: 2000 was in 1984, even though it was set sixteen years into the future, events outpaced it. By 1986, with the appointment of Mikhail Gorbachev as General Secretary of the Communist Party, the de facto leader in the Soviet Union, and his adoption of greater transparency and openness, relations had begun to thaw between the USA and the USSR. Within five years of the publication of Twilight: 2000, the Berlin Wall had collapsed, the Warsaw Pact had begun to break up, and by 1991, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, had disintegrated and was no more. Game Designers’ Workshop would update Twilight: 2000 with a second edition first published in 1990 and then again in a new version in 1993, to take account of the rapidly changing geo-political situation. The belated version published by 93 Games Studio the history even further forward, Twilight: 2013 being set in 2013 within its even then, very short future history, deviating from 2007. The fourth edition, published by Free League Publishing as Twilight: 2000 – Roleplaying in the World War III That Never Was, returned the setting closer to its roots in the original version by Game Designers’ Workshop and made it an alternate timeline, which fortunately, we have lived past.

—oOo—Twilight: 2000 was reviewed not once, but twice in Space Gamer Number 74 (May/June 1985) in ‘During the Holocaust: Twilight: 2000’. First by Rick Swan, who lamented the lack of crossover between wargamers and roleplayers before saying, “Twilight: 2000 may change all that. Let’s say this up front: Twilight: 2000 is the most successful bridge between conventional wargames and roleplaying published to date. If it doesn’t bring the two camps closer together, it probably can’t be done.” However, he was critical of the Beginning Adventure: Escape from Kalisz, complaining that, “Unfortunately, Twilight: 2000 continues in the grand tradition of basic sets by including a substandard introductory adventure as part of the package. “Escape From Kalisz” is so sketchy (not a single NPC is described and the situation is directionless) that you may as well write your own. Let’s hope that GDW doesn’t waste any time in publishing some adventures worthy of the system.” Yet beyond this criticism, he said, “I’ve yet to come across a more engaging premise for a roleplaying campaign. And a war-based game that still retains such a strong sense of humanity is an accomplishment by any standards.” and his conclusion was more positive. “Whether or not Twilight: 2000 becomes a standard remains to be seen, but it certainly fills a niche and does so successfully. I hope it finds an audience with roleplayers and wargamers alike. As a design, it’s nothing spectacular, but as a concept, it’s an innovation. Bring on the adventures!”

Greg Porter offered a rebuttal in ‘Another View’. He praised the character creation system, the relatively realistic equipment list, and the simplicity of the core system. However, he criticised the use of acronyms for the skills and the need for errata in a new game, and called the combat system abysmal. He finished with, “All told, Twilight: 2000 is a tragic waste of 18 bucks. The nice concept and character generation system are completely overrun by innumerable flaws and hopeless violations of the laws of physics. If you insist on buying this game, read a friend’s copy first. I wish I had.”

Chris Felton reviewed Twilight: 2000 in ‘Notices’ in Imagine No. 27 (June 1985). He highlighted the difficulty of refereeing a game of Twilight: 2000 with, “This game system has its downfall built into its basic premise. A group of soldiers behind enemy lines in a disintegrating society is far more difficult to referee than any other game because of the fast-moving nature of the group. Radom is a big crater: will they go north to Bialobrzegi or south to Szydlowiec? Will they attack the supply dump or not? And so on. The players have endless choices in each evening’s play and the referee must be ready to cope with any decision they make. This is against the current trend in rpgs, especially in the States where parties tend to be steered for the referee’s own ease.” Although Felton had other criticisms, such as the acronyms, he said, “Overall, this is a good game, well worth clubbing together for if you belong to a group of experienced players who like free-running games and whose referee can run a scenario from minimal notes. If your referee has no experience of ‘winging it’ and needs all the details worked out in advance, this is not the game for you.”

Marcus L. Rowland reviewed Twilight: 2000 in ‘Open Box’ in White Dwarf Issue 68 (August 1985) in what perhaps is one of the most notorious and controversial reviews to appear in gaming magazines, let alone the pages of White Dwarf. He was highly critical, commenting that, “While the system is playable, the moral stance and attitudes it exemplifies are fairly loathsome. The rules favour the style of behaviour found in ‘fun’ war films…” and that, “The setting, two years after the last nuclear weapon was used, has evidently been designed to avoid showing the worst effects of the bomb; the random encounters don’t include civilians suffering from third degree radiation burns, blind children, and the hideously dead and dying victims of blast and heat. Starvation and plague are occasionally mentioned, with the implication that characters can always use their weapons to get food and medicines.” He finished by saying, “The suggested theme (which beautifully explains the attitude of this game) is to ‘return home’ to America: Europe evidently isn’t worth say anything about the possibility of rebuilding settlements, negotiating local peace treaties, or doing anything else to start civilisation working again. The box blurb says ‘They were sent to save Europe. . . Now they’re fighting to save themselves’, and it’s evident that this game has been written by and for Americans, with little or no understanding of European attitudes or desires.” and then awarding the roleplaying game a score of five out of ten.

Twilight: 2000 was placed at number thirty-five of ‘Arcane Presents the Top 50 Roleplaying Games 1996’ which appeared in Arcane #14 (December 1996). Editor Paul Pettengale said, “Pretty much all the previous ‘post-apocalyptic’ RPGs had been fairly fantastical, and had been set some time after the apocalypse. Twilight: 2000 is realistic and set in the middle of the breakdown of European society. Involving, but not exactly cheerful.”

One interesting remark by Allen Varney in ‘Roleplaying Reviews’ in Dragon Issue #175 (December 1991) would lead to a debate about the morality of Twilight: 2000. In his review of Dark Conspiracy, Game Designers’ Workshop’s near-future horror role-playing game, he wrote, “…[G]ood PCs fighting evil monsters is at least an improvement over the moral vacuum of the TWILIGHT: 2000 game…” This led to an early Internet debate the same year involving Varney and others, including an unnamed former GDW employee, about the morality or lack of to be found in Twilight: 2000, and by extension other games. The heated debate would result in ‘DO THE RIGHT THING: A Commentary’, which appeared in INTER*ACTION: The Journal of Role-Playing and Storytelling Systems Issue 1 (October, 1994) and is available to read here.—oOo—
Let us be fair about Twilight: 2000. It is very much a product of its time. It was released in 1984 at the height of the Cold War. The leader of the free world, President Ronald Reagan, faced off against a Soviet Union headed by Konstantin Chernenko, the last of the Communist old guard who still esteemed Stalin. The film Red Dawn depicted a Soviet invasion of the United States, which would be satirised by Greg Costikyan two years after the publication of Twilight: 2000 when relations between the USA and USSR had radically changed with The Price of Freedom from West End Games. Films such as The Day After in the USA and Threads in the United Kingdom, showed the public the horrors of nuclear war. As the bulwark against the forces of Communism, the American armed forces were held in high esteem, and of course, Communism itself was seen as a great evil, almost Satanic, anti-Christian, and definitely, anti-American. Thus, whatever the situation, even in a post-apocalypse as that set up—if not necessarily depicted—in Twilight: 2000, soldiers are seen as heroes. There can be no doubt that, along with its extensive list of guns, that the militarism and Americanism in the roleplaying game appealed to a certain audience, hence its popularity.

However, outside of the USA, as evidenced by Marcus L. Rowlands’ review in White Dwarf Issue 68, Twilight: 2000 found lesser favour. Again, because it was a product of its time and because of the Cold War. The United Kingdom might not have been on the doorstep of the Eastern Bloc, but it was closer and any conflict between NATO and the Warsaw Pact would take place only a few hundred miles away on the other side of the English Channel. There was a vocal anti-nuclear weapon, ‘ban the bomb’ movement in both the United Kingdom and in Europe, the Greenham Common RAF airbase being the site of an extremely long campaign of civil disobedience, including the Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp, protesting against the stationing of U.S. cruise missiles on the base. There was also a political divide to the anti-nuclear war movement too, as well as an anti-Americanism, which grew out of the feeling that whilst the U.S.A. would be protecting the United Kingdom and Europe against Russian invasion, it was not going to feel the consequences at home of such a war as the United Kingdom and Europe would suffer. Of course, were the Cold War to have gone hot and nuclear missiles been launched by both sides, everyone would have suffered.

As to the Americanism of Twilight: 2000, that is undeniable, since it is about American soldiers surviving on a wild frontier, a frontier to which they have themselves contributed to its wildness, wanting to get home to America. Indeed, the thrust of the first six releases for the roleplaying game, would be all about getting out of the hell of Europe and getting home. However, this is a roleplaying game written by American designers who had various degrees of military experience, and published by an American company, for an American audience, and the fact that anyone outside of the USA could buy Twilight: 2000 was extra income for the publisher. There were supplements set outside of the American experience for Twilight: 2000, such as Survivors’ Guide to the United Kingdom, but these were exceptions, not the rule.

Although not as immoral as perhaps the earlier military roleplaying game, Merc, published by Fantasy Games Unlimited in 1981, Twilight: 2000 is not in itself a moral game. In play, it may become a moral game, but the focus in the roleplaying game as written is on survival, combat, and escaping. That is what the Beginning Adventure: Escape from Kalisz is about, getting away from the chaos of a battle lost the day before, but then? It is not on the environment and the other survivors, who are relegated to aids and obstacles, nor is it on rebuilding and protecting what remains—at least until the Player Characters can get home to the shattered United States. Even then the rules do not support this concept of recovery or rebuilding, NPCs are not quite faceless, but they are very broadly drawn—quite literally from a deck of ordinary playing cards—and hardly at all in the starting scenario in the Twilight: 2000 boxed set. Further, there is no guide to creating civilian NPCs, no discussion of the civil or social aspects of Poland that have survived, and no advice on bringing them into play. That said, the artwork does in places depict the innocents of the conflict, the civilians and the children, acknowledging their presence and suffering that the roleplaying game’s text does not.
It is interesting to note that at the height of the Cold War, the roleplaying hobby produced two of the greatest roleplaying games about the fears of the consequences of a world on the brink of Nuclear War. One, Twilight: 2000, dealt with the immediacy of such a conflict and externalised it in a very strait-laced military treatment. The other is Paranoia, which like the previously mentioned The Price of Freedom, is designed by Greg Costikyan (along with Dan Gelber, Eric Goldberg, and Allen Varney) and published by West End Games. Where The Price of Freedom satirised the possible invasion of the USA by the USSR, Paranoia satirised and internalised those fears, most obviously that of McCarthyism.

Twilight: 2000 is the apogee of military roleplaying games and antithesis of the post-apocalyptic roleplaying game normally set centuries after anyone responsible for the disaster has died. The latter frees the players and their characters from having to think about the causes and the culprits, and instead focus on the consequences. In Twilight: 2000, the causes and the culprits are present in the setting and the Player Characters are likely to be concerned with them, if not aligned with them, whereas the consequences, beyond the technical, are ignored and the Player Characters are only expected to think about themselves. In a roleplaying game setting in which humanity has suffered so much and which places the Player Characters on the frontline of that suffering, it is a pity that as written, Twilight: 2000 ignores that humanity.

As one of the worst storms hits Boston, people gather along the harbour awaiting news of the arrival of the SS Champagne, late from the other side of the Atlantic and caught in the weather, seemingly adrift and in danger of running aground at the Massachusetts port. The harbour master has already acted and sent the FV Foggy Sea, a fishing trawler, out to where the SS Champagne was last sighted and there, have her crew board her, discover what has happened and ensure that the passenger liner is not lost with either hands or passengers. Once aboard, what the crew of the FV Foggy Sea discover is a charnel house. Signs of blood and death everywhere, corpses dismembered in ways unimaginable, with looks of terror upon the faces of the decapitated heads. There seems no reason to this bloody shock, this carnival of death which seems to have been played out up and down the length of the ship, from one deck to another. What or who caused this massacre of passengers and crew alike? Is it still present aboard the SS Champagne and are there any survivors? This is the big, opening dramatic scene for The Order of the Stone: A Horror Mystery in Three Parts.

The Order of the Stone: A Horror Mystery in Three Parts is a campaign for Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition published by Chaosium, Inc.. It is a short campaign, intended to be played in a few sessions, but can be played via multiple means and it includes not one, but three different set-ups to help the Keeper get her players and their Investigators into the campaign. First, The Order of the Sone can be played using standard Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition rules; second it can be run using Pulp Cthulhu: Two-fisted Action and Adventure Against the Mythos and there are notes contained within its covers to do so; and third, it can be run using the rules given in the Call of Cthulhu Starter Set. The first set-up has the Investigators as members of the faculty and student body at Miskatonic University, specialising in history and archaeology, asked to go to Boston to check on the arrival of a fellow academic, Doctor Nicolus Sebastian, and his team, who are returning to the USA from a successful if troubled archaeological dig in Ireland aboard the SS Champagne. The second set-up is for existing Investigators simply awaiting the arrival of cousin aboard the SS Champagne. Experienced players, if not their Investigators, will quickly realise that none of this bodes well for the poor cousin. Well, this is Call of Cthulhu after all… The third set-up is the investigators as the crew of the FV Foggy Sea. If the second set-up reeks of familiarity, then this third set-up is genuinely interesting and novel, bringing a streak of bold muscularity to the roleplaying game as well as presenting the Investigators with the pre-packaged Investigator organisation. No matter which group the Investigators are drawn from—and to be honest, the Investigators as the crew of the FV Foggy Sea is original and startlingly different—they will all find themselves aboard the fishing trawler, headed to the SS Champagne. Also, The Order of the Stone: A Horror Mystery in Three Parts can be played in conjunction with Call of Cthulhu: Arkham, since although the campaign has its origins in Ireland, it plays out in New England. That said, the first and second set-ups, with either students and staff at Miskatonic University or pre-existing Investigators, works best with this last option.

The set-up of the campaign does make it difficult to adjust other periods, more so for a modern setting. The introduction provides a good overview of the campaign and its background, and also notes that throughout, at the end of key scenes, the leads that the Investigators need to find in order to progress are clearly marked. Then it is very quickly into the first scenario, ‘Terror on the SS Champagne’. There is a certain familiarity to the scenario. A ship adrift, seemingly abandoned—or in this case, its crew and passengers rent from limb to limb, and a dark and nasty threat stalking its passageways and rooms, and then, once it is aware of them, the members of the other crew who have come aboard to check for the living and/or salvage. Everywhere is a bloodbath and the Investigators will need to work hard not to join as they try and work out what has happened on the ship. The SS Champagne is given a detailed description to accompany its deck plans and there are several scenes and encounters that the Keeper can insert into the Investigators’ progress through the stricken vessel. These escalate the scenario’s growing sense of peril, enhanced by the worsening storm, until the Investigators find themselves stalked by the Mythos entity at the heart of the campaign. Should any Investigator suffer from a Bout of Madness, there is a useful list of possible phobias to suffer. ‘Terror on the SS Champagne’ is quite straightforward and will probably end with a bang—though other options are discussed too, but it does leave the players and their Investigators with a conundrum. What do they tell the authorities when they get back to Boston?

The second scenario, ‘Murder in Greyport’, opens with a strange revelation. Marco Torres, one of the passengers aboard the SS Champagne not only managed to get off the ailing passenger liner, but lived long enough to be murdered mere weeks later! Which begs the question, “If one person managed off the SS Champagne, did anyone else?” If ‘Terror on the SS Champagne’ was action driven and linear, ‘Murder in Greyport’ is more open and investigative in nature. Taking place in Greyport, a fishing town to the east of Arkham, the investigation will primarily consist of two lines of enquiry. First, who murdered Marco Torres, and secondly, how did he get off the SS Champagne? The investigation is very clearly organised and so easy for the Keeper to follow. As with the first part of the campaign, the description of the town and the various NPCs and what they know, all nicely interconnected, are accompanied by a series of events, driven by the Investigators’ presence in the town and their asking questions here and there over the course of a day or so. All of them are confrontational in nature, whether with the local townsfolk or with outsiders who have more than a vested interest in the Investigators’ activities. There are options here also, first to add a possible motivation for the Investigators, and second, to add other murder plots, but they do complicate the situation. By the end of ‘Murder in Greyport’ should have solved the murder, determined that the victim was not the only person to escape the SS Champagne, and worked out where they have gone. This middle scenario is surprisingly mundane, its horror one of small-mindedness and human emotions, though there are more than traces of the Mythos at the end.

The third and final scenario, ‘The Hunt’, narrows the story down to a confrontation with the forces and agents of the Mythos deep in the Massachusetts backwoods. The Investigators may gain some allies, and thus a potential source of replacement Investigators if their interactions with the other outsiders in Greyport went well, if not, the Investigators may find their efforts to stop the cultists’ plans somewhat hindered. The climax of the campaign takes place in the hills above a children’s summer camp, long closed down due to a canoeing accident, requiring a trek into the woods in the bloody wake of the cultists and their master. In the ruins of colonial era settlement, the Investigators have a chance to counter the activities of the cultists and so save the world. These scenes are fairly complex in comparison to the rest of the campaign, so does need a careful study upon the part of the Keeper.

Rounding The Order of the Stone are several appendices. These in turn detail all of the new tomes and spells in the campaign and then the crew of the FV Foggy Sea as pre-generated Investigators. This is a diverse mix of characters. Physically, The Order of the Stone is cleanly and tidily presented. The maps are serviceable, but the artwork is excellent. Oddly, two NPCs that appeared earlier in the book are given entirely different illustrations in different styles in the third scenario.

The Order of the Stone: A Horror Mystery in Three Parts is a small-scale campaign both in terms of its play length, its scope, and its factions. It offers a solid mix of both Mythos and mundane horror, interaction and investigation, in a tight story that works well as an easy to prepare first campaign.

Quintessence is a generic, rules-light, dice pool-driven roleplaying game from Gribblie Games. Intended to do everything from hack ‘n’ slash fantasy, post-apocalyptic survival, and paranormal investigation to cartoon capers, space opera, and horror one-shots, it is written to allow a great deal of freedom in terms of character design and growth, some of which can be developed during play to create individual Player Characters with unique abilities. Once play begins, the mechanics to Quintessence are fast-paced, lean into cinematic action, and allow for player input in terms of describing the action and developing what their characters are capable of. The book itself is fairly short—barely a little over one hundred pages—which does not give a lot of space for it to cover everything. It can be roughly divided into three sections, covering in turn, the rules, character creation, and advice for the Guide, as the Game Master is known.

With a little time to explain what a roleplaying game is, Quintessence really starts with a glossary of its terms, necessary because it dives quickly into the mechanics. A Player Character has four Affinities—Air, Earth, Fire, and Water. Air represents grace, instinct, and spirit; Earth represents fortitude, reason, and resolve; Fire is confidence, passion, and spark; and Water is curiosity, expression, and subtlety. Within each, he will have one or more Approaches, ways in which deals with situations or problems. A Player Character’s attunement to each Affinity is represented by a die type, from a four-sided die to a twelve-sided die, whilst the Proficiency in each Approach indicates the number of dice rolled for it. Vigour is a combination of a Player Character’s energy, health, and motivation, and is either depleted when he suffers damage or when points are expended to undertake actions. Perks such as Soothing Voice, Lithe, and Confident will add dice to a pool, whilst Quirks like Inattentive, Fear of Snakes, and Illiterate deduct dice from a pool.

To have his character undertake an action, assembles a pool of dice equal to a pair of Approaches and their dice type and number of dice. If appropriate, Perks add dice to the pool, whilst Quirks deduct them. When rolled, results of four or more count as successes. Rolling the maximum value on any die counts as either two successes or go into the player’s pool of Destiny dice. A player can have a maximum of four Destiny dice and these can be kept and rolled on any later check. Any roll of one is treated as a fumble, in which case a success is deducted from the total rolled or a die can be added to the Guide’s Fate pool. The Fate pool works like a player’s Destiny dice in that it can have a maximum of four, which are used for NPC checks. Making the roll costs the Player Character a point of Vigour.

Action in the roleplaying game is kept track of on an Action Tracker. This is a track of boxes numbered from one to twenty and enables the Guide to determine when the actions of both the Player Characters and the NPCs take place. Some actions, such as talking to an ally or drawing a weapon take no actions. A snapshot with a rifle or a punch thrown in a brawl is a one-step action; a pointed attack with a rapier or an aimed shot with a pistol is a two-step action; and a smash attack with a mace or a targeted shot with a crossbow is a three-step action. Then the Guide counts up the number of steps on the Action Tracker and when enough have passed, the action will take place. Whilst one-step actions are faster and means that a Player Characters gets to do a lot, they do not inflict as much damage as the considered and longer two-step and three-step actions. Each action, no matter how many steps in involves, costs a single Vigour to carry out, so the player has to weigh up the cost of the faster, less damage-inflicting Actions that effectively cost more Vigour because a Player Character can do more of them versus slow, more complex, but potentially more damaging Actions that have the same Vigour cost.

Damage is determined by the number of successes rolled multiplied by modifier based on the weapon used and the number of steps that the action took. Armour reduces damage, but also takes damage itself, indicated by the number of times that the armour will successfully protect the character. The rules for combat also handle cover, which increases the number needed to count as successes; dodging and parry, which requires an opposed roll with the defender’s successes negating the attacker’s; and of course, death and healing.

Although the main purpose of the Action Tracker is to keep track of who acts when in combat, it can be used for other purposes. The most obvious is for chases and races, but another is long term projects, perhaps researching a spell or improving irrigation for a village. The latter is not really explored in the pages of Quintessence, but Endeavours, Notions, and Magic are. Magic requires a Perk as well as suitable setting theme, whilst a Notion is an idea or inspiration that is acquired through play, which can be banked at the cost of an Experience Point to be brought into play later on. The use of either Magic or Notion requires the use of an extended test, an Endeavour, that the player creates himself during play which can then be improved through multiple, successful use. The base difficulty for the Endeavour, like any action, is four, but this is increased by numerous factors, including whether the aim of the spell is to heal or harm—and then by how much, range, number of people affected, and so on. If the Endeavour is successful, then the player gets to record it. Once it is written down, the difficulty reduces by one and the next time the Player Character successfully casts the spells or performs the Endeavour, the difficulty lowers again until it reaches the default difficulty.

This Endeavour system is supported by some examples, primarily of magic use. It is a nice, simple, freeform system that allows for a lot of player input and scope for the player to develop his character as he wants. However, as good as it is, as written it feels limited to just magic and physical activities. Yet like the suggestion that the Action Tracker be used for more than combat and chases, the idea that the Endeavour mechanic be used for something else, including social situations and long-term projects, remains disappointingly unexplored.

One aspect of the rules that Quintessence does not cover is conditions. Beyond straightforward damage to Vigour, there is no advice on damage from other sources, where that is fire, falling, drowning, poison, and even fear. These are major omissions, especially more so given that they might be ones that the players might want to bring into play via their characters’ Endeavours.

To create a character, a player decides upon a concept that fits the Guide’s setting and then decides upon a Persona, Origins, Perks, and Quirks, before running him through a Lifepath. The Persona is divided between Nature, who the Player Character is in terms of personality or ideology, and Demeanour, how he appears to others. Origins can be lineage, species, community, and so on. For example, one could be Orc and the other Human, to become a Half-Orc, or one could be Italian American and the other the New York Police Department. Perks and Quirks are acquired from the Origins, and then the Lifepath consists of four life events for which the player must alter Approaches once, add Perks and Quirks once then, and choose any one of them again. The player also decides on gear, relationships, goals, and languages.

Henry Brinded
AFFINITIES
Air: d6; Etiquette 2, Intuition 2, Humour 2
Earth: d8; Grit 2, Knowledge 3, Willpower 2

Fire: d4; Optimistic 2, Obsession 2, Imagination 2
Water: d8; Inquisitive 3, Artistry 2, Shrewd 1
Vigour: 25

Origin #1: Classics Scholar
Origin #2: Quiet Antiquarian
Life Event #1: Grew up Boston Brahmin
Life Event #1: Yale
Life Event #1: The Great War
Life Event #1: My own business

Perks: Ear for Languages, A Love of the Past, Private Income
Quirks: Pacifist, Deafness

Goals: Prove to my family that my business can be successful (short term), return to college (long term), keep my friends safe (group)

The advice for the Guide covers setting and genre, running Session Zero and the questions to be asked, setting call to adventures for the Player Characters to give them motivation to go adventuring, and session planning. The latter covers its tone and pacing, types of encounters—including social, environmental, and action—and then threats to populate with them. There are optional rules for fumbles, accompanied by tables for both standard and magical fumbles, and notably, there is advice on the Guide working with her players. This focuses on ensuring that a player’s creation is not unnecessarily overpowered, but rather something that is useful and over time can be developed in an ability or spell or power that will be amazing. The advice is simply not to say no, but “Yes, but…” to ensure the vision that the player and the Guide do not clash and fit the setting. The advice for the Guide is good, but it is brief.

Physically, Quintessence is decently written and illustrated. The artwork ranges in quality, but none of it is bad and all together serves to give the book an enjoyably scrappy look.

Quintessence really sums up this roleplaying game. For there is a solid set of mechanics at its core and in the Endeavour mechanic gives players and the Guide the scope to bring powers and spells and abilities into play and develop them into signature moves. However, beyond that core, that ‘quintessence’, and the roleplaying game is undeveloped. There are hints and suggestions that the Action Tracker and Endeavour mechanic can be really flexible, but neither is as fully explored as it needed to be in order to really show how flexible the roleplaying game is clearly intended to be. Ultimately, there is a brevity to Quintessence and omissions from its rules which make it challenging to use. Perhaps a second edition—or at least a companion volume—that will fix these issues and make Quintessence the roleplaying game that the designers clearly intended it to be.

The Bloodwood Forest is a dense, semi-tropical forest that lies down the length of the Severed Valley, bisected by the river Sunder. The Bloodwood Forest is inhabited by Fey, who slip into the world from the Unseelie Court and prey on unwary travellers… There is a guaranteed safe path through the forest, the Fey Road, mostly unmarked and purported to be haunted by ghosts. The impenetrable forest is said to be full of riches, including rare woods and plants, seams of gemstones, and animals to trap for their pelts. Rarest of all are the Blood Trees, whose resin can be bled and collected for its magical value. Two towns stand at opposite sides of the forest, one of which is Redstone. Once a sleepy little village, in recent years it has been transformed into a bustling town following investment by Lord Julian Vasco. He even attempted to build a road through the Bloodwood Forest, but it was barely half built when its sponsor disappeared and it has fallen into disrepair since… Worse the Bloodwood Forest suddenly expanded rapidly and encroached on the town, the trees and plants piercing buildings and forcing people out. With what were once beautiful buildings in ruins, the inhabitants of Redstone were driven out or fled, and the boom town was reduced to a shadow of what it was before the arrival of Lord Julian Vasco.

This is the set-up for Bloodwood, a scenario for Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition for a party of Sixth Level Player Characters. Published by Crow & Crown, best known for Herbarium: A Botanical 5th Edition Supplement, it is nominally set in the Forgotten Realms, between Lushpool and Sheirtalar, on the shore of the Shining Sea. Alternatives are suggested, but Bloodwood need not be set in Faerûn at all and can be easily slotted in a Dungeon Master’s campaign. Several reasons are suggested as to why the Player Characters might travel to Redstone, including a simple matter of being hired as caravan guards and a thief answering the call of his thief’s guild to aid a fellow thief in the former town. There are rumours abroad that suggest that Lord Vasco was orchestrating bandit attacks on the merchant caravans to sell the stolen goods and that he possessed a magical amulet which enabled him to ward off the forest fey. Both hooks are prosaic, and the situation does lend itself to others. Perhaps there are families wanting to find relatives gone missing in the Bloodwood Forest, Lord Vasco has creditors who want his disappearance confirmed, or even Lord Vasco’s family want to know where he is? Once the Player Characters get to Redstone, the options and motivations open up. NPCs will want the Player Characters to enter the Bloodwood Forest to obtain some resin from the Blood Train, locate the rare treasures that he was said to possess, and so on.

Investigating Lord Vasco begins at his estate, which apart from a single room, is as overgrown with the Bloodwood Forest as Redstone is. This is his office, which the Player Characters will have relatively access to and thus be able to search for possible clues as to his whereabouts. In a nice touch, these are easily found and point towards some of his activities and contacts made in the fey forest which has overtaken his home. The clues—consisting of pages from his journal—also point to his being a highly ambitious and manipulative man. Also here is the atrium, the centrepiece of Lord Vasco’s villa, once open to the sky to let the sun in, but now under a wild canopy of trees and plants. At its centre in the floor is a giant stone slab, said to hide the entrance to his treasure vault. Following the clues given in Lord Vasco’s journal, the Player Characters will make their way into Bloodwood Forest, following the Fey Road into depths, hoping that they do not get lost. The best time to do it is at night, when the Fey Road can be best seen by the ghosts that walk upon it, though the Player Character be careful lest fear drives them back out of the forest. With the treasures gathered, typically after facing some nasty denizens of the Unseelie Court, the Player Characters can return to Lord Vasco’s estate and potentially discover what secrets he was hiding.

On the surface, what the Player Characters have to do in Bloodwood is far from complex—discovering the clues at Lord Vasco’s estate, recovering the treasures he has hoarded in the Bloodwood Forest, and returning to discover his real secrets. There is more to the scenario than just this. The players and their characters do have choices to make in terms of which potential employer they decide to take up with since as they will quickly learn not all of them are moral, upstanding characters. Further, they are bound to discover hints that Lord Vasco was not quite as rich as he was supposed to be and that he was manipulating affairs deep into the forest. Unfortunately, the full extent of this manipulation is not revealed until after the climax of the scenario and the Player Characters have no chance to interact with the victims until then. At that point, the Player Characters do have some interesting choices to make and the Dungeon Master should prepare for what should be a good roleplaying scene.

Beyond its plot, Bloodwood is supported with an appendix that takes up a quarter of its length. This contains a wide range of new monsters and treasures. The treasures include the Cloak of Many Fashions, which can change its appearance to appear like any cloak; the Carrion Ring, which summons a swarm of beetles to aid the wearer’s attacks for one minute, though it leaves them smelling of rotting meat for an hour(!); and Dragon’s Blood Ink, made from the resin of the blood tree, which is used to enhance the effects of Glyph of Warding and other spells which need to be drawn for their effects. The new monsters include the Alraune, a homunculus grown from the roots of the mandrake plant which has a deafening scream and a taste for meat; the Gravebird, undead corvids possessed by wandering spirits that can mimic sounds and which likes to steal small shiny items from those it attacks; and the Tikbalang, an elongated, bony creature with a horse’s head that serves as a guardian for gates to the spirit world, that sometimes leads travellers astray or returns them to the path they were on, no matter how they have got. Several of the creatures given are taken from folklore. For example, the Alraune comes from German folklore, whilst the Tikbalang is taken from Philippine folklore.

Physically, Bloodwood is incredibly well presented. The writing is dense in places, even slightly overwritten, but the Dungeon Master is presented with a wealth of detail to bring the setting to life. The two maps are very nicely done, though more, including maps of the Severed Valley and Redstone would have been useful. The artwork consists of a mixture of the specially commissioned pieces and the creative commons, of which the latter is a problem. It is not that any of the creative commons selected artwork is bad. It is not. Rather that despite the text in Bloodwood describing the Severed Valley and the Bloodwood Forest as being semi-tropical, the artwork does not reflect that. Instead, it has a northern European feel, of a faded bucolic pastoralism that gives it an appropriate sense of fading decline that contrasts nicely with the sharpness of the Unseelie fey abroad in the region.

For the most part, the issues with Bloodwood—the density of the text and the partial lack of engagement with the actual backstory until the very—do not negate from what is actually an atmospheric and decently supported adventure. Bloodwood is a very likeable scenario that deserves a sequel to explore both the setting and the repercussions of its events further.

Now in its seventeenth year, Free RPG Day for 2024 took place on Saturday, June 22nd. As per usual, Free RPG Day consisted of an array of new and interesting little releases, which are traditionally tasters for forthcoming games to be released at GenCon the following August, but others are support for existing RPGs or pieces of gaming ephemera or a quick-start. This included dice, miniatures, vouchers, and more. Thanks to the generosity of Waylands Forge in Birmingham, Reviews from R’lyeh was able to get hold of many of the titles released for Free RPG Day.

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Garbage & Glory – Trashrun is a preview of, and a quick-start for Garbage & Glory, the roleplaying games of raccoons—known as ‘trash pandas’—going on adventures, typically to acquire the best kind of trash dumped by humans and turn it into something useful. They will have to compete—and sometimes even fight—for this trash with other trash-mongers like Rat Bandits and Killoyotes. Of course, there is rubbish, which is rubbish and trash, which is useful, and the best source of waste is always guarded giant Ogres in flashing yellow outfits. Who knows why? Actually, the ‘why’ really does not matter, because nothing is going to stop raccoons from getting the best trash. It is published by Wet Ink Games, which previously published Heckin’ Good Doggos – Someone’s Last Day at the Track for Free RPG Day 2023, but is probably best known for Jiangshi: Blood in the Banquet Hall, the horror roleplaying game set in a Chinese restaurant in the 1920s. Designed to be played by all ages, it includes the roleplaying game’s +One System, six ready-to-play pre-generated dog characters, and a full adventure, ‘Beyond the Sewer Gate’. In order to play, a group will need a pool of six-sided dice and two decks of ordinary playing cards, each of which should be different to tell them apart.
A raccoon in Garbage & Glory is defined by a Title, Calling, Attributes, and Training. The Title is descriptive, but a Calling grants a raccoon a unique ability and a unique skill. For example, ‘Argentus’, one of the pre-generated raccoons in Garbage & Glory – Trashrun has the Title of ‘The Crafty Blade’. He also has the Calling of ‘Rubbish Ruffian’. This grants him the Calling Ability of ‘The Body Remembers’ which doubles the effect when negating damage or receiving healing, as well as the Calling Skill of ‘Attack Back’, which allows him a riposte if an attack against him misses. The three Attributes are Brawn, Smarts, and Guts, which start at three each, but can be much higher. Each Attribute has four associated areas of Training. For example, Brawn has Break, Scrap, Sneak, and Wriggle. Besides equipment, a Raccoon has rating in Garbage and Glory, which indicate the number of cards for each that a Raccoon has.

Mechanically, Garbage & Glory – Trashrun and thus Garbage & Glory uses the +One System. This involves rolling a number of six-sided dice each to the skill being used. Each five or six rolled is a success. Harder tasks require more Successes. ‘+One Manipulations’ enable a player to change the outcome using points from the Attribute associated with the Skill. Prior to a roll, a manipulation can be made to add a die to a roll or even gain a skill rating in a previously untrained skill, if only temporarily. After the roll, to increase the value of a die roll by one—typically from a four to a five—and to reroll any number of dice. In addition to skill rolls, raccoons can face Challenges, which are attempted by the whole Mask—as a group of raccoons is known—as a group effort. They simply need to roll a number of Successes equal to the target number for the Challenge for the whole pack to succeed. The scenario, ‘Beyond the Sewer Gate’, uses ‘Countdown Challenges’, which if failed, add a cumulative penalty to all subsequent Countdown Challenges in the adventure.
There multiple uses for playing cards in the +One System in Garbage & Glory – Trashrun and thus Garbage & Glory. It depends upon which deck they are played from. Cards drawn from the Garbage deck have two uses—crafting and healing. For the former, the suits represent types of trash. Spades for sharp objects, Hearts for soft, Diamonds for shiny, and Clubs for hard, with higher value cards representing better trash and Jokers acting as wild cards. Notably, very Shiny trash means that it might be magical. For healing one card is discarded per potential point of damage. Cards from the Glory deck can be discarded for ‘+One Manipulations’, healing, and to gain Initiative scores. Whenever a card from the Glory deck is discarded, the player is expected to narrate exactly how glorious it is.

Combat is kept simple. Participants have the one action per turn, initiative is determined by the highest-ranking card of Glory—card suits matter in the full rules to Garbage & Glory, but not in Garbage & Glory – Trashrun—and once a player has acted, then he gets to choose who goes next. At the end of a round, the player of the last character—or the Game Master—to act chooses who acts first in the next round, though it cannot be themselves. Attacks are made against the Scrap, Hurl, or magic values of the defendant as the Target Number. Overall, both the mechanics and combat are nicely explained in Garbage & Glory – Trashrun, and supported with innumerable examples as well as tone and using the X-Card where necessary.

Garbage & Glory – Trashrun includes six pre-generated raccoons. They include a fighter, a skills generalist, a brawler, a healer and skilled dumpster diver, a sneaky raccoon with sticky fingers, and a tinkerer who can delivered a barbed quip. Each has a full sheet, with spaces for each raccoon’s Attributes marked with bottlecaps!

The scenario, ‘Beyond the Sewer Gate’ opens with the raccoons outside the legendary Munci Wastedisp, ready to sneak in and search for its long sought after trove of trashy treasure. The Mask plans to explore its dark and twisty depths in search of good trash, all the whilst avoiding patrolling Ogres in their shiny yellow armour. There is a constant flow of water and rubbish—and perhaps some trash—into Munci Wastedisp, but there is also the chance that too much flows in and it has to go somewhere! Mechanically, if the players fail three Countdown Challenges, they are washed out of Munci Wastedisp. Inside, the Mask will find Rat Bandits, rooms full of all too shiny rubbish, and eventually way into ‘The Depths’ of Munci Wastedisp where they will find the best trash they have ever dreamed of. There they need to avoid the Ogres—and worse—search for the best trash, and get out again, likely chased out… ‘Beyond the Sewer Gate’ is a solid scenario, which hides much of what is going on to the players in the dark of the municipal waste dump, giving it an atmosphere that they unlikely to have thought much about, let considered a location to set a roleplaying scenario in!
Physically, Garbage & Glory – Trashrun is brightly, cheerfully presented. The writing is clear and the illustrated of the various raccoons and the threats they face are excellent. At the front there are illustrations of the weapons that the raccoons use, including a ‘Car Key Shank’, a Stainless Steel based on a steel ruler, and a ‘Pretty Gear Chain Sword’, which is essentially a bicycle chain turned rapidly using the pedals as handles! These are a lot of fun. It is a pity that none of the character sheets for the raccoons have illustrations, and it would have been useful if there had been explanations on what each of the pre-generated raccoons do.
Garbage & Glory – Trashrun is a good quick-start and a good introduction to Garbage & Glory. Its setting and its mechanics make it suitable for younger teenagers and older players and an experienced Narrator, especially one who has run some storytelling style games, will be able to grasp the +One System and explain how it works with ease. Overall, Garbage & Glory – Trashrun is cheerfully, cheeky fun and should give a session’s worth of raccoonish rambunctiousness.

 Day 4

Sparkly witch hats!

 This movie might be one of the best convergence of movies from my youth, Greek Myth, and monsters from the Monster Manual. Tonight's feature is 1964's The Gorgon from Hammer Films.

The Gorgon (1964)

Ok what does this movie have? Well, Christopher Lee (as a good guy!), Peter Cushing (as a bad guy! sort of), the "Hammer Hamlet"" pre-Doctor Who Patrick Troughton, Barbara Shelley, an angry mob, a monster, basically it hits all the notes. But does it is hit them right?

The plot features a bunch of seemingly random murders. The odd thing is that the murder victims are all turned to stone. Peter Cushing is out local doctor covering up for the murders, but we don't see why till the very end. 

Lee is the friend of a family where one brother is blamed for the murders, his father is later turned to stone while investigating, and the last brother comes to investigate and falls in love with Barbara Shelley's Carla.

We learn through various sources that the spirit of "Megeara" one of the last Gorgon sisters haunts this small village in Germany. The three Gorgons were named Stheno, Euryale, and Medusa. Megeara must have sounded better to them.

Turns out Megeara's spirit is living on in Carla and every full moon she is released again on the world. 

Believe it or not, I have never seen this movie till tonight. 

There are a TON of liberties taken with the ancient Greek myth, but honestly that is fine. I am more annoyed they went with Megeara instead of Stheno or Euryale.

Featured Monster: Medusa

I think it is a bit obvious that the art in the Monster Manual was very inspired by this movie.

There is even some evidence that the Medusa of D&D is also based on this movie to a degree. Not the spirit or the coming out at the full moon, but the general behavior.

The great thing about this movie? It takes a classical mythology monster and gives it a solid horror feel to it in the special Hammer way. If you want a good working template on how to add horror to your games, this is a good place to start.

Of course, and this is an old gripe of mine, why is the monster called a Medusa and not a Gorgon? More to the point why is there also a bull-like creature called a Gorgon in the MM?

There is a "Gorgon" in a 1607 Bestiary by Edward Topsell titled "The Historie of Foure-Footed Beastes." Note, the link here is to the revised and combined Beasts, Insects, and Serpents and is over 1000 pages. 

That looks like our bull-Gorgon sure enough. I am sure that this is creature Gygax had in mind. And he said as much [1][2][3].

Two monsters for the price of one? No. I'll keep this one for the Medusa. 

October Horror Movie Challenge 2024
Viewed: 3
First Time Views: 3

Three chapters tonight in the lives of our hunters, or one very busy, very important, day.

CHAPTER XXI

DR. SEWARD’S DIARY

3 October.—Let me put down with exactness all that happened, as well as I can remember it, since last I made an entry. Not a detail that I can recall must be forgotten; in all calmness I must proceed.

When I came to Renfield’s room I found him lying on the floor on his left side in a glittering pool of blood. When I went to move him, it became at once apparent that he had received some terrible injuries; there seemed none of that unity of purpose between the parts of the body which marks even lethargic sanity. As the face was exposed I could see that it was horribly bruised, as though it had been beaten against the floor—indeed it was from the face wounds that the pool of blood originated. The attendant who was kneeling beside the body said to me as we turned him over:—

“I think, sir, his back is broken. See, both his right arm and leg and the whole side of his face are paralysed.” How such a thing could have happened puzzled the attendant beyond measure. He seemed quite bewildered, and his brows were gathered in as he said:—

“I can’t understand the two things. He could mark his face like that by beating his own head on the floor. I saw a young woman do it once at the Eversfield Asylum before anyone could lay hands on her. And I suppose he might have broke his neck by falling out of bed, if he got in an awkward kink. But for the life of me I can’t imagine how the two things occurred. If his back was broke, he couldn’t beat his head; and if his face was like that before the fall out of bed, there would be marks of it.” I said to him:—

“Go to Dr. Van Helsing, and ask him to kindly come here at once. I want him without an instant’s delay.” The man ran off, and within a few minutes the Professor, in his dressing gown and slippers, appeared. When he saw Renfield on the ground, he looked keenly at him a moment, and then turned to me. I think he recognised my thought in my eyes, for he said very quietly, manifestly for the ears of the attendant:—

“Ah, a sad accident! He will need very careful watching, and much attention. I shall stay with you myself; but I shall first dress myself. If you will remain I shall in a few minutes join you.”

The patient was now breathing stertorously and it was easy to see that he had suffered some terrible injury. Van Helsing returned with extraordinary celerity, bearing with him a surgical case. He had evidently been thinking and had his mind made up; for, almost before he looked at the patient, he whispered to me:—

“Send the attendant away. We must be alone with him when he becomes conscious, after the operation.” So I said:—

“I think that will do now, Simmons. We have done all that we can at present. You had better go your round, and Dr. Van Helsing will operate. Let me know instantly if there be anything unusual anywhere.”

The man withdrew, and we went into a strict examination of the patient. The wounds of the face was superficial; the real injury was a depressed fracture of the skull, extending right up through the motor area. The Professor thought a moment and said:—

“We must reduce the pressure and get back to normal conditions, as far as can be; the rapidity of the suffusion shows the terrible nature of his injury. The whole motor area seems affected. The suffusion of the brain will increase quickly, so we must trephine at once or it may be too late.” As he was speaking there was a soft tapping at the door. I went over and opened it and found in the corridor without, Arthur and Quincey in pajamas and slippers: the former spoke:—

“I heard your man call up Dr. Van Helsing and tell him of an accident. So I woke Quincey or rather called for him as he was not asleep. Things are moving too quickly and too strangely for sound sleep for any of us these times. I’ve been thinking that to-morrow night will not see things as they have been. We’ll have to look back—and forward a little more than we have done. May we come in?” I nodded, and held the door open till they had entered; then I closed it again. When Quincey saw the attitude and state of the patient, and noted the horrible pool on the floor, he said softly:—

“My God! what has happened to him? Poor, poor devil!” I told him briefly, and added that we expected he would recover consciousness after the operation—for a short time, at all events. He went at once and sat down on the edge of the bed, with Godalming beside him; we all watched in patience.

“We shall wait,” said Van Helsing, “just long enough to fix the best spot for trephining, so that we may most quickly and perfectly remove the blood clot; for it is evident that the hæmorrhage is increasing.”

The minutes during which we waited passed with fearful slowness. I had a horrible sinking in my heart, and from Van Helsing’s face I gathered that he felt some fear or apprehension as to what was to come. I dreaded the words that Renfield might speak. I was positively afraid to think; but the conviction of what was coming was on me, as I have read of men who have heard the death-watch. The poor man’s breathing came in uncertain gasps. Each instant he seemed as though he would open his eyes and speak; but then would follow a prolonged stertorous breath, and he would relapse into a more fixed insensibility. Inured as I was to sick beds and death, this suspense grew, and grew upon me. I could almost hear the beating of my own heart; and the blood surging through my temples sounded like blows from a hammer. The silence finally became agonising. I looked at my companions, one after another, and saw from their flushed faces and damp brows that they were enduring equal torture. There was a nervous suspense over us all, as though overhead some dread bell would peal out powerfully when we should least expect it.

At last there came a time when it was evident that the patient was sinking fast; he might die at any moment. I looked up at the Professor and caught his eyes fixed on mine. His face was sternly set as he spoke:—

“There is no time to lose. His words may be worth many lives; I have been thinking so, as I stood here. It may be there is a soul at stake! We shall operate just above the ear.”

Without another word he made the operation. For a few moments the breathing continued to be stertorous. Then there came a breath so prolonged that it seemed as though it would tear open his chest. Suddenly his eyes opened, and became fixed in a wild, helpless stare. This was continued for a few moments; then it softened into a glad surprise, and from the lips came a sigh of relief. He moved convulsively, and as he did so, said:—

“I’ll be quiet, Doctor. Tell them to take off the strait-waistcoat. I have had a terrible dream, and it has left me so weak that I cannot move. What’s wrong with my face? it feels all swollen, and it smarts dreadfully.” He tried to turn his head; but even with the effort his eyes seemed to grow glassy again so I gently put it back. Then Van Helsing said in a quiet grave tone:—

“Tell us your dream, Mr. Renfield.” As he heard the voice his face brightened, through its mutilation, and he said:—

“That is Dr. Van Helsing. How good it is of you to be here. Give me some water, my lips are dry; and I shall try to tell you. I dreamed”—he stopped and seemed fainting, I called quietly to Quincey—“The brandy—it is in my study—quick!” He flew and returned with a glass, the decanter of brandy and a carafe of water. We moistened the parched lips, and the patient quickly revived. It seemed, however, that his poor injured brain had been working in the interval, for, when he was quite conscious, he looked at me piercingly with an agonised confusion which I shall never forget, and said:—

“I must not deceive myself; it was no dream, but all a grim reality.” Then his eyes roved round the room; as they caught sight of the two figures sitting patiently on the edge of the bed he went on:—

“If I were not sure already, I would know from them.” For an instant his eyes closed—not with pain or sleep but voluntarily, as though he were bringing all his faculties to bear; when he opened them he said, hurriedly, and with more energy than he had yet displayed:—

“Quick, Doctor, quick. I am dying! I feel that I have but a few minutes; and then I must go back to death—or worse! Wet my lips with brandy again. I have something that I must say before I die; or before my poor crushed brain dies anyhow. Thank you! It was that night after you left me, when I implored you to let me go away. I couldn’t speak then, for I felt my tongue was tied; but I was as sane then, except in that way, as I am now. I was in an agony of despair for a long time after you left me; it seemed hours. Then there came a sudden peace to me. My brain seemed to become cool again, and I realised where I was. I heard the dogs bark behind our house, but not where He was!” As he spoke, Van Helsing’s eyes never blinked, but his hand came out and met mine and gripped it hard. He did not, however, betray himself; he nodded slightly and said: “Go on,” in a low voice. Renfield proceeded:—

“He came up to the window in the mist, as I had seen him often before; but he was solid then—not a ghost, and his eyes were fierce like a man’s when angry. He was laughing with his red mouth; the sharp white teeth glinted in the moonlight when he turned to look back over the belt of trees, to where the dogs were barking. I wouldn’t ask him to come in at first, though I knew he wanted to—just as he had wanted all along. Then he began promising me things—not in words but by doing them.” He was interrupted by a word from the Professor:—

“How?”

“By making them happen; just as he used to send in the flies when the sun was shining. Great big fat ones with steel and sapphire on their wings; and big moths, in the night, with skull and cross-bones on their backs.” Van Helsing nodded to him as he whispered to me unconsciously:—

“The Acherontia Aitetropos of the Sphinges—what you call the ‘Death’s-head Moth’?” The patient went on without stopping.

“Then he began to whisper: ‘Rats, rats, rats! Hundreds, thousands, millions of them, and every one a life; and dogs to eat them, and cats too. All lives! all red blood, with years of life in it; and not merely buzzing flies!’ I laughed at him, for I wanted to see what he could do. Then the dogs howled, away beyond the dark trees in His house. He beckoned me to the window. I got up and looked out, and He raised his hands, and seemed to call out without using any words. A dark mass spread over the grass, coming on like the shape of a flame of fire; and then He moved the mist to the right and left, and I could see that there were thousands of rats with their eyes blazing red—like His, only smaller. He held up his hand, and they all stopped; and I thought he seemed to be saying: ‘All these lives will I give you, ay, and many more and greater, through countless ages, if you will fall down and worship me!’ And then a red cloud, like the colour of blood, seemed to close over my eyes; and before I knew what I was doing, I found myself opening the sash and saying to Him: ‘Come in, Lord and Master!’ The rats were all gone, but He slid into the room through the sash, though it was only open an inch wide—just as the Moon herself has often come in through the tiniest crack and has stood before me in all her size and splendour.”

His voice was weaker, so I moistened his lips with the brandy again, and he continued; but it seemed as though his memory had gone on working in the interval for his story was further advanced. I was about to call him back to the point, but Van Helsing whispered to me: “Let him go on. Do not interrupt him; he cannot go back, and maybe could not proceed at all if once he lost the thread of his thought.” He proceeded:—

“All day I waited to hear from him, but he did not send me anything, not even a blow-fly, and when the moon got up I was pretty angry with him. When he slid in through the window, though it was shut, and did not even knock, I got mad with him. He sneered at me, and his white face looked out of the mist with his red eyes gleaming, and he went on as though he owned the whole place, and I was no one. He didn’t even smell the same as he went by me. I couldn’t hold him. I thought that, somehow, Mrs. Harker had come into the room.”

The two men sitting on the bed stood up and came over, standing behind him so that he could not see them, but where they could hear better. They were both silent, but the Professor started and quivered; his face, however, grew grimmer and sterner still. Renfield went on without noticing:—

“When Mrs. Harker came in to see me this afternoon she wasn’t the same; it was like tea after the teapot had been watered.” Here we all moved, but no one said a word; he went on:—

“I didn’t know that she was here till she spoke; and she didn’t look the same. I don’t care for the pale people; I like them with lots of blood in them, and hers had all seemed to have run out. I didn’t think of it at the time; but when she went away I began to think, and it made me mad to know that He had been taking the life out of her.” I could feel that the rest quivered, as I did, but we remained otherwise still. “So when He came to-night I was ready for Him. I saw the mist stealing in, and I grabbed it tight. I had heard that madmen have unnatural strength; and as I knew I was a madman—at times anyhow—I resolved to use my power. Ay, and He felt it too, for He had to come out of the mist to struggle with me. I held tight; and I thought I was going to win, for I didn’t mean Him to take any more of her life, till I saw His eyes. They burned into me, and my strength became like water. He slipped through it, and when I tried to cling to Him, He raised me up and flung me down. There was a red cloud before me, and a noise like thunder, and the mist seemed to steal away under the door.” His voice was becoming fainter and his breath more stertorous. Van Helsing stood up instinctively.

“We know the worst now,” he said. “He is here, and we know his purpose. It may not be too late. Let us be armed—the same as we were the other night, but lose no time; there is not an instant to spare.” There was no need to put our fear, nay our conviction, into words—we shared them in common. We all hurried and took from our rooms the same things that we had when we entered the Count’s house. The Professor had his ready, and as we met in the corridor he pointed to them significantly as he said:—

“They never leave me; and they shall not till this unhappy business is over. Be wise also, my friends. It is no common enemy that we deal with. Alas! alas! that that dear Madam Mina should suffer!” He stopped; his voice was breaking, and I do not know if rage or terror predominated in my own heart.

Outside the Harkers’ door we paused. Art and Quincey held back, and the latter said:—

“Should we disturb her?”

“We must,” said Van Helsing grimly. “If the door be locked, I shall break it in.”

“May it not frighten her terribly? It is unusual to break into a lady’s room!”

Van Helsing said solemnly, “You are always right; but this is life and death. All chambers are alike to the doctor; and even were they not they are all as one to me to-night. Friend John, when I turn the handle, if the door does not open, do you put your shoulder down and shove; and you too, my friends. Now!”

He turned the handle as he spoke, but the door did not yield. We threw ourselves against it; with a crash it burst open, and we almost fell headlong into the room. The Professor did actually fall, and I saw across him as he gathered himself up from hands and knees. What I saw appalled me. I felt my hair rise like bristles on the back of my neck, and my heart seemed to stand still.

The moonlight was so bright that through the thick yellow blind the room was light enough to see. On the bed beside the window lay Jonathan Harker, his face flushed and breathing heavily as though in a stupor. Kneeling on the near edge of the bed facing outwards was the white-clad figure of his wife. By her side stood a tall, thin man, clad in black. His face was turned from us, but the instant we saw we all recognised the Count—in every way, even to the scar on his forehead. With his left hand he held both Mrs. Harker’s hands, keeping them away with her arms at full tension; his right hand gripped her by the back of the neck, forcing her face down on his bosom. Her white nightdress was smeared with blood, and a thin stream trickled down the man’s bare breast which was shown by his torn-open dress. The attitude of the two had a terrible resemblance to a child forcing a kitten’s nose into a saucer of milk to compel it to drink. As we burst into the room, the Count turned his face, and the hellish look that I had heard described seemed to leap into it. His eyes flamed red with devilish passion; the great nostrils of the white aquiline nose opened wide and quivered at the edge; and the white sharp teeth, behind the full lips of the blood-dripping mouth, champed together like those of a wild beast. With a wrench, which threw his victim back upon the bed as though hurled from a height, he turned and sprang at us. But by this time the Professor had gained his feet, and was holding towards him the envelope which contained the Sacred Wafer. The Count suddenly stopped, just as poor Lucy had done outside the tomb, and cowered back. Further and further back he cowered, as we, lifting our crucifixes, advanced. The moonlight suddenly failed, as a great black cloud sailed across the sky; and when the gaslight sprang up under Quincey’s match, we saw nothing but a faint vapour. This, as we looked, trailed under the door, which with the recoil from its bursting open, had swung back to its old position. Van Helsing, Art, and I moved forward to Mrs. Harker, who by this time had drawn her breath and with it had given a scream so wild, so ear-piercing, so despairing that it seems to me now that it will ring in my ears till my dying day. For a few seconds she lay in her helpless attitude and disarray. Her face was ghastly, with a pallor which was accentuated by the blood which smeared her lips and cheeks and chin; from her throat trickled a thin stream of blood; her eyes were mad with terror. Then she put before her face her poor crushed hands, which bore on their whiteness the red mark of the Count’s terrible grip, and from behind them came a low desolate wail which made the terrible scream seem only the quick expression of an endless grief. Van Helsing stepped forward and drew the coverlet gently over her body, whilst Art, after looking at her face for an instant despairingly, ran out of the room. Van Helsing whispered to me:—

“Jonathan is in a stupor such as we know the Vampire can produce. We can do nothing with poor Madam Mina for a few moments till she recovers herself; I must wake him!” He dipped the end of a towel in cold water and with it began to flick him on the face, his wife all the while holding her face between her hands and sobbing in a way that was heart-breaking to hear. I raised the blind, and looked out of the window. There was much moonshine; and as I looked I could see Quincey Morris run across the lawn and hide himself in the shadow of a great yew-tree. It puzzled me to think why he was doing this; but at the instant I heard Harker’s quick exclamation as he woke to partial consciousness, and turned to the bed. On his face, as there might well be, was a look of wild amazement. He seemed dazed for a few seconds, and then full consciousness seemed to burst upon him all at once, and he started up. His wife was aroused by the quick movement, and turned to him with her arms stretched out, as though to embrace him; instantly, however, she drew them in again, and putting her elbows together, held her hands before her face, and shuddered till the bed beneath her shook.

“In God’s name what does this mean?” Harker cried out. “Dr. Seward, Dr. Van Helsing, what is it? What has happened? What is wrong? Mina, dear, what is it? What does that blood mean? My God, my God! has it come to this!” and, raising himself to his knees, he beat his hands wildly together. “Good God help us! help her! oh, help her!” With a quick movement he jumped from bed, and began to pull on his clothes,—all the man in him awake at the need for instant exertion. “What has happened? Tell me all about it!” he cried without pausing. “Dr. Van Helsing, you love Mina, I know. Oh, do something to save her. It cannot have gone too far yet. Guard her while I look for him!” His wife, through her terror and horror and distress, saw some sure danger to him: instantly forgetting her own grief, she seized hold of him and cried out:—

“No! no! Jonathan, you must not leave me. I have suffered enough to-night, God knows, without the dread of his harming you. You must stay with me. Stay with these friends who will watch over you!” Her expression became frantic as she spoke; and, he yielding to her, she pulled him down sitting on the bed side, and clung to him fiercely.

Van Helsing and I tried to calm them both. The Professor held up his little golden crucifix, and said with wonderful calmness:—

“Do not fear, my dear. We are here; and whilst this is close to you no foul thing can approach. You are safe for to-night; and we must be calm and take counsel together.” She shuddered and was silent, holding down her head on her husband’s breast. When she raised it, his white night-robe was stained with blood where her lips had touched, and where the thin open wound in her neck had sent forth drops. The instant she saw it she drew back, with a low wail, and whispered, amidst choking sobs:—

“Unclean, unclean! I must touch him or kiss him no more. Oh, that it should be that it is I who am now his worst enemy, and whom he may have most cause to fear.” To this he spoke out resolutely:—

“Nonsense, Mina. It is a shame to me to hear such a word. I would not hear it of you; and I shall not hear it from you. May God judge me by my deserts, and punish me with more bitter suffering than even this hour, if by any act or will of mine anything ever come between us!” He put out his arms and folded her to his breast; and for a while she lay there sobbing. He looked at us over her bowed head, with eyes that blinked damply above his quivering nostrils; his mouth was set as steel. After a while her sobs became less frequent and more faint, and then he said to me, speaking with a studied calmness which I felt tried his nervous power to the utmost:—

“And now, Dr. Seward, tell me all about it. Too well I know the broad fact; tell me all that has been.” I told him exactly what had happened, and he listened with seeming impassiveness; but his nostrils twitched and his eyes blazed as I told how the ruthless hands of the Count had held his wife in that terrible and horrid position, with her mouth to the open wound in his breast. It interested me, even at that moment, to see, that, whilst the face of white set passion worked convulsively over the bowed head, the hands tenderly and lovingly stroked the ruffled hair. Just as I had finished, Quincey and Godalming knocked at the door. They entered in obedience to our summons. Van Helsing looked at me questioningly. I understood him to mean if we were to take advantage of their coming to divert if possible the thoughts of the unhappy husband and wife from each other and from themselves; so on nodding acquiescence to him he asked them what they had seen or done. To which Lord Godalming answered:—

“I could not see him anywhere in the passage, or in any of our rooms. I looked in the study but, though he had been there, he had gone. He had, however——” He stopped suddenly, looking at the poor drooping figure on the bed. Van Helsing said gravely:—

“Go on, friend Arthur. We want here no more concealments. Our hope now is in knowing all. Tell freely!” So Art went on:—

“He had been there, and though it could only have been for a few seconds, he made rare hay of the place. All the manuscript had been burned, and the blue flames were flickering amongst the white ashes; the cylinders of your phonograph too were thrown on the fire, and the wax had helped the flames.” Here I interrupted. “Thank God there is the other copy in the safe!” His face lit for a moment, but fell again as he went on: “I ran downstairs then, but could see no sign of him. I looked into Renfield’s room; but there was no trace there except——!” Again he paused. “Go on,” said Harker hoarsely; so he bowed his head and moistening his lips with his tongue, added: “except that the poor fellow is dead.” Mrs. Harker raised her head, looking from one to the other of us she said solemnly:—

“God’s will be done!” I could not but feel that Art was keeping back something; but, as I took it that it was with a purpose, I said nothing. Van Helsing turned to Morris and asked:—

“And you, friend Quincey, have you any to tell?”

“A little,” he answered. “It may be much eventually, but at present I can’t say. I thought it well to know if possible where the Count would go when he left the house. I did not see him; but I saw a bat rise from Renfield’s window, and flap westward. I expected to see him in some shape go back to Carfax; but he evidently sought some other lair. He will not be back to-night; for the sky is reddening in the east, and the dawn is close. We must work to-morrow!”

He said the latter words through his shut teeth. For a space of perhaps a couple of minutes there was silence, and I could fancy that I could hear the sound of our hearts beating; then Van Helsing said, placing his hand very tenderly on Mrs. Harker’s head:—

“And now, Madam Mina—poor, dear, dear Madam Mina—tell us exactly what happened. God knows that I do not want that you be pained; but it is need that we know all. For now more than ever has all work to be done quick and sharp, and in deadly earnest. The day is close to us that must end all, if it may be so; and now is the chance that we may live and learn.”

The poor, dear lady shivered, and I could see the tension of her nerves as she clasped her husband closer to her and bent her head lower and lower still on his breast. Then she raised her head proudly, and held out one hand to Van Helsing who took it in his, and, after stooping and kissing it reverently, held it fast. The other hand was locked in that of her husband, who held his other arm thrown round her protectingly. After a pause in which she was evidently ordering her thoughts, she began:—

“I took the sleeping draught which you had so kindly given me, but for a long time it did not act. I seemed to become more wakeful, and myriads of horrible fancies began to crowd in upon my mind—all of them connected with death, and vampires; with blood, and pain, and trouble.” Her husband involuntarily groaned as she turned to him and said lovingly: “Do not fret, dear. You must be brave and strong, and help me through the horrible task. If you only knew what an effort it is to me to tell of this fearful thing at all, you would understand how much I need your help. Well, I saw I must try to help the medicine to its work with my will, if it was to do me any good, so I resolutely set myself to sleep. Sure enough sleep must soon have come to me, for I remember no more. Jonathan coming in had not waked me, for he lay by my side when next I remember. There was in the room the same thin white mist that I had before noticed. But I forget now if you know of this; you will find it in my diary which I shall show you later. I felt the same vague terror which had come to me before and the same sense of some presence. I turned to wake Jonathan, but found that he slept so soundly that it seemed as if it was he who had taken the sleeping draught, and not I. I tried, but I could not wake him. This caused me a great fear, and I looked around terrified. Then indeed, my heart sank within me: beside the bed, as if he had stepped out of the mist—or rather as if the mist had turned into his figure, for it had entirely disappeared—stood a tall, thin man, all in black. I knew him at once from the description of the others. The waxen face; the high aquiline nose, on which the light fell in a thin white line; the parted red lips, with the sharp white teeth showing between; and the red eyes that I had seemed to see in the sunset on the windows of St. Mary’s Church at Whitby. I knew, too, the red scar on his forehead where Jonathan had struck him. For an instant my heart stood still, and I would have screamed out, only that I was paralysed. In the pause he spoke in a sort of keen, cutting whisper, pointing as he spoke to Jonathan:—

“‘Silence! If you make a sound I shall take him and dash his brains out before your very eyes.’ I was appalled and was too bewildered to do or say anything. With a mocking smile, he placed one hand upon my shoulder and, holding me tight, bared my throat with the other, saying as he did so, ‘First, a little refreshment to reward my exertions. You may as well be quiet; it is not the first time, or the second, that your veins have appeased my thirst!’ I was bewildered, and, strangely enough, I did not want to hinder him. I suppose it is a part of the horrible curse that such is, when his touch is on his victim. And oh, my God, my God, pity me! He placed his reeking lips upon my throat!” Her husband groaned again. She clasped his hand harder, and looked at him pityingly, as if he were the injured one, and went on:—

“I felt my strength fading away, and I was in a half swoon. How long this horrible thing lasted I know not; but it seemed that a long time must have passed before he took his foul, awful, sneering mouth away. I saw it drip with the fresh blood!” The remembrance seemed for a while to overpower her, and she drooped and would have sunk down but for her husband’s sustaining arm. With a great effort she recovered herself and went on:—

“Then he spoke to me mockingly, ‘And so you, like the others, would play your brains against mine. You would help these men to hunt me and frustrate me in my designs! You know now, and they know in part already, and will know in full before long, what it is to cross my path. They should have kept their energies for use closer to home. Whilst they played wits against me—against me who commanded nations, and intrigued for them, and fought for them, hundreds of years before they were born—I was countermining them. And you, their best beloved one, are now to me, flesh of my flesh; blood of my blood; kin of my kin; my bountiful wine-press for a while; and shall be later on my companion and my helper. You shall be avenged in turn; for not one of them but shall minister to your needs. But as yet you are to be punished for what you have done. You have aided in thwarting me; now you shall come to my call. When my brain says “Come!” to you, you shall cross land or sea to do my bidding; and to that end this!’ With that he pulled open his shirt, and with his long sharp nails opened a vein in his breast. When the blood began to spurt out, he took my hands in one of his, holding them tight, and with the other seized my neck and pressed my mouth to the wound, so that I must either suffocate or swallow some of the—— Oh my God! my God! what have I done? What have I done to deserve such a fate, I who have tried to walk in meekness and righteousness all my days. God pity me! Look down on a poor soul in worse than mortal peril; and in mercy pity those to whom she is dear!” Then she began to rub her lips as though to cleanse them from pollution.

As she was telling her terrible story, the eastern sky began to quicken, and everything became more and more clear. Harker was still and quiet; but over his face, as the awful narrative went on, came a grey look which deepened and deepened in the morning light, till when the first red streak of the coming dawn shot up, the flesh stood darkly out against the whitening hair.

We have arranged that one of us is to stay within call of the unhappy pair till we can meet together and arrange about taking action.

Of this I am sure: the sun rises to-day on no more miserable house in all the great round of its daily course.

CHAPTER XXII

JONATHAN HARKER’S JOURNAL

3 October.—As I must do something or go mad, I write this diary. It is now six o’clock, and we are to meet in the study in half an hour and take something to eat; for Dr. Van Helsing and Dr. Seward are agreed that if we do not eat we cannot work our best. Our best will be, God knows, required to-day. I must keep writing at every chance, for I dare not stop to think. All, big and little, must go down; perhaps at the end the little things may teach us most. The teaching, big or little, could not have landed Mina or me anywhere worse than we are to-day. However, we must trust and hope. Poor Mina told me just now, with the tears running down her dear cheeks, that it is in trouble and trial that our faith is tested—that we must keep on trusting; and that God will aid us up to the end. The end! oh my God! what end?... To work! To work!

When Dr. Van Helsing and Dr. Seward had come back from seeing poor Renfield, we went gravely into what was to be done. First, Dr. Seward told us that when he and Dr. Van Helsing had gone down to the room below they had found Renfield lying on the floor, all in a heap. His face was all bruised and crushed in, and the bones of the neck were broken.

Dr. Seward asked the attendant who was on duty in the passage if he had heard anything. He said that he had been sitting down—he confessed to half dozing—when he heard loud voices in the room, and then Renfield had called out loudly several times, “God! God! God!” after that there was a sound of falling, and when he entered the room he found him lying on the floor, face down, just as the doctors had seen him. Van Helsing asked if he had heard “voices” or “a voice,” and he said he could not say; that at first it had seemed to him as if there were two, but as there was no one in the room it could have been only one. He could swear to it, if required, that the word “God” was spoken by the patient. Dr. Seward said to us, when we were alone, that he did not wish to go into the matter; the question of an inquest had to be considered, and it would never do to put forward the truth, as no one would believe it. As it was, he thought that on the attendant’s evidence he could give a certificate of death by misadventure in falling from bed. In case the coroner should demand it, there would be a formal inquest, necessarily to the same result.

When the question began to be discussed as to what should be our next step, the very first thing we decided was that Mina should be in full confidence; that nothing of any sort—no matter how painful—should be kept from her. She herself agreed as to its wisdom, and it was pitiful to see her so brave and yet so sorrowful, and in such a depth of despair. “There must be no concealment,” she said, “Alas! we have had too much already. And besides there is nothing in all the world that can give me more pain than I have already endured—than I suffer now! Whatever may happen, it must be of new hope or of new courage to me!” Van Helsing was looking at her fixedly as she spoke, and said, suddenly but quietly:—

“But dear Madam Mina, are you not afraid; not for yourself, but for others from yourself, after what has happened?” Her face grew set in its lines, but her eyes shone with the devotion of a martyr as she answered:—

“Ah no! for my mind is made up!”

“To what?” he asked gently, whilst we were all very still; for each in our own way we had a sort of vague idea of what she meant. Her answer came with direct simplicity, as though she were simply stating a fact:—

“Because if I find in myself—and I shall watch keenly for it—a sign of harm to any that I love, I shall die!”

“You would not kill yourself?” he asked, hoarsely.

“I would; if there were no friend who loved me, who would save me such a pain, and so desperate an effort!” She looked at him meaningly as she spoke. He was sitting down; but now he rose and came close to her and put his hand on her head as he said solemnly:

“My child, there is such an one if it were for your good. For myself I could hold it in my account with God to find such an euthanasia for you, even at this moment if it were best. Nay, were it safe! But my child——” For a moment he seemed choked, and a great sob rose in his throat; he gulped it down and went on:—

“There are here some who would stand between you and death. You must not die. You must not die by any hand; but least of all by your own. Until the other, who has fouled your sweet life, is true dead you must not die; for if he is still with the quick Un-Dead, your death would make you even as he is. No, you must live! You must struggle and strive to live, though death would seem a boon unspeakable. You must fight Death himself, though he come to you in pain or in joy; by the day, or the night; in safety or in peril! On your living soul I charge you that you do not die—nay, nor think of death—till this great evil be past.” The poor dear grew white as death, and shock and shivered, as I have seen a quicksand shake and shiver at the incoming of the tide. We were all silent; we could do nothing. At length she grew more calm and turning to him said, sweetly, but oh! so sorrowfully, as she held out her hand:—

“I promise you, my dear friend, that if God will let me live, I shall strive to do so; till, if it may be in His good time, this horror may have passed away from me.” She was so good and brave that we all felt that our hearts were strengthened to work and endure for her, and we began to discuss what we were to do. I told her that she was to have all the papers in the safe, and all the papers or diaries and phonographs we might hereafter use; and was to keep the record as she had done before. She was pleased with the prospect of anything to do—if “pleased” could be used in connection with so grim an interest.

As usual Van Helsing had thought ahead of everyone else, and was prepared with an exact ordering of our work.

“It is perhaps well,” he said, “that at our meeting after our visit to Carfax we decided not to do anything with the earth-boxes that lay there. Had we done so, the Count must have guessed our purpose, and would doubtless have taken measures in advance to frustrate such an effort with regard to the others; but now he does not know our intentions. Nay, more, in all probability, he does not know that such a power exists to us as can sterilise his lairs, so that he cannot use them as of old. We are now so much further advanced in our knowledge as to their disposition that, when we have examined the house in Piccadilly, we may track the very last of them. To-day, then, is ours; and in it rests our hope. The sun that rose on our sorrow this morning guards us in its course. Until it sets to-night, that monster must retain whatever form he now has. He is confined within the limitations of his earthly envelope. He cannot melt into thin air nor disappear through cracks or chinks or crannies. If he go through a doorway, he must open the door like a mortal. And so we have this day to hunt out all his lairs and sterilise them. So we shall, if we have not yet catch him and destroy him, drive him to bay in some place where the catching and the destroying shall be, in time, sure.” Here I started up for I could not contain myself at the thought that the minutes and seconds so preciously laden with Mina’s life and happiness were flying from us, since whilst we talked action was impossible. But Van Helsing held up his hand warningly. “Nay, friend Jonathan,” he said, “in this, the quickest way home is the longest way, so your proverb say. We shall all act and act with desperate quick, when the time has come. But think, in all probable the key of the situation is in that house in Piccadilly. The Count may have many houses which he has bought. Of them he will have deeds of purchase, keys and other things. He will have paper that he write on; he will have his book of cheques. There are many belongings that he must have somewhere; why not in this place so central, so quiet, where he come and go by the front or the back at all hour, when in the very vast of the traffic there is none to notice. We shall go there and search that house; and when we learn what it holds, then we do what our friend Arthur call, in his phrases of hunt ‘stop the earths’ and so we run down our old fox—so? is it not?”

“Then let us come at once,” I cried, “we are wasting the precious, precious time!” The Professor did not move, but simply said:—

“And how are we to get into that house in Piccadilly?”

“Any way!” I cried. “We shall break in if need be.”

“And your police; where will they be, and what will they say?”

I was staggered; but I knew that if he wished to delay he had a good reason for it. So I said, as quietly as I could:—

“Don’t wait more than need be; you know, I am sure, what torture I am in.”

“Ah, my child, that I do; and indeed there is no wish of me to add to your anguish. But just think, what can we do, until all the world be at movement. Then will come our time. I have thought and thought, and it seems to me that the simplest way is the best of all. Now we wish to get into the house, but we have no key; is it not so?” I nodded.

“Now suppose that you were, in truth, the owner of that house, and could not still get in; and think there was to you no conscience of the housebreaker, what would you do?”

“I should get a respectable locksmith, and set him to work to pick the lock for me.”

“And your police, they would interfere, would they not?”

“Oh, no! not if they knew the man was properly employed.”

“Then,” he looked at me as keenly as he spoke, “all that is in doubt is the conscience of the employer, and the belief of your policemen as to whether or no that employer has a good conscience or a bad one. Your police must indeed be zealous men and clever—oh, so clever!—in reading the heart, that they trouble themselves in such matter. No, no, my friend Jonathan, you go take the lock off a hundred empty house in this your London, or of any city in the world; and if you do it as such things are rightly done, and at the time such things are rightly done, no one will interfere. I have read of a gentleman who owned a so fine house in London, and when he went for months of summer to Switzerland and lock up his house, some burglar came and broke window at back and got in. Then he went and made open the shutters in front and walk out and in through the door, before the very eyes of the police. Then he have an auction in that house, and advertise it, and put up big notice; and when the day come he sell off by a great auctioneer all the goods of that other man who own them. Then he go to a builder, and he sell him that house, making an agreement that he pull it down and take all away within a certain time. And your police and other authority help him all they can. And when that owner come back from his holiday in Switzerland he find only an empty hole where his house had been. This was all done en règle; and in our work we shall be en règle too. We shall not go so early that the policemen who have then little to think of, shall deem it strange; but we shall go after ten o’clock, when there are many about, and such things would be done were we indeed owners of the house.”

I could not but see how right he was and the terrible despair of Mina’s face became relaxed a thought; there was hope in such good counsel. Van Helsing went on:—

“When once within that house we may find more clues; at any rate some of us can remain there whilst the rest find the other places where there be more earth-boxes—at Bermondsey and Mile End.”

Lord Godalming stood up. “I can be of some use here,” he said. “I shall wire to my people to have horses and carriages where they will be most convenient.”

“Look here, old fellow,” said Morris, “it is a capital idea to have all ready in case we want to go horsebacking; but don’t you think that one of your snappy carriages with its heraldic adornments in a byway of Walworth or Mile End would attract too much attention for our purposes? It seems to me that we ought to take cabs when we go south or east; and even leave them somewhere near the neighbourhood we are going to.”

“Friend Quincey is right!” said the Professor. “His head is what you call in plane with the horizon. It is a difficult thing that we go to do, and we do not want no peoples to watch us if so it may.”

Mina took a growing interest in everything and I was rejoiced to see that the exigency of affairs was helping her to forget for a time the terrible experience of the night. She was very, very pale—almost ghastly, and so thin that her lips were drawn away, showing her teeth in somewhat of prominence. I did not mention this last, lest it should give her needless pain; but it made my blood run cold in my veins to think of what had occurred with poor Lucy when the Count had sucked her blood. As yet there was no sign of the teeth growing sharper; but the time as yet was short, and there was time for fear.

When we came to the discussion of the sequence of our efforts and of the disposition of our forces, there were new sources of doubt. It was finally agreed that before starting for Piccadilly we should destroy the Count’s lair close at hand. In case he should find it out too soon, we should thus be still ahead of him in our work of destruction; and his presence in his purely material shape, and at his weakest, might give us some new clue.

As to the disposal of forces, it was suggested by the Professor that, after our visit to Carfax, we should all enter the house in Piccadilly; that the two doctors and I should remain there, whilst Lord Godalming and Quincey found the lairs at Walworth and Mile End and destroyed them. It was possible, if not likely, the Professor urged, that the Count might appear in Piccadilly during the day, and that if so we might be able to cope with him then and there. At any rate, we might be able to follow him in force. To this plan I strenuously objected, and so far as my going was concerned, for I said that I intended to stay and protect Mina, I thought that my mind was made up on the subject; but Mina would not listen to my objection. She said that there might be some law matter in which I could be useful; that amongst the Count’s papers might be some clue which I could understand out of my experience in Transylvania; and that, as it was, all the strength we could muster was required to cope with the Count’s extraordinary power. I had to give in, for Mina’s resolution was fixed; she said that it was the last hope for her that we should all work together. “As for me,” she said, “I have no fear. Things have been as bad as they can be; and whatever may happen must have in it some element of hope or comfort. Go, my husband! God can, if He wishes it, guard me as well alone as with any one present.” So I started up crying out: “Then in God’s name let us come at once, for we are losing time. The Count may come to Piccadilly earlier than we think.”

“Not so!” said Van Helsing, holding up his hand.

“But why?” I asked.

“Do you forget,” he said, with actually a smile, “that last night he banqueted heavily, and will sleep late?”

Did I forget! shall I ever—can I ever! Can any of us ever forget that terrible scene! Mina struggled hard to keep her brave countenance; but the pain overmastered her and she put her hands before her face, and shuddered whilst she moaned. Van Helsing had not intended to recall her frightful experience. He had simply lost sight of her and her part in the affair in his intellectual effort. When it struck him what he said, he was horrified at his thoughtlessness and tried to comfort her. “Oh, Madam Mina,” he said, “dear, dear Madam Mina, alas! that I of all who so reverence you should have said anything so forgetful. These stupid old lips of mine and this stupid old head do not deserve so; but you will forget it, will you not?” He bent low beside her as he spoke; she took his hand, and looking at him through her tears, said hoarsely:—

“No, I shall not forget, for it is well that I remember; and with it I have so much in memory of you that is sweet, that I take it all together. Now, you must all be going soon. Breakfast is ready, and we must all eat that we may be strong.”

Breakfast was a strange meal to us all. We tried to be cheerful and encourage each other, and Mina was the brightest and most cheerful of us. When it was over, Van Helsing stood up and said:—

“Now, my dear friends, we go forth to our terrible enterprise. Are we all armed, as we were on that night when first we visited our enemy’s lair; armed against ghostly as well as carnal attack?” We all assured him. “Then it is well. Now, Madam Mina, you are in any case quite safe here until the sunset; and before then we shall return—if—— We shall return! But before we go let me see you armed against personal attack. I have myself, since you came down, prepared your chamber by the placing of things of which we know, so that He may not enter. Now let me guard yourself. On your forehead I touch this piece of Sacred Wafer in the name of the Father, the Son, and——”

There was a fearful scream which almost froze our hearts to hear. As he had placed the Wafer on Mina’s forehead, it had seared it—had burned into the flesh as though it had been a piece of white-hot metal. My poor darling’s brain had told her the significance of the fact as quickly as her nerves received the pain of it; and the two so overwhelmed her that her overwrought nature had its voice in that dreadful scream. But the words to her thought came quickly; the echo of the scream had not ceased to ring on the air when there came the reaction, and she sank on her knees on the floor in an agony of abasement. Pulling her beautiful hair over her face, as the leper of old his mantle, she wailed out:—

“Unclean! Unclean! Even the Almighty shuns my polluted flesh! I must bear this mark of shame upon my forehead until the Judgment Day.” They all paused. I had thrown myself beside her in an agony of helpless grief, and putting my arms around held her tight. For a few minutes our sorrowful hearts beat together, whilst the friends around us turned away their eyes that ran tears silently. Then Van Helsing turned and said gravely; so gravely that I could not help feeling that he was in some way inspired, and was stating things outside himself:—

“It may be that you may have to bear that mark till God himself see fit, as He most surely shall, on the Judgment Day, to redress all wrongs of the earth and of His children that He has placed thereon. And oh, Madam Mina, my dear, my dear, may we who love you be there to see, when that red scar, the sign of God’s knowledge of what has been, shall pass away, and leave your forehead as pure as the heart we know. For so surely as we live, that scar shall pass away when God sees right to lift the burden that is hard upon us. Till then we bear our Cross, as His Son did in obedience to His Will. It may be that we are chosen instruments of His good pleasure, and that we ascend to His bidding as that other through stripes and shame; through tears and blood; through doubts and fears, and all that makes the difference between God and man.”

There was hope in his words, and comfort; and they made for resignation. Mina and I both felt so, and simultaneously we each took one of the old man’s hands and bent over and kissed it. Then without a word we all knelt down together, and, all holding hands, swore to be true to each other. We men pledged ourselves to raise the veil of sorrow from the head of her whom, each in his own way, we loved; and we prayed for help and guidance in the terrible task which lay before us.

It was then time to start. So I said farewell to Mina, a parting which neither of us shall forget to our dying day; and we set out.

To one thing I have made up my mind: if we find out that Mina must be a vampire in the end, then she shall not go into that unknown and terrible land alone. I suppose it is thus that in old times one vampire meant many; just as their hideous bodies could only rest in sacred earth, so the holiest love was the recruiting sergeant for their ghastly ranks.

We entered Carfax without trouble and found all things the same as on the first occasion. It was hard to believe that amongst so prosaic surroundings of neglect and dust and decay there was any ground for such fear as already we knew. Had not our minds been made up, and had there not been terrible memories to spur us on, we could hardly have proceeded with our task. We found no papers, or any sign of use in the house; and in the old chapel the great boxes looked just as we had seen them last. Dr. Van Helsing said to us solemnly as we stood before them:—

“And now, my friends, we have a duty here to do. We must sterilise this earth, so sacred of holy memories, that he has brought from a far distant land for such fell use. He has chosen this earth because it has been holy. Thus we defeat him with his own weapon, for we make it more holy still. It was sanctified to such use of man, now we sanctify it to God.” As he spoke he took from his bag a screwdriver and a wrench, and very soon the top of one of the cases was thrown open. The earth smelled musty and close; but we did not somehow seem to mind, for our attention was concentrated on the Professor. Taking from his box a piece of the Sacred Wafer he laid it reverently on the earth, and then shutting down the lid began to screw it home, we aiding him as he worked.

One by one we treated in the same way each of the great boxes, and left them as we had found them to all appearance; but in each was a portion of the Host.

When we closed the door behind us, the Professor said solemnly:—

“So much is already done. If it may be that with all the others we can be so successful, then the sunset of this evening may shine on Madam Mina’s forehead all white as ivory and with no stain!”

As we passed across the lawn on our way to the station to catch our train we could see the front of the asylum. I looked eagerly, and in the window of my own room saw Mina. I waved my hand to her, and nodded to tell that our work there was successfully accomplished. She nodded in reply to show that she understood. The last I saw, she was waving her hand in farewell. It was with a heavy heart that we sought the station and just caught the train, which was steaming in as we reached the platform.

I have written this in the train.

 

Piccadilly, 12:30 o’clock.—Just before we reached Fenchurch Street Lord Godalming said to me:—

“Quincey and I will find a locksmith. You had better not come with us in case there should be any difficulty; for under the circumstances it wouldn’t seem so bad for us to break into an empty house. But you are a solicitor and the Incorporated Law Society might tell you that you should have known better.” I demurred as to my not sharing any danger even of odium, but he went on: “Besides, it will attract less attention if there are not too many of us. My title will make it all right with the locksmith, and with any policeman that may come along. You had better go with Jack and the Professor and stay in the Green Park, somewhere in sight of the house; and when you see the door opened and the smith has gone away, do you all come across. We shall be on the lookout for you, and shall let you in.”

“The advice is good!” said Van Helsing, so we said no more. Godalming and Morris hurried off in a cab, we following in another. At the corner of Arlington Street our contingent got out and strolled into the Green Park. My heart beat as I saw the house on which so much of our hope was centred, looming up grim and silent in its deserted condition amongst its more lively and spruce-looking neighbours. We sat down on a bench within good view, and began to smoke cigars so as to attract as little attention as possible. The minutes seemed to pass with leaden feet as we waited for the coming of the others.

At length we saw a four-wheeler drive up. Out of it, in leisurely fashion, got Lord Godalming and Morris; and down from the box descended a thick-set working man with his rush-woven basket of tools. Morris paid the cabman, who touched his hat and drove away. Together the two ascended the steps, and Lord Godalming pointed out what he wanted done. The workman took off his coat leisurely and hung it on one of the spikes of the rail, saying something to a policeman who just then sauntered along. The policeman nodded acquiescence, and the man kneeling down placed his bag beside him. After searching through it, he took out a selection of tools which he produced to lay beside him in orderly fashion. Then he stood up, looked into the keyhole, blew into it, and turning to his employers, made some remark. Lord Godalming smiled, and the man lifted a good-sized bunch of keys; selecting one of them, he began to probe the lock, as if feeling his way with it. After fumbling about for a bit he tried a second, and then a third. All at once the door opened under a slight push from him, and he and the two others entered the hall. We sat still; my own cigar burnt furiously, but Van Helsing’s went cold altogether. We waited patiently as we saw the workman come out and bring in his bag. Then he held the door partly open, steadying it with his knees, whilst he fitted a key to the lock. This he finally handed to Lord Godalming, who took out his purse and gave him something. The man touched his hat, took his bag, put on his coat and departed; not a soul took the slightest notice of the whole transaction.

When the man had fairly gone, we three crossed the street and knocked at the door. It was immediately opened by Quincey Morris, beside whom stood Lord Godalming lighting a cigar.

“The place smells so vilely,” said the latter as we came in. It did indeed smell vilely—like the old chapel at Carfax—and with our previous experience it was plain to us that the Count had been using the place pretty freely. We moved to explore the house, all keeping together in case of attack; for we knew we had a strong and wily enemy to deal with, and as yet we did not know whether the Count might not be in the house. In the dining-room, which lay at the back of the hall, we found eight boxes of earth. Eight boxes only out of the nine, which we sought! Our work was not over, and would never be until we should have found the missing box. First we opened the shutters of the window which looked out across a narrow stone-flagged yard at the blank face of a stable, pointed to look like the front of a miniature house. There were no windows in it, so we were not afraid of being over-looked. We did not lose any time in examining the chests. With the tools which we had brought with us we opened them, one by one, and treated them as we had treated those others in the old chapel. It was evident to us that the Count was not at present in the house, and we proceeded to search for any of his effects.

After a cursory glance at the rest of the rooms, from basement to attic, we came to the conclusion that the dining-room contained any effects which might belong to the Count; and so we proceeded to minutely examine them. They lay in a sort of orderly disorder on the great dining-room table. There were title deeds of the Piccadilly house in a great bundle; deeds of the purchase of the houses at Mile End and Bermondsey; note-paper, envelopes, and pens and ink. All were covered up in thin wrapping paper to keep them from the dust. There were also a clothes brush, a brush and comb, and a jug and basin—the latter containing dirty water which was reddened as if with blood. Last of all was a little heap of keys of all sorts and sizes, probably those belonging to the other houses. When we had examined this last find, Lord Godalming and Quincey Morris taking accurate notes of the various addresses of the houses in the East and the South, took with them the keys in a great bunch, and set out to destroy the boxes in these places. The rest of us are, with what patience we can, waiting their return—or the coming of the Count.

CHAPTER XXIII

DR. SEWARD’S DIARY

3 October.—The time seemed terribly long whilst we were waiting for the coming of Godalming and Quincey Morris. The Professor tried to keep our minds active by using them all the time. I could see his beneficent purpose, by the side glances which he threw from time to time at Harker. The poor fellow is overwhelmed in a misery that is appalling to see. Last night he was a frank, happy-looking man, with strong, youthful face, full of energy, and with dark brown hair. To-day he is a drawn, haggard old man, whose white hair matches well with the hollow burning eyes and grief-written lines of his face. His energy is still intact; in fact, he is like a living flame. This may yet be his salvation, for, if all go well, it will tide him over the despairing period; he will then, in a kind of way, wake again to the realities of life. Poor fellow, I thought my own trouble was bad enough, but his——! The Professor knows this well enough, and is doing his best to keep his mind active. What he has been saying was, under the circumstances, of absorbing interest. So well as I can remember, here it is:—

“I have studied, over and over again since they came into my hands, all the papers relating to this monster; and the more I have studied, the greater seems the necessity to utterly stamp him out. All through there are signs of his advance; not only of his power, but of his knowledge of it. As I learned from the researches of my friend Arminus of Buda-Pesth, he was in life a most wonderful man. Soldier, statesman, and alchemist—which latter was the highest development of the science-knowledge of his time. He had a mighty brain, a learning beyond compare, and a heart that knew no fear and no remorse. He dared even to attend the Scholomance, and there was no branch of knowledge of his time that he did not essay. Well, in him the brain powers survived the physical death; though it would seem that memory was not all complete. In some faculties of mind he has been, and is, only a child; but he is growing, and some things that were childish at the first are now of man’s stature. He is experimenting, and doing it well; and if it had not been that we have crossed his path he would be yet—he may be yet if we fail—the father or furtherer of a new order of beings, whose road must lead through Death, not Life.”

Harker groaned and said, “And this is all arrayed against my darling! But how is he experimenting? The knowledge may help us to defeat him!”

“He has all along, since his coming, been trying his power, slowly but surely; that big child-brain of his is working. Well for us, it is, as yet, a child-brain; for had he dared, at the first, to attempt certain things he would long ago have been beyond our power. However, he means to succeed, and a man who has centuries before him can afford to wait and to go slow. Festina lente may well be his motto.”

“I fail to understand,” said Harker wearily. “Oh, do be more plain to me! Perhaps grief and trouble are dulling my brain.”

The Professor laid his hand tenderly on his shoulder as he spoke:—

“Ah, my child, I will be plain. Do you not see how, of late, this monster has been creeping into knowledge experimentally. How he has been making use of the zoöphagous patient to effect his entry into friend John’s home; for your Vampire, though in all afterwards he can come when and how he will, must at the first make entry only when asked thereto by an inmate. But these are not his most important experiments. Do we not see how at the first all these so great boxes were moved by others. He knew not then but that must be so. But all the time that so great child-brain of his was growing, and he began to consider whether he might not himself move the box. So he began to help; and then, when he found that this be all-right, he try to move them all alone. And so he progress, and he scatter these graves of him; and none but he know where they are hidden. He may have intend to bury them deep in the ground. So that he only use them in the night, or at such time as he can change his form, they do him equal well; and none may know these are his hiding-place! But, my child, do not despair; this knowledge come to him just too late! Already all of his lairs but one be sterilise as for him; and before the sunset this shall be so. Then he have no place where he can move and hide. I delayed this morning that so we might be sure. Is there not more at stake for us than for him? Then why we not be even more careful than him? By my clock it is one hour and already, if all be well, friend Arthur and Quincey are on their way to us. To-day is our day, and we must go sure, if slow, and lose no chance. See! there are five of us when those absent ones return.”

Whilst he was speaking we were startled by a knock at the hall door, the double postman’s knock of the telegraph boy. We all moved out to the hall with one impulse, and Van Helsing, holding up his hand to us to keep silence, stepped to the door and opened it. The boy handed in a despatch. The Professor closed the door again, and, after looking at the direction, opened it and read aloud.

“Look out for D. He has just now, 12:45, come from Carfax hurriedly and hastened towards the South. He seems to be going the round and may want to see you: Mina.”

There was a pause, broken by Jonathan Harker’s voice:—

“Now, God be thanked, we shall soon meet!” Van Helsing turned to him quickly and said:—

“God will act in His own way and time. Do not fear, and do not rejoice as yet; for what we wish for at the moment may be our undoings.”

“I care for nothing now,” he answered hotly, “except to wipe out this brute from the face of creation. I would sell my soul to do it!”

“Oh, hush, hush, my child!” said Van Helsing. “God does not purchase souls in this wise; and the Devil, though he may purchase, does not keep faith. But God is merciful and just, and knows your pain and your devotion to that dear Madam Mina. Think you, how her pain would be doubled, did she but hear your wild words. Do not fear any of us, we are all devoted to this cause, and to-day shall see the end. The time is coming for action; to-day this Vampire is limit to the powers of man, and till sunset he may not change. It will take him time to arrive here—see, it is twenty minutes past one—and there are yet some times before he can hither come, be he never so quick. What we must hope for is that my Lord Arthur and Quincey arrive first.”

About half an hour after we had received Mrs. Harker’s telegram, there came a quiet, resolute knock at the hall door. It was just an ordinary knock, such as is given hourly by thousands of gentlemen, but it made the Professor’s heart and mine beat loudly. We looked at each other, and together moved out into the hall; we each held ready to use our various armaments—the spiritual in the left hand, the mortal in the right. Van Helsing pulled back the latch, and, holding the door half open, stood back, having both hands ready for action. The gladness of our hearts must have shown upon our faces when on the step, close to the door, we saw Lord Godalming and Quincey Morris. They came quickly in and closed the door behind them, the former saying, as they moved along the hall:—

“It is all right. We found both places; six boxes in each and we destroyed them all!”

“Destroyed?” asked the Professor.

“For him!” We were silent for a minute, and then Quincey said:—

“There’s nothing to do but to wait here. If, however, he doesn’t turn up by five o’clock, we must start off; for it won’t do to leave Mrs. Harker alone after sunset.”

“He will be here before long now,” said Van Helsing, who had been consulting his pocket-book. “Nota bene, in Madam’s telegram he went south from Carfax, that means he went to cross the river, and he could only do so at slack of tide, which should be something before one o’clock. That he went south has a meaning for us. He is as yet only suspicious; and he went from Carfax first to the place where he would suspect interference least. You must have been at Bermondsey only a short time before him. That he is not here already shows that he went to Mile End next. This took him some time; for he would then have to be carried over the river in some way. Believe me, my friends, we shall not have long to wait now. We should have ready some plan of attack, so that we may throw away no chance. Hush, there is no time now. Have all your arms! Be ready!” He held up a warning hand as he spoke, for we all could hear a key softly inserted in the lock of the hall door.

I could not but admire, even at such a moment, the way in which a dominant spirit asserted itself. In all our hunting parties and adventures in different parts of the world, Quincey Morris had always been the one to arrange the plan of action, and Arthur and I had been accustomed to obey him implicitly. Now, the old habit seemed to be renewed instinctively. With a swift glance around the room, he at once laid out our plan of attack, and, without speaking a word, with a gesture, placed us each in position. Van Helsing, Harker, and I were just behind the door, so that when it was opened the Professor could guard it whilst we two stepped between the incomer and the door. Godalming behind and Quincey in front stood just out of sight ready to move in front of the window. We waited in a suspense that made the seconds pass with nightmare slowness. The slow, careful steps came along the hall; the Count was evidently prepared for some surprise—at least he feared it.

Suddenly with a single bound he leaped into the room, winning a way past us before any of us could raise a hand to stay him. There was something so panther-like in the movement—something so unhuman, that it seemed to sober us all from the shock of his coming. The first to act was Harker, who, with a quick movement, threw himself before the door leading into the room in the front of the house. As the Count saw us, a horrible sort of snarl passed over his face, showing the eye-teeth long and pointed; but the evil smile as quickly passed into a cold stare of lion-like disdain. His expression again changed as, with a single impulse, we all advanced upon him. It was a pity that we had not some better organised plan of attack, for even at the moment I wondered what we were to do. I did not myself know whether our lethal weapons would avail us anything. Harker evidently meant to try the matter, for he had ready his great Kukri knife and made a fierce and sudden cut at him. The blow was a powerful one; only the diabolical quickness of the Count’s leap back saved him. A second less and the trenchant blade had shorne through his heart. As it was, the point just cut the cloth of his coat, making a wide gap whence a bundle of bank-notes and a stream of gold fell out. The expression of the Count’s face was so hellish, that for a moment I feared for Harker, though I saw him throw the terrible knife aloft again for another stroke. Instinctively I moved forward with a protective impulse, holding the Crucifix and Wafer in my left hand. I felt a mighty power fly along my arm; and it was without surprise that I saw the monster cower back before a similar movement made spontaneously by each one of us. It would be impossible to describe the expression of hate and baffled malignity—of anger and hellish rage—which came over the Count’s face. His waxen hue became greenish-yellow by the contrast of his burning eyes, and the red scar on the forehead showed on the pallid skin like a palpitating wound. The next instant, with a sinuous dive he swept under Harker’s arm, ere his blow could fall, and, grasping a handful of the money from the floor, dashed across the room, threw himself at the window. Amid the crash and glitter of the falling glass, he tumbled into the flagged area below. Through the sound of the shivering glass I could hear the “ting” of the gold, as some of the sovereigns fell on the flagging.

We ran over and saw him spring unhurt from the ground. He, rushing up the steps, crossed the flagged yard, and pushed open the stable door. There he turned and spoke to us:—

“You think to baffle me, you—with your pale faces all in a row, like sheep in a butcher’s. You shall be sorry yet, each one of you! You think you have left me without a place to rest; but I have more. My revenge is just begun! I spread it over centuries, and time is on my side. Your girls that you all love are mine already; and through them you and others shall yet be mine—my creatures, to do my bidding and to be my jackals when I want to feed. Bah!” With a contemptuous sneer, he passed quickly through the door, and we heard the rusty bolt creak as he fastened it behind him. A door beyond opened and shut. The first of us to speak was the Professor, as, realising the difficulty of following him through the stable, we moved toward the hall.

“We have learnt something—much! Notwithstanding his brave words, he fears us; he fear time, he fear want! For if not, why he hurry so? His very tone betray him, or my ears deceive. Why take that money? You follow quick. You are hunters of wild beast, and understand it so. For me, I make sure that nothing here may be of use to him, if so that he return.” As he spoke he put the money remaining into his pocket; took the title-deeds in the bundle as Harker had left them, and swept the remaining things into the open fireplace, where he set fire to them with a match.

Godalming and Morris had rushed out into the yard, and Harker had lowered himself from the window to follow the Count. He had, however, bolted the stable door; and by the time they had forced it open there was no sign of him. Van Helsing and I tried to make inquiry at the back of the house; but the mews was deserted and no one had seen him depart.

It was now late in the afternoon, and sunset was not far off. We had to recognise that our game was up; with heavy hearts we agreed with the Professor when he said:—

“Let us go back to Madam Mina—poor, poor dear Madam Mina. All we can do just now is done; and we can there, at least, protect her. But we need not despair. There is but one more earth-box, and we must try to find it; when that is done all may yet be well.” I could see that he spoke as bravely as he could to comfort Harker. The poor fellow was quite broken down; now and again he gave a low groan which he could not suppress—he was thinking of his wife.

With sad hearts we came back to my house, where we found Mrs. Harker waiting us, with an appearance of cheerfulness which did honour to her bravery and unselfishness. When she saw our faces, her own became as pale as death: for a second or two her eyes were closed as if she were in secret prayer; and then she said cheerfully:—

“I can never thank you all enough. Oh, my poor darling!” As she spoke, she took her husband’s grey head in her hands and kissed it—“Lay your poor head here and rest it. All will yet be well, dear! God will protect us if He so will it in His good intent.” The poor fellow groaned. There was no place for words in his sublime misery.

We had a sort of perfunctory supper together, and I think it cheered us all up somewhat. It was, perhaps, the mere animal heat of food to hungry people—for none of us had eaten anything since breakfast—or the sense of companionship may have helped us; but anyhow we were all less miserable, and saw the morrow as not altogether without hope. True to our promise, we told Mrs. Harker everything which had passed; and although she grew snowy white at times when danger had seemed to threaten her husband, and red at others when his devotion to her was manifested, she listened bravely and with calmness. When we came to the part where Harker had rushed at the Count so recklessly, she clung to her husband’s arm, and held it tight as though her clinging could protect him from any harm that might come. She said nothing, however, till the narration was all done, and matters had been brought right up to the present time. Then without letting go her husband’s hand she stood up amongst us and spoke. Oh, that I could give any idea of the scene; of that sweet, sweet, good, good woman in all the radiant beauty of her youth and animation, with the red scar on her forehead, of which she was conscious, and which we saw with grinding of our teeth—remembering whence and how it came; her loving kindness against our grim hate; her tender faith against all our fears and doubting; and we, knowing that so far as symbols went, she with all her goodness and purity and faith, was outcast from God.

“Jonathan,” she said, and the word sounded like music on her lips it was so full of love and tenderness, “Jonathan dear, and you all my true, true friends, I want you to bear something in mind through all this dreadful time. I know that you must fight—that you must destroy even as you destroyed the false Lucy so that the true Lucy might live hereafter; but it is not a work of hate. That poor soul who has wrought all this misery is the saddest case of all. Just think what will be his joy when he, too, is destroyed in his worser part that his better part may have spiritual immortality. You must be pitiful to him, too, though it may not hold your hands from his destruction.”

As she spoke I could see her husband’s face darken and draw together, as though the passion in him were shrivelling his being to its core. Instinctively the clasp on his wife’s hand grew closer, till his knuckles looked white. She did not flinch from the pain which I knew she must have suffered, but looked at him with eyes that were more appealing than ever. As she stopped speaking he leaped to his feet, almost tearing his hand from hers as he spoke:—

“May God give him into my hand just for long enough to destroy that earthly life of him which we are aiming at. If beyond it I could send his soul for ever and ever to burning hell I would do it!”

“Oh, hush! oh, hush! in the name of the good God. Don’t say such things, Jonathan, my husband; or you will crush me with fear and horror. Just think, my dear—I have been thinking all this long, long day of it—that ... perhaps ... some day ... I, too, may need such pity; and that some other like you—and with equal cause for anger—may deny it to me! Oh, my husband! my husband, indeed I would have spared you such a thought had there been another way; but I pray that God may not have treasured your wild words, except as the heart-broken wail of a very loving and sorely stricken man. Oh, God, let these poor white hairs go in evidence of what he has suffered, who all his life has done no wrong, and on whom so many sorrows have come.”

We men were all in tears now. There was no resisting them, and we wept openly. She wept, too, to see that her sweeter counsels had prevailed. Her husband flung himself on his knees beside her, and putting his arms round her, hid his face in the folds of her dress. Van Helsing beckoned to us and we stole out of the room, leaving the two loving hearts alone with their God.

Before they retired the Professor fixed up the room against any coming of the Vampire, and assured Mrs. Harker that she might rest in peace. She tried to school herself to the belief, and, manifestly for her husband’s sake, tried to seem content. It was a brave struggle; and was, I think and believe, not without its reward. Van Helsing had placed at hand a bell which either of them was to sound in case of any emergency. When they had retired, Quincey, Godalming, and I arranged that we should sit up, dividing the night between us, and watch over the safety of the poor stricken lady. The first watch falls to Quincey, so the rest of us shall be off to bed as soon as we can. Godalming has already turned in, for his is the second watch. Now that my work is done I, too, shall go to bed.

Notes: Moon Phase: Waxing Gibbous

Dr. Seward finds a near-dead Renfield. He suspects his back is broken, and then he turns him over!?! Where did you go to medical school Jack?  They trephine Renfield to reduce the pressure on his brain, a dangerous operation under any circumstance, and he is revived long enough to speak of his Master in tones that are quasi-religious. One almost gets the feeling that there is a John the Baptist/Jesus relationship between Renfield/Dracula. However, in this reversal, the Messianic Dracula baptised Renfield.  

We get the idea here that Renfield has some vampiric powers of his own. His prodigious strength earlier and the idea that he can "smell" the difference in Dracula. Indeed, he says the Dracula smells like Mrs. Harker. This is because Dracula has been feeding on Mina. Mina too has been changed as Renfield reports. 

Another note here about the moon phases, we are nearing the full moon and Seward reports how bright the moon is. 

We see Mina, feeding on Dracula while Harker sleeps nearby. This is also one of the very few times that Van Helsing and Dracula share a scene in the novel. 

Dracula is obviously done with Renfield. Likely because he told Mina to get far away from here. 

Dracula also has some lines here, something we have yet to encounter since he left Transylvania. His words to Mina are a bastardization of the Catholic wedding rites, likely the same rites Mina and Jonathan shared. 

Harker's long entry amounts to his point of view of the events and how much he wants to destroy the Count. Our hunters do manage to "stop the earths" or close of Dracula's means of escape by hunting down more of his artifacts (deeds, keys, earth boxes). 

One of the more famous scenes in the book translated to screen is the burning or branding of Mina by the holy wafer and her proclamations of "unclean, unclean." It is a scene repeated often in vampire films. Here it has the effect of hardening the resolve of the men to fight for Mina against the evil that is Dracula. It is practically religious in nature. It is reminiscent of the Mark of Cain. 

We get more examples of Arthur, Lord Godalming, throwing his weight around, breaking into a place, and expecting the police not to give him trouble because he is a Lord. 

In Seward's second entry, we see the count has grown old again, with white hair. Is this because he gave some of his blood back to Mina? Maybe, otherwise, he had "banqueted heavily," as Van Helsing so tactlessly put it in Harker's Journal. 

We also get Van Helsing's speech about Dracula's "Child-Brain."  Personally I think the wording is poor here and has lead to all sorts of misunderstandings about Dracula's nature. Stoker take great care to tell us how brilliant Dracula is at the start of the tale with the number of languages he can read and his grasp of English. Also his plan to have multiple Earth boxes all over London. Dracula is a planner. What he isn't though is modern. His plan would have worked fantastic if he had still been in the culture of Eastern Europe, or "the Old World" for Stoker. Dracula is a creature of the old world and he is unfamiliar with things like the telegraph and the other "modern" means our hunters have at their disposal. But he is, as Van Helsing points out, learning.

Compare this to the myths of legends of Vampires basically being "stuck" in the moment of time of their deaths. I have seen movies where a vampire playing chess can do so masterfully, but unable to learn new moves so the game is always the same. Or other odd compulsions. Dracula is trying to apply Old Word thinking to New World problems and that is the nature of his "Child Brain." Not that he is immature or stupid, but rather ignorant (at the moment) of what he has to deal with. Dracula is a child not because he is new, but because he is still learning new ways of doing things. 

Can you imagine a world where Christopher Lee only made one Dracula movie? No. Neither can I. Thanks to the movie magic of Hammer Horror, we got to see Lee's Dracula (who I believe played Dracula more time than any other actor) return time and time again from Victorian England to the Swinging Satanic 70s. Each time, he is confronted by his nemeses, the Van Helsing family, often in the guise of Peter Cushing.  So if Ravenloft is Hammer Horror, then it should come as no surprise that we would get a sequel adventure. 

We did. Strahd is back in Ravenloft II: The House on Gryphon Hill.

This adventure, while not as well received as the first, ground-breaking, Ravenloft it did have a lot going for it. For starters, it was much more classically Gothic in nature. An old family, an ancient curse, ghosts, a strange and charming young Alchemist by the name of Strahd von Zarovich.

I10 Ravenloft II: The House on Gryphon Hill

by Tracy and Laura Hickman*. Cover art by Clyde Caldwell, interior art by Jeff Easley. (1986). Color covers, black-white interior art. Cartography by Dave Sutherland. 48 Pages.

I should point out here that this adventure, while having the Hickmans in the by line, was really just an outline and some notes. Tracy Hickman had left TSR in 1985. The adventure was given over to David Cook, Jeff Grubb, Harold Johnson, and Douglas Niles. Now personally, I can see the sections that were created by Grubb and Niles. I had become very familiar with their works by this point. I honestly believe that if they had started from scratch, this would have been a different sort of adventure. 

Not that I am complaining. I rather enjoy this adventure, significant warts and all. It is more Gothic than Ravenloft I6 was, complete with an epic battle on lightning-streaked moors. 

This adventure introduces many elements that will become central to the Ravenloft campaign setting. The Weathermays, the lich Azalin, the d’Honaires, the Timothys, will all appear again in the Realms of Terror boxed set. 

One thing that won't make that much of a splash though is the big surprise of this adventure; the Alchemist Strahd. Is he the distilled goodness of the Vampire Strahd? Is the Vampire the distilled evil of the Alchemist? Or is there something else?  Like the first adventure, this one has a random plot device. Instead of fortune-telling cards, we get a mesmerist's session. The nature of the two Strahds can be found here.

Or not.

Again, the Alchemist doesn't make a significant impact in the later AD&D 2nd Edition. The Ravenloft campaign setting is all but forgotten in future treatments.  This is not a bad thing, really; the whole Alchemist deal felt like a bit of a retcon in some respects.  Though I can imagine running this adventure now for, say, the 5e players who know who Strahd is would be a lot of fun.

At 48 pages, with more isometric maps, it is larger than the original Ravenloft adventure. There is also a lot more going on. Though fans of "hack n slash" style D&D are going to be disappointed. Oh there are monsters here and they are deadly as hell, but that is not what the adventure is about. Those are just obstacles to the real adventure.

Dreams of Barovia

There is a small section of this adventure titled "The Dreams of Barovia" which is rather fun. The idea is that you play I6: Ravenloft and I10: Ravenloft II concurrently. The character move back and forth between one reality to the other. Playing the same characters but at different times and places. For example, the characters fall asleep in Barovia (I6) and wake up in Mordentshire (I10) wearing different clothing. 

I ran it this way back in college. My old High School DM, Bob Grenda and I ran it together for his normal group. We took turns DMing, with me taking I10 while he ran I6. We did it in a marathon session from a Thursday night to Sunday. It was fun but I forgot to tell my roommates and girlfriend at the time I was doing this and they had no idea where I was. This was the early 90s, so before everyone had cell phones. I found my notes, it was 10/26/1991. 

It worked well, but it was really deadly. HP loss and wounds carried over from reality to reality, which really upped the fear.  I'd love to try it again sometime, but I'd make some tweaks.

If you didn't like Ravenloft I then this one will feel like more of the same. But I enjoyed it and there is still a lot of untapped potential in this adventure for me. 

Rereading it now, so many years later there is a lot I would like to do with it still. A lot I would change, but all in all it was a great time. 

 Day 3

This is a semi-opaque purple one with glittery bits on the inside. I rather like it. Matches yesterday's d6.

 Every year, I also watch a Godzilla movie. I mean these were the "Monster Movies" my dad and I watched. So this time I was joined by my oldest son to watch this. We had an absolute blast.

Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire (2024)

Let's not pretend this movie is anything more than what it is, a big fight by giant Kaiju. This is the second Kong and Godzilla team-up, and they are going after another giant primate, The Skar King, and his pet dragon. 

Is this movie a horror? No, unless you count the horrors committed to the laws of physics here. But it is a fun romp with a great soundtrack.

Kong fights monsters, gets his butt kicked, and has to go get Godzilla as backup. Godzilla, suspecting something was up anyway, got supercharged by feeding on the energies of Tiamat (much to my son's delight and explaining why the big G was pink). 

I DO find the Hollow Earth very entertaining. While it makes as much sense as a gigantic Kaiju, it is still fun and reminds me I should write more Hollow Earth content.

This is not an Oscar-winning entry in the Godzilla franchise, but no one, least of all me, goes into these expecting that.

Featured Monster: White Dragon

The Kaiju/Titan Shimo is a white dragon in all but name. She doesn't have wings, but I can live with that. The Kaiju/Titan Tiamat does not have any resemblance to the D&D Tiamat, but maybe to the mythological Tiamat if you squint your eyes.

Shimo doesn't have wings, but she does make for a good White Dragon. There is a great bit where Shimo breathes frost into the sky to make it cloud over. It was not a damage-causing attack, but fun, all the same.

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October Horror Movie Challenge 2024
Viewed: 2
First Time Views: 2

Mina and Jonathan are both so tired they don't notice the change in Mina. Seward has a final encounter with Renfield.

Mina Harker’s Journal.

2 October 10 p. m.—Last night I slept, but did not dream. I must have slept soundly, for I was not waked by Jonathan coming to bed; but the sleep has not refreshed me, for to-day I feel terribly weak and spiritless. I spent all yesterday trying to read, or lying down dozing. In the afternoon Mr. Renfield asked if he might see me. Poor man, he was very gentle, and when I came away he kissed my hand and bade God bless me. Some way it affected me much; I am crying when I think of him. This is a new weakness, of which I must be careful. Jonathan would be miserable if he knew I had been crying. He and the others were out till dinner-time, and they all came in tired. I did what I could to brighten them up, and I suppose that the effort did me good, for I forgot how tired I was. After dinner they sent me to bed, and all went off to smoke together, as they said, but I knew that they wanted to tell each other of what had occurred to each during the day; I could see from Jonathan’s manner that he had something important to communicate. I was not so sleepy as I should have been; so before they went I asked Dr. Seward to give me a little opiate of some kind, as I had not slept well the night before. He very kindly made me up a sleeping draught, which he gave to me, telling me that it would do me no harm, as it was very mild.... I have taken it, and am waiting for sleep, which still keeps aloof. I hope I have not done wrong, for as sleep begins to flirt with me, a new fear comes: that I may have been foolish in thus depriving myself of the power of waking. I might want it. Here comes sleep. Good-night.

JONATHAN HARKER’S JOURNAL

2 October, evening.—A long and trying and exciting day. By the first post I got my directed envelope with a dirty scrap of paper enclosed, on which was written with a carpenter’s pencil in a sprawling hand:—

“Sam Bloxam, Korkrans, 4, Poters Cort, Bartel Street, Walworth. Arsk for the depite.”

I got the letter in bed, and rose without waking Mina. She looked heavy and sleepy and pale, and far from well. I determined not to wake her, but that, when I should return from this new search, I would arrange for her going back to Exeter. I think she would be happier in our own home, with her daily tasks to interest her, than in being here amongst us and in ignorance. I only saw Dr. Seward for a moment, and told him where I was off to, promising to come back and tell the rest so soon as I should have found out anything. I drove to Walworth and found, with some difficulty, Potter’s Court. Mr. Smollet’s spelling misled me, as I asked for Poter’s Court instead of Potter’s Court. However, when I had found the court, I had no difficulty in discovering Corcoran’s lodging-house. When I asked the man who came to the door for the “depite,” he shook his head, and said: “I dunno ’im. There ain’t no such a person ’ere; I never ’eard of ’im in all my bloomin’ days. Don’t believe there ain’t nobody of that kind livin’ ere or anywheres.” I took out Smollet’s letter, and as I read it it seemed to me that the lesson of the spelling of the name of the court might guide me. “What are you?” I asked.

“I’m the depity,” he answered. I saw at once that I was on the right track; phonetic spelling had again misled me. A half-crown tip put the deputy’s knowledge at my disposal, and I learned that Mr. Bloxam, who had slept off the remains of his beer on the previous night at Corcoran’s, had left for his work at Poplar at five o’clock that morning. He could not tell me where the place of work was situated, but he had a vague idea that it was some kind of a “new-fangled ware’us”; and with this slender clue I had to start for Poplar. It was twelve o’clock before I got any satisfactory hint of such a building, and this I got at a coffee-shop, where some workmen were having their dinner. One of these suggested that there was being erected at Cross Angel Street a new “cold storage” building; and as this suited the condition of a “new-fangled ware’us,” I at once drove to it. An interview with a surly gatekeeper and a surlier foreman, both of whom were appeased with the coin of the realm, put me on the track of Bloxam; he was sent for on my suggesting that I was willing to pay his day’s wages to his foreman for the privilege of asking him a few questions on a private matter. He was a smart enough fellow, though rough of speech and bearing. When I had promised to pay for his information and given him an earnest, he told me that he had made two journeys between Carfax and a house in Piccadilly, and had taken from this house to the latter nine great boxes—“main heavy ones”—with a horse and cart hired by him for this purpose. I asked him if he could tell me the number of the house in Piccadilly, to which he replied:—

“Well, guv’nor, I forgits the number, but it was only a few doors from a big white church or somethink of the kind, not long built. It was a dusty old ’ouse, too, though nothin’ to the dustiness of the ’ouse we tooked the bloomin’ boxes from.”

“How did you get into the houses if they were both empty?”

“There was the old party what engaged me a-waitin’ in the ’ouse at Purfleet. He ’elped me to lift the boxes and put them in the dray. Curse me, but he was the strongest chap I ever struck, an’ him a old feller, with a white moustache, one that thin you would think he couldn’t throw a shadder.”

How this phrase thrilled through me!

“Why, ’e took up ’is end o’ the boxes like they was pounds of tea, and me a-puffin’ an’ a-blowin’ afore I could up-end mine anyhow—an’ I’m no chicken, neither.”

“How did you get into the house in Piccadilly?” I asked.

“He was there too. He must ’a’ started off and got there afore me, for when I rung of the bell he kem an’ opened the door ’isself an’ ’elped me to carry the boxes into the ’all.”

“The whole nine?” I asked.

“Yus; there was five in the first load an’ four in the second. It was main dry work, an’ I don’t so well remember ’ow I got ’ome.” I interrupted him:—

“Were the boxes left in the hall?”

“Yus; it was a big ’all, an’ there was nothin’ else in it.” I made one more attempt to further matters:—

“You didn’t have any key?”

“Never used no key nor nothink. The old gent, he opened the door ’isself an’ shut it again when I druv off. I don’t remember the last time—but that was the beer.”

“And you can’t remember the number of the house?”

“No, sir. But ye needn’t have no difficulty about that. It’s a ’igh ’un with a stone front with a bow on it, an’ ’igh steps up to the door. I know them steps, ’avin’ ’ad to carry the boxes up with three loafers what come round to earn a copper. The old gent give them shillin’s, an’ they seein’ they got so much, they wanted more; but ’e took one of them by the shoulder and was like to throw ’im down the steps, till the lot of them went away cussin’.” I thought that with this description I could find the house, so, having paid my friend for his information, I started off for Piccadilly. I had gained a new painful experience; the Count could, it was evident, handle the earth-boxes himself. If so, time was precious; for, now that he had achieved a certain amount of distribution, he could, by choosing his own time, complete the task unobserved. At Piccadilly Circus I discharged my cab, and walked westward; beyond the Junior Constitutional I came across the house described, and was satisfied that this was the next of the lairs arranged by Dracula. The house looked as though it had been long untenanted. The windows were encrusted with dust, and the shutters were up. All the framework was black with time, and from the iron the paint had mostly scaled away. It was evident that up to lately there had been a large notice-board in front of the balcony; it had, however, been roughly torn away, the uprights which had supported it still remaining. Behind the rails of the balcony I saw there were some loose boards, whose raw edges looked white. I would have given a good deal to have been able to see the notice-board intact, as it would, perhaps, have given some clue to the ownership of the house. I remembered my experience of the investigation and purchase of Carfax, and I could not but feel that if I could find the former owner there might be some means discovered of gaining access to the house.

There was at present nothing to be learned from the Piccadilly side, and nothing could be done; so I went round to the back to see if anything could be gathered from this quarter. The mews were active, the Piccadilly houses being mostly in occupation. I asked one or two of the grooms and helpers whom I saw around if they could tell me anything about the empty house. One of them said that he heard it had lately been taken, but he couldn’t say from whom. He told me, however, that up to very lately there had been a notice-board of “For Sale” up, and that perhaps Mitchell, Sons, & Candy, the house agents, could tell me something, as he thought he remembered seeing the name of that firm on the board. I did not wish to seem too eager, or to let my informant know or guess too much, so, thanking him in the usual manner, I strolled away. It was now growing dusk, and the autumn night was closing in, so I did not lose any time. Having learned the address of Mitchell, Sons, & Candy from a directory at the Berkeley, I was soon at their office in Sackville Street.

The gentleman who saw me was particularly suave in manner, but uncommunicative in equal proportion. Having once told me that the Piccadilly house—which throughout our interview he called a “mansion”—was sold, he considered my business as concluded. When I asked who had purchased it, he opened his eyes a thought wider, and paused a few seconds before replying:—

“It is sold, sir.”

“Pardon me,” I said, with equal politeness, “but I have a special reason for wishing to know who purchased it.”

Again he paused longer, and raised his eyebrows still more. “It is sold, sir,” was again his laconic reply.

“Surely,” I said, “you do not mind letting me know so much.”

“But I do mind,” he answered. “The affairs of their clients are absolutely safe in the hands of Mitchell, Sons, & Candy.” This was manifestly a prig of the first water, and there was no use arguing with him. I thought I had best meet him on his own ground, so I said:—

“Your clients, sir, are happy in having so resolute a guardian of their confidence. I am myself a professional man.” Here I handed him my card. “In this instance I am not prompted by curiosity; I act on the part of Lord Godalming, who wishes to know something of the property which was, he understood, lately for sale.” These words put a different complexion on affairs. He said:—

“I would like to oblige you if I could, Mr. Harker, and especially would I like to oblige his lordship. We once carried out a small matter of renting some chambers for him when he was the Honourable Arthur Holmwood. If you will let me have his lordship’s address I will consult the House on the subject, and will, in any case, communicate with his lordship by to-night’s post. It will be a pleasure if we can so far deviate from our rules as to give the required information to his lordship.”

I wanted to secure a friend, and not to make an enemy, so I thanked him, gave the address at Dr. Seward’s and came away. It was now dark, and I was tired and hungry. I got a cup of tea at the Aërated Bread Company and came down to Purfleet by the next train.

I found all the others at home. Mina was looking tired and pale, but she made a gallant effort to be bright and cheerful, it wrung my heart to think that I had had to keep anything from her and so caused her inquietude. Thank God, this will be the last night of her looking on at our conferences, and feeling the sting of our not showing our confidence. It took all my courage to hold to the wise resolution of keeping her out of our grim task. She seems somehow more reconciled; or else the very subject seems to have become repugnant to her, for when any accidental allusion is made she actually shudders. I am glad we made our resolution in time, as with such a feeling as this, our growing knowledge would be torture to her.

I could not tell the others of the day’s discovery till we were alone; so after dinner—followed by a little music to save appearances even amongst ourselves—I took Mina to her room and left her to go to bed. The dear girl was more affectionate with me than ever, and clung to me as though she would detain me; but there was much to be talked of and I came away. Thank God, the ceasing of telling things has made no difference between us.

When I came down again I found the others all gathered round the fire in the study. In the train I had written my diary so far, and simply read it off to them as the best means of letting them get abreast of my own information; when I had finished Van Helsing said:—

“This has been a great day’s work, friend Jonathan. Doubtless we are on the track of the missing boxes. If we find them all in that house, then our work is near the end. But if there be some missing, we must search until we find them. Then shall we make our final coup, and hunt the wretch to his real death.” We all sat silent awhile and all at once Mr. Morris spoke:—

“Say! how are we going to get into that house?”

“We got into the other,” answered Lord Godalming quickly.

“But, Art, this is different. We broke house at Carfax, but we had night and a walled park to protect us. It will be a mighty different thing to commit burglary in Piccadilly, either by day or night. I confess I don’t see how we are going to get in unless that agency duck can find us a key of some sort; perhaps we shall know when you get his letter in the morning.” Lord Godalming’s brows contracted, and he stood up and walked about the room. By-and-by he stopped and said, turning from one to another of us:—

“Quincey’s head is level. This burglary business is getting serious; we got off once all right; but we have now a rare job on hand—unless we can find the Count’s key basket.”

As nothing could well be done before morning, and as it would be at least advisable to wait till Lord Godalming should hear from Mitchell’s, we decided not to take any active step before breakfast time. For a good while we sat and smoked, discussing the matter in its various lights and bearings; I took the opportunity of bringing this diary right up to the moment. I am very sleepy and shall go to bed....

Just a line. Mina sleeps soundly and her breathing is regular. Her forehead is puckered up into little wrinkles, as though she thinks even in her sleep. She is still too pale, but does not look so haggard as she did this morning. To-morrow will, I hope, mend all this; she will be herself at home in Exeter. Oh, but I am sleepy!

Dr. Seward’s Diary.

2 October.—I placed a man in the corridor last night, and told him to make an accurate note of any sound he might hear from Renfield’s room, and gave him instructions that if there should be anything strange he was to call me. After dinner, when we had all gathered round the fire in the study—Mrs. Harker having gone to bed—we discussed the attempts and discoveries of the day. Harker was the only one who had any result, and we are in great hopes that his clue may be an important one.

Before going to bed I went round to the patient’s room and looked in through the observation trap. He was sleeping soundly, and his heart rose and fell with regular respiration.

This morning the man on duty reported to me that a little after midnight he was restless and kept saying his prayers somewhat loudly. I asked him if that was all; he replied that it was all he heard. There was something about his manner so suspicious that I asked him point blank if he had been asleep. He denied sleep, but admitted to having “dozed” for a while. It is too bad that men cannot be trusted unless they are watched.

To-day Harker is out following up his clue, and Art and Quincey are looking after horses. Godalming thinks that it will be well to have horses always in readiness, for when we get the information which we seek there will be no time to lose. We must sterilise all the imported earth between sunrise and sunset; we shall thus catch the Count at his weakest, and without a refuge to fly to. Van Helsing is off to the British Museum looking up some authorities on ancient medicine. The old physicians took account of things which their followers do not accept, and the Professor is searching for witch and demon cures which may be useful to us later.

I sometimes think we must be all mad and that we shall wake to sanity in strait-waistcoats.

 

Later.—We have met again. We seem at last to be on the track, and our work of to-morrow may be the beginning of the end. I wonder if Renfield’s quiet has anything to do with this. His moods have so followed the doings of the Count, that the coming destruction of the monster may be carried to him in some subtle way. If we could only get some hint as to what passed in his mind, between the time of my argument with him to-day and his resumption of fly-catching, it might afford us a valuable clue. He is now seemingly quiet for a spell.... Is he?—— That wild yell seemed to come from his room....

 

The attendant came bursting into my room and told me that Renfield had somehow met with some accident. He had heard him yell; and when he went to him found him lying on his face on the floor, all covered with blood. I must go at once....

Notes: Moon Phase: Waxing Gibbous

Mina's sleep is changing here. She is being visited by the Count. And Jonathan is too busy and sleepy to notice.

The hunters are tracking the whereabouts of the earth boxes, something that usually only gets a quick montage in the movies, if it is depicted at all.

Meanwhile, Seward has a meeting with Renfield, which turns out to be the last. 

 For this October, I am going to focus on Dungeons & Dragons' own horror setting, Ravenloft. I am not going to review every Ravenloft product, nor am I planning on a review of every Ravenloft product I own, but I am going to focus on some select items. To that end I am starting with where it all started, the classic Ravenloft module, I6. 

I6 Ravenloft

by Tracy and Laura Hickman. Art by Clyde Caldwell. (1983). Color covers, black-white interior art. Cartography by Dave Sutherland. 32 Pages.

I have talked about this adventure a lot. It is one of my all-time favorite adventures. Maybe less for what it is and more for what it meant to me.

Ravenloft was originally an adventure for First Edition AD&D, released in 1983, and written by Tracy and Laura Hickman's husband-and-wife team. It was part of the "I" or intermediate series of adventures. Most of these were not linked and only shared that they were higher levels than beginning adventures. Ravenloft, given the code I6, was for character levels 5 to 7. 

Ravenloft is not your typical dungeon crawl, and it is very atypical of the time's adventures. There is less of the typical Howard, Moorcock, and Tolkien here, and it is pure Bram Stoker. 

Ravenloft is Gothic Horror—or, more to the point, it is the Hammer Horror flavor of Gothic Horror laid over the top of Dungeons & Dragons. Harker was a milder-mannered English solicitor. The heroes here have fought dragons, goblins, and other real monsters. How can the Lord of Castle Ravenloft measure up to that?

Quite well, really.

I  picked up this adventure when it was first released and essentially threw it at my DM and told him he had to run me through it. It was everything I had hoped it would have been. Remember, my Appendix N is filled with Hammer Horror, Dracula, and Universal monsters. This was perfect for me. 

Ravenloft was a huge change from many of the adventures TSR had published to that date. For starters, the adventure featured an antagonist, Count Strahd von Zarovich, who was no mere monster. Yes, he was an AD&D Vampire, but he was meant to be run as an intelligent Non-player Character.  Before this, the vampires have been the unnamed Vampire Queen of the Palace of the Vampire Queen, Drelnza, the vampire daughter of Iggwilv in The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth, and Belgos, the Drow Vampire in Vault of the Drow. By 1983, the amount written on all three of these vampires would not even be as long as this post will be. Strahd was different.

Strahd had a backstory, motivation, and intelligence, and he was ruthless. The goal was to destroy him, and that was not an easy feat by any stretch of the imagination.

The adventure also introduced some new elements. The dungeon crawl was gone, replaced by a huge gothic castle and a nearby village. The adventure could be replayed and unique given the "Fortunes of Ravenloft" mechanic, which allows key items, people, and motives to change based on a fortune card reading.

Finally, there were the isomorphic, 3D-looking maps from Dave Sutherland, which helped give perspective to many levels of Castle Ravenloft. 

The adventure was an immediate and resounding hit. This adventure, along with the Dragonlance Adventures, also by Tracy Hickman (and Margaret Weis), led to something many old-school gamers call "The Hickman Revolution." They claim it marks the time between the Golden Age and Silver Age of AD&D, with the Silver Age coming after 1983. While yes there was change, a lot of it was for the better.

For me, it was a dream come true. Vampires had always been my favorite creatures to fight in D&D, and I was an avid Dracula fan. I bought this adventure and then threw it at my DM, saying, "Run this!" 

I grew up on a steady stream of Universal Monsters, Hammer Horror, and Dark Shadows. That's my Appendix N. So, an adventure set in pretty much the Hammer Hamlet where I get strange locals and have to fight a vampire? Yeah, that is what D&D was to me. You can almost hear Toccata and Fugue in D minor while running it. 

I find that the people who don't like this adventure don't see what makes it great. This is not Lord of the Rings, Conan, or some other Appendix N pulp fantasy. This is Hammer Horror. Strahd has to be played with a combination of charisma, scene-chewing villainy, and absolute brutality. In other words, it is exactly like Christopher Lee playing Dracula.  Even the nearby village is filled with terrified but pitchforks in the ready villagers. 

That is not to say the adventure doesn't have its problems. At times, the Gothic elements are shoved into the Swords & Sorcery fantasy of D&D. And...let's be honest, some of the puns on the headstones in the lowest level are more than cringe-worthy.  If played properly, a vampire like Strahd could wipe out a party, and that is not counting all the other monsters (gargoyles, really strong zombies, werewolves) in the castle. Though Strahd suffers from the same issues that Christopher Lee's Dracula did, completely obsessive that blind him to some obvious blunders. But that is the nature of vampires, really. 

Original, 25th Anniversary Edition, Print on Demand Edition

I have played through this once, and I have run it four or five times. I would love to try it sometime under the Ghosts of Albion or WitchCraftRPG rules. I took my D&D 5e group through it when they completed Castle Amber to make for a "Mists" series. It was fantastic.

I even got my original module from 1983 signed by Tracy Hickman the year I ran my family through it.

Much like Dracula, Count Strahd and Ravenloft keep coming back for more and more. 

All versions of Castle Ravenloft, so far.

I am sure there will be even another version of this adventure out for D&D 5.5/5r. And I am just as likely to buy it.

 Day 2

Purple sparkle dice with cats! 

I want to start this "Monster Movie Marathon" with a new one. I got this movie for my birthday and waited till tonight to see it. While I have seen a version of this one before, there are in a sense three movies here. Franco's original, Pierre Querut's added "X-rated" (really only a hard R or NC-17, I have seen worse on Netflix), and Jean Rollin's 1981 additions. I saw the Jean Rollin version, but never the original Jesús Franco version. It is this version I am basing my monster connection on.

Plus I start off with a movie that ticks all the boxes on my checklists. Before 1977, check. Jesús Franco, check. Jean Rollin, check. Another Britt Nichols and Christina von Blanc collaboration, ok that is not on my list, but it should be. And of course a monster from the Monster Manual.

A Virgin Among the Living Dead (1973)

Original and other titles include The Night of the Shooting Stars (La nuit des étoiles filantes), Christina, Princess of Eroticism (the release title for the Franco version), and The Erotic Dreams of Christine.

Our tale concerns Christina (Christina von Blanc), who returns to estranged (and strange) family in Europe for the reading of her father's will. Here she meets Aunt Abigail, Uncle Howard, Cousin Carmencé (Britt Nichols), and creepy ground's keeper Basilio, played of course by Franco himself.

The plot is paper thin, but that is not why you watch it. Ignoring for a moment all the times Christina and Carmencé run around the villa naked (hard I know) there is something sinister going on here. The plot is very, very similar to a lot of these Euro-horror movies where estranged young (most likely female) relative visits creepy family in Europe only to discover they are Satanists/Vampires/Ghosts or something else.

While there are zombies and the living dead in this film, that is mostly in the Rollin version. The pure, uncut Franco is a bit more subtle.

I did watch all three, but there is not enough differences here to merit counting this as three movies. 

Featured Monster: Ghost

We do see the ghost of Christina's dead father. He was hung and can't enter into the afterlife. We also meet a character known as the Queen of Night. But the only thing that makes sense here is that everyone, including Christina, is dead. 

Ghosts vs. Wraith vs. Spectres. Sometimes it can be bit difficult to determine what a movie monster is in terms of a D&D monster. This is never more true than with the various incorporeal undead like ghosts. In this case I picked Ghost because they seem to be "alive" to each other. A specter is more like the Ghosts of A Christmas Carol and Wraith is something a little more insubstantial.

Groaning Spirits (Banshees) and Shadows are a little easier to tell apart from the others and easier to pick out in a movie. Banshees have a very solid history.

October Horror Movie Challenge 2024
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