Yeti With A Machete

Yeti With A Machete is a crowdsourced movie that will be coming to IndieGoGo soon. Honestly, I just read the title and I was in, but after watching the trailer below, I'm stoked. 

Yeah that's right, the yeti is a good guy and he's fighting Nazis! I might need to do SURVIVE THIS!! and 5e stats for the yeti soon.

Moon Daughter's Fate

 

Moon Daughter's Fate is the latest Indiegogo project from Necromancer Games/Frog God Games. Written by Alice Peng this mid-level adventure taps into Chinese folklore. Starting with an encounter with a disguised god, the adventure features several different areas and new monsters, and an opportunity to deal with quarreling gods. 

I recently spoke with Alice and asked her the inspiration for the adventure:

It really is from my childhood.  As a child, I was raised with all these Chinese High Fantasy stories born from myths and lore.  There's lots of TV shows, movies, and books that don't have English translations.

Playing TTRPGs for so many decades, I've found an absolute void of these stories in the hobby and wanted to share a piece of my childhood and a culture that is rarely translated.

I've GMed this subgenre of fantasy for a number of gaming groups and they've all loved it but it's funny that when I try to explain to them what they can expect, there are very few movies/tv shows/books in English that I can reference them to so I always end up saying "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is Wuxia and Sorcerer and the White Snake is more FengShen/XianXia."

Representation is important and I'm really excited to see how Alice brings Chinese folklore to the gaming table. I think it's wonderful when folks share their cultural heritage and I know this adventure is going to rock. 

Do yourself a favor, if you player 5e, Pathfinder 1e, or OSR (particularly Swords & Wizardry), check out this adventure.

Debbie Does Demons

Debbie Does Demons is a schlocky horror comedy currently on Indiegogo. Judging by the pedigree of those involved it's going to be a wonderful goofy gorefest. Let's be honest, with everything going on in the world we need more movies that are just plain silly fun. I can't say much more than this sounds like a lot of fun and you should consider donating to the project. 

Seriously.... 

Debbie Does Demons

That is the perfect movie title and I'm surprised it's not been used before. 

Scents & Sensibilities

Scents & Sensibilities was a special release to celebrate Frog God Games Game Day 2020. Funded through Indiegogo, this is a short release unlike anything else. The books is divided into three parts

The first part is Scents & Sensibilities. A Whovian cat-like merchant comes to the heroes and asks them to retrieve ingredients for his perfumes and colognes. These ingredients are mephetic creatures known as stank hogs. A group of these is wreaking havoc on a farm and the party can deal with them in a variety of manners. The adventure is relatively short and only 4.5 pages.

This is followed by three pages from Swyte's Physiologus. This is an in game biological description of the stank hog. It includes some game mechanics.

The final part of the books includes three stats blocks spread across three pages. The first is for the Yshkat, the aforementioned Whovian. We are also given stats for stank hogs and stank piglets.

This is a fun release. I definitely want to use it. I do think it's pricey though. You get 11 pages of gaming material for a cover price of 19.99. This is half the size of other Frog Indiegogo releases but the same price.

The Horror Out of Hagsjaw

The Horror Out of Hagsjaw is an adventure from the newly resurrected Necromancer Games (an imprint of Frog God Games) that funded via Indiegogo. It is written by Levi Combs of Planet X Games, author of two of my favorite adventures: Jungle Tomb of the Mummy Bride and An Occurrence At Howling Crater. I’m going to put a disclaimer here. Levi is my homie. I was a fan of his work before I got to know him and he didn’t ask me to do this review. Homie-ness aside, I think he’s a great writer and love letting other folks know that. As you can see in the pic, I have the 5e version, though it was also released for Swords & Wizardry and Pathfinder 1e.

The adventure sees the party arriving at the run down border village of Hagsjaw. The community was once thriving, but because of the curse of a trio of hags it’s been on a steep decline. The hags have returned (in a fashion) and now threaten to spread the madness of their patron, the Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young... Shub-Niggurath. There are definitely mythos elements and threads throughout this adventure. Hagsjaw (formerly known as Hogsjaw Hollow) has a Dunwich-vibe to it. It has no silver mines, but it was once a thriving community. There are several colorful characters in town, which are included in a d8 resident chart. Each entry gives enough information to help the DM bring them to life. There’s not much to do in town: talk to Ol Jeb, shop at Webley’s Dry Goods, get a watered down ale at The Craven Crow, or investigate the crumbling church.

While the adventure has three major encounters that can be tackled in any order, the obvious place to start is the church. Incidentally, it is most beneficial to go here first. While the church is run down on the outside, the contents are truly horrid. The scene is gore and blood soaked. A massive dark piece of vegetation with disgusting polyps hanging from bursts through the floor. A gibberish mouther rests beneath the floor seeking to devour those that enter. The descriptions of this area are visceral and muck covered. Levi’s love of Lovecraft’s work really comes through as the scene he presents is unnerving and putrid.

The next area described is an altar of Shub-Niggurath that can be found in the cursed woods. A small band of malicious satyrs are torturing a gnome, trying to learn the location of a lost hag’s skull. This encounter gives the party a reason to fight evil fey, which is always fun. Again, Levi does an excellent job describing the unholy scene.

The final area described is a cave that pits the party against two hag possessed townsfolk Barnabas and Keziah Tatterly and their charmed minions. Lovecraft fans will recognize the names. Barnabas is named after Barnabas (Old Man) Marsh and Keziah Mason (the antagonist of The Dreams in the Witch House).

While the adventure doesn’t have a traditional happy ending, the town is too far gone and will eventually be reclaimed by the forest, if the party succeeds in destroying the hags they have saved some good folks and stopped the spread of a vile cult.

At the conclusion of the adventure we’re given six statblocks and three magic items. All of these could easily be used in other wilderness adventures and one of the stat blocks is for a prehistoric beaver... I’ll let you make your own juvenile jokes.

The cover art is amazing. That hag is striking. The rest of the art and maps are standard Frog God Games/Necromancer game fair, really good and fitting, but not super memorable.

I think Necromancer Games did a great job with this adventure. Of the Indiegogo adventures released by them and their parent company, this is definitely my favorite. I do wish the adventure would have been more like a Planet X Games adventure though. I really love the grindhouse style and over the top nature of Levi’s other adventures. While there is still horror with this one, it seems really tame and toned down. I understand why, it was made for a wider audience, but I am a little sad to think about what could have been.

Don’t let my whining dissuade you though. I loved this adventure and if you want to add a bit of cosmic horror to a dark corner of your game, this is a great way to do so.

The Horror Out of Hagsjaw

NECROMANCER Games has a new Indiegogo, The Horror Out of Hagsaw. Written by the amazing Levi Combs (of Planet X Games), the adventure is old school Lovecraftian horror. Just check out the adventure's description:

Travelers have long considered Hagsjaw a place best avoided, haunted by whispered tales of witches and strange doings in the old days. Once terrorized by a wretched coven of witches known as the Karnley Hags, the town was held in a grip of fear that saw its citizens oppressed, its children stolen and anyone who dared oppose them viscously murdered. Though the witches were eventually overthrown and hung in the town square, they muttered a unified curse with their last breaths, promising nothing less than misery and doom for all who remained.

That was a century ago, and now Hagsjaw is little more than a forgotten watering hole on the way to bigger and better places. Time has not treated the decaying town or it’s folk kindly, as it seems to die out more and more as each generation passes. The farms at the edge of town are empty of cattle and crop, the town’s buildings are crumbling and even the sagging roofs of the abandoned, twin-steepled church don’t look like they’ll hold up much longer. There’s little left to suggest that the town hadn’t withered away completely… until recently.

To everyone’s surprise, Hagsjaw seems to be awakening from its century-long slumber. The old sawmill has fired back up again and the townsfolk have inexplicably started to go back out into the forests to log, hunt and trap. Talk of renewed industry is circulating and some say that the town’s cursed days might finally be over.

For all this talk of prosperity, a sinister undertone ripples throughout the town. The locals remain more suspicious than ever and many whisper that the Karnley Hags have returned to make good on their promise to bring their ageless curse of doom full circle. Folk have begun to act strangely. Some have even turned on each other. Paranoia and mistrust run rampant. Has witchery and the depraved worship of strange, old gods returned to the land? Do the whispers of ancient curses ring true? What nameless dread has spread its wings over the terrified folk of Hagsjaw?

Can the characters uncover what lies beneath the surface and, if so, will they survive it?

If that adventure doesn't sound intriguing to you, then we have very different tastes. Support the project and get a cool adventure written by a radical dude. 

Feast of the Gobbler (5E) Review

Feast of the Gobbler is a Thanksgiving themed update to a Necromancer Game 3.0 adventure. Originally available through Indiegogo, you can now purchase the pdf for Swords & Wizardry, Pathfinder 1.0, and 5e (which I will be reviewing). It is for tier 2 adventures (which I'm not a hundred percent sure what that means).

The adventure centers around the tension between the settlers of Maywood and the indigenous people known as the Grass Sailors. Unbeknownst to both sides, a third faction, followers of the dreaded Gobbler, is behind the kidnappings that have set the neighbors against one another. In the adventure, the party must navigate through a dangerous forest, fight advanced versions of axe beaks and human/axe beak hybrids, and finally face the Gobbler's high priest.

This is a fun and challenging adventure. It's got a perfect holiday theme, but be warned, unless you like some cheekiness and bad puns in your game, you might want to reskin and rename a few things. Here are just a few of the goofy food-related names:

• Hillshire's Farm
• Punkin's Spice
• Fort Buterbal
• Yambling Mound
• Matuar Klukar

There are several new monsters and monster variants in this book: archer bushes, axe beak variants, dirty birds (human/axe beak hybrids), Killer Cranberry Bushes, Matar Klukar (were turkey servant of the Gobbler) and the Gobbler himself.  There are also new magic items: horn of devouring and cornucopia of gluttony, and semi-magic feasting rules. 

I really like the Gobbler. He's a super gluttonous Vrock who's nearing Demon Prince status. I think he's a great BBEG and would be a nice addition to games (especially if you're looking for non-standard foes). The thing that bothers me though is that he's only a challenge 7. Yes, this makes him scale to the adventure, but how is this guy nearly a Demon Prince, when so many non-named demons could squish him. I justify this by saying the stats listed or for an Aspect of the Gobbler. 

If you want a fun and weird Thanksgiving adventure pick this one up from the Frogs. 

Standed Indiegogo 2 - Free Perk Friday

Back in March I talked about the Indiegogo for Concept Media LLC's Bigfoot movie Stranded. I love these Ohio filmmakers. Their flick Don't Fuck in the Woods is one of my favorite indie horror movies of all time.

Every dollar given to the project counts and if you give today you get the awesome perks listed below (including a digital copy of the movie!). Follow this link to get to the fundraiser's page. Please consider helping fund this project.

Creature Collection Blu Ray

I've talked about Stranded before. It is an upcoming bigfoot movie by Shawn Burkett and Concept Media LLC. Shawn is the man that directed the fantastic flick, Don't Fuck in the Woods. Currently Stranded is seeking funds via an Indigogo campaign. It's a flexible goal, so even if they don't reach it, they will get all of the money pledged. That being said, let's help make this film the best it can be.

Personally I'm at least going to go for the blu ray steelbook. I love steelbooks and I want one with a bigfoot print on it. I like some of the other collectibles too, so I might go for a few of them too. I recently one a cast of the bigfoot prop from a live auction they did a few weeks ago.

If you're new to Concept Media's work, I highly recommend the perk level pictured below. Forty-five dollars plus shipping is an amazing price for these movies. I've paid 20+ for my copies of Betsy and Don't Fuck in the Woods (which are both signed special editions). The flicks are fantastic indie horror pieces and great gaming inspiration (especially for things like Dark Places & Demogorgons, World of Darkness, or Dark Streets & Darker Secrets)

Stranded

Stranded is a new Bigfoot film directed by Ohio native Shawn Burkett of Concept Media.  Shawn also directed the really fun flick, Don't Fuck in the Woods. Here's a synopsis of the flick from the press release:

The film follows a group of siblings into the wilderness to fulfill their mother’s request of scattering her ashes in a location where she was fond of as a child. Along the way the siblings are forced to hash out issues and reopen old wounds before they become stranded on an old country road where they come face to face with the infamous bigfoot.

Here's a behind the scenes trailer and the official teaser.

Y'all know that I love indie horror and cryptid related things. I also love that this movie is being made by Ohio folks and is is about bigfoot specifically. My state is a hotbed of bigfoot sightings (as the map below shows). I'm from Scioto County, lived in Franklin until recently, and currently live in Ross County. As the map shows, all three have had bigfoot sightings in the last 19 years. 

This movie sounds like perfect inspiration for a Dark Places & Demogorgons game. The Cryptid Manual would be the perfect resource, with it's several variations of bigfeet (which really doesn't sound right). 

The film currently has an Indigogo campaign that goes through April. There are some really cool perk levels. Personally, my favorite is the 50 DVD/Bluray signed steelbook of the flick. I absolutely love steelbooks.  Other levels include posters, behind the scenes flash drives, posters, pins, busts, and even walk on roles and producer credits. If this seems like a flick you'd enjoy, consider donating here. 

Support indie horror!