Fright Night Classics - The Nightmare

The Nightmare is the newest Fright Night Classics adventure from Yet Spaghetti and Friends. Written by the fantastic Timothy Brannan of The Other Side blog, the adventure is written for use with old school percentile game systems (primarily CHILL and Cryptworld, though it cold easily be used for other games too). Because of this, the adventure's mechanics are very rules light.

The adventure takes places in California's Central Valley, which is home to a large population of Hmong immigrants from Southeast Asia. It's seems a nightmare hag from has immigrated too. The characters are called in because of a recent string of deaths connected to sleep related deaths. The characters head to a sleep study lab to investigate, witness an attack, and then have to formulate a way to stop the old hag. Players will need to investigate the spirit, which might be hindered by cultural barriers. After gaining the knowledge and aid they need they return to the facility and (hopefully) defeat the hag. 

Like other adventures in this series, The Nightmare, is written as an episode of a tv show. It's broken down into four parts (counting the conclusion). This makes it easy to follow and easy to run. The adventure is respectful and even includes a short disclaimer of sleep paralysis. I also appreciate the GM handouts. This one really can be dropped into mot most modern supernatural/horror games with little ease. In addition to Chill and Cryptworld, with little work this could be used with Cinematic Uniystem, Call of Cthulhu, What Shadows Hide, or Tim's own Nightshift: Veterans of the Supernatural Wars. 

If you run a monster of the week or occult investigation game, The Nightmare would be a great addition to your game. You can get the pdf here.

Burial Plots Kickstarter

Burial Plots is a new Kickstarter for Goblinoid Games Cryptworld (the spiritual successor of classic Chill). The writing is done, the book is just being kickstarted to pay for art. Burial Plots features 5 adventures  You can read about the adventures directly on the page. Personally I think Forget-Me-Not sounds the most interesting. Unquenchable is a close second though. It's set in Akron, Ohio which is is about two hours northeast of Columbus (where I live).

I'm sure +Tim Snider has done a great job with this one and the final product will look great.

Elvira

I have two new Funko Elvira collectibles and I wanted to show them off. I also thought this was a good excuse to remind everyone that I did game stats for Elvira using Cryptworld rules.

Cryptworld - Deal of the Day

Today's DriveThruRPG Deal of the Day is for Chill's spiritual sequel, Cryptworld. It's is a fun supernatural game that does a great job emulating a lot of subgenre's of horror. Want more horrific goodness for the game? +Tim Snider over at The Savage Afterworld has you covered.

Update: Tim's made The Sketchbook of Grotesqueries temporarily available again. Grab this free monster supplement while you can. Find out how by checking out Tim's post.

Pacesetter Horror

I think it's time I finally set down and learn the Pacesetter rules. I've got a decent little collection of books. I have Creature Feature and Vampires for the original Chill game as well as Cryptworld and Monsters Macabre for the modern spiritual incarnation. You can't tell from the picture, but I also have Rotworld in the binder with Cryptworld. 

I don't know what it is about new game systems, but I'm always intimidated by them.

I know some of you have played Chill and Cryptworld. What are your thoughts?

Do you have any recommendations for a new potential Crypt Master?

October Horror Movie Challenge - Elvira, Mistress of the Dark (1988)

Synopsis: When her great aunt dies, famed horror hostess Elvira heads for the uber-conservative New England town of Falwell to claim her inheritance of an old house, a cookbook, and a poodle.
Things are not quite what they seem and soon Elvira will learn the truth about who she is.

The Good: Elvira... Like any other guy that likes creepy chicks, she was one of my first objects of love (or rather lust). There is plenty of eye candy in the movie. There's some great humor in it too (that totally went over my head as a kid).

The Bad:  The acting is really bad and the plot is cliche and silly. Then again, this is Elvira. You're not watching it for the acting and plot, right?

Final Thoughts: If you want some cheap laughs and have a thing for goth girls. Watch this.

In Your Game: Because there was an Elvira themed adventure book for Chill, I though it would be fun to stat up the mistress of the macabre for Cryptworld, Chill's successor. I obviously took some liberties with these stats. My assumption is that the events of the movie (and its video game sequel took place). Elvira has retired, having made lots of money from her Vegas show and tourist castle (from the video game). She occasionally provides occult advice to investigators. Alternatively she's broke for various reasons (such as people getting injured at the castle) and she tries to use her powers to make a buck.

Elvira, Mistress of the Dark
STR: 35           WPR: 60
DEX: 33           PER: 74
AGL: 32           PCN: 60
STA: 43           WND: 12
USM: 33          MV: L 150
LUCK: 50

Skills:  Dagger/Knife - 43, Gambling - 62, Humanities (Horror Movies/Literature) - 80, Preternatural Lore - 67, Theft - 55

Paranormal Talents:
Corpse State - 64, Empathy with Things - 59, Psychometry - 55, Speak with the Dead - 59



New To Me Movies Watched: 10
Total Movies Watched: 16

Half-Price Books Finds

Today is payday and though I don't have much to spare (day care is expensive) I decided to go to Half-Price Books on my lunch. The gaming section of the store I went to has been on a decline the past few months, but I did find two books I wanted.

The first in the Dungeons and Dragons Gazetteer. This is the thin (32 page) Greyhawk Gazetteer that came out during the early days of 3.0. I've been gaming for a while so I have quite a bit of Greyhawk knowledge, but still having handy summaries of the countries and gods is nice. Plus it's a nice supplement to the giant Greyhawk poster maps I have from Dragon Magazine.

The other book I picked up was Chill Vampires. I blame Tim at the The Other Side blog for this one. He's talked about Chill several times. I've never played it. The only other book I have for the system is Creature Feature. Still the book looked cool and I thought I'd pick it up.

Together these bad boys were only about 8 bucks (after my 10% off educator discount).  Not bad, not bad at all...

Camera lens is scratched... sorry about the picture quality.