Suspirian School of Ballet

How about a procedurally generated dungeon (akin to The Gardens of Ynn & The Stygian Library) set in the surreal and murderous dance school of the 1977 Suspiria?

During the day, the Suspirian School of Ballet (or the Chthonic Academy of Choreography?) is a tough place, where you have to put up with the cruelty of the teachers and the other aspiring ballerinas.

But at night... everything changes to even worse. You wake up screaming and sweating in your dormitory, only to find that the building is completely different. Corridors twist into a maze of madness, new rooms or macabre dimensions and unfathomable purposes appear. Unnatural lights shift around, and the curtains sway in the air as thousand phantoms. Shadowy silhouettes on the walls chase after you.

Somewhere in the very heart of this labyrinth is the Source of it all, a terrible, terrible secret... To escape this madness, you must find it and fight it.

Gameplay

Nighttime

Nighttime is crawling the vast labyrinth of the School. Only the Dormitory is fixed. Every night all other locations are generated randomly.

One exclusion: the characters can form a bond to a Nighttime location or encounter, to make it permanent and revisitable. Perhaps it's a dead girl's ghost who wants revenge. Or a hallway where healing water is tricking from the statue of a nymph. This has a cost: any place or entity the characters are bonded to will attract the attention of the unkind forces of the school.

This exclusion mechanic lets the players to define little goals or quests for themselves.

Daytime 

Daytime is downtime. Lick your wounds. Survive the torturous dance lessons. Find new weapons and do research in the library. Nighttime events bleed into the day, and each time you bring back more and more darkness. But perhaps certain Nighttime encounters are solvable from this side (kill the teacher who bullied that girl into suicide?).

Locations

1. "Normal" areas of the School, but twisted by the unkind forces (school rooms, offices, halls, staircases, dance rooms, bathrooms, library, cafeteria, dormitories, storage rooms, small gardens, orangeries...)
2. What was here before the School (Inquisitorial torture rooms, prison cells, dungeons, magic laboratories
3. Nighttime-born areas, lairs of the unkind forces, intrusions from other dimensions

Illumination

One of the strongest visual driving forces of Argento's Suspiria is the use of lush, baroque, unnatural lightning in each scene. I think it's possible to implement this in the game as well.
In each location, the Referee rolls for random illumination. This color influences what events or encounters happen, and how they play out. Some locations or circumstances call for two or more illumination rolls, and the influences bleed together.

1. RED is blood, aggression, death
2. PURPLE is madness and witchcraft
3. GREEN is poison, mutation, sickness
4. YELLOW is pain and torture incarnate
5. BLUE is deception and lies
6. DARKNESS is the Void you wish you could fill with any of the above

Encounters

1. Ghosts of pupils tortured and bullied to death
2. Mean girls
3. Living shadows
4. Phantom force
5. Dancing plague
6. Black-Gloved Killer
7. The Witch

Ideas for Extra Flavor

1. Language of sighs & whispers
2. Blades signal death
3. Spells contained in shards of stained glass

There's a lot to work out here, but at least I jotted down some basic ideas. Emmy Allen's stuff is a constant source of inspiration for me, and so are horror movies, weird fiction... I think this combination could work pretty well.

[Review] Times That Fry Men's Souls

Times That Fry Men's Souls is a campaign setting written by Seann McAnally / Nerd Glows On. The weird historical setting lends it to LotFP, but all stats are presented in a neutral OSR style. The cover says it all: Colonial America + a probability of tentacles... I like it though how the GM can control the amount of supernatural they introduce: the book has many options for "mundane" games, concentrating on drama, espionage, Revolutionary war drama, political intrigue, and frontier exploration; but if needed, a rather hefty dose of the weird/ghastly/supernatural can be injected into this historical world.

Let's see what's inside the book! You get ~130 pages of content, with a single-column layout. There is an "old-timey" feel due to the fonts and well-curated public domain illustrations and collages. Luckily, the historical fonts don't hinder readability.

A short introduction summarizes what you get: a hexcrawl, monsters, hooks, short adventures. The author says that what you don't get is background info about life in Colonial America. This is not necessarily true: in the appendices there are 15 pages of tables with useful info (names, random background tidbits, random NPCs, locations, meals...). Also, there is a reading list in the end, so you can use those recommendations to supplement world-building. The Colonial Gothic RPG has most things covered. If you run or play "Times That Fry...", I think it's necessary to brush up a bit on your knowledge of the period, at least in general terms, to know who the factions are, what are they fighting for.

Also, bonus points for including music recommendations - this list is short (only three entries), but effective, especially the doom folk of The Widow's Ride. I love compiling playlists for the games I run, so I appreciate this part! Off the bat, I'd add Crow Tongue to this list!

An 80-strong hex crawl makes up the bulk of the book. There are two maps: a full-color at the back cover for the players, and a "control map" inside for the GM. The map is a piece of real historical cartography - great for immersion - but when in grayscale, I think it lacks contrast (the white hex grid blends with parts of the map). And sometimes it's hard to discern whether a marking on the map actually corresponds with the hex description. It's still usable, though. And you can easily extract the map from the pdf, and adjust brightness/contrast in any photo editor.

Crawl-procedures are presented next: travel speed, conditions, weather effects (by season).

The territory is densely populated with story hooks, factions, encounters. Luckily, there is a single-page overview of the various storylines, so the GM can easily see to which hexes each narrative strain is tied.
There are also several categories of interest, e.g. lists of all hexes containing treasure, all hexes containing supernatural encounters, or all locations with military activity.
Such summaries are very important for hexcrawls. Of course, you have to test this in actual play to see just how well Seann managed to organize it, but it looks solid and useful. Perhaps it'd be beneficial to also highlight the "trigger hexes" for the storylines? An overview of these storylines and their importance for the campaign (and the consequences!) would help a lot, too. You have some page-turning to do going back and forth between hexes to learn the whole plot.

Next: hex descriptions!

The layout is great here: one hex = one page.

Each hex has two or three things. It is not stated explicitly, but from what I understood, the first thing is something that's visible right away when entering the hex (or maybe even visible/heard from a neighbouring hex). The subsequent things are harder to discern, and are only encountered when the players spend some time exploring the hex.
The first thing is usually an encounter with people or wildlife. The encounters are quite varied, and also very interactive. Many of them "trigger" the story threads mentioned above. Some are shorter, e.g. a young doctor who asks to be escorted from one hex to the other. But there are also complex stories, arching over 4-5 distant hexes.
Hexes also contain places of interest, natural or man-built, abandoned or populated, loot, items, etc.
One hex occupying one page REALLY helps. Descriptions are terse, and easy to skim (although some highlighting would be beneficial). Stats for NPCs and creatures are summarized at the end of each entry.

The hex contents are VERY GOOD. They perfectly evoke the historical period, provide enough details, and, most importantly, hooks and things to interact with.
It's interesting to see how the author deals with hex 307 - The City of New York... Understandably, there is only so much you can fit in a single page. So there is no detailed description, but you still get two small locations, and, of course, the hook for one of the most convoluted story threads in the campaign.

In keeping with the setting's "adjustable weirdness level", these hexes only contain mundane hooks and happenings.

However, in the next section, there are ten weird tales of the supernatural that the Referee can drop on their players.

Each weird tale is presented on two pages. They are not tied to exact hexes, but there is a general recommendation on where to locate them (e.g. "close to a river"). There are no maps or mini-dungeons, though, so if a "cave" is mentioned, the Referee has to make their own.

The tales ( = short adventures, probably a session each?) are mostly dealings with a group of local populace followed by an encounter with a weird and possibly highly lethal entity. They have this distinct Call of Cthulhu feel, which is great, but the formula is a bit repetitive (arrive to hex, learn about weird stuff from disgruntled local folks, run away or deal with said weird stuff). Two tales stand out, however, which provide a different approach: one is a surreal party in an urban setting (good thing to put in that underutilized New York!); the other tale is triggered when one or more party members die.

The book closes with several tables and appendices, which I've mentioned before.

Highlights: evocative historical setting with an adjustable weirdness level, good layout and art, dense hexcrawl (there are no "empty" spaces!), plenty of hooks and stories for the players to interact with. It can be played both as a straightforward historical game, or a weird investigative horror that truly tries & fries your soul!

Overall, I really like Times That Fry Men's Souls! I definitely want to run it eventually. If you want a historically grounded campaign, with plentiful weird opportunities, you should get it too. Great for OSR systems (and especially LotFP), but certainly usable with Colonial Gothic or Call of Cthulhu too.

[LotFP] Napoleon's Egyptian campaign as a sandbox setting?

I have this idea in the back of my mind. A pseudo-historical exploration/adventure sandbox game.

Take Napoleon's Egyptian campaign (1798-1801).

The player characters are soldiers, officers, personnel in Napoleon's army. They learn about the riches of the land - the tombs to plunder, the treasures to find. Henchmen/replacement characters are local guides, guards, workmen, and lower ranking soldiers and camp personnel.  Each night, they sneak out of the encampment, risk being shot as a deserter, to reach the Valley of the Kings and get some of the sweet ancient gold. Avoid guards, Mamluk patrols, sandstorms. Gather information from locals, try to decipher hieroglyphics. Or perhaps the players choose the "legal" route, and get an official commission from Vivant Denon.

Monster-wise, as much as I like Hammer Horror/Universal Monsters, I'd like to break away from the standard "fantasy ancient Egypt" routine. Mummies and scarabs are tried and true, but perhaps some other things can be introduced. This is a hard task. Something to think about.


So, I'm not working actively on this. Just slowly accumulating ideas...

1d6 Rumors

1	Napoleon entered the Great Pyramid and came out pale and shaking. He’s seen a vision of the future.
2	One of the officers found a gold bracelet, but the next day, he was found dead, strangled, in his own tent.
3	All the nearby tombs are already robbed. You need to venture deep into the desert to find riches.
4	Scrapings of mummies have healing properties.
5	A man named Vivant Denon is researching the tombs on Napoleon’s behalf. He knows more about these monuments than anybody else, and is ready to pay for artifacts.
6	The ancient tombs are always bigger than they seem!

And some standard spells, now noted down as Egyptian incantations (pulled from historical sources):

1d3 Spells

1	Unseen Servant O shabti, allotted to me, if I be summoned or if I be detailed to do any work which has to be done in the realm of the dead, if indeed any obstacles are implanted for you therewith as a man at his duties, you shall detail yourself for me on every occasion of making arable the fields, of flooding the banks or of conveying sand from east to west; 'Here I am', you shall say.
2	Speak with Dead My mouth has been given to me that I may speak with it in the presence of the Great God. My mouth is opened, by mouth is split open by Shu with that iron harpoon of his with which he split open the mouths of the gods.
3	Protection from Evil May I have power in my heart, may I have power in my arms, may I have power in my legs, may I have power in my mouth, may I have power in all my members may I have power over invocation-offerings, may I have power over water ... air ... the waters ... streams ... riparian lands ... men who would harm me ... women who would harm me in the realm of the dead ... those who would give orders to harm me upon earth.

Cosmic Crawl

Cosmic Crawl is a group-sourced Lovecraftian cosmic horror setting book, drawn, written / compiled by Evlyn Moreau of the Chromatic Cauldron! I contributed some bits and pieces to it, and I'm very happy that now it's all finished.

You can find the awesome complete pdf here:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1pTD1XBhuDinUHmURtH4QKnz-9dU-7V5i/view

[LotFP] A Field in Lorraine

I've put together a short document with my ideas for a weird & nasty & dark fantasy game set in the aftermath of the Thirty Years' War. This is not a scenario or adventure, but rather little atmospheric pieces that help to show the world of 17th century Weird Europe.

I've also included a list of "folk magic" spells. And mushrooms.

Here's the link to the .pdf:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B2c4f45yVNuOa3R3X2pkVVg1NVk

"This is not a “historical” game. The Thirty Years’ War and other events are used as a backdrop, but their importance or overarching role is only understood in retrospect. People who are in the middle of it do not know whether the war and wars have ended or not. They do not have up-to-date information from the frontlines. News travel slowly, deception and rumors are abundant.

Lorraine is defined as the general area of events, but it is important for the tone of the game to keep the setting vague, regarding both chronology and location. Maps and timelines are only known to strategists and annalists. Player characters and the everyday people they encounter are utterly, hopelessly lost. Locals know their own village, maybe the road to the next hamlet. Superstition warns against going to certain areas, and for a good reason. Bands of marauders and deserters are menacing the lands. Many villages are completely abandoned; most of them are only inhabited by women, children, and the elderly.

The player characters are soldiers, mercenaries heading back to their villages. They served their time, their battalion was re-organized, or, more likely, destroyed. But they are not in a hurry… For they know that their “home” is not the cozy place it used to be. The player characters fear that the same atrocities they committed in foreign lands were carried out against their own villages by other soldiers."

(c) Simon Marsden

This was all created with Lamentations of the Flame Princess on mind, but can be used with any system. I hope to run this game soon for a couple of friends.