Review - Whispers In The Dark (Preview - Horror In The Windy City)

A few weeks ago I mentioned that Matt Corley was running a joint fiction and RPG Kickstarter for an investigative horror game set at the end of 19th century.  I had a chance to read through the fiction-side of the Kickstarter, and it was GREAT!  The follow up plan was to play Whispers In The Dark (the first title in the RPG series) last week to try out the core mechanics but unfortunately the horror of real life reared it's ugly head and pushed our game back to this coming week.  I'm stoked about playing but having done my prep I wanted to share my thoughts on the game itself prior to the current Kickstarter ending.

Whispers In The Dark is a joint effort by Matt Corley and M.T. Black who both have a tremendous track record of writing interesting and thematically original 5e content.  Whispers uses 5e for it's core mechanics which I have to say really highlights how well the Skills and Feats allow players to develop distinctly different characters.  The game drops the concepts of Race and Class entirely, and re-focuses not only on Skills, and Feats, but Backgrounds as well.  This allows players who are familiar with D&D 5e to pick up and play a different style of game without having to learn a whole new set of rules.  From a physical point of view the rule book for Whispers In The Dark is a work of art unto itself.  The layout, font choices, and style of art create a very period authentic mythos feel.  As a longtime fan of Cthulhu mythos, Ravenloft, and D&D this rule set scratches all those itches.  I'm really looking forward to running Whispers In The Dark later this week, and in hindsight my only regret is that I hadn't bought the book earlier, as it would have been great support for a D&D game I just ran (which I should be covering in another review in a week or two).  I strongly recommend Whispers In The Dark for all fans of horror gaming whether they have prior experience with D&D or not.

Horror In The Windy City is a follow up to Whispers In The Dark and introduces a new alignment system, which I think a lot of folks online who have been debating the merits of D&D's current alignment system will really like.  For anyone who's curious the alignment system is up as a preview on the Kickstarter page, I highly recommend checking it out.  The real draw for me personally is that the included adventure content in Horror In The Windy City is the truth-is-stranger-than-fiction story of HH Holmes.  If you're familiar with the story of HH Holmes, just stop reading now and go back the Kickstarter.  And if you're not familiar head on over to the Kickstarter and read about the Murder Castle.  Overall I would say that for a lot of gamers Horror In The Windy City looks to straddle the line between period mystery and fantasy horror in a way that should appeal to a tremendous range of players.

Whispers In The Dark is presently available through DriveThruRPG at https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/299564/Whispers-in-the-Dark-Quickstart-Rules-for-5e?term=Whispers+In+The+Da it comes in a variety of formats across a number of different price points.

Horror In The Windy City is in the final days of it's Kickstarter at https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/37222410/the-devils-city-for-5e and I would highly recommend backing it to any fan of investigative horror, or anyone interested in bringing in new elements to their Fifth Edition Dungeons & Dragons game.

-Jay

Review - The Devil's City

As I touched on just over a week ago Matt Corley is running a Kickstarter for an investigative horror game with an accompanying novella.  Please take a moment to check out the Kickstarter at https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/37222410/the-devils-city-for-5e

Today I'm going to be looking at the novella portion of the Kickstarter 'The Devil's City' co-written by Matt Corley and Sara Tantlinger.

Although I had heard the story of HH Holmes before, knowing that this would be a fictionalized version of the story really left me not knowing what to expect.  The format of the novella really worked well for me with the early chapters basically being framed as loosely connected short stories with their own beginnings and endings.  When the story moves into its later half it comes together as in fact being one coherent story not by the any of the protagonists, but by being the story of the antagonist, HH Holmes.  The story starts off feeling firmly rooted as a period horror/crime story before moving off into the realm of the fantastic. 

Stories like this can be extremely difficult to discuss without spoiling things so I'll leave the issue of the story to one side and instead address the structure and style of the story.  This is in my opinion horror fiction at it's best.  Horror stories when well told know when to give detail, when to be explicit, and when to leave space for the reader's imagination.  The Devil's City gets this balance perfect, it puts me in mind of the best balances of HP Lovecraft's writing minus the dated and overly verbose prose style.  The victims of the murder castle are all sympathetic in their own ways with more time being spent building the sense that they are real people than being given over to the details of their various tragic and gory demises.  Having said that their deaths are presented as being cruel, disturbing, and horrific to a degree that increases the reader's empathy for their plight, while also painting Holmes as a true monster.  Once we journey deeper into the narrative is when tinges of the supernatural begin to make themselves felt thus moving the story further from mystery and deeper into horror.

Overall I would say even if you're not interested in the gaming side of this project, this novella stands well on it's own merits as a fantastic piece of fiction.  It's objectively well written and and tells a genuinely interesting story in a compelling style.  Every fan of HP Lovecraft, Steven King, or Brian Lumley will definitely want to read The Devil's City and should check out the Kickstarter while there is still time at https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/37222410/the-devils-city-for-5e

Please check back in later this week for my review of the game portion of this Kickstarter.

-Jay

A long overdue return to the wateland

It's been a while.  It seems like not that long ago two different flavours of post-apocalyptic gaming were  my main miniatures focus; zombies, and Fallout or Fallout inspired games.  Gears shifted, things changed and Fallout had been left behind for what seems like over a year now.  Two things have changed that in the past few weeks.  First my buddy Andrew wants to get back to playing This Is Not A Test when we're all allowed to go outside and stand within 6 feet of each other again, and secondly I've been playing some Fallout 4 and it's gotten me excited about the look and feel again.

Deciding I would paint some new models I pulled out the copy of Fallout by Modiphius I got when it was initially released, took a deep breath, and finally started working on those models,  For anyone who doesn't remember I was super excited about Fallout leading up to this game's release, but then once I had it (the version with vinyl figures) in my hands I was super disappointed in the state of the warped bases.  I decided to push past that feeling and simply chop the bases off and re-base the figures.  While waiting for the primer to dry I flipped through the rulebook and had also totally forgotten that Fallout included rules for solo play, so this also meant I'd be able to get some games in during the current lockdown.  So although I'm ultimately painting the 'survivors' to use in my This Is Not A Test game, I decided to start off by painting the Super Mutants as they will be my AI force for Fallout.

The two player starter comes with three Super Mutants and two Super Mutant Hounds.  I decided to do the hounds first, and hopefully will get the actual Super Mutants done this weekend.

I still need to do some cleanup around the eyes (I'm starting to feel like that could be a copy-paste comment in every blog entry lately) but overall I'm happy with how the hounds turned out.  They have a lot of great texture and one thing I didn't even realize until I started painting them is how much more feral and savage these look for not only having huge sharp teeth but a lot of exposed gum area to really give the impression that they're snarling.

I'm looking forward to batch painting the Super Mutants next and then it will be the survivors one at a time.  Once I get those done and have a chance to do some solo play I'll probably circle back and review the game itself as well.

And just a friendly reminder that Fallout Wasteland Warfare and many other games are available from your friendly local game store!

-Jay

First Thoughts - The Devil's City

Yesterday I discovered two amazing looking books on Kickstarter I really wanted to bring to everyone's attention.

Matt Corley, the creative mind behind; Tales From The Margreve, Lamp Light's Sanitarium, and Harper's Tale has recently turned his focus to investigative horror set at the turn of the 19th to the 20th century building up from a basic foundation of 5e D&D.  So what I'm saying is, if you like:
-D&D 5e
-Horror RPGs
-Call Of Cthulhu
-Ravenloft: Masque Of The Red Death
-Investigative RPGs
-Horror stories or games based on real (seriously!) world events
...then this is a Kickstarter you owe it to yourself to check out!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/37222410/the-devils-city-for-5e

The Devil's City Kickstarter is basically comprised of two books.  First up an illustrated 90 page novella co-authored by Matt Corley and Sara Tantlinger based on a fictionalized version of the story of HH Holmes (I'll come back to that in a bit for those of you not familiar).  Like I said I'll elaborate in a bit but if you're a horror fan, the story of HH Holmes is definitely a case of truth being far stranger than fiction.

The second book will be Horror In The Windy City.  A 5e compatible campaign book that will build on to Mr Corley's existing Whispers In The Dark game.  The author has extensive experience writing horror gaming and he has shown he consistently 'gets it' in terms of writing excellent thinking-person's horror rather than classic D&D hack-n-slay style.

So that's what the Kickstarter is, now let me tell you why I backed it, and why I hope you'll consider backing it too.

From a gaming point of view I've always liked D&D as a game system and it's the system the greatest number of existing players are familiar with, and the greatest number of potential players are open to.  Most of my gaming friends and I have always liked the idea of Call Of Cthulhu and in all fairness it is a good system but in my opinion it doesn't have the familiarity or the ease of use of D&D.  I really think for a ton of gamers investigative games could be a real inroad to discovering D&D outside of the more traditional 'dragons inside dungeons' style of gaming.  As prep for this I'm planing on running a group through Whisper In The Dark in two weeks.  I'll let you know how it goes, and how it works.

From a story point of view the story of HH Holmes has always fascinated me.  Again I have to reiterate, this is a TRUE story from our real world.  I'll give you the truncated version but if it interests you the way it interested me do some research online and back this Kickstarter!
HH Holmes was 1890's version of Jigsaw from the Saw movies.  He built a hotel in Chicago that was filled with secret passages, dead-end hallways to nowhere, and (in a manner of speaking) traps.  In short he built a hotel, invited people to stay there, and then starting murdering them once he got them inside.  I can't stress enough, this is a real thing that happened in an American city just over a century ago!

So there you have it.  An investigative horror RPG set in an only slightly warped version of our own world 130ish years ago.  A talented creative team, a game that manages to be familiar and new at the same time, and an inroad to a whole new genre of gaming.

I hope you'll all check out the Kickstarter at https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/37222410/the-devils-city-for-5e and my plan is next week to write a full review of the novella, and the week after that to provide a review of of my Whispers In The Dark game-play experience (hopefully integrating) Horror In The Windy City's new alignment system.

-Jay

Et tu Albino Rat?

Finished one more rat for Zoe's Animal Adventures game last night.  This time I guess he's a 'boss rat'.

This is another rat from the Malifaux/Through The Breech Brotherhood Of The Rat box set.  Although he's the same size as the other rats he's posed up on his hind legs which I felt made him stand out (no pun intended) more.  I really like the pose on the model and I feel like he'll be a memorable character based largely on that alone.

In addition to the endless parade of rats I also started on some undead for future Animal Adventures outings.

These little guys are one of the extra bits that comes on the Mantic King Of War skeleton sprues.  I thought I had a ton of these but so far have only been able to dig up two.

And please remember that these miniatures and many more are available from your Friendly Local Game Store.

-Jay

Review - Back To The Sea

Today I'm taking a look at the one-shot adventure Back To The Sea by Inky.Ginge

Back To The Sea is a one-shot adventure for 3rd-4th level adventurers with a very atmospheric horror theme so in a lot of ways it falls right into my wheelhouse.  In many ways the quickest summary I can probably give of the adventure is that it is probably the exact adventure a group that is playing Sinister Secret Of Saltmarsh for the first time thinks they're actually playing.  The group is hired to investigate an area just off the coast that superstitious locals believe to be haunted.  Once the group 'arrives' at the main encounter location they find themselves investigating and plagued by supernatural occurrences.

Back To The Sea is an extremely short adventure that most groups will probably be able to complete in a single session of play.  Although the adventure itself is short I have to say that the author did not compromise on full rich descriptions of encounters, NPC actions, and descriptions of key features.  I found the adventure to feel extremely thematic and immersive.  In addition to how well written the adventure is it comes with 3 amazing looking maps as separate files that can be used as DMs reference but can also be blown up into encounter maps to be used for tabletop gaming.  Even after running the adventure these maps will be super useful for dropping in as a small house or cottage in other games and settings.

This is the kind of adventure that is difficult to describe in real detail without ruining the surprises inside but if you and your group want an incredibly well written  ghost story with terrific cartography I highly recommend Back To The Sea.

Back To The Sea is currently available for $5.95 from DMsGuild at https://www.dmsguild.com/product/297621/Back-To-The-Sea?term=back+to+the+sea

-Jay

A short detour back to Saltmarsh

Hello all!

I've done a fairly good job lately of focusing on finishing miniatures I actually need for games I'm really going to play, which is super odd for me.  Having said that I've had a bit of a wish list in my head of models I either don't need at all, or at least won't need anytime soon.

A while back I was playing in a Saltmarsh game that due to the greatest obstacles any D&D game can face (scheduling and the real world) has been on indefinite hiatus.  In spite of that I've never abandoned the idea that at some point Garkas (my character) and I will get to return to Saltmarsh.

Previously I had painted my PC model; Garkas, as well as a pseudo-dragon and 2 NPC sailors.  Our last session had ended with us freeing both the pseudo-dragon as well as the sea-elf NPC Oceanus.  I had wanted to do up a miniature for Oceanus for some time but was struggling to find an unarmoured elf model with a spear and crossbow (ideally in plastic).  I've mentioned this a few times in the past while looking for other character models but it is often difficult to find models which are heavily armed but lightly armoured.  While browsing WizKids site I found a half-elf monk who basically looked right with the exception of the fact that he had no weapons.  I dug out my trusty Frostgrave sprues, nicked a crossbow and a spear and; voila!  Oceanus!

I'm super happy with how this figure turned out.  The pose looked really cool to me and he looks ready to fight without being in an overly dramatic stance.  It's also another case of adding a PC/NPC model that feels like he'll get re-used multiple times over the coming years.  Having finished Oceanus I'm now thinking about circling back and re-doing my sailor models once I finish my last few Animal Adventures baddies today.

Oceanus and all his bits and pieces came from my Friendly Local Game Store!

-Jay

Rats!

I can now officially say I'm past the half-way point of getting models done for Zoe's Animal Adventures game!

Her PC and 3 NPCs were all finished by my the time I published my last post and that just left me with 11 models worth of baddies to paint.

I needed a half-dozen rats as they are among the principal antagonists of the early Animal Adventure modules.

These particular rats came from a box set that was a dual purpose Malifaux/Through The Breech scenario pack entitled 'Brotherhood Of The Rat'.  These guys are getting done first but 4 of the remaining 6 figures from that box should feature in an upcoming game for me as well.

Obviously I went really basic on the paint jobs on these guys but I think they're certainly adequate and should provide some suitably scummy opposition for Zoe's heroic dog adventuring party.

Somehow I've gone from getting to play virtually no D&D since the start of the year to having two different games scheduled for this coming week...but more on that shortly.

And please remember these figures along with everything else you need to go adventuring from the comfort of your own home are all available from your Friendly Local Game Store!

-Jay