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