Sunday, 31 December 2023
Adventure Calendar 2023 31: The Dresden Files
Adventure Calendar 2023
31: The Dresden Files
The Dresden Files, huh? I could skip over it to Smallville or Star Wars, but no, the point is a challenge.
Although not much of a challenge as it’s an urban fantasy detective, basically Angel but with a wizard.
I know enough to know it has mostly sinister magic users. And more organised groups of vampires. And a talking skull. And did the animated dinosaur skeleton thing before the film of Night At The Museum though way after the book, and after Doctor Mordrid too, which is where I stole it for The Watch House.
And apparently its own Christmas story did the Santa as Odin thing.
But anyway, Dresden being a wizard detective who actually advertises being a wizard in the phone book is unusual in largely Earthly settings, unlike something like Grimjack in a more fantasitcal world. So...
The Claus Files
Most kids send letters to Santa ahead of Christmas asking for toys and promising to leave out mince pies. But sometimes a letter comes through off season, asking for a much more important request, aid with a supernatural danger. And that’s when Santa steps in to do battle with the Naughty.
Sounds Like Hell references 1.06
And so naturally time for slayers.
Kaylee Bryant as Monica Pereira
Maddie Hasson as Drew Campbell
Saturday, 30 December 2023
Buffy on the BBC at 25
Today is my Buffy The Vampire Slayer 25th anniversary, as it stared here on BBC 2 at 8 p.m. after previously starting on Sky. The genre magazines like SFX had been championing it for a while with “no, really, it works!” articles. And obviously I thought it did.
Adventure Calendar 2023 30: Doctor Who
Adventure Calendar 2023
30: Doctor Who: Adventures In Time And Space
Okay, I’ve definitely done plenty of Christmas Special ideas for Doctor Who, as noted here in the 2021 Adventure Calendar. Though I’ve never actually run them. The Ice Wolves were a threat in an episode run in... September or October maybe. But here we are...
The Greatest Gift
An alien presence in a Christmas market, promising anyone their dream come true. Which is fine until someone’s wish threatens someone else’s happiness, life, or existence.
Friday, 29 December 2023
Russia as a World Of Darkness setting
A request for ideas for a Vampire: The Masquerade game set in Russia, which led me to discover Empire V, and quoting myself having thought about this before in the last thirty years:
(And it reminded me of the Moscow By Night LARP event video that looked like a LARP event anywhere in the world, Bloodlines Lacuna Coil song and all. I find that oddly comforting.)
Lore about Russia from previous editions features a lot of major-league monsters running amok but the official version’s easily overwritten. Baba Yaga as a fourth generation Nosferatu with vast magic powers and an army of supernatural beings opposed by Russia’s werewolves, after she took out the Brujah-led backers of vampire Communism. Also Rasputin as... pretty much every kind of monster.
(I would have made the Brujah council come in to shore up the Communists after the actually-people-led Revolution, and never be that big a deal as they kept backing different factions.)
A more low-key version where it has the same spread of supernatural troubles as settings like the USA would also work, with an emphasis on its current division and authoritarian control in mortal society.
(The KGB’s successors could have some pretty scary hunters, as well as plenty of corrupt do-nothing officials happy to take bribes.)
And it has its club scenes, underground music styles and other subcultures where vampires thrive...
Russian vampire movie banned by the government
Empire V looks like a pretty regular YA post-Masquerade vampire movie with pretty young vampires and creepy old vampires, and a lot of CGI for things like using blood to access memories and meeting an ancient vampire, but apparently its anti-authoritarian stance was enough to get it pulled from Russian cinemas a week before release.
I discovered its existence looking up Russian vampire movies after a VTM Facebook request for advice on setting a game in Russia. A vampire movie banned by the government feels like a possible plot hook...
Adventure Calendar 2023 29: Hollow Earth Expedition
Adventure Calendar 2023
29: Hollow Earth Expedition
Or Not Quite Adventure! Second Edition. But the Hollow Earth setting introduces time distortions, so...
North Pole Expedition
A legendary figure, perhaps immortal, who can travel the entire world in a single night? The enemies of freedom seek this power! Can you stop them stealing his ability to distort time to his advantage?
Thursday, 28 December 2023
Once Human
Once Human, a post-apocalypse MMO I had never heard of before, looks fairly standard zombies and monsters and survivors failing to work together to provide gunfights, but the note that everybody has been affected by the weird changing thing and the PCs have some superhuman abilities adds some interest, a weird apocalypse with a chance to fix it.
Lots of people with objects for heads adds a little extra surrealism too.
Adventure Calendar 2023 28: Adventure!
Adventure Calendar 2023
28: Adventure! Tales Of The Aeon Society
Another one I’ve presented festive plot hooks for before, because of course I have.
Dashing Through The Snow
The Æon Society’s traditional efforts to help a local charity through the winter are interrupted by the kidnapping of its founders as they collect toys for poor children, because of something valuable hidden in one of the donations by a relative of the donor. Can the adventurers save Christmas?
Yes I’m laying it on thick, what’s your point?
Wednesday, 27 December 2023
Ten Buffy hooks from This Is Why by Paramore
Happy birthday Hayley Williams!
This Is Why
This is why I don’t leave the house
It’s bad out there every time the slayer steps outside. But is it just happening because she steps outside?
The News
War
Turning on the news and... did they just report that vampire attack?
Running Out Of Time
There was traffic spilled my coffee crashed my car - otherwise, woulda been here on time
Throw on the duties of a monster hunter on top of an exam crunch and one of the gang could do with an extra couple of hours in the day... and then gets them.
C’est Comme Ça
Lucky for me I run on spite and sweet revenge
One of the gang gets bashed into the hospital and figures they should take life one day at a time. is this actually safer?
Big Man, Little Dignity
Know you could get away with anything so that’s exactly what you do
Someone who’s sold his soul for personal power. Not a monster per se, but he sure needs to be stopped.
You First
Turns out I’m livin’ in a horror film where I’m both the killer and the final girl
Someone out to steal the power of the slayer, from his perspective to do better things with it.
Figure 8
All for your sake, became the very thing that I hate
It’s a terrible relationship, but how do you tell a friend that?
Liar
Love is not an easy thing to admit
It’s a great relationship, but how do you tell a friend that?
Crave
Crave to do it again, all again
One of the gang has the best day ever... and relives it. And the rest of the gang notice, and have to figure out a way to stop without causing heartbreak or the destruction of space and time.
Thick Skull
Same lesson again? Come on, give it to me, give it to me
And then the spell snaps back, and now the slayer has the worst day ever, and as many chances to fix it...
Adventure Calendar 2023 27: All Flesh Must Be Eaten
Adventure Calendar 2023
All Flesh Must Be Eaten is the Unisystem RPG of zombie apocalypses. And of course there are undead Santas and things like that - see Bruce Campbell starring in Black Friday.
All Leftovers Must Be Eaten
27: All Flesh Must Be Eaten
I brought this on myself.
And I could certainly fit in A Ghost Story For Christmas with a physical undead thing.
The Chain I Forged In Life
Long dark nights can make you reflect on what the year has brought for good or ill. And now something comes seeking revenge for some wrong - a revenge far past what is deserved. Can you stop something already dead?
But also to heck with that, pun!
It’s two days after Christmas and time to venture out to get fresh milk and the like, but there are still leftovers to be finished off too. Who dare attempt this quest?
Tuesday, 26 December 2023
The Exorcist
The Exorcist was released in the US fifty years ago today. Which makes it a Boxing Day movie. This seems like a bizarre choice to me in terms of its mood despite its obvious intrinsic religious overtones.
Said to be among the scariest films ever, I avoided it until I was safely over the 18 certificate age (which was easy as it was unavailable legally on video here for some time) and it still feels strange seeing it on TV and it not being treated like a big deal with Mark Kermode documentary introductions, but it could never quite live up to its reputation - I wasn’t raised Catholic and I don’t have kids so I was off the ideal target - but I could absolutely appreciate the craft.
Though not director William Friedkin shooting into the air and slapping actors to get startled reaction shots.
The never-matched founder of a horror subgenre, followed by mostly shaky sequels as well as so many knockoffs. Exorcist II is one of the legendary WTF sequels of all time. The brooding atmosphere and The Best Jump Scare in Exorcist III and the recent TV series being notable exceptions. The two different versions of the fourth/fifth film can make for a fascinating Film Studies course subject, but the new “ignore everything except the original” reboot by the people who did that for Halloween (for the second time in that case) is... alright.
It’s not really game-friendly, being emotionally rough even without involving a child and the exorcism actually coming in quite late and being pretty low-key on the side of good. Later takes on exorcism where it’s a regular thing and not nearly as gruelling could work.
Adventure Calendar 2023 26: Savage Worlds
Adventure Calendar 2023
26: Savage Worlds
Yes I could stop like an actual advent calendar, but come on...
Not that Savage Worlds gives me much to work with as a system, being a generic system that errs on the side of pulpy.
I do have the main books for one its most supported settings, East Texas University, because it’s a Buffy kind of thing with students fighting monsters.
(I also have the first edition of Necessary Evil and skipped the second as they spoiled the best twist in their fundraising campaign.)
But the title - and another of the settings being Flash Gordon - suggest...
The Savage Worlds
A crew of pulp hero types from Earth find themselves captured by soldiers of an alien empire where the ruling court is a den of murderous intrigue, people are exiled to uninhabited planets and many conflicts are solved by duels to the death! And they call us savage?
Not particularly festive, but perhaps the heroes can free a rightful leader and family? And the 1980 film has a definite hint of panto.
Monday, 25 December 2023
Christmas 2023
A very physical media Christmas:
Ten discs - Strange New Worlds S2 (four discs), Ghostwatch anniversary edition, Quantumania, Prey, M:I - DR1, Spider-Verse 2 extra and D&D HAT.
And two books - a Buffy novel and Doctor Who annual.
Thanks!
On TV:
Mog’s Christmas - lovely though the song was a bit much for its length.
Lot 249 - A very nice tribute to The Mummy and something else as well.
Toy Story 4 - that’s certainly a way to leave off after a perfectly good trilogy ending.
Doctor Who - see Whoblog.
The Hound Of The Baskervilles - how delightfully BBC Four.
Ghosts - I’m fine.
And also on a screen, Whatsapp appears to work. Hello Australia!
Adventure Calendar 2023 25: Legend Of The Five Rings
Adventure Calendar 2023
25: Legend Of The Five Rings
Legend Of The Five Rings is an RPG (connected to a CCG) about a fantasy take on Samurai Japan and some of China.
Like Pendragon it has a Winter section where the Imperial court stays somewhere well heated and gets its intrigue on, and could easily involve seeking the perfect gift for someone important and other festive activities despite the different-twice-over religious base.
But for my purposes here, it lets me end on a pun. Which feels suitably Christmas special-y.
Legend Of The Five Gold Rings
A pulp adventure connecting the song of the Twelve Days of Christmas with St. Nicholas’s original gift of gold, and by extension with his miraculous works. Can they stop the villains finding and using it - or will it only work if you’re on the Nice list?
May optionally also involve a lot of birds.
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