Nationals 2027 update

Urban Fantasy preliminary

Of course Angel is more naturally Noir than Buffy, but we can have a pool hall informant like Red.

Mage: The Ascension character ideas

A bit vague, the setting being here and now with Paradox being strange.

That suggests an occult researcher, which suggests a Hermetic. But this may suggest that to the other players too!

Cara Lawson the Akashayana started with a group needing a fighter. Becoming a Big Damn Hero because of a group needing a leader and I don’t get to play enough Buffy.

I actually have a few fighter ideas. One of my ways to avoid spending too much time prodding at the freeform magic system too much.

Jim Lloyd the Orphan comedian was a result of nudging the premise lighter than other World Of Darkness games, for better or worse. Being able to fast-talk reality seemed to kinda work.

Lisa B the Ecstatic rap star was very much of the time and place.

Also last night there was a group on the bus in assorted costumes and a redhead in a leather jacket and combat trousers. That would be the costume for Cara so I took that as a sign to play her again. ;)

Warhammer 40

Warhammer Fantasy Role-play was released November 1986.

The longest I’ve ever run a standard-ish elfgame, due to running it as The Enemy Within was coming out.

November

Or Noirvember as the Filmhouse calls it. Not going to try to watch a film noir every day... tempting though...

Hallowe'en 2026 review

Lot of pirates this year.

Lazy group costume option seems to be small teddy bear ears.

Someone got my reference!

Via Mum’s neighbour kids:

“What did the cannibal get when he was late for dinner?”

It's Over 9000!

So this happened round about my Halloween post.

Happy Halloween!

It’s dark now so I can say it properly.

The Nightmare Before Christmas soundtrack

The Nightmare Before Christmas soundtrack with narration by Sir Patrick Stewart

Sir Patrick Stewart

Having played many roles of scientific intellect I do have an empathy for that world. It's been hard on me because flying the Enterprise for seven years in Star Trek and sitting in Cerebro in X-Men has led people to believe that I know what I'm talking about. But I'm still trying to work out how to operate the air conditioning unit on my car.

Sir Patrick Stewart

Hellraiser RPG

An official Hellraiser RPG has been announced (along with a board game and a dice game and more) following the launch of the computer game Revival, with Francesco Nepitello of The One Ring as design lead.

The setting can expand in various intriguing directions - the Epic Comics anthology hinted at a variety of ideas in short form before introducing recurring Player Character types like the Harrowers, and the later films were largely Pinhead-isations of unconnected supernatural horror scripts - but like Interview With The Vampire I wonder what it will do that the unlicensed lookalike doesn’t, in this case Kult.

If the dice aren’t gold etched black d6s they’re missing a trick.

David F, Chapman

Caveat and Hokum

31 Days Of Horror Movies 2026

I watched Damian Mc Carthy’s Oddity when it started streaming two years ago, and this year his new film Hokum hit Prime this week so I went back and watched his first film Caveat on Shudder as well. These would be a fair shout for challenge day ? Big Old House.

28.

Caveat (2020)

Trailer

Hokum (2026)

Trailer

But maybe watching them back to back was a mistake because while all three have clear connections - isolated houses, strange little artefacts, glimpsed maybe-undead and the like - these two have even more overlap in plot and some details. Oddity doesn’t have anybody getting shot with a crossbow, for example.

Caveat sees a man with amnesia hired by an alleged friend to keep an eye on a troubled niece, the title referring to the things the alleged friend doesn’t mention, the creepy house being on an island and the man being required to wear a sleepwalking harness.

Hokum sees a writer visit the seemingly haunted hotel where his late parents had their honeymoon, being saved from hanging himself and on release from hospital finding that the staffer who saved his life is missing.

All three involve murder plots as well. And the connections run deeper than that, especially with these two.

The weird guy on TV is new to Hokum, though. Although it again shows that Mc Carthy likes googly eyes.

Both have good atmosphere and jumps, but Oddity has the best scare of the three for me. Hokum has the advantage here for being funny quite often.

The medium: Shudder for Caveat, Prime for Hokum - which meant it had ad breaks which didn’t help

Gameability: Magical items helping with an investigation in a big creepy building. Yes.

Interview With The Vampire starter set

Interview With The Vampire starter set now on Backerkit to be followed by core rules and settings drawn from the other Anne Rice novel based TV series.

Vampire: Empire 2026 4

Vampire: The Masquerade fifth edition

Empire

4. Disposal

Daisy, Toreador jazz singer and club owner

Echo, Malkavian fortune teller

Emmet, Hecata researcher

Jesse, Tremere phlebotomist and Circulatory System supplier

Silas, Ventrue enforcer

The group meet with Hellene, and bank their boons for the time being.

Jesse contacts Ella, who says that she’s been busy making sure the blood supply isnt contaminated - and that she didn’t want to have to explain this in front of the whole court.

Wanting to see for herself, Daisy suggests a meeting in a public place.

Ella notes the increased suspicion but doesn’t object.

Her supplier of out-of-date blood for disposal at one of the city’s public hospitals, Simon Mackenzie, has been missing since the night before Hellene’s request for help. She asks Jesse if he can find him as he has the credentials to get in.

The group accompany him to the hospital blood bank, where Echo recognises the scent of Release from the biological waste bin. The assistant temporarily covering Mack’s shift doesn’t know much, so Silas compels him to leave so Jesse can look over the computer records.

Finding Mack’s address, a run-down apartment a not-bad commute away, no answer on the buzzer. Silas climbs the fire escape and breaks in, letting the others up. The place has been empty for a couple of days. Silas finds a burner phone, with a message on an anonymous chat app from three nights ago, the night of the attack, to meet in the park just before Mack would leave for his shift. They consider this, and Daisy suggests replying to see if anyone answers.

Nobody does.

They search the small nearby park, and Emmet finds Mack’s faint scent - and that it stops at the car park.

Mack did not own a car.

And heading back, Silas notices someone watching in a parked car. It drives off as he starts towards it.

He signals for Daisy to call her driver, and they move to pursue.

Someone in the passenger seat starts firing at them.

They fire back as Daisy’s driver tries not to get hit, but the shooter up ahead goes for the engine block.

They manage to get the car’s licence plate.

A call to Qadir, the court’s Sheriff, confirms that the plate is copied, the car stolen.

Jesse confirms that the contaminated blood was spiked with Release from the same lab, using Julie’s blood as the catalyst. At least that means that was the central supply... for now, anyway.

--

OOC

My Vampire games are more likely to have gunfights if I’m tired.

Idly considering Doctor Who again.

One-Shot No Shot

In the event, too run down. Feels bad for my The Show Must Go On instinct but didn’t sleep.

Hallowe'en One-Shot Plan 2026

As I had no clever ideas, Vampire party.

Wildwood

Wildwood (2026) is in cinemas here now, the new film from stop motion studio Laika and director Travis Knight (Kubo And The Two Strings, Bumblebee, Masters Of The Universe) based on the book by Colin Meloy and Carson Ellis.

Trailer

It’s one of the biggest and most ambitious stop-motion films ever made (with CG assistance for things like compositing, smoke and fire effects) and would be huge and ambitious in any medium, a modern fairytale with some epic vistas and huge fantasy battles, chases with the camera moving with the action, and a lightly stylised largely-human cast carrying the story.

It’s fantastic. Beautifully made, by turns funny and scary - a PG-13 rating, 12A in the UK, feels right, despite being an animated film about kids in a magical land the battles are intense and not everybody gets to the end, indeed the opening scene is as dark as it gets.

As someone who saw Masters Of The Universe as well I can see similarities in style and also plot emphasis, a character going to the fantastic world for personal reasons and the like. Beast-Man there is like a mirror of the coyotes here.

A little deconstruction, not much though.

There’s a smallish plot point I didn’t like, a secret that would have been very helpful to reveal earlier, but I get it.

If you can see it on a big screen, I think it’s absolutely worth it.

Mass Effect: Universe trailer

This may be all we ever get of Mass Effect: Universe. Of course there’s a change.org petition.

Bodycam (2025)

31 Days Of Horror Movies 2026

21 is “new-to-me found footage” and here’s one new on Shudder from Brandon Christensen, maker of Night Of The Reaper for them last year.

21.

Bodycam (2025)

Trailer

Not to be confused with 2020’s Body Cam (trailer) which is about cops answering a routine call and stumbling into supernatural trouble, this is about cops answering a routine call and stumbling into supernatural trouble. But this one is Found Footage and largely from the titular perspective.

In this case we’re in a city but in a bad enough part of town to still feel isolated, which switches up the classic Found Footage mood, and the bodycam footage is shaky and frenetic enough to feel realistic in most cases.

I also liked the effects on the footage when things start to get strange.

But for me it escalates too much.

BioWare

I would consider throwing private equity people out to be self defence.