Friday Fear: Vengeance of Bathory

Has the greatest serial killer in history fled America for her homeland in present day Slovakia? Has she taken refuge in her ancestral home of Castle Čachtice, despite it having been destroyed in 1799 and her having died there in her sleep in 1614? Who is this monstrous murderer, this woman with the worst reputation in history? None other than Countess Elizabeth Báthory of Ecsed! Following the revelations about her viciously cruel and bloody campaign of torture amongst the fashion community and on the streets of Los Angeles, her whereabouts are unknown. But those in the know, those that know of her true nature and abilities, have reasons to suspect that they have not truly defeated and that she will return again. Perhaps though, can she be really destroyed and the threat she presents to the world stopped once and for all in her home? This is the set-up for Vengeance of Bathory, a modern day, vampire-hunting setting scenario set in central Europe. It is a sequel to The Blood Countess, the entertaining scenario about the efforts to uncover Báthory’s swathe of stalking and slaughter in Los Angeles that took in part some of its inspiration from the seventies television series, Kolchak: The Night Stalker. Published by Funny Shaped Dice Productions, Vengeance of Bathory is a short, one or two-session horror scenario, the seventh in the publisher’s ‘Frightshow Classics’ line. Ostensibly written for use with Chill or Cryptworld: Chilling Adventures into the Unexplained, the percentile mechanics of the scenario mean that it could easily be adapted to run with Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition and similar roleplaying games.

Vengeance of Bathory does work better as a sequel to The Blood Countess, but it is not the only set-up suggested in the scenario. Alternative suggestions include looking for a tourist, Lucinda Miles, who has gone whilst visiting Čachtice, the village below Castle Čachtice; working for an organisation that want to investigate Countess Elizabeth Báthory; and a vision is experienced of one her victims point towards the village. Of these options, only the first is developed in the scenario, leaving the others to be developed by the Fright Master. The scenario begins with the arrival of the Player Characters in the sleepy village and their first night at the Penzión Čachtice, the only guest house not to be fully fixated on the Báthory legend. The Player Characters have time to interact with a few locals at the guesthouse’s bar and the following day visit the Draškovičov kaštieľ – Múzeum Čachtice and Church of Methodius and gain some extra background about Báthory and the surrounding area.

However, there is an issue with the scenario in getting the Player Characters from this set-up and into the meat of the plot. There are hooks and pointers as to where the Player Characters might go in the village, but they are underwritten and not easy to bring into play by the Fright Master. It does not help that the village itself is not detailed in a way can be easily used and the only locations detailed are the Penzión Čachtice, Draškovičov kaštieľ – Múzeum Čachtice, Church of Methodius, and Castle Čachtice. The village also has a tourist industry dedicated to dedicated to Báthory and relatively little is made of that. As it turns out, the village is full of threats and dangers to the Player Characters, including cultists and the presence of Countess Elizabeth Báthory herself. The cultists’ presence could have been made more in and about the village, having them watch the Player Characters and making them a little paranoid. Some of the cult members include the staff of Penzión Čachtice and unless they are really pushed and confronted by the Player Characters, their involvement and the horrific nature of their activities may not be discovered. Which is an issue when discovering their involvement and their activities is one way in which the plot can move the Player Characters onto the main thrust of the plot.

Eventually, the Player Characters will find their way into the tunnels that run under Čachtice all the way to Castle Čachtice, and this is when the pace of the scenario picks up. As they make their way through the tunnels, the Player Characters will come across horror after horror. Torture chambers, ghoul nests, dark temples, sacrifice storage spaces, and moreVengeance of Bathoryand worse! The complex of tunnels and rooms are stalked and haunted by cultists, ghouls, and phantasms, and none of it is mapped. The Fright Master is expected to roll for locations found, encounter details, and events. The events are all attacks by the various threats, but all varying in terms of the odds that the Player Characters have of defeating them, effectively how many there are versus the Player Characters. The ‘Details’ table includes some entries that are easier to use than others. Hostile, injured, corpse, and squabbling encounters are likely easier to use than say the curious and friendly encounters. Here is another aspect Vengeance of Bathory that the Fright Master might to develop so that she has something interesting to place in the path of the Player Characters in what is otherwise a random dungeon!

Apart from a possible vision, the Player Characters will not have met Countess Elizabeth Báthory so far in the scenario. This changes in the finale, which takes place in the Tomb of Báthory. She will command a haunting of phantasms to flit back and forth battering at their psyches, whilst she flits in and out, punching and kicking, and shrieking in cruel laughter at their plight. She will especially take delight in taunting any Player Characters who had a part in defeating her in Los Angeles. It is a challenging fight and there is a chance that the Player Characters will be defeated, captured, and tortured… However, they can also defeat her and do so for good. The Player Characters may want to arm themselves in preparation and ideally, the Fright Master should help them do that, perhaps back at Penzión Čachtice. Another option is to involve the local police and an NPC is provided for that, and being a European police officer, he does have access to firearms.

The scenario includes eight pre-generated Player Characters. Two of them are locals, one the curator of the museum, the other the priest at the village church. If they are not used as Player Characters, then they can be used as NPCs instead. Only four of them have combat skills and only one has a psychic ability, but all come with backgrounds, weaknesses, and a thumbnail portrait. Four of them are also continuing their hunt of Countess Elizabeth Báthory after their encounter with her in The Blood Countess.

Physically, the cover to Vengeance of Bathory manages to be both distracting and horrific! The internal artwork is good and it does include a decent image of the village, though the Fright Master will need to work out what some of the buildings are. Otherwise, the production values are decent.

Unfortunately, Vengeance of Bathory is simply not as good as The Blood Countess. It does not flow as easily as it should and the Fright Master will need to develop elements of it to strengthen its plotting and so ease the Player Characters towards the finale with Countess Báthory. With the necessary development done, Vengeance of Bathory has the potential to deliver an session or two of bloody horror in the Grand Guignol style.

Friday Fear: Carmilla

It is 1870. In Hofwasser Village in Styria, the eastern region of Austria that borders Hungary, a strange affliction has struck many young women, the symptoms mysterious and often fatal. One day they are bright, energetic, and full of life, then the next their skin pales as white as milk and they become lethargic, losing their appetites, and gaining a sensitivity to light such that they dare not venture out of doors. Already one young woman has died from this strange sickness and there are two more girls in the village showing symptoms. What is this dreadful illness which has struck the village? Many of the village’s older residents have begun to recall the folktales of the region they learned as children, of black beasts in the darkness, of forest demons that lure innocents to their doom, worse, of the much-feared Upir, a soulless monster that preys on the blood of its victims. Hofwasser Village is also home to Colonel Daniel Morton, a former British attaché to the Austrian service, who has retired and now lives in the schloss, Karnstein Hall. He too has grown concerned about the illness, fearing that it will come to infect both his teenage daughter, Laura, and the young charge, Carmilla, he is looking after.

If all this sounds familiar, then it probably means that you have read Carmilla, the Victorian-era novella by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu. Predating Bram Stoker’s Dracula by twenty-five years, this is a classic tale of Gothic romance and vampiric horror with a strong female antagonist, which is now the direct—very direct inspiration for Carmilla, a scenario published by Yeti Spaghetti and Friends. Part of the publisher’s ‘Frightshow Classics’ line, it is ostensibly written for use with Chill or Cryptworld: Chilling Adventures into the Unexplained, the percentile mechanics of the scenario mean that it could easily be adapted to run with Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition and similar roleplaying games.

Carmilla opens with the Player Characters at Karnstein Hall. They are there with Colonel Daniel Morton to assist him in determining the cause of the malady that has beset the young women of Hofwasser and been cause of one death so far. After some tea—there is actually a lot of tea consumption in the scenario as Karnstein Hall is a bastion of the British Empire in ‘Mitteleuropa’—and the first of several listless encounters with Colonel Morten’s daughter and recent charge, Laura and Carmilla, he asks for the Player Characters’ help. The initial investigation takes place in the nearby village at the homes of the affected women, but later there is scope for research in the library at Karnstein Hall, which reveal some oddities that suggest that the mystery lies closer to home. The Player Characters’ suspicions will be confirmed following the funeral of one of the young women in the village and that will lead to a nasty confrontation in the confines of the Karnstein family mausoleum.

The advice for running Carmilla states that, “As an adaptation of a fairly popular story, players should be willing to suspend their knowledge of plot for the sake of playing their characters more accurately (offering Experience Points for roleplaying can help encourage this).” This is either a challenge or a problem depending upon your point of view, due because what the scenario is asking the players to do is to roleplay characters who do not know what a vampire is and unlike the players, are not steeped in over a century’s worth of vampiric lore. This is in the face of a situation where the players are fully aware that Laura is the victim of a vampire and that vampire is Carmilla. Literally, aware players could end the scenario in fifteen minutes by going to Carmilla’s bedroom, breaking down its door, and killing her. The scenario does not want the players to do that, but wants them to play through the investigation and experience the effects of the vampire’s predation and determine its cause. The scenario also admits that it proceeds in linear fashion and it does, very much keeping the players away from directly investigating either Laura or Carmilla.

As with other scenarios in the publisher’s ‘Frightshow Classics’ line, Carmilla includes eight pre-generated Player Characters. They are divided between visitors and staff at Karnstein Hall. The staff consist of Madame Raquel Perrodon, governess to Laura Morton; Mademoiselle Beatrix De Lafontaine, the French finishing governess to Laura; and Frau Franziska Pichler, the cook at Karnstein Hall. The visitors include General Gerhard Spielsdorf, a former colleague and now friend of Colonel Morton; Fraulein Johanna Bauer, a young hunter who lives in the nearby woods; Dr. Hans Hartog, a laudanum-addicted medical doctor with an interest in eastern mysticism; Father Augustus Koellerer, the local Catholic priest; and Baron Maximilian Vordenburg, a local noble with a fascination for folklore. Only one of the eight, Mademoiselle Beatrix De Lafontaine, has any Paranormal Abilities and so might give the Player Characters a slight advantage in certain situations.

The scenario is supported with two good maps, one of the village of Hofwasser and the other of the mausoleum where the final confrontation with Carmilla takes place. There is no map of Karnstein Hall, which is slightly disappointing, but its inclusion might have encouraged further exploration of the Morton family home which the scenario would prefer the players not to do. The back cover blurb for the scenario also serves as a handout and there is one handout in the book, which is plain.

Physically, Carmilla is well written and has excellent artwork. The combination of a linear structure and a clear layout means that the scenario is going to be easy to run.

As written, Carmilla is not a challenging scenario to run. As written, Carmilla is going to be a challenging scenario to play. This is because it demands that the players suspend their self-knowledge, locking it away for the length of the scenario, and roleplay characters who have no knowledge of the threat they face and have to learn about it, bit by bit. It does help that ‘Carmilla’ is not a wholly traditional vampire in the style of Dracula and it does help that it is intended to be played in a single session. As an adaptation of Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu’s short story, Carmilla, the scenario is decently done, but as a scenario, Carmilla is making big demands of its players and keeping a straight face because of those demands and not being able to rush off and always investigate where a player might want to, makes it hard work. And this in a scenario designed for casual, one-shot play. If the players are able to do this—or they have not read the original short story, then Carmilla is a serviceable one-shot, easily prepared and run.

Friday Fear: Medieval Mysteries

It is rare that scenarios are set during the period of the Spanish Inquisition, despite it lasting over three-hundred-and-fifty years. ‘Fires of Hatred Defile the Sky’ from Red Eye of Azathoth, a singular foray into the Cthulhu Mythos for Kobold Press, and Chaosium, Inc.’s ‘Garden of Earthly Delights’ from Strange Aeons, both published for Call of Cthulhu, are exceptions. Medieval Mysteries takes gamers back to early period of the Spanish Inquisition with two scenarios designed to be played in two hours each. The first is ‘The Shroud of Pestilence’ in which the Player Characters investigate what looks to be an outbreak of the Black Death in a nearby village, but which turns out to be something else, whilst in ‘Heresy’, they attempt to save a group of conversos—Jews who converted to Christianity—from what is effectively, two monsters! This is all packaged with a framing device which lends itself to an ongoing campaign. Published by Yeti Spaghetti and Friends, Medieval Mysteries is a duology of short play time, one-night horror scenarios, the first entry in the series of historical horror adventures in the publisher’s ‘Frightshow Classics’ line. Ostensibly written for use with Chill or Cryptworld: Chilling Adventures into the Unexplained, the percentile mechanics of the scenario mean that it could easily be adapted to run with Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition and similar roleplaying games.

Medieval Mysteries is set in Spain in about 1490. Whilst the Kingdoms of Castile and Aragon, as well as much of Spain, are united through marriage of Queen Isabella I (of Castile) and King Ferdinand II (of Aragon), but they remain separate entities. What unites the Iberian peninsula is religion and the growing power of the Inquisition under the command of Inquisitor General Tomas de Torquemada which not only enforces Catholic orthodoxy, but also investigates possible acts of heresy, apostasy, blasphemy, witchcraft, and customs considered to be deviant—often in the most violent of ways. As a default, the Player Characters are all associated with the Santa Maria de Soria monastery, some hundred miles or so north-east of Madrid. The monastery offers a place of relative safety, but hides its own benign secrets. It is led by an abbot whose gift of foresight enables him to see paranormal abilities in others and dangers elsewhere, directing such individuals to seek out, investigate, and defeat supernatural and monstrous threats. Such efforts have to be conducted with great care, since any paranormal ability would be regarded by the Inquisition as mysticism and thus heresy.

In addition to a brief description of the monastery, Medieval Mysteries describes two new skills and two new paranormal abilities. The two new skills are Blacksmithing and Religious Mysticism, which will be of a specific faith, like Taoist Mysticism or Judaic Mysticism. The paranormal abilities are Exorcism and True Sight, both of which are likely to find their way into other scenarios. The pre-generated Player Characters consist of a mix of monks, nuns, and peasants, some with paranormal abilities, some without, but all with some background, a description, and a phobia. Perhaps the only thing missing here is advice on creating Player Characters suitable for the period and setting, since the set-up lends itself to a campaign in the style of The X-Files, but set in medieval Spain.

In ‘Adventure 1: The Shroud of Pestilence’, the Player Characters are directed to the village of Herrero which he initially believed to be suffering from an outbreak of the plague, but after receiving a vision, believes that there is an evil dark shadow looming over both it and its inhabitants. He wants them to investigate the possibility of the infernal. The Player Characters will initially encounter a plague doctor attempting to treat the terrible symptoms. The Player Characters get to examine the bodies that have not yet been buried and examine them for the terrible signs of the plague and interview the very concerned remaining villagers. Although many suspect that the devil himself is responsible, but very quickly, the Player Characters should discover signs indicating that something else is responsible, more monstrous than devilish. The Sense Monsters paranormal skill will be useful confronting this creature.

Despite its brevity, ‘Adventure 1: The Shroud of Pestilence’ packs in a decent amount of investigation and interaction before the Player Characters ascend into the hills and the second half of the scenario, which involves a confrontation with the culprit. This is a combat scene in a cave, a nasty encounter that has a chance, more or less, of instantly killing a Player Character, and that is even before the battle commences. Only one of the Player Characters is equipped with an effective weapon, so he should absolutely be selected. Ultimately, the players and their characters should try and get the creature out of its comfort zone, otherwise, a ‘Total Party Kill’ is a possibility. Which is fine for a one-shot, but not if the players want to continue playing their characters in the next scenario.

In ‘Adventure 2: Heresy’, the abbot sends the Player Characters to the city of Sigüenza where he has learned the Inquisition is about to begin an investigation into rumours of heresy and witchcraft among the conversos, those Jews who converted to Christianity. The abbot wants the Player Characters to investigate such rumours before the Inquisition begins its own heavy-handed inquiries. Talking to people in the converso quarter of the city will reveal that there is a young woman who talks to herself. Use of paranormal may confirm more and if confronted, she will tell the Player Characters that there is heresy being committed in the city, but not amongst the conversos. Rather it is occurring in the St. Jerome Monastery attached to the College of San Antonio de Portaceli, the city’s famed university.

‘Adventure 2: Heresy’ follows the same format as ‘Adventure 1: The Shroud of Pestilence’, but the combat encounter is not quite as deadly and does not mark the end of the scenario. Ideally, it should end with a trial of the culprit after the Player Characters have captured him, with them giving testimony against him. This is not the only way that the scenario can end, another possibility being trials of the conversos. Either way, the Game Master will need to run this to best effect, perhaps playing up the drama and theatre of any such trial more than the scenario does, which really only provides broad details. Overall, ‘Adventure 2: Heresy’ is a more sophisticated and more interesting affair than ‘Adventure 1: The Shroud of Pestilence’. The only thing that the Game Master might want to do is create some Inquisition NPCs as none are provided.

Physically, Medieval Mysteries is a decent looking affair behind a somewhere murky cover. The artwork inside is reasonable and the scenarios are generally well written. The cartography is plain and serviceable.

Both scenarios in Medieval Mysteries end in a little sign-off as if presented by the host of a late-night horror anthology series, so making them slightly different to traditional horror roleplaying scenarios. There is an ominous threat of lurking power and paranoia that pervades both scenarios, though definitely more so in the second scenario than the first. The short, two-hour running time for both scenarios does also means that ‘Adventure 2: Heresy’ is underwritten given no stats for the Inquisitors and the lack of staging for the trial. Nevertheless, it is the better and more interesting of the two scenarios in the book. Overall, the brevity of both scenarios in Medieval Mysteries means that they are easy to prepare and run, with scope to develop them a little further and scope to explore the setting in future releases.

Friday Fear: The Nightmare

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the city of Stockton, California, was beset by a rash of strange deaths amongst its Hmong community. The Hmong were refugees from the Vietnam War and subsequent conflicts in southeast Asia. A total of one-hundred-and-seventeen immigrants and their descendants died under strange circumstances in their sleep, suffering from what doctors called ‘Sudden Unexpected Death Syndrome’ or ‘SUNDS’. However, the community did put these deaths down to medical causes, but to a supernatural creature that had accompanied individual families to the USA, continuing to prey upon the men of the families as they slept, literally pressing upon their chests and paralysing them in waking nightmares and feeding upon their terror, killing them in the process, whilst to outsiders making it appear as if they died in their sleep. The Hmong call this creature the ‘Dab Tsog’. That was decades ago, but now the city and its Hmong community has once again been beset by an outbreak of deaths due ‘sleep paralysis’. Could the Dab Tsog have returned to prey on the Hmong community? After losing one of her patients to these nightmares, Dr. Maria Vicente, who conducts studies at a sleep clinic, is beginning to suspect that something is stalking the sleep of her patients and so asks for help from anthropologists, folklorists, and investigators. Published by Yeti Spaghetti and Friends, The Nightmare is a short, one-night horror scenario, part of and third in the publisher’s ‘Frightshow Classics’ line. Ostensibly written for use with Chill or Cryptworld: Chilling Adventures into the Unexplained, the percentile mechanics of the scenario mean that it could easily be adapted to run with Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition and similar roleplaying games.

The Nightmare, like the first in the ‘Frightshow Classics’ line, Horror in Hopkinsville, before it, is inspired by a real incident, one that also inspired the Nightmare on Elm Street series of horror films. It returns to the story in Stockton and opens with the Player Characters attending Dr. Vicente’s sleep clinic where she is attempting to study the disrupted sleep patterns of a young boy. The Player Characters will have had the opportunity to conduct some research about Stockton, the deaths amongst the Hmong, and the community’s belief that a Dab Tsog was responsible. They will also have discovered that strange lights have been seen in the city as well, but most notably they will have made the link between the Dab Tsog and figure of the ‘Night Hag’ found in other cultures. Thus, the scenario really sets the players and their characters up with what they need to know right from the start. After an encounter in which Dr. Vicente’s young patient has his sleep interrupted in a frighteningly scary fashion and one, if not more, of the Player Characters are lured away, the narrative in the scenario is not to discover that there is supernatural threat abroad in Stockton, but rather to confirm what the Player Characters already think it to be. To do this, they will need to visit the Hmong and ask some questions of the not always trusting members of the community, calling for some good roleplaying.

The Nightmare is a three-act story. In the first, the Player Characters ‘witness’, or at least, experience someone suffering from the predations of the Dab Tsog and the second investigating the reactions of the community. The third brings the story to a climax back at the sleep clinic where, with local help, the Player Characters can lure the Dab Tsog into striking and thus revealing her presence and making her vulnerable. This will result in an intense physical battle in which the Player Characters have very little time in which to attack—so they had better be prepared. She is not the only threat that the Player Characters may face, but she is the toughest one.

In terms of support, the scenario includes a handful of handouts and eight pre-generated Player Characters. They represent a good mix of ages and backgrounds, several have the Investigation skill, others the Paranormal Folklore skill, and a couple the Sense Monsters Paranormal ability. The latter will be very useful, whilst one is a very dab hand with the dagger, which will be extremely useful in the final encounter.

Physically, behind its creepy cover, The Nightmare is decently presented. The artwork is decent and is dark and foreboding throughout, whilst the floorplans of the sleep clinic are nicely done (though oddly, there is no toilet on the floor where it is located). Although the handouts are plain, the pre-generated Player Characters portraits are good.

The Nightmare is short and direct, no surprise given that it is intended to be played in a single session. Like The Blood Countess before it, the scenario very much has the feel of an episode of a television series. For The Blood Countess, this was Kolchak: The Night Stalker, but for The Nightmare this is The X-Files, though a standalone episode, not one tied to the Series’ ongoing plot to do with UFOs and aliens. Overall, The Nightmare is easy to prepare and will provide a good sessions’ worth of creepy horror that might put the players, let alone the characters, off their sleep.

Friday Fear: The Blood Countess

A monster stalks the streets of Los Angeles as a series of bodies of young men and women are found in bodies of water—although the authorities do not yet truly know it. Are these deaths due to the ‘Shoreline Slasher’ or something worse, something out of history, one of the most prolific murderers of the early modern period? Of course, it is the latter. This is the set-up for The Blood Countess, a scenario that is pretty much upfront about who or what is responsible for the deaths, who or what the Player Characters will be investigating, and who or what they will have to defeat. Anyone who knows their history, certainly their bloodier history, and their macabre history, will know who the Blood Countess is. This is Countess Elizabeth Báthory of Ecsed, who was accused of the torture and murder of hundreds of peasant girls and sentenced to immurement. Over the centuries her reputation as a monster has not only grown, but also become associated with vampiric lore. If Dracula is the preeminent vampire, then the Hungarian Countess Elizabeth Báthory is his female counterpart. Published by Yeti Spaghetti and Friends, The Blood Countess is a short, one-night horror scenario, part of and second in the publisher’s ‘Frightshow Classics’ line. Ostensibly written for use with Chill or Cryptworld: Chilling Adventures into the Unexplained, the percentile mechanics of the scenario mean that it could easily be adapted to run with Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition and similar roleplaying games.

The Blood Countess initially focuses on the most recent death, that of Michael Ventnor, his body found with many puncture wounds, and the disappearance of a student, Veronica Brookes. A nicely detailed and laid out investigation, involving a good mix of persuasion and sidestepping the authorities, as well as sneaking into back offices to look at security footage, plus a trip to the city museum to look at some ghoulish torture implements from the European Middle Ages, will ultimately point to a modelling agency, recently founded in the city, and an address in a neighbourhood full of ‘McMansions’. The name of the agency is the De Ecsed Agency and research into the name of the owner, Bethany De Ecsed, will give the players and their character some intimations as to who might be responsible and what they might be up against. Although not subtle, it should add a little shiver to the scenario for the players. The scenario will culminate in the Player Characters breaking into the home of Bethany De Ecsed, making some unsurprisingly bloody discoveries, and hopefully getting away following a nasty confrontation with the murderess.

The scenario is supported with maps of the McMansion, a handout giving a detailed description of the life and legend of Countess Elizabeth Báthory, and an autopsy report for Michael Ventnor. It also comes with eight pre-generated Player Characters, two of which have Paranormal abilities. None are members of law enforcement, though one is an ex-police detective, and some have interests in the occult or weird crimes. The biggest challenge in the scenario is really getting these Player Characters together in order to co-operate on the investigation. Although there are some suggestions, this is where the scenario is at its weakest. Although set in Los Angeles, the scenario is easily relocated to any big city with a body of water where the bodies can be dumped.

Physically, behind its suitably bloody cover, The Blood Countess is decently presented. The artwork is reasonable, the floorplans of the McMansion are clear and easy to use, and the scenario is well written.

The Blood Countess is not a subtle affair, but it is fun, combining a solid, often sympathetic investigation with the lurking threat of a monstrous murderess that the players are going to be aware of almost right from the start of the scenario, adding a little frisson of anticipation as to how ghastly and how dangerous she is actually going to be when the confrontation comes. The investigation itself feels reminiscent of an episode of Kolchak: The Night Stalker—and there is an episode of that series involving a vampire in Los Angeles—and playing the scenario in the style of that series could work quite well. Overall, The Blood Countess is a very solid addition to the ‘Frightshow Classics’ line, offering a good session of American pulp horror that pitches the Player Characters up against a tough version of a classic monster.

Friday Fear: Horror in Hopkinsville

On the night of Sunday, 21st August 1955 and the early morning of Monday, 22nd August 1955, five adults and seven children, residents near the communities of Kelly and Hopkinsville in Christian County, Kentucky, were attacked in their farmhouse home. For four hours they held off an assault by small, dark alien creatures peering in through their windows and doors. Were the strange creatures, nicknamed the ‘Hopkinsville Goblins’, actually extraterrestrials from outer space, having just landed in their UFO, something else, or as the United States Air Force officially classified the encounter for a Project Blue Book, a hoax? Although the event has passed into folklore and become a renowned close encounter case amongst UFOlogists, even celebrated as the Little Green Men Days Festival in Kelly community, most regard it as a hoax. Now, your players have an opportunity to find out for themselves as their characters investigate a similar case in Hopkinsville, Kentucky. Published by Yeti Spaghetti and Friends, Horror in Hopkinsville is a short, one-night horror scenario, part of and first in the publisher’s ‘Frightshow Classics’ line. Ostensibly written for use with Chill or Cryptworld: Chilling Adventures into the Unexplained, the percentile mechanics of the scenario mean that it could easily be adapted to run with Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition and similar roleplaying games, whilst its UFOlogical themes that it would very well with Delta Green: The Role-Playing Game.

Horror in Hopkinsville does not concern the infamous Kelly-Hopkinsville encounter directly. Rather it is a sequel in which the Player Characters investigate another incident and so might posit a cause for both. David and Julia Wright have been terrorised in recent weeks by strange and unusual occurrences in and around their house. Scratching sounds on the roof late at night, followed by chittering or ‘clicking’ noises, loud thumps on the side of the house, the electricity in the house flickering, and the camera system that the Wrights installed to capture evidence of the culprits broke down, whilst the motion-sensor lights have proven ineffective, having detected nothing. The Wrights have been unable to find any cause and are almost at their wits’ end, so they want the matter investigated. The scenario suggests several ways in which the Player Characters might get involved—being a friend or relation of the Wrights, other inhabitants in the town having suffered similar incidences and indicate that the Wrights might have witnessed something, the Wrights revealed their story to a local paranormal or UFO study group of which the Player Characters are members, or the Player Characters are members of a secret organisation that investigates the paranormal or UFOs and are responding to a report made by the Wrights. However, the eight Player Characters provided in Horror in Hopkinsville are really only suited to the first three options rather than the fourth.

Prior to the start of the adventure proper, the Player Characters get to do some research, either using the Humanities/History, Journalism, or Paranormal/Folklore skills. Both the skills and their results reveal at the very least the details of the Kelly-Hopkinsville encounter, and are also easily adapted to the roleplaying game of the Game Master’s choice. The scenario proper begins with the arrival of the Player Characters at the Wright family home on a quiet Wednesday evening. There they have the opportunity to both interview the family, including with some care, the Wright’s eight-year-old daughter, Tianna, and investigate the house. The inference is, of course, that whatever is plaguing the house, has some connection with Tianna, that, for example, she might be psychic. Investigation quickly reveals evidence that something is going on and this is confirmed as the action quickly heats up. The scenario neatly accounts for most of the options that the Player Characters might take, such as one of their number watching from outside whilst the rest investigate inside, but whatever the Player Characters do, it should lead up to a couple of jump scares and the revelation that there is something under the Wright family home—in the sewers!

If the scenario is fairly tightly plotted up until this point, the Player Characters have more freedom of action after they descend into the sewers under the street around the Wright family home and begin searching for the strange creatures that have been lurking near and scratching the house. Effectively, the scenario becomes a bug hunt in the dark, broken by the cold beam of their torches and the hissing of the white, pasty creatures. The scenario includes some encounter descriptions for when the Player Characters are down in the sewers, but does feel underwritten. Perhaps the possibility of the creatures having kidnapped the Wrights’ baby son might have provided some impetus for the Player Characters to act and it would have been interesting if the creatures’ lair were described so that the Player Characters could not only find it, but also find evidence that the activities of the creatures are connected to the Kelly-Hopkinsville encounter?

By the end of the scenario, the authorities will have arrived and the Player Characters will need to justify their actions, running around in the sewers, firing guns being frowned upon. This will take some persuasion, but will be easier if the Player Characters are members of a secret government agency. That agency might want to clean up the area and cover up the story even if they are not.

Physically, Horror in Hopkinsville is well presented, although the choice of font and artwork is a little heavy in style. This though, does not mean that it is bad. The scenario is not badly written, although it does need an edit in places and it is written for an American audience, so the Game Master may need to look up a term or two. The cartography of both the house and the sewers is decent, whilst the front cover is excellent, echoing the look and feel of the classic covers for the Chill roleplaying game and pulp horror paperback books.

Horror in Hopkinsville is designed to be a pulp horror scenario, one that is easy to run and quick to prepare—and that is the case, no matter which roleplaying rules the Game Master decides to use. However, it is not a sophisticated plot or story and the Game Master may want to develop it a bit further herself. However, for a single evening’s worth of straightforward, easy-to-prepare, pulp action horror, Horror in Hopkinsville is a decent choice.