When the heat breaks into the temperatures that resemble what the air conditioning has keeping the house at, the first thing people want to do is dress like Han Solo with high boots and vests and start fires to avoid getting cold. Many will have to fortify themselves with steamy "pumpkin favored" (meaning cinnamon-tinted corn starch and dried milk) drink concoctions.This is so they can start the wait through winter to complain about the heat of summer the next year.
One other thing a lot of people do is prepare for Halloween. These stalwart people try to stave off the store fulls of Christmas junk shipped in from China for littering the lawns of America by creating horror movie sound sets in their garage and driveway. Others rewatch classic and not so classic scary movies. Still others are tabletop gamers, these brave souls delve into the very prominent subculture of horror-based RPG. Well, this year, I am doing the later. I've seen enough horror movies over the course of the year that compiling a list of movies to watch over the next few weeks just isn't going to do it for me. Nor do I want to deal with other ppl's kids by setting up my own lawn haunted house scene. So I am going to delve into reviewing the Halloween-appropriate game books I have lying around the place.
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| Author Peter C. Spahn, Art by Luigi Castellani, Maps Tim Harten |
Ah 2011. 4 Ed, D&D with its collectable card game mechanics and its makers, WotC's, dickishness towards OGL gaming established in the Aughts had pissed off enough ppl that there was a cultural renaissance of independent game creation. One of "Oh-D&D clones" big in those days Labyrinth Lords, had its share of takes on horror-based settings. Ghoul Keep and the Ghoul Lands was one of them.
Spahn's work is from the ground up "Oh-D&D". After a couple statements about the tone of this horror-fantasy setting, he outlines the geography, the territories, and then the counties as in where the Counts live. He goes into the various Counts and the sects of the region that will interact with PCs as well getting into all-important magical items. Then, and only then, he gets into his bestiary. From there the book slips into the adventures. It even ends with a decent index.
The artwork is good gaming material. Castellani keeps it good and blocky but has a clear vision of his ghouls and the milieu in general, so the drawings help the reader stay in world that they are reading about. Meanwhile the maps are adeptly put together just ready for the enterprising GM and their group.
I happen to be something of a ghoul snob, Brian McNaughton's Throne of Bones gets reread more often than LOTR by me, so I am a little underwhelmed by Spahn's dark lord and his oppressing minions. Still, the author has a clear idea of the type of setting he has going on here. The scenario(s?) has been an interesting read. I am going to spend a bit more time reading it again because of some interesting subplots I skimmed over the time through.
Well, I'd rate this a King Kong on the scale of Smurf to Godzilla. But it's Halloween season, so it's a Godzilla. If you have a Ravenloft-style subgenre in your gaming pack, I strongly recommend the Ghoul Lands as a good spot to add in.
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