"His Flesh Becomes My Key" Adventure By Venger Satanis Run With The Wretched Darkness Rpg By The Red Room Session Report

 "This is an eldritch pulp / investigative horror scenario for The Outer Presence roleplaying game, suitable for experienced characters.  It works just as well for the 1970s as it does for 2017.  Converting the adventure to your system of choice should be a snap."

"Within the scenario, investigators are hunting a serial killer.  Their friend was leading the case, but now he's disappeared.  It's a spiral staircase of sordid mystery until the final revelation at the end!"

So today was one of those days where little time & weather weirdness means that little time meant that it was time to write an adventure for the on going Wretched Darkness campaign . So instead I backtracked into a favorite Venger Satanis rpg adveture for 'The Outer Presence' called "His Flesh Becomes My Key". 

So why  "His Flesh Becomes My Key"?! There are a few reasons for this first of all 'His Flesh Becomes My Key' is an investigative horror adventure, the second is the savage nature of the 'Wretched Darkness' rpg, and the third is how 'His Flesh Becomes My Key' is put together. These themes are stated straight out of the gate with the adventure intro:"This is an eldritch pulp / investigative horror scenario especially suited for The Outer Presence roleplaying game. A serial killer case opens up before the investigators and leads to something beyond the usual detective story"'

His Flesh Becomes My Key centers around a good cop ", Richard Black and his tracking down a serial killer. Our crew in tonight's Wretched Darkness rpg centers around the Updike Society. A group of friends whose adventures have 'changed them' in many subtle ways. This Wretched Darkness game centered around 'New York City' where else would one find a place of Wretched scum & villainy. And it all begins with a strange snow globe that none of the players have ever seen before. There were seven members of the Updike society and seven representives inside the snow globe. 

And then the phone rang! 
Richard wants to meet with the society to discuss his latest case at the usual diner & never showed up. 

Now a few words about Wretched Darkness as an rpg. 

Wretched Darkness is far more savage in my opinion then many of the other Wretchedverse games. We've got a Loup Garou & Succubus among the party.  A careful search of the dinner patrons for traces of  Black revealed nothing. And the focus back at Black's police department isn't any better. Thier focused on finding the "blood magic killer." The party went to see Black's ex wife Sarah Black in lower Manhatten. Sarah was of interest to the party because she's a Wiccan witch with some subtle power. Sarah wasn't in the original "His Flesh Becomes My Key" but is an NPC I stuck in to have a connection for the upcoming 'Welcome To Saint Cloud ' arch. Sarah Black is from St.Cloud but hadn't seen Richard in months. Thier marriage crumbled because of his work & his obsession with his current case. She gave the PC's copies of the 'blood magic killer' case files. Then the PC's got a phone call from Cecil Slandy Black's  police partner. 

The meeting did not go well as Cecil sees the party as a group of investigative busy bodies. Cecil Slandy did give the players information on Black;"According to Cecil Slandy, Black was a sensationalist, exploiting victims in order to forge his reputation as the man who could catch the Devil himself. Slandy even believes that Black was writing a book chronicling some of his more thrilling cases."

And then the PC's phone rang it was Black and his voice was followed by a gurgling scream & a stream of esoteric nonsense then the phone hung up! 
This is where we ended for this week. 

OSR Review & Commentary On Welcome to St Cloud By Miguel Ribeiro For The Wretchedverse Rpg Line or Any OSR Horror Rpg

 

"A surreal horror scenario, heavily inspired by David Lynch’s cult TV show Twin Peaks (1990), but it leans on other sources, like John Carpenter’s The Fog (1980), The League of Gentleman (1999), Carnivàle, (2003) and 1970s slasher flicks."

" There isn’t a specific mythology, and even the amount of supernatural and/or paranormal phenomena can be easily modified to suit different tastes. This is the Wretchedverse release with new plot hooks, more random events, locations and NPCs and a cover by Jon "Basic Expert" Torres"'

Welcome to St Cloud By Miguel Ribeiro is the latest offering by the folks at the Red Room and it's a very large beast of a campaign clocking in at well over two hundred pages. This is not a small campaign town or city. Welcome to St Cloud is a huge homage to all things David Lynch and it's easy to see why. St. Cloud is the type of town that can be dropped into your modern day OSR campaign with little issue but really works with is the Wretchploitation rpg or the Wretched Darkness rpg. Reading through Welcome to Saint Cloud it becomes obvious that Wretchploitation is really the rpg that I'd use to run this campaign; "Welcome to St. Cloud is somewhere in-between a campaign setting and a scenario and can be adapted to any system, though it is meant to be a scenario for the Wretchedverse, especially for our horror/ dark urban fantasy game Wretched Darkness. It is surreal horror in nature since it was heavily inspired by David Lynch's cult TV show Twin Peaks (1990), but it leans on other sources, like John Carpenter's The Fog". The reasoning for this is simple with such an early Nineties asthetic Wretchploitation pivots easily into position to run this campaign. 

Welcome to Saint Cloud is devided into campaign sections with major plot hooks under each section 
St.Cloud is a town with secrets and lots of them. Each NPC has stats and then secrets as well as plot hooks. Let's take one our average highschoolers in St.Cloud; " OCCUPATION: Student/ Halley's Department Store Parttime Clerk (Sports Department) Common Citizen Level 3 Health: 5 Defense: 12 Move: 12 Resolve: 6 Experience: 1 +3 bonus to Brawling rolls, +2 to Damage DESCRIPTION: He's still a student at St. Cloud High at 19, maybe not because he's a complete imbecile, but because he can't imagine doing anything other than being in school. He's a very robust and tough young man and star of the school's football team. He's Simon Black's friend and escapade partner. Mike enjoys a good bar fight and dares any man in St. Cloud to try to knock him down. He used to date Donna Anderson. Although she has a relationship with Joshua Keller, Mike still goes out with her once in a while. SECRET LIFE: He knows about Glenn Cleveland's parties and wants to be invited, but his older brother wants to keep him 94 out of it. Mike can't understand why, but without an invitation, there's no way to get in. Mike Nelson has a Mickey Mouse tattoo on his chest. It's not really a secret, but he only shows it to people he believes he can trust, usually girls, most of the time Donna. He will take off his shirt and moves his chest muscles in a way that creates the impression the mouse is dancing while saying strange, nonsensical phrases in a low-pitched voice. What does it mean? Absolutely nothing, but it's weird and leads Donna to sexual ecstasy, so it must be some kind of power. PLOT HOOK: Mike Nelson becomes determined to crash one of Glenn Cleveland's secret parties, putting himself in danger and causing conflict with his older brother Andy." 

"Welcome to Saint Cloud" is a lower tier power level campaign and it wears its subtly proudly as weaves in an out of it's plots. Welcome to Saint Cloud isn't a boring campaign at all but plays like a hybrid between Lynch's Mulhuland Drive, Twin Peaks, and even a bit of the first Hellraiser film. 
Welcome to Saint Cloud walks a fine line between adventure resource & full on deadly campaign. The town of St.Cloud is full realized & fleshed out. And now that it's been properly brought over to the Wretchedverse I'm intrigued to see what else the Red Room does with it. 
Welcome to Saint Cloud has a ton of plot hooks, adventure content, and real possibilities to keep a horror or even an investigative campaign going for years. The quality is up too the standards of other Red Room products & the town is perfect to enhance any OSR or Wretchedverse horror campaign. 

Welcome to St Cloud By Miguel Ribeiro For The Wretchedverse Rpg Line or Any OSR Horror Rpg Is Available Right Over Here. 

One Stat To Rule Them All?! - The Revolution By Night - Commentary on The Nightshift Companion Kickstarter

 So looking around Timothy Brannon's Otherside blog about his & Jason Vey's Night Companion Kickstarter.  But what struck me is this little nugget of information that Tim, ' Guidelines to convert your game to a unified mechanic: both d20-based and percentile-based options are covered'. 

This little nugget smells of something that I've noticed for years now. That is that many folks converted 'Call of Cthluhu' rpg adventures to their favorite horror games. Now I doubt that either author would try to violate the copy right or trade mark of any rpg company. But what they have done is actually allowed DM's to create a set of unified rpg rules that allow the DM to convert their favorite horror adventure into their own campaign. 

But what it really means is that the OSR B/X driven horror rpg is controlled by the players & the DM. There are a wide variety of options on the table top for the PC's. 
There are enough other horror rpgs on the OSR market place that can & will allow the DM to construct their own campaign on their own terms. This is an important factor in the tool box approach to horror gaming. 


Over & over again we see this type of rpg system that allows the DM to pick & choose from another of OSR or even Non OSR sources to add to their base 'Night Shift Veterans of the Supernatural Wars' rpg. This was something that occurred to me when recently we were writing up guidelines for using Miguel Ribeiro's 'Welcome to Saint Cloud' the author's horror themed homage adventure to Twin Peaks. 

'Welcome to Saint Cloud'  is a solid NPC & encounter setting adventure so this means that its adaptable to Nightshift Veterans of the Supernatural Wars rpg. Even though these two rpg supplements are not from the same publisher the Nightshift Companion will be able to handle many of the elements of the Actual F*cking Monsters rpg. 'Welcome to Saint Cloud'  is a love letter to David Lynch's films especially 'Twin Peaks'. Its a very surreal adventure which takes advantage of the magick lodge TV show element. Over the last couple of months I've been mapping out several campaign notes using 'Welcome to Saint Cloud' :

1. A cast of ecentric NPC's capable of killing each & everyone of the PC's. 
2. A US  North Pacific  adventure that takes full advantage of the occult nature of 'Welcome to Saint Cloud' :
3. Several adventure hooks that could be incorporated into Nightshift to hook the PC's into a campaign 'Welcome to Saint Cloud' :
4. The Lynchian elements could be the premiere of the Nightshift monsters that provide a shocking adventure element. 
5. I believe the Nightshift Companion is going to be absolutely essential to running 'Welcome to Saint Cloud' .

The Nightshift Companion Kickstarter is going to be on for another 28 hours here. So why does this matter?! Well it matters to me because I backed this particular kickstarter. 

OSR Review & Commentary On "Welcome to St. Cloud" By Miguel Ribeiro From Post Mortem Studios Adapted For Use With Night Shift Veterans of the Supernatural War Rpg By Jason Vey & Timothy Brannan

  "Welcome to St. Cloud" is inbetween a campaign setting and a scenario and can be adapted to any system, though it already includes stats for the Actual F *cking Monsters role-playing game. It is surreal horror in nature since it was heavily inspired by David Lynch's cult TV show Twin Peaks (1990), but it leans on other sources, like John Carpenter's The Fog (1980),  The League of Gentleman (1999), Carnivàle (2003) and 1970s slasher flicks. Tbere isn't specific mythology, and even the amount of supernatural and/or paranormal phenomena can be easily modified to suit different tastes."

" What's presented here is a detailed description of the titular small town of St. Cloud, WA, and its inhabitants, which provides multiple story seeds. In the end, there's a much more developed but unstructured plot hook that encompasses a series of events set in motion after the death of a local pre-teen girl.  The Final chapter, (Not) Wrapped in Plastic, is a plotline designed for those who want to play St. Cloud with a distinct Twin Peak's feeling, but without instantly giving away the whole story" "Welcome to St. Cloud " By
Miguel Ribeiro is a source book adventure  love letter to classic
Eighties surreal psychological  horror & a a homage to David Lynch's 'Twin Peaks'. "Welcome to St. Cloud "is another rpg systemless adventure or supplement to drop into your OSR game.  "Welcome to St. Cloud "is a perfect mini adventure campaign setting that would work for an B/X OSR Pulp supernatural rpg.  'Night Shift Veterans of TheSupernatural War' rpg By Jason Vey & Timothy Brannan is a greatpseudo B/X occult rpg for adding in supernatural hunters into "Welcome to St. Cloud"; 

"The group of Miskatonic University investigators introduced a optional characters in the Dramatis Personae chapter aren't strictly hunters

since their primary purpose in St. Cloud  is just to observe, take notes and collect   evidence of supernatural or paranormal activity in town. But things change and,

when lives are at stake, even college professors can pick up a gun and blow a

monster's head off . Also, they can rely on some of the locals for extra  repower."

St.Cloud is a region with secrets & some of these are absolutely deadly. The Lynchian factor is cranked up to '12' in some areas of "Welcome to St. Cloud". And this isn't a bad thing at all. There's more then a bit of investigation that the PC's have to do. Even though "Welcome to St. Cloud" is systemless per say there's some really tight writing here & some very dangerous plots. This again is a 'situational sandbox' but the difference here is that the supernatural & occult elements are alive & well in "Welcome to St. Cloud". Or are they?! The 'unknown factor' is strong here in "Welcome to St. Cloud". If you go in guns blazing you'll miss the opportunity for a strong PC roll playing experience or two to slip into a session. 

Miguel Ribeiro manages to balance his Lynch rpg homages with several
twists & turns on the usual gaming tropes and these can easily be slipped 
into your OSR games. 

While "Welcome to St. Cloud" is up to the usual Post Mortem Stuidos material
there's a bit of an extra spark here. The author knows his material & subject matter
 well but there's plenty of room for St. Cloud to become a perfect mini setting  for 'Night Shift Veterans of TheSupernatural War' rpg . The right set of players could have this style of
campaign  going on for many months. There's lots of interesting NPC's

& mysteries to solve.  There's a lot more going on
below the cheery exterior of "Welcome to St. Cloud". 
Don't forget to have a great cup of coffee & a bit of cherry pie.