Danger Creeps
Blackthorn + Behind the Scenes + Horror Recs + More
Hi Guac!!
Hello from warm-weathered Kansas! I hope everyone has had some highs during March. I’m happy we are over our not-so-normal snowfall and chilly weather and back to touching grass!
Today’s episode of The Guac is going to showcase Blackthorn’s new look (which is now live on Backerkit with Pocketopia), I’ve got some cool links (including horror movie recs), and a shout out to some Pocketopia and other projects.
Docket
Blackthorn New Look
Cool Links
Pocketopia +
Spicy Tuna Live Links
Blackthorn on Backerkit
Cryo Drakus Late Pledge
Blackthorn New Look
Recap: Blackthorn is a pulp horror roleplaying game focused on collaboratively telling horror stories.
It runs on a d12+d6 system, has 2-minute character creation, and a ton of narrative elements that give agency to players driving the narrative despite playing easily slain characters. Speaking of characters, they are just ordinary people without guns or heavy equipment. Nevertheless they are still in the middle of a supernatural crisis and will likely die.
In Blackthorn, players go in wanting to tell a horror story, full of urgency and dipping them in and out of stressful and high tension situations. If they die, they pick up a new character lickety split, have to explain why their new character hasn’t taken action until now, and reenter with more stress and/or less life than their first character started with.
Blackthorn launched yesterday with Pocketopia! You can see the campaign page here
https://www.backerkit.com/c/projects/spicy-tuna-rpg/blackthorn
I am most excited for the type of scenarios this game supports! In that spirit we’re launching the game with a ton of modules! Three pamphlet adventures, and at least four one page adventures. Quick overview of the pamphlet adventures:
Belfast Vampire Massacre by Joshua Justice. A deeply horrifying vampiric blood bath drawing inspiration from Irish lore among other sources.
Murder Birds by Marco Serrano. After a ship carrying exotic zoo-bound animals crashes on the Connecticut coast, a vicious shock of cassowaries systematically kill off the animals shipped alongside them and the locals caught in their rampage.
This shock of Cassowaries are going to be intelligent hunters and have bonkers strength, like beak and neck bursting through people’s chests type of strength. Caged animals of all stripes will jump through windows and tear down sheds trying to make sense of their new environment, while the birds work from the perimeter inwards keeping everything trapped in the town.
Rite of Passage by M. Allen Hall. Local teenagers disappear in the forest surrounding Pembrook. When the adults band together for a rescue mission, they quickly find themselves entangled in the deadly games of the forest's psychic fungus.
We’re stoked to have Joshua Justice and M. Allen Hall on the project!
I’ve long loved Radio Free Hekate by Joshua Justice, and besides RFH I think Joshua is making some of the best short form content for Mothership out there.
https://www.staticdistance.com/
M.Allen Hall has a ton of work I love too! He’s one of those powerhouse writers who consistently pumps out horror gold. Outside of his own published games, most of his horror modules are for Liminal Horror and The Lost Bay. My favorites are Will of the Forest, Diesel Service, and One Hour Photo.
And the One Page Adventures!
> Revenge of the Boiled Hag (Revenge seeking witch)
> They Escaped From the Sea (Revived zombies attack from the sea bed)
> Puddy Madness! (The Blob inspired unstoppable force)
> This House is Now Your Home (Demonic house that is slowly sinking the city into the depths of hell. We’re creeping up on unlocking this as a stretch goal already!!)
A little backdrop: A huge inspiration for Blackthorn is pre-code horror comics. A quick overview of what pre-code comics are for those who don’t know. Comics were made with very little regulation when they were newer mediums. In the horror world, they pushed boundaries quite a bit, and when it came to comics which were seen as mostly marketed to children, opponents to easily accessible and MIND-ALTERING HORROR took to legislation in order to restrict what kind of horror, and comics in general, publishers could print. The comics industry responded with a self-governing Comics Code Authority to avoid government oversight, and although it was voluntary to receive the seal of approval, most retailers wouldn’t pick up non-approved comics which heavily constricted horror comic makers. There’s a lot of pretty dark history with this saga and the CCA if you’re interested in learning more about it, it’s worth checking out.
Anyway, pre-code comics were wild! It was a time where authors were really exploring horror, mysticism, magic, the occult, space danger, and the lot. It’s really cool to read some of these early stories, usually very short form 8-16 pages, and see the ideas they were exploring. (It’s also worth noting that these stories are a product of their time, sometimes carrying problems of the era with them.)
As a writer who generally jumps off of a single source of inspiration, I’ve loved spending some extra time with these early comics. The illustrations, likewise, have been a heavy influence on me as well. It’s a lot of fun to take a premise and make something new from it.
So for the Blackthorn one-pagers, I’ve lightly edited, as in mostly made larger and recolored, illustrations from old horror comics in the public domain to make 5.5×8.5 prints! And, on the backside, we’re including everything you need to run a scenario of Blackthorn, inspired by the illustration and story from the past.
One of these adventures comes free to all backers who support Blackthorn in the first 48 hours, Revenge of the Boiled Hag. My take on the witch seeking revenge is going to push witchcraft to extreme limits, and features curses, controlling the weather, and mass hallucinations.
We also finalized our cross-collab with Stillfleet Studios! Back both campaigns and you get two one-pagers + a Stillfleet pin (btw, if you’re a fan of Mothership, you might be interested in the Stillfleet RPG and it’s Grit System).
I’m really excited about these two one pagers! Puddy Madness! is the one I’m writing for Blackthorn. One of the core enemies in Enter the Nostalgitron are the Slurps, which are a shapeshifting/goopy mook-type enemies, and Puddy Madness! is the result of one of the Slurps being accidentally transported to Earth, mutating from complications of teleportation, and consuming a small town in an ambiguous 1920s. Stillfleet’s one pager for Enter the Nostalgitron features a punch-a-hero-in-the-face teen wolf roaming a haunted boardwalk in the 1920s.
They’re going to be a lot of fun and the Stillfleet guys have been great to work with so far.
You can check out Enter the Nostalgitron on Backerkit here and Blackthorn here.
And finally, the sketches of Blackthorn!
Long story short about the new look is I was originally using Virgil Finlay’s illustrations for Blackthorn because I thought they were in the public domain (largely because I didn’t realize that the Internet Archives, archive.org, relied on people uploading to accurately tag whether something is in the public domain or not, but also because of other poor research). Luckily it was pointed out to me last Wednesday that Finlay’s work most likely wasn’t, and after searching more on https://www.copyright.gov/public-records/ I found that most of his work, what seems like almost all of it is copyrighted and held by his family. So I hastily got to work with replacing all of the illustrations on Blackthorn. We ended up with some public domain artwork in the interior and I ended up illustrating the covers (minus the one pagers as stated above which use public domain comic book illustrations). I’ll also be illustrating more of the inside of the book in the future, so not all of the current public domain work will stay, as great as it is.
Here are the sketches. You might notice some famous, or not so famous, horror poster images I sketched out among the actual composition sketches too (such as The Blob poster right below the Puddy Madness! composition we ended up with.) I do that a lot when sketching to gain a better grasp of composition and other information about what I’m trying to create (such as how do people portray vampires or what not).
Cool Links
Horror Film Recommendations
In the spirit of Blackthorn I’ve been watching more movies, and playing them in the background while I illustrate. Currently, I only watch on free streaming services, mostly Tubi, Pluto TV, Plex, and some of the movies are free on Youtube so if you’re interested in the movies you know where to go. Here are some of the ones I really enjoyed:
Deepstar Six Underwater, bottom of the ocean horror!! That’s an auto-win for me, but even more, this movie has some great interpersonal troubles and a fantastic creature.
Silver Bullet This was a rewatch from when I was much younger and I think it holds up! Sibling bickering and love on full display, an alcoholic uncle, a weird ass priest, murders or werewolf attacks in a small community, loss of faith in the sheriff, and “private justice!”.
Alligator A giant alligator lurks in the sewers. Of course it became gigantic because an inhumane lab discarded growth hormone-injected dogs into the sewers, similar to how the alligator was discarded for being a bad pet. I like the set up of this one where the main cop carries guilt and distrust from the media for a years ago accident where his partner was shot with his gun. And an excellent monster!
And some that are on my list to watch (with short descriptions from IMDB)
Motel Hell A seemingly friendly farmer and his sister kidnap unsuspecting travelers and bury them alive, using them to create the "special meat" they are famous for.
The Blood on Satans Claws In early 18th century England, the children of a village slowly convert into a coven of devil worshipers.
The Fog Local legend tells of a ship lured on to the rocks of Antonio Bay being enveloped by a supernatural cloud as it sank; the myth says that when this mysterious fog returns, the victims will rise up from the depths seeking vengeance.
Cobwebs Channel
I have to give credit to the Cobwebs Channel for helping me find new-to-me horror films. Here are a few videos you might like.
The Weekly Scroll
We played Cryo Drakus on the Weekly Scroll!
Dice Exploder Episodes I Liked
Mule (Last Train to Bremen) and Pregenerated Characters with Aaron Lim
Deep Cuts with John Harper
The Queen is Under Attack (For the Queen) with Kimi Hughes
Explorer’s Design: Why Combat is a Fail State in OSR Play
I liked what Clayton had to say in this one. Plus grade A blog illustration. https://www.explorersdesign.com/failstate-combat/
Pocketopia +
To be honest, I haven’t had the chance to go through any other projects in depth because I’ve been heads down with work, but these are some that stand out both visually and in pitch. I’m going to start by reshouting out our collab partners Stillfleet, just to show their cool pregen heroes and Shredder-inspired villain.
Enter the Nostalgitron by Stillfleet Studio
https://www.backerkit.com/c/projects/stillfleet-studio/enter-the-nostalgitron
GAST: Horror Zine Collection by Hatchlings Games
https://www.backerkit.com/c/projects/hatchlings/gast-horror-zine-collection-publishing-startup
The Red Lion Hotel by Come Martin
https://www.backerkit.com/c/projects/nessundove/the-red-lion-hotel
A Land Once Magic by Viditya Voleti / moreblueberries
https://www.backerkit.com/c/projects/moreblueberries/a-land-once-magic
Historic: The Road Eternal
https://www.backerkit.com/c/projects/publishing-goblin-llc/historic-road-eternal
It Lurks Inside
https://www.backerkit.com/c/projects/alexei-vella/it-lurks-inside-a-solo-facility-escape-game
M. Allen Hall has a few of his own projects moving forward of his own.
In Ruins: A Dungeon Building is a tabletop roleplaying game for 1 to 6 players. Together, players will construct a castle, let it fall into ruin, and then populate the resulting dungeon with factions competing for control of the Throne Room, the dungeon's core. Live now on Kickstarter!
Liminal Grimoire: A Collection of Horrors is a box set of pamphlet adventures for Liminal Horror. I’m really excited about this group of modules and excited for it to launch with the new Liminal Horror Deluxe Edition which is also launching in about 30 days.
Speaking of Liminal Horror Deluxe Edition, I’m just a huge fan of the game, but also the team is just doing stellar things. I think this is some of Zach’s best work, and I know the writing and development team are going all out for this tome.
Gonna leave it at a shorter one today! I’ll have more great news to share about The Hands That Feed, Cryo Drakus, Greenhorns public release, and the Spicy Tuna RPG discord next time!
I hope you have a fantastic day ahead! Thank you for reading, especially this far!
Marco