Posts Tagged ‘worlds of pulp’
Mazes & Mondays: Most Terrifying Monster
Then they spent the next six months trying to catch a jewelry merchant, name Clyde. He was not possessed by a Rune God, nor a jeweler secretly summoning horrors from beyond the Doomgate. He was just a jeweler, an unpleasant little man who a hand cart with a bell. After that figured out that if he paid them something, they wouldn’t question the value of the rest.
Read MoreFrights & Fables: What You Cannot See
Not the beast with claws. Not the killer with the knife. Something quieter. Something that sits in plain sight, right in front of your reader, and asks nothing of them at all — until you decide to give it teeth. Most writers treat it as scenery, a bit of mood to dress the stage. And that, my friend, is the greatest waste in all of horror.
Read More52 Weeks: Horror Possessed
The original Amityville Horror was the first movie that ever terrified me when I was a kid. The red eyes at the windows did it, even though they seem dated now.
Read MoreWords & Wonders: Edge of the Impossible
I grew up in the 70s and 80s. The heroes I was shown, the ones I feared for and cheered for, were action heroes. They faced impossible odds and walked away. Sometimes limping. Sometimes bleeding. But they walked away. That image never left me. It bled straight into the games I run and the settings I build.
Read MoreTactical Tuesdays: The Hotdog with Kick
Ray’s Hai-Yah! Dog sits on a forgotten corner where the sidewalks are cracked, the parking is terrible, and almost everyone who matters eventually wanders past. Shift workers stop before sunrise. Detectives nurse burnt coffee while pretending not to watch the street. Reporters collect rumors they can’t print. Bail bondsmen make promises they probably won’t keep. Off-duty mercenaries quietly eat lunch with their backs against the wall.
Read MoreMazes & Mondays: Economy of Apocalypse
The Rune Gods want civilization in ashes. The dead refuse the courtesy of staying buried. Cockatrices leave gardens full of screaming statuary. Whole provinces sit one bad cult meeting away from becoming a demon’s playground.
Read MoreFrights & Fables: Dread with Trust
Here is the thing to understand first. Horror is not something you do to your table. It is something you build with them. The tension, the dread, the sweet cold shiver down the spine, all of it only works when everyone at the table has agreed to feel it together.
Read MoreWords & Wonders: Beyond the Screen
One of the things I’ve always appreciated about Words & Wonders is that it occasionally gives me the freedom to wander off the well-traveled road
Read MoreTactical Tuesdays: Interior Terrain
Civic buildings are supposed to be safe. Libraries, community centers, municipal offices—they’re built for crowds, quiet, and order.
Read MoreMazes & Mondays: Drowning in Prep
here’s the secret every veteran GM eventually learns: your players will never read your lore bible, and you don’t need one to run a world that feels alive.
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