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Showing posts with label short stories. Show all posts
Showing posts with label short stories. Show all posts

Thursday, October 30, 2014

Free Halloween Download Psycho #14 For Your Old School Horror and Sword & Sorcery Campaigns


Grab It Right Over
HERE

Psycho #14 from 1973 features some all time classic horror bits from Skywald publishing's house of gore and more. This issue dives right into the deep end with some absolutely classic bits in stories like 'The Classic Creeps" - This tale can easily be adapted for a weird Call of Cthlhu style one shot ride and features themes that wouldn't be seen again for quite some time until the 80's classic monster movies such as Monster Squad! 
'Monsterity' is the sort of midnight movie or Saturday night special fungus or slime monster with origins that can actually send a team of adventurers heading for the hills.
The interior featurette is the sort of classic reference point that can give readers and DM's some ideas and pointers for classic horror adventures. A real window into fester years bastion of horror.
" The Artist's Other Hand"'s character could make a very nasty NPC patron or encounter for a group of horror adventurers.
"The Horror That Is Not As It Seems" might make an interesting little turn around adventure for a game of Lamentations of The Flame Princess for the Weird New World style campaign and the same goes for the 'Man Who Dared Not Sleep'.
"Cassandra: Sorceress of the Seventh Wind" is really the whole reason to download this mag. Written by Marv Wolfman/Art by Don Heck and Mike Esposito this piece can serve as a bridge gap between a modern game and an Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea. The art is great and the storytelling is solid in my humble opinion. It really does make this issue for me.
"The Hippy Criters Are Coming' is pure 70's shlock but in a good way and might make a solid encounter for a more modern style game such as Call of Cthulhu for a change of pace. 
" I Battled The Vicious Vampire Bats of Transilvania and Lived To Tell About It' is well pure Skywald at its finest and might make a great turn around modern style vampire encounter or one for Planet Mother $%#$er.  

Thursday, October 23, 2014

Revisiting Poul Anderson's Free Sword and Sorcery Tale The Valor of Cappen Verra



Grab It Right Over
HERE

Years ago I came across this book in a box as part of a haul in a used book store, one of the stories in this collection was a Poul Anderson. Anderson worked on and off in the swords and sorcery literature movement of the 60's and 70's.
 I really love the interplay between characters within The Valor of Cappen Verra  because of Anderson's literary sleight of hand in his tale spinning. The fact is that this is a bit of a classic but not one that get thrown out there by any degree of regularity.
 The tale sets up a major arch for some of Anderson's later Fey war tales and here we see that fore shadowing enables him to pull his reader into the world that Cappen Verra sets up.
 This techqiue of story telling is something that the author used later for some of his other sword and sorcery titles and stories.
This one remains an old favorite and classic in my humble opinion.