TLDR - if you liked the first Knives Out, check out Knives Out - Wake Up Dead Man. Overall, enjoyed it. I was happy to see all the pieces on the board addressed and used appropriately. Currently, for minor reasons I’m going to rank it as second best of the three (though others I saw it with ranked it differently).

Item - Cold Iron Club "Crudely fashioned, but it worked. With each blow of that club, nails of cold iron stabbed into the eldritch flesh, eliciting burbling howls from it's gaping orifices. Once I had used it against a Spaniard who trafficked in dark arts and watched his face catch fire from the mere touch of the cold forged spikes."

Encounter - The Last Warden "Even Death does not stop the Last Warden from their duty. Step by torturous step, losing bits with every footfall, eyes sunken and mouth still noiselessly moving in memory of things like words. We pray he does not mistake us for his wards, lest he puts those clanking chains into use." They found part of a map to a fortune, but the key lies in a…

Strange Relic - Eldritch Anchor "It had the shape of an anchor, but the texture was more of bone, a fused spine of oil slick hue. What strange ship it had come from I could not say but I knew that no human hands had forged it. In my grip I could feel it writhe like a thing alive though to the eye it moved not.

Location - Cave of Webs "Sheet upon sheet of clinging webs drape from every surface like silk curtains. No sound louder than a whisper manages to escape from the mouth of the cave, swallowed whole. All things are connected and fate draws you closer, a thread connecting to events unknown to you. Soon you shall discover what lies within from one sensitive to such things ..."

Relic - Black Candle of Binding A single black candle that binds a single creature of the user's choice. While the candle burns, that creature cannot leave the light cast by the candle, restricting it's movement to a mere 10 feet from it. The candle cannot be extinguished by that creature but is still vulnerable to others. Made from the tears of a mermaid, blood of a captive, and a random ingredient of the Port Master's choice.

A little while, I was watching a Sly Flourish video and he talked about making a little "Lessons Learned in Gaming" diary as a resource for future inspiration and a means of reflection. I did something like that with a little bit celebrating something about the session (and later discovered Stars and Wishes) and pondering what went well and what did I need to work on for the next game, so this felt like a natural progression with a bit more of a recurring check in.

Item - Mermaid Rainbow Chimes "It was not their sound but the way the light of the setting sun reflected off the iridescent scales that held my gaze. There I stood until the darkness restored my senses, but by then it was far too late ..." Not all sirens sing. Glistening and polished, they shimmer as they pass underneath the waterline, weaving a hypnotic pattern as they undulate.

Item - A wooden box of beetles, dry shells rattling. Mash them up, boil them up, serve them in a mug. The massive Dark Coast Beetle native to the DARK YUCATAN is much bigger than their European cousins, causing painful but non toxic welts when it bites. Properly harvested, they can serve as ingredients for many a potent potion. A strong dye for blackening that white sail cloth, weather resistant.

"Sharp mothers with shadows in their eyes. Do not wrong the thorn brides or their children, sharp is their skin and furious are their songs. Daughters to the long ascended Erl Kings, they watch over those verdant groves of ancient forests and deep jungles, tiny fiefdoms that still survive the poisons of Men." Dryads are well established in fantasy lore and mythic legends.

"Tufts of hair still cling to the diseased skull of the thing clutching the carved lectern, foul words forming on withered lips, blind eyes scanning forbidden text, following fingers that probe the vellum pages for their secrets. A single harsh syllable escapes it's throat, expanding to envelop the room with a fist of flame ..." There isn't much that hasn't been done with spell casters in TTRPGs, and the…

"A small piece of something larger, it's form suggesting something grand. Now, it sits easily in your hand but there is a pull, calling to the greater whole. The compulsion to be reunited itches at the base of your skull, a thing forgotten but never known until now." It doesn't matter where you found it, or rather since it found you.

Art from The Monastikon blog post "At first we mistook the shapes hanging from the temple walls as men but we were wrong. Husks were all that remained of these things once alive, now hollow shades seeking to gorge upon our flesh to fill that raw empty Abyss within. It won't make them better but at least for a fleeting few heartbeats they will feel again, but they will not be saved."

"Like guilt welled up and given physical form, the stain upon the floor told a tale of brutal violence, etched deep and sealed into the stone. A silent voice crying out for a life unlived, whispering for vengeance against the fatal blow long ago struck. I hear it echoing behind my eyes, closing them fails to block out that imprint burned into the lids ..."

Image: Saga of the Swamp Thing #40 Vol. 2 "The Curse" "Echoing into the night, beneath the bulbous moon, issued forth from a throat not quite human. Terrifyingly it was answered by another in kind by another unseen beast. God's Wounds, there were two of them out there! Were they prowling after game or after each other? It mattered not if either of them caught us ashore ..."

Wrist-Dagger This is no ordinary tattoo. It is in fact a relic in the form of a dagger that has burrowed into your forearm, only coming out when coaxed by singing the same song as the one you sang that dark night when you used it to carve a single long cut into your flesh. For additional cursed qualities, on a CRITICAL FUMBLE, the tip has broken off in the vulnerable flesh, burrowing it's way to the heart in…

"It was naught but an enormous gaping maw, slowly spinning, a rushing whirlpool of water being sucked into that yawning orifice, plunging past rings of jagged teeth and down into the unimaginable guts below." For Pirate-Borg, "Maw" seemed the perfect opportunity to bring in Charybidis, the classic sea hazard / monster mentioned in The Odyssey, The Aeneid, and Jason and the Argonauts…

Frog - Plague of the Fear Frogs "They came as a hideous wave of thumb sized pale frogs, spilling forth from the bubbling birthing pool, a squirming mass chirping in a riotous cacophony. Soon they engulfed Phillipe, his flailing quickly turning to mere twitching as his skin was poisoned by those numberless spawn. Their skin was paralytic, and contact with one would be enough to briefly numb a small hungry predator, but multiplied into a living carpet was enough to fell a grown man.

I was very excited as I read the plot description of Play Dirty, realizing that this was going to be a Parker novel adaptation. Parker was created by Richard Stark, the anti hero of several noir heist novels, adapted into movies like Payback, Point Blank, The Outfit, and Parker. The quality has varied and I'd say Play Dirty…

A made for streaming murder mystery with a dynamite cast, how could I not watch this? The Pitch Four senior citizens with a 'hobby' of solving cold cases finds themselves with a hot case that affects their home. Working on the sly with a recently transferred police officer, they might uncover more than they bargained for. With names like Helen Mirren, Pierce Brosnan, Ben Kingsly, David Tennant, and Tom Ellis, I was sold from the start.

Once again I managed to get folks together for Pirate Borg! Last time we did the semi-sandbox Buried in the Bahamas (recommended as a good starting place, with some combat, exploration, and a dungeon puzzle). We were less dark and gritty, more weird and wacky, but still worked just fine. If there was a lesson to be learned, it was "

I had the fortune to have played lots of different RPG systems with various mechanics early on in my gamer origins, including several home brew rule sets and a couple formed from smashing systems together like grafting Runequest combat phases to Chivalry & Sorcery mechanics. Then I was introduced to the Weapons Mastery of the Dungeons & Dragons Master Set…

Skipping Day#2 for the moment as it triggered a little longer than planned. Meanwhile, some thoughts on - TAVERN (Where, Adventure, Excited). Those random prompts remind me of Cheers, where everybody knows your name and isn't that the sort of thing an Adventurer should be excited about? Taverns are a staple of the genre (even if they aren't really historical, but that's a rant for another time) and a straight forward hub of information, quests, social roleplay, and the occasional colourful NPC staggering in with a bag full of coin and a blade in their back.

Once again I find myself well and behind on the annual #RPGaDay challenge, instead working on building up some locations for my home brew fantasy greatly infused with historical examples. Really, what I need to do is work on a more dilligent output of shorter posts - so here goes! #1 Patron (random roll 4-5-9, when-accessory-confidence) Patron rewards are a nice little dopamine buzz.

I've been following the Mythos since I was a teenager. I read the short stories, played the TTRPG, and even picked up the original Arkham Horror (basically Candyland with eldritch horrors roaming the neighbourhood). Over the years I've seen the proliferation across movies, books, and games (including the Smash Up: Obligatory Cthulhu Set), more than I could keep up with.