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Something a little different in today's bonus episode, as patron Bob asks me to take a look at some modern horror monsters of his design, the enigmatic Blank Men!

Thanks to Ray Otus for our thumbnail image. The intro music is a clip from "Solve the Damn Mystery" by Jesse Spillane, used under a Creative Commons Attribution License.       

Comments

Steve

Escalating a monster not only satisfies a tactical need, but it also serves the narrative purpose of reincorporation. I've made heavy use of this in my current Trail of Cthulhu campaign. I've even managed largely to obscure the nature of the threat by showing it in different guises and situations which the PCs didn't control. In Owl Hoot Trail (F20 Cowboys), I had an owlbear in the first session which the group barely survived, luckily shooting off part of its beak. When they went back to the same woods, six levels later, it was there. It's eerie call (grr-hoot) summons other animals, in this case wolves, which it used as snarling furry missiles.

monsterman

I also think that one of the reasons that works is that everyone has a pretty good read on how tough an owlbear is and knows that they're dangerous. The Blank Men are the opposite: that's a game where people read the rulebook back-to-front, one that has a real "fan" culture to it, so when you introduce something completely unexpected I think it freaks people out. There are so many choices within the extant categories of Changeling monsters that deviation from them is somehow extra alarming.

Anonymous

I'm neither easily spooked or superstitious, but I did find it a little unnerving to listen to this episode at 11 PM in the dark in my bedroom.