Halloween 2014: The Accursed Fan Five

 

I really wanted to produce some awesome Halloween content this year, but writing for Savage Insider, running a new The King is Dead campaign, promoting Steamscapes: Asia, and drinking my way through Texas Wine Month have kind of gotten in the way.  In lieu of new material, I present the following annotated list from the Wine and Savages archives. 

Accursed Fan Five

The guys at Melior Via were kind enough to reach out to Wine and Savages when they were promoting Accursed, their Savage Worlds action-horror setting.  I was going through a period of experimenting with journalism and doing some interviews with them allowed me to scratch that itch.  When I received the playtest package, I immediately noticed how closely most of the basic Accursed character “races” (or “Witchbreeds”) mapped onto the main Universal Monsters (Dracula, Frankenstein, the Mummy, and the Wolf-Man), so I was inspired to try to expand the available character types to cover the rest of those classic monsters.

Accursed Monster Party

In which I first sketched out the concept.  Contains Frank Frazetta art.

Accursed: Devolved Men

Accursed: Ayesha the Timeless
Accursed: Banes of Ayesha
The series leads off with the Devolved Men, a Witchbreed inspired by King Kong, Mighty Joe Young, and all the brutes and cave men of the silver screen.  The Witch who created them is the savage jungle goddess Ayesha, and her servitor monsters (“Banes”) are dinosaurs and other prehistoric (or is it futuristic?) beasts.  More Frazetta art.

Accursed: Calibanoid

Accursed: Sycorax the Sea Hag
Accursed: Banes of Sycorax
The Calibanoids take their inspiration from The Creature from the Black Lagoon and The Shadow Over Innsmouth, while Sycorax takes her inspiration from Shakespeare and Popeye.  There are also allusions to the work of Junji Ito, which might make you recoil in loathing.

Accursed: Deathmasques (semi-repeat)

Accursed: O-Koroshi-hime
Accursed: Banes of O-Koroshi-hime
I jumped the gun on creating a Phantom of the Opera/Friday the Thirteenth-style slasher Witchbreed and went back later to bring them more in line with Accursed.  Playing off of some hints in the core setting, I gave the Witch and her Banes a very Japanese flavor, playing off of cultural affinities for masks.

Accursed: Hiding Ones

Accursed: Loki the Warlock-Witch
Accursed: Banes of Loki
The homage to Jekyll and Hyde spills over into a bunch of Avengers jokes as things get just plain weird.  I’m actually perversely proud of the absurd Marcher Hares.

Accursed: The Unseen

Accursed: The Eyeless
Accursed: Banes of the Eyeless
I was getting pretty burnt out by the end, so the entry on the Banes is just a joke.  The rest of it’s pretty good, though…