Modern Mythos - ep.29

Modern Mythos with Jon & Seth

Two classic Chaosium publications, Blood Brothers and Blood Brothers 2, each include Gothic monsters as those books were designed to emulate the kind of stories seen in movies featuring those beasties.

Oath of Blood (BB1) - features vampires

The Haunting - Walter Corbitt was essentially a vampire or at least vampire-like

Vampire Lore is an example of Lore Specialization skill in CoC (starts at 1%) — as “Lore (Vampire)” vs EDU/Know.

Upcoming ‘Last Voyage of the Demeter’ -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Voyage_of_the_Demeter

Great New England Vampire Panic - 1854 https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-great-new-england-vampire-panic-36482878/

Mercy Brown - Exeter, Rhode Island - Exhumed her body in 1892 two months after burial and removed and burned her heart, then mixed ashes into a potion for a sick family member to drink (he died anyway 2 months later)

https://www.roadsideamerica.com/tip/14336

Goth subculture - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goth_subculture

Part of the fun in the classic monster movies is seeing the heroes explore and discover the truth or falsehood of the folklore pertaining to the monster. The Keeper can play with this so the investigators have their own unique experience in discovering those truths:

• Do vampires need to be invited over a threshold?

• Does silver injure vampires?

• Do holy symbols repel vampires? Must they only be wielded by someone with unfaltering faith? Will any holy symbol work?

• Can the bite of a vampire be cured?

• If a “parent” monster is destroyed, does that destroy/release/cure any of the “children” that they sired?

• Can vampires shapeshift into other forms?

• Do vampires only feed on blood? (book says POW, but what if CON or STR to represent blood-loss like Lucy in Dracula)

• Can Vampires change appearance? Anne Rice their hair was always exactly the length as it was when they died, One character was groomed and shaved before he was transformed because of that.

• Various folklore from around the world -

  • Aswangs from Phillipines

  • Penanggalan from Malasia

  • Babalonia and Assyiria had Lilitu which possibly links to stories of Lilith.

Popular folklore the Players and likely the PCs are familiar with, but PCs have to discover which folklore is true. - EX: Lost Boys garlic didn’t work of vampires, American Werewolf in London any bullet worked (in fact the silver bullet folklore came from Hollywood).

Lost Boys premiere date: July 31, 1987 (36th anniversary)

Take a page from World of Darkness and different kinds of Vampires (Nosferatu, Ventru, Brujah, etc). Or as vampire becomes older more powerful if looks less and less human (or more and more human)

In Seth’s Valducan series I had 2 types. One was if the vampire took them over before death and the other was after death.

Modern Mythos Patreon Link: https://www.patreon.com/modern_mythos

Of Wrath & Blood is now available as a print-on-demand book: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/271923/Of-Wrath-and-Blood?term=of+wrath+and+blood

Spark of Life is now available as a print-on-demand book:

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/278700/Spark-of-Life

Seth Skorkowsky’s Gold Ennie Award-Winning YouTube Channel:

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@SSkorkowsky

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/SSkorkowsky

We can’t do this show alone. We want to thank our amazing editors Max Mahaffa and Edwin Nagy for their hard work and keen skills at making us sound awesome!

We also want to thank John Sumrow, for our badass logo. He’s a very talented artist, so please follow him on Facebook, check out his official website, and please consider joining his Patreon account. Links in the show notes.

https://www.facebook.com/johnsumrow

http://www.johnsumrow.com

https://www.patreon.com/JohnSumrow

And finally, we want to thank The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets for generously allowing us to use their song, Gluttony, as our intro and outro music. If you are a fan of Lovecraft’s writing and the Call of Cthulhu RPG, then you need to check out The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets. Please check out their BandCamp site and their official band site. Links in the show notes.

https://thedarkestofthehillsidethickets.bandcamp.com/

http://thickets.net/