Morgan's Illusion Horror Con 2022 Excellent Adventures

The Illusion Horror Con is another free online convention. It's focused on horror RPGs. There was a fair number of Kult games and panels, so I assume the convention is sponsored by Helmgast.

There were a number of panels scheduled between games, so you can attend both games and panels. But my first game ran over, had to eat lunch, and I only caught a portion of Game-mastering horror RPGs: Strategies and unique considerations which was very interesting, so I watched the recorded panels in full.

Recorded panels are here: https://www.youtube.com/@theillusionhorrorcon/streams

I watched the following panels:

• Game-mastering horror RPGs: Strategies and unique considerations (It didn't get interesting until after the first 30 mins)
• Horror inspiration from film and media
• Seminar: The Commandments of Kult (PDF slides from the talk are here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/19u0snk-i8VuObhk2Nr_O1E5k349IiFOx/view?usp=sharing)
• Creation and Evolution of Kult
• Discussion of the Kult Universe

I mainly signed up for games that had pre-gens or quick character creation. I didn't get to play Kult, the shuffler gods denied me the pleasure. But all the games I played in were excellent.

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12/2 (Fri) 10am-2pm (ran over by 1/2 hour to 2:30pm)

Echo Darklight

System: Alien RPG

GM: Rob Wood (Kurg)

Players (6): Morgan Hua (as Specialist Bishop, Synthetic),

Brick Frog! (Nick as Peterson, WY Company Man),

Dave J (Dave as Marine Axe, vat born soldier),

greywolf5465 (Don as Marshal Kadro),

jakematking (Jacob as Pvt Takata),

Zyr (Zee as Marshal Langston).

In "Echo Darklight," a series of fatal industrial accidents at a remote mining facility might have gone unnoticed if something hadn't also happened to the investigating Colonial Marshal. Rumors of a potential worker uprising and a doctored accident reports draw a team of Colonial Marshals and Marines to investigate. The investigators find themselves caught between a corrupt facility administrator and his mercenaries, increasingly frightened and angry miners, and a corporate black project that has breached its containment.

Content Warnings: Violence, Gore, body horror.

Pre-generated characters will be provided.

Marshals, Marines, and Company People, Oh My!

This game was heavy on investigation and I really enjoyed this.

=== SPOILER SECTION START ===

This game has multiple factions at the prison and amongst the PCs. Everybody having their own agendas and secrets. I had a lot of fun trying to figure out what the heck was going on.

We got taken in by the Synthetic Nurse and thought the Warden and his goons were the main bad guys, but they were only secondary villains. At one point, I thought it was either Gremlins, mind control, or a computer virus that affected various independent systems. Then we found the Xeno hive. It was actually 3rd party corporate spies/saboteurs and Xenos.

Finding the Xenos and running from them took the last half hour, so we spent most of the first four hours investigating.

Best moments:

• In private, the Synthetic Nurse grabs our Corporate guy by his neck and slams him into a wall, and tells him, "Get rid of them quick," then she turns back into her sweet self.
• Using explosives to free Cell Block A and finding a Xeno hive. Oops.

In the end, only Axe and Peterson didn't make it. Everybody else made it off planet with most of the Marine prisoners, Sin Eaters, from Cell Block C and some of the Los Diablos gang members from Cell Block B. We escaped as the processing plant went nuclear. One of the PCs had started the chain reaction with train cars and mining explosives.

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12/2 (Fri) 4pm-8pm (actually ran to 7:30pm)

Campfire

System: Campfire: Anthology Horror Storytelling

GM: Joel (mr_kultist)

Players (3): Morgan Hua, TanyaLaShea, WishMoon.

Looking for 3-4 communicative players to play "Campfire - Anthology Horror Storytelling", an improv, shared storytelling experience, on Fri. Dec. 02 2022.

Each player gets a turn and draw cards to get a prompt to inspire you to tell a part of our collective spooky story. Coins are spent or gained by other players for input into your narrative. Will review all the rules before game. I will also be one of the players at the table to be able to answer questions, give examples, etc.

This is NOT a traditional role-playing game, is a storytelling game. Some pre-game preparations are needed (like choosing our story spark, the characters, setting up our lines and veils, etc.) Aiming for a 4 hours one-shot.

Content Warnings: Depends on the chosen story spark and all the players. Content warning for the story spark chosen will be discussed pre-game.

No character creation needed, we just choose all the main PCs and everyone can play or tell their part of their story. This not a traditional Role Playing game, it is a storytelling game.

We had four players, but one player dropped out, so we played with 3 + GM which is actually another player. This is one of those storytelling games where it's GM-less.

This is a more structured, more heavily themed version of A Penny for My Thoughts.

Instead of Players throwing random ideas into a hat and drawing them, the scenario is curated with preprinted cards that are randomly drawn. At various points, multiple cards are drawn and Players get a choice. The cards are themed and designed for a specific scenario. It puts the Players on the same page. This is A Penny for My Thoughts done better.

Campfire comes with 8 scenarios: Mosh Macabre, Family Vacation '94, Flutter, 

Kate M. Blood, Amidst the Stilts, The Emerald Triangle, Pieces of Me, The Babel File.

We picked:

Mosh Macabre (by Adam Vass) - Shed blood in the circle pit in this gory punk rock horror show. What would you do on your final night alive with a busted up six-string, a fist full of hate, and a smelly room full of leather-clad freaks?

As with most storytelling games, the improv chops of the Players make or break the game. We had an excellent table of improv storytellers. 

=== SPOILER SECTION START ===

At the start of the scenario, we get to pick 3 out of 6 Characters, 1 out of 3 Venues, and 1 out of 3 Instruments as setup.

We picked:
Characters: Biggest Fan, Ex-Guitarist, Cloaked Enigma
Venue: College Campus
Instrument: Massive Modular Synthesizer

Highlights:

The Dead Santas and Dead Pandas are rival band names. One dresses in Red and White costumes, the other in Black and White costumes. They fight onstage and are escorted out by security. The crowd goes wild!

Carrie moment as the featured band named Blood Essence sprays a firehose of red colored Karo and Kool-Aid liquid at the audience (Gallagher style), except it gets tainted with real blood from the football team's decapitated longhorn cow animal mascot. The audience suddenly quiets down when they realize, what? This ain't Karo? Then they go wild as they realize Blood Essence has upped their game and used Real Blood!

Massive Modular Synthesizer is possessed and its wires whip out and attack people, demanding the bronze record turned-green limited edition Blood Essence record, the Hymn Unholy, to be played backwards.

The football field filled with fans, fertilized by blood and Karo, dance to the backwards record, and turn into scarecrows.

Ex-Guitarist, dressed up as Santa, sells drugs from his guitar case. He actually becomes our main hero as his rune etched guitar has the power to destroy the Hymn Unholy record through righteous chords.

With the Hymn Unholy record shattered, the spell over the Steele family and the band is broken, and the band swings their instruments at the Massive Modular Synthesizer in an orgy of instrument smashing.

The characters who caused all this are all related, belonging to the Steele family, and are the only survivors. Well, the rest of the band survived and will return in a band reunion. The Dead Santas and Dead Pandas will return in the sequel as Zombie Santas and Zombie Pandas, protectors of the Hymn Unholy corn field. And family members looking for the missing college students heard the disembodied voices of their loved ones in the field and became cultists as they sing the Hymn Unholy.

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12/3 (Sat) Noon-4pm

Simply Red

System: Call of Cthulhu

GM: Tony Fragge (TonyAkron)

Players (6): Morgan Hua (as William "Zig Zag" Balford, Theater Student), 

dnorth (David as Larry Beck, Art Student),

james09876 (James as Steve "Shep" Shepard, Engineering Student),

Jbrabby (Jared as Scott McKee, Taxi Driver),

MiskatoNic (Nic as Charles Chas, Musician),

supersunny (Cassie as Harriet Kemp, Witch).

Set in mid 1970s, our group of fun loving friends are returning home from Detroit seeing their favorite rock band. The traffic bad so they decide to try a detour. It is a turn for the worst....

Content Warnings: Homicide, gore, pornography and incest.

Pre-generated characters will be provided.

This is a scenario from Blood Brothers 2. GM has run this lots of times and it's a great 80s slasher / exploitation game. 

We had a great table of Players all grooving on the roleplaying and had lots of fun smoking weed, popping acid, drinking alcohol, and fleeing in terror.

=== SPOILER SECTION START ===

We run over an old guy on the road. Our car is damaged, radiator filled with buckshot, we find the shotgun and proceed to an old farmhouse with a single light upstairs. Let's figure out how to fix our car!

At one point, I said, maybe we should just walk back to the freeway and hitch a ride? There was some voice of agreement. Then one Player said, um, as a CoC Player we need to investigate the house. GM says, you could leave, but the game will be cut short 1-1/2 hours. We went into the house. 😊

The house is a slaughterhouse of horror. We investigate every room and at the end, we wound up jumping out of a window. My PC, first out the window, died. The other PCs finally jumped and survived, but then several get run over by a car. The rest get hunted down and eaten by the man-eating pig. TPK, but appropriate for this slasher / exploitation game.

Afterwards, I said, "See, we should have just gone back to the freeway to hitchhike." We all laughed.

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12/4 (Sun) 2pm-6pm

A Matter of Tradition

System: Vaesen

GM: David (Bitburg_Chef)

Players (5): Morgan Hua (as Titus Gregorian the Academic),

EmbroideredYeti (as Midwife Johanna),

Magellan100 (Joe as Fredrick Lindgren the Servant),

Sacharine Choking Hazard (as Astrid Vikström the Hunter).

When a letter arrives at the Society in Upsala pleading for help in a small logging camp up north, the investigators have only limited time to solve the mystery of children gone missing. Quickly they realize that different nations have quite gruesome and horrific Christmas tales. When believe and superstition of various backgrounds start to mix, the worst fears come to life, and the otherwise peaceful Christmas time becomes quite dangerous.

Content Warnings: Children in Peril, Harm to children, Body Horror, Gore, Torture.

Pre-generated characters will be provided.

GM did a great job keeping the atmosphere creepy. The investigation isn't that complicated, but the game is more about making difficult decisions.

=== SPOILER SECTION START ===

The solution to this one was fairly straight forward, but it involved being earnest which is sometimes very hard for Players.

At one point, we found children drawings of a variety of evil creatures. A monster mash, an orgy of evil. I said, "A Smörgåsbord of Evil." And one of the other Players texted: "Smörgåsbord of Evil" is the most Vaesen phrase ever. 

Krampus with his chains and his untranslated German of "You only hurt the ones you love" and "Have you been naughty" was sufficiently creepy. We did get surrounded by every evil Yuletide creature possible. And we had to cut a deal, a new Tradition, that had to be fulfilled every year. 

Our Hunter promised to stop the logging and to plant new trees each year. The Servant and the Midwife also promised to be part of this new tradition. The three were marked by the Vaesen. My character refused. We were all let go and as a sign of trust, if no trees were harmed in 3 days, the missing children would be returned. That was the easy part.

The next step was to end future logging which was not part of this adventure.

=== SPOILER SECTION END ===

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