Liminal Ark

A weekly blog post?! Egad! Don’t look now but I may have actually beaten the rut. From my previous musings on adding modifications to the Underclock you may have seen my interest in the Stalker type enemy endemic to a lot of modern Survival Horror and how that type of foe seems like an obvious fit to way of handling random encounters. So I tried it and it felt a bit…crowded. I wanted lesser creatures that roamed between the buildings, environmental traps, and other dungeon delving horrors which took up quite a bit of space. Somehow I was also supposed to find a way to resurrect locality effects that I had missed from the overloaded encounter die. It was all just a bit much to also add in a chase sequence as an option on the list so I went back to the drawing board. I needed to separate the Nemesis (My big bad unstoppable beasty) from the Underclock without vastly increasing the cognitive load in running a complex hunter creature amidst all the other workings of my dungeon. Then I reme...

Happy almost anniversary. 2024 was a tough year for creative brain and keeping games going both because of player fluctuation and my waning motivation. However, the last month or so has seen a resurgence for me in tackling the myriad of half finished projects while running a new campaign of His Majesty The Worm. The game is wonderfully designed and my last session saw a real workout of the Challenge phase card battle mechanics that really saw my players engage in a way with tabletop RPG combat I hadn't seen for a very long time. As every referee, DM, GM, and Keeper knows that joy is the grease for the gears so the machine chugs on. Dungeon Seed:  The Barrow of the Unrequited Hundreds of feet beneath the ancient elven grove of The City is crypt of fallen martyrs. Elven parents forced to sacrifice themselves to sire children in this new world were entombed here after a civil war amongst the immortals from ages past. Unable to reconcile their differences the council chose instead to ...

It will be no secret to anyone who’s played in my games or spared the slightest glance at my musings here that I’m a big fan of Survival Horror as a genre. So inevitably regardless of what system I’m currently playing we tend to inject some Resident Evil flavor at some point. Inspired by a blog post I saw a while ago (That I cannot find) I decided to take the old school Prima Strategy Guide for the original Resident Evil and use it as a framework to run it as an adventure using Liminal Horror. Now, I love Liminal Horror, its simple but extremely receptive to modification somehow able to hold strong regardless of how many layers of absurdity I add from whatever I’m reading that week. But, if I want to go full Resident Evil, and I do, I had need of a few extra widgets that the baseline lacks. Keep in mind this will be using the Investigator Edition of Liminal Horror you can find here and making liberal use of Luck, Item Tags, Wounds, and Time Procedures. I’ll be getting more in depth w...

I've been going through some stuff. Here's a monster originally made for Kult but adapted to Liminal Horror. May also release the Kult and Hunter the Reckoning versions at some point. Happy New Year! Concept: A creature that is made and exemplifies family trauma. It will raise you up and make you pay for every gift in time while feeding off of your emotional highs and lows. It will isolate and divide and conquer. If one leaves it chooses a new favorite to make the first jealous. Manages a web of drama to keep itself fed. Fawn responses and acting like it wants will keep you safe. It is as powerful as you make it.  Inspirations: Trauma, Barbarian, Silent Hill, The Evil Within, Livia Soprano, Art Posts by @OmegaBlackArt on Twitter, Centipedes from Sekiro, Familial Cycles of Abuse When you fell; you fell alone. When you failed; you failed alone. When you hurt; your pain was a beacon. And the next time your world fell apart; They were there to pick up the pieces. The Parent wants w...

ALERT! An Incursion For Trophy Gold We interrupt our regularly scheduled broadcasts to do some self-promo. I've just released a work-in-progress version of my Trophy Gold Incursion, "Maw of the River". Please check it out, spread the word, and most of all PLAY IT! Tell me what you think, love it or hate it. This is the first thing I've ever put together myself and I'm proud of a lot of it. Returning with a normal blog post some time later this week back with Kult or Imperium Maledictum. https://theark485.itch.io/the-maw-of-the-river-trophy-gold-incursion

  I find myself about to run a pretty big campaign using Kult: Divinity Lost taking more from the survival horror sphere ala Resident Evil and Silent Hill. To that end (But also because practice is good) I have need of some of my old monsters re-imagined in this style. So without further ado here is a reinterpretation of the Wraith Hound. (As for mentions of The Dream, this will be a liminal horror space revolving around the central antagonist of the story known as the Muse. I’ll get a write-up for Her in at some point in the future when I’m closer to talking about the rest of this.) WRAITH HOUNDS Eyeless canid horrors that exist only to hunt down and torture beings lost in the darkness beyond the light of their dreams. Mewling, pathetic beasts with bodies of old cracked leather, and wretched guttural howls out of blackened throats of whirling teeth. These entities were borne of malicious violence and intense animalistic desire now unfettered by flesh and free to inflict their pe...

Mnemosyne Shaped as a fleshy hippocampus with multitudes of writhing suckers in a roiling and distended belly. Befouls bodies of water with chemical secretions that smell of adhesives and turpentine where it sleeps and dreams deeply. The creature projects an aura of deep love and compassion through its cyclopean eye luring people to its hiding place through their dreams. Embracing the Mnemosyne through its dozens of writhing mouthed tendrils allows one to enter into a world of nostalgic bliss seeing things as they were or should be while the creature secretly feeds off of their powerful emotions. People that have been fed upon become bonded to the Mnemosyne protecting it at all costs until they have been fed upon enough to be sublimated into the pool becoming nothing more than a liquified husk. Those who aren’t consumed are given purpose and the will to make their world in the dream a reality. The most faithful and devoted servants of the Mnemosyne are even given a semblance of the cre...

THE CONCIERGE The manager’s right hand on the first floor gifted power to lord over the guests who vexed him in life. Looks out for the interests of the hotel and its reputation over the individual desires of any guest. Exceptional manners. Useful out of spite. Attentive and petty. Desires only for you to check in, follow the rules, and check out. What’s so hard about that? HD: 6 Armor As Chain Strength Of The House: While on the 1st Floor the Concierge has several abilities granted by the Manager. Each must be invoked by configuring the esoteric clockwork gears on his wristwatch. Can teleport anywhere on the 1st floor and take anyone or anything in his grasp with him. Visitors who make themselves pests (Or at least their luggage) are often dropped in the Gullet for the house to sort out. Can lock / unlock any door on this floor or portals leading to the outside. Staircases can be made to vanish but this power does not extend to the elevator. Cannot die. If this body is slain, re...

WRAITH HOUND Carrion creatures of The Path leashed and taught to beg by the stewards of the hotel. Shaped like malefic canines with leathery cracked skin and slit-like wounds for mouths. Blind but smells fear, desperation, and weakness just as well as any bloodhound. Pack hunters whose howl isolates their prey in a labyrinth of shadows and false exits using their foreknowledge of the winding Path all around them. Feeds on blood with lashing tentacles emerging from their mouths ending in suckling proboscis’. Can be “domesticated” with a steady supply of fresh kills and companionship. HD: 2 Armor: As Leather Claws 1d6 / Proboscis 1d4 (Damage heals the Wraith Hound) THE CHASE: The howl of a Wraith Hound forces a target to make a save or else become Isolated. While Isolated, the environment becomes a winding maze of shadows and repeating corridors blinding the victim from anything happening in the outside world. All they can see are the false walls and the Wraith Hounds. While a victim ...

  Supernaturally talented performers who wear the guise of an attractive humanoid in order to protect themselves and feed their appetite for flesh. Their song is intoxicating causing those under its spell to become devoted entirely to the wants and needs of the Siren even if it means sacrificing themselves to protect their façade to authorities. If desperate, the Siren will eat the flesh of their servants but if given time or opportunity prefers to devour the lonely most of all. They will use their guile and mystique to isolate prospective morsels from family or friends before sinking in their teeth which can put victims into a dreamless sleep where they await the Sirens last gift. Siren’s Song: Creatures who can hear the Chanteuse Siren’s Song must make a save or become Beguiled. While Beguiled by the Siren must obey their every word until dismissed. The spell lasts for 24 hours unless renewed by listening to the song again. An hour before the curse ends the victim will do anyth...

  Adjunct Lavatories Description: A narrow L-shaped hall with three sets of double-doors marked “Ladies”, “Gents”, and Maintenance. The Maintenance doors are secured by iron chains that zig zag across with dozens of padlocks of various metals and designs. Well-lit. Portraits of fountains, waterfalls, and other natural scenery. GENTS There is a 50% chance when the characters arrive that the facilities are currently being cleaned by the SLIME JANITOR otherwise it’s just a fancy bathroom. LADIES A woman can be seen from underneath one of the stalls but if the door is knocked on there will be no response. When the characters leave, a loud bang will be heard, and the stall doors will all flail open with the sinks switched on, but there will be no-one there. MAINTENANCE ROOM Heavy iron shelves filled with various cleaning supplies and replacement parts for the toilets and sinks along with a giant gaping hole in the center of the floor. The walls of the hole are slick with some kin...

Thespian Wraiths Inspirations: Spirits of the Other World in the Medium (Fuck the rest of the game), The Evil Within loading screens, Pathologic, desperate people who exist to hurt others with their delusions, depressive patterns of negative self-talk, Greek tragedy. HD: 1 Armor: As Chain  Mask wearing wraiths wearing troubadour masks denoting their final roles in the drama of life. This is a lie. They stole these lives and roles so now act as psychopathic mimics that if not allowed to play with this façade become homicidal. All Thespian Wraiths can; mimic others whose souls they have slain or tasted (By way of consuming physical objects coveted by the person); use psychic suggestion to get others to do their bidding; vanish into the ethereal plane temporarily but must leave their disguise behind. Additionally, a Thespian Wraith has the uncanny ability to grant boons to its favorite pets and followers using an object important to its role. While under the effects of the Wraith...

I'm working on an adventure using Best Left Buried (Or hacking it?) based in the home setting my brother and I have played for years. The gist is an industrial fantasy setting based on the American West where a theocracy run by dragons has fallen into ruin and caused a schism in the country where disparate factions and city states want to remake it in their own image. You are Damned, people who are buried in debt meaning that they cannot enter heaven and their only way out is to plunder the riches of the golden age within the technomagical hellscape known as the Perdition. Inspired by STALKER, Hunt Showdown, and the Myth (And Death) of the American Dream. Also Late Stage Capitalism. I've decided to begin by creating Bounty Targets; special monsters the Damned will be hunting in the Perdition. So first up, the Burrowing Railbird. Burrowing Railbird A terrestrial bird of prey the size of a large bear who makes its lair out of abandoned saloons and casinos using the remains to dec...

This week instead of working on my dungeon like I was supposed to I've cobbled together something a little weird. Here are a bunch of strange, scary, and cute doggos statted as BLB monsters you can use however you like. Some are probably good guards while others will perform well as special retainers if your players can train them to be good. Adaptation's are taken from the Cryptdigger's Guide and the Hunter's Guide to Monsters unless stated otherwise. Thanks for reading.  Temple Dog Made of stone with a lions face. Though a living creature can hold its breathe for long periods of time while on watch allowing it to become indistinguishable from its surroundings. It's bite causes paralysis and eventually turns one to stone.  Brawn: 1 Wit: 1 Will: 0 Vigour: 15  Armour: 9 Disguise, Petrifying Fangs* Stone Fangs (Hand) Special Adaptation: Petrifying Fangs . As Petrifying Gaze but its range is reduced to Melee. If the Temple Dog inflicts an injury with Stone Fangs can c...