Bessie Love and the Magic Mirror

Although she is now all but forgotten, Bessie Love was a celebrated movie star and household name during the 1920s. Her most important role, however, was that of a crusader of against supernatural evil--the Love Bug!
   From 1925 through 1950, Bessie faced off against cultists, lycanthropes, vampires, elder gods, and evil sorcerers and witches. The full extent of the debt the world owes her will probably never be known, but one of her more dangerous encounters took place in 1928 when she squared off against a wizard who was trying to enchant massive amounts of people by embedding spells in motion pictures.
    As Bessie (in Love Bug guise) broke into the wizard's lair, she came upon a magic mirror that drew her into a pocket dimension behind the glass where she had to defeat an exact copy of herself, or forever be trapped while the copy of her took over her life in the outside world. Bessie was victorious, and not only did she free herself from the mirror realm, but 17 other men and women who had fallen victim to the mirror's magic over the past two centuries... and several of those liberated helped her slay the wizard and set his magic films ablaze.
   Bessie took the mirror as a souvenir, and it hung in her home until she passed away in 1986. It was not present when the executor took control of her estate and it was presumed stolen. The mirror remains missing. (In truth, the mirror was taken by an angel that had been trapped in the mirror and who was freed along with the others when Bessie Love broke the enchantment on it by defeating her mirrored foe.)

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Here's some RPG content (good for just about any version of D&D) inspired by Bessie's adventures, as has become our habit in these quarterly posts. The rest of the text in this post is released under the Open Game License, and it may be reproduced in accordance with its terms. Copyright 2020 Steve Miller.

RANDOM MAGIC MIRROR GENERATOR
Use these tables to generate magic mirrors in treasure hoards or the lairs of villains. Roll 1d6 against the tables below

MIRROR TYPE
   1. Handheld
   2-4. Wall Mirror
   5-6. Full-length Mirror

MIRROR ENCHANTMENT
   1-2. Reflection answers one question per day (as legend lore spell).
   3. Reflections of items in front of it, no further than three feet away, seem to glow if they are magical (as detect magic, three times per day).
   4. The reflection shows the true form of a being concealed behind an illusion, or in a different from due to natural, spell-based, or item-based shapeshifting or polymorphing abilities. If the being is a natural shapeshifter, but is presently in the primary form (such as a lycanthrope in her human shape), the reflection shows secondary shape.
   5. A demonic (1-3) or angelic (4-6) trapped in the mirror can, once per day, unerringly reveal the location and condition of a single person. The request has to be specific--"Where is the six-fingered man who killed my father?" or "Where is the fairest person in the land?".
   6. Anyone who sees his or her reflection in the mirror without saying a password is immediately sucked into a pocket dimension behind the glass. Here, they must fight exact copies of themselves, except the duplicates are utterly ruthless and irredeemably evil. If the duplicate wins, the real character is trapped in the pocket dimension while the mirror-spawned copy takes his or place in the world. If the real character wins, he or she is given the option by the powerful spirit (demonic 1-3, angelic 4-6) to either release those trapped in the mirror or to become its new master and enjoy eternal life and youth so long as at least one person is trapped in the mirror every 50 years.
   The mirror functions like result #4 for the master, as its enchantments are powered by a spirit trapped inside it.

'Monster, Monster: Vampires' on sale now!

With game designer Andrew Pavlides and artist Pablo Marcos once again front-and-center, we've released our third product for D&D Fifth Edition--Monster, Monster: Vampires! 

Cover art by Michael Wolmarans

Monster, Monster: Vampires is more than twice the size of the previous entries in the series. It contains five vampire variants of use with your Fifth Edition games, three adventure hooks revolving around unique vampire personalities, and two chilling, offbeat illustrated vampire tales. Andrew and Pablo are joined this time out by "guest contributors" Ed Fedory and Steve Miller, while Robert Martin and Ricardo Villamonte provide most of the spot illustrations. It's all behind a creepy cover by Michael Wolmarans.

Monster, Monster: Vampires is available at RPGNow, DriveThruComics, and DriveThruRPG. You can see previews at any of those sites. Further, it's already been reviewed! Click here to see what was said bout the book on the RPG Crazy blog.

NUELOW Games releases for D&D Fifth Edition!

WotC has opened the basic system that drives D&D Fifth Edition to third-party publishers by releasing a Standard Reference Document under the same Open Gaming License that has allowed NUELOW Games to publish our many supplements for d20 Modern.

We have released two horror themed supplements for D&D Fifth Edition so far: Monster, Monster: Werewolves and Monster, Monster: Soul Drinkers. Each book contains Fifth Edition game monster stats and rules that are bound to bring unexpected thrills and chills to your campaign world. As is the case with many NUELOW Games releases, each book also contains comics that partially served as the basis for the roleplaying game rules, and which we hope will entertain and inspire even more campaign ideas.

 

Both titles were primarily done by the creative team of game designer Andrew Pavlides and artist Pablo Marcos. On Monster, Monster: Werewolves they were joined by writer Augustine Funnel, who provided an offbeat tale of a werewolf who evens the score with his childhood bullies; and on Monster Monster: Soul Drinkers, the great Marv Wolfman (perhaps best known by horror fans for his work on Tomb of Dracula) provided a tale where prey and predator are indistinguishable that inspired Andrew to create not just one but two all-new monsters with which DM's can haunt player characters.

Monster, Monster: Werewolves and Monster, Monster: Soul Drinkers are available at RPGNow, DriveThruComics, and DriveThruRPG.

A NEW OGL ARTIFACT FOR D&D & d20 MODERN GAMES

Since we like have lots of gaming value on this blog, even in posts that are basically plugs for our new releases, here's a magic artifact that has a thematic tie to Monster, Monster: Werewolves. These items are presented under the Open Game License, and they may be reproduced in accordance with it. Copyright 2016 by Steve Miller.

Fang of the Werewolf
This artifact, from the collection of occult expert Professor Anton Broussard, is said to have been created by the fearsome Sorceress of Zoom. The wickedly curved dagger appears to be carved from ivory and bears a resemblance to a wolf's canine teeth. Broussard claims that the dagger actually is a werewolf that he personally witnessed the Sorceress transform into the item after the creature tried to attack her.
   The fang of the werewolf functions as a +2/+5 vs. spellcasters dagger. Additionally, anyone who carries the dagger on their person has a chance of detecting a werewolf in human form. When appropriate, the DM rolls a secret Spot check against a DC9 for the bearer, and if the check is successful, the bearer can sense any werewolves within 30 feet of his or her current location). The downside is that the bearer has a -4 penalty to all Hide or Move Silently skill checks made to avoid werewolves.
   Notes: The fang of the werewolf is exactly what Broussard claims it is. The Sorceress had hired the Veteran Werewolf Leena Pryde to serve as an enforcer. When Leena made romantic advances toward her, the Sorceress responded with scorn, which caused the embarrassed and heartbroken werewolf to attack her. If the party somehow finds a way restore Leena's original form, the werewolf will serve them if they will help find and kill the Sorceress.