MONSTER RALLIES: TOWN OF LEOCESTER

This is just a small New England town I made for my monster rally adventures. IN my latest campaign the players decided to go there after receiving this note:

Greetings Queen of Snakes: 
 
My name is Doctor Horace Brinely of Brinley Castle in Leocester Massachusetts. I am working on a number ground breaking procedures, and I believe they could be of benefit to your and your ilk (I know much about you and feel a sense of compassion for your condition). Please accept this invitation to my residence where I will host you and ensure your particular needs are seen to. I think we may be able to come to an arrangement. 
 
Sincerely Doctor Horace Brinley

This is an example of a situational adventure, where I simply noted down some details about what is happening in town, with some things obviously loaded towards conflict, and let the players loose. Once they arrived they agreed to work with him, but offered to try to obtain a mermaid specimen for him to study (he had originally proposed an arrangement where he studied them). 

TOWN OF LEOCESTER 

Leocester was founded in 1663 by the merchant Thomas Endicott. The town is governed by public meetings with a three member select board and an annually appointed mayor. It is located to the north of Ipswich Massachusetts. 

The town name is pronounced LES-ter. 

BRIEF HISTORY
An important port during the revolution and later a vital center of mercantile trade with China and the East indies. Leocester is notable for the events surrounding Walpole Brinley’s experiments at Brinley Castle. In 1931, he created a machine man a fitted it with a human brain. When it came to life it went on a rampage prompting a violent mob to dismantle it sink it in the river with the mad scientist who created it. Since then the town has largely thrived on fishing and tourism and is one of the more desirable Boston suburbs to reside in. Due to its shallow harbor it is no longer an important center of maritime trade. 

THE SELECTBOARD AND THE BRINLEY ESTATE 

The current mayor is Edward Phelan. The selectboard is comprised of Kristin Singer (Science Teacher at Leocester Highschool), David O’Reilly (Lawyer), and Todd Noonan (Owner, Hawkes Street Liquors). Edward Phelan is concerned about the experiments at Brinley Castle and Kernbridge Institute. His family remembers the accounts of Walpole Brinley and his monstrous machine. He intends to be fair with Horace Brinley but doesn’t want another incident. Todd Noonan shares his concern. David O’Reilly is undecided on this issue but wants to avoid anything that would make the townspeople upset, so he goes the direction of public opinion. Kristin Singer believes Brinley’s experiments are important and should continue. 

ABOUT TOWN

The local townspeople are increasingly nervous about the experiments at Brinley Castle. There have also been a series of unsolved murders in Leocester over the past two years, with two bodies found and three missing. These were the victims of Jacob Taylor, a local werewolf (see his entry below and THE ENDICOTT CURRENT). There are rumors that someone at Hale University is trying to replicate the experiments of Walpole Brinley. 

IMPORTANT STREETS

Important Street names are identified on the map with lower case roman numerals in parenthesis. There are more streets than this, these are just notable roads. 

(i) Hawkes Street

(ii) Margin Street

(iii) High Street

(iv) Darby Road 

(v) Clement Street

(vi) Tudor Road 

GEOGRAPHY

BRINLEY NECK: This is a wealthy promontory that extends towards the sea. Cliffs descend on all sides into the ocean with steep walls of jagged rock. Most of the homes here are large, with several notable mansions, including Brinley Castle. 

SHOAL HARBOR: This is a calm harbor but shallow, too shallow for modern shipping vessels. It is tough to navigate, requiring anyone piloting a vessel in its waters to make a TN 8 Survival roll to get in and out. There are also many rumors of a local mermaid or mermaids. The local sailors believe they feed on human flesh and there have been ten eye witness accounts in the past 20 years.  

LOCATIONS

A. RESTING PLACE OF THE BRINLEY MACHINE MAN: The parts of the Brinley machine were once here at the bottom of the river. However it was recently retrieved by Paul Balama of Hale University (see 11. HALE UNIVERSITY) 

B. OLD BURIAL POINT: This ancient cemetery was established in the 1670s and is where Ann Rowley is buried (see 9. THE ANN ROWLEY HOUSE for details).

BRINLEY CASTLE: The present residence of the great neurosurgeon, Horace Brinley. His great-grandfather, Walpole Brinley, engineered a machine man in 1931, and implanted a human brain inside. The creation became crazed and ran amuck. A mob killed Walpole and destroyed his creation before sending it to the bottom of the Sachem River. Horace has been trying to use his forebear’s research for good, hoping to help people with debilitating illnesses by transferring their brains into the bodies of brain-dead patients. His methods are questionable and he is aided by an ugly hunchback assistant named Melissa and another assistant named Colleen Saunders. 

Melissa is bitter and secretly in love with Horace, whom she believes has an interest in Colleen. She has been plotting to persuade Horace to transplant her brain into Colleen’s body. Colleen is kind, and a stunning beauty, whose appearance Melissa covets. Melissa knows Horace would only perform such a procedure in a dire situation, so she is hoping to recruit outsiders who can help her. She has no clear plan yet, just a vague idea of somehow making Colleen brain dead, without damaging her body or looks, then offering herself as a volunteer for a brain transplant. 

The castle is an old Colonial Fort built in 1777 during the Revolutionary War under the command of General Russel Berrett. It was purchased after the war by Elias Gray, a wealthy merchant with a fleet of ships who made a fortune in the East Indian trade. By many accounts he was also mad and greatly expanded the old colonial fort, so it now has a dizzying variety of chambers and dangerously winding stairways. In 1889 Benjamin Brinley purchased the home and it has
remained with the family since. 

ROOMEY MANOR: This the estate of the Roomey Family, who made their wealth in the rum trade. They are a prestigious New England household. In the past, many have served as senators and judges. The present patriarch is Edward Roomey. He is the CEO of Kernbridge Institute and obsessed with achieving immortality (see 10. KERNBRIDGE INSTITUTE).

1. LEOCESTER HISTORICAL SOCIETY 

This small museum has three levels and a library, and is run by a group of local women, with Patricia Conant as the current Director. While most of the artifacts here are related to the old rum trade, there are also a number of objects and texts acquired through The East India Company during the 18^th and 19^th Centuries. One object of note is a mummy from the Silk Road (which could awaken if someone were to use the Spell of Life on them). See STRANGE TALES OF NEW ENGLAND, 27.

2. LEOCESTER YACHT CLUB
While there are a number of yacht clubs in Leocester, this is the most exclusive and important, with best access to the marina. To apply for membership one must be sponsored by two existing members in good standing and provide four letters of recommendation from upstanding people in the community (preferably those holding important positions). One must kno  how to sail in order to be a member (and while it helps to own a boat, it isn’t always required as they take skilled sailors as members if they can contribute to the racing team). Here one will find many local and regional elites with whom to network. They have a sailing team called the Sealions and help host a number of local sailing races and events. The club has a spacious dining area and bar where members can relax. They have a strict dress code, requiring casual boating attire during daylight hours and business attire at night (with formal and cocktail attire required for special events). 

One member of note is Cooper Sewall, the lighthouse keeper (see DAVENPORT LIGHTHOUSE). 

3. DAVENPORT LIGHTHOUSE 

The lighthouse keeper, Cooper Sewall is highly distrustful of the sea and believes his role as lighthouse keeper is to help protect Leocester from its many dangerous creatures. He is familiar with The Devotees of the Sea Serpent (STRANGE TALES OF NEW ENGLAND, 70-80) and tirelessly works to thwart any incursions they might make in Leocester (he is the only person holding a membership with all of the local Yacht Clubs and respected by all the sailors and fishermen in town). But his chief concern are mermaids, whom he fears seek to infiltrate the town. He is quite old and many in town regard him as paranoid but harmless. 

4. FIRST CHURCH

This is a congregational Church and has been here since the founding of Leocester.  It is led by Reverend Francis Peach, a compassionate but gullible man. He has looked into the many strange rumors in town, from the experiments of Horace Brinley to the labs at Kernbridge Institute and found nothing to be alarmed about. If truly damning evidence were presented to him, he might change his mind. He is not motivated by malice or ulterior desires for peace in the community, he genuinely tends to see the good in people. 

5. SAINT JOHN’S ANGLICAN CHURCH 

This is a simple Anglican church, and popular among the wealthier members of the community. There have been longstanding rumors of black masses and dark secrets beneath its foundation, but these are all untrue. Father Mark Harris is a well-educated man, knowledgeable about the dark creatures that roam the world, and able to perform exorcisms if needed (for game purposes treat him as a 4^th level Exorcist).

6. LEOCESTER HOSPITAL 

This red brick hospital is one of the best in the country, despite its small size. The staff and doctors are generally knowledgeable and caring. The building does appear ominous and there are rumors that it is haunted (particularly at night). Whether these rumors are true is up the GM. 

Doctor Kenenth Wakefield, a forensic pathologist, is also the town’s chief medical examiner. He has been privately trying to investigate the recent murders and begun to suspect something supernatural. 

7. THE LOBSTER CLAW 

This is a basic clam and lobster shack. It is quite large, with long polished wood tables and an outdoor dining area as well. They are known for their fried lobster claws, but they serve everything from steamed lobster to clams, and fried platters. The quality of the meat is very high, and fresh (they have their own fisherman). There is also a fish market attached to the restaurant. 

The Lobster Claw is a good place for local gossip and news, particularly anything related to fishing or sailing (and mermaids in particular).

It is owned by the Coombs family, and was established in 1948. 

8. OYSTER LOFT

This is a restaurant and pub. It is a bit rundown, the food isn’t particularly appetizing, but the booze is ample and they do serve raw oysters the right way (Oysters are the only advisable thing to get on the menu). This is a good place for seedy gossip and news. 

There is also plenty of gambling, as the owner, Samuel Martin, is a bookie. Mostly he takes bets on local college sports. Samuel has three robust sons, Daniel, Eric and Andrew, who help collect debts. And all three will serve as hired muscle for the right price.  

Samuel knows many of the town’s darker secrets. 

9. THE ANN ROWLEY HOUSE 

This house is now a bed and breakfast but was the site of a terrible murder in the early 1908. Anne Rowley, the youngest of three siblings, stabbed her entire family while they slept: her two sisters, Hannah and Lucy, and her mother and father, Moses and Emma Rowley. The motive was unclear, but there was speculation she was practicing witchcraft and in communication with a dark spirit. She was hanged and buried, but her body continues to live beneath the soil. She cannot free herself, but if someone else digs up her grave, she will be freed and should be treated as a Lich Matriarch (STRANGE TALES OF NEW ENGLAND, 157). Her body is in a grave at Old Burial Point. 

10. KERNBRIDGE INSTITUTE 

This is a biotech research facility, built on the grounds of an old mental hospital. The previous facility is made of redbrick and forms the main office, but a newer, expanded extension gives them plenty of space for research. The CEO is Edward Roomey of Roomey Manor, and their Chief Scientific Officer is Henry Scarpa, a brilliant molecular biologist. They are hoping to extend the human-life span to 200 years old. In one of the facilities, they are studying the preserved body of Alexander Winthrop, a vampire who terrorized Boston in the 19^th century but has been staked and preserved so they can unlock the secrets of longevity. They have other creatures here as well, including a number of werewolves in holding cells. The institute has been testing longevity serums on the werewolves because of their regenerative properties. 

11. HALE UNIVERSITY 

Hale University has a strong history department, with a traditional curriculum. It also has well respected Classics Department. Whatever the field, this is a research school so professors are expected to publish regularly. They are reputable but not Ivy League. Hale University can be useful for anyone who needs expert opinion on obscure subjects and is a trove of information about local history (including major events that have occurred in Leocester). 

Dr. Paul Balsama, an electrical engineer and computer scientist teaches here and retrieved the Brinley Machine Man components. They are in his lab where he is studying them and hoping to replicate Walpole Brinley’s research. 

12. LEOCESTER GAZETTE

This is the official daily paper of Leocester. Their editor, Tabitha Crowley, holds a position appointed by the selectboard. The paper likes to help the town maintain appearances and largely runs positive stories. All residents receive a copy in the mail. 

13. THE ENDICOTT CURRENT 

This is run by Jacob Taylor, a former reporter for the Leocester Gazetter who was fired for aggressively investigating Kernbridge Institute. The Current is little more than a weekly newsletter, and a one-man-show. Much of the content veers into conspiracy theory but Jacob is very knowledgeable about the occult and uses his paper to shine a light on the evils lurking in Leocester. 

14. HAWKES STREET LIQUORS 

This liquor store is owned and run by Todd Noonan and his wife Victoria. He keeps a shotgun behind the counter and has more guns and ammo in the basement ‘just in case’. Todd worries about the experiments at Brinley Castle and will tell anyone who listens his various theories of what occurs behind its walls. He is friends with Jacob Taylor and has stacks of the Endicott Current for sale at the counter. The liquor store sells a normal variety of alcohols but also sells scratch tickets and state lottery tickets. There are tables in a corner where regulars drink coffee. A few members of the community are here all-day buying tickets. They are a reliable source of information in town.  

Local slang for liquor store is ‘packie’ (which is short for package store). Typically in New England the liquor store is simply referred to as “the packie”. 

15. LEOCESTER HIGHSCHOOL

This is the local high school. Kristen Singer, a selectboard member, teaches science here. 

16. CRONINSHEILD OFFICES

This is three story office building with a number of businesses, including the offices of Doctor Jeff Campbell  (See DOCTOR JEFF CAMBPELL in NON-PLAYER CHARACTERS). 

 

 

NON-PLAYER CHARACTERS 

ALEXANDER WINTHROP

Alexander appears to be a man in his late 50s with thick muttonchop sideburns and a handsome face. Alexander has a fondness for beautiful women and takes them as his thralls and servants when he can. He treats his servants well and enjoys watching them spread carnage. Though beastly when feeding, Alexander is quite capable at socializing and presenting himself as a respected member of society. He has a particular fondness for piano, being a highly skilled player with a large repertoire. For dress he enjoys well-tailored suits. 

In life Alexander was a skilled mesmerist before being bitten by a female patient named Cynthia Wayland. He grew sick and died, then rose as a vampire under her control. He enlisted the aid of a local priest, Father Calloway, to destroy her. Alexander hoped this would cure him, but it simply liberated him from Cynthia’s control, and he indulged his lust for blood for decades before father Calloway staked him through the heart (unfortunately he was not able to finish the job as he died of blood loss from their struggle before he was able to chop off Alexander’s head). Alexander’s remains were obtained by the Kernbridge Institute where he is being studied. 

Defenses: Hardiness 7, Evade 8, Wits 9

Key Skills: Bite: 3d10 (1d10 Damage plus drain), Speed: 5d10, Muscle: 4d10, Detect:

4d10, Athletics: 4d10, Command: 2d10, Persuade: 4d10, Survival: 3d10, Talent: 3d10, Theft: 2d10, Ritual: 1d10, History: 4d10, Religion: 2d10, Occult: 3d10, Language: 2d10, Science: 1d10

Max Wounds: 10

POWERS

Standard Vampire Powers: Drain, Feed, Servants, Immunities 

Mesmerize: Roll Persuade against Wits. On a Success, Alexander can implant ideas, information, etc. None of this interferes with free will, but the target is unaware that he is the source of anything entering their mind. On a Total Success the target is suspect to a suggestion by Alexander. The suggestion can last for up to a day. It can be simple like “keep the front door locked” or complex like “follow me”. Characters are free to ignore the suggestion but doing so causes them great mental and physical distress. Anytime they resist the suggestion, they lose 1 point of Hardiness, collapsing when they reach 0 (they don’t die but sleep and regain 1 point an hour). 

BRINLEY MACHINE MAN 

This is a large humanoid made mostly from iron and steel, with a wide body and powerful metal hands. It was created by Doctor Walpole Brinley in 1931 but destroyed by a mob soon after. The body was lodged in the mud at the bottom of the Sachem River then  recovered years later by Paul Balsama of Hale University. It has a human brain implanted in its head, that has long since decayed. But if the brain were to be rejuvenated by special means or another brain placed in the case, and a sufficient amount of energy used to charge the body, it could be restored to life. The machine man retains all the skills and vague memories of the brain placed inside it, but its waking life feels like a dream, which fills it with nightmare fueled rage. This is the case no matter whose brain is placed inside. The machine man can be coaxed into passivity but this usually temporary, eventually giving way to bouts of violent aggression.  

Defenses: Hardiness 9, Evade 3, Wits 4

Key Skills: Attack: 3d10, Speed: 0d10, Muscle: 5d10, Detect: 0d10, Trade: 2d10, 

Max Wounds: 6

POWERS

Attack: It can bash, crush or grip people for 5d10 damage. 

Impervious Body: The iron and steel body is quite strong, only taking 1 wound for every 2 delivered. It can also easily be repaired even he is reduced to 0 wounds. However, he begins to die just like any other living thing, and is destroyed if brought beyond 0 wounds. If this occurs, he can still be brought back to life with a large bolt of energy (and in some instances he may need a new brain). 

Repair: He can repair himself, eliminating 1 Wound with a successful Trade Skill roll (this takes an hour and requires the right materials). 

Pacify: People can pacify the Machine Man on a successful Persuade roll against its Wits. This lasts for 1 hour. Anyone belonging to the Brinley family against a +2d10 to such a roll. 

DOCTOR JEFF CAMPBELL

Jeff is a local psychiatrist and therapist, who practices at the Croninshield Office Building. He believes that Horace Brinley’s experiments are unethical and is also concerned the growing panic around them is spreading superstitious nonsense. He hopes to pay a visit to Horace Brinley to learn more and talk him out pursuing his great-grandfather’s work. If he believes the experiments to be getting out of hand, he may pressure the selectboard to take action or take action himself. 

Jeff has a large build and frequents the gym to play racquetball when he has time. He also knows how to use firearms and owns several pistols for self-protection. 

Defenses: Hardiness 5, Evade 3, Wits 9

Key Skills: Ranged: 2d10, Muscle: 2d10, Speed: 2d10, Persuade: 3d10, Athletics: 1d10, Command: 1d10, Empathy: 3d10, Medicine: 3d10, Tech: 1d10, Forensics: 1d10, Science: 3d10, Institutions: 3d10, Religion: 2d10, History: 1d10

Max Wounds: 2

HORACE BRINLEY (MAD SCIENTIST)

Horace Brinley is a neurosurgeon-scientist who has been experimenting with human brain transplants. He is tall and lean, wears glasses and walks with a slight stoop. Though kind by nature, his experiments require the use of brain-dead patients to receive transplants. This created a darkness in his soul that wasn’t present before. He has become pale and gaunt the longer he performed the procedures. Much of his present work is based on the research and achievement of his great-grandfather, Walpole Brinely, who put a human brain into a machine body and successfully animated it. His aim is to help people suffering by transplanting their brains into new bodies, perhaps even extend the human lifespan. 

Horace would like to recover the machine his great-grandfather created, in order to study it. 

Note that Horace Brinley uses the Mad Scientist entry for his stats, which can be found on TheBedrockBlog. 

Defenses: Hardiness 4, Evade 4, Wits 10

Key Skills: Arm Strike: 0d10, Muscle: 1d10, Speed: 1d10, Persuade: 2d10, Command: 2d10, Reasoning: 3d10, Medicine: 4d10, Forensics: 3d10, Trade: 1d10, Survival: 1d10, Tech: 4d10, Theft: 2d10, Talent: 2d10, Science: 4d10, Places: 2d10, History: 2d10, Institutions: 1d10, Occult: 1d10, Religion: 1d10

Max Wounds: 2

Achievements: Human brain transplant (he can successful put one swap peoples brains)

Corruption: Stage One 

POWERS

Scientific Advancement: Mad Scientists can use their Science and Medicine or Tech skill to achieve an enormous breakthrough. This can be anything from raising the dead, to curing a disease, to creating an intelligent machine to brain transplants or curing monsters. The GM always has final say, and it should be a somewhat focused breakthrough that puts flavor before mechanics (not something broad and flavorless like "I win at everything all the time"). The time scale is always up to the GM. 

First the Scientist must make a Science roll at regular intervals (determined by GM) and get a 10. Once that is achieved, the Scientist can roll Medicine or Tech (whichever is most relevant) against TN 8. On a success they achieve their desired outcome but with a very serious unforeseen complication that introduces great evil into the world. On a Total Success they achieve their goal, but without such a complication. On a Failure the result is a disaster, with huge ramifications determined by the GM. 

Scientific Achievement: The Mad Scientist has achieved an incredible breakthrough in science before the start of play. This can be just about anything, from Victor Frankenstein making his creature and unlocking the secrets of life and death to Griffin making invisibility possible in the Invisible Man. Whatever it is, it came at a horrible cost which the GM determines. The Mad Scientist can always repeat whatever his advancement was, but to build upon it further he must make more Scientific Advancements. Reversing the results of their achievement takes two successful Scientific Advancements.

JACOB TAYLOR

Jacob is the editor and owner of The Endicott Current. People consider him an unreliable source of information, as he chases every rumor or strange account and his reporting has grown increasingly paranoid in tone. He also is known to drink too much on occasion. While he rarely drinks most days or weeks, he goes on wild multi-week binges, spending much of his time drunk at local taverns. A passionate reporter he was fired two years ago from Leocester Gazette for breaking into Kernbridge Institute. Before they caught him, he discovered wolves in prison-cells in one of the facilities and was bitten, contracting lycanthropy. During the full moon he goes on a violent killing spree and has murdered 6 people in town. Jacob does not know, and refuses to believe he is a werewolf, but deep down in his subconscious he suspects it is the case. Were he to have confirmation of his condition, the guilt would drive him mad, and he would seek a cure or death. 

Divorced from his wife Shauna five years ago, he is estranged from her and their 15 year-old son, Kevin. The cause of the divorce was multi-faceted but a large factor was his obsession with conspiracies in town. Shauna and Kevin moved to Sunderland Vermont where she remarried Larry Benson and took his name. Jacob is good friends with Todd Noonan who is a member of the board of selectmen and owner of Hawkes Street Liquors. 

See WEREWOLVES OF CONTAGION in STRANGE TALES OF NEW ENGLAND page 169 for more information. 

Defenses: Hardiness 4 or 6*, Evade 5, Wits 7 or 2* 

Key Skills: Bite: 4d10 (5d10 Damage), *Arm Strike: 1d10, Speed: 2d10 or 4d10*, Muscle: 1d10 or 4d10*, Detect: 1d10 or 6d10*, Survival: 2d10, Reasoning: 2d10, Persuade: 0d10, Talent: 2d10, Trade: 1d10, Forensics: 1d10, Science: 1d10, History: 3d10, Language: 1d10, Religion: 2d10, Theft: 1d10

Max Wounds: 5

POWERS

Animal Frenzy: Jacob becomes a pure animal when he changes into a wolf, losing his rational abilities and being driven by a desire to kill and feast on human flesh. 

Trigger: Jacob is triggered by the full moon. 

Immunities: Jacob can only be harmed by silver weapons. Any other weapon does normal damage but he heals 1 Wound an hour from such sources. If he is killed even by silver, he slowly regenerates and regains consciousness, but this process takes a full year. His body will reform from even the smallest particle of flesh. 

Contagion: If Jacob bites anyone and does a wound, roll 1d10 against Hardiness. On a Success they become a Werewolf of Contagion (See STRANGE TALES OF NEW ENGLAND, 169). 

*In wolf form

TABITHA CROWLEY 

Tabitha is the editor-in-chief of the Leocester Gazette. She likes to keep the select board happy but was intrigued by the leads at Kernbridge Institute Jacob Taylor developed before she fired him two years ago. She didn’t think that type of reporting was appropriate for the Gazette and wanted to develop a working relationship with the people at Kernbridge herself, perhaps gaining access to the benefits of their research if she gives them good press. She recently entered her 50s and, while still appearing youthful, every wrinkle and gray hair causes her great distress. She has ambitions beyond being the editor of a town paper and would like more years to achieve something greater. 

Defenses: Hardiness 4, Evade 5, Wits 7

Key Skills: Arm Strike: 0d10, Speed: 1d10, Muscle: 0d10, Survival: 1d10, Persuade: 2d10, Command: 1d10, Talent: 3d10, History: 2d10, Language: 2d10, Science: 2d10, Institutions: 2d10, Occult: 1d10

Max Wounds: 2

MONSTER RALLIES V: MONSTER PATHS

Most monster rallies I have run, were one-shots or short campaigns where monsters didn't advance. But more recently I have been running them longer and wanted a way to both allow for but control growth, because monsters already have so many disparities, that certain monsters became much more powerful as they consumed human life-force or aged. So I opted to employ paths, like character paths, but for specific characters, not generalized pathways for a type of monster.  

Below is an example of a monster path that I created for the player character Queen of Snakes. She is a hag, and called Queen of Snakes because one of the other PCs who travels with her is a Giant Snake. What I tried to do was expand on existing Hag powers while also creating abilities that fit her title. 

MONSTER PATHS

These paths are meant to be for specific characters, not general monsters. There is no “Vampire Path”, but rather a “Dracula Path”. The GM tailors the specific path to each character based on their personality, description, title, etc., using the existing path powers and the monster abilities as guidelines. For example, a giant snake may ‘level’ every time they eat enough to increase their max wounds. This can also put a cap on different monsters in a rally campaign to keep things a little more even (monsters will still not be balanced, but the disparities won’t grow as ridiculous out of proportion as they might otherwise) 

QUEEN OF SNAKES 

Level	Abilities
1	Summon and Control Snakes, +1d10 Rank in Command
2	Longer Reach, New Pact Power
3	Max Wounds Increase by 1
4	Enter Nightmares
5	Sharper Claws, Max Wounds Increase by 1
6	Summon and Command Giant Snake
7	Enter Nightmares II
8	New Pact Power
9	Max Wounds Increase by 1
10	Freezing Gaze

 

Summon and Control Snakes: Queen of Snakes can command normal venomous or non-venomous snakes using her Command skill Roll. Snakes that disobey lose 1 Hardiness each round until they heed her command. She can summon 1d10 normal snakes every hour, so long as the snakes are native to the area or in the area (so if there are nearby cobras in a Zoo or being kept as pets, she can summon them provided they have a means of escape). 

New Pact Power: She gains a new pact power. This is a reward for her service, and should reflect her current efforts. Each time she gets this, the GM creates a new pact power for her. 

Longer Reach: Her reach extends from 15 feet to 30 feet. 

Sharper Claws: At 5^th Level her claws do +1 Extra Wound. 

Enter Nightmares: At 4^th level, she can enter peoples nightmares and interact with them in their dreams. 

Enter Nightmares II: She can harm people in their nightmares. Any damage they take is real and lethal. 

Summon and Command Giant Snake: She can summon a Giant Snake of Bridgewater (STRANGE TALES OF NEW ENGLAND, 152) once each day and have full command over it for a week on a Successful Command roll. The creature may take time to reach her if she is far from the Bridgewater Triangle.  

Freezing Gaze: Her gaze can turn a person to ice. Roll Command against Wits of the target On a Success the target cannot move or attack for 1 round. On a Total Success the target is literally frozen, and can only be saved by supernatural means or if Queen of Snakes desires to release them. 

 

MONSTER RALLIES IV: MAD SCIENTISTS

Mad Scientists are often at the heart of Monster Rallies. They are an outgrowth of the Frankenstein movies and many of the plots involve monsters seeking the help of those who followed in Dr. Frankenstein's footsteps. So here is a monster entry for Mad Scientist. Originally I wanted to use the expert path, but rallies are not about level advancement and the expert doesn't quite fit. So if anyone wants to be a mad scientist they can choose this option (and the GM can use it for NPCs in scenarios as well). 

MAD SCIENTIST

These are men and women who dabbled in forbidden scientific advancements, defying death, and creating monstrosities out of misguided efforts to make the world better or feed their own ego. Some are cruel and evil, others are compassionate and kind (and it is merely fate that drives their inventions to evil). While their experiments don't always result in abomination, the scales are weighted in that direction. 

Defenses: Hardiness: 4, Evade: 4, Wits: 1

Key Skills: Arm Strike: 0d10, Muscle: 1d10, Speed: 1d10, Persuade: 2d10, Command: 2d10, Reasoning: 3d10, Medicine: 4d10, Forensics: 3d10, Trade: 1d10, Survival: 1d10, Tech: 4d10, Theft: 2d10, Talent: 2d10, Science: 4d10, Places: 2d10, History: 2d10, Institutions: 1d10, Occult: 1d10, Religion: 1d10

Max Wounds: 2

POWERS

Scientific Advancement: Mad Scientists can use their Science and Medicine or Tech skill to achieve an enormous breakthrough. This can be anything from raising the dead, to curing a disease, to creating an intelligent machine to brain transplants or curing monsters. The GM always has final say, and it should be a somewhat focused breakthrough that puts flavor before mechanics (not something broad and flavorless like "I win at everything all the time"). The time scale is always up to the GM. 

First the Scientist must make a Science roll at regular intervals (determined by GM) and get a 10. Once that is achieved, the Scientist can roll Medicine or Tech (whichever is most relevant) against TN 8. On a success they achieve their desired outcome but with a very serious unforeseen complication that introduces great evil into the world. On a Total Success they achieve their goal, but without such a complication. On a Failure the result is a disaster, with huge ramifications determined by the GM. 

Scientific Achievement: The Mad Scientist has achieved an incredible breakthrough in science before the start of play. This can be just about anything, from Victor Frankenstein making his creature and unlocking the secrets of life and death to Griffin making invisibility possible in the Invisible Man. Whatever it is, it came at a horrible cost which the GM determines. The Mad Scientist can always repeat whatever his advancement was, but to build upon it further he must make more Scientific Advancements. Reversing the results of their achievement takes two successful Scientific Advancements. 

MONSTER RALLIES III: MOB RULES

Mobs are a prominent feature of Monster Rally movies and classic horror in general. I came up with these mob rules for Strange Tales of New England. 

To be clear I am not making a monster rally RPG, but am trying to create a set of monster rally tools for GMs to use in their Strange Tales of New England Campaigns. I may release this material in a small PDF at some point. But I want to post it to the blog so the tools are available now.  

MOBS

Mobs are large groups of people, usually frightened or angry townsmen or villagers, who can pose a threat to monsters due to their large numbers. They take time to build in a Monster Rally adventure, usually when things reach a critical stage. As a general rule, the more terror the population feels, the greater the chance of a mob forming. The GM should roll anytime an incident in public occurs, starting at a 1 in 10 chance and increasing by 1-3 increments each incident based on its severity. 

Defenses: Hardiness: 6, Evade: 6, Wits: 4
Key Skills: Attack: 0d10, Grab: Special, Muscle: 4d10, Detect: 2d10, Speed: 0d10 

Max Wounds: Mobs have a Max Wound equal to their numbers, and can always attack anyone inside their area of coverage. However mobs will back away and not attack when they take 2 wounds from a single hit in one round 

POWERS 

Attack: Mobs have very weak attacks. They roll 0d10 to hit and do 0d10 damage. They can attack multiple targets inside their area but only attack each target once per round. 

Grab: Mobs can grab targets, limb by limb. Their first grab attempt is 0d10 to grab a limb. If this is successful, they can follow up the same round with another grab attempt at 1d10 to grab another limb. If this succeeds they can attempt another grab at 2d10, then another at 3d10, all in the same round. When they have successfully grabbed all four limbs they have control of the target's body. Each round the target can an attempt an escape by rolling Muscle against 4d10. If the target fails, they maintain control and can carry or hold him. If the target succeeds, he escapes. If the target gets a Total Success he does 1 wound to the mob. The target is held in this manner every round until he successfully escapes. 

Tear down Structures: Mobs can tear or burn down any structure in 1d10 rounds. 

Area of Coverage: A mob covers an area based on its size. The GM should use common sense here, but a group of 1000 people might cover 6,000 to 10,000 square feet depending on how densely packed they are. Mobs can attack or grab anything within their area of coverage. 

MONSTER RALLIES II: INFAMOUS MONSTERS

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about running Monster Rally adventures in Strange Tales of New England (or really any horror RPG). I've been thinking about it more and ran another monster rally with my weekly group so I wanted to get some of my thoughts out. 

Art by Jackie Musto 

Before I start, I should mention Strange Tales of New England is a modern horror RPG, not a monster rally game. But I used a lot of monster rally scenarios in play testing (primarily to get as many eyes on the monsters as possible). I did this for Strange Tales of Songling as well, and it was something I found worked very well. But Strange Tales of New England gave me a chance to run Monster Rallies more in the style of the original monster mash movies like House of Frankenstein. 

Typically in the past I tended to run these as monster versus monster. Again as an easy way to get players to read the monster entries, help me vet the text and test different abilities. But this year I started running more structured scenarios. Because monster rallies usually hinge on a specific premise, these either need to be something the group cooks up at a session zero or builds off the previous monster rally session. You could also forgo some of the specific genre elements in a monster rally and just have a party of monsters going on adventures. 

In the last monster rally I ran a scenario using a method that begins by following these steps: 

1) Have players each pick a monster from the book to play 

2) Flesh out monsters into more formed characters with goals and background as well as a known monstrous reputation, giving them each three ranks in any skills they want.

3) Settle on a shared goal the party has for the adventure. This should also be a goal they need one another for. Because they are monsters, you want them to have a good reason to be working together

4) The GM creates an obstacle to the goal

5) The GM creates a foe (this can also be the obstacle if that makes sense)

6) GM quickly sketches out scenario details (ideally in minutes before start of session)

This process is really meant to take place in the first 30-60 minutes of a session so you have time to get into the scenario. But if you need more time, you can do it all as a session zero and the GM can prep between (I will say though, I think most GMs would benefit from forcing themselves to run such scenarios with just a few minutes prep before hand, as it really does help you develop GMing on-the-fly skills).

This past session, I decided to do something a little different. I wanted one of them to play a more prominent monster in the setting, something closer to the kind of character who shows up in a Monster Rally. We had three players, so I asked two of them to keep their monsters from the last session (our monsters were a Hag named Ruth, a Skadegamutc named Helen and a giant snake named Ted). The third player would select a major villain from the Gazetteer section (someone who was a powerful entity who haunted a particular area). This felt like a more appropriate way to do a proper monster rally (because in those films they are often seeking a known figure). 

Helen's player decided to take on this role and chose to play the Bennington Monster of the Bennington Triangle in Vermont. I then asked the other players why they would want to seek the Bennington Monster. Since he had the power to shape the local creatures in The Bennington Triangle, they decided a good reason would be to ask him to enhance Ted's mind and give him the ability to take human form (this worked as that sort of thing is a common plot element in Monster Rallies). 

My job was to make a complication. So I decided that last winter, the monster hunter, Vick Bavaro had defeated the Bennington Monster and sent his body to the bottom of Lake Hancock. Then for a foe, I decided to have them hounded by a team of youtube sensation monster hunters led by a competent NPC (someone with path levels). For backstory I figured these characters caught wind of creatures were in the area looking for the Bennington Monster. 

For this I made a character named Aaron Fugue, an 8th level combatant (which seemed like the kind of person who could content with monsters) and gave him a team of seven men (I used the stat blocks for the cultists of the Oblong God as they were similar, but gave them points in ranged weapons as all would carry guns). 

I also sketched out quickly the names of the men and gave them brief character descriptions. The most important one to emerge was his cameraman, Jeff Hussey. 

The party began the session aware that the Bennington Monster was dead at the bottom of Lake Hancock. They also knew it was an hours drive to a trailhead, then an hour hike to the lake. Their plan was to use Ruth's Restoration of the Mind spell to resurrect the Bennington Monster. It was also determined that we needed to give Ruth a more sinister title as "Ruth meets the Bennington Monster" didn't quite have the right ring. So the player decided because she was traveling with a giant snake, Queen of Snakes would be how most people referred to her. 

The third player would be the Bennington Monster but he wouldn't be in play till later, so we let him either be a human servitor or cultist (essentially the lowest type of NPCs one can be in the Threats section of the book) or a very weak monster (like a Luminary Corpse). He decided to be a cultist named Baxter. 

When the players arrived at the trail head they set up camp and noticed a number of other people camping, including the Aaron Fugue youtube crew. Queen of Snakes was able to flirt with Aaron's camera man, Jeff, but this agitated Aaron. Things escalated and Baxter attempted to punch Aaron, but discovered the man knew how to slip it. Eventually people cooled off and went back to their camps. 

At night, Queen of Snakes played guitar and sang a song*, impressing many of the local campers, but also drawing Jeff's attention to her again. He eventually gave her his business card which also gave them the name of Aaron's company. 

Over the evening she managed to get samples of the camera man's hair and blood to brew a love potion, but not without a number of negative interactions with Aaron. As a hag, the Queen of Snakes can control peoples dreams, so she gave Aaron nightmares about Jeff taking over his youtube channel. 

They set out the next morning and things were snowy and frozen. As they hiked towards their goal, Ted noticed a group following them. Queen of Snakes anointed him in flight ointment and he went to spy on them from above the trees. He saw that Aaron and his men were all armed and he was speaking to the camera about hunting a group of witches** and a giant snake.

The party decided to set a trap for the youtube crew by using hitching a ride over the ice on Ted, but laying down foot tracks over thin patches of ice. Then Ted went into the water nearby. 

As Aaron and his men crossed one of the areas the players lured them over, a member of his group named Mike Staskin fell through and Ted gobbled him up. Feasting on Mike's life energy, empowered Ted and caused him to grow in size. 

Because Aaron was streaming when this happened, and the party had been keeping tabs on him by watching his stream, they reported his channel for airing a live fatality and his channel was taken down. 

This is where the session ended. 

*Aaron already knew before hand that something supernatural was afoot, which is why he went there in the first place, but the dream made him think a witch was to blame

**She got a 10 on her roll and greatly impressed the group: Hags have a lot of ranks in Talent 

THE FANTASTIC MAGIC BABY REVIEW

I have a new review of Chang Cheh's 1975 film, The Fantastic Magic Baby HERE. The movie tells the story of Red Boy and his efforts to abduct the Longevity Monk so his parents, Bull King and Princess Iron Fan can eat him and gain immortality. Monkey and his companions must rescue and protect their master. It has very little dialogue and the fight choreography is quite true to the Peking Opera style. This is a very unusual movie which takes an episode from Journey to the West and presents it in the style of Peking Opera. While there are dashes of this in some of his earlier works The Fantastic Magic Baby is perhaps the most unique entry in Chang Cheh's catalog. That doesn't mean it is spectacular. I grappled with this movie and was really not sure what to think of it. There were aspects I loved, aspects I found frustrating, but I ultimately appreciate what he was trying to do. You can check out the review for the rest of my thoughts. 

HATE STAIN

My friend and sometimes co-host on the podcast, jim pinto, has a new Mork Borg expansion on kickstarter. Jim is the maker of 100s of games, and the man behind Postworldgames. His new offering is called Hate Stain. Check out the Kickstarter page HERE for a complete overview but here is a quick description of the project:

Hate Stain is a 70+ page expansion for Mörk Borg that brings hateful cults, corrupted magic, new player classes, and twisted monsters to your doompunk sessions. Back now to get the PDF immediately and claim a printed edition at your leisure. Mature themes. For experienced groups.

The Hate Stain explores the visceral and ever-expanding force of contempt and grief in Mork Borg. Hate is an infection that spreads like a plague, warping minds, bodies, and societies. Cults form around the poison of resentment, feeding on grievances and small injustices, turning them into all-consuming ideologies. The world is marked by the stain of this corruption, a force that twists reality itself, leaving destruction and ruin in its wake.

Players take on the roles of those marked by hate, or fighting against it.

The Hate Stain is my first attempt to make a Mork Borg expansion. It adds hateful cults to the doom and death of Mork Borg, with new spells, two new classes, new monsters, and helpful tips on how to make a hate-based cult.

It also includes rules for how grief and sorrow leads to corruption and how corruption manifests as mutations and deformities.

This book explores how hate manifests in your world and spreads through its own misery. These cults are not bent on death and killing, but in spreading their poison into the hearts of others. And ultimately, into the world. The game even comes with several cults to show you how it's done.

MONSTER RALLIES IN STRANGE TALES OF NEW ENGLAND

One of the methods I started using for playtesting and proofreading games is the Monster Rally adventure. This allows me to take a closer look, with more eyes at the Threats chapter of a book, by having the players assume the role of monsters in a wild creature feature mash-up. For those not familiar with Monster Rallies they are movies featuring multiple iconic monsters, and the first film of this type is usually considered Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943). In these films monsters can team up, be pitted against one another, and they also often have more of a silly tone to them (or they are at least capable of veering into comedy and very campy horror). This makes the Monster Rally perfect for an off-the-cuff adventure using a party of monsters. In some of my monster rally playtests, the monsters are fighting one another, but they often have goals and work together. As Strange Tales of New England is in the final stage of layout (I just did my last real proofread), the monster rally has been a useful method for vetting the monster chapter and the gazetteer section. Here I want to talk about one method I recently drew upon to quickly assemble a monster rally adventure that focuses on monsters working as a team. 

Art by Jackie Musto

The first step is to give players the rulebook and tell them to peruse the monster chapter with instruction to pick a monster they can see serving as a fleshed out character. This can be opened up to other areas of the book (for example in Strange Tales of New England I can let players pick entries from the Gazetteer that are oriented around a monstrous villain). This can also be determined randomly for each player. 

The second step is to have them flesh out the characters, giving them names, adding 3 ranks to skills (they can pick new skills too if they want), and describing a brief background/character sketch. They also need some general goals. In my last session, one player chose to be a Skadegamutc (a ghost witch) named Helen, who had been born left-handed but was beaten by her puritan teachers to use her right. This led to resentment against all puritans she took to her death and when she rose that was the focus of her ire. Another player was Ruth, a hag, who worked with Helen, because it gave her easy access to human flesh. The third player chose a less orthodox giant snake, a 50-foot long reptile named Ted who was more intelligent than other giant snakes and could write out words with its tail. 

Once this is done, the part decides on a shared goal for which they need one another to succeed. This goal should be pretty specific, and the players must hash out exactly how they know each other, if they are together or if any of the adventure will involve them assembling as a team. In our session, the person playing Helen decided the goal could be they wanted to dig up the body of her teacher, Sarah Jacobs, in order to raise and torment her. To help with this goal, the player who was Ruth, chose a malignant spell that resurrects the dead. 

With that detail out of the way, the GM then needs to flesh out some background around it. First the GM creates an obstacle or obstacles to the goal. I decided an obvious obstacle was the body had been moved from its grave. I drew on a recent news story about a curiosity shop that had been illegally buying human remains and wrote down that the Cemetery Manager at Dartmouth Cemetery sold Sarah Jacobs' corpse to Maria's Curiosity Shop in Salem six months ago. Since the players were based in Amherst New Hampshire, but Sarah Jacob's was buried in Hanover New Hampshire, this would mean a big of trouble. 

After this the GM creatures a foe for the party. This will often be a Van Helsing type. But I decided to have Maria of Maria's Curiosity Shop be a witch who was interested in capturing Helen and punshing her for her crimes. So the body had been purchased as a lure, with the intent of capturing Helen in a Canopic Jar. However simply throwing a party of monster hunters in the mix is perfectly viable. 

During the session, the players went to Dartmouth Cemetery after learning the details of Sarah Jacobs' burial from the town hall archives. This was somewhat tricky because Ted is a massive snake the size of Titanoboa, and it was an hour and a half to get to Hanover. It was decided at the start of the session that they used a large box truck to transport Ted (flying was an option too as Ruth knew how to make flying ointment, but that was too slow). At the cemetery they found the grave was empty when they dug it up, so they broke into the Cemetery office and Ruth searched the computer. She was able to find email exchanges between the Cemetery Manager and Maria of the curiosity shop. So they drove to Salem. But before they left, Helen cursed Isaac Roberts, the Cemetery Manager to suffer credit card decline for the rest of his days. 

When they reached Maria's Curiosity Shop, it was nearly  midnight and everything was closed, but the shop had a light on inside, which they could see through the storefront window. Ted smashed though the window, letting the alarm go off, and found Maria in a backroom office. There he bit her and drained her life, killing her instantly (Giant Snakes drain life-force in the setting). Helen, who was in her luminous spectral form*, went inside and found a set of stairs leading down. Ted was able to sense a waft of death from beyond the door at the bottom of the stairs and indicated this to Helen. She opened the door and walked in, seeing rows of canopic jars on either wall and a giant sarcophagus at the end of the chamber. As soon as she moved towards it, she was drawn into one of the canopic jars and imprisoned. Sirens began to flare as Ted and Ruth waited in the truck outside, realizing Helen was taking too long. This is where the session ended. 

This was a quick monster rally adventure. We spent an hour or so setting up and about 2 hours playing. We will continue the session next week and it happened to fall on a cliff-hanger moment when we ended. 

Monster rallies are fun because there is no strict tone. They can be horror blended with comedy, and they can also be a bit schlocky. It is also a chance for players take on the roles of monsters in a more casual adventure structure. Something I am thinking of doing is coming up with goal lists to help give players ideas. The main benefit I use them for is an easy and fast way to re-read monster entries. But they are a great option if you don't have anything planned but want to do a quick pick-up game. 

 *During the day she reverted to an inert corpse

THE BLACK ENFORCER

Check out my review of The Black Enforcer at easternKicks. This is a surprisingly good movie, despite a number of production issues. I think it may be my new favorite Ho Meng-Hua film.  It is a story of revenge but also the cost of revenge, vividly painted with an artful eye and heart. In the film, a man wrongly imprisoned by his family's killer, seeks revenge years later when he is released, but discovers the task will have greater consequences than he first imagined. This is a masterpiece. A must watch.  

VICTOR FRANKENSTEIN IS NOT THE REAL MONSTER

This began as a review of Guillermo del Toro's Frankenstein, but I found my critiques were conveyed too harshly by text, so I recorded a podcast discussion on the subject (HERE). After that podcast, this post changed, exploring the popular saying "Frankenstein is the real monster" (which was one of the core ideas of the del Toro movie and became the focus of a lot of online conversation around the film and book). In order to make this post, I have re-read the Frankenstein novel, using the 1816-17 manuscript available in special editions of the book (which shows Percy Shelley's changes and contributions). Because I am using the 1816-17 manuscript, it is always possible I am missing a crucial detail found in the 1818 edition (which is the one del Toro based his film on). The 1818 edition is the version I grew up reading, and one that I revisited about 1 1/2 to 2 years ago. It has been long enough that I could have forgotten something important in it, but I had a strong desire to read the original Bodleian Manuscript (the version I used is the first in The Original Frankenstein by Vintage Classics). 

Before I start, a caveat: when it comes to Frankenstein, I am very biased. It was my favorite book when I was young, and while I usually am the one to say a movie should not be like the novel because it is a different medium, with this story, I have a harder time letting the source material go. I also have very strong opinions of the source material, sometimes holding views that run counter to popular sentiment, but I understand it is ultimately a work of art that can be read a number of different ways. And I don't think I have any special access to its meaning. I realize that I am just a fan of the novel, perhaps overly confident in his conclusions, and that there are alternative arguments to contend with on the subject. I am not an academic either. So take this post with a grain of salt. I have some forcefully expressed opinions here. That doesn't mean I think different views on the book or movie are worse than my own or wrong. I just want to put my cards on the table and be as honest I can about how I feel. 

"Victor is the real monster" has become a truism. And that admonition makes a certain amount of sense given how much our view of the book has been shaped by movies where The Creature is often presented as a lumbering, inarticulate and murderous beast. And so it does help draw peoples' attention to how sympathetic The Creature is in the in book. But the truth is the book is much more complicated than "Creature Bad, Victor Good" or "Victor Bad, Creature Good". And if you read it, you have to contend with the failings of both characters (and an honest reading, in my opinion, reveals significant failings on the part Victor and his Creature). 

But before I address that, another point: The Creature has been portrayed sympathetically and Victor villainously many times before in films. So my above point needs to be tempered by this reminder. The 1957 Curse of Frankenstein starring Peter Cushing, with Christopher Lee as the Monster, depicts Victor in very unflattering light. Cushing is brilliant in the role and plays him as jerk and fiend. And as the series continues (Hammer made a number of Frankenstein films starring Cushing) his crimes only get worse and worse. And the original James Whale Frankenstein (1931) and its sequel, Bride of Frankenstein (1935) both portray the Creature very sympathetically, with Victor, particularly in the first film, as unhinged. And while Kenneth Branagh's Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1994) certainly makes Victor more sympathetic and less flawed than he was in the book, it is largely, with some notable exceptions, a faithful adaptation of the source material, presenting the Creature as sympathetic, if not quite as fully eloquent as he is in the novel. And if we venture into less well known films or into made-for-tv movie versions, we find some that are arguably even more faithful than the Branagh film. So I think it is also an error to speak as if audiences have been completely unaware the Creature is a sympathetic and tragic character to this point (anyone who watches the 1931 Frankenstein, would certainly pause if asked the question: who is the real monster?). 

And it is worth discussing sympathetic monsters in general. Sometimes, not always, there is a sense that people think this is a new phenomenon or a revolutionary way of thinking that begins with works like Wicked, the novel about the Wicked Witch of the West from 1995. But that was written in a decade that was overrun with sympathetic villains, particularly in horror, both on screen and in books. You can point quickly to the 1992 Bram Stoker's Dracula, but also to Nightbreed (1990) and the 1988 Clive Barker novella it was based on, Cabal.  Perhaps most well-known was Interview with a Vampire (1994). And it is notable that Anne Rice, who wrote the book it was based on in 1976, has remarked that one of things that motivated her to write from the Vampire's perspective was Mary Shelley's original Frankenstein novel. But you can go back further than Interview. Creature from the Black Lagoon's Gil-man was a sympathetic figure, and so too was the The Phantom of the Opera (in most movie versions, and the musical, but also in Gaston Leroux's 1910 novel). And then there are films like Dracula's Daughter (1936) where you have a remorseful vampire who desperately wants to change her ways and be human, or Cat People (1942), a movie following a similar theme, except instead of a Vampiress, it is about a cat woman. It can also be seen in world cinema, in movies like The Enchanting Shadow (1960). Sympathetic monsters have been around at least as long as the novel Frankenstein, but even longer than that for sure. The book includes many references to John Milton's Paradise Lost (1667) for example, and that is an epic poem from the perspective of The Devil (something that clearly influenced Shelley's thinking in Frankenstein as there are many parallels with the characters and the Creature reads it and makes reference to it). In Paradise Lost he is still evil, but it is a sympathetic portrayal of evil. 

This is a something that recurs again and again. It isn't new. And sometimes we find ourselves at different different turning points in the pendulum swing. One could argue that we went too far making villain's sympathetic in the 1990s, as it does take away the power of monsters when we turn them into misunderstood people or even into objects of romance. I have vivid memories of people growing weary of the sympathetic villain in that decade. The pendulum is always swinging for this reason. When villains speak, we listen because they are usually the most fascinating characters in stories and movies, so it makes sense we find ourselves wanting to hear their point of view. There is something powerful about a figure of menace giving their side or simply conversing with the protagonist. Silence of the Lambs (1991) is a clear example of how this fascinates us. But when we come to understand them too much, they cease to be monsters at all (and we resort to devices like making ourselves the monsters). 

Allow me to cut right to the point before going deeper: the question "who is the real villain of Frankenstein" itself greatly simplifies a complex tale of tragic falls from grace. Frankenstein is about big themes like pride, wrath, and man's reckless desire for immortality. It is also about personal responsibility, both the Creature's and Victor's. "Victor is the real monster" simplifies the complexity of the characters. This is a story, in my opinion, that describes two men who become monstrous, but do not have to be so. We can debate who is more monstrous, we can even debate whether Victor or the Creature are monsters at all, but I don't really think that is the point of the book. It isn't about who is the monster. And when we answer that question, I think it leads to moral conclusions that don't hold under scrutiny. 

But since the question is raised, let's take a look at each character. 

Victor commits the ultimate crime against the natural order, and the Creature commits the ultimate crime by killing a child (and more murders besides). Both take actions that are an affront to life. Yet, we care about Victor and we care about the Creature. We come to understand the suffering of both and get clear accounts of each figure's descent. And the book does not conceal how sympathetic the creature is. It isn't a mark of intelligence or wisdom to read it and see the creature has humanity (it is pretty obvious because the Creature is given enormous space to tell his own story and delivers it like a poet). But the book also shows us Victor's humanity as well as his flaws (and his flaws are notable). And there are parallels between both characters we are meant to pick up on. 

Victor's crimes are pretty clear in the book. He violates the dead by using them as raw parts for his creation, he violates nature by trying to defeat death. He arguably rebels against God by trying to defeat death in this way and by trying to make himself the creator of a new race. He is filled with hubris and becomes obsessed with his project, to the exclusion of other concerns. When things go awry he dwells on his own pain, and sometimes seems to think it is greater than the pain of those who fall victim to his Creature. He also is guilty of the sin of omission. When he realizes the Creature has killed his brother, and Justine is wrongfully charged with the crime, he says nothing about having made the Creature, partly because he thinks people will see him as crazy, partly because he feels there is no hope people will believe, but the bottom line is he watches and allows her to die, even if he feels bad about it, he does not intervene. And this kind of behavior continues in the book. He is also reckless and endangers everyone around him with his actions. His big sin in the book in terms of the Creature is rejecting and abandoning his own creation (and one could argue his other sin was making him in the first place). He does not take responsibility for or show kindness towards the creature he creates. Later in the book, when the creature pleads with him after having killed his brother William, Victor feels a slight twinge of parental responsibility, but I think on the whole he fails to understand how much he owes his own creation. This is a key source of the tragedy that follows. We don't know what would happen if he had reared the Creature, shown it love and given it an education about life and its place in the world. But it is safe to assume, things would have ended very differently, or at the very least, the Creature would have been better equipped to deal with the later rejection the world gave to it. 

Victor also denies the Creature a companion after hearing his tale. Initially he agrees, but when he thinks through the implications, he changes his mind and this is what sets the Creature on the path that results in his murder of Elizabeth. It is easy to sympathize with the creature here, but Victor raises rather good points on why he shouldn't create a companion (including the possible destruction of humanity as they are replaced by his new race of beings). And the Creature is not just making a demand of Victor, but making a demand on the potential companion he asks to be created. He shows almost no regard for her or her wishes (even whether she wants to be created and condemned to the life he has experienced). He views himself as a wretch at this point and is asking Victor to make another wretch to keep him company. 

I have already hinted at the Creature's crimes but we should go over those as well, because in many adaptations these are explained away or ignored (in the del Toro Frankenstein that are almost entirely washed away or shifted to mishap or Victor himself). The creature kills Victor's Brother William, who in the book is a child. He does so knowingly and feels exalted by it when it is done (later he does express remorse for his deeds when his long road of vengeance is complete but in the moment he is very bent on his path against Victor). After the killing he takes a locket that was around William's neck and places it in the dress fold of Justine, William's caretaker, to frame her for the crime. I don't think I need to get into how much deliberate intent and scheming this demonstrates. These are acts of a person who knows what they are doing, and understands what the consequences for the victims will be. 

Both characters know better and have their own form of ignorance. Victor for example, is led astray as a youth when he begins reading the works of alchemists and his father fails to clarify why he should not waste his time with them, save saying the works are trash. But both characters also clearly know right from wrong very early. Victor is raised in a loving family and given a thorough education. The creature is more innocent, finding himself alone in the wilderness after his creation, but even before he fully understands the world, he demonstrates a moral understanding in how he interacts with the family he attaches himself to in a rural homestead (in the book, like the del Toro movie and the Branagh movie, he resides secretly in a hovel adjoining a county house). One example of this is he initially steals food from them to survive, until he sees the pain it causes them and stops. After learning to read he finds a volume by Plutarch and speaks of how he came to admire the more "peaceable lawgivers" and after hearing the cottagers read Ruins of Empire, he weeps for the suffering of natives killed by invasion and expresses "disgust and loathing" towards men's capacity to murder each other. Not only do we see him adopting moral positions, but we see him ruminating and grappling with their complexity. And he demonstrates an understanding of other peoples ability to experience the pain he does. This internal world of the Creature and its eloquence is something even many of the most sympathetic adaptations fail to capture. 

And let's be clear, the Creature's suffering is immense in the book. He is rejected by the cottagers when he finally approaches them. And later after saving a young girl from downing he is rewarded by the father with a gunshot. He feels thoroughly rejected and after finding Victor's Journal he very deliberately sets his mind on vengeance. 

But is he thoroughly rejected? He has a glimmer of hope with the old blind man, before the son, Felix, beats him away. And afterwards he realizes this may have just been a setback and plans to approach them again, until he learns they have vacated the place in fear. So clearly there is the possibility of acceptance, even if for him it is more remote than others. And before he kills William, who he happens upon by accident while trying to find Victor, he intends at first to abduct him, believing a child is not biased against his deformity, and it is when William reacts with horror at his appearance and tells him he is the son of a Frankenstein that the Creature kills him. And it is very intentional:

"Frankenstein!" Cried I, "You belong then to my enemy, to him towards whom I have sworn eternal revenge, and you shall be my first victim."

This is not a misunderstanding like the accidental drowning of the girl in the 1931 Frankenstein, this is very much a deliberate act, and one we would never excuse in real life, no matter how tragic or sad the life of the person responsible. Again, Mary Shelley chose this. She could have have had his first victim be anyone else and chose to make it the worst kind of killing imaginable. So I think it is important to balance that against the sympathy the creature generates in his narrative (and it is important to remember that the Creature is just as self-absorbed and unreliable a narrator as Victor is). 

Soon after the murder, he places the boy's locket on Justine, William's caretaker. It is also very clear that the Creature knows what he is doing and that he knows it is wrong. While living in the Hovel, he hears a story of a man wrongly condemned to death who is liberated by Felix (the young man who lives at the homestead). He understands justice and injustice (much of his pleading with Victor is about how unjustly he feels the world treats him). And so when he plants the locket on Justine to frame her, this is not the act of a child behaving from impulse without thought to the full weight of consequence. He knows what will happen and he understands Justine will die, and what death means. 

And the Creature goes on to murder more people, including Clerval and Elizabeth (both of whom are completely innocent and kind). He becomes as obsessed about harming Victor and having his revenge, as Victor was about creating him in the first place. He also has the same trouble seeing and understanding his own culpability as Victor does (and always seems to prioritize his own suffering the way Victor does). 

Also while he begins with a love and fondness for humanity, we see how quickly that shifts when his own pain consumes him. He speaks lovingly of Felix and the other cottagers, but when he addresses Captain Walton at the end of the book after Victor has died he says 

“You, who call Frankenstein your friend, seem to have a knowledge of my crimes and his misfortunes. But in the detail which he gave you of them he could not sum up the hours and months of misery which I endured wasting in impotent passions. For while I destroyed his hopes, I did not satisfy my own desires. They were for ever ardent and craving; still I desired love and fellowship, and I was still spurned. Was there no injustice in this? Am I to be thought the only criminal, when all humankind sinned against me? Why do you not hate Felix, who drove his friend from his door with contumely? Why do you not execrate the rustic who sought to destroy the saviour of his child? Nay, these are virtuous and immaculate beings! I, the miserable and the abandoned, am an abortion, to be spurned at, and kicked, and trampled on. Even now my blood boils at the recollection of this injustice."

Not only does this passage demonstrate the Creature's eloquence, it also shows how out of proportion his anger is. Had he limited his hatred to just Victor, that would be understandable. But here he blames all humanity for the rejection of a few, and how quickly his love for Felix evaporates in his anger (when it was equally clear earlier in the book that the Creature comprehended it could have been a simple misunderstanding because he inadvertently frightened the cottagers). 

Also his conception of his own pain mirrors Victor's, where he can't conceive that anyone else has experienced the kind of pain he has. 

Now let's look at what del Toro has to do in order to make the Creature largely blameless, and to make Victor the sole monster of the story. You will hear a lot of people say this movie makes a case for Frankenstein being the real monster, and it does. But it does so by making significant changes to his character and background. In the books, Victor is not an abuse victim. His parents are both loving, and his family all seem to be good and adoring people in his life. His friend Clerval is incredibly supportive. In del Toro's Franknstein, Victor is subject to a father's abuse, and the next we see of him, he is arrogantly and openly bringing half a cadaver to life at University. In the book he conducts his experiments in secret and is reticent to speak of them even when the cost of silence is life and death. Once the creature is brought to life, the movie gives us very important changes. First, he chains the Creature in the basement of the tower, then proceeds to mock it, abuse it, harass it, and just generally mistreat it. Finally he tries to destroy it in a fiery explosion, which fails. In the book, Victor is horrified the moment the Creature comes to life and flees, returning only after it has left and not seeing it again until after the death of his brother William at the Creature's hand.  

The Creature's story in del Toro's version, starts out, once freed from the tower, similar to its tale in the book, finding a homestead and spying on the family there, hoping to become one of them. However the movie takes a brief positive interaction with the old blind patriarch and transforms it into a weeks/months long relationship (which I thought was very interesting). This radically changes the character of the Creature. Importantly, the movie presents us with a William who is fully grown and married to Elizabeth (who in the novel marries Victor). William is killed somewhat indirectly by the monster in a scene of chaos that takes place after Elizabeth is murdered. And who murders her? Not the monster, like in the book, but Victor, who recklessly fires a shot at the Monster after Elizabeth steps before him to intervene (I watched the scene twice and it looks to me like he fires the gun after she steps in the way of it). And then he blames the Creature for her murder (something he keeps doing in the movie, which I think is del Toro's way of emphasizing Victor's failure to understand his own responsibility for the situation in the novel). Elizabeth dies but not before declaring her love for the Creature (something that never happens or is even hinted at in the book). And Victor then begins a hunt to destroy his creation (and in the book, after the Creature murders Elizabeth that is what sets off their chase into the arctic). Most of the crimes in the book that the Creature commits are not present or radically altered (even shifted to other people). His worst act in the film is the killing of crewmen aboard the ship at the start of the movie (and while this is bad, it does not rise to the same level of murdering William or condemning Justine to death). 

By making William an adult, and making his killing more a product of a confused brawl in the wake of Elizabeth's death and by shifting Elizabeth's death into the hands of Victor, del Toro completely changes the culpability of the Creature. By having Victor frantically blame others for his own misdeeds and mistakes, and by having him abuse the Creature viciously (when his crime agains the Creature in the book is one of neglect and rejection), it turns Victor into a completely different character. 

We have to ask ourselves, why didn't del Toro keep the crimes of the monster intact to make his argument. If the book is presenting us with a more heroic monster, and painting Victor as the Villain, surely we can leave the monster's crimes in the story, but explain them. And I think the reason is very simple. While the monster is a sympathetic figure in the book, it is impossible to sympathize with him as much as del Toro does if he remains a child killer and murderer/framer of innocent women. People might be able to overlook Clerval. But they can't overlook the killing of a child, the framing and death of Justine, and the murder of Elizabeth. Del Toro removes and changes all of those, shifting the killing of Elizabeth to Victor, making William an adult rather than child and his death more understandable. He even has William accuse Victor of being the real monster as he is dying in his arms. 

The reason I bring this up, is the del Toro movie lays bare what contortions one must go through to fully embrace the idea that "Victor is the real monster". I think it is useful in illustrating how shallow this idea really is. 

There is saying about the story that goes something like "Knowledge is knowing Frankenstein is not the monster, wisdom is knowing that Frankenstein is the monster". I think this reflects more an understanding informed by the movies. No one who reads the book mistakes Frankenstein for the Creature's name. But more significantly, it reflects an adolescent reading of the book. Most people on their first reading, probably sympathize more with the Creature than with Victor. When I first read it in high school I was an angry adolescent and I largely identified with the Creature, who I saw as misunderstood and as an almost romantic figure. I excused and ignored his crimes, and I largely blamed Victor. As I got older though, I saw the creature's sins more clearly and I came to have sympathy for Victor as well, seeing the tragedy and sins of both figures in equal measure.