Tags
18th Century, blackpowder, dreadpunk, Eighteenth Century, French Directory, French Revolution, Georgian, Ghastly Affair, gothic game, Gothic Gaming, Gothic Horror, Gothic Literature, Gothic Romance, Gothick, Gothique, Historical, Historical Gaming, Louis Seize, Louis XVI, mannerpunk, Napoleonic, OGL, Regency, Romance, Romantic Age, Romantic Horror, Romantic-era, Romanticism, rpg, schauerroman
Here’s a surprise Halloween treat for you all – the complete Highdark Hall is now available for download on DriveThruRPG and RPGNow!
Experience a place of hauntings and High Society, where good manners are veils for murderous intentions. Welcome to Highdark Hall! Horrors beyond belief, and romances beyond reason, have played out within its walls. Designed as a backdrop that would support the creative visions of individual Game Masters, Highdark Hall is intended as a setting where shocking stories of love, death, and the supernatural can emerge spontaneously from interacting with its colorful inhabitants and strange locations. What further catastrophes befall its occupants and their guests, are for you to decide.
This PDF collects the Highdark Hall material you may already know, and also reveals many previously hidden secrets. It includes:
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- Detailed, historically plausible floor-plans for an 18th century Stately Home on five floors.
- An overview of the enigmatic Altumber family and their (in)famous residence.
- Over 100 interior locations, from the opulent Lunar Ballroom, to the secret Hellfire Chapel.
- A fully mapped parkland filled with dramatic (and potentially dangerous) locations.
- Over 50 unique NPCs, from the vile to the virtuous, in a tangle of conflicting desires set to explode.
- Extensive rumors and legends, ripe for investigation by the brave (and foolish).
- Schedules of the entertainments and activities enjoyed by visitors, with descriptions of typical meals.
- An in-depth description of the legendary (and possibly haunted) Hedge Maze of Highdark Hall.
- A description of the annual Autumnal Masque, with tables to generate the costumes of attendees.
Plus, printable versions of all maps.
Highdark Hall was created especially for use with Ghastly Affair, the Gothic Game of Romantic Horror, but it has potential for any game set in Georgian, Napoleonic, Regency, or early Victorian times. It could even be explored by modern paranormal investigators, come to uncover its disturbing past. How will its spirits speak to you?
Note: Highdark Hall contains some mature subject matter. Reader discretion is advised.
The Engine of Oracles 
Daniel – will there be a POD option in the future?
Possibly. “A Ghastly Companion to Castles, Mansions, & Estates” is taking much longer than I anticipated, and I need to concentrate on finishing it (and getting it illustrated). Meanwhile, I thought putting out all my “Highdark Hall” material (including the previously unpublished room descriptions) would be a nice treat for people looking to do some Halloween gaming. Unfortunately, there’s just the one of me, as my clones keep rebelling. But I’ll soon fix that, and then the world will tremble! Muhahahahahahaha!
Excellent! Loved the blog entries and always nice to have it collected in one spot. I’d also love to see a printed version – or to have it rolled into another publication in the future.
Have you ever thought of a large printout of the hall itself? It’d look great on a poster-sized map. Or (can we dream?) scaled for 28mm figures.
Its funny you should mention miniatures… One of the ideas I’ve been seriously considering is a line of paper miniatures (and large-scale modular floor plans) for Ghastly Affair! In the past I’ve been reluctant to incorporate miniatures into my gaming, especially for horror gaming, on the grounds that they allowed Players to make tactical decisions based on information their characters wouldn’t have available. However, I now think miniatures might actually be the perfect way to keep track of who is where during a masquerade ball, or at a dinner party. One problem is that while military miniatures for the Georgian/Napoleonic era are plentiful, those depicting people in formal dress are practically non-existent. I though paper miniatures (perhaps at a larger scale to show off the gorgeous outfits) might be good, since they would also evoke the pasteboard “toy theaters” that began to be produced in the time period. Of course, making them could be a major outlay in time and money (for art), and the amount of capital I have available right now is basically “none”. Even if I used public-domain historical fashion-plates, finding the right ones and processing them would take a great deal of time. I could draw the figures reasonably well myself, but that will take me away from other projects that are already in progress. Kickstarter is a possibility for the money, of course, but crowdfunding has been the undoing of better (and more business-minded) designers than me. Damn you, space-time continuum, for preventing me from being in more that one place at once!
Foundry and West Wind have a range that includes 18th century civilians. I have gobs of the West Wind figures and really like them. They may be a little on the cartoony side for some though.
If you go the “paper” route, I’d suggest reusing and possibly expanding the silhouettes you created. These are very evocative. Chaosium used to include paper figure silhouettes like these in some of their old boxed sets. I’d hazard a guess that you could resize them for gaming quickly and get a nice “low cost/freebie” out for your fans.
Are the character descriptions actually images? It doesn’t seem like I can select or markup text on those pages.
Thanks for letting me know about the problem. I’ll correct it, and update the file as soon as possible.
I’ve updated the download file.
Nice, thank you! It works just fine now.
Also, I noticed you slightly tweaked the Assets/Afflictions of Lord and Lady Altumber, Has anything else of this nature been changed?
Besides clarifying the Assets and Afflictions of Mr and Mrs Altumber, I’ve corrected some typos (apparently introduced by spell-check in the first place!), and corrected an error on page 5 (for some reason the previous version had “Charlotte”, instead of “Caroline” as George IV’s wife). Also, the file is significantly smaller now.