GMBC ep13 - Espionage and Vampires: A Game Master's Guide - Brian Lumley's Necroscope
Speaker A
00:00:00.240 - 00:00:00.480
Foreign.
Speaker B
00:00:05.440 - 00:00:32.300
Welcome to the Game Masters Book club where great fiction becomes your next great role playing experience. Cold War espionage, psychic agents and parasitic vampires form the basis of the 18 book Necroscope series by Brian Lumley.
Alex Jackal, Sean Murphy and Ian Eller are game masters turned spy masters as they teach us the trade craft of bringing spies and vampires to your tabletop game. Let's get into the conversation and here we are again.
Speaker A
00:00:32.300 - 00:00:34.540
Gentlemen, we are here to talk about.
Speaker B
00:00:34.540 - 00:00:40.220
Another book and another fantastic addition to the Game Masters Book club.
Speaker A
00:00:40.220 - 00:00:42.060
We're going to be talking about Necroscope.
Speaker B
00:00:42.060 - 00:00:44.220
Today, but before we get started, we're.
Speaker A
00:00:44.220 - 00:01:05.610
Going to introduce our fabulous game masters who have come back yet again. I think we must be doing something right if they keep coming back.
We're going to introduce our game masters, give a brief overview of your gaming experience and tell us about your favorite vampire, whether in game or out of game. Today we're going to start with Alex. Go ahead Alex and tell us about.
Speaker B
00:01:05.610 - 00:01:07.370
Yourself and your favorite vampire.
Speaker C
00:01:07.370 - 00:02:20.010
So hi everyone, my name is Alex Jackl. I've been GMing and playing for 43 years, which is I hate saying that.
I love gaming and I have played in conventions and played very extended long home campaign games and worked with the Rising Phoenix Gaming Con and I love jamming. My favorite vampire I think is one I invented for a particular scenario that was meant as a one off.
I thought the players were going to end up killing him, but they felt sorry for him and didn't kill him. And then he became a long standing NPC in the world and he was completely pathetic.
The character that was not a sexy vampire, he was a cursed human being that got stuck being a vampire and then ended up deciding to not die and took over this city of undead and then manages to keep the undead in the city from eating all the surrounding townships. And so the players decided to keep him there to keep the township safe rather than killing him.
And that character is my favorite vampire in all my gaming history.
Speaker A
00:02:20.410 - 00:02:24.890
Sean, are you ready to go next and tell us a little bit about yourself and your favorite vampire?
Speaker D
00:02:25.210 - 00:03:50.480
Yeah.
So I've been gaming for not as long as Alex because I took a brief hiatus D and D tunnels and trolls in the early days and then afterwards advanced into things like Skype of Cthulhu and a wide variety of other type games. Skype of Cthulhu is another game pub Simon where we play Call of Cthulhu. So my favorite vampire is in a campaign I ran.
Players found a young lad tied up out in the middle of a field. And he said, I've been left here as an offering by my parents. They're horrible, horrible people. And they brought him down.
And the party made their way over there to confront these people that would leave the boy. They put the boy back safe behind the barn with the second level wizard who wasn't ready for a confrontation.
And they get there, they burst in the door, and there's this nice couple in there, and they demand information about the boy. And they're like, oh, you didn't let him go, did you? Oh, no, it's nightfall.
At which point the cowardly wizard suddenly realizes that the little boy next to him is growing large teeth and is looking at him extremely hungrily. Yes, he's a vampire spawn. And the parents had left him out there in hopes that the sunlight might kill him. But it had been a cloudy day out.
So that was my favorite vampire is just watching the panicked player try to figure out what to do next.
Speaker A
00:03:50.800 - 00:04:00.780
Oh my goodness. Who doesn't like a absolutely terrifying child vampire? That's. Yeah. Ian, time to tell us about your history and your favorite vampire.
Speaker E
00:04:00.780 - 00:04:55.620
Yep. Hi, my name is Ian Eller. I'm a typical Gen Xer who started playing with the red box way back in the day. Many, many, many, many systems.
And many years later, I have done some freelance writing, some fiction writing, and generally speaking, I don't particularly like vampires. I can't think of a single interesting one I created for a game that I ran. But I will say this.
Vampires are horrible monsters and they should not be charming and sexy. So my favorite most recent vampire I can think of is in the recent version of Nosferatu.
The Count Orlok portrayal in that kind of hits my sweet spot for what a big bad boss vampire should be like, right? There is a charm there, but it's the charm of a wolf.
That creature is a predator, and anything it does that might be construed as quote, unquote, sexy is just because it is a monster. And that has a bit of a magnetism of its own.
Speaker A
00:04:56.020 - 00:06:59.800
Well, I am going to contradict you in my introduction and I am Erik Jackson and I am the host. And I am a Gen Xer gamer who has been playing since the Pleistocene.
And I think vampirism can be used to represent a lot of really interesting things and to prove that all vampires aren't evil. Ayin, I will give you one of my favorite kids books, Bunnicula. I will use Bunnicula as my favorite vampire. What could be cuter?
Small rabbit who sucks the juice out of vegetables. And the various hilarious takes on the trope of being a vampire through this one little kids book is amazing.
I happen to think that that's a really cool set of stories. But I do agree that a vampire is a very dangerous creature, at least in its traditional sense. And I do.
Everybody knows that danger and sexiness gets all mixed up there, which is why vampires can be sexy. But that's not, I think, the case in this book, Necroscope.
Necroscope is both the first book in and the name of an 18 book series which centers around two opposing psychically powered forces. Initially, it appears that the two forces are 1970s ESP branches of the Soviets and the British.
But each of these are in turn subsumed by powerful beings who use them to further their aims. On the British side, we have Harry Keough, the Necroscope, who gains his powers of knowledge willingly from the dead.
On the Russian side, we have Boris Dragozani, a Romani who has discovered an ancient evil, a Vampheri, who teaches him necromancy, a way of gaining power by destroying and devouring the dead. Harry and Dragazani clash in a final battle that spans time and space and psychedelic splendor.
And several discoveries happen as a result of that battle, which set the entire book series in motion. How'd I do, gentlemen?
Speaker C
00:06:59.800 - 00:07:00.760
Oh, it's good.
Speaker E
00:07:01.160 - 00:07:05.000
I do believe you hit the three or four high points that the book has in it.
Speaker B
00:07:05.080 - 00:07:05.800
There we go.
Speaker A
00:07:06.280 - 00:07:27.520
There we go. That's what we were waiting for.
Forgive me for focusing on the good part of the premise of the POD is that you can read a book, and that book doesn't necessarily need to be the best book, but you can still find really cool things to get into your game. And so does anyone else want to make some comments about the book before we get started? Other than I am.
Speaker C
00:07:27.520 - 00:07:43.520
I'll say this as the person who recommended the book, because I read it when I was in college, which is many, many years ago, I was surprised by a certain lack of quality in the book. It was not how I remembered it. Now, the book has a lot of sequels.
Speaker A
00:07:43.600 - 00:07:44.040
There's.
Speaker C
00:07:44.040 - 00:07:53.600
It's a whole. There's a whole series of Necroscope books. So I suspect I've read all of them and that they might get better. Though I cannot guarantee that.
Speaker A
00:07:55.350 - 00:08:28.630
If you have an 18 book series, somebody's gonna like it. Somebody has to like it. You can't make an 18 book series out of all terrible books. So. And this isn't actually. I don't think it was a Terrible book.
I just think there are better vampire books than this one. And I'm sure we'll talk about that going forward.
But, Ian, I know that you struggled with this, so I'm gonna put you on the spot first and ask you, if you were going to run a game, let's say, loosely based off of this book, what game system do you think would evoke the best parts of Necroscope?
Speaker E
00:08:28.710 - 00:09:53.090
So I do want to say that although I did not like the book as it was written, it is full of phenomenally interesting ideas. I think that there's a lot of stuff happening in there that would make for a good game. Right? And that is actually true, I think a lot.
Because what makes a good game is not necessarily the thing that makes a good novel.
But one of the things about it that I really like is I like how although there are certainly types of different psychics and each side has similar characters, they make a point to say how individually these various psychics, these espers, have their specific way they do their thing or specific aspects of what they do, or even limitations on what they do or whatever.
And because of that, and because I'm a big fan of the system from way back, I would use Hero because Hero allows me to build characters with nuance in their capabilities, right?
So I can make the guy who can see a psychic do it through vision, but I can also make a guy who can see that there's a psychic around do it through another mechanism with a different kind of sense. Maybe they have visions or whatever. The nice thing about the Hero system is it can be very fiddly, which some people don't like.
But in the process of creating characters, in the process of choosing how things are actually going to work, you have a lot of options and you can differentiate very similar characters pretty easily.
Speaker A
00:09:53.090 - 00:10:09.610
100 agree on the great books don't necessarily make great games, and bad books can make great games. Alex, this was your choice.
So as you previously stated, perhaps the first book might not live up to your memory, but how would you portray this book if you wanted to get at the essence of Necroscope?
Speaker C
00:10:09.610 - 00:11:30.410
One of the things about the book is I was not at all resistant to the statements of the lack of quality in certain areas. However, the book is chock full of interesting ideas and interesting things it can do.
And so when I looked at what system that might be easy to represent it, I picked two. I picked Delta Green, the espionage ish horror mix, right? And Delta Green is pretty good.
And I think that captures the espionage organizations Using the supernatural, using psychics, you know, that kind of thing. Combined with the. There's a Horror X File sort of element to Delta Green that I think would really well.
And so that system I think would be very good for this. And the other one is just Savage World and with a lot of their horror content. It's fast, it's flexible, and so it's really easy.
I think there's a lot of elements, the psychic elements, the necromancy elements, the vampire elements, even some of the weirder time travel kind of elements. All could, I think, be easily incorporated into savage worlds and have a pace and feel of the story.
And as usual, I think if I were going to paint in this world, it would probably be with an emphasis on the espionage side with then recurring supernatural and psychic themes.
Speaker A
00:11:30.490 - 00:11:40.090
Again, highly agree on the more espionage, slightly less psychic. But Sean, do you agree, what game system do you think would best evoke this particular story?
Speaker D
00:11:40.730 - 00:12:53.800
Let me just start by saying that 3/4 of this book is a session zero with two players. That's where you're getting all these idea. They're developing their backstories, important NPCs and trying to explain things.
One of them's like, oh, I want to be good at math, but I also want to be a professional writer. And oh, yeah, I want to be able to do time travel. Oh, yeah, I like that show Ghosts on tv. I know.
How about we say the ghosts tell you skills, Second player. Well, I'm torn. I want to. I also want to get secrets from the dead, but it'd be boring to have the same power.
How about that Roman tradition where you can divine the future from dead animals? Oh, that sounds great, says the gm. And the player says, oh, and I also want to be a vampire.
This just feels like a lovely session zero for three quarters of the book. And then they realize, like, oh, maybe we should play the game now. I'm going to go with my choice.
If you were going to run it straight, it might be Dresden Files, but I will say that City of Mist, because of the importance of developing relationships and backstory inherent in the game, would also be another choice one could look at for this.
Speaker C
00:12:54.280 - 00:12:56.360
That's an interesting idea. That's great.
Speaker A
00:12:56.920 - 00:13:01.640
Can I ask, why Harry Dresden? To play it straight, the Dresden Files.
Speaker D
00:13:01.640 - 00:13:19.930
Allows you to bring in some of the supernatural things, some of the human personality things. I mean, it's just a good system for allowing people some creativity. And it's built in a world of magic and the like.
So porting things over wouldn't Be as difficult as it might be in some other systems.
Speaker E
00:13:20.090 - 00:13:25.130
This is I. And fate is a good choice almost always, right, Sean? Like, yeah, yeah, fate's always a good.
Speaker D
00:13:25.130 - 00:13:33.850
Choice, particularly when you've got these two hyperactive players who want to have all the things. Well, fate is an easier way to bring that in than lots of the more regimented systems.
Speaker A
00:13:33.930 - 00:15:22.880
Okay.
My choice is also going to be reflected in my book choice in that I enjoyed reading the shoe graphic novels and it turns out that they sponsored a chew role playing game. For those of you unfamiliar with that particular comic, a lot of the powers are food based or at least devouring based.
And so a lot of this book I felt like there was a lot of the eating of the dead that was happening. That happens quite a bit in the Chu graphic novels. And also in the role playing game there is a decent.
And in the books there's a decent amount of semi time travel, either psychically predicting the future or flashing forward to the future as well as some actual time travel as well. So the role playing game allows for those kinds of powers and is built around those kinds of powers.
It also has an interesting mechanic based on position and effect. The positions are it's a cakewalk, it's risky or it's nuts. This book definitely had a lot of that's nuts, what are we doing here?
Kind of appeal to it.
And on top of that, some of the conditions that characters can get in the CH rpg, they can get a condition of ruthlessness or a condition of impulsiveness, which I felt like Dragazani definitely took on as he was moving through the book. So I haven't run this game yet, but I really loved the graphic novel and I've always wanted to run the Chu game.
Also, the Chu characters are employed by the US government. They are part of a secret service. There are other countries that also have secret services who have these psychic people who eat things.
So it's a very interesting story and I like the RPG and I'd love to give it a try. And it felt connected to this particular story in Necroscope.
Speaker E
00:15:22.960 - 00:15:29.040
What is the underlying system of Chu? Was it bespoke or is it built unempowered by the apocalypse or a Fate or a.
Speaker A
00:15:29.360 - 00:15:40.960
It looks like it's built more off of a Blades in the Dark. It's. It's got a lot of counters that you build on, but there's also some appetite dice that are involved.
It does have playbooks and it's got the clocks from.
Speaker E
00:15:41.790 - 00:15:45.790
So it's some form of forged in the dark slash. Pbta probably, right?
Speaker A
00:15:45.790 - 00:16:11.150
Yeah. It's not coming out and saying it's one or the other, but it's got elements of both of those in there.
We've talked about how to mechanically run this specific story. There's been a lot of happy talk about maybe not greatest book, but lots of cool stuff. Right.
So, Sean, why don't we jump back to you and you tell us about something portable, something you'd like to take from this story and put into your own role playing games.
Speaker D
00:16:11.630 - 00:17:22.079
I mean, I think the part I found interesting or one of the things I found interesting, and I agree with others, there are a sprinkling of ideas through here, surrounded by some bad pros, is the idea that both sides sort of find out like the other one has a psychic spy operation. It kind of reminded me I had a DND game where a party showed up before a war council.
They expected to go in and just pick, you know, oh, we'll take whatever seems like the best job. And they were surprised when there were two other parties there also looking for work. And one of them looked way more competent than they were.
And so to get the job that they wanted, they didn't just do what typically happens in a game where the GM says, well, here are the three choices. Which one do you take? They actually had to lobby to get that job.
I like the idea that these groups slowly realize that they don't have a monopoly on this particular weapon in the Cold war between them, but they don't really know that much about what the other side has. And they presumably in book five or six, they learn more at some point off in the future, not in this book, they find out more about each other.
Speaker A
00:17:22.079 - 00:17:26.639
Agreed. That's a great place to build a story off of Alex putting you in the middle again.
Speaker C
00:17:26.799 - 00:19:09.200
No, it's perfect. There's a couple of things I really liked.
One of them was the idea of talking to the dead and learning from them and how to get particular kinds of knowledge is to find the right dead person to talk to to get that knowledge. I thought that was an interesting.
I mean, that may sound basic, but I think that particular thing of looking for a dead person that's an expert in that area and then going and finding them and then using your necromantic powers to query that person.
I can imagine adding that to the repertoire of someone who's playing a necromantic character or a bad guy that goes and queries your dead friends and. Which adds a little horror mix in there as well, right. The other thing I liked as an idea is the idea of the vampires as parasites.
I'm not a big fan of the sexy vampire either. I think vampires are monsters. It is a curse. It's terrible if you think about what they have to do to live. And I thought that's an idea.
The idea that there's an actual physical parasite, right. That represents the vampirism that has taken over the person and you could kill the actual thing, the monster inside the person.
I sort of enjoyed that. And it reminded me of some other things that built on that. Like the Strain trilogy by Guillermo del Toro.
Taking that kind of idea of vampirism and working it in I thought was very good. And I also like the fact that there was a really this one vampire, like this one big vampire that was in the center of the story. I think someone.
I forgot who it is earlier in this talked about there's before and after.
Speaker A
00:19:09.360 - 00:19:09.680
Right?
Speaker C
00:19:09.680 - 00:19:32.600
There's before and after Twilight, but I don't think of Twilight that way at all. I think it's before and after Salem's Lot. The idea of the one vampire that then becomes the curse on an entire town.
That's a piece that this sort of reminded me of. And I think in later books of Necroscope actually happened. And that's a thing I. I think I would steal from this as well.
Speaker D
00:19:32.920 - 00:19:56.120
So in doing that, the ghost knowledge seems like one thing, writing a book or whatever. But it feels like he just kept picking, like, suddenly he was a really good fighter. Suddenly he was able to do math.
Suddenly he's learning physics, you know, at a level that seemed beyond. How would you sort of put guardrails on that so your player didn't max min their way into. Goddamn.
Speaker C
00:19:56.270 - 00:20:23.230
Yeah. Well, one of the things is I wouldn't steal that literally as it was represented in the book.
I would make it more like you have an ability to find an expert.
And then if you find an expert, you then can learn specific scope things that give you a plus on roles in the specific thing you're trying to do in that. Something like that. I haven't worked out what the actual mechanic would be. Right. But it would be something like that.
Speaker E
00:20:23.810 - 00:21:18.320
One of the reasons I said Hero is because I would build that as a variable point power pool in Hero. That's what that's for. You can only hold so many of those things true at once. Right?
Because the gym teacher, like, early on in the book that, you know, turns him into a decent fighter, even though he's a skinny little twerp Right. You have a pool of points that you would normally use to create your character, but you hold them aside and you buy a variable power pool.
And when you need to add some combat skills, you take some of those points and you put them into the combat skills that you need. That's a mechanic that Hero has had in it since the early 80s because we know that Hero came out of Champions.
And lots of superheroes have this thing where they can like build a device that can do anything. Or like your Greed Lanterns that can create a thing from their energy that can do lots of different stuff. Right.
So that's the mechanic I would use for that. I don't know how you would do it in a system with more rigid character generation.
Speaker D
00:21:18.800 - 00:21:34.020
That's interesting because I was thinking about just that example of the Green Lanterns and how, you know, various DC systems have allowed you to sort of figure out how to do that in a way that you don't become overwhelming or any more overwhelming than Green Lantern already is in most situations, so.
Speaker E
00:21:34.020 - 00:21:35.980
Or Batman with 10 minutes to plan.
Speaker A
00:21:35.980 - 00:21:48.500
Yes. Batman, who always has. Well, he doesn't have 10 minutes to plan.
He has five minutes to go look up the plans that he spent obsessively putting together over the last 10 years. Because he's insanely dedicated to everything moving.
Speaker B
00:21:48.500 - 00:21:49.780
From bats to vampires.
Speaker A
00:21:49.780 - 00:23:09.360
I'm a fan of the vampiri. I agree. Anytime you can put a fungal oriented monster into something, I'm very excited by it. I have a biology degree.
I think fungus is really fascinating and also incredibly horror oriented. And I love the idea that they're parasitic space creatures.
I did a little research into some of the later books and they're from like another dimension and it gets really crazy as it goes forward. But I do really like the idea of the fungal spore which eventually develops into this little leech creature that can then escape.
Because from a game point, if the characters don't know that's what they're looking for, it's a super easy way for that bad guy to come back and still be there. Right. Like, it's still the vampire. It's how do you know all these things?
Because I'm the same vampire and you don't know that the vampire is this thing that lives inside of it.
The other thing I liked was that unlike traditional vampires who can build a vampire army very quickly, these guys, they're limited to only ever making one copy of themselves, which I thought was a nice limiting factor so that we didn't end up with like vampire apocalypse instantaneously it made it just that one. Ian, you still have. You still have stuff to say, though, right?
Speaker E
00:23:09.520 - 00:24:07.500
Yeah.
So I actually like the necroscope as a potential variant of the warlock in D and D. I like the idea of that as the place you get your power instead of a patron you pull from the dead, who are happy to hear from you.
And so you could build a warlock subclass based upon this idea, where you can temporarily gain expertise or proficiency in a skill and you obviously can have access to some spells, and you'd make a bespoke list of warlock invocations. Right. That sort of build on this whole idea.
I think it would slide neatly into a place that gives necromancy a spot that is not necessarily evil and horrible in D D, because I think that's one of the problems we see in D D is that the necromancer is always at best a creepy weirdo and usually a bad guy. And I just think it would make a cool class that sort of makes it almost like a medium rather than a necromancer.
Speaker B
00:24:07.500 - 00:24:14.280
There is a subclass in 5e that does something like that, but it's based on the rogue class. It's called the Phantom subclass.
Speaker A
00:24:14.440 - 00:24:16.600
It has the Whispers of the Dead.
Speaker B
00:24:16.600 - 00:24:27.240
Ability, which allows you to gain one skill or tool proficiency after a short or long rest. And then you can choose another one after another shorter long rest, but the other one goes away and the ninth level.
Speaker A
00:24:27.640 - 00:24:29.280
And at ninth level, you can gather.
Speaker B
00:24:29.280 - 00:24:38.040
Tokens of the departed, which allows you to capture a soul at the moment of death and keep it on your person. It has some other benefits, but you.
Speaker A
00:24:38.040 - 00:24:40.890
Can question the person who you've captured.
Speaker B
00:24:40.890 - 00:24:42.330
Before you release it.
Speaker A
00:24:42.410 - 00:24:47.570
The second power is very wampiri in nature, and I could see maybe adding.
Speaker B
00:24:47.570 - 00:24:51.530
In a special feat that might modify this to allow the cultivation of already.
Speaker A
00:24:51.770 - 00:24:53.970
Dead folks to give it more of.
Speaker B
00:24:53.970 - 00:25:04.170
A Henry Keough feel. The subclass even gains a ghost Walk ability, which allows it flight and passing through walls, though not time travel.
I understand why they would have put.
Speaker A
00:25:04.170 - 00:25:05.730
This under the rogue class as the.
Speaker B
00:25:05.730 - 00:25:07.650
Whispers of the dead, especially perfect fit.
Speaker A
00:25:07.650 - 00:25:09.890
For a skill monkey. But I agree with you.
Speaker B
00:25:09.890 - 00:25:11.810
I am the willing dead as a.
Speaker A
00:25:11.810 - 00:25:41.590
Collective patron is way cooler.
And that is one thing that happens in the book is that the dead really like Harry, and that he hears them and speaks to them is very important to them, which I think makes a different approach on the patron process that usually shows up, which is, I am the big, powerful patron. You will do what I tell you. And now this is more of a you're doing us favors so we'll do you favors kind of a thing. All right.
Anything else that anyone wants to take from Necroscope that we haven't already covered?
Speaker C
00:25:41.910 - 00:25:47.030
I would just like to apologize for making my fellow GMs read the book.
Speaker A
00:25:48.870 - 00:26:05.110
Hey, hey, let's. I mean, this was like a British Fantasy Award winner. There are 18 books that are out there. People like this book.
There is no question that there are people out there who are Necroscope fans, because you don't sell 18, you don't come out with 18 books. And it's not good for somebody.
Speaker C
00:26:05.590 - 00:26:14.870
And my recollection of it, it's really liking it. And so I was a little shocked. And I suspect this might be suffering from first book disease.
Speaker A
00:26:15.190 - 00:26:15.550
Right.
Speaker C
00:26:15.550 - 00:26:19.590
And the others might be better, but I wouldn't bet my life on it.
Speaker D
00:26:19.590 - 00:26:27.100
But I was going to say I think it suffers from first book disease in a different way in that this came out, what, in the early 80s or something like that?
Speaker A
00:26:27.490 - 00:26:28.250
Mid-80s? Yeah.
Speaker D
00:26:28.250 - 00:26:42.450
We've covered a lot since then. There's things in here that I'm sure that some prominent authors have stolen. I mean, you can't read this and not think.
Maybe Neil Gaiman read this when he was thinking about the. The graveyard book and some others.
Speaker E
00:26:42.450 - 00:26:54.490
The Strain in particular feels like he just totally ripped off these kinds of vampires. When Del Toro wrote the Strain, that was a bit shocking for me. Like, I was like, I did not realize that Del Toro stole that from somewhere.
But here we are.
Speaker D
00:26:55.040 - 00:27:16.440
That's part of it, is that at the time this came out, these were probably all new, interesting ideas. And that was enough to overcome the poor way in which it moved forward as a story.
And now that we've been exposed to these ideas, there's TV show, popular TV show, where people talk to ghosts. You're sort of like, okay, yeah, he can talk to ghosts. Great. What else have you got for me?
Speaker A
00:27:16.440 - 00:27:44.700
Definitely the medium has progressed in a pretty solid way on vampires since this time before this book in the 1970s is interview with a Vampire by Anne Rice. So there's your really first modern Y kind of sexy vampire that we have.
That's followed by Meredith Anne Pierce's Dark angel trilogy, which is a sci fi vampire. It has a young girl who is our protagonist and our dark angel is the vampire.
Speaker E
00:27:44.780 - 00:27:45.660
Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker D
00:27:45.900 - 00:28:00.400
This is the second time you referred to this as the sexy vampire. The guy, we don't actually even see the vampire. He's buried for all of it. I think I.
And Salem's Lot is more sort of the modern vampire that sort of made. Oh, there's a way of doing these that are interesting.
Speaker A
00:28:00.400 - 00:29:17.200
No, And I agree that the reason why I'm bringing both of these up is both the Dark angel trilogy and the interview with the Vampire predate this necroscope book. And I think the necroscope book is a reaction to this introduction of the sexier vampire to go back to that Nosferatu.
And I think that if we look at vampire popularity throughout various stages of various pieces of media, we see this struggle between, you know, are they psychically powerful because they're horrible creatures who are psychic, or are they psychically powerful because they are charming and seducing and all of that? And I think both of those are big parts of what makes a vampire. And where you fall on that spectrum is kind of interesting. And I.
That's why I keep bringing up the sexy vampire, because I'm like, hey, guys, this book is a reaction to or at least makes a choice, much as Ian and I seem to have made a choice on like, you know, what is the kind of vampire, the story that we want to read most of the time, ugly, dangerous vampire who is a wolf not on my radar. And apparently for Ayin, sexy vampire is not his thing. And that is okay.
And if we decide we want to read a little bit of both, that's all good, but I do think that both of those are there. So speaking of media, Ayin, you've already.
Speaker B
00:29:17.200 - 00:29:20.800
Mentioned the Del Toro movies. Do you have other Necroscope inspired recommendations?
Speaker E
00:29:20.880 - 00:30:27.470
I actually am going to go with a slightly different direction. I want to recommend, if people enjoy this, for the cat and mouse between the KGB and the. In this case it was the British, but the west in general.
There is an absolutely wonderful book called the Main Enemy by Milt Bearden and James Risen. And it is a history of the seventies and eighties Cold War by people that were there and involved in it.
And of course, anytime CIA agents write books about the things they did, you have to take some of the stuff with a grain of salt. But if the.
The espionage part of this story is something that interests people, I would highly recommend they read the Main Enemy because it gives a lot of context to the game that's being played. And if there's anything really good in Necroscope, it's the portrayal of the kgb. I think.
I think the portrayal of the KGB and Russian intelligence in general is actually solid based on what I've read about that subject. Again, the main Enemy is a good place to go. If you wanted to dive deeply into that part of this story, I'd go there.
Speaker A
00:30:27.870 - 00:30:32.230
Sean, do you want to talk about media that you would pair with Necroscope?
Speaker D
00:30:32.230 - 00:31:13.060
I've mentioned the TV show Ghost a couple of times. I think the BPRD Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense, which is the Hellboy.
The early issues of that comic book series definitely get into this notion of the weird and the strange going out and doing work. But I also had another recommendation that's on the Espionage Sandbaggers, which is a British TV show from the late 70s.
It also seems very tied into the actual work of being a spy and the difficulties of knowing what each side is doing. For those of you who may have read Queen and Country by Greg Rutka, he definitely was inspired by that TV show.
Speaker A
00:31:13.060 - 00:31:13.620
Awesome.
Speaker B
00:31:13.700 - 00:31:15.460
I had not heard of Sandbaggers.
Speaker A
00:31:15.460 - 00:31:17.220
I'll add that to my watch. Alex.
Speaker C
00:31:17.540 - 00:32:39.350
On the book side, some of them are both. The Dead Zone by Stephen King has that political psionics, people with powers and dealing with the sort of darker side of that.
And I think the Strange trilogy which we've talked about, both the books and the TV series are excellent representations of this.
As Ayan said, it's like, like almost certain that the Strain was heavily influenced by these books and sort of fantasy ish sci fi ish thing called the Commands by Richard Morgan, which has similar themes as this one.
On the visual side, by the way, I think we've had in the last decade we've had some amazing like 30 days of night, which is a vampire movie set in Alaska that's just really gruesome and really scary and has that sort of feel to it. And there was a series called Midnight Mass which is not even clear what you're dealing with in the beginning, but that has also has that feel to it.
And then for the general Fringe and Stranger Things, I would just throw them in because I think the series Fringe and the series Stranger Things both deal with the emergence of the supernatural into everyday life and dealing with it. So that. That would be my list of things.
Speaker B
00:32:39.430 - 00:32:40.230
That's a great list.
Speaker A
00:32:40.390 - 00:34:32.330
Obviously I'm going to bring up the Chu graphic novels by John Layman, illustrated by Rob Gilroy and they are fantastic. And the RPG is really pretty.
And the book that I think is the Psychic Secret Agency done well is a series called Psy Cop by Jordan Castillo Price and a lot of Secret Service. The main character gets more and more messed up or messianic as occurred in Necroscope.
But Vic, who is our Main character starts out really messed up, and over the course of many books, I think there's. There's more than a dozen books, he actually stabilizes and he becomes a better person, but also a better psychic.
And his life works out during that time period. So if you were interested in a psychic secret agency book, I would recommend the Psychop series by Jordan Castilla Price.
And last but not least, on the completely fun espionage level, I want to mention Killers of a Certain Age by Deanna Raybourne, which is also a period piece, or a lot of it is flashbacks to the 1960s, early 1970s, when the characters are younger. But the conceit of the Killers of a Certain Age is that these are four women who worked for a Nazi hunting agency and they are retiring.
But the museum, the secret group that they work for, wants to take them out and they end up striking back. And it is really a fun thing to watch grandmas kick people's butts.
So as a third book, maybe not as closely related, but if you like spies and you want to see a really cool spy book, I really liked that book as a spy book. The two graphic novels, Psychopath Series by Jordan Castilla Price and Killers of a Certain Age by Deanna Rayborne.
Speaker E
00:34:32.410 - 00:34:37.570
If I may, Eric, I'd like to say one more thing about. About Necroscope in general for our audience, of course.
Speaker A
00:34:37.570 - 00:34:37.890
Yeah.
Speaker E
00:34:37.890 - 00:34:55.450
If our heaping such praise on this book has made you decide that you want to check it out, that's great.
But I do think that it is worth noting for potential readers that there are a couple questionable moments, including domestic abuse and sexual violence in the book. And I just think that people should.
Speaker A
00:34:55.450 - 00:35:32.010
Know that going in absolutely 100% it is a. It is a horror book and some of the things that occur are very horrible. Not necessarily in the body horror or fun vampire kind of way.
But yeah, there are a lot of deeply traumatic things that occur during this book, and some of them are very sexually oriented and some of them are just violent and terrible. So, yes, definite content warning on this book. Okay, gentlemen, we are at the end.
Which means it is time for you to tell people if there is anything happening in your existence that you want to promote. Let's start with Alex. Alex, is there anything you'd like to promote?
Speaker C
00:35:32.330 - 00:35:46.810
Nothing immediate, but I do want to say in next spring, we are going to be having the Rising Phoenix Gaming convention, and anyone interested that'll be happening in somewhere in Central Massachusetts and we would love to have people come.
Speaker A
00:35:46.890 - 00:35:49.850
Awesome. Always good to plug the Rising Phoenix game con.
Speaker B
00:35:50.170 - 00:35:55.040
Coming to Milford, Mass. On April 24 through April 26 in in 2026.
Speaker A
00:35:55.520 - 00:35:58.800
Sean, anything that you're doing that the folks need to know about?
Speaker D
00:35:58.880 - 00:36:13.720
I think by the time this hits those of you who might be interested in another gaming convention. Carnage in Vermont is a convention I've been going to for years and years and intend to go back again this year. I think. Ian, you're going.
Alex, I don't think you are. I don't know.
Speaker C
00:36:13.720 - 00:36:14.960
I might be going this year.
Speaker A
00:36:14.960 - 00:36:16.640
About you Eric, that has not been.
Speaker B
00:36:16.640 - 00:36:19.400
Finalized, so stay tuned to find out.
Speaker A
00:36:19.400 - 00:36:21.330
If the Game Masters Book Club is going to Carnage.
Speaker E
00:36:21.800 - 00:36:40.200
I've got some things simmering on the stove, but too early to talk about.
But as Sean said, I will be at Carnage and so when game signups come up, if you see inl are next to a title of a game, which I think I'm running Daggerheart this year, I think that's what it's going to be. I haven't decided yet, but sign up. Play at my table. It's super fun. I'm awesome.
Speaker B
00:36:41.960 - 00:36:47.640
And that's our discussion of Brian Lumley's necroscope. Just a quick note. Al Jackal's feed dropped out for a.
Speaker A
00:36:47.640 - 00:36:49.580
Second when he was recommending the Cold.
Speaker B
00:36:49.580 - 00:37:59.760
Commands by Richard Morgan, part of a Land Fit for Hero series. Sorry for the inconvenience.
You can find a complete transcript of today's discussion as well as links to all of our podcasts@k-square productions.com GMBC.
You can learn about upcoming episodes on our social media on bluesky at gmbookclub bluesky Social, on Facebook at gamebook Masters Book Club and on Instagram Amasters Book Club. You've been listening to the Game Masters Book Club brought to you by me, Eric Jackson and K Square Productions.
Thanks again to our Game Masters and totally not Undid overlords Ian Eller, Sean Murphy and Alex Jackl. Look for them to return again when the Game Masters Book Club reads Borne by Jeff Vandemeer.
Continued praise and thanks to John Corbett for the podcast artwork and Otis Galloway for our music. Be sure to check out our next episode when three new Game Masters, Jason Keeley, Keren Form and Rob Chimarco explore the alternate timeline.
Lit Tech Sci Fi book the Air Affair by Jasper Ford. Later gamers and to paraphrase the great Terry Pratchett, always try to be the place where the falling angel meets the rising ape.