Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin. The Woods at Blight's Hollow is a folk horror tabletop roleplaying game of mystery and imagination illustrated by Corey Brickley (Penguin, Disney, Harper Collins) and written by Oli Jeffery (Quietus, Extreme Meatpunks Forever, Trophy). It concerns the children of Blight’s Hollow, an isolated village surrounded by a trackless forest in a time before electricity and radio, a world of hearthside tales and nights to be feared. Inspired by the works of Guillermo Del Toro, Angela Carter, The Brothers Grimm, Kirsty Logan and Mary Shelley amongst others, this is a tabletop roleplaying game of the darkest fairy tales and the queerest folk-horror. For more devilish information, see our Kickstarter Page at https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/sinisterbeard/the-woods-at-blights-hollow-folk-horror-and-fairy-tales-rpg
This post is for backers only. Please visit Kickstarter.com and log in to read.
This post is for backers only. Please visit Kickstarter.com and log in to read.
While work continues on the art and writing for the game, here's an excerpt from our stretch-goal introduction by the wonderful Kirsty Logan: Fairytales Bleed.
Here's what's missing in almost every fairytale-inspired work: weirdness. The unapologetic, straight-faced, batshit, entirely logical weirdness. Fairytales are abrupt, bloody, bawdy – and very, very weird.
Horror and fairytales are my bag, and the combination of the two is perfection to me. I've read, watched and played a lot – like, a lot – of fairytale-inspired works, many of them with a generous dollop of creepy if not out-and-out horror. I've written quite a few too, as novels, as short stories, as poems, as performance pieces. Way back in the dark ages, I even wrote my undergraduate thesis on retold fairytales and their potential for subversion.
Along with everyone creating and consuming in this space, I'm indebted to the novelist and short story writer Angela Carter. Her 1979 story collection, The Bloody Chamber, revolutionised the way we think, talk and write about fairytales, particularly from a feminist perspective. Everyone exploring fairytales, folktales and folk horror in the modern day owes a credit to Carter.
The Bloody Chamber includes tales that most readers will be familiar with, as well as some more obscure stories: 'Bluebeard' (a bride finds the corpses of her new husband's murdered wives and narrowly avoids her own murder), 'Beauty and the Beast' (a father trades his daughter to a beast, and her love transforms him human again), 'Little Red Riding Hood' (a girl visiting her sickly grandmother in the woods is waylaid by a hungry, sly wolf), 'Puss in Boots' (a tricksy cat gains power, wealth and a bride for his low-born master), 'Sleeping Beauty' (a cursed girl pricks her finger and sleeps for 100 years, waking to a prince's kiss), 'The Erlking' (a child is killed by the supernatural king of the fairies), and 'The Snow-Child' (an unfaithful wife says she was impregnated by a snowflake; her husband sells the baby boy into slavery and says he melted in the heat).
So much death! So much violence! So much horror! The corpses of nameless women and children litter the landscape of fairytales. In these stories, human life is loosely held and easily lost.
Fairytales are horror. They can also be farces, jokes, tragedies, quests, morality tales, and (only very occasionally) romances. Sometimes they're just a big mish-mash of bizarre things that don't follow on logically at all, and are impossible to sum up.
The full version of Fairytales Bleed will be included in the book when it comes out later this year!
Farewell, and until next time, remember to leave milk and bread out for your local Piskies.
Love, The Blight's Hollow team.
Hello and welcome, blessed denizens of Blight's Hollow.
Production and development on the game continues to go well - a lot of it has been very boring business and production stuff to do with printers and shipping and the like, but writing and art also continues apace. We're hoping to have a nearly-production ready draft finished by the end of next month.
Gamelstienen is a troll that has lived in the woods surrounding the Hollow for longer than anyone still breathing can remember, and while he's dangerous, there has always been an understanding between him and the townsfolk that if they stay out of each others' way, no harm shall come to either of them. But recently, something has driven him out of the forest, and the farms of Blight's Hollow are taking the brunt of his anger.
He's brought some friends with him too! The Acorn Folk, somewhere between a goblin and a hermit crab, have invaded the town and are planting their children in every patch of dirt and plant pot they can find. Soon they'll be everywhere.
See you for more news in February!
Remember to leave out milk and bread for the piskies.
The Blight's Hollow Team
What a fantastic last few days of the campaign! Thank you so much to everyone who backed, shared or prayed to the dark gods of the forest to make this project happen. We couldn't be more thrilled.
Right now, we're going to celebrate, and once that's done, we'll continue what we've be doing for the last year, working on the book!
We're committing to a minimum of one update around the start of each month until the project's fully delivered (this one counts for December as that's tomorrow). If we have news to share between monthly updates - we will!
Come join us to chat all things Blight's Hollow on the Sinister Beard Games discord (https://discord.gg/xUfnCsay) and until next time remember, Praise The Crowned Man But Don't Look At Him Directly.