Eldritch Appendix N

Some other blogger are posting their own personal Appendix N’s either for their home campaigns or for their releases. So I figured that I would jump onto the wagon and hitch a ride! Eldritch Shadows (formerly Basic Modern) is very fairly formed from my childhood in the 80s and 90s and as such is heavily influenced by television Shows that existed at the time.

1. Beyond Reality

I watched this between the ages of 10 and 11 on USA network and from it gained one of my first crushes in Nichole DeBoer (Otherwise known as Ezri Dax of DS9). The show’s mix of investigations and weird paranormal stuff that wasn’t as overly dark or science-y as X-Files really matched with my likes and has kept with me since. This is one show that I wish hulu or netflix would actually pick up so I could watch it.

2. Poltergeist: The Legacy

For a year in the mid-90s my family had Showtime. This show and SG-1 were the main draws for me and I would typically race to watch every new episode I could. I was really drawn again to the “hidden” supernatural world and the team aspects of the show. Luckily for those of us in the States the show is available on Hulu.

3. Simon R. Green’s Ghost Finders Series

A relatively recent addition, the Ghost Finder’s series has the witty dailogue and brisk pace I’ve come to appreciate about Green’s style. The series about a group of trendy, witty Paranormal Investigators who gripe about everything under the sun was one of the main pushes to finally get me to start thinking of modern paranormal roleplaying games.

4. Kolchak: The Night Stalker

When I was really little we lived in a farmhouse that was converted into an apartment in the middle of nowhere (honestly the place should have been condemned). As such cable was impossible and the days of satellite receivers NOT being the size of mini-vans was still years away. We got 2 channels on the antenna receiver and one of them player 2 episodes of Kolchak every day during the summer (right after Bewitched). I’ve heard stories of British children hiding behind sofas during Doctor Who … well this was my Doctor Who. In 2005 they remade it with slick and sexy people … it was horrible.

5.Dark Matter Novels

I’ve spoken before of how much I love TSR/WOTC’s Dark Matter setting but truth be told I never played it. Until the d20 Modern version of the setting I never owned it and until e-bay I never saw the Alternity version of the setting. What I did have were the three novels released by WOTC in the early 2000s. I’ve read this books about 10 times each and with each reading am reminded how cool this would have been to play in! A setting where all the conspiracies are real, aliens, ghosts, Altanis, ancient relic machines … makes me wish that the final 2 novels would have seen a paperback release instead of a digitial only released (stupidly back when people needed to be glued to a computer to read it*).