From issue #86 (June 1984) of Dragon comes one of the first advertisements for Pacesetter's horror RPG, Chill, that I ever saw. The accompanying artwork, by the late, great Jim Holloway, is quite effective, though it's a bit unclear where the mutton-chopped fellow is standing. Is he standing in an open grave? If so, where's that sinister hand coming from? If he's not, where are the gentleman's legs? So many questions!
I think the idea is he fell prone -- probably tripped running -- and as he's starting to push himself up on hands and elbows, the hand erupts from the ground in front of him.
ReplyDeleteThat could well have been the intention – though his posture still looks odd to me.
DeleteI think you're both right -- he's meant to be lying on his chest, but the angle of his shoulders is wrong. They're not thrust forward like they should be, but vertical, giving the impression that he's buried up to his armpits.
DeleteAs I look on it again, I wonder if this was some sort of composite image, where they took a shocked figure from one piece of art, or even farther out on the same piece of art, and imposed the erupting hand over it so that it would be more compact for an ad.
DeleteAh Chill. The red-headed stepchild to Call of Cthulhu. I did buy the game rules and some supplements for Chill back in the day, but compared to CoC, I thought it fell short. To me, CoC is like John Carpenter's The Thing, while Chill is like Fright Night. Bot scary in their own right, but I prefer cosmic horror to well...standard horror.
ReplyDeleteI was really excited when Chill came out – strangely enough, Call of Cthulhu didn't appeal to much at the time (not enough action I suppose). So I remember some fun games of Chill. I still have my original box and have since bought all the modules they released for that first edition. Haven't played since back in the day though. I might give it another go; after all, we just played a series of Star Frontiers games that ended up being huge fun.
ReplyDeleteI think “Monster Bashing” could be fun, if done right. However, I’ve never been particularly drawn to games where the characters work for some higher person/patron/organization, it just lays the tracks for the railroad.
ReplyDeleteI always thought the tv series, Supernatural, lended itself well to a ttrpg premise (setting aside the heaven vs hell meta-plot). A small group of “Hunters”, checking-out various leads, investigating, possibly researching a solution, and ultimately kicking some ass. No higher organization handing down missions. It could be very “sand boxy”, with a loose network of potential allies and support-types.
Hmmm…. Maybe I should look into the licensing?
I always figured he'd fallen through the ground straight down into a ghoul tunnel. Love this image. Only ever got to play Chill once and it was a good time.
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