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This is a repeat of a bundle previously offered in August 2023, featuring "Chthonstone Games horror-fantasy RPG of dungeon incursions from the Realm of Nightmares." which I then described as follows: '...another "old school" fantasy offer in which the idea is to face the adventurers with deadly nightmares, which might be considered 'Monsters from the Id' except that they are real for game purposes and dangerous. But hey, you can kill them and loot their stuff, so maybe it isn't all bad...'

 

https://bundleofholding.com/presents/25Nightmares

  

Last time I went on to say "I'm REALLY not the target audience for this one, I think. I've pretty much given up on straight fantasy RPGs. Other games have done the dream thing before, and in my opinion have done it better. But as usual your opinion may differ." I really don't see any reason to change that.

This is another horror bundle featuring Ghastly Affair, the "Gothic Game of Romantic Horror in the fevered age of Marie-Antoinette and Napoleon." 

https://bundleofholding.com/presents/Ghastly

  

This one is quite interesting, although it does have its origins in systems that put numbers on everything - I'm a little boggled that these include stats for Death and for Lucifer. it's primarily focused on Gothic horror, but claims a lot of other things as inspiration including Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Supernatural, etc. - a list of fictional characters that might be inspirational puts Faith Lehane immediately after Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter. It has quite a lot about weird science and weirder magic, horrible illnesses (including several that often get overlooked in RPGs, such as rabies), and period architecture - the last is there because a major theme of Gothic horror was strange crumbling manors and their denizens. While the military history of the era is mentioned in the timeline, it's mostly there as background, and this isn't the game you want if you want to re-enact Sharpe or Master and Commander. On the other hand, it would work very well for ideas like a Napoleonic-era version of The Beguiled and other war-adjacent dramas.

The bottom line is that you get a huge amount very cheaply, and it's full of ideas that could be useful for any game or fiction with similar themes. This is one I definitely recommend, but I should really add a disclaimer that I sometimes forget - I get to download this stuff free, if you don't your mileage may vary.

Another Bundle of Holding offer: the Huckleberry Bundle, featuring the "mythic Wyrd West RPG about tragic cowboys in a world doomed to calamity."

https://bundleofholding.com/presents/Huckleberry




This basically seems to be cowboys (and other interested parties) in a world full of chaotic monsters. I don't think it's really a game that interests me much, but it's well-presented and you get quite a lot for your money, It's just not a genre I particularly like.

Seeing this makes me suspect that we are now in the run-up to Halloween with these offers, which usually means a lot of horror.