The Crooked Nail

by Brandon Hodge

TB1: The Crooked Nail

For decades, Theatre Infernalis offered shocking and frightful entertainment to customers who entered its gaping demonic facade and saw a frightful portrait of the eternal torments that await all sinners. Now rumours tell of the agin and supposedly-cursed proprietor's deteriorating health and the theatre's impending sale, and the Artists' Quarter has been abuzz with those seeking one final fright with a walk through the crucible-licked walls of the infernal house of the macabre before its final curtain call. But are the theatre's smoke-and-mirrors and cheap scares hiding a truly wicked secret? What is the nature of the curse and illness that afflict the owner? And did foul and profane rites once take place between its walls that outside forces now seek to exploit? What happens when the spookshow's fun and games transform into a terrifying reality, threatening to spill forth an infernal malevolence onto the streets of the Blight?

The Crooked Nail is a stand-alone introductory adventure set in The Blight for 4-6 1st-level characters.

37 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2017

About the author

By day, Brandon Hodge owns and operates Monkey See, Monkey Do! toy store and the world-famous Big Top Candy Shop in Austin, Texas. When night arrives, he retrieves his pen and puts nightmares to paper as a freelance writer and historian specializing in the esoteric and occult. Brandon's award-winning writing and game design credits include works from Kobold Press and Paizo Publishing. He is author of the critically-acclaimed adventures From Shore to Sea, Feast of Ravenmoor, Rasputin Must Die!, and The House on Hook Street, and served as Creative Consultant on Paizo's Occult Adventures rulebook.

The demented twists he brings to the gaming industry can perhaps best be explained with his extracurricular hobbies: when he isn't writing, he brings curses home with him collecting ouija boards, haunted antiques, planchettes, and other Spiritualist-related items, and displays his world-class planchette collection on his website, www.mysteriousplanchette.com. Brandon’s research on Spiritualism history has appeared in the pages of the Smithsonian Magazine, and his popular Ghosts in the Machines column appears every quarter in the pages of Paranormal Review, the Magazine for the Society for Psychical Research.

Brandon is a respected lecturer in the occult history field, and has loaned his expertise as on-air talent for dozens of popular radio and television programs, including a segment featuring his séance artifact collection on Science Channel’s hit show Oddities. Brandon also appeared on Travel Channel's Ouija-related "Patience Worth" episode of Mysteries at the Museum. In addition, he makes frequent guest appearances in both print interviews and popular radio shows, and has contributed artifacts to a number of museum exhibits, including the Let the Spirit Move You exhibit at the Baltimore Museum of Industry, the MIA's Supernatural America exhibit, and the Peabody Museum's Conjuring the Spirit World exhibition.

Brandon is currently working on a picturesque coffee-table book on the subject of spirit communication devices from their early beginnings to their modern equivalents. Titled "Talking Tables & Scribbling Spirits: A Complete History of Spirit Communication Tools," the book is slated for publication in the near future, and includes the most in-depth historical research ever performed on talking boards.

Brandon lives in the historic Hyde Park neighborhood in Austin, Texas, with two imps disguised as children, Jack and Elliot, and their innumerable pet ghosts.