I’ve been to Dragonmeet several times, but this year was a special one. This year was the first time I had something all of my own to show off and talk about (even if I didn’t have it to sell just yet), and I had every intent to make a spectacle of myself. Uh, in a good way. 

I’ll leave all the details of my prep work till later, let’s start with something less dry — the games! I was scheduled to run three games of Il Fantasma del Giallo over the Saturday. A morning game (through Dragonmeet itself), scheduled to last up to four hours; and two afternoon games at Indie Games on the Hour, scheduled to last up to two hours each. 

For my morning game I awoke at 6:30am, picked up my carefully packed briefcase full of handouts, goodie bags, and various other paraphernalia, and headed out the door. I then swiftly realised I’d forgotten to do one or two things, including “pick up your phone when you leave the tube from Hammersmith to Paddington”. Whoops. Some time later, after a diversion to King’s Cross to pick up my phone, which had fortunately been handed in fully intact with all of my property in place, I arrived at the Excel centre only 15 minutes later than intended. 

The first game was a fairly optimal setup, for my purposes. Five players, and only one of them had ever seen or heard of any Giallo films. Ideal, genuinely! I’m running as much as possible with people utterly unfamiliar, to ensure the system works even in those situations. 

For all of these games I prepared five pre-genned Actor sheets, and a basic premise for their film: the events in and around a new high-class restaurant just opening in the heart of Rome, The Pale Horse. For the morning game, as I had more time, I had the players quickly generate a Role for their Actor to play while within the film. For the afternoon sessions I wrote up some Roles on the tube on the way over. If you’re reading this and you were in one of the games, forgive me if I get your Role’s name wrong! I’ll be making up new ones where I can’t remember, as I don’t have the character sheets anymore, you do. Hopefully, unless they’re in a bin at the Excel, which I entirely support as a choice. 

Death Serves 7 – Original Cut

For the morning production of Death Serves 7, our cast was:

• Archie Hume as Chief Inspector Forni, a domineering presence who fancies himself as a “supercop”, but in practice is anything but. (The Don)
• Leo Stuhr as Max, a street hustler who’s also an informant for the local police, and goes out of his way to gather useful information (The Inquisitor).
• Lili Peretti as Rachel Novelli, a rival restaurateur who hopes to replace The Pale Horse with a grander establishment of her own. (The Visionary)
• Henriette Bedeker as Miriam, a middle-aged woman with a collapsing marriage and a humdrum life. Even doing a post-graduate degree failed to revitalise things, and so she’s preparing to interview for a job at The Pale Horse. (The Downtrodden)
• Bill Stubing as Bruno, the head chef of The Pale Horse and restaurant owner. A bully of a man with mob ties. (The Crook)

Our film opens at the opening night of The Pale Horse. Inspector Forni is sat at a corner booth, surveying the various well-to-dos and local bigwigs mingling over the hors d’oeuvres and fancy wine. Rachel Novelli sits on the other side of the restaurant, making notes in a jotter and smirking. The camera transitions into the kitchen, where Chef Bruno is berating the staff over every minor mistake and inefficiency; and Miriam is sat in the corner, wearing an ill-fitting, long out of fashion blazer and skirt, anxiously awaiting her interview with the man currently throwing malformed canapes at the sous chef. The camera heads back out into the restaurant, and a mysterious figure in a black trenchcoat and hat walks in. We can’t see his face, but we follow his back into a shadowy corner table, where he sits and talks with Max, who looks concerned. The restaurant hubbub is too loud to hear what they’re saying. Miriam totters out into the restaurant in a hastily donned waitress outfit. She attempts to take Rachel’s order, but not having even looked at the menu yet, makes a wild guess and offers her “toast.” 

Suddenly, a woman screams. One of the paintings – one of six placed around the room – is leaking blood slowly onto their table, dripping from behind the canvas. Pandemonium breaks out, and a group of concerned citizens quickly tear the painting from the wall, showering the patrons with plaster and dust. When the dust clears, we finally see a twisted corpse in a crude alcove that’s been bludgeoned into the wall at some point. Its joints are stiff, its skin sallow, its expression twisted. The tattered painting, which depicted a white horse bleeding out on a checkerboard floor, lies in bloody strips on the floor.

Later, when the restaurant has been cleared, Forni interviews Bruno in the kitchen. The chef is insistent that he doesn’t know whose body it is, or who might have put it there. The inspector grills him, threatening to mess up the man’s criminal connection, a mobster known as “Tony”, if he doesn’t at least tell him who painted the pictures. Bruno tries to claim that he doesn’t know,  but after some coercion admits that it was Sandra Novelli, the sister of Rachel Novelli, a rival restaurateur.

We cut next to a squalid prison cell. Max, Miriam, and Rachel have been thrown into a cell, clearly disused due to the pile-up of cleaning products and boxes. Their only other companion is a large muscular character in a tank top, currently snoring loudly on the cell’s only mattress. “Fancy my luck,” Rachel remarks. “Stuck in a cell with Miss. Toast.” 

The two women quickly start pestering Max, a man of obviously criminal enterprise who was having dinner with a strange man in a trenchcoat.. Max is tightlipped, until Miriam receives an intervention of fate. She yells out for an officer, so as to try and make good on her weak threat to make up some crime to pin on Max, only for the man to be an old school boyfriend. The officer is happy to help, yelling out to the sleeping man (who is, in fact, a police officer sleeping off the night shift) to ‘take care’ of Max should he not be cooperative. Max spills that the man was Father Francis, a childhood friend from the streets who took a different path, becoming a priest. 

After their release, Rachel and Miriam make their way over to The Pale Horse, hoping to find something that the police might have missed and clear any suspicion from themselves. Once there, Rachel quickly realises that the corpse is, in fact, her sister Sandra! They check her tightly bunched fists and find a white knight chess piece. Upstairs, in the restaurant back-office, Inspector Forni is attempting to crack open a safe with the help of a lackey of his, Maurice, a friend of Bruno’s who knows where the safe is hidden. After some cycling of notable dates, Forni opens the safe and retrieves some documents that disclose his under-the-table stake in the place, facilitated by a local mob family. However, in opening the safe, a valuable yet fragile object that was leaning against the door falls out and smashes. 

Believing that the killer is upstairs waiting for them, Miriam and Rachel lay an ambush outside the office door — the former with a meat cleaver retrieved from the kitchen, the latter with a heavy vase. The door opens, but Miriam hesitates, and Forni heads back in, clearly having forgotten something. Rachel loses patience and barges her way in, throwing the vase at the nearest shape she sees. The shape happened to be Officer Maurice, who takes the vase hard in the back of the head, falling forward and banging his temple on the hard edge of an office desk. Forni pulls his gun, but Miriam charges at him, and after a brief struggle hacks him to pieces. The policeman’s final attempt at a dramatic soliloquy, an interjection by Archie Hume who perhaps was eager to pad his part, his cut off by bloody gurgles. The two women take in the bloody scene, realising too late their mistake. 

The next morning, after getting released from prison, Max has a brief (and frustrating) conversation with his wife, who came to bail him out, before going to the church to tell Father Francis of the potential danger. He arrives to find Francis packing his bags. He’s already heard about the murder, and worries that he’s going to be under suspicion. Bruno had tailed Max to the scene, and barges in, confronting both about their suspicious behaviour. Before the argument can fully percolate, a series of gunshots blasts through the opposite door into the priest’s office, and a masked, trenchcoated figure kicks his way in, brandishing a revolver. The priest dives under his desk, retrieving an old army rifle and tremulously ordering the killer out, to little effect. The killer threatens Bruno, who thinks he recognises the voice of Miriam behind the mask, which throws them off. They shoot Francis through the chest, and drag him out. Max sprints off before Bruno can ask him any questions. 

Later, Bruno, Miriam and Rachel have managed to follow Francis’ blood trail back to The Pale Horse, where Max is finishing murdering a trenchcoated figure — a woman. He turns and smiles, explaining the woman is his now late wife whom he had convinced to help provide an alibi. Soon he’ll have finished his magnum opus – the perfect murder. All his life, he just wanted to get one over on everybody. And now he has. He gestures across the room, where all the paintings have been torn down. Behind the first, the knight, Sandra. The second, the king, Inspector Forni. The third, the pawn, Officer Maurice. The fourth, the rook, Tony the mobster. The fifth, the bishop, Father Francis, and finally sixth, the queen, empty and ready for Max’s wife. 

Bruno raises the gun — Francis’ rifle that had been dropped when he was shot — and tells him that he won’t let him get away with this. Max smiles. “I know. I’m seventh. I’m the grandmaster.” Bruno pulls the trigger.

FIN. Credits.

———————————

Happy to say that everyone really enjoyed the game, and I handed out my little gift baggies that I prepared for players and various people I like. In each there’s one of my (genuinely lovely) cards, an IFdG sticker, and a 3D printed bust of The Killer himself. 

After a zombie-like shuffle around the shop floor, where I handed out some more baggies to my fave people, I scarfed down some lunch and headed over to Indie Games on the Hour for my second game. I wanted to start with a very similar opening scene as well as the same core premise, thankfully things diverted very swiftly after that.

Death Serves 7 – The Director’s Cut

Let’s meet our cast again.

• Archie Hume as Gian Fabrizi, known just as “Chef” at The Pale Horse, a demanding and abrasive boss with a cowardly streak, like many bullies.
• Leo Stuhr as Sergio Pacilio, an insurance investigator. Neurotic yet rigorous, Sergio is closeted and has a gay lover he’s deeply insecure about. He’s finalising The Pale Horse’s various paperwork.
• Lili Peretti as Joanie Galete, an enigmatic and ethereal painter, with a fascination for creating scenes of violence. She painted seven strange, oddly S&M-y works for the restaurant.  
• Henriette Bedeker as Betty Fitzwilliam, a frustrated failed novelist who is working as a waitress at The Pale Horse to make ends meet.
• Bill Stubing as Lucio Mondadori, a low-ranking mob soldier who makes protection pickups from the restaurant. His tough exterior belies a soft heart, something his brother and boss Sal continually ribs him for.

Our film opens at the opening night of The Pale Horse, once again. Chef Fabrizi is in the kitchen, berating the staff, including Betty, who apparently took the wrong plate to a table for the third time. She seems distracted and bored. Pacilio is in the office next to the kitchen, leafing through paperwork and nervously checking the door. He’s found something interesting. Out in the restaurant, Joanie is standing near one of her paintings, curiously watching the reactions of the punters as they observe her macabre efforts. Lucio Mondadori enters the restaurant with a swagger, but his fidgeting belies his discomfort with the “hard man” image. 

Suddenly, a woman screams. One of the paintings – one of seven placed around the room – is leaking blood onto the floor, dripping from behind the canvas. The painting is of religious punishment scene, dripping with sado-masochism. A priest is tied up against a wall, while a domineering woman whips his back. A group of concerned citizens quickly tear the painting from the wall, showering the patrons with plaster and dust. Behind, a man is pinned to the wall in exactly the same pose as the priest, his back awash with blood and ripped fabric. He is dead. Lucio yells out that he knows that man, it’s his brother, Sal!

As the camera zooms out, observing the crowd watching, Joanie is standing in a very similar position and pose to the woman in the painting…

We cut to the kitchen later in the night, where police inspector Crespi has kept the staff behind to question. Chef Fabrizi is serving out the leftover food to anyone who might still be around, to avoid wasting his masterpieces. The chef insists that he does not know the man they found behind the painting, but Crespi points out that he was one of the co-owners. Eventually Fabrizi relents and admits that he knew him, but he has no idea who the other main co-owner is. Meanwhile Lucio and Joanie are in the restaurant, inspecting the other paintings. Lucio seems reluctant to damage any more of them, but Joanie gleefully takes a knife to one her own creations — this time an orgy scene — and finds a second body: Pacilio’s lover, strangely also called Fabrizi. 

The next morning, Chef Fabrizi is burning papers in the alleyway outside the restaurant. Inspector Crespi confronts him, and gets the man to admit that Fabrizi is a fake name – his real name is Jack Fletcher. Sal had someone give them all fake names, claiming that it would help with tax avoidance and result in higher wages for all of them.

Before the cops can get to him first, Lucio decides to track down Pacilio. He drags him to a local mob owned bar for answers about what happened to his boyfriend. Lucio starts off pleasant, but escalates to intimidating Pacilio by breaking a glass in his own hand. Pacilio gets scared and makes a run for the exit, but clownishly trips over a bar stool. Wanting to avoid any violence, Pacilio spills that Betty was a friend of Sal’s, and it was she who gave all the staff fake names. In fact, she’s the only one other than Sal who knew the name of the other co-owner. We have a brief scene afterwards in Betty’s apartment, where she seems distraught over losing her friend and meal ticket. 

Late at night, Pacilio creeps into the restaurant to try and find that interesting document he was eying at the start of the film. He’s ambushed by Joanie, who had been sitting in the shadows, staring at one of her paintings with a vacant expression. She snatches the letter he found, and we learn that Betty was the other co-owner! 

The next day, our cast of characters convenes at the restaurant to ask Betty about how she’s involved, and find a lavish meal waiting for them. She tells them that they still had leftovers, so they can talk over dinner. They sit down and eat, but Betty seems confused — Sal was just helping her to get a book deal provided she did some odd jobs for him, perhaps he just put her name down for tax dodging reasons? 

Within minutes, everyone but Betty is dead. She gets out a toolbox. 

Some hours later, the characters are posed behind the final painting, a twisted scene of gluttony and debauchery. She picks up an unfinished glass of wine, the only item of food or drink that Joanie had touched, and finishes it in one gulp. She smiles, and settles herself in the final slot behind the painting, at the head of the table. 

It’s all over now. She’s made her masterpiece. 

FIN. Credits.

Prep Work

So now to the drier stuff. I didn’t have any stall rental or stock expenses this time, as I had nothing in particular I wanted to sell just yet. Instead I focused on making an impression, and starting to build a recognisable brand.

I put together my Killer costume with a collection of items from Vinted and a pack of cheap tights. Aside from just putting on the ensemble, all I did was tear a single eyehole in the tights and glue it shut to prevent running. 

Next was my handouts and promo materials. I made a business card design using the first bit of major Fantasma key-art and various other assets, and wrote up some game handouts. I’m also a mark so when ordering the business cards I got successfully upsold to buy a couple of sheets of stickers with the same design. Turns out the stickers are way too small to showcase the design properly, but it’s still a neat thing to include in my goodie bags.

I put a lot of effort into the layout for the handouts, partly because I’m a strong believer that the best way to be seen as a legitimate, professional project is to look like one from as early a point as possible. But mostly I did so because it’s a great opportunity to do a trial run for the final book layout. I made a few different mockups in different styles, and ran with the one that spoke to me the most, which ended up being the one based on the 60s/70s posters that typically featured a piece of art in a white border, with text mostly on the border rather than the art.

Unfortunately the whole printing enterprise was a nightmare. Due to various reasons, I had very little time to get everything together, and had to go with a local print shop I wasn’t confident about. While they did turn it around in a very short time span, their prices were high and their communications were bad. I requested a reduction in copies when I realised I had misspoke in my initial order. They were happy to oblige, but never told me how much the refund would be. I only learned that the refund was £16 off a £130 bill when I went by to pick up my copies. And may I note that if I had paid that extra £16, I would have gone from 65 copies to 140. 

A lesson was learned, regardless.

I had a final thing I wanted to get together for the con, provided I had time to do so. My art workflow for this project is based around a range of 3D “actors” under a custom shader. All the sculpts and shaders are my own, so as I have a 3D printer, it’s a ripe opportunity for physical handouts. 

I made a little bust stand, complete with label and company name, for my Killer sculpt, and printed about 30 of them. I intended to give away about 15 to the players of my three scheduled games, and the rest to people I liked/people who took a strong interest. Even though I only ran two games, I managed to hand out all but three of them.

I’m planning on doing another run of these based on different character archetypes, so if you play a game at a con, or if I know and like you already, you might get one yourself. 

Swag

Not much time or money to spend on other people’s stuff this year! But did manage to pick up a copy of Wreck This Deck by Becky Annison (Black Armada) and Rosewood Abbey by Kalum (The Rolistes).

The Verdict

Overall I’d say that the event was a success, even if the amount I got out of it in the short term likely doesn’t match what I put into it, which was about £200 and a lot of effort. But that’s genuinely fine, it’s part of a process, one that I intend to see through. Even if I had never gone to the event itself, it was all worth it for the amount that I got done in my work frenzy in the weeks leading up to it.