We’re back and we’re smothering ourselves in garlic. While we’ve been assured this will protect us from vampires, we’re wondering if it might just make us more appetising to cannibals. Getting chopped up and roasted in an oven doesn’t seem anywhere near as sexy as a vampiric love bite, but maybe vampires just have better PR.

Main Topic: The Appeal of Vampires

This episode sees us enter the shadowy world of the undead. The vampire is arguably the definitive monster of the horror genre, but our fanged friends have so much more to offer. We discuss some of our favourite vampires from myth, fiction, and film, ranging from feral monsters to tragic antiheroes, and how they might inform our gaming. And while we don’t necessarily think of vampires as key to Call of Cthulhu, we discuss their place there too.

Our Guest Host

We are delighted to welcome back Josephine McAdam! As well as her many, many actual play appearances on series like LA By Night and Eclipse RPG, Josephine is an actor who has appeared in horror films such as The Mortuary Collection and Scare Package. You can find her streaming regularly on Twitch, and on various social media platforms, as JCVIM. You will also be able to see Josephine touring the UK later this year with Chaosium, playing live games of Call of Cthulhu.

News

A Weekend With Good Friends

Summer 2025 will see the return of A Weekend With Good Friends! This, of course, is the online convention organised by our lovely listeners, taking place on the Good Friends Discord server.

Key dates are:

GM signups: 23rd of April – 7th of May
Player signups: 22nd of May – 5th of June
A Weekend With Good Friends: 13th – 15th of June

Games and panels will run throughout the weekend.

We shall share more details are they become available.

Good Friends Book Club

If you enjoy the kinds of books we mention on the podcast, you may be interested in the book club hosted by Patrick on The Good Friends of Jackson Elias Discord server. Selections so far have included novels, short story collections, themed anthologies, classics of the genre, and unapologetic pulp. The club meets monthly, usually around the start of the month, but there is lively discussion in the weeks leading up to that. Definitely worth looking into if you like talking about horror anywhere near as much as we do.

This month’s selection is the collection A Sunny Place for Shady People by Mariana Enríquez.