The Magic of Cinema Forever

Well, the subject of my last post may be a hopeless cause.  Here is a cause that is near and dear to my heart and that has better prospects of being successful:
The best video store in the world, although they don't give out free beer. has started a Kickstarter to become a non-profit.  It looks like they're going to make their goal.  I'll be delighted if they do.
For preservation of legal access to copyrighted material I can't say it better than Outlaw Vern

OK, but this is a gaming blog, sooo....

d24 things from the film Saragossa Manuscript to add to your DnD:

1. Soldiers on opposites sides both enraptured by a marvelous book in the middle of a battle.
2. Ghost haunted inn in a desolate mountain pass, master suite is carved into rock, half cave and half immaculate carved rock.
3. Soldiers arguing with their commanding officer, playing a crazy lute thing and wearing ginormeous cummerbunds.
4. Hangmen on a gibbet with a vulture and piles of bones.
5.  Emina and Zibelda sisters from a foreign land, want to marry protagnist, but he must obey the Prophets Law, can only see them in his dreams and drink from a skull chalice.
6. A guy loses a duel then gives his soul to the devil, then lives and gets married.
7.  Ladies say fruit is bad for you.
8. There’s a guy missing an eye, you find out later zombie gypsies ate it.
9. Zombies/spirits try to talk a guy into coming outside so they can get him but he’s safe in the chapel.
10. The Spanish Inqusition!
11.  Zota the bandit stages a rescue.
12. A guy stuck in a crazy devil mask.
13. Things happen then wakng up by the gibbet again and again groundhog day style.
14.  A friendly Cabalist who tells of: Nach-Sou-Chasi, Chaldean knowledge,  Shir-Ha-Shi-Mir, magic words/numbers, how Adonai made the world with a word, Setir-So-Har, Pandemonium.
15. Some people can distinguish between Hungarian and Polish zombies.
16. “oh yeah, I just happen to have a castle in the neighborhood” not an actual quote, but it happens.
17.  “Good company is more precious than wealth or black magic.” Actual quote.
18. “You have books here, all the wisdom in the world is to be found on these shelves.” Another actual quote.
19. A guy in a story in a book finds the book he’s in a story in.  
20. When an old gypsy starts to tell his story a guy with a big ass spanish guitar sits down behind him an starts playing.
21. A cool gypsy in a wide brim hat just chillin on some stone lions on the town square till a rich guy pays him to spy on his wife.
22. A guy’s friend dies and he visits him as a thunderstorm to tell him about the afterlife.
23. “only an uneducated man who sees a thing everyday thinks he understands it.  A true researcher proceeds among riddles.  He errs but he gets nearer his goal every day.”
24. A fortune telling whore and another who smokes big cigars.

This list is only a tiny tiny fraction of the game worthy elements of this movie, including the whole story-within-a-story-within-a-story premise.  You could base a campaign on this movie!

I found this movie at my local video store.

Even though it's the 21st Century and oh my god aren't you downloading TV shows straight into your brain like everyone else? I'm still in love with Scarecrow Video.  Were it not for this Temple of Cinema of a Video store I would never have even heard of Saragossa Manuscript or lots of other great and terrible movies I have enjoyed watching over the years.  We are really lucky to have this place in Seattle and We should support it!