2025 Reading Challenge 16 The Masque of the Red Death
A penny in the honesty box, this was my emergency, get out of jail book. A mere eight pages, but I’ve also been dipping into other stories from Poe in this £1 bargain. So why the Emergency? Off on a walking holiday with space limited, I only wanted to take a single book, so the book that should have finished on Tuesday (my weekly reading challenge runs Wednesday-Tuesday) is finished early and I can pick up a chunky one to see me through the whole of next week. Don’t judge me. It still counts.
Edgar Allan Poe was still in poverty, struggling to make it as a writer and a critic, when he was completing this book. In addition, his beloved wife (and cousin 😬) Virginia slowly succumbed to tuberculosis, a bloody and harrowing death. TB and cholera were rife in the 1830s-40s, more colouring of the short story he was writing, that colouring being assuredly red and black. As Poe quotes, “The death of a beautiful woman is, unquestionably, the most poetical topic in the world.”
The story describes Prospero and his retinue as they hide out in a monastery, enjoying food, dance and other entertainment, whilst his country suffers under the disease, the Red Death.
There is a focus on various strangely architected and decorated rooms, including the seventh black and red themed room which many refuse to enter, Poe describes this chamber as follows, “The seventh apartment was closely shrouded in black velvet tapestries that hung all over the ceiling and down the walls, falling in heavy folds upon a carpet of the same material and hue. But in this chamber only, the colour of the windows failed to correspond with the decorations. The panes here were scarlet—a deep blood colour.”
A figure dressed in a burial shroud enters the monastery, causing fear and disgust, until they are revealed to be a carrier of the Red Death, or the Red Death personified. Propsero and all his followers die, their blood seeping out of their pores in true grand guignol fashion.
A satisfying story, rich in symbolism, so much so that it does feel a little clichéd, but it is probably the mark of how much it has inspired popular culture.
I rated it 6.8 out of 10.
TTRPG Thoughts:
If you are running a gothic-tinged horror, then look no further than some of these descriptions from this story and others: "And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all."
It also got me thinking of the lengths players will go to avoid contagion. There are a million diseases and unpleasant ways to die, and players know this only too well. Whether it is stepping down the steps of a dungeon and seeing small spores drift in the light, or pondering removing their helmet on a planet with seemingly clean air. Or those tell-tale signs of contagion, lesions on their hands, a persistent cough, there are many ways to hint at the mortality of the players.
A final thought is on the use of Doom Clocks, as outlined in Liminal Horror. Death is inevitable, as is the slow progress towards it; just make sure you indicate this to the players. Regularly. The Masque of the Red Death treats the ebony clock, as it sounds out each hour, as its own character. Each sound freezes the inhabitants of the room, and each hour that passes heralds the coming of the Red Death. A great way to add tension, knowing that death comes, what can the players do to delay or avoid it as the implacable tone sounds bringing it closer?