Featured articles

New Year, New Mythos Reads for Young Readers

The Old Ones are squirming! Readers of all ages can enjoy a brand new illustrated title from Chaosium Publishing called “H.P. Lovecraft’s At the Mountains of Madness for Beginning Readers“. Written and colorfully illustrated by R.J. Ivankovic, this kid-friendly story is a carefully-rhymed retelling of “At the Mountains of Madness” that first debuted in 1936. […]

Blogs

My 2024 Publications

Pinching Tarts Cover Art | White Rabbit from Alice in Wonderland | PocketQuest Monica Valentinelli

2024 has been a wonderful year to rebuild, grow, and produce my own game. I’ve re-established a wonderful baseline for my writing practice, presented at the Gen Con Writer’s Symposium and Game Hole Con, taught an online workshop through Clarion West, and began blogging again here at FlamesRisin…

Errata Update for Pinching Tarts Now Available

Pinching Tarts Cover Art | White Rabbit from Alice in Wonderland | PocketQuest Monica Valentinelli

Hello, hello! I am popping in to share that I’ve updated the rules for Pinching Tarts to clarify a few, key aspects of gameplay. I ran a few sessions of Pinching Tarts at Game Hole Con XI in Madison, Wisconsin, and based on the sizes of the groups and their feedback, I’ve made a few [&h…

Creatures of the Night for Witchy Wednesday

Hello and welcome to the last installment of #WitchyWednesday! Today, I wanted to dive into creatures of the night that are often associated with haunted locations, bad omens, and Halloween. At the end of this post, I’ll share a round-up of all my Witchy Wednesday posts to share and highlight…

Magic Systems and Rules for Witchy Wednesday

image of lit candles and a magic book. #witchywednesday Every Wednesday in October, read about a magical topic by author Monica Valentinelli. www.booksofm.com. Mystery. Magic. Mayhem.

Today, my Witchy Wednesday post is about magic systems and rules. When I was thinking about what topics I wanted to cover, I broached the subject with K Tempest Bradford, from Writing the Other, who encouraged me to talk about magic systems and their intersection with theme and narrative. As such, …

Reviews

Review of the Dungeon Master’s Guide 2024

Dungeon Master's Guide 2024 | Dungeons & Dragons

The Dungeon Master’s Guide 2024 has just been released. The second book of three, the new 384-page guidebook offers updated, hands-on advice and rules to help DMs run sessions of Dungeons and Dragons. As a companion to the Player’s Handbook 2024, this hardcover, full-color book is a welcome and…

Dungeons & Dragons Player’s Handbook 2024 Review

The world’s greatest roleplaying game, Dungeons & Dragons, has issued a brand new, 377-page Player’s Handbook 2024 with streamlined rules. The hardcover, full-color book is beautifully designed with gorgeous end pages and museum-quality art. In the introduction, both DMs and player…

Review of The Making of Original Dungeons & Dragons: 1970-1977

Cover Image DnD

The Making of Original Dungeons & Dragons: 1970-1977 is a 576-page, glossy-paged tome with silk bookmarks, color-coded sections, and a short commentary by gaming historian Jon Peterson. A museum-quality book that weighs a little over two pounds, the lightly annotated contents are reproductions…

Review of The Wishing Pool Short Story Collection

The Wishing Pool and Other Stories is a brand new collection of fourteen, masterful tales written by American horror writer Tananarive Due. Due, a multi-award winning writer, presents a bloody tapestry of Black horror across multiple timelines, ending with Afrofuturistic stories. The celebrated aut…

News

Paranormal Freelancing: Sprint Projects in a Co-op

Paranormal Freelancing on Kickstarter

Paranormal Freelancing is an action-oriented urban fantasy game by the Far Horizons Co-op that is currently on Kickstarter. Players take on the role of assistants to supernatural creatures, letting you play the renfield, a witch’s acolyte, a shapeshifter’s family, and more. This guest b…

Ars Magica TTRPG Crowdfunding to Become Open License

Atlas Games, the stewards of the award-winning tabletop roleplaying game Ars Magica, announced earlier this year the upcoming launch of Ars Magica Definitive Edition. This deluxe version of the 5th Edition marks an epic return for the game, not only with an expanded rulebook weighing in at over 600…

Take Tarot for Storytellers at Clarion West Online This Sunday!

Clarion West Writers Workshop

Love tarot? Want to get ready for Halloween? Take my writing-centric Clarion West workshop titled “How to Use Tarot for Storytellers.” This two-hour workshop will be conducted online on Sunday, September 29th and will have a seasonal theme. Unlike my other tarot workshops, this experien…

Celebrate DUNGEONS & DRAGONS Golden Anniversary at Gen Con 2024

D&D Players Handbook Cover

It’s a banner year for DUNGEONS & DRAGONS! Coming off the acclaimed film Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, and the smash hit video game Baldur’s Gate 3, D&D is celebrating 50 years of the WORLD’S GREATEST ROLEPLAYING GAME. More than 64 million D&D fans love …

Interviews

Interview with Rob Heinsoo 13th Age Second Edition

In this TTRPG developer essay, FlamesRising.com contributor Monica Valentinelli sits down with Rob Heinsoo, the developer of 13th Age Second Edition from Pelgrane Press. The new edition was successfully crowdfunded, and you can pre-order 13th Age Second Edition on Backerkit. 13th Age first debuted …

Through the Gates with Onyx Path Publishing

At the Gates Ashcan Edition

At the Gates is a high fantasy tabletop roleplaying game about burgeoning heroes struggling to survive, fighting for what’s right, exploring dangerous places, and saving the world. Onyx Path Publishing is currently running a crowd-funding campaign over at BackerKit.com. We had a chance to cat…

Return to the Realms of Pugmire with Eddy Webb

Realms of Pugmire

Onyx Path Publishing and Pugsteady have just launched a Kickstarter for a new edition of the Realms of Pugmire RPG. Realms of Pugmire is a fantasy game about evolved pets and other animals with a strong connection to humanity, with dogs as the central characters. These characters live in the ruins…

Enter the Cyclops’s Cave…An Interview with Matthew Dawkins

They Came from the Cyclops’s Cave! sees characters ranging from heroic swordsmen and cunning sorceresses to charming minstrels and agile scoundrels, embarking on quests designed to evoke the majesty of fantasy movies and television shows from the 1940s onward. Whether you’re looking to chan…

Fiction

I DISAPPEARED THEM by Preston L Allen Novel Excerpt

I Disappeared Them | A Novel by Preston L. Allen

I Disappeared Them is a brutal, boy meets girl love story that delves into the Periwinkle Killer’s childhood to confront the age-old question, is a serial killer designed or destined? Like Bret Easton Ellis’s American Psycho and Joyce Carol Oates’s Zombie, Preston L. Allen‘s imm…

Design Diary: Tales of the Changing Breeds

When I was first approached about writing a story for an anthology covering the Changing Breeds, I was intrigued by the possibilities. Changing Breeds refers to White Wolf’s Werewolf: the Apocalypse game: more specifically, Changing Breeds are all the other were-creatures besides wolves: tige…

Read a Full Excerpt of To Sleep in a Sea of Stars

To Sleep in a Sea of Stars | Christopher Paolini

To Sleep in a Sea of Stars is an epic novel that follows Kira Navárez, who, during a routine survey mission on an uncolonized planet, finds an alien relic that thrusts her into the wonders and the nightmares of first contact. Epic space battles for the fate of humanity take her to the farthest rea…

Pre-Order and Excerpt for The Devil’s Guide to Managing Difficult People

The Devils Guide to Managing Difficult People | Bennis

Flamesrising.com is pleased to present you with an exclusive excerpt of the upcoming book by author Robyn Bennis. The Devil’s Guide to Managing Difficult People will be released on Kindle. You can buy the book before it debuts on May 21st or you can pre-order it now! If you like the author…

Email Newsletter Sign Up

Click Here to Sign Up for FlamesRising.com's Weekly Newsletter.

You will receive horror and dark fantasy updates, news, and more once a week!


11 Tales of Ghostly Horror

    Reviews Wanted!

    The new Review Guidelines have been posted on the Flames Rising website. We are currently seeking a few good reviewers to help us expand our collection of horror and dark fantasy reviews. RPGs, fiction, movies, video games and more are all welcome on the site...

    What do you get out of it?

    Beyond helping out fellow Flames Rising readers by letting them know what you think of these products, we're giving away some pretty cool stuff. Regular Reviewers can earn free products to review, which is their to keep after the review is submitted to the site.

    Note: We are especially looking for folks interested in reviewing eBooks (both Fiction & Comics). We have lots of great titles in digital format and even get advance copies sometimes.

    Use the Contact Page to submit reviews or let us know if you have any questions.

    The Devil’s Night WoD SAS

    Free Devil's Night | White Wolf