The PDF opens with fiction to set the mood. While written well, the white text in a scripty font was pretty hard to read on a black background, so I missed a lot of the details. The first section dives right into discussion cross-pantheon politics with commonalities broken out. This is a very useful section for Storytellers because it offers a high-level overview of how the Atzlanti philosophy works versus the Pesedjet that they can use in and out of game. I really like sections like this one in game supplements because it helps water down conflicting ideas and offer ideas for players to work together in a game. Sometimes, finding common ground when your characters come from different pantheons can be a challenge.

Chev Worke thought he had found a path to easy money. It was quite simple, really: sacrifice Christmas with his family and drive his truck across the country on an overnight run for his employer. Done. Case closed. He just didn’t count on things going wrong and getting stranded on State Highway 59 with no […]

Since monsters of various types are pretty much White Wolf Publishing’s stock and trade, it makes sense that they would attempt to diversify their product line to include horror-themed board or card games. One of White Wolf’s offerings, Monster Mayhem, has each player taking on the role of a different classic monster, seeking out victims and devouring those parts of them each fiend finds most delectable.

Players begin by selecting one of the five monsters – Vampire, Werewolf, Mummy, Zombie or Poltergeist – and placing the token for that monster on its starting space. The board is a grid of hexagons, and the players flesh out the city by placing the notable location tiles, either randomly or according to one of several sample layouts provided. Each player then draws three victims from the Victim deck and places that card by their monster’s data card.

Children Are Our Future Before the Visitation of a Scion’s divine parent, the Scion in question is mortal, and as vulnerable to physical, mental and emotional danger as any other child. Yet they are also potential sources of great power, and (to those who might be able to identify them as such) prospective pawns. Someone […]

Hurts so Good: A Friday the 13th Retrospective Part 1 wrapped up with Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives. Be sure to check out Retrospective Part 1 before continuing here.

There are so many Friday the 13th movies, even this retrospective gets a sequel. So let’s continue with our bloody stalk down memory lane as we try to answer the question: Despite these movies being so bad, why do I and millions of others love them?

Jason Thorson

DAVID MOODY self published Hater online in 2006, and without an agent, succeeded in selling film rights to Guillermo del Toro (director, Hellboy 1 & 2, Pan’s Labyrinth and the upcoming Hobbit series) and Mark Johnson (producer, The Chronicles of Narnia). With the official publication of Hater, David is poised to make a significant mark as a writer of “farther out” fiction of all varieties.

In the tradition of H. G. Wells and Richard Matheson, Hater is one man’s story of his place in a world gone mad— a world infected with fear, violence, and HATE. www.RUaHater.com

Amanda Feral is back and just as glamorous (and bitchy) as she was in Happy Hour of the Damned. But make no mistake: Road Trip is a very different book than its predecessor. Sure, there are still risks of zombie “mistake” outbreaks, partially digested food, and gruesome murders (only some of which are performed by our heroes–and really, the murders they perform are a public service, not a crime).* But unlike Happy Hour, Road Trip begins with the assumption that the readers already know how Amanda’s world works. There’s much less meandering into explanations of zombies, vampires, and other supernaturals and more delving into Amanda’s troubled past.** Now that Amanda’s mother is on her death bed, Amanda struggles to come to terms with a childhood she’d really rather forget.

Age of Cthulhu fans, here is your chance to play Death in Luxor using Trail of Cthulhu! Death in Luxor is the exciting new Call of Cthulhu adventure from Goodman Games, officially licensed to use the BRP rules from Chaosium. This conversion document allows you to use the Trail of Cthulhu rules from Pelgrane Press […]

On February 13th, 2009 a new installment of horror cinema’s most prolific series opens, unlocking Camp Crystal Lake and unleashing Jason Voorhees on yet another generation of horror fans. By way of Michael Bay and Platinum Dunes, Marcus Nispel’s (Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake 2003) Friday the 13th re-imagining/remake will mark the twelfth time in the last 29 years that we’ve been given the opportunity to spend an hour and a half at Camp blood.

The Friday the 13th films are guilty pleasures one and all. They’ve contributed as much to the global pop cultural make up as any other film or film series made. The iconography in these movies is among the most recognizable, comparable to The Wizard of Oz and Star Wars. The hockey mask-wearing, machete-wielding maniac is now considered cliché. Harry Manfredini’s musical score has been imitated arguably more than any other. And we all know what happens to those morally bankrupt youngsters who have sex, do drugs, and decide the investigate strange noises – rules that have become permanent fixtures in the horror genre.

Jason Thorson

Chicago lies at the center of the web that is the American heartland. Tendrils of power, wealth, and reward stretch outward, ensnaring the selfish, greedy, and unwary. Yet, Chicago attracts its predators, too. Creatures that would have the city for their own, spinning their own webs of malice and intrigue. But among the city’s towering skyscrapers and wind-swept streets, who is the spider and who is the fly?

Normal price for these three products if purchased separately is: $62.97. The sale price for this week is $25.99, a savings of 59%.

The Sweet Home Chicago bundle is available at the Flames Rising RPGNow Shop.

Empty Room Studios produces full-color tiles for use with miniatures in an adventure-game setting. The sets I’ve looked at most closely are the Blasted Canyon and the Caverns Tiles Base Set 1.

The Blasted Canyon set provides a wide variety of terrain features that can be printed and cut out to produce more than four square feet of unique terrain. Box canyons, cul-de-sacs, a large temple, a marketplace, transition pieces, dungeon entrances, and an oasis are all included, each with either a desert background or with canyon walls added around the edges. This is a handsome set, and much thought clearly went into its design.

Review by Bill Bodden

Tales of the Seven Dogs Society is a collection of three short stories framed against the background of the Seven Dogs Society, the player group of Abstract Nova’s Aletheia RPG. If the game is unknown to you, I recommend taking a look at the reviews found at rpg.net, flamesrising.com and abstractnova.com, as they will reveal a great deal about the setting which I cannot go into here. The cover is one of Eric Lofgren’s typical pieces, showing an evil-looking man leering at the reader, with flames rising around him.

The short stories give some useful ideas for an Aletheia GM, and (if you don’t mind the spoilers), for some good ideas on how a PC can be integrated into the team – Matt McElroy’s narrator, a former private eye, for example, is recruited after getting a name for himself as a missing persons expert on ‘weird’ cases.

Review by Nick Lemming

The Mekhet Clan Book for Vampire: The Requiem Unnoticed and silent, they watch. Their eyes have seen a thousand secrets, and yours are no exception. They are the Shadows that dwell among the Kindred, and everyone knows that the darkness has eyes in the Danse Macabre. Seek their wisdom under cover of night, and discover […]

We have an early preview of an upcoming Apocalypse Prevention, Inc. sourcebook from Third Eye Games.

API Worldwide: Canada Preview

Gabriel gritted his teeth and pulled the belt tight. Pain flared up in his shattered leg as the tough leather bit down, but soon settled back into a dull throb. He positioned his makeshift crutch under one shoulder to keep as much weight off the limb as possible, fixed the rubberized part against the snow and levered himself upright. The leg positively shrieked with agony as he rose, but the splint held. He’d have thought himself lucky to have found it if it hadn’t come from the twisted wreckage of his snowmobile.

Wearily, Gabriel produced a cigar. The heavy tar did nothing to dull the pain, but it gave him something to do while he thought. At least he was partially mobile again and he could turn his attentions to more pressing matters. The massive glistening bulk behind the vehicular remains shifted slightly, reminding Gabriel of the first order of business. The abominable snowman – it almost sounded jolly, for heaven’s sake! Strange how people forgot the true meanings of words over time. He’d smashed into its face at top speed and still did little more than stun the brute and write off his ride home. But he knew a better way.

After a long hiatus, Little Nightmares is back. This month, I’ll be covering somewhat related products from two different companies; full-color stand-up cardboard figures from Precis Intermedia, and ready-made maps from Empty Room Studios.

Precis Intermedia produces stand-up cardboard figures, called Disposable Heroes, in a variety of themes. Since this is Flames Rising, they sent us a pack of monsters to look over: Disposable Heroes: Horror Statix 1. The figures themselves are available in two different formats within each set: two-sided and three-sided. The two-sided figures may require some kind of plastic stand to assist them, as the fold is at the top like a sandwich board sign. Printing the figures on lightweight cardstock before cutting them apart will probably remove the need for bases – at least until the figure has a few miles on it and the crease begins to wear. The front of the figure is a full color image and the back is a black silhouette of the same image for ease in determining rear/surprise attacks.

Demons are more personal when one’s father is summoning them, in Cassandra Clare’s second Mortal Instruments novel, City of Ashes.

Shadowhunters (Nephilim) can defeat antags by carving runes on their skin and surroundings, and by using various blades and whatnot. But Clary Fray’s and Jace Wayland’s father Valentine has stolen a Mortal Instrument or two, using them to summon demons. Why? I’m not sure. Will the teens hunt down their dad and destroy him? There’s definite hunting, but we’ll have to wait for the final installment in the trilogy, City of Glass, for closure.

Review by Tez Miller

Blood and Madness

Vampires: blood-drinking creatures of the night. Horrors born of darkness, whose sole purpose in life – unlife, actually – is to slake their unholy thirst on the blood of the living. Without doubt, vampires are monsters.

Monsters, though, need not always be unthinking, unfeeling terrors empty of remorse, or even compassion or other human traits. Indeed, vampires can exceed their deathless curse, themselves becoming antiheroes or even heroes.

Explore the depths of the Danse Macabre

The Bloodthirsty Adventures bundle is available at the Flames Rising RPGNow Shop.