One of Legend of the Five Rings greatest strengths is the detail that Rokugan has achieved over its fifteen year history. Gamers love a detailed world. Rokugan grew from a few characters and locations on cards to one of the most richly detailed worlds currently being published. Thousands of cards, RPG books and story fictions add Eastern flavor to this world that’s a mash-up of Western and Eastern fantasy. Emerald Empire is the Fourth Edition’s guide to the world of Rokugan. It is available in PDF and hardcover book.

The book follows the same art and layout style as the Legend of the Five Rings core book. Full color pages with artwork from the CCG used for illustration.

I like writing about beautiful, horrible things. The Village by the Sea is a beautiful, horrible place. And I want to take you there.

The Guide covers neighborhoods, families and coverups and over a hundred years of history, for a town that exists outside of time and place. This could be the town you stopped in as a child on your way to see family. It might be your hometown. This could even be the town just down the road from yours.

The Village by the Sea was founded on the coast in 1850. Its founding families still exert force on the course of Village history, its borders have crept over devoured nearby settlements, and its piers are washed in blood. The monuments to dead sailors cast shadows in the park. There are always new missing posters outside the market.

Don’t look up. Don’t send your prayers skyward. Because the gods aren’t in the sky. They’re here. All of them.

After publishing Chuck Wendig’s debut novel Double Dead, in 2011 Abaddon Books is proud to announce that it is set to publish a brand new title from the inimitable author of Blackbirds.

Beyond the Wall is Smart Pop Books’ latest essay anthology. This book covers George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire (from A Game of Thrones to A Dance with Dragons) and features a foreward by New York Times bestselling author R.A. Salvatore.

Editor, James Lowder is here with his take on the book, and putting together anthologies in general.

Sequart Research & Literacy Organization and Respect! Films are proud to announce that the SDCC panel for their Comics in Focus: The Image Revolution documentary will feature special guest panelist Marc Silvestri!

If you’re a fan of Image Comics and are going to be at the San Diego Comic Con on Thursday evening (July 12th), you won’t want to miss this panel! Moderated by F.J. DeSanto (co-producer of The Spirit), the panel will feature Image Revolution director Patrick Meaney (Grant Morrison: Talking with Gods, Warren Ellis: Captured Ghosts), Sequart founder Julian Darius, and of course Marc Silvestri. The hour-long panel will feature over 10 minutes of exclusive footage from the documentary, behind-the-scenes info from Silvestri, and Q&A!

Playing evil characters in Dungeons & Dragons has always been a touchy subject. For the most part the fourth edition of the game has avoided the pitfall of “evil player characters” by assuming most groups are playing heroes or alignment neutral characters. Occasionally options appear which allow players to skirt the boundaries of evil without actually stepping over the edge. The Book of Vile Darkness provides gamers with advice and tools to explore the darker side of fantasy adventure whether the goal is a complete immersion in the “evil campaign” or to just add a little more “evil” to your villains.

Whether you’re new to game mastering or have been running the same campaign since 1974, Never Unprepared: The Complete Game Master’s Guide to Session Prep will help you prepare for games faster, avoid common pitfalls, and have more fun in the process. To our knowledge, this is the first book entirely devoted to the process of prepping for tabletop RPGs.

Whether or not you believe, you’ll have heard of the concept of sin… going your own way, indulging in your own desires, rather than paying attention to the wishes of your deity. This is the first in a series of resources focusing on the so-called ‘seven deadly sins’ and providing ample material for GMs to lead characters astray…

Avarice – the desire to accumulate wealth and resources far beyond what you actually need – is a sin that probably besets most fantasy adventurers every so often.

I believe this book is cursed, so I will begin with a brief history of my relationship with this book. It has brought me as much woe as enjoyment, thus I keep picking it back up. I first heard of this collection of ghastly mysteries several months ago and my fingers twitched with anticipation. I waited patiently, and was quite happy to see it appear on the shelves of my local game store. Soon it was purchased and in my hot little hands. I read through it in a day and a half, luckily my job at that moment afforded me a plethora of spare time, and was soon tapping out a review. At that point things went a bit sour. My desktop computer began to have issues. At first it would simply delete files, and if you were thinking that the files it deleted centered on this review.. then you were correct. After it deleted my work for a few weeks it started to truly die and before long I had a very large paper weight. A friend then sent me an old laptop, I was delighted and began catching up on the wonders of that exist on the internet. A couple months later I attempted to write, for about the fifth time, my review of Haunted.

Fabled Environments is proud to announce a PDF Charity Bundle to benefit the Michael Rohan Memorial Fund. 100% of the net proceeds from this bundle will go to The Michael Rohan Memorial Fund. The bundle will be available until August 1st.

Publishers currently included in the bundle are: Pinnacle Entertainment Group, Fat Goblin Games, Silver gryphon Games, ProFantasy, Reality Blurs, Misfit Studios and more!

The Michael Rohan Memorial Fund Charity RPG Bundle is available at the Flames Rising RPGNow Shop.

Avatar Press proudly announces the upcoming September 2012 launch of FASHION BEAST, an unearthed collaboration between legendary graphic novelist Alan Moore and punk rock pioneer Malcolm McLaren. Originally written as a screenplay, the ten-issue maxi-series is adapted to comics by longtime Moore partner Antony Johnston (The Courtyard, Daredevil) and beautifully illustrated by Facundo Percio (Anna Mercury). Set in a dystopian future dominated by a fashion house, FASHION BEAST reinvents the classic Beauty and the Beast fable in a society held together (quite literally) by a needle and a thread.

FASHION BEAST introduces young Doll Seguin, a spirited and sassy coat-checker working at a trendy nightclub. While the world outside fears an oncoming nuclear war, Doll escapes into the carefree lifestyle of music and decadence, a fantasy inspired by the fashion designs of the mysterious Celestine. Catching the deformed recluse’s eye, Doll is drawn helplessly into a sordid tale of tragic lies, false identities, fear, and violence.

Noir is a genre which is often defined by its trappings. Many people see fedoras, trenchcoats and beautiful women and think that’s noir. The characters are what make something noir. Good men driven to evil. Evil women driven to redemption. The situations are what makes something noir. Can a killer find humanity from befriending a little girl? What’s in the briefcase that’s worth dying over? Jason Blair, author of Little Fears, brings these flawed heroes and classic situations together for his newest game, Streets of Bedlam.