This year, for GenCon, I will be working in my capacity as Marketing Director for Steve Jackson Games. We have a giant eye-in-a-pyramid at the top of our booth so you can’t miss us in the Exhibit Hall. If you don’t spot that, we’re listed as Booth #1301 in the program book.

This is my first fan-facing convention for the company and I’m pretty excited about it. I coordinated a Munchkin Apocalypse preview contest on Twitter and the winners will be sitting down with the Munchkin Czar, Andrew Hackard, to play this upcoming release. (Hint: we also have a capsule machine in our booth and the last golden ticket… Er… seat will be won there.) There are also a ton of signings, interviews, and announcements planned.

Each of the previous editions of Legend of the Five Rings was connected to a specific time period. The first edition was set before the events of the CCG. The second edition bumped the timeline to the Time of the Void. The third edition came out current with the CCG story at the time. The fourth edition opted to be timeless to allow fans to use whatever time period they wanted. This left a lot of the game’s history out of the core book. This makes the fourth edition versatile, but left out a lot of the player created history and backstory. Imperial Histories was created to fill that void.

Imperial Histories is a guide to various points in the history of Rokugan. Many of the periods have been seen in other sourcebooks or editions. Some have been referred to in historical accounts. And a few are brand new to the book. Each of these is set ups as a campaign possibility with new rules, new schools and, in some cases, modifications to the existing rules for different eras of the Empire. This book is aimed at GMs looking for campaign ideas or fans wanting historical information in one place.

Denver was not such a great city after all. You’re out on the town one night and you get mixed up with some nightmare straight out of Filipino folklore. Then a cult which called itself the Unmasked “recruits” you and that doesn’t work out so well. They end up trying to kill you and get you into all kinds of trouble. In the end you were forced to kick their sorry butts to the curb. Well, at least it’s over now, right? No, not so much. Welcome to Falling Scales chapter two!

Four months have passed since the dark events which took place in Denver and your lives have become a living hell. Apparently Anna Christopher had friends in high places, the kind of friends who know how to screw with you in the worst possible way. Just when you think it can’t get any worse there appears a glimmer of hope, a light at the end of the tunnel. Freedom from this nightmare can be found in Washington D.C. if you can find it.

Where and how to submit your novels and short stories for publication.

From the editors at Writer’s Digest, this fantastic resource for horror writers details hundreds of magazine and book publishers who are interested in acquiring and publishing new frightful fiction.

Each market listing provides information on where the publisher is located, what they’re looking for, who to contact, how to reach them, and what their terms are. Each entry also comes with special insider tips for getting their attention. You want to get your horror fiction published? Start by looking here.

The 2012 Horror Writer’s Market is available now in ePub format at DriveThruFiction.com for only $2.99!

Recently were posted some design notes from author Corissa Baker about her novel, The Shadow of Dracula: Harker’s Inheritance. She has also sent us the first chapter of the book, which gives you the opportunity to explore her tale.

The Shadow of Dracula: Harker’s Inheritance Chapter One

This was compiled after such dreadful events as should provoke lunacy and challenge one’s understanding of this modern world of 1935. What follows in these pages may be dismissed as wild and irrational fiction, even unworthy of broader attentions. It will be ridiculed and those named in these accounts risk social stigmata and questions of their mental health. If it weren’t that a doctor of psychology and head of a lunatic asylum was involved I should think that I would have kept this all very much in the dark.

Due to being a full time student for the last 18 months, I’ve not been very active in writing reviews for Flames Rising. I’d also retired from gaming for more than a year due to said schooling, but recently I’ve come to realize that gaming is too much a part of my being; it’s far too hard wired in me as a creative outlet to be able to give it up forever, much less for years at a stretch. So for the last few months I’ve been trying to make it work again, taking up the gauntlet as a weekly Game Master. But I couldn’t do it like I used to; changes in how I managed my Game Master duties needed to be made, and so I’ve been trying different things to varying results.

Prince Calgus found himself standing before a mirror, regarding his own face but seeing something alien; blood surrounded his mouth, his garments were torn and faded, stained with wine and food, his blond hair matted, and his hands coated in gore.

A story’s first sentence is always an important one. Although this is not the first sentence of the novel when you take the prologue into account this is the moment readers meet Calgus, Prince of Sept. It is also the moment when you realize that Jon Creffield is going to take the classic tale of swords and sorcery and turn it on its head. Hell’s Door Open is equal parts fantasy and horror with healthy doses of great storytelling.

For centuries, terrors have existed just outside our understanding. The public may know or even suspect creatures of the night exist, but millions have managed to go on with their lives, focusing on the mundane, the safe. We’ve passed off the truth as a child’s fairy tale or the ramblings of crazed lunatics. We’ve ignored the reality in order to survive.

Thanks to the actions of the passionate few, we can no longer pretend the supernatural does not exist.

Now, perfectly ordinary people question what they see, what they hear, what they feel. They’re confused, lost, and lonely. They’ve turned toward their leaders to help them find a way out of the darkness, but they need a shepherd, a guide who is not afraid. They’ve found one: a powerful politician who believes society should open their eyes to the truth, that the supernatural takes many forms and the only way to defend society is to wage all-out war.

Falling Scales Chapter Two is written by Flames Rising Project Manager Monica Valentinelli.

Get Falling Scales Chapter Two in PDF and Print formats at RPGNow.com!

I’m a fan of Carnacki. The somewhat stuffy British paranormal investigator, whose adventures were first cataloged more than a hundred years ago in Carnacki The Ghost Finder by his creator, author William Hope Hodgson, have fascinated me since I was urged to read them by a good friend. I was curious, therefore, when I discovered that another author, Scotsman William Meikle, had taken up the mantle of telling some new Carnacki tales in Carnacki: Heaven and Hell by Dark Regions Press. I tried to be objective going in, but my fondness for the character had me pretty excited to read some new adventures.

This work is a primer for players of Lovecraftian roleplaying games set in the dismal streets of 1930s London.

The Guide is replete with contacts, rumours and clues which will guide you on your quest for forbidden knowledge. Written as the companion volume to Bookhounds of London for Trail of Cthulhu, it can be used as a Keeper’s resource as well as an in-game artefact for players in any Mythos game.

You can’t keep a good game down. Deadlands has been around for over 15 years. It’s gone through two editions, a d20 version, and two Savage World editions. It’s spawned spin-off games ranging from sequels like Hell on Earth and Lost Colony to acclaimed CCGs like Doomtown. The game recently returned to Savage Worlds for the line’s budget minded Explorer Editions. The Marshall’s Handbook is built for the brave soul looking to take his or her players on a tour of the Weird West. It’s built for fans of the setting that want to use the slimmed down Savage Worlds rules, which were born out of the original Deadlands rules.