New Tales of the Yellow Sign by Robin D. Laws is a collection of eight short stories that invokes and draws inspiration from The King in Yellow, the 1895 psychological horror collection of Robert W. Chambers. In writing New Tales, Laws undertakes what is, in my opinion, one of the most difficult projects for an author—writing a short story collection built around a core concept or a small number of central themes. The challenge in doing this is that whether readers are trying to or not, they tend to judge each short story on its own, instead of how it fits into the collection’s overarching concept and themes. In composition, I see a collection like New Tales to be akin to concept albums. Each has “core tracks” that advance the concept. Each may include “voice breaks” where the audience is addressed directly as a way to make the message more explicit to the audience. Each often contains a “cover song” or a selection that pays homage to a past artist that the overall work is drawing inspiration from.

The Legions of Emperor Augustus have returned victorious from putting down a massive revolt among the Germanic tribes of the Danube frontier. While Rome basks in its success, a new foe is gathering in the darkness of the Carpathian Mountains. When a young boy shows up at the distant fortress of Troesmis, it falls to Optio Gaius Justus Vitalis and his centurion to investigate the horrors described by the young refugee.

It is just the beginning of a struggle between the Eagles of Rome and the undead forces of an enemy that could halt the Empire’s northern advance.

It’s Romans vs. Zombies in this first novella of the Carpathian Interlude series. Get ready for action, mystery and blood in this clash between Light and Dark.

Immortui is available now in multiple eBook formats at DriveThruFiction.com for only $0.99!

From a world magically transformed entirely into glass to a distant future where the Catholic Church of Osirus uses two singularities to manipulate time, the science fiction and fantasy stories of Small Matters take the readers to places unlike any they have visited before.

Brought to you from the mind of master world-builder and storyteller Monte Cook, these seven short stories tell tales of vengeance and honor. Love and murder. Loyalty and greed. As the title suggests, these are personal tales, not of world-saving quests but of people who face tough decisions that affect their own lives. Not all of them choose wisely…

Flames Rising is pleased to present an exclusive pair of excerpts from this collection.

The Price of Disobedience

All societies have rules–even societies of mages. But rules were made to be broken. For the Awakened, shattered laws raise sinister forces. The Left-Hand Path tempts sorcerers with forbidden power, fulfilling their desires at the risk of ostracism, madness or damnation. In exile, more of them thrive than the Pentacle admits, challenging the peril to their souls … and uniting in common cause. Look Beneath the Surface.

A Character Book for Mage the Awakening

Left-Hand Path is now available in PDF and Print formats at DriveThruRPG.com!

Ghouls of the Miskatonic by Graham McNeil was published a little over a year ago and marked the first foray into fiction publishing for powerhouse board game publisher Fantasy Flight Games. Ghouls takes place in Fantasy Flight’s Lovecraftian setting, Arkham Horror, and is the first book in The Dark Waters Trilogy (the second book in the trilogy Bones of the Yopasi has also been published). The plot of the novel follows a menagerie of characters trying to solve the mystery behind the disappearance and murder of a number of girls from Miskatonic University, as well as the character’s attempt to keep a grip on their sanity when faced with giant flying mantis creatures who think dress formal means wearing their brains on the outside.

This month, aspiring (and existing) novelists everywhere begin their 50,000 word jaunt for National Novel Writing Month, otherwise known as NaNoWriMo. 50,000 words, or the equivalent of half a standard novel, translates to writing roughly 1,666 words every day. For writers with a full-time or even a part-time job, furiously scribbling five to seven pages of text can seem rather daunting — especially if you’re not sure how (or what) to write. Not sure if the snowflake method is best? Or if your dialogue techniques are up to par?

Flames Rising and DriveThruFiction can help!

In honor of novelists everywhere, we’re offering a contest to receive $10 gift certificates to DriveThruFiction.com!

Night’s Black Agents brings the GUMSHOE engine to the spy thriller genre, combining the propulsive paranoia of movies like Ronin and The Bourne Identity with supernatural horror straight out of Bram Stoker. Investigation is crucial, but it never slows down the action, which explodes with expanded options for bone-crunching combat, high-tech tradecraft, and adrenaline-fueled chases.

Updating classic Gothic terrors for the postmodern age, Night’s Black Agents presents thoroughly modular monstrosity: GMs can build their own vampires, mashup their own minions, kitbash their own conspiracies to suit their personal sense of style and story. Rules options let you set the level of betrayal, grit, and action in your game. Riff from the worked examples or mix and match vampiric abilities, agendas, and assets for a completely custom sanguinary spy saga.

In the deep forests of Kyonin, elves live among their own kind, far from the prying eyes of other races. Few of impure blood are allowed beyond the nation’s borders, and thus it’s a great honor for the half-elven Count Varian Jeggare and his hellspawn bodyguard Radovan to be allowed inside. Yet all is not well in the elven kingdom: demons stir in its depths, and an intricate web of politics seems destined to catch the two travelers in its snares. In the course of tracking down a missing druid, Varian and a team of eccentric elven adventurers will be forced to delve into dark secrets lost for generations—including the mystery of Varian’s own past.

From fan favorite Dave Gross, author of Prince of Wolves and Master of Devils, comes a fantastical new adventure set in the award-winning world of the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. Flames Rising is pleased to offer an excerpt from this Pathfinder Tales novel.

Movies, TV shows, video games and comic books provide inspiration for some of the best and most elaborate Halloween costumes. Costume play can get so extreme that subcultures are created and acted out. If you go to a renaissance festival, which is highly recommended, you will see cosplay in it’s finest, most innocent moments. People of all ages, cultures and backgrounds don themselves in rich fabrics, corsets, bodices, peasant outfits, head pieces and doublets. They carry ribbons and daggers and speak in an Old World accent. The best part is watching the cosplayers interact with one another in character.

Our gaze into the shadows of Halloween past continues today with the one-year celebration of our first anthology! Not only has Haunted: 11 Tales of Ghostly Horror been well-received by the community, earning a special mention in Ellen Datlow’s Year of Best Horror, but our debut collection also won a Reader’s Choice award. Your can read a round-up of reviews and our award announcement here on the site, by the way.

In honor of our one-year anniversary, we would like to provide you with an excerpt from two of these tales. First, we’d like to share with you the nascent beginnings from Jess Hartley’s story titled “Immaterial Witness.” Then, we’ll share Alex Bledsoe’s unusual take on ghost hunters from his spooky tale titled “What’s the Frequency, Francis?“

Halloween 2012 is breathing down our necks. In honor of our favorite holiday, we’ve turned to three spirits: the Ghost of Halloween Past, Present, and Future. Today, we’ve asked the Ghost of Halloween Past to recommend its favorite FlamesRising.com-related events. This spirit has revealed to us, that it wants to honor the writers who’ve helped us out over the years.

Today, for the first day of our Halloween celebration, the Ghost of Halloween Past would like to point out not one, but thirty-one stories written with you in mind. These very fine authors have given us sordid tales to scare and thrill you as a Halloween treat.

Hi Flames Rising readers- my name is Rich Thomas (richt on the forums) and since 1986, when I began illustrating and art directing for White Wolf Magazine, I’ve been responsible for the look and feel of every White Wolf product ever created — ranging from RPG books, fiction, board/card games and everything in between. I became Creative Director in 2006, which meant I was overseeing White Wolf’s writing and development as well. During this time WW launched multiple Ennie-award winning product lines which I’m very proud of: Scion and Changeling: The Lost.

For a few years I worked with an amazing group of computer game creators as Lead Designer and Content Director for the WoDMMO, but then someone was needed to head-up the team on Vampire: The Masquerade 20th Anniversary Edition, and I had so much fun and had so many great experiences with our tabletop and LARPing fans that I returned to the world of traditional RPGs with a renewed focus on tabletop gaming. In January 2012 I left CCP and founded Onyx Path Publishing and we are the official licensed publishers of the nWoD, cWoD, and Exalted game lines.

In Hobby Games: The 100 Best, the top designers, authors, and publishers in the hobby games field write about the most enjoyable and cleverly designed games of the last fifty years. Their essays cover the gamut of the hobby market, from roleplaying games to collectible card games, and miniatures games to wargames to board games, with titles both familiar and esoteric. These are the games that the designers themselves play, the ones that have inspired their most popular creations.

Hobby Games: The 100 Best also features a foreword by board game legend Reiner Knizia and an afterword by SPI founder and wargame legend James F. Dunnigan.

Hobby Games: The 100 Best is available now at the Flames Rising Shop!

Also available now from Green Ronin is Family Games: The 100 Best.

Children of the Revolution tells the stories of noteworthy or notorious Kindred of the modern nights whose Embraces came in times of unrest, rebellion, or open revolution. The circumstances of these revolutions might have been mortal or undead, martial or cultural. These Kindred joined the ranks of the Damned under tides of war or cultural upheaval, and their blood bears the mark of change from one paradigm into another. Sometimes they are the agents of change. For others, their revolution drags them in its wake.

The world of the Kindred is always fraught with blood and danger, and Embrace amid the fires of revolution only heightens that fact. Here are Kindred who have risen to guide the Black Hand, who have led the armies of Alexander, who have earned the Lextalionis, and who have been reborn in the fires of the Arab Spring. Their histories have been forged, but their futures remain to be determined by your troupe.

Children of the Revolution is available now in PDF and Hardcover editions at the Flames Rising Shop!

The KickStarter Campaign for Ars Magica: Years of Conquest is now available! The Campaign will run until November 18th, 2012.

Years of Conquest is based on Atlas Games’ award-winning Ars Magica role-playing game, and features a full century of simulation gameplay in a fantastic and magical Medieval setting. A faithful rendition of the original game, Years of Conquest incorporates the full Fifth Edition rules, including the legendarily powerful and flexible magic system.

The player must build their own Covenant in a time of invasion and strife and protect it from influences both within and without, if they are to attain the dizzying heights of magical power. For the first time in the 25 year history of Ars Magica, players are invited to discover the secrets of House Diedne, a powerful and enigmatic House facing total destruction.

The Sugarpocalypse is nigh, and it’s up to Clea Brown to stop the saccharine hoard of the undead and defeat the evil Yumzy Corporation.

When a brand new candy bar starts turning people into zombies in the small town of Sweetooth, it is up to Clea brown, and her ragtag group of friends, to stop the EVIL Yumzy corporation from reigning down the Sugarpocalypse!

Once Clea just wanted to escape from her town, now she wants to take it back! And she’ll do so a la lollipop – the perfect tool with which to behead the undead.

Find out more information and back this project at Kickstarter.com!

Black Watch Comics and ShadowCatcher Entertainment announce the release of The North End of the World, the historical fiction graphic novel written by Dave Hunsaker and illustrated by Christopher Shy (Soul Stealer, Pathfinder, Dead Space)

Enter the world of Edward S. Curtis, the man who will win immortality photographing and documenting the native peoples of North America…and meet the demons he will face as he travels to the north end of Vancouver Island to make his master work with the Kwakiutl Indians: the groundbreaking motion picture, In the Land of the Headhunters.

The FORGOTTEN REALMS is the most successful and widely known DUNGEONS & DRAGONS campaign setting ever created, and it owes its existence to creator Ed Greenwood.

This 160-page hardcover book describes the campaign setting as it lives and breathes in the imagination of its creator. Through the alter ego of Elminster, Archmage of Shadowdale, Ed Greenwood presents the Realms as a setting where companies of crazed adventurers are born and have rich lives, and where they get to call the shots. In this book, Ed presents a world where friendships are forged, endless intrigues unfold, and heroes wage war against the monstrous inhabitants of famous dungeons and untamed wildernesses.

Ed Greenwood Presents Elminster’s Forgotten Realms is available now at Amazon.com.

2012 marks the 200th anniversary of Grimm’s Tales. For two centuries, the brothers’ collection of fairy tales provided us with a sense of wonder while remarking on our humanity. You may have already seen the celebratory uptick in fairy tale-themed movies, television shows, and stories — but what’s being published next is even better.

Acclaimed author Philip Pullman (His Dark Materials trilogy) has re-written fifty of these fairy tales for the modern age. His new book, titled Fairy Tales From The Brothers Grimm will debut on November 12, 2012. The British author has scheduled some appearances and readings related to the new tome; just check out the official website of Philip Pullman for details.

Are you ready for the next zombie attack?

Can you survive all of the many dangers, both undead and human?

A new online quiz has been published on the Zombies of the World website (www.zombiesoftheworld.com) to help educate the public. The quiz assesses personality, skills, and attitudes toward the undead and other survivors in order to determine how likely the individual is to survive in a zombie attack.

The quiz was based on material from Zombies of the World: A Field Guide to the Undead by Ross Payton.