Popcorn Press is a small press publisher that has been producing Halloween-themed books of haikus, poems, and short fiction for the past few years. Each year the publisher picks a theme, like vampires, zombies, or Cthulhu, and collects a tightly-focused collection filled with poems written by dozens of writers ranging from Elaine Cunningham to Matt […]

We’re all mages, we Awakened Ones. Tradition wizards and Technocrats, Mad Ones and Fallen Ones and all the “ones” in between who refuse to choose a side in our demented little War. We’re ALL mages. Many refuse that title, or deny it to others, but that’s what we are: priest-kings holding the keys to reality.

Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition is available now in PDF and Hardcover editions at the Flames Rising RPGNow Shop!

The pall that had descended over the North is gone, and a new day has dawned on a victorious Mithral Hall, but no matter how bright things seem on the surface, Drizzt and his companions know that what lurks just under their feet remains steeped in evil and charged with unimaginable power.

The dark elves of Menzoberranzan, including the powerful Archmage Gromph, aren’t done with Drizzt yet. And consumed by their own power struggles, feeling backed into a corner, the drow may just be desperate enough to call on demonic forces from the deepest reaches of the Abyss, and unleash a disaster even the Underdark could never have prepared for.

Go beyond the boundaries of the fantastic, award-winning Numenera setting.

Monte Cook Games is currently running an exciting Kickstarter campaign that will expand the Numenera RPG into new vistas, giving characters a chance to explore further than they ever dreamed. The campaign reached the origianl funding goal almost immediately after launching and now new stretch goals are offering backers expanded content, fiction, maps, and more.

Flames Rising is pleased to have award winning author and game designer Monte Cook drop by to tell us a little about some of the design goals of these new supplements and content being offered in this Kickstarter project.

The magic of bestiaries, or dictionaries of mythological creatures, has been captivating the human imagination since ancient times.

Now, Stone Skin Press brings a fresh take on these compendiums of the fantastic with its latest anthology—Gods, Memes and Monsters. Featuring over sixty authors, this stunning international volume offers entries and short stories that range from the horrific to the humorous. The bestiary shed lights on familiar beasts that are coping in our modern era, including gorgons, minotaurs, and mantichores. It also introduces newly discovered creatures such as meme mosquitoes, trashsquatches, and urbantelopes that are thriving in the cyber age.

It’s 1242. The Mongol army crushed Baghdad, then Russia under its heel, then moved on to devastate Poland and Hungary. The Holy Roman Empire stood to war with the Papacy. The second Lombard League wielded the word of the Pope and fought off Frederick II.

The War of Princes rages. Patricide looms. Young powers look up the ladder to the next rungs, and see stagnation and hypocrisy. They see targets. When they look down, they see humanity. They see a power that could change everything. They see mortals organizing into universities and empires.

In the mortal world of 1242, power shifted at the rate an army marched. For the undead, power shifts faster than a fire overtakes a haven. To the Damned, power flows as fast as blood from an ancient heart.

New class options, character backgrounds, and deity descriptions from the Forgotten Realms.

Get everything you need to adventure in the Forgotten Realms on the exciting Sword Coast, home to the cities of Baldur’s Gate, Waterdeep, and Neverwinter! A collaboration between Green Ronin Publishing and the Dungeons & Dragons team at Wizards of the Coast, the Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide provides D&D fans with a wealth of detail on the places, cultures, and deities of northwestern Faerûn.

The Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide is also a great way to catch up on recent events in the Forgotten Realms, to get background on locations featured in the Rage of Demons storyline coming in September, and to learn the lore behind video games like Neverwinter and Sword Coast Legends.

“The Americans were passing Intel to the Israelis, hoping that they’d act fast to grab the artefacts as a cultural priority, mainly to snub the Russians. They didn’t know about the Stasi mole funnelling everything back to Moscow, or that their Damascus network was wide open. We had some agents in place throughout, but I didn’t for a minute think we weren’t compromised in some way or another. And my code N sources were feeding back whispers from the cultists that they’d got a solid lead on the origins of the pieces and were getting ready to move. The whole thing was a murky mess, and I needed to clean it up. The only thing I knew for sure was that we needed to neutralise half a dozen people in the next 24 hours… but who?”

World War Cthulhu: Cold War throws you into one of the most paranoid and chaotic conflicts of the 20th century. The tangled webs of the spymasters tear and rejoin, double and triple agents make their moves and counter-moves, and it’s hard to be sure which side you’re really working for. Nuclear destruction hangs over everyone, and a few people at the heart of western intelligence continue their personal battle against the insidious influence of a much older enemy…

There are some threats that transcend a local Prince’s domain and become enemies of every Kindred in the Camarilla. These Anathema become targets of a global Blood Hunt for their crimes. Not just political enemies, the monsters on the Red List have been named enemies of the entire Camarilla by the Justicars.

Dread Names, Red List explores the Camarilla’s “Most Wanted” List, naming those deemed most dangerous by the Justicars and their chosen deputies, the Alastors. Included are details on the Anathema that occupy the Red List, as well as details on those who hunt them. Storytellers are also given a toolkit for running Alastor-focused chronicles.

Sixth Gun RPG Kickstarter Ends 10pm EDT Thursday, June 25, 2015

Fans of The Sixth Gun and Deadlands settings were excited to learn a crossover adventure was planned as a stretch goal for The Sixth Gun RPG Kickstarter.

“This needs to happen…….no really…it does.” commented backer Brandon Janosco of Garden Grove, California, on the Kickstarter page.

“Chocolate meet my peanut butter!” commented Facebook user Richard Mark Borges of Jamestown, Rhode Island.

“Oh, snap! Deadlands + The Sixth Gun crossover?!” posted the Savage Bloggers Network on Google+.

The Old Ones ruled the earth aeons before the rise of man. Traces of their cyclopean cities can still be found on remote islands, buried amid the shifting desert sands, and in the frozen wastes of the polar extremes. Originally they came to this world from the stars. They sleep now, some deep within the earth or beneath the sea. When the stars are right they shall again walk the earth.

Call of Cthulhu is a tabletop roleplaying game based upon the worlds of H. P. Lovecraft. It is a game of secrets, mysteries, and horror. Playing the role of steadfast investigators, you travel to strange and dangerous places, uncover foul plots, and stand against the terrors of the Cthulhu Mythos. You encounter sanity-blasting entities, monsters, and insane cultists. Within strange and forgotten tomes of lore you discover revelations that man was not meant to know. You and your companions may very well decide the fate of the world.

Filmscope Entertainment is pleased to announce that they have signed an exclusive deal with New York Times best selling and acclaimed author, Margaret Weis, for the film and television rights to her Sci Fi book series Star of the Guardians.

Margaret Weis has written over 60 published books and sold more than 35 million copies including Star of the Guardians, co-authoring the Dragonlance book series and co-creating the Dragonlance game world for RPG game play.

GHOSTS IN THE BLACK is a full-length adventure campaign supplement designed by veteran game designer Robin Laws for the FIREFLY RPG.

You and your Crew will have to perform some thrillin’ heroics over the course of five, unique Episodes to uncover a legendary Alliance warship’s dangerous secrets.

As you play through “Six Cylinders Make a Right”, “Prisoner 3102Y”, “Tombstone Bullets and a Graveyard Mind”, “Hellhound Trail”, and “The Big Dark” you’ll find out just how mighty powerful the Alliance truly is. The story, which is rooted in the Unification War, will provide you with hours of Firefly fun!

Today, Wizards of the Coast announced Rage of Demons, the new storyline for Dungeons & Dragons fans coming in Fall 2015. The demon lords have been summoned from the Abyss and players must descend into the Underdark with the iconic hero Drizzt Do’Urden to stop the chaos before it threatens the surface. Rage of Demons is the story all D&D gamers will be excited to play this fall, whether they prefer consoles, PCs or rolling dice with friends.

Following on the critically-acclaimed Tyranny of Dragons and Elemental Evil stories, Rage of Demons will transport characters to the deadly and insane underworld. Rumors of powerful demon lords such as Demogorgon, Orcus and Graz’zt terrorizing the denizens of the Underdark have begun to filter up to the cities of the Sword Coast. The already dangerous caverns below the surface are thrown into ultimate chaos, madness and discord. The renegade drow Drizzt Do’Urden is sent to investigate but it will be up to you to aid in his fight against the demons before he succumbs to his darker temptations.

Every one of us is weak: mere ants against the stalking giants that have brought us to our knees. Even when we work together, the Unknown is bigger than us, better armed, and better prepared for what’s to come. We have no real advantage, and our greatest victories have been nothing but the monsters toying with us before they descend to feast. Our fight is hopeless.

This is how we’re going to win.

—Hayat Nejem, “How to SAVE the World”

The uneasy feeling that creeps up your spine as you walk down a darkened hallway. The way your footsteps echo oddly on a deserted street at night, as though there was someone walking somewhere behind you. The shape you see out of the corner of your eye when you’re home alone.

In the City of Sevenscore Thousand Smokes, danger lurks down every dark alley. Sinister sorcerers summon terrible forces in their crumbling towers. Treacherous rogues of the Thieves’ Guild prowl the Plaza of Dark Delights. Assassins from the Slayers’ Brotherhood work the Tenderloin District. And hunched figures skitter beneath the streets, waiting for their chance to rise.

But there is action, adventure, and wealth here too–if your rogues have the skill and bravado to claim it.

Lankhmar: City of Thieves is the core setting book for Fritz Leiber’s world of swords & sorcery. It contains details on the world of Nehwon and the city of Lankhmar, Setting Rules, Savage Tales, monsters and foes, and recounts the tales of world’s most notorious scoundrels–including Fafhrd, the Gray Mouser, and their sorcerous sponsors.

The world is broken in hidden ways. The truth is concealed for the sake of mortal minds. The unendurable reality that boils behind the stars is veiled by the pleasant blindness that human sanity requires. Yet every comforting shroud must fall in time, and for these investigators, that time is now.

Silent Legions is a game of modern-day Lovecraftian horror, one carefully designed to support sandbox adventures by hard-bitten investigators and fearless hunters of the dark. Its clean, lightweight old-school rules are compatible with the free Stars Without Number sci-fi game and give both GM and players a steady framework for plumbing the unspeakable secrets of the eldritch night. Now, after a successful Kickstarter with more than 1,100 backers, a Kickstarter completed a month early, this tome of dark secrets can be yours.

TONIGHT WE FLY

There was a night bomber regiment in World War Two composed entirely of women. Natural-born Soviet airwomen.

These 200 women and girls, flying outdated biplanes from open fields near the front lines, attacked the invading German forces every night for 1,100 consecutive nights. When they ran out of bombs they dropped railroad ties.

To each other they were sisters, with bonds forged in blood and terror. To the Red Army Air Force they were an infuriating feminist sideshow. To the Germans they were simply Nachthexen—Night Witches.

Night Witches is a tabletop role-playing game about women at war.

The need to hunt burns in your heart and in your soul. To chase down prey with your blood pumping fire through your body. Yesterday you didn’t know what that felt like, but today you’re sitting in a room with the bodies of your family and you need to hunt.

What are you going to do?

In ancient times, when Nineveh fell, so too was a terrible evil was banished. This evil, a god named Nabu with ambitions to rule humanity, was bound by the Children of Tranquillity into his former temple and buried beneath the sands. Two and a half thousand years later a group of archaeologists uncovered the Temple of Nabu and unleashed a terrible curse — the Curse of Nineveh!

The Curse of Nineveh is a seven-part campaign for Call of Cthulhu set in London, in the summer of 1925.