In 2015, the dark fantasy Shadow of the Demon Lord RPG launched on Kickstarter and was an overwhelming success. “In the game, you create and play characters struggling to survive in a land sliding toward oblivion, a place infested by demons, roaming mobs of undead, strange magic, unhinged cultists, and all in the ruins of […]

The Midgard Campaign Setting for 5th Edition and Pathfinder RPG is a 300+ page volume describing the Midgard regions, from the Northlands to the Western Wastes, and from the Southlands to the Crossroads. With detailed locations, cities, rulers, heraldry, plots, and adventure hooks galore, plus full details of the various pantheons, masked gods, and dark gods, there’s enough here to fuel years of adventuring!

Five years have passed since the original release and now Kobold Press is updating the Midgard Campaign Setting, with even more magic, monsters, and expanded content! Wolfgang Baur is here today with a guest post about this ambitious project.

There are many iconic adventures and stories in the 43-year history (!) of Dungeons & Dragons that current fans may not have ever experienced. If you just got into D&D in the past few years, you likely haven’t braved the Tomb of Horrors or climbed White Plume Mountain or fought Against the Giants. Even longtime fans haven’t been able to fully explore the Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan or the Sunless Citadel with stats and monsters updated for the fifth edition of Dungeons & Dragons.

Hal Greenberg and Jonathan M. Thompson are very pleased to announce a new project that highlights a romantic time in history with strong female leads.

In an age when it is not proper for a woman to be a soldier, three bright, savvy, and well-trained female warriors must hide who they are when they accept the burden of protecting and helping their queen (Anne). But once you meet these three musketeers, you’ll realize proper was never a concern.

Aimi met and fell in love with Jacques Marlette when the oils trader visited her birthplace of Japan. After they married, she learned of her husband’s friendship with France’s current ruler, King Louis XIII, which in turn brought her close to the queen. Extremely loyal to the crown, Aimi still has the queen’s ear even after Jacque left France on an important errand for the king, never to return.

A Man Without A Past Cipher is a monk: a master of the Deadly Arts, able to dismantle enemies using his bare hands. He is immune to lies, and can see volumes of information in the smallest detail. Unfortunately, that’s all he knows. His real name, his history – all stolen by an unknown foe. […]

As Atlantis falls, how will you use your fate? Where will you stand in the face of the coming wave? Chariot is a fantasy role-playing game set just before the final fall of an occult, theosophical Atlantis tempered by my boyhood imagination. It uses Tarot cards rather than dice, and has a heavily occult and […]

Be a Good Dog. Protect Your Home. Be Loyal To Those Who Are True.

These are the words of the Code of Man. Dogs have inherited the world, building the kingdom of Pugmire thousands of years after the Ages of Man. These dogs have been changed to use tools and language, and they (along with other races of uplifted animals) seek to rediscover the world they’ve inherited. Some dogs use the leftover technology of humanity, but they believe it all to be magic handed to them by their dead gods. Others seek to create an ideal civilization, using a Code of Man compiled from ancient, fragmentary lore. The world is dangerous and mysterious, but courageous and loyal dogs will persevere.

Pugmire is a light-hearted and family-friendly fantasy world. It’s one of the first of Onyx Path Publishing’s creator-owned games, produced in a partnership with Eddy Webb and Pugsteady.

The Kickstarter has already blown past the original funding goal and is well on its way to achieving a number of exciting stretch goals that not only enhance the game itself, but add new media options for fans of the setting. Eddy Webb sat down with Flames Rising to talk a bit about the Pugmire setting and what is going with the Kickstarter project.

Battle for the Undercity is a D&D 5th Edition adventure designed for a DM’s use in any Forgotten Realms™ campaign. It was designed and written by writer, editor, and developer Monica Valentinelli, with rules and editing by Scott Holden.

Battle for the Undercity takes place underground in a section of a major city. The party will navigate sewers, worked tunnels, forgotten crypts, and freshly dug passageways to fend off adversaries in order to rescue hostages and return them safely to the surface unharmed. Can your party emerge victorious and save the day?

From the ashes, hope rises

The Final Empire was built on the backs of the skaa — the downtrodden descendants of those who opposed the Lord Ruler’s ascension a thousand years ago. They are the faceless masses of Scadrial, tasked with plowing the barren fields, sweeping the ash-covered streets, tending the opulent nobility, and serving at the whims of their “betters.” But a few skaa cast off the chains of their destiny to be something more. They are thieves, Allomancers, firebrands, and rebels. They fight the system of oppression and brutality to give their people something they lost long ago — hope.

Skaa: Tin & Ash is an essential supplement for the Mistborn Adventure Game, designed for players, Narrators, and fans of the Mistborn novels. Developed in cooperation with Brandon Sanderson, this guide expands the canon of the novels, providing new insights into skaa throughout the Final Empire. Inside you’ll find detailed information on the history and beliefs of the skaa; the lives of city, canal, and plantation skaa; the skaa criminal and political underground; and famous skaa such as the Citizen, Mare, and the Survivor of the Flames.

It has been six hundred years since Imoshen the First, Causare of the T’En, brought her beleaguered people across the seas to Fair Isle. The magical folk mixed with the natives, bringing culture and sophistication, and made the island one of the wealthiest, most powerful nations in the known world.

In one night, all is lost. Imoshen, namesake of the first Empress, is the last pure-blooded T’En woman, left behind when her kinfolk went to die in defence of their homeland. The savage Ghebites, barbarians from the warm north, have conquered Fair Isle, and their general, Tulkhan, claims her as his right of conquest.

Proud and fierce, trained in arts of war and possessed of extraordinary healing gifts, Imoshen must choose to submit to the barbarian soldier and save her people’s heritage… or to die in a futile gesture of defiance.

The Flames Rising RPG Design series continues with Eric Staggs from Spectacle Publishing.

The Darkest Age is a Horror RPG set in a grim, alternate history. Enter the gritty and dangerous world of Europe in 1350, as an unusual strain of the bubonic plague ravages the countryside and those afflicted don’t just die. Faced with extinction, the people of Europe are forced to survive in any way they can. Characters face death, disease and the myriad undead, as well as cannibals, xenophobic city-states, and religious strife in an unending battle for the resources that mean survival.

Eric tells us about his process of creating the game.

Since 2003, FlamesRising.com has supported first-time novelists and veteran authors through our interviews, reviews, and excerpts. Our chapter previews, which are hosted with permission, are one of the most popular features of our website.

If you’re an author (or publisher) seeking an outlet to host your horror, dark fantasy, or dark science fiction excerpt, we invite you to join FlamesRising.com. Since we are a website, it’d would be helpful if you saved your excerpt in a format conducive to the web. To add your preview to this feature on our site, please review our Submission Guidelines and use the Contact Us page.

In the land of Eranon, the Reach is a desolate place where people journey to forget who they are. Now, a menace rises from this wasteland, and he is hunting for someone. To keep the madman and his chaos behind the Reach, four adventurers with haunted pasts must rise to the challenge. But how can failed heroes bring hope to others when they doubt themselves?

Originally published in 2006 as a tie-in novel to the Chronicles of Ramlar role playing game, Into the Reach is now re-released in a newly edited e-book edition.

Flames Rising is pleased to present the first chapter of this new edition by Alana Abbott.

The Flames of Shadam Khoreh is the concluding volume in The Lays of Anuskaya trilogy. It brings the story full circle from where it began in The Winds of Khalakovo. In that first novel, Nikandr Khalakovo, a prince of the Grand Duchy of Anuskaya, learns of Nasim, an autistic savant with wondrous powers. Through Nasim, Nikandr learns of the Al-Aqim, three wizards who long ago tore rifts between the material and elemental worlds. Those rifts have been growing, and things are coming to a head at last. The story expands in the second book, The Straits of Galahesh, moving from the archipelagos where Nasim was discovered to the island of Galahesh. It is there that a plot by Al-Aqim is revealed. And in The Flames of Shadam Khoreh, the rifts have spread to places that once thought themselves safe. It falls to the heroes to close the rifts before the entire world suffers the consequences.

Mechanical Dream is a world unlike anything you’ve ever experienced. On a huge planet, Naakinis, 10 races vie for survival under conditions no humans could ever hope to survive in one immense continent, encircled by impassable darkness: Kainas.

Mechanical Dream is now available in PDF format at DriveThruRPG.com!

Nearly two years after the harrowing events of The Straits of Galahesh, Atiana and Nikandr continue their long search for Nasim. The clues they find lead them to the desert wastes of the Gaji, where the fabled valley of Shadam Khoreh lies.

But all is not well. War has moved from the islands to the mainland, and the Grand Duchy knows its time may be limited if Yrstanla rallies its forces. Worse, the wasting disease and the rifts grow ever wider, threatening places that once thought themselves safe. The Dukes believe that their only hope may be to treat with the Haelish warriors to the west of Yrstanla, but Nikandr knows that the key is to find Nasim and a lost artifact known as the Atalayina.

Will Nikandr succeed and close the rifts once and for all? The answer lies deep within the Flames of Shadam Khoreh.

From Bradley P. Beaulieu, author of the critically acclaimed debut novel, The Winds of Khalakovo, comes the concluding volume in the Lays of Anuskaya trilogy, The Flames of Shadam Khoreh.

The long-delayed conclusion to the Redemption Trilogy — in which four heroes face their world’s most dangerous villain.

In 2006, White Silver Publishing released Into the Reach, the first novel of the Redemption Trilogy. In 2007, Departure followed. Soon after, White Silver folded, and the third book, Regaining Home, was never published. A draft of the manuscript is complete but was never finished.

In 2010, White Silver released the rights to publish the novels back to Alana Abbott, and now Alana — with the team of editor extraordinaire Shawn Merwin and amazing artist Lindsay Archer — is making plans to finish Regaining Home for release as an e-book.

I’ve been hearing about Hansel & Gretel (H&G) for well over a year now. It was supposed to have hit the theatre a few times over the last year before it if finally escaped this weekend. If I had to guess, the studio was probably waiting for an opportunity to dump it in hopes of making a quick buck and then forgotten about, and after the “Avengers” made it so big and everyone recognizes Jeremy “Hawkeye” Renner these days, now was the time to start this witch hunt. It was probably the right move; my niece was dying to go see this with me, simply because Hawkeye was in it. So with a couple of teens and my wife forming a hunting party, we all went to see G&H. And how did the hunt go?

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.

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.