In churches and convents and other religious communities, sisterhood takes many forms, forged and tested by such mundane threats as disease and despair, but also by terrors both spiritual and existential—Satan’s subtle minions and the cosmic nightmare of the Cthulhu Mythos.

Sisterhood: Dark Tales and Secret Histories presents sixteen horror stories by some of the genre’s leading female voices. Their settings range around the globe and across the centuries, from 6th century Ireland to 17th century Virginia to Indonesia in the recent past.

Welcome to Dragon City, a grim, gritty metropolis ruled over by the Dragon Emperor, with legions of zombies scratching at the city walls by night.

Whether in the streets of Goblintown or the prestigious halls of the Academy of Arcane Apprenticeship, people try to scrape by, make a living, and survive from one day to the next. You, however, are looking for something more than simple survival. And in this city, if you don’t make your own adventure, another adventure is sure to find you.

Based on the fantasy noir novels of bestselling author Matt Forbeck and powered by Monte Cook’s Cypher system — written by Forbeck, with rules by legendary game designer Robert J. Schwalb — Shotguns & Sorcery: The Roleplaying Game contains everything you need to launch your campaign.

Undead & Unbound is a book of fiction celebrating those who have returned from the grave — in all their glory and in whatever form they take. You will find the famous blood-drinkers and flesh eaters here, but also ghosts, patched-together reanimates, fiends of myth and folklore, and some not-so-easily-identifiable creatures from beyond the grave.

Nineteen tales take the undead to their limits. From the distant past to the far-flung future, and to all corners of the Earth, the undead are eternal and everywhere: symbiotes, parasites, monster mash-ups and ghoulish grins, bleak tales of inescapable dread, an ancient evil from a far-away land with unspeakable dietary needs, a boy and his…well, it’s not a dog. History is brought to (un)life. Ghosts, specters, phantoms and haunts of every sort. Not-so-easily-classifiable stories that do new things with the basic premise of what’s alive, what’s dead, and what’s neither.

DriveThruRPG has launched their annual Halloween sale, and as usual, it’s a doozy; thousands of items — more than ten thousand items on Drive Thru RPG alone — are marked at 25% off. As usual, the suite of Drive Thru sites — DriveThruRPG, DriveThruFiction, DriveThruCards, DMsGuild, and Storytellers Vault — are each offering this sale on a huge selection of items. I thought I’d take a moment to highlight several items I’m particularly fond of to illustrate the depth and breadth of what’s available now through October 31. Most (but not all) follow the Halloween theme of horror and the supernatural.

Heya, are you participating in CampNaNoWriMo? Got a novel in the works? Your own game? I put together a list of ten books to help! Every book in this list is on sale through July 31st as part of the massive Christmas in July sale at DriveThruFiction.com.

In no particular order, here’s ten great non-fiction books to help your craft. I picked books that’d be great for genre authors and narrative designers. Check ’em out!

“I dream under the sea, and I see faces, bloated faces with bulging eyes. They remind me of people I knew as a boy, half-drowned, but not dead.” Silas shivered, but not from the chill gusts blowing through the open door. Pointed teeth grinned, webbed hands reaching for him, glowing eyes in the darkness… He couldn’t tell Martin those details, of course. Some things you couldn’t say aloud if you wanted to stay out of the madhouse.
–Chris A. Jackson, The Deep Gate

What secrets have been drowned in Devil Reef?

Vlad III Dracula. A warleader in a warlike time: brilliant, charismatic, pious. But what became of him? What drove him to become a creature of darkness—Bram Stoker’s cruel, ambitious “Un-Dead”—and what use did he make of this power, through the centuries?

More than a hundred years after the monster’s death, the descendants of the survivors piece together the story— dusty old manuscripts, court reports from the Holy Roman Empire at its height, stories of the Szgany Roma who once served the monster—trying to understand. Because the nightmare is far from over…

Back in December of 2016, I started an initiative to help artists focus on making art anticipating an awful four years of politics and distractions. Making art is part of who we are, what we do, and how many of us earn a living (or part thereof).

I am pleased to announce the release of Make Art Not War Challenge: Rules, Essays, and 31 Creative Prompts. This eBook is available in multiple file formats through DriveThruFiction.com in Nook (ePub), Kindle (Mobi), and PDF formats.

Wildside Press has many excellent Cthulhu Mythos collections as well as a number of Weird Tales offerings. Today they launched H. P. Lovecraft: The Decline of the West by Mythos scholar S. T. Joshi in eBook formats at DriveThruFiction.com.

The author writes:

This book began as an expansion of my essay, “H. P. Lovecraft: The Decline of the West,” in The Weird Tale, but very quickly became something quite different, to the degree that the two works have little save the title in common. I have always been interested in Lovecraft the philosopher, and in my Starmont Reader’s Guide to Lovecraft (1982) I attempted a very compressed account of his philosophical views.

AN ANCIENT EVIL RISES…BURNS…KILLS…

After a fire consumes the Heller Home for Children, the residents of Morganville, North Carolina thought they knew evil…

They were wrong.

Unaware of the turmoil in their new hometown, the Littles–David, Kate, and seven-year-old Becca–are moving from New York City to Morganville in hopes of repairing their own lives, which were recently shattered by an act of sexual violence.

Before long, David realizes that his family’s troubles are worse than he could ever have imagined.

An ancient demon lurks beneath the town of Morganville, an unholy creature conjured into existence by the Heller Home tragedy.

Upside Down: Inverted Tropes in Storytelling is an anthology of short stories, poetry, and essays edited by Monica Valentinelli and Jaym Gates.

Over two dozen authors, ranging from NYT-bestsellers and award winners to debut writers, chose a tired trope or cliche to challenge and surprise readers through their work. Read stories inspired by tropes such as the Chainmaille Bikini, Love at First Sight, Damsels in Distress, Yellow Peril, The Black Man Dies First, The Villain Had a Crappy Childhood, The Singularity Will Cause the Apocalypse, and many more…then discover what these tropes mean to each author to find out what inspired them.

Onyx Path Publishing continues its support of the 20th Anniversary Edition of the Vampire: the Masquerade Role-Playing Game. Vampire has always been loved by its fans for the rich setting filled with tragic anti-heroes and horrifying villains among the damned. Throughout the game’s history White Wolf and now Onyx Path have published a variety of novels and anthologies allowing authors to explore that setting even further. Here are two new Vampire anthologies exploring both the Dark Ages and the Modern Nights.

The Cainite Conspiracies Anthology

Step back into the Dark Ages…

…into a time when the clans, high and low, battle for blood and power.

Twenty-five years of Vampire: The Masquerade

Twenty-five years of storytelling, adventure, and exploration. In celebration, we bring you eighteen authors that explore the evolution and development of the world of Vampire. From tales of wanton diablerie to the fulfilling of centuries-old religious vows, lover’s sacrifices, and searches for truth. Peel apart the layers and discover the endless ages of beauty and betrayal.

Celebrating 25 years of personal horror, the eighteen stories in Endless Ages range in style and aesthetics from the very first edition of Vampire released in 1991, all the way to the latest books put out for the 20th Anniversary Edition.

The new season of Black Mirror hits Netflix soon. Have you seen it? The IMDB synopsis for the show is quaint and simple:

A television anthology series that shows the dark side of life and technology.

It’s the show that recently sort of predicted that a British Prime Minister would copulate with a porcine animal.

Like most children, I wanted to stay up late and watch the “grown up” television shows and movies that my parents would watch. I would beg, plea, and attempt to make a deal in the hopes of having one night of being able to be just like them; watching a late-night syndicated Star Trek marathon, the comedy of Saturday Night Live and SCTV, or the sultry stylings of Benny Hill.

One evening I was sent to bed and was allowed to read some comic books and other stories before sleeping. One of those comics was an issue of Godzilla from my Dad’s collection. It was the first time I ever heard of it and I read it from cover to cover ten times straight before falling asleep.

Long out of print, the Blood of Kerensky Trilogy by Michael A. Stackpole is finally available in eBook formats thanks to Catalyst Game Labs!

The Clan invaders have chosen their next objective – Luthien, capital of the Draconis Combine. House Kurita must now fight for survival on its homeworld.

Nothing we have can stop them.

Hanse Davion is presented with a situation undreamt of … final defeat of the Dragon – House Kurita. Should he attack his distracted foe and destroy the enemy his family has battled for over 300 years? Or should he reinforce a fellow House of the Inner Sphere against a force that Davion and the Federated Commonwealth might not otherwise defeat when the time comes?

The Clans.

From the Patriots’ raid on the necromancer Joseph Curwen to the Special Forces’ assault on Leng in 2007, this unique document reveals the secret and terrible struggle between the United States and the supernatural forces of Cthulhu.

In this war, immortal cultists worship other-dimensional entities and plot to raise an army of the dead. Incomprehensible undersea intelligences infiltrate and colonize American seaports, and alien races lurk beneath the ice of Antarctica and high in the mountains of Afghanistan. It is only through constant vigilance and violence that the earth has surived.

Also included are threat reports describing the indescribable – humanity’s deadliest foes serving Cthulhu and the other Great Old Ones. Strange times are upon us, the world is changing, and even death may die – but, until then, the war continues.

Recently, Monica Valentinelli and Jaym Gates launched a Kickstarter to fund an anthology titled Upside Down: Inverted Tropes in Storytelling. Today, in an exclusive update for FlamesRising.com, one of the collection’s contributors, Haralambi Markov, is here to share with you his insights into tropes and cliches. For more about the author, visit: haralambimarkov.com For more about the anthology, visit Upside Down: Inverted Tropes in Storytelling on Kickstarter–and be sure to read our updates!

I’ve always enjoyed reading “how to” guides on a variety of topics. Even if I’ve read a similar subject before I’ll read them to see the different thoughts, beliefs and takes that particular writer has to say about the subject. Such was the case with Writing Monsters: How to Craft Believably Terrifying Creatures to Enhance Your Horror, Fantasy, and Science Fiction. I’ve read a few guides on writing monsters, but it’s been awhile so this was a good refresher while learning Mr. Athans take on monsters and writing about them.
Being a fan of H.P. Lovecraft’s works myself, this book was off to a good start as the forward was written by the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society. “While Mr. Athans draws from an extremely impressive array of monstrous sources, we are, of course, particularly delighted to see the works of H.P. Lovecraft cited so frequently and so appropriately in this discussion. Lovecraft was indeed, as Athans states, a master of the monster.”

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.