It is the year 1867, and it is a time of revolution.

The new science has done more than bring incredible technologies into the homes of everyday people. It has brought with it a new way of looking at the world. A way based on observation and logic that threatens the ancient dogma of Aluminat church teachings.

New political ideas are sweeping across Europe. Bismark ‘The Iron Chancellor’ is uniting the might of Prussia and the social order of Europe is threatened by talk of Communism and Bolshevism. The industrial revolution seems unstoppable. New technology appears at terrifying speed. Machines are being crafted that seem capable of impossible feats. Many worry that mankind is becoming enslaved to the vast industrial machines that belch smoke into the streets of London.

The book is a massive one, totalling out to nearly four hundred pages interspersed with illustrations that are mostly small, so that’s an intimidating amount of text, though most of it is background and plots, and thus optional. It includes the general rules, combat rules, character creation, kung fu, secret techniques and powers and an enormous section of plot and background providing a great many hooks and ideas to players and Games Masters alike. The game is complete in one book but be aware that the PDF I am reviewing from lacked the front cover image, this does make a file smaller but I would have liked it to be there. I have also read the hardcopy version.

Review by James ‘Grim’ Desborough

London. Winter. 1963.

And this was not just a nuclear war. Far more sinister, darker weapons were deployed from the shadows.

Hot War, the new game from Contested Ground Studios, is now available for pre-order through Indie Press Revolution! Pre-order the book now and you’ll receive the PDF version absolutely free!

Cadwallon sells itself as a ‘tactical role playing game’ and it sits, uncomfortably and mystifyingly, somewhere between D&D and one of Games Workshop’s skirmish games like Mordheim or Necromunda. It never quite explains what tactical roleplaying is exactly and it comes across in the reading as either a dumbed down D&D where the board becomes necessary or a brightened up skirmish game where you actually roleplay. It is stuck between dimensions, neither one thing nor the other but given the D&D miniatures and the popularity of Clix this new middle ground seems to have become a fighting area for many of the companies so there must be something in it.

In this interview we discuss writing for various World of Darkness games, including Mummy: the Resurrection and Dark Ages: Vampire.

It seems such a long time ago now, 1992, that so many of us were so naïve we thought vampires could be dissuaded from eating us by garlic or that they would recoil from their appearance (or lack of it) in a mirror. Worse, we believed in our ignorance that vampires were pretty much all of a piece. Since then, we have been educated to understand that there are endless machinations among the numerous tribes and clans of the vampire world that is kept secret from we mere humans – the kine on which the powerful but shadowy kindred feed.

Sarah tells us about her work on the Dark Ages games for the World of Darkness and offers up some in-depth advice for the hopeful authors out there.