We are like you. We live in your cities, we laugh at your jokes, we share your good times and your bad ones. We meet you in clubs and back alleys, at glamorous parties and dive bars. We need you, to sate our endless hunger. We are your Kindred.

They are the smoke and the darkness, things that could have been you or us, creatures of hunger that humanity stole the night from. They are the Strix.

This anthology chronicles our struggle, and unveils the schemes and atrocities of Kindred and Strix alike.

The Strix Chronicle Anthology is available now in eBook formats at DriveThruFiction.com!

No one would suspect that Ariadne, the cold and deadly “Silent Knife” of Prince Liliane, was once a sensitive college girl who preferred books to blades. But that life ended when her lover Andre cast her aside, into the waiting fangs of an unknown Sire who fled after the Embrace.

Re-shaped by her Prince’s cruel tutelage, Ariadne has fought hard to earn her place in Liliane’s court. Now that court is threatened from all sides: Liliane’s former Seneschal is staging a rebellion, wielding deadly magics that threaten Kindred and humans alike.

Silent Knife is now available in eBook and Print formats at DriveThruFiction.com!

Blood Sorcery lures us back to the beginning of Vampire the Requiem and takes a long look at one of the most interesting aspects of the game. While blood sorcery has always been “good” it was probably not as well developed as it could have been in hindsight. The Storytelling system has matured and now Requiem is benefiting from years of experience with a revamp of blood sorcery, an alternative approach to the system and a plethora of interesting additions to your chronicles. Coming in at just under 70 pages of content this is one of the best new books available to fans of Vampire the Requiem.

Being a vampire is inherently trading humanity for power, but most Kindred don’t do it on purpose. Blood sorcery is about wrapping your arms around blood sacrifice or inhuman philosophy and holding it close against your silent heart. As presented in Vampire: The Requiem, sorcery is a series of rituals passed down from hierophant to acolyte, pastor to parishioner. The blood caked on these rituals is dark and dried, and they are ancient and horrible indeed.

That’s what this book is: a gory and grand new exploration of blood sorcery from the powers of the great covenants to the dirty secrets of the street to the figures that lurk in the shadowed history of the Kindred. Blood Sorcery is available now in PDF and Print at DriveThruRPG.com!

I was excited when Russell and Eddy first approached me to work on Strange, Dead Love. For the past couple of years, I have attended several romance writing workshops to learn more about the genre from an author’s perspective. Several of the sessions were dedicated to paranormal romance and we often took a lit crit approach to the genre by pulling out contemporary examples: Laurell K. Hamilton, Charlaine Harris, Anne Rice, Yasmine Galenorn, Patricia Briggs, etc. The subject was something I knew a lot about and, as a Vampire: the Requiem player and author of Scenes of the Embrace, I was happy I could contribute to help other players dive into this genre.

“No God commands me, yet I answer to a higher law than yours. My heart does not beat, yet it still feels. Only her word rules me, and only her smile warms my blood.” – J. Carlton, Nosferatu Harpy of Baltimore

Strange, Dead Love is a new supplement for White Wolf’s Vampire: the Requiem RPG. It is guide to the themes and props of paranormal romance, custom-fit for the World of Darkness, specifically Vampire: the Requiem. This book features a collection of world shards, ready-made chronicles with their own plot hooks and rules. As well as advice for storytelling romance, including guidance on games for two.

Strange, Dead Love is now available in Print and PDF formats at DriveThruRPG.com.

“No God commands me, yet I answer to a higher law than yours. My heart does not beat, yet it still feels. Only her word rules me, and only her smile warms my blood.” – J. Carlton, Nosferatu Harpy of Baltimore

Strange, Dead Love is a new supplement for White Wolf’s Vampire: the Requiem RPG. It is guide to the themes and props of paranormal romance, custom-fit for the World of Darkness, specifically Vampire: the Requiem. This book features a collection of world shards, ready-made chronicles with their own plot hooks and rules. As well as advice for storytelling romance, including guidance on games for two.

Strange, Dead Love was written by Jess Hartley, Monica Valentinelli and Filamena Young. You can read the Flames Rising interview with the developers Russell Bailey and Eddy Webb from October where we took fan questions about the book.

Flames Rising has an exclusive sneak preview of this new book with an excerpt called A Plague for a Dowry.

Players can try something different with the newest SAS from White Wolf. In “Into the Void,” ($6.99 at RPGNow.com), players kick off an adventure with killing the Prince of their city. The Prince, in all truth, is a secret hording problem that a good Final Death solves.

Or does it?

This is one of the better SAS releases that I’ve read. While certain NPCs are named, there is no reason why the Prince can’t become the Prince of established characters’ city along with the key movers and shakers detailed.

Preludes. Some of my best memories of Storyteller games circle around Preludes. I could sequester away a player for perhaps an evening and, for a session, really get into that particular character’s head. Dice rarely hit the table. It was about motivations and character. I mention this because this eBook flirts with being a look at preludes. Let me clear that it isn’t, but even the author allows that some Storytellers will use it for exactly that purpose.

The PDF’s artwork is mostly good. In fact, there are some pieces within the file that are damned good (no pun intended. Really.). I personally liked Shane Coppage’s art the best (the cover belongs to this artist). The artwork proved a little distracting in that some pieces look like Hollywood was tapped for character inspiration.

Dance ‘Til Sunrise

The definitive companion to Vampire: The Requiem.

Flames Rising is pleased to present an exclusive excerpt from this new Vampire: the Requiem sourcebook from White Wolf. Danse Macabre is available at Amazon.com and RPGNow.com.

FlamesRising.com is pleased to present you with an inside look at the design process for Scenes of the Embrace, a brand new toolkit released from White Wolf Publishing to be used with its Vampire: the Requiem role-playing game.

This exclusive article is broken up into two parts. First, we give you an overview of the design process for this product, which was inspired by Will Hindmarch’s design from Scenes of Frenzy. After you read Eddy Webb and Monica Valentinelli’s exchange, stick around for an exclusive preview from this new e-book.

Scenes of the Embrace is available now at the Flames Rising RPGNow Shop.

This is a fun little book (52 pages/no ads). I can see why it’s holding at number one at Flames Rising RPGNow Shop since its release. It’s a useful little bastard that gives canon material to what gamers have been doing since Masquerade’s end and Requiem’s release. I guessed it would be a book about translating the old system to the new, but it doesn’t play favorites. It goes both ways.

The first three pages detail the similarities and differences between the two lines. For example, the original line ran with the “we’re the Childer of Caine” speech where untrustworthy memories make any origin story suspect in Requiem.

Sharpen your fangs and lick your ruby red lips! It’s Vampire Week at FlamesRising.com! From now through Saturday, we’re going to introduce a broad range of vampires to you through reviews, articles, essays, and a fun contest, too!

While FlamesRising.com has always been a big fan of the vampire genre, this week is our chance to honor all the great vampire characters that are out there while exploring some new ones. To help you get started, here’s the Top 10 Most Popular Posts about vampires on FlamesRising.com.

As the evening’s action opens, Blake and Lavender have a discussion about moving the recovered treasures out of Stickney. While we trust Regent Czarnecki – our mentor – implicitly, he is not the only Nosferatu there, and certainly not the only one with access to the stuff. The Regent has suggested that while he’s fine with keeping it safe for us, he would ultimately like the stuff moved, and the sooner the better.

We debate the fate of the Canopic jars; they are a powerful, ancient artifact, but also dangerous. We know several Mekhet – a clan with ties to ancient Egypt – who could possibly help us find someone who knows what to do with this stuff. We agree that someone we know – Jed Holyoak, master of Blood Magic and high-ranking member of the Circle of the Crone – seems a likely candidate. We drive out to Stickney to look over the loot, possibly discuss things with our mentor and decide how to proceed and what – if anything – we should take away with us tonight. On the way, a Black SUV tries to run us off the road; we are suspicious, but draw no specific conclusions.

So Lavender and Blake were forced to skip a week thanks to the GM’s business-related trip. THIS week, we needed to spend time talking minutiae; we all feel we’re getting too bogged down in little details and not concentrating on specific character goals and more important plot threads. We spent some time going over the recovered files kept by Raphael LaDue, self-proclaimed Regent of Cicero. These files were primarily for blackmail purposes, but also contained significant information on Kindred in and around the Cicero area. LaDue, currently sentenced to a year in torpor for defying the Prince, kept files on everyone of interest to him; mortals he could blackmail for services and influence; Kindred who live in Cicero; and Kindred of general interest in the Cicago area.

In this episode, Lavender and Blake deal with the contents of the boxes and catch up on some old business with Kyle.

Lavender and Blake head over to Bootlegger’s, a kind of a blue collar-ish sports bar, to catch a quick bite to eat. Trying out her new “toy,” she tries to put the one-word whammy on a college kid and fails miserably, so she goes for the gold and entrances him. Leading him out to her car, she has a quick bite and wonders how to make better use of “Dominate.” After having a quick bite, she takes the mortal over to Coyote Ugly and dumps him in a sea of waitresses. On the way back to Bootlegger’s, Lavender notices Blake heading out with another woman, so she heads back to her apartment and finds a bunch of new books on the shelf.

This week in our ongoing Vampire:the Requiem game, Blake and Lavender are on their way to the Chicago suburb of Stickney to consult with their mentor, Regent Mike Czarnecki, Nosferatu and Invictus elder. The batch of assorted crates and containers we recovered from under the Chicago River were waiting to be opened. Upon our arrival in Stickney, we were led by the Regent through a series of hallways and tunnels to what appeared to be an empty parking lot – until the Regent canceled his Obfuscate, and we saw a smallish, corrugated metal building the size of a two-car garage. because we had enlisted the aid of the rival Carthians, it had been suggested to the Regent by McLean that the boxes recovered from under the Chicago River should be moved to a safer place. How much safer a hiding place could one get than a building that normally couldn’t be found? The Regent mentions that few outside of his own clan knew of this building; Blake felt honored to be brought into the Regent’s confidence in this way.

Picking up from where we left our coterie last week, we find Lavender, Blake and the rest about to look for sunken treasure. Having learned that the body of “The Old Man” (an Invictus elder) was in torpor at the bottom of the Chicago River, Blake immediately assumes we need to retrieve it and put it in safe storage. If the diablerists were to get their hands on it, the results would be bad no matter what happened. The diving expedition consists of Blake, Filthfoot (Nosferatu bound to our coterie under first-stage viniculum as punishment for misbehavior) and Garret McLean, Gangrel Seneschal to the Prince and all-around bad dude. Lavender will remain in the boat as look-out and back-up, along with Carpenter (Blake’s ghoul), Butch (Filthfoot’s buddy) and the boat captain, who thinks we’re diving to recover lost treasures of Al Capone.

A story in the Storytelling Adventure System for Requiem for Rome (using Vampire: The Requiem)

Paterfamilias contains a collection of scenes, Storyteller character records, a number of hyperlinks to various portions of the text as well as bookmarks, so you can always jump right to what you need with just a click. There’s also a new hunter group provided, as well as errata for Requiem for Rome and Fall of the Camarilla.

Paterfamilias is available at the Flames Rising RPGNow Shop.

Last week Monica filled everyone in on Lavender the Daeva; this week I’m here to tell you about the next member of the coterie: Blake Porter, Ventrue bon-vivant.

Most of this week was taken up in getting a prospective new player up to speed on the setting and situation of our game. As a result, not as much happened as usual this week, but here are some of the highlights:

The Prince held court this week, as is usual for the last Friday of the month. Lavender took her young ward Kyle — also a Daeva — along with us to court, and he was dressed to the nines. Several of the prominent female Kindred at court proclaimed Kyle the “best-dressed man in the room.”