The year is 1976. A novel debuts: Interview With a Vampire by Anne Rice. A book written about a man named Louis from New Orleans who became a vampire–thanks to Lestat, a complicated antihero who both loathes and revels in his own vampirism and place within vampire society. Challenging social norms in any era is […]

Mind’s Eye Theatre Vampire: The Masquerade – War of Ages is a Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition (“V5”) live-action setting book from By Night Studios and is on Kickstarter now. This new live-action supplement features game designer Juhana Pettersson of the award-nominated Vampire: The Masquerade Nordic-style Larp End of the Line, as well as the Vampire: The Masquerade Anarch V5 book.

Juhana stopped by for a bit to tell us about working on this project and give us an insight into that process.

Vault Comics, publishers of the successful Vamipre: the Masquerade series Winter’s Teeth, continue to roll out more horror series at DriveThruComics!

New issues of Bleed Them Dry, I Walk With Monsters, and Vampire: the Masquerade are available now!

Onyx Path Publishing has launched a new Kickstarter for their StoryPath System line of RPGs. A companion to the previous They Came From Beneath the Sea!, you can now jump into campy horror with They Came from Beyond the Grave! Onyx Path describes the new game as:

They Came from Beyond the Grave! is a dramatic, hammy, and horrifying tabletop roleplaying game encompassing the shock, terror, eroticism, and humor of 1970s horror. This game allows you to play with all the magnificent content from the movies of Hammer, Amicus, and Roger Corman, and promises fun and thrills of the horror movie genre!

We had the chance to ask developer Matthew Dawkins about this project. You can also check out some actual play videos from the recent Onyx Path Virtual Gaming Convention too!

In 1969, Neil Armstrong became the first man to walk on the moon; over 300,000 music lovers flooded into a farm outside Woodstock, NY for the ultimate concert; the Beatles recorded their final album. And crashing to Earth aboard a damaged spacecraft was a refugee from the distant planet Drakulon, whose inhabitants had drunk from rivers of blood-until they ultimately ran dry. A lone survivor of a dead planet who discovered that the sustenance she needed in order to live flowed not in rivers but in the veins of the humans of this strange new world. A huntress named Vampirella!

Created in 1969 by comics publisher James Warren and writer/editor Forrest J Ackerman, Vampirella is the femme fatale from outer space known for fighting monsters while wearing a one-piece swimsuit and a pair of go-go boots, and who celebrated her 50th anniversary last year with the launch of a new series by her current rights owner, Dynamite Entertainment.

The Vampire: The Masquerade – New Blood Starter Pack is a print & play PDF bundle that embraces you into the World of Darkness and Vampire: The Masquerade.

Designed with new Storytellers and players in mind, it features a new story that teaches you to play this new edition of the roleplaying game, a rules reference guide, printable enemy and victim cards, 7 player characters, and a relationship map.

You wake up in a meat locker with vague memories of what happened last night. Something about you is not quite right. As you come to your senses, you realize that you have a hunger you’d never experienced before. Gradually, you’ll come to realize that you’ve been Embraced into the world of Kindred – or vampires to those not in the know.

This story takes you through your very first steps in Vampire: The Masquerade. Whether you will be the Storyteller running this, or a player participating in the story, this product doesn’t require any previous knowledge of or experience with the game.

When you have already experienced death, why have faith?
If you accept that you and everyone like you is cursed by God, why cling to His word?
When you return from the other side as a blood-drinking monster, what purpose serves belief?

Cults of the Blood Gods is a new style of sourcebook for Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition from Onyx Path Publishing that introduces the pernicious horror of twisted beliefs. Currently funding on Kickstarter.com, we managed to get a few questions to some of the design team during the holiday break.

Rich Thomas, founder and Creative Director of Onyx Path Publishing, announced the company launched the Kickstarter for Cults of the Blood Gods, a supplement for the Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition core rulebook.

Cults of the Blood Gods is a new style of sourcebook for Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition that introduces the pernicious horror of twisted beliefs.

The Cults of the Blood Gods Kickstarter has launched for a traditionally-printed full color hardcover edition that will be available in game stores. Previews of the finished manuscript will be released during the Kickstarter. A standard digital edition will be released following Kickstarter fulfillment.

Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s Certain Dark Things, about a Mexican vampire on the run from gangs, the police, and rival vampires trying to wipe out her family.

The story begins with Domingo, a teen-aged picker who makes his living going through garbage to find things to salvage and sell. On his way to work, he sees a striking young woman on the train, and he finds himself smitten — even obsessed — with this strange young woman walking a rather vicious-looking dog.

The World of Darkness has been a part of many of our lives for a very long time. The 20th Anniversary editions of the games have been some of the most expansive and innovative additions to the game line in years, giving a new breath of life to a classic. DriveThruRPG and Storytellers Vault is holding a sale currently on the 20th Anniversary game lines and supplements. There are many hidden gems in this sale, so I am going to give you my top picks and why you should add them to your collection. I have these in no particular order.

Black Chantry Productions brings classic Vampire: The Masquerade-themed card game back to unlife

“We are really excited to do this, together with White Wolf Entertainment. Players all over the world have hungered for new cards for eight long years, and we are proud to serve. And of course, we aim to attract many new players too”, says Hugh Angseesing, CEO of Black Chantry Productions.

Vampire: The Eternal Struggle has been called the best multiplayer collectible card game ever published. It is loved for its blend of strategy and social interaction, set in the classic urban horror game setting World of Darkness, home of the role-playing game Vampire: The Masquerade.

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…

It’s ever been a loaded word among vampires. Jyhad is in force everywhere from lofty, perfumed Elysium to cloying, smoke-filled blood feasts. Jyhad’s the eternal game played by elders, Methuselahs, and worse — it’s the agenda of beings so utterly beyond humanity, one such as yourself could scarcely understand its movements.

Luckily for you, you’ve picked up a copy of my diary. With my help you may just take a step on the first rung of understanding. Information worth having is information you must earn through blood, and oh, how I’ve bled for what’s contained within these pages.

Inspired by Justin Achilli’s Act Charitably, Win V20 I’ve decided to do my own. I have an extra copy of the Grand Masquerade limited edition V20 core book that was released in 2011. I’m seeing these sell for $400 or more on eBay and similar sites. Like Justin, I’d like to give it away to someone looking for something cool. Unfortunately, it is a little late to give this as a X-Mas gift, but maybe someone will kick off the new year with a rare book…

Available from Storytellers Vault

When I was approached about writing up the city I live in as a stretch goal for the Vampire: the Masquerade book Anarchs Unbound, I was thrilled. It was my first chance to contribute — in a meaningful, but small way — to the World of Darkness setting. My write-up was a side-bar, really — only about a thousand words — but the offer was made to me with a very short deadline in mind — less than a week, in fact — from accepting the job to turning over my completed draft. Once completed, I knew that there was more to this story, and I wanted the chance to expand on that very basic summary.

The Clans are not the only vampires that strut, if I might steal from the Bard, upon this great stage of fools. There are the errant Kindred inaccurately collected under the sobriquet of “bloodlines.” While their role in the eternal conflict between the childer of Caine is small, it is often incredibly impactful.

As such, I provide this corollary to my original study. It would be the work of several lifetimes to find and document every tiny aberration or fleeting dead end that constitutes a variation from one of the thirteen. Instead, I have focused on nine that I know for certain have an impact in our little culture war of the dead. From the brain-washed abominations of Tremere magic to vampires twisted by demonic will to the remnants of Clans long thought dead, each of these so-called “bloodlines” have their place in society. There is no larger picture for them — for us — to be a part of. Here on the fringes, each vampire’s experience is unique.

We are free to create our own truths amidst the lies.

Prince’s Gambit is a casual card game where each player is a vampire called to the court of the vampiric Prince of the city. Players must cooperate to gain the favor of the Prince while deducing who among them are secretly the traitorous Sabbat infiltrators.

Designed by long-time Vampire: the Masquerade tabletop RPG developer Justin Achilli, Prince’s Gambit is a fast-paced social deduction game set within the world of Vampire, but which requires no special knowledge to play. Neophytes and experienced fans of Vampire both can jump right in.

2016: Downs and Ups and More of Both

2016? It was a year of ups and downs, with the ups very, very up but some of the downs pretty far down, as well. It was a year in which a lot of personal heroes passed on, including my older brother Michael. It was a year in which a turbulent election roiled a lot of uncomfortable currents around my country.

On the other hand, there were definite high points, worthy of celebration, and that’s what I’ll focus on here, in more-or-less chronological order.

“Of course it hurts. Everything hurts. If you’re alive, you hurt. Don’t think of yourself as bleeding out; think of yourself as more alive.”

Horror is all about the stakes. And most commonly, pain, injury, and death are those stakes. Hurt Locker is all about the stuff that hurts. We talk why it hurts, how it hurts, and how to deliver pain at your table beyond just rolling the dice and marking health boxes.

Hurt people hurt people. Weíre talking ramifications of violence and how pain perpetuates pain down the line. Weíre talking about how even after wounds heal, scars always remind you.

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.