Onyx Path Publishing, the official licencor for the World of Darkness, Chronicles of Darkness, and Exalted game lines, as well as the forthcoming Pugmire, Scarred Lands, Scion, Trinity, and Cavaliers of Mars game lines, is very pleased to announce that Matt M McElroy is joining the team as Operations Director as of November 21, 2016.

McElroy’s new position follows a 10 career with DriveThruRPG, where he’s worked with dozens of publishers while championing initiatives to find, retain, and reach out to fans.

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.

Jyhad.

–Beckett

Lore of the Clans

My sire always told me, “There’s no instruction manual for being dead, strákur.” I believed her, because she was older and smarter than me, and we value knowledge if nothing else. Many sires spill a lot of poison into the ears of their childer, telling them the One True Way to be a vampire. Some vampires don’t even bother, kicking their errant progeny to the streets and letting them figure it out for themselves. A few smother their instruction in religious imperatives, philosophical tenets, or mystical confluences. But not one of them has a pamphlet with clear, easy instructions once you’ve become Damned.

Of course they lie. All vampires lie. But the best lies are those that are told between two truths, yes? Here are thirteen such truths, childe. They may line up with other things you know, or they might not. Sometimes the narrators present tantalizing rumors and conspiracies, while others digress into areas not often considered by many. Some of what they say have no facts to back them up, but not everything is a lie, either.

Let us find instruction from amidst the lies, together.

Presenting an epic improvised campaign for Night’s Black Agents Roleplaying Game. Do your Agents have what it takes to face the Lord of the Undead himself?

The Dracula Dossier follows in the fully improvisational path of the award-winning The Armitage Files campaign. Players follow up leads in the margins of Dracula Unredacted, a rare edition of Bram Stoker’s masterpiece that reveals the terrifying truth behind the fiction. They’ll chase down the real characters from Stoker’s novel, their descendants in the present, and the British agents caught in the backblast.

It’s 1242. The Mongol army crushed Baghdad, then Russia under its heel, then moved on to devastate Poland and Hungary. The Holy Roman Empire stood to war with the Papacy. The second Lombard League wielded the word of the Pope and fought off Frederick II.

The War of Princes rages. Patricide looms. Young powers look up the ladder to the next rungs, and see stagnation and hypocrisy. They see targets. When they look down, they see humanity. They see a power that could change everything. They see mortals organizing into universities and empires.

In the mortal world of 1242, power shifted at the rate an army marched. For the undead, power shifts faster than a fire overtakes a haven. To the Damned, power flows as fast as blood from an ancient heart.

The Hungry Dead
Selected & Edited by Lester Smith
146 pages
Popcorn Press

In a tribute to the speed at which the publishing industry is changing these days, The Hungry Dead is the first collection – that I’m aware of, at least – that purports to have been solicited, edited, collected and at the printer within one month. The fact that the solicitation process took place at least partly online may account for some of that speed.

The Hungry Dead is a collection of poetry and short stories that mostly hovers around the title’s stated theme. The excellent and evocative cover image shows a slightly decayed – yet no less well turned-out – young woman, a plate of brains in front of her, gold-plated knife and fork in hand.

There are some threats that transcend a local Prince’s domain and become enemies of every Kindred in the Camarilla. These Anathema become targets of a global Blood Hunt for their crimes. Not just political enemies, the monsters on the Red List have been named enemies of the entire Camarilla by the Justicars.

Dread Names, Red List explores the Camarilla’s “Most Wanted” List, naming those deemed most dangerous by the Justicars and their chosen deputies, the Alastors. Included are details on the Anathema that occupy the Red List, as well as details on those who hunt them. Storytellers are also given a toolkit for running Alastor-focused chronicles.

It’s that time! After Daylight, your one-stop shop for satirical vampire comedy/drama with a splash of socially-aware snark (okay, maybe more than a splash) has been updating faithfully as a weekly webcomic since August of 2012. Now 100 hand-shaded pages are in the can, the grand plot arc of the first “season” is all wrapped up, and it’s time for it to sail out into the world in gorgeous print.

A new edition of Stoker’s novel that tells the real story; and an improvised spy thriller campaign for Night’s Black Agents RPG.

Two Books. One Mission.

Dracula is not a novel. It’s the censored version of Bram Stoker’s after-action report of the failed British Intelligence attempt to recruit a vampire in 1894. Kenneth Hite has restored the deleted sections, inserting annotations and clues left by three generations of MI6 analysts. This is Dracula Unredacted.

The year is 1242. The Mongol army crushed Baghdad and then Russia under its heel, and then moved on to devastate Poland and Hungary. The Holy Roman Empire stood to war with the Papacy. The second Lombard League wielded the word of the Pope and fought off Frederick II.

The vampire War of Princes rages. Patricide looms. Young powers look up the ladder to the next rungs, and see stagnation and hypocrisy. They see targets. When they look down, they see humanity. They see a power that could change everything. They see mortals organizing into universities and empires.

In the mortal world of 1242, power shifted at the rate an army marched. For the undead, power shifts faster than a fire overtakes a haven. To the Damned, power flows as fast as blood from an ancient heart.

Vampire 20th Anniversary: The Dark Ages is a storytelling game of horrific power.

Slated for an October 10th release in the U.S., Universal’s DRACULA UNTOLD returns to Bram Stoker’s story in an action-filled, heart-wrenching way. For many reasons, I’m excited about this film on a personal level both as a writer and a fan of all things vampire. It’s no secret I’ve been disappointed with the blurry way […]

In the deepest crimson depths of their being, raw power waits to be brought to the surface. Through their force of will, Kindred can drag this power kicking and screaming into the open to perform miraculous feats and twisted blasphemies. These rituals have been developed to direct and focus this new force, unconstrained by the structure of the known Disciplines. As such, only one word has been seen fit to describe this power that has echoed throughout the ages. Magic.

Tear down the tyrants!

Paint the streets with the blood of Princes and Archbishops!

With Anarch domains increasing their hold over new territories every night, the Kindred can no longer afford to consider Movement an unruly mob of wayward childer. As the doomed tactics of the past have made way for a sleeker, wiser Anarch Movement, the nights are numbered for outmoded elder vampires and their weak-blooded lackeys.

It’s a new night!

Mind’s Eye Theatre: Vampire The Masquerade is a new edition of a classic game that draws on more than two decades’ worth of material from the iconic World of Darkness setting. The rules are designed and adapted specifically for the Live Action Roleplay environment, while maintaining the fidelity of the original game. Whether you’re a veteran player or discovering live-action roleplaying for the first time, this book contains everything you need to create and play a vampire character or create your own live-action chronicle.

All the clans. All the bloodlines. All the disciplines. This is a complete game, containing everything you need to enjoy Vampire The Masquerade in one of its most thrilling formats. A streamlined character creation system that is quick, yet comprehensive.

The new Chronicle Core book for Vampire: The Requiem.

Tonight, you become one of the Kindred, the beautiful and the damned who hide behind our ordinary world. Driven by a hunger like fire, you will struggle to maintain your humanity while immersed in a vicious society of monsters.

But the sharks you swim with aren’t the only ones out there. Your Kindred are the smart, sexy vampires of pop culture, but you are haunted by the Strix — the grisly, demon-possessed corpses of folklore. They slaughtered the Night-Senate of Rome, drowned the tombs of the Princes of Alexandria, and warred with the Plague Lords of Transylvania.

I’m doing a little freelance RPG development for Onyx Path Publishing in the off hours from my “day job” as Marketing Director for DriveThruComics, DriveThruRPG and related sites. As a developer I get to pitch new ideas for books and focus on the overall concept and design, while bringing on talented freelancers to bring those concepts to the written page.

One of the books I pitched last year was an expanded look at Ghouls and Revenants for Vampire: the Masquerade.

I first got hooked into the World of Darkness about three years ago; I became intrigued by the Vampire: The Requiem setting thanks to a particularly good game I was in at the time, and my passion for the world hasn’t diminished since then. In support of Free RPG Day (June 15 this year) Onyx Path released a sharp-looking product called Reap the Whirlwind, a complete quick-start introducing new players to the vampire branch of the World of Darkness.

Night’s Black Agents brings the GUMSHOE engine to the spy thriller genre, combining the propulsive paranoia of movies like Ronin and The Bourne Identity with supernatural horror straight out of Bram Stoker. Investigation is crucial, but it never slows down the action, which explodes with expanded options for bone-crunching combat, high-tech tradecraft, and adrenaline-fueled chases.

For a limited time Pelgrane Press is offering Night’s Black Agents and The Zalozhniy Quartet, a thriller story arc of missions for 20% OFF at DriveThruRPG.com!

Get them before they get you!

Mark Rein•Hagen brought dragons out of the dungeon and into the coffeehouse 20 years ago with a relevant and achingly literary spin on the undead, then vanished. Now he’s back with a new game for a planet crawling back from economic disaster.

Award-winning game designer and TV producer Mark Rein•Hagen knows what scares us, so now that he’s back with I AM ZOMBIE, his first all-new role-playing system in nearly two decades, we might all want to check our neuroses at the door.

The good news is that the co-founder of White Wolf Publishing (now owned by Icelandic MMORPG game developer CCP) isn’t shy about making sure not to serve loyal fans or new gamers any stale nightmares about the walking dead.