Today, we are pleased to announce that FlamesRising.com editor-in-chief Matt M McElroy and long-time contributor and project manager Monica Valentinelli are featured in a new World of Darkness supplement for Onyx Path Publishing. The book, which has been put together by senior developer Matt McFarland, is called Dark Eras, and the full, unedited text is available for fans to read on the Dark Eras Kickstarter page. The Dark Eras Kickstarter is for a prestige edition of the book for both fans and retailers.

Dark Eras presents nine chapters reflecting a historical era tailored to each of the nine New World of Darkness game lines. The sections are written for the currently available edition of the game line, but they are designed to be usable with any edition. The section that Monica and Matt collaborated on was for Hunter: the Vigil.

I had one of those moments a few weeks back, the kind where you’re forced to stop and wonder what you’ve been up to for the past several months. We were driving through the redwoods, and we stopped at the base of a very large tree. I suppose that’s an understatement, given the fact that they are, indeed, “the” redwoods, but to actually be there… To listen to nothing–no birds, no frogs, no crickets–nothing… The only bit that’s left when there’s total silence is either that or the thoughts swirling around in my head. Usually it’s the latter, which often turns into some musical refrain. Sadly.

All the stories they told you about what it would be like after you died? They were wrong.

Are you ready to join them?

Thinking of running a game of Geist: the Sin-Eaters?

Players unsure of what to play? Looking for a fast way to dive into a ghost story?

Ready-Made Player Characters (Geist: the Sin-Eaters) includes the Crossroads Drifters krewe, who perform for the living and the dead. Characters designed to for instant use in your Geist: the Sin-Eaters game.

A collection of characters for Geist: the Sin-Eaters

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.

Seattle is a fractured city, split between history and modernity.

The Unchained can stumble through rifts in time and space and wind up decades in the past. Why Some failed experiment of the God-Machine? A side effect of human ingenuity? Or are the splinter timelines in the City of Flowers a deliberate design, leading up to something greater still?

Splintered City: Seattle includes more detail on the alternate timelines described in Demon: The Descent, as well as a host of story hooks and characters for use in your chronicles. Also presented are brief suggestions on what Seattle might hold for the other denizens of the World of Darkness.

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.

The World of Darkness is in a downward spiral.

Ecological change is killing off entire species. Wars and atrocities kill of thousands of people every day. Celebrities use their media presence to abuse and violate people who don’t feel safe to come forward for decades afterwards. Corporations pay their employees so little that people with jobs need government assistance just to have enough money to stay alive. In the World of Darkness, all of this feeds the Wyrm.

W20 Book of the Wyrm is a companion volume to Werewolf: The Apocalypse 20th Anniversary Edition and W20 Changing Breeds that details the nature and forces of the Wyrm, enemy of all creation. It provides information on everything from Wyrm-worshipping cults to the twisted realm of Malfeas.

Cursed Necropolis D.C. includes:

– Contextualized discussion of the history and inner workings of the Federal City from the mummy point of view, including the rise of the powerful meret known as the First Chorus and a complete overview of Washington D.C.’s geography and internal currents, political and supernatural alike.
– An array of non-player characters fully integrated into the nome, including both the Arisen who call Washington D.C. home and a few of the mortals who do their secret bidding, willingly or otherwise
– “The Great Hunt” — a complete Mummy story that Storytellers can run alone or as the prelude to a three-part series called The Avarice Chronicle

As the Prey Evolves…

Everywhere you turn, a vampire eats some poor factory worker. Werewolves shred cars. Witches curse the innocent. Serial killers devastate communities.

But what about the stranger aspects of the World of Darkness?

Mortal Remains picks up where we left off with Night Stalkers, Spirit Slayers, Witch Finders, and Slashers. In Mortal Remains, we explore the Vigil as it pertains to mummies, changelings, prometheans, demons, and sin-eaters.

So Too Must the Hunter…

Angels are everywhere.

They are under the everyday world, behind it, beyond it. They are sent by the God-Machine to enact its will through time and space, delivering messages, building infrastructure, protecting some people, killing others. You were one of those angels…

But not anymore.

Now you are one of the Unchained, a fallen angel who defected to the human race. Yours is a world of false identities and clockwork conspiracies, stolen faces and hidden works of the Machine.

You cannot — will not — return to the sterile embrace of Heaven.

All you can do is reign in Hell.

We’re Lillian Cohen-Moore and Ryan Macklin, a couple in Seattle who love to play with horror. You might know us from our work on the recent Mage: the Ascension books that focused on factions within the Technocratic Union. What you might not know, though, is that we met and bonded over playing another horror game: Don’t Rest Your Head. Horror and dark fantasy is near and dear to our hearts, and Flames Rising wanted to give us a moment to talk about our time working as a couple in horror gaming.

During our time with the Technocratic Union, horror was a subtle constant throughout the books. Since we live together, we could turn around in our desk chairs to propose ideas for how to keep the horror elements in the Technocracy from becoming cartoonish, like some of the early material for them.

Creatures of the Wild

The Garou are not the only changing creatures to stalk the world. Other shapeshifters hunt in places where wolves do not tread, from sun-lost seas to the darkest jungles, or seek out hidden truths, using the secrets they uncover in the battle against the Wyrm. Shapeshifting spiders spin webs as deftly as they manipulate those around them. Bloody-handed serpents kill swiftly, and then vanish into shadow and myth. The Changing Breeds have their own crucial parts to play in these End these End Times, and must work together or Gaia will surely fall.

A Menagerie of Gaia’s Children

This book brings the Changing Breeds right up to date, giving both players and Storytellers all of the tools needed to integrate shapeshifters other than werewolves into the World of Darkness. Eleven extant Changing Breeds are described in detail, along with three long-extinct Lost Breeds.

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.

Angels are everywhere. They are under the everyday world, behind it, beyond it. They are sent by the God-Machine to enact its will through time and space, delivering messages, building infrastructure, protecting some people, killing others. And you were one of those angels…

But not anymore.

In Demon: The Descent, you play one of the fallen agents of the God-Machine, a former angel who defected to the human race. Now you are Unchained, and search for a place that you can be free, all the while avoiding the notice of the still-loyal agents. You cannot go back to the shining, sterile Heaven.

All you can do is reign in Hell.

When you come to this guildhall, you come to learn the value of value.

Greatness is worth.

The werewolves are not the only changing creatures to stalk the world.

The Changing Breeds hunt places where wolves do not tread, from the storm-tossed skies and sun-lost seas, to the jungle depths and broad deserts. Spiders spin their webs, each silken strand reflecting how the world should be.Bloody-handed serpents kill swiftly and vanish into shadow and myth. Hyenas choose the slain and call down the rain as they fight a desperate war for their homeland.

The Changing Breeds will take their rightful place in the world, and woe betide anyone who stands in their way.

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.