Undead & Unbound is a book of fiction celebrating those who have returned from the grave — in all their glory and in whatever form they take. You will find the famous blood-drinkers and flesh eaters here, but also ghosts, patched-together reanimates, fiends of myth and folklore, and some not-so-easily-identifiable creatures from beyond the grave.

Nineteen tales take the undead to their limits. From the distant past to the far-flung future, and to all corners of the Earth, the undead are eternal and everywhere: symbiotes, parasites, monster mash-ups and ghoulish grins, bleak tales of inescapable dread, an ancient evil from a far-away land with unspeakable dietary needs, a boy and his…well, it’s not a dog. History is brought to (un)life. Ghosts, specters, phantoms and haunts of every sort. Not-so-easily-classifiable stories that do new things with the basic premise of what’s alive, what’s dead, and what’s neither.

Hourglass Escapes, LLC is proud to announce the May 2020 opening of: The Original Evil Dead 2: DEAD BY DAWN Live Video Escape Room

For a limited time only, you have the chance to escape the evil dead before they swallow your soul in the first officially licensed live video escape room, granted by Studiocanal S.A.S., based on Sam Raimi’s classic horror/comedy Evil Dead 2: DEAD BY DAWN.

Hourglass Escapes, LLC and their hit Escape Room is coming to your home in this streaming Live Action Evil Dead 2 Escape Room experience. This world famous 5 star rated escape room and be played anywhere worldwide. Tickets will be on sale May 8th with games starting May 15th.

Onyx Path Publishing and Eschaton Media Announce the Release Dystopia Rising: Evolution, a New Tabletop Role-Playing Game.

Rich Thomas, founder and creative director of Onyx Path Publishing, in conjunction with Eschaton Media announced the release of Dystopia Rising: Evolution. Dystopia Rising: Evolution is a tabletop RPG based on Eschaton Media’s popular post-zombie apocalypse themed Dystopia Rising live-action scenarios. The game was designed using the Storypath system.

On August 27, 2019, the animated feature Zombillenium, based upon cartoonist Arthur de Pins’ graphic novel series published in English by NBM Graphic Novels, arrives on DVD and Digital. Zombillenium is an amusement park like no other: only genuine werewolves, vampires, zombies are employed there… for eternity. One day, Hector, a young compliance officer, comes […]

Onyx Path Publishing and Eschaton Media Launches the Kickstarter to Fund Dystopia Rising: Evolution, a New Tabletop RPG

Rich Thomas, founder and creative director of Onyx Path Publishing, in conjunction with Eschaton Media announced the Kickstarter to fund Dystopia Rising: Evolution has launched today. Dystopia Rising: Evolution is based on Eschaton Media’s popular post-zombie apocalypse themed Dystopia Rising live-action scenarios.

Rich Thomas, founder and creative director of Onyx Path Publishing, in conjunction with Eschaton Media announced a new partnership at Midwinter Gaming Convention. Onyx Path will develop a tabletop RPG called Dystopia Rising: Evolution based on Eschaton Media’s popular post-zombie apocalypse themed Dystopia Rising live-action scenarios.

“I’m really looking forward to working on Dystopia Rising: Evolution,” stated Eddy Webb, developer for the tabletop RPG. “The DR community has been very supportive so far, and I can’t wait to use this rich background to create a great post-apocalyptic tabletop experience.”

The Tipping Point of the Zombie Craze

The zombie genre, like all trends, waxes and wanes as excellent titles by talented people are drowned out by the cascading wave of others merely attempting to capitalize on the trend. It isn’t exactly difficult to understand why the undead find themselves coming and going through our collective consciousness, the themes and moods lend themselves to horrors and fears that have become all but ingrained into our very being. From the panic of diseases to the mutually assured annihilation of the species, the premise plays on the primal fears of the human experience.

As we (that is, Michelle Lyons-McFarland, co-owner of Growling Door Games, and I) started to plan out our proposed sourcebooks for Chill 3rd Edition, I noticed that one thing the 2nd Edition had promised but never produced was a book called The Living Dead. We started thinking about how that might work with our vision of Chill, and we realized that, if you’ll pardon a bit of metaphor, grave dirt is fertile soil for horror.

In planning out the book, though, I realized a couple of very important things, and they both stemmed from the same thought: the undead are ghosts with bodies. Before I get to the two epiphanies I had about outlining and writing the book, let’s unpack that thought a little.

The zombie classic returns in an all new series from the same creative team that brought you the acclaimed Deadworld: War of the Dead. The lepers have been slaughtered, the people who escaped the breeder pits head for the safety of New Washington, and now the zombies are under the control of Donna, the half-human/half-zombie hybrid. With King Zombie dead, she leads the zombies. Or does she? Deadworld, the long running, award winning, comic series that depicts the zombie apocalypse from a totally different perspective.

Award-winning composers and dark music pioneers Midnight Syndicate have released the Zombies!!! Official Board Game Soundtrack.

The new release features Midnight Syndicate’s signature blend of sound effects and instrumental music set in the modern day, post-zombie apocalypse world of the Zombies!!! board game. “We wanted to design a soundtrack that would not only heighten the Zombies!!! game play experience, but also appeal to all fans of zombies and our friends in the haunted attraction industry,” said Edward Douglas. “I think we were able to achieve that.”

When the dead return, hungry for brains, smart folk know that the only way to stay alive is to stick together.

This Cortex Plus ACTION ROLEPLAYING hack focuses on the Player Characters as a team of survivors, thrown together by circumstance and working together to make it in a world overrun by zombies of many different varieties. There are only three things they have to do: (1) scrounge for resources, (2) avoid antagonistic survivors that want to steal their stuff, and (3) when they inevitably run into a horde of zombies…go for a HEAD SHOT!

HEAD SHOT! is not a standalone game! It uses the ACTION ROLEPLAYING flavor of Cortex Plus, found on pages 116-154 of the Cortex Plus Hacker’s Guide.

Almost 13 years after releasing the first official roleplaying soundtrack to the iconic Dungeons & Dragons® game, award-winning composers and dark music pioneers Midnight Syndicate have teamed up with premier horror game designer Twilight Creations to produce a soundtrack album for the zombie apocalypse-themed Zombies!!! board game. The dark instrumental album, which will feature new […]

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.

Enter the end times with Zombie Apocalypse, the first book in The End of the World roleplaying line!

The dead rise and stalk the earth, hungry for the flesh of the living. All that stands between a zombie and your brain are your skills, wits, and talents. Life as you know it is about to end, and one way or another, you’ll experience the apocalypse and make your way through the aftermath… if you can survive that long!

If you’ve ever wondered how you’d cope with an endless onslaught of flesh-hungry undead, you can find out in Zombie Apocalypse.

“My name is John Doe. I’ve been dead for ten years.”

I have no heartbeat, no breath, no smell, just cold, clammy flesh animated by something I don’t understand. So I sell my dead flesh to the highest bidder. If the price is right, I’ll kill for you, steal for you, or save your life for you. There’s no mystery you can’t hire me to solve… apart from this one.

The bent copper torn apart in his flat by something not quite human. The hidden rooms underneath the Tower of London. The hollow-eyed boxer, Morse, and strange, strange Mr Smith with his head full of the future. And the secret they found. The secret of who I am. A secret so big and black and terrible that it changed everything we thought we knew about existence. And now I’m the only person who can stop the end of all life on this planet…

…I, Zombie!

The Flames Rising RPG Design series continues with Eric Staggs from Spectacle Publishing.

The Darkest Age is a Horror RPG set in a grim, alternate history. Enter the gritty and dangerous world of Europe in 1350, as an unusual strain of the bubonic plague ravages the countryside and those afflicted don’t just die. Faced with extinction, the people of Europe are forced to survive in any way they can. Characters face death, disease and the myriad undead, as well as cannibals, xenophobic city-states, and religious strife in an unending battle for the resources that mean survival.

Eric tells us about his process of creating the game.

“We few, we rotting few, we band of zombies;
For he today that eats his flesh with me
Shall be a zombie; be he e’er so vile…”

…a grayish blur launched from the shadows. Alexei went down quickly, his throat torn out in one swipe of a black claw. He clawed at the gaping wound in his throat, gurgled, and lay still.

Yuri fired a shot, point-blank range, into the thing’s head. It hit the ground and twitched, then lay still. A low growl came from the shadows and three more of the monsters lumbered forth. Movement to Yuri’s left drew his gaze; the creature he’d shot was sitting up, black blood pouring down between its eyes. The four creatures closed in just as the booming roar of a renewed German shelling attack sounded in the distance.

Yuri began to scream.

Band of Zombies is the new World War II sourcebook for All Flesh Must Be Eaten, and it is positively packed with new surprises.

Nearly two decades have passed since the fall of the United States. And the rise of the church to fill the void. Nearly twenty years since Ian Sumner lost his father. And the dead took to the streets to dine on the living. Now Ian and a lost band of survivors are trapped in the wilderness, miles from safety. Pursued by madmen and monsters, they unravel the secrets of the plague…and walk the line of heresy. Now Ian and this troop need to do more than just survive. More than ever, they must learn to live.

Dead Things has been called “an amalgam of Clerks and everything Crichton and Zombieland.”

Dead Things is available now in PDF format at DriveThruFiction.com!

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.

It’s too late! The living dead have already taken over the world. Your brains have been devoured. Nothing is left but spasms of ravenous need—an obscene hunger for even more zombie fiction. Forget the metaphors and the mildly scary. You want shock, you want grue, you want disturbing, gut-wrenching, skull-crunching zombie stories that take you over the edge and go splat. You want the bloody best of the ultimate undead. You have no choice. . . you. . . must. . . have. . . Extreme Zombies!

Extreme Zombies is edited by Paula Guran and published by Prime Books. To celebrate this release, FlamesRising.com is hosting a give-a-way for two signed copies in the U.S. from one of the authors, Monica Valentinelli!

Comment in this post! Say something witty about zombies for your chance to win a physical copy of this collection! This contest will end in a week, so hurry up and zombify us already!