The Dark Tower CD from Nox Arcana was developed solely by Joseph Vargo as a themed complement to The Dark Tower anthology series. The music composed for this particular collection seems to be more understated than their other offerings. There are two types of experiences I’ve had with Nox Arcana’s music. The first is evident through Blackthorn Asylum, The Necronomicon, Phantom of the High Seas, and the Theatre of Illusion.

After you hear the opening refrain, there’s typically a story threaded throughout the music so it’s often a bad idea to play the CD at random if you want the full experience. I found this was especially true for Grimm Tales, which is one of my favorite Nox Arcana CDs.

So when I listen to music I generally do it out of a need to write something and I generally do it out of another need to fill up the continual space between the silence of my day and the clicking of my keyboard, but it’s not normally music that I haven’t heard before, because I am getting old and the older we get the harder it seems to be to get into newer music. That’s why growing up kids is hard to do…because eventually you will find yourself at a club or a bar and hear a song that you really like, you’ll start to bob or nod your head a little and then it will hit you. From somewhere out of the corner of your eye you’ll see bright and fresh faced early twenty something’s that are just learning that “Yager Chasers” are the two deadliest words to have ever been combined in the English language. They will be mocking your prehistoric head movements and you will, I say the word will with emphatic surety; want to punch them in the face.

This is a tightly presented 165 page PDF in two column format in a fair imitation of much of Wizard’s own presentation, it cover PC and NPC character clases, prestige classes, mechanical devices and effects, the interaction of magic and technology, automations, skills, feats and everything else. Basically this is one entire plug-in to bring technology and its users into the game, along with brief discussions on the affect technological change might have on a society and the means by which it might be introduced. To my mind there wasn’t enough material on this side of things, doubtless to make room for all the mechanical crunch.

Review by James ‘Grim’ Desborough

The obvious comparison with White Wolf’s vampire has to be made when reading VDG, while there are some independent and different concepts the overall one – breeds of vampire fighting it out for control – remains the same and the authors are clearly fans of the earlier version of Vampire and the style and methodology of White Wolf, at least as White Wolf used to be at any rate. This is fine by me, I like the old stuff though I have my pet hates of certain White Wolf ways of going about things too, and I much prefer the old World of Darkness to the new World of Darkness, VDG presents a game that is very much like what a post-Gehenna old World of Darkness campaign setting might have looked like and this is a good thing as far as I’m concerned. Some would consider this a rip-off of White Wolf, I prefer to see it as an homage to White Wolf at the height of their creative capabilities and see the relationship as being more akin to a Nightlife/Vampire relationship than something more negative.

Review by James “Grim” Desborough

Michelle Belanger lends her soprano voice to this musical selection by Nox Arcana.

Like their other selections, Blood of Angels is based on a theme. In this case, the idea that the “Watchers” alluded to in myth and religious texts were angels that fell from Heaven to fall in love with humans.

Having read quite a few “compendiums” and “how-to” guides, some take a very emotionally-filled and visual approach, to tap into and encourage your belief in this form of divination. For me, I am attracted to a more pragmatic approach because I primarily use or research these tools for my writing. In my opinion, neither method is “bad” or “good” for, like all books, it depends upon what you want to get out of it.

In this interview we talk to Joseph about the haunting music of Nox Arcana, the production of the Gothic Tarot, Tales from the Dark Tower and other creative endeavors.

Desecrated Ashes was the full release of the EP Consecrated Ashes. The release year was 2003, and the band has continued to do well. URN is based out of Chicago, but has toured in many cities. They have even had airplay of their music in Canada and Mexico, not to mention the United States.

On first listen, Desecrated Ashes was a little hard to get into. Honestly, I felt very indifferent about the album. After more listening, I really started to warm up to the music.

In this interview we talk about the band URN, its influences, adventures and upcoming releases.

Artist Ann Koi tells us about her work on the Call of Cthulhu d20 core book and other interesting projects in this interview…