In war, there are no unwounded soldiers.

Beneath the deserts of Iraq, among the ruins of the ancient Babylonian civilization, lie secrets. The ancient servants of a dead god stir again. Forgotten magic waits to be claimed. Evil spirits yearn for souls to consume. At the heart of it all is a terrible hunger – for power, for servitude, but most of all for blood.

A squad of soldiers escorting an archaeologist is thrown into the maw of these ancient secrets, and its men must fend for themselves against an ancient horror beyond their understanding. But survival is not enough, for deep in the ruins of Ur the very tools of their salvation could cost them their souls.

A story in the Storytelling Adventure System for the World of Darkness, inspired by World of Darkness: Dogs of War.

Look for Ruins of Ur and other Storytelling Adventure System eBooks at the Flames Rising RPGnow Shop.

Original artwork by Marc Silvestri, Eric Basaldua, Michael Broussard and Sheldon Mitchell to be on display and for sale, with a portion of the proceeds going to the American Cancer Society in Michael Turner’s honor.

Brave New World Comics, Santa Clarita, California’s premiere pop culture superstore, is excited to announce An Evening with Top Cow Productions, featuring the art of Marc Silvestri and the Top Cow Crew.

In this hardcover edition of Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter: The First Death, fans will get both issues in the series, as well as the Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter: Guilty Pleasures Handbook. Published by Marvel with a retail price of $19.99, the book is a prequel to Laurell K Hamilton’s best-selling novel Guilty Pleasures, which is the first in the Anita Blake series.

Adapting a comic book from a novel series isn’t an easy thing to do, because of the novel’s rich format, rife with details and setting descriptions. Additionally, the Anita Blake series is told from the first person point-of-view, which can be challenging to display visually in a graphic novel. Stray too far from the point-of-view, and you may encounter oddities–things that the main character (Anita Blake) may be describing but hasn’t seen yet. A nod to the writing team of Laurell K Hamilton and Jonathon Green, each scene was pointed and specific to Anita’s character.

Earlier we brought you previews of White Wolf‘s upcoming Hunter: the Vigil RPG. Take a look at Professions, Endowments and exclusive quotes From the Authors.

Today we’re switching over to a new book for Mage: the Awakening. The Silver Ladder is a sourcebook that features the history, methodology and ultimate goals of the Silver Ladder as well as new spells, Artifacts, imbued items, Legacies and more.

Today’s preview offers up a sneak peek at this new book:

“The Shab-al-Hiri Roach” by Jason Morningstar and Bully Pulpit Games is a storytelling game about academic life, the pursuit of tenure and the lengths people will go to for success, even if that means swallowing an ancient Sumerian bug and burning down the campus. Billed as a Lovecraftian dark comedy of manners, players take on the roles of assistant- or full-proffesors at the ficticious Pemberton University in the fall of 1919.

Players choose an Expertise for their character, an area of learning such as History or Geology, and two Enthusiams, areas in which they excel and delight, such as Creativity, Manipulation or Debauchery.

Review by Michael Erb

Private investigator Vicki Nelson, like most everyone in Toronto, doesn’t believe in the paranormal, but when it appears that the latest serial killer could be a vampire, she’s out of her depth. Retinitis pigmentosa has already cost Vicki her former life as a homicide detective, and she needs specialised help with this case. Enter historical romance writer Elizabeth Fitzroy, or known about town as Henry Fitzroy, the bastard son of Henry VIII. He’s also a vampire, and as he and Vicki investigate, they realise that a vampire may not be to blame – but a demon and a screwed up college kid are.

Review by Tez Miller

Sundered Skies eBook – players guide and full setting!

The people of the Skies survive, tested by an unimaginable apocalypse, struggling daily against ravenous beasts, sky pirates, and the effects of the inescapable voidglow!

But the fate of the Skies is in danger! The magic of the glow is not the only taint in this unforgiving realm. Dark forces conspire to bring the Skies to the brink of an even greater catastrophe. Can you survive long enough to discover the secrets of Sundered Skies?

A shattered world. A thousand floating islands. A constant glow of madness. Sundered Skies begins where every other world ends.

Sundered Skies is a dark fantasy Plot Point setting for the award-winning Savage Worlds.

Sundered Skies is available at the Flames Rising RPGNow Shop.

The Dabels follow up Welcome to the Jungle with adaptation of Jim Butcher’s Storm Front

Dabel Brothers Publishing announced today that Mark Powers and Ardian Syaf will be the creative team adapting Jim Butcher’s Storm Front to comics. Considering the success of Harry Dresden’s first comic book appearance in Jim Butcher’s original story, Welcome to the Jungle, the Dabel Brothers couldn’t wait to begin production on Storm Front.

The Hunt

The Special Cases Unit of the Philadelphia PD was used to handling strange cases, but when a flesh-eating ghoul killed one of their own, they’re thrown into a new world where literal monsters roam the night. Now they’re working for an organization known as Task Force: Valkyrie, or they will be after they finish this hunt….

This quickstart for Hunter: The Vigil contains everything you need to play through a scenario (except for some 10-sided dice). This story is set chronologically before our other quickstart, One Year Later, but no knowledge of Hunter is needed to play this stand-alone product.

The Hunt is available for free at the Flames Rising RPGNow Shop.

In the early 1900s, horror writer H.P. Lovecraft created a series of books and short stories set in a dark world beset by cultist, monsters and unfathomable “things” from space and other dimensions. These works collectively became known as the “Cthulhu Mythos,” named for one of the Great Old Ones that slumbered in the lost city of Rályeh, awaiting the end of the world.

Chaosium’s “Call of Cthulhu” horror roleplaying game captures the feel of Lovecraft’s writings and puts players in the roles of investigators bent on uncovering, and surviving, the dark lore of the Cthulhu Mythos.

Review by Michael Erb

Freedom is on the march as the rebellion against the Kurian Occupation of Earth takes the offensive. David Valentine has recruited an ad hoc company of former Quisling soldiers and puts them through a trial by fire with a successful raid against an enemy armory. Now, they’re ready to join forces with a guerilla army planning to establish a new freehold in the Appalachian Mountains.

Valentine knows that a permanent outpost near the East Coast would provide a strategic victory over the Kurians—and he believes that only his old ally Ahn-Kha could be leading the guerillas. But nothing could prepare Valentine’s fighters for what awaits them at the end of their journey.

Fall with Honor is available at Amazon.com.

In this prequel issue, the story is about the contrast between the harm people cause to other people, and the harm that comes from evil beyond our understanding. Told in a very cinematic style with artwork to match, we first meet Danielle, a strong female character who works with Malcolm and Michael for the Organization.

Sent to “take care of business,” they hunt down a man named Peter Moore. In a typical suspense-filled mob movie, you might expect that Peter had already met an untimely death.

Earlier this week we posted an initial Origins Report which featured a few teasers for interviews that guest blogger Michael Erb had lined up while he was at the convention. Also included in that first post is the list of Origins Award Winners for this year. Today Michael shows off a few of the photos he snapped while wandering the hall and highlights some of the publishers he made contact with throughout the weekend…

The first Exquisite Replicas RPG preview introduced the game and gave us a look at the Cover Art by Eric Lofgren, then we had a sneak peek at The Anonymous, the tragic heroes of the this dark game.

In that preview we learned of the fight against the Othersiders. The alien beings who have been stealing parts of our world and replacing them with “fake” versions. Today we are going to take a look at some of those Othersiders…

Dabel Brothers Publishing announced today that they will adapt Robert Jordan’s bestselling Wheel of Time series, which has sold more than 14 million copies in North America alone, into comic book format. The first issue is scheduled to release in December 2008.

The Wheel of Time began in 1990 with the publication of The Eye of the World; ten more volumes have followed. The most recent four books of the series have reached #1 on the New York Times hardcover bestseller list. It is the story of a world – both our past, and our future – in which the battle between the Light and the Shadow must be fought every day; and of the people, both ordinary and extraordinary, who must fight that battle. Jordan wrote eleven volumes of the series and one prequel; he was unable to complete the twelfth and final volume before his death in 2007. That volume, A Memory of Light, will be completed by Brandon Sanderson, a writer chosen by Jordan’s widow and editor, Harriet McDougal, and published by Tor Books in 2009.

Daughter of Nexus is an adventure offering for White Wolf’s fantasy RPG, Exalted. This adventure is published in PDF form and is another prong in White Wolf’s fairly aggressive and welcome acceptance of the PDF medium as a way to do business. This is particularly desirable for Adventures, I think, as the production costs and the sale price can be kept low though, at nearly seven dollars – for which you can get PDFs two and a half times as big and with more content – I still don’t think they’re getting the price point right for their electronic offerings, after all, adventures are pretty much disposable products, with little in the way of replay value and few elements that can be effectively reused.

Review by James ‘Grim’ Desborough

“And what have you done lately?” So ends a fast-paced, winner-take-all honey of a comic book brought to life. Wanted builds from a nicely sardonic character study through a romp of an action film into a colossal final fight built around a twist that suddenly catapults the movie from a fun night out into an edge-of-the-seat thrill ride. It may start out slowly, but this movie ends with a bang so big, it will leave you grinning with malicious glee. All nice words aside, don’t go to this movie looking for high drama and a soaring intellectual quotient—although the movie does, at times, make witty, ironic jokes worthy of a wry smile. But if you enjoy a dark comic book writ large and riddled with as much wordplay as bullets, then this is the movie for you.

Review by Dana Hagengruber