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.

By Blood It Is Done

Bound by their masters’ blood, ghouls serve the undead and fight their battles in the shadows. Dragged, seduced, or forced into the night, ghouls live at the whims of their masters–for better or for worse.

By Blood It Is Made Anew

Revenants are twisted and unique. They have vampiric powers and extended life, as well as a form of the Beast all their own. Crafted by blending ghouls with dark magic, Revenants have become something else altogether.

From the Patriots’ raid on the necromancer Joseph Curwen to the Special Forces’ assault on Leng in 2007, this unique document reveals the secret and terrible struggle between the United States and the supernatural forces of Cthulhu.

In this war, immortal cultists worship other-dimensional entities and plot to raise an army of the dead. Incomprehensible undersea intelligences infiltrate and colonize American seaports, and alien races lurk beneath the ice of Antarctica and high in the mountains of Afghanistan. It is only through constant vigilance and violence that the earth has surived.

Also included are threat reports describing the indescribable – humanity’s deadliest foes serving Cthulhu and the other Great Old Ones. Strange times are upon us, the world is changing, and even death may die – but, until then, the war continues.

Trail of Cthulhu: The Many Deaths of Edward Bigsby

The flamboyant artist Edward Bigsby pays a call to the Investigators on the recommendation of a mutual friend, but dies horrifically before he can tell them what he needs. Soon afterward, the police question the PCs – another corpse matching Bisgby’s description has been found, with their address in his coat pocket. It does not end there; dead Bigsbys are being found all over London.

Follow the trail of Bigsbys through the bohemian streets of crime-filled 1930s Soho, dodging Chinese triads, Dope Kings, and the Metropolitan Police force to find out once and for all who Edward Bigsby is, and why he keeps dying.

The wolf must hunt, but it cannot hunt alone. Your hunts need the talents and instincts of other werewolves to slaughter the most dangerous prey. Your hunting grounds and families need the watching eyes of those with the blood of the Wolf of the spirit of the Moon. Your pack needs grounding in the world, humans who provide their contacts, expertise, and support. A pack is not a pack without a totem, a warden in the world of Spirit that watches over the entire pack.

A pack is family and gang and club and cult, but some werewolves go further. Tragedy drives werewolves apart, leaving the Wolf-Blooded to hold the pack together and herd the surviving Uratha in service to the Siskur-Dah. A pack cannot hunt without knowledge of the broader
supernatural world, so accepts a mystic into their ranks. Packs form protectorates & fragile alliances, cemented in rituals of honor or arranged marriage. A packmate joins a Lodge, a
mystery-cult that teaches dangerous secrets that empower their whole pack on the hunt.

A Man Without A Past Cipher is a monk: a master of the Deadly Arts, able to dismantle enemies using his bare hands. He is immune to lies, and can see volumes of information in the smallest detail. Unfortunately, that’s all he knows. His real name, his history – all stolen by an unknown foe. […]

IDW returns to the popular world of Dungeons & Dragons!

MINSC AND BOO ARE BACK!

And things have never looked more dire, as mysterious forces draw the legendary ranger and his crew of adventurers to RAVENLOFT, the Realm of Terror… where they find themselves face to face with undead horrors in the land of eternal night!

Written by Jim Zub
Art by Nelson Daniel and Max Dunbar

Dungeons & Dragons: Shadows of the Vampire #1 is available now at DriveThruComics.com!

Celebrate Friday the 13th with a sale on all 13th Age RPG eBooks and Soundtracks from Pelgrane Press!

13th Age combines the best parts of traditional d20-rolling fantasy gaming with new story-focused rules, designed so you can run the kind of game you most want to play with your group. Created by Rob Heinsoo and Jonathan Tweet, 13th Age gives you all the tools you need to make unique characters who are immediately embedded in the setting in important ways; quickly prepare adventures based on the PCs’ backgrounds and goals; create your own monsters; fight exciting battles; and focus on what’s always been cool and fun about fantasy adventure gaming!

This is the tale of a forgotten age before the seas were bent, when the world was flat and floated atop a sea of chaos. This is the tale of a decadent empire raised up on the bones of the fallen Golden Age, whose splendor it faintly echoed but could not match. This is a tale of primal frontiers, of the restless dead, of jeweled cities ruled openly by spirits in defiance of Heaven’s law. This is a tale of glorious heroes blessed by the gods, and of their passions and the wars they waged in the final era of legends.

This is your tale. This is Exalted. What legends will they tell of your deeds?

Exalted 3rd Edition depicts both a revitalized and expanded Creation, and the triumphant return of the Solar Exalted—but whether their rebirth will herald the salvation or destruction of the world, none can say. The system redesign takes the best parts of the previous editions and streamlines the mechanics for maximum playability.

Rosariumpublishing.com, which was established in 2013, recently launched an IndieGoGo campaign to help cover printing costs for their books, comics, and graphic novels. In today’s interview, Monica Valentinelli sits down with founder Bill Campbell to ask him about his small press publishing house.

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 […]

Codex Infernus: The Savage Guide to Hell After a successful Kickstarter campaign, the Codex Infernus: The Savage Guide to Hell is now available for the Savage Worlds system. A holy warrior fighting back infernal beasts on the precipice of a fiery pit. Cloaked figures chanting an incantation to bring forth a nameless beast. A man […]

Margaret Weis Productions has announced a partnership with DriveThruRPG to launch the Cortex Plus Creator Studio this Spring. This will give Cortex Plus fans the opportunity to create and sell Cortex Plus RPG supplements through DriveThruRPG.com. Similar to Wizards of the Coast’s DMsGuild.com (also managed by DriveThruRPG) and Monte Cook Games’ just announced Cypher System Creator program, Margaret Weis Productions will allow publishers and fans to offer Cortex Plus RPG supplements for sale on DriveThruRPG.com.

Recently, Monica Valentinelli and Jaym Gates launched a Kickstarter to fund an anthology titled Upside Down: Inverted Tropes in Storytelling. Today, in an exclusive update for FlamesRising.com, one of the collection’s contributors, Haralambi Markov, is here to share with you his insights into tropes and cliches. For more about the author, visit: haralambimarkov.com For more about the anthology, visit Upside Down: Inverted Tropes in Storytelling on Kickstarter–and be sure to read our updates!

When the DMsGuild website launched the Adventurer’s League Storyline was set in the Forgotten Realms and that was the only official D&D setting creators could explore with their PDF releases. Admittedly, DMG creators could also upload setting neutral 5e content and many did.

With the release of the new Curse of Strahd hardcover and a new season of Adventurer’s League game play to go along with it…Ravenloft has become the first setting expansion for DMG creators.

Wizards of the Coast has created a free Themes and Moods document to help creators dive into the Mists.

As Atlantis falls, how will you use your fate? Where will you stand in the face of the coming wave? Chariot is a fantasy role-playing game set just before the final fall of an occult, theosophical Atlantis tempered by my boyhood imagination. It uses Tarot cards rather than dice, and has a heavily occult and […]

Be a Good Dog. Protect Your Home. Be Loyal To Those Who Are True.

These are the words of the Code of Man. Dogs have inherited the world, building the kingdom of Pugmire thousands of years after the Ages of Man. These dogs have been changed to use tools and language, and they (along with other races of uplifted animals) seek to rediscover the world they’ve inherited. Some dogs use the leftover technology of humanity, but they believe it all to be magic handed to them by their dead gods. Others seek to create an ideal civilization, using a Code of Man compiled from ancient, fragmentary lore. The world is dangerous and mysterious, but courageous and loyal dogs will persevere.

Pugmire is a light-hearted and family-friendly fantasy world. It’s one of the first of Onyx Path Publishing’s creator-owned games, produced in a partnership with Eddy Webb and Pugsteady.

The Kickstarter has already blown past the original funding goal and is well on its way to achieving a number of exciting stretch goals that not only enhance the game itself, but add new media options for fans of the setting. Eddy Webb sat down with Flames Rising to talk a bit about the Pugmire setting and what is going with the Kickstarter project.

I love to be the game master. There is nothing quite like the feeling of presenting a challenge that the players will fear, loathe, complain about and eventually, climactically overcome. I don’t mind being the bad guy. I know that I’m the catalyst for great gaming and great storytelling. Of course, all of this sounds like roleplaying but really it applies to game design as well. A game designer has to have a certain sense that he is setting these fascinating objects in motion and the players bring them to life and create the unexpected interactions that make the game worth playing. Semi-coop games such as Battlestations or Descent invite the boardgame referee to be more than just a rules arbiter and I think part of the fun for everybody is to dial up the drama and go for it.

Battle for the Undercity is a D&D 5th Edition adventure designed for a DM’s use in any Forgotten Realms™ campaign. It was designed and written by writer, editor, and developer Monica Valentinelli, with rules and editing by Scott Holden.

Battle for the Undercity takes place underground in a section of a major city. The party will navigate sewers, worked tunnels, forgotten crypts, and freshly dug passageways to fend off adversaries in order to rescue hostages and return them safely to the surface unharmed. Can your party emerge victorious and save the day?

Dungeons & Dragons is all about creativity. For more than 40 years, the folks who spent the bulk of their time creating amazing adventures, those noble Dungeon Masters, did not have a convenient outlet to share them with the gamers who weren’t sitting at their table. You either had to raise money to publish a physical book or zine on your own, or convince a publisher you had the chops.

Now, the Dungeon Master’s Guild puts the power to share that creativity firmly in the hands of the DM.