“No God commands me, yet I answer to a higher law than yours. My heart does not beat, yet it still feels. Only her word rules me, and only her smile warms my blood.” – J. Carlton, Nosferatu Harpy of Baltimore

Strange, Dead Love is a new supplement for White Wolf’s Vampire: the Requiem RPG. It is guide to the themes and props of paranormal romance, custom-fit for the World of Darkness, specifically Vampire: the Requiem. This book features a collection of world shards, ready-made chronicles with their own plot hooks and rules. As well as advice for storytelling romance, including guidance on games for two.

Strange, Dead Love is now available in Print and PDF formats at DriveThruRPG.com.

FR Press is pleased to announce the release of Slices of Fate!

Slices of Fate is a unique collection featuring the works of Eddy Webb. Stories within range from the author’s nod to literary tales as in his piece “A Sheepish Trip to Yorkshire” to his more speculative work such as “The Battlefield.”

Essays include a series on two of Webb’s oldest loves: wrestling and Sherlock Holmes. Combined with several pieces of microfiction, this debut collection is an in-depth representation of Eddy’s work over the course of several years.

“Enthusiastic, creative, honest, intelligent.” – Jason L Blair, from the introduction.

Slices of Fate is available now in eBook format at DriveThruFiction.com!

Tad Williams’ new short story collection, A Stark And Wormy Knight, is available now, worldwide, as an ebook, $4.99 (or equivalent) for one month. The following story is published on FlamesRising.com with express permission of the author. Happy Holidays!

THE SUGARPLUM FAVOR (A Christmas Story)

Danny Mendoza counted his change three times in while the teacher talked about what they were all supposed to bring for the class winter holiday party tomorrow. It was really a Christmas party, at least in Danny’s class, because that’s what all the kids’ families’ celebrated.

The Vampire Retrospective Project continues today with an essay from Frederick Bell. Frederick tells us about how much he initially did not like Vampire and walked away from it for some time. He then re-discovered the game through online play. He goes on to tell us how playing the game online was one of the most rewarding gaming experiences of his life.

At first, I absolutely hated the Vampire the Masquerade game.

I hated everything about it. The haughty audacity of the game concept, the glorification of monsters, the hipster arrogance of the players, the model-perfect character art, and even the overly ornate layout of the game-books just grated against my sensibilities. My first attempts at playing in a chronicle were clumsy, confused and brutal affairs that always descended into sociopathy and sadism.

The Zombie Feed Press, an imprint of Apex Publications, is pleased to announce the release of THE FIELDS by Ty Schwamberger in Trade Paperback and eBook.

Billy Fletcher learned to farm the family’s tobacco fields – and beat slaves – by the hands of his father. Now, his father is dead, the slaves have long since been freed, and the once-lush fields are dying. Salvation by the name of Abraham knocks on the farmhouse door, bringing wild ideas. He can help Billy save the plantation and return the fields to their former glory…by raising his father’s slaves from the dead.

Can the resurrected slaves breathe life back into the Fletcher farm? Having brought the slaves back from graves that his father sent them, can Billy be the kind master his father wasn’t? Is keeping the farm worth denying the men the freedom they earned with death?

Billy’s conscience holds the key to those mysteries, but not the biggest one: what does Abraham really want from the former slave owner’s son?

Welcome to The Fields.

Coming January 2012: A Collection of the Award-Winning Cthulhu Mythos Horror Fiction of John Scott Tynes

“This is pure evil, pure destruction. This is the apocalypse.” And it’s just getting started. In January 2012, Arc Dream Publishing will release “Delta Green: Strange Authorities,” a collection of the award-winning Cthulhu Mythos horror fiction of John Scott Tynes. It will be available in trade paperback from Amazon.com and Ingram Book Company, and in ebook for Kindle, Nook, iBooks and other devices.

“Delta Green: Strange Authorities” features the complete fiction of John Scott Tynes in the “Delta Green” setting, which explores the cosmic horrors of H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos in a modern world of deadly conspiracies and personal apocalypse.

Following on from the popular full version of Cthulhu Christmas Calendar, Red Wasp Design have now released a Lite version of the app to allow fans and cultists to dip their tentacled toes into a Mythos countdown. The app allows users to see the art and enjoy the quiz entries from the 1st till the 9th of December for free. To see the art from the 10th December onwards, users can purchase the full version to continue the countdown till when the stars are right for Cthulhumas.

Both the Lite and full versions of ‘Cthulhu Christmas Calendar’, feature original pieces of artwork for every day in December leading up to Christmas. Each image presents a fun mashup of festive icons like Santa into the Cyclopean world of the great Cthulhu, the malevolent Mi-Go and the dark god Nyarlathotep.

A Road Paved in Iron: A Voodoo Western Dime novel

Zombie fiction is rife with decomposing corpses, mad scientists and biohazard symbols. Unless its tongue-in-cheek, zombie and man have little place in the social landscape save one brutally molesting the other. Caribbean spirituality, namely Vodou, has a different view of zombies. Whether or not Haitian zombies are undead is unclear but those tales rely on the fact that the zombies are friends and kin among the communities they threaten. They’ve been known to shamble about in broad daylight and mingle among their old neighbors.

FlamesRising.com is pleased to present an interview with the developers of Atari’s Heroes of Neverwinter Facebook game and a giveaway!

We would like to thank Peter Banks, the Director of Product Marketing for Atari, for sponsoring several Explorer Packs for fans of this game set in the Forgotten Realms and for providing us with this great interview!

The Vampire Retrospective Project continues today with an essay from Adrian Stagg, a reviewer over at DriveThruRPG. Adrian tells us about discovering Vampire at age 15 and how the World of Darkness has influenced his games and more.

Since I was fifteen, there has been a vampire lurking in background. Green marble and red rose, the book was to change very much how I approached role-playing and really, certain aspects of my life. I had been playing D&D, WEG’s Star Wars, Shadowrun and a dash of Cthuhlu before I discovered Vampire: the Masquerade. Compared to the other games, it held a slightly different allure.

Here’s the idea… What if the characters of Renfield and Igor were a pair of down-on-their-luck buddies in a world filled with monsters from classic horror lore BEFORE they worked for their respective legendary employers?

RENFIELD AND IGOR MEET DR. JEKYLL & MR. HYDE is a “buddy story” similar to the likes of Laurel & Hardy and Abbott & Costello, told in the tradition of the great “road pictures” of Bing & Hope.

Reinfield and Igor are two down-on-their-luck, not so bright, unemployed common workers in Victoria London who both have a crush on “working girl” Ivy Pearson. They are in danger of losing their flat when Reinfield is approached by Dr. Jekyll to run an errand to acquire ingredients for a new formula. Elsewhere, Igor is approached by Mr. Hyde to run the same errand. Reinfield and Igor realize that they have both been hired for the same job, but they are not bright enough to figure out that both Jekyll and Hyde are the same person. They plot to go ahead and do the job for both men in order to be paid twice—and their adventures begin…

In an exciting team-up certain to rock the cosmos, Toy Vault, Inc. and legendary game designer Richard Borg (Memoir’44, Battle Cry) have joined forces to take you on a new action-packed adventure through the cold depths of space in ABADDON!

It’s the distant future and mankind has taken a galactic leap forward through space, time, and technology. Life as we know it struggles to endure on the ABADDON. Once the home of a mysterious, non-human civilization, the planet is now a desolate wasteland bearing one immensely precious resource: Feronium power crystals. The unimaginable energy contained within the crystals is coveted by two groups of humans: the Satellite City-States and the Commonwealth Alliance. Using giant bio-mech suits called Links, made from modified military vehicles and alien technology; the warring factions fight a weary battle for territorial control of the ABADDON.

“No God commands me, yet I answer to a higher law than yours. My heart does not beat, yet it still feels. Only her word rules me, and only her smile warms my blood.” – J. Carlton, Nosferatu Harpy of Baltimore

Strange, Dead Love is a new supplement for White Wolf’s Vampire: the Requiem RPG. It is guide to the themes and props of paranormal romance, custom-fit for the World of Darkness, specifically Vampire: the Requiem. This book features a collection of world shards, ready-made chronicles with their own plot hooks and rules. As well as advice for storytelling romance, including guidance on games for two.

Strange, Dead Love was written by Jess Hartley, Monica Valentinelli and Filamena Young. You can read the Flames Rising interview with the developers Russell Bailey and Eddy Webb from October where we took fan questions about the book.

Flames Rising has an exclusive sneak preview of this new book with an excerpt called A Plague for a Dowry.

Top Cow Productions and Image Comics announced today a premiere launch event at Meltdown in Los Angeles for the Pilot Season 2011 voting period. The Pilot Season “Take Control” party invites Los Angeles fans to meet the various creative teams involved in 2011’s Pilot Season competition, get their books signed, and get the details on how they can determine the winning series this year. The event is co-sponsored by Chipotle Mexican Grill, through arrangement with marketing firm Bonfire Agency.

Since 2007, Pilot Season has become the leading fan-driven comic event, allowing creators to compete with brand-new original properties for fan votes. This year, Top Cow released eight unique pilot issues by eight creative teams ranging from established industry pros to up-and-coming talent to screenwriters and even one NFL All Star. With all eight books in stores, voting will begin on Monday, December 5th at topcow.com, where fans can also find additional information on each title.

The Vampire Retrospective Project continues today with an essay from Tyler Ray. Tyler tells us about discovering Vampire at a convention in Las Vegas and the artwork and mood of Vampire have changed how he plays RPGs even today.

Vampire The Masquerade brings up so many thoughts and images since it was brought to my attentions at convention in Vegas. The first soft cover green book showed that 16 year old the first time it was more about the character than the action. Those pages bound inside the book talking about the fight between man and the beast, are you really in control of your fate, and can you live in the structure of society or rebel against it.

Archaia Entertainment announced today the initial run of the MOUSE GUARD ROLEPLAYING GAME BOX SET has sold out at the distributor level (copies may still be available at the retail level), so the company has rushed a second run into circulation to meet the demand for the holidays. In addition, by popular demand, limited sets of the Mouse Guard RPG dice and pawns—which until now had only been a part of the box set—are available for separate purchase exclusively through the Archaia Webstore, said Archaia Publisher Mike Kennedy.

The Mouse Guard Roleplaying Game Box Set is a deluxe version of the original Mouse Guard Roleplaying Game hardcover book, an award-winning, pen-and-paper RPG that uses Luke Crane’s Burning Wheel system and is lavishly illustrated by Mouse Guard creator David Petersen.

The Vampire Retrospective Project continues today with an essay from Kelley Barnes, who has been onvolved with Vampire a number of different ways over the years ranging from Camarilla Club Director to White Wolf’s Marketing Director and contributing author on Paths of Storytelling: Vampire and so much more. Kelley tells us about her experiences with LARP, the Gehenna announcement and the 20th Anniversary Edition of Vampire.

Bedford and Lamrose. Two sides of the same river. Two sides of the same coin. One, an affluent metropolis teeming with industry and aspiration. The other, a cesspool of crime and vice. Both dirty, both begging for the match that will set this whole city on fire.

Bedford and Lamrose. Locals call this place Bedlam. It’s a fitting name.

Streets of Bedlam: A Savage World of Crime + Corruption is equal parts neo-noir, pulp detective fiction, and a bit of the ol’ ultraviolence thrown into a cement mixer and poured on top a heap of nameless bodies no one will ever miss.

It’s a modern urban setting full of despicable people doing awful things in the name of God, money, politics, or to pay off old debts. The stories shine light on the dark places of the human heart but it’s about finding diamonds in the rough, about good people in bad situations. The heroes may have questionable means but they have good intentions.

All zombies are created equal. All zombie stories are not.

From its humble beginnings as an indie comic book, The Walking Dead has become a pop culture juggernaut boasting New York Times–bestselling trade paperbacks, a hit television series, and enough fans to successfully take on any zombie uprising.

Triumph of The Walking Dead explores the intriguing characters, stunning plot twists, and spectacular violence that make Robert Kirkman’s epic the most famous work of the Zombie Renaissance.

Flames Rising is proud to present an exclusive excerpt from this book. The Walking Dead novels’ co-author Jay Bonansinga provides the inside story on translating the comics into prose.

The Vampire Retrospective Project continues today with an essay from Joshua Alan Doetsch, author of the novel Strangeness in the Proportion for World of Darkness. Joshua tells us about discovering Vampire: the Masquerade in 1995, exploring the World of Darkness and how his novel is “my love letter to The Masquerade and all of its ghoulish siblings.”