On the heels of his new release from Apex Book Company, the multi-talented Guy Hasson drops by FlamesRising.com to tell us why he writes about women. This particular essay gives us insight into his intent behind writing three, distinct novellas and collecting them into a single collection called “Secret Thoughts.” For more about this author, playwright and filmmaker, be sure to visit Guy Hasson’s website. If you’re interested in checking out Hasson’s new release, you can pick up the Secret Thoughts e-book at DriveThruSciFi.com, or visit the publisher’s website for previews, reviews, additional formats and more!

Pelgrane Week continues with a new design essay by The Big Hoodoo author by Bill White. Bill discusses writing an adventure in 1950s California and other details for Trail of Cthulhu.

I’ve written two adventures for Trail of Cthulhu, a game of Lovecraftian investigation written by Kenneth Hite using Robin Laws’ GUMSHOE system. Both are unusual in that they are set in the 1950s, rather than TOC’s usual 1930s setting (itself one of the features that distinguishes Trail of Cthulhu from its more venerable cousin, Chaosium’s Call of Cthulhu, which takes the 1920s as its canonical milieu). The first, called Castle Bravo, is set aboard an aircraft carrier in the South Pacific during nuclear bomb testing at Bikini Atoll. Its appeal is, I think, straightforward: an atomic bomb goes off and the PCs, as the naval and scientific personnel involved, must deal with monstrous emergences in its aftermath.

The long-awaited GUMSHOE-in-Space is finally here. Ashen Stars is the newest and biggest GUMSHOE game from RPG legend Robin D Laws. Being GUMSHOE, it is flexible, you can play it as hard sci-fi, space opera or cyberpunk or anything in between.

Available as a pre-pre-order now direct through the Pelgrane Press Online Store. Those who order get a simple PDF now, exclusive fiction, and your name in the credits, and then get the final PDF and a signed and numbered copy on release.

Pelgrane Week continues here at Flames Rising with a new design essay by Matthew Sanderson. Matthew tells us about writing the forthcoming The Love of Money scenario for the Esoterrorists RPG.

Looking back now, I think that best describes how the creative process began for me with The Love of Money. It all started with the hunt for an initial concept, a small seed, which then germinated and continued to expand into the final work. That hunt began with me asking myself one question: what would make this an Esoterrorist game? I’ve been playing roleplaying games now for about eleven years and in this time I’ve played in a great many games where I’ve thought it could work really well in another game’s setting. However, when I set about writing an adventure myself, I generally ask myself the question “why this game?” I like to feel that the story has a meaning, that it’s not a square peg trying to fit into a round hole.

Pelgrane Week continues here at Flames Rising with a new design essay by Paula Dempsey. Paula tells us about writing the Occult London a supplement for the Trail of Cthulhu RPG.

The Origins of the Occult Guide

I can’t recall agreeing to write Augustus Darcy’s Guide to Occult London. The idea was mooted towards the end of 2009 by Simon Rogers of Pelgrane Press and the concept came from him. By then Ken Hite was already working on Bookhounds of London and Simon wanted a guide to occult London in the 1930s to accompany Bookhounds. The back story for the guide, we decided, was that an occultist-about-town, who knew all the personalities in London at that time, was compiling this guide for a mysterious someone amidst murmurings that something very bad was about to happen. Unfortunately, when the occultist, Augustus Darcy, got near the truth he died mysteriously and his writings remained hidden for eighty years until, I believe, a dusty tome was discovered in Simon Rogers’ attic.

Over the years, FlamesRising.com has provided several reviews from games and music produced by Pelgrane Press.

To kick off Pelgrane Press Week today, we dug into our archives. In this round up of our top ten Gumshoe RPG reviews, we highlight your favorite games, supplements and gaming aids.

Take a trip with us into the keep as we remember what we liked (and what we didn’t) about games like Trail of Cthulhu and Mutant City Blues.

FlamesRising.com is pleased to announce a new type of theme week for our readers. From Monday, May 2nd 2011 through Friday, May 6th 2011 we will highlight a specific publisher.

To launch our new theme week, we have chosen Pelgrane Press as our featured publisher. If you’ve been following our site, you may recall we have provided you with popular previews, interviews, reviews and articles in the past. Based on this publisher’s popularity in the hobby games industry and with horror fans like you, we felt Pelgrane Press was a worthy choice.

Not familiar with Pelgrane Press, its Gumshoe System and its recently announced Stone Skin Press fiction imprint? For starters, why not check out our Cthulhu Apocalypse: The Dead White World Preview, which is the first part of the highly anticipated Cthulhu Apocalypse series by Graham Walmsley. From there, we recommend reading our recent interview with Robin D. Laws, our interview with Ken Hite and our interview with composer James Semple.

For Trail of Cthulhu RPG fans, don’t forget to check out our FlamesRising.com exclusive. Robin Laws provided us with Inmates: A Campaign Frame.

Curious about the Gumshoe System? Want to play games like Trail of Cthulhu and Esoterrorists but haven’t had the cash? To celebrate our first-ever publisher theme week, Pelgrane Press is sponsoring a contest here on FlamesRising.com!

Born of the U.S. government’s 1928 raid on the degenerate coastal town of Innsmouth, Massachusetts, the covert agency known as Delta Green spent four decades opposing the forces of darkness with honor, but without glory. Stripped of sanction after a disastrous 1969 operation in Cambodia, Delta Green’s leaders made a secret pact: to continue their work without authority, without support, and without fear. Delta Green agents slip through the system, manipulating the federal bureaucracy while pushing the darkness back for another day—but often at a shattering personal cost.

Ten years ago, everything changed. It’s time you found out how.

Through a Glass, Darkly is a new novel written by Delta Green co-creator Dennis Detwiller. The book is finished. It’s been reviewed, revised and edited. Now Arc Dream Publishing is holding a Kickstarter project to raise the funds to publish it. Here’s a glimpse.

FlamesRising.com is pleased to present an essay from author Paul Jessup, who wrote a novella entitled Open Your Eyes, published by Apex Book Company. In this surrealist space opera tale that takes place on a ship with a mind of its own, Jessup explores the unusual, the weird and the bizarre. Today he’ll discuss what space opera means to him and his motivation behind Open Your Eyes.

Open Your Eyes

I’m a huge fan of Space Opera, wait, no, scratch that– I’m a huge fan of what I was told was Space Opera when I was a kid. Which was primarily one thing- Star Wars. Which was more like the monomyth in Space, with Samurais, but I digress for a bit. If you’re a kid from the 80’s, you know the score. This kind of Space Opera was everywhere, not just in Star Wars, but in cartoons, on the back of cereal boxes, in toys (and knock off toys), in books, all that fun stuff.

Northlands is a Pathfinder-compatible sourcebook for adventuring in the frozen north. Learn Rune magic, explore the Reaver’s Coast and Hyperborea, and wield the sword of Loki himself.

Designer Dan Voyce has opened up new and dazzling vistas for role-playing in the frozen north. The book begins with a concise but detailed overview of northern life, society, morality, religion, traditions and law. The major gods and their demands on mortals are described, as well as dueling, hospitality, outlawry, slavery, and relations between the various humanoid races.

More than description, Northlands is about ACTION! Characters can raid the coasts; explore the magic-rich realm of the giants; enter savage kingdoms ruled by bears and wolves; or journey to the top of the world itself to retrieve the shoggoth-guarded flotsam and jetsam of alien shores.

I first picked up “Wanted” in a Borders bookstore right before the film adaptation came out. There, I flipped through the first five pages and then, remembering the trailer for the film, promptly put it down, wondering which of these were better summaries of what the comic would have to offer. What I had read seemed amazing, what I had seen on the television… less so. And so I went the next few years without reading the comic or seeing the film adaptation, occasionally catching glimpses of the book’s cover and flipping through those first few pages again, wondering if I should take the plunge.

When I first sat down to read it –to really, finally read it– the first thing I noticed was an introduction by Brian K. Vaughan. The praise of Vaughan, author of comic masterpieces like Y: The Last Man and Pride of Baghdad, would be invaluable to me as a reader.

Explore the world of writing horror from a Bram Stoker and International Horror Guild award-winning author’s point of view. Gary Braunbeck uses film, fiction and life experience to elucidate the finer points of storytelling, both in and out of genre. This part-autobiographical, always analytical book looks at how stories develop and what makes them work-or not work-when they’re told.

Be warned: reality is as brutal as fiction. Rob Zombie, police shootings, William Goldman and human misery are all teachers to the horror neophyte, and Braunbeck uses their lessons to make To Each Their Darkness a whirlwind of horror and hope for the aspiring writer.

Flames Rising is pleased to present the introduction to this book by Gary Braunbeck.

2K Games, Top Cow Productions, Inc., and the Free Comic Book Day Committee announced today that they have teamed up to produce The Darkness II: Confession, an exclusive comic tie-in for The Darkness II video game, for Free Comic Book Day. The 32-page, full-color comic will be a prequel to 2K Games’ upcoming video game, The Darkness II. Produced by Top Cow’s lead artists and writers in partnership with 2K Games, The Darkness II: Confession will be distributed by Diamond Comic Distributors to thousands of independent comic book stores worldwide on May 7, 2011.

“Top Cow has always supported Free Comic Book Day and this year we’ve created our best offering yet with The Darkness II: Confession, a prequel to the upcoming video game The Darkness II by 2K Games,” said self-proclaimed hardcore gamer and president of Top Cow, Matt Hawkins. “In working closely with 2K Games on the comic, we’ve ensured that everything fits into The Darkness’ canon for long-time and new fans of Jackie Estacado. This free comic is a perfect primer for the game.”

Since its inception in 2002, the Free Comic Book Day event has celebrated the original American comic book art form by supplying thousands of participating independent comic book specialty shops around the world with free comic books for fans.

The first part of the highly anticipated Cthulhu Apocalypse series.

The Investigators are rendered unconscious by a train crash. When they wake they discover the world has died. White flowers cover the ground and they see, beneath the delicate petals, the faces of the dead. No other human is in sight, everyone is gone.

The struggle to survive the apocalypse takes the Investigators through Britain, across the sea to America and beyond the veils of reality.

The Dead White World contains the first three scenarios for Cthulhu Apocalypse by Graham Walmsley, author of The Purist Adventures.

Flames Rising is pleased to present an exclusive preview of this new Trail of Cthulhu product from Pelgrane Press.

At the end of April, FlamesRising.com will launch a brand new feature for our site. In addition to our news, reviews, interviews and other horror-related goodness, we are providing subscribers with additional content through our monthly newsletter.

You can sign up for this new feature by filling out the form in this post. Or, you can visit our FlamesRising.com sign-up form at our mailing list partner.

What if Frankenstein got it right?

What if Victor Frankenstein had embraced his discoveries rather than seeking to destroy them?

Rejected by his peers and his family, hunted by the Creature, Victor slips into the background of history. Manipulating people, events, whole countries, Frankenstein slowly plans and executes his revenge.

Carved out of the Balkan conflicts of the mid-1800’s, Victor Frankenstein hijacks the unification of Romania and creates his own country: Promethea. Established on high ideals of equality and scientific advancement for the good of all, the reality is very different.

Dark Harvest: Legacy of Frankenstein is a detailed, fascinating game setting, a terrifyingly plausible alternative history and a fiction anthology; a gothic horror fantasy that will appeal to gamers and the general public alike.

A standalone product, Dark Harvest: Legacy of Frankenstein uses a version of the Heresy Engine system and is fully compatible with the Victoriana 2nd Edition, also available from Cubicle 7 Entertainment.

Dark Harvest: Legacy of Frankenstein is available at the Flames Rising RPGNow Shop.

FlamesRising.com is pleased to present you with an in-depth look at Paths of Storytelling, White Wolf Publishing’s latest release for Vampire: the Masquerade.

Joining us today is the developer of this product, Eddy Webb, along with the trio of authors: Jess Hartley, Kelley Barnes and Monica Valentinelli.

Relativity Media and graphic novel publisher Archaia Entertainment, LLC have formed a publishing partnership to produce and publish a hardcover graphic novel anthology based upon Relativity’s upcoming epic motion picture Immortals, starring Henry Cavill (Superman: Man of Steel), Luke Evans (Robin Hood), Kellan Lutz (Twillight), Isabel Lucas (Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen), Freida Pinto (Slumdog Millionaire), and Mickey Rourke (Iron Man 2).

Archaia will release the Immortals graphic novel in September, serving as a precursor to the 3-D motion picture, which releases worldwide on November 11, 2011. The graphic novel will expand upon the film’s key characters and events through a series of original tales written and illustrated by some of the top names in comics, including David Mack (Kabuki), Ron Marz (Witchblade), Dennis Calero (Dark Tower) and Ben Templesmith (30 Days of Night). The graphic novel will be published through Archaia’s Black Label division, a publishing pipeline dedicated to working alongside creative professionals within the entertainment industry eager to launch and expand their brands in the publishing world.

FlamesRising.com is pleased to present you with the introduction from Whedonistas: A Celebration of the Worlds of Joss Whedon by the Women Who Love Them. This collection of essays was edited by Lynne M. Thomas and Deborah Stanish, and was recently published through Mad Norwegian Press.

Introduction

Lynne’s Story:

You may know me as a Chick Who Digs Time Lords, but I’m also an avowed Whedonista. Although Whedon fandom is not my primary active fandom (that belongs to the Doctor), the Whedonverse has been a part of my life for just about as long.

I mentioned in Chicks Dig Time Lords that watching Doctor Who got me through much of my pregnancy; Buffy the Vampire Slayer got me through oh, I dunno, my whole adult life.

Paths of Storytelling, offered as a free download today on RPGNow.com, is the latest product for the Vampire: the Masquerade line. According to this White Wolf announcement, it’s a long-forgotten manuscript that was rejected — and with good reason. Sure, on the heels of the Vampire: the Masquerade twentieth anniversary announcement we can understand why they’d want to keep up the buzz, but we all know not all V:tM fiction has been good fiction. Which is part of the reason why we were hoping they’d post a little more crunch. A new Giovanni adventure? Yet another awesome Bloodline?