Exile Game Studio licensed the Ubiquity Roleplaying System to Triple Ace Games (TAG) for their Daring Tales of Adventure (DTA) series.

“We’ve developed a reputation for high quality products and we intend to keep our sights aiming ever higher.” said Robin Elliott, TAG’s Production Director. “The DTAs may be a conversion, but that doesn’t mean we’ll take shortcuts. Each adventure is getting as much attention to detail as the originals.”

Triple Ace Games is putting the final touches on several manuscripts of its DTA line and expects to have this exciting new series of adventures completed by the summer of 2009.

The story is about a young man living in a police state. The internet has become the chief propaganda tool of the government, and camera-like tentacles are everywhere to monitor citizens. Broad skyscrapers dominate the skyline with propaganda dominating advertising spaces.

Current events make up the backdrop of the story as well. In One Live Beast, rising gas prices, terrorism, and corrupt business practices contribute to the rise of the police state. All of these lead to Christopher’s rise as a hero, as his attempt to rebel against the police state inadvertently leads to him gaining his powers.

Review by John Kennedy

Move over King Kong, there are new monsters in town!

Giant beetles, towering crustaceans, gargantuan felines and massive underwater beasts, to name just a few. Think you’ve got what it takes to survive their attacks? Then open this baby up, and join today’s hottest authors as they show us the true power of Mother Nature’s creatures. With enough fangs, pincers and blood to keep you up all night, we promise you won’t look at creepy crawlies the same way again.

Monstrous is available now at Amazon.com.

Anime has come a long way since Astroboy and Voltron, as is evidenced by even the merest glimpse of Ergo Proxy. This visual delight, though perhaps not the latest, is – in this reviewer’s opinion – one of the greatest anime series to come out in recent history.

Delightfully dark, Ergo Proxy revolves around two main characters: Re-l Mayer and Vincent Law. Re-l, privileged Citizen and Security Bureau member of the post-apocalyptic eden-dome of Romdo, becomes rapidly obsessed with a bizarre series of murders committed by AutoReiv androids.

Review by Aly Condon

Dancing on the Head of a Pin is the second installment in Thomas E. Sniegoski’s compelling urban fantasy mystery series, which follows the adventures of Remy Chandler, once known as the Angel Remiel who chose to renounce heaven and live on earth.

Dancing on the Head of a Pin picks up where A Kiss Before the Apocalypse left off. As Remy becomes drawn to cases with a dark supernatural bent he finds it difficult to distance himself from his past. When the theft of priceless ancient weaponry threatens all of humanity, Remy finds himself at odds with the Fallen Angels, who want to use the weapons to build their power, and the Nomads, who have far darker intentions. Will Remy’s search leave even an immortal such as he to the brink of death?

Pre-Order Dancing on the Head of a Pin at Amazon.com.

Under the Skin is the first adventure using the Storyteller Adventure System that I’ve read, so I found myself looking forward to reading it. Adventures are a tricky bag, especially to a setting as thick as White Wolf’s World of Darkness. I say they are tricky mainly because there always exists the tendency for them to railroad players in an attempt to make sense of the scripted adventure. Some games find a way around this by theorizing alternate endings or sometimes not even offering a true ending (though few do the latter). This adventure makes little effort in offering a free-form style, which we’ll discuss later in the review.

Review by Todd Cash

Fat Dragon Games is pleased to announce that it has signed an agreement with Chaosium to create 3D gaming terrain sets for the Call of Cthulhu role playing game. These cardstock terrain sets will feature some of the best known locations of the Cthulhu mythos, complete with gaming stats using the Basic Roleplaying system.

“It is an incredible privilege to bring these iconic settings to life for Call of Cthulhu fans,” said Tom Tullis, owner and lead designer of Fat Dragon Games. “Call of Cthulhu is one of my all time favorite RPGs, and I look forward to working with the legendary creative minds at Chaosium on these model sets.”

“I’m looking forward to seeing Call of Cthulhu terrain from our friends at Fat Dragon Games. I’ve always wanted to own a little piece of Innsmouth. Now I can!” said Dustin Wright of Chaosium Inc.

Dungeonaday.com, Monte’s new subscription-based adventure site, goes live today, offering game material and DMing advice to its members. Dungeonaday.com, in fact, builds an entire ongoing campaign with a new material updated every weekday.

Monte expressed excitement for the new format in which he could create and deliver game material. “It’s been very fun coming up with this concept and seeing where it can go, but the key component will be the feedback from members, so it still could go in all-new directions,” Monte said.

Dungeonaday.com will be updated every weekday with a major encounter, plus frequent blog and podcast updates, monthly bonus encounters, and more. Members will find an active forum where they can ask questions, give feedback to Monte, exchange tips and ideas with each other, and help build Dungeonaday.com into a community of dungeon (and dragon) enthusiasts.

API Worldwide Canada is Third Eye Games second release, a supplement to the Apocalypse Prevention, Inc corebook. In this 82 page book (three pages of ads), the authors lay out the specifics of the Canadian branch, specific threats to its agents (both environmental and supernatural), and some of the tools and spells fitting to this setting. The book concludes with a duo of adventures for players eager to jump right into the game. The artwork in this supplement consisted of fifteen pieces of art, two of which were maps. The art within the book ranged a bit in style; nevertheless, I found that all the pieces fit the story behind this book.

Review by Todd Cash

Night Horrors: Immortal Sinners

Sins of the Ages

So many people wish for fame and renown during their lives — or even for just a little bit of notoriety. But among our Kindred, that’s very nearly a fate worse than death. Don’t take my word for it, though. Go and ask some questions. Find out about who they talk to in the Necropoli of the Nosferatu, and in the perfumed salons of Elysium. Listen to what they say about them, and listen even more carefully to what they don’t say. Then maybe you’ll understand that the worst thing you can do is to stand out in a society of blood-starved murderers, my boy.

Night Horrors: Immortal Sinners is available at the Flames Rising RPGNow Shop.

Magic: The Gathering Tournament Champion is First to Capture the Title in 2009

The Magic: The Gathering Pro Tour season kicked-off this weekend in Kyoto, Japan. Gabriel Nassif from Paris, France was the first to be crowed Pro Tour champion in 2009 and took home $40,000. Luis Scott Vargas from Davis, California, Akimasa Yamamoto from Iwade-shi, Japan and Brian Robinson from North Quincy, Massachusetts filled out the top four. Nassif’s win in Kyoto marks his first Pro Tour victory although he’s had several top-8 finishes and was the 2004 Player of the Year. Since 1996, Wizards of the Coast has given away more than US$32 million in prize money, which includes both cash prizes and scholarship awards.

Enter a world where the worst kind of monster imaginable is … US!

This hair-raising trade paperback is a “best of” compilation from the acclaimed COLD BLOODED CHILLERS series featuring 8 great scares and 2 chilling extras.

Dave Baxter at BrokenFrontier raves: “Cold Blooded Chillers is perhaps the very best of the independently published anthologies that I’ve read.”

Project FanBoy says: “There’s an edge of Twilight Zone with a twist of Alfred Hitchcock … and the art is stunningly beautiful, reminiscent of the horror art of the past.”

Bone Chiller is now available at DriveThruComics.com.

AND THERE CAME A DAY WHEN THE GAME MASTER WAS RAISED ON HIGH…

… And we who roll the dice, move the miniatures, and live the stories did celebrate our provider of fun. We sought out great treasures to grant unto him, and thus endow him with even more wonders to further entertain and enchant us.

It’s the biggest sale of the year for us, and a great time for you to check out whatever might be in your GM’s Wish List and get it for her. Dozens of publishers! Hundreds of products! All at 25% off or MORE!

Visit the Flames Rising RPGNow Shop to check out all of the GM’s Day Sale items.

Moonstone has announced plans to publish several original short story collections featuring radio, film, comic book and television heroes The Green Hornet and Kato. The debut entry is expected to hit the streets by late 2009.

Bold newspaper publisher Britt Reid (the Green Hornet’s alter ego) along with his faithful valet and ally Kato have thrilled audiences with their daring adventures as they “hunt the biggest of all game, public enemies who try to destroy our America” ever since springing from the imaginations of George W. Trendle and Fran Striker in 1936. Fans have longed for the green-masked crime fighter to once again match wits with and bring down the criminal underworld.

Elkram is a tightly focused PDF supplement for 4E D&D. It offers a new race and all the requisite information needed as a player or DM to integrate this race into your game world. The creatures in question here are “Elk-Rams,” or bi-pedal elks with large sharp horns. The supplement offers a complete overview of this race, their place in the world, rules for players and feats as well as a paragon path.
Elkram is an interesting concept for a 4E supplement. The 4E platform is very modular, which is to say it is easy to design a single piece separate from the rest of the game and then drop that into an existing game world. There is no end to the possibilities of what could be designed in this fashion (e.g. single races, classes, paragon paths, epic destinies, small collections of magic items or rituals, etc). It is a shame that the first such supplement I have seen use this insightful creation method leaves a great deal to be desired in the area of design.

Review by Vincent Venturella

If Science Fiction is Your Thing…

…then, come March 10, you will be a very happy camper indeed! That is the day that Atari and CCP Games will be releasing the ultra popular MMORPG EVE Online to the retail world. And why, do you ask, would this be any different than, say, subscribing online? Several very good reasons, one of which is financial and the other is simply geekish.

First, the financial aspect. EVE Online will be retailing for about $34.95, which is a good $15 cheaper than many new games that come out.

Written by Joe Rixman

Something is inside my skin. Shifting, itching and scrabbling for purchase. It takes me over, pushing me down to darkness. My voice is not my voice; my steps are not my steps. I see my friends… it sees my friends. I cannot scream. I cannot warn them. I am powerless and small in my own […]

The third installment of “Eden Studios Presents” (ESP) attempts to bring a little magic into readers’ lives. I was excited to review this anthology because it was first mentioned in 2004.

Each component of the seventy-four page PDF delivers something mystical that can be introduced into many of Eden’s various lines. Buffy and Witchcraft gain the most material, although the other titles aren’t ignored. Since this is an anthology, I’ll forsake my usual format and approach each segment of the book as a separate entity.

Carlos Samuel Araya’s cover art to “ESP3″ is a moody piece featuring a magical device called the Shadefont, which is later described in “Cover Shots” by Charlie Von Eschen.

Review by Todd Cash

A new historical horror fiction book incorporating two stories from Irish writer Derek Gunn (Vampire Apocalypse series, The Estuary) titled The HMS Swift Chronicles, has been picked up by Ghostwriter Publications in the UK, for publication in 2009 in hardback, paperback and audio editions.

Set against the historical backdrop of the fragile peace that existed between the American Revolution, the looming French Revolution and the threat of Napoleon’s growing empire, the crew of the HMS Swift face the walking dead in “The Diabolical Plan”and vampires in “The Island”.

A stand-alone GUMSHOE game of contemporary super powers.

Ten years ago, 1% of the population gained mutant powers.

…and you’re the cops who clean up the mess.

EVER SINCE the Sudden Mutation Event, people have been able to fly. Phase through walls. Read minds. Shoot bolts of energy from their fingertips. Walk into dreams.

Police work will never be the same.

MUTANT CITY BLUES runs on GUMSHOE, the acclaimed investigative rules set powering the hit new game Trail Of Cthulhu. GUMSHOE offers a simple yet revolutionary method for writing, running and playing mystery scenarios. It ensures fast-flowing play, always giving you the informational puzzle pieces you need to propel your latest case toward its exciting final revelations.

Mutant City Blues is available at the Flames Rising RPGNow Shop.