Demimonde, by Justin Achilli, isn’t a pleasant novel to read through. It is coarse, over-wrought, overindulgent in so many ways and unapologetic about all of it. It is Brett Easton Ellis for the 21st century. It is Less Than Zero meets American Psycho, with a dash of Nietzsche, a few sprinkles of Emmanuel Kant and whole lot of King James.

Demimonde refers to the shadowy world of the unvisible, those people gifted with the ability to not be noticed, to be the glimpses on the periphery while feeding their excesses beyond all normal limits. The demimonde is a fae world, where zombies exist because of the faith in their existence but where all-too-human political and religious ideologies rule over both conscious and unconscious thought.

Review by Joe Rixman

Block by Bloody Block is a PDF book for Hunter: The Vigil. It includes:

• Systems to run a Hunter: The Vigil chronicle on a larger scale, reclaiming parts of your city from various supernatural factions

• Eight urban territories, complete with story seeds and Storyteller characters, ready to be dropped into an existing chronicle or modified to your troupe’s tastes

• Storytelling advice on how to create your own territories, as well as running a Block by Bloody Block chronicle

• Links to a Block by Bloody Block online wiki

Block by Bloody Block is available now at the Flames Rising RPGNow Shop.

Two reasons to celebrate the season with Postmortem Studios this year!

Today we have published our 100th Clipart Critter so, if you’re a budding – or existing – publisher and are looking for some excellent, cheap artwork to use in your products, or if you are a Game Master looking for something to visualize your scenes and your big baddies, or if you’re a player looking for a character image, now is a great time to bag yourself some excellent artwork by industry veteran Brad McDevitt (Traveller, Nightlife and many more).

In the age of the pharaohs, a great and unfathomable evil rose from the murky depths to cast its gibbous shadow over ancient Egypt. At the cost of his empire, Ramesses III imprisoned the horror beneath the sands of Luxor, where it has slumbered ever since.

In 1924, a team of visiting archeologists unearthed the last remaining testament of that ancient mystery, only to unleash a terror from out of time. Now death stalks the dusty streets of Luxor and a new age of horror is at hand. Can your investigators succeed where the mightiest of pharaohs have failed? Or will they fall victim to Luxor’s secret past?

Death in Luxor is available at the Flames Rising RPGNow Shop.

White Wolf Publishing and RPGNow have made a new PDF offering available today. This week explore what it means to be Forsaken and part of the philosophical groups they refer to as Lodges.

Channel the primal anger of the Lodge of Wrath. Delve into the forbidden lore held by the Lodge of Death. Howl down the thunder with the Lodge of Lightning. Bare your fangs against the twisted scions of the Lodge of Worms. Power and wisdom are there for the taking, for those willing to undertake the rite of passage – and pay the price.

The Cabin in the Woods bundle is available for a limited time at RPGNow.com.

Annalise offers a new look at a time-honored monster, the vampire. In this game, players take on characters who are somehow influenced or otherwise affected by the story’s vampire,
which is always a concept of the story rather than a player. Annalise takes a pinpoint topic–the relationship between a group (the players) and a vampire or vampires–and attempts to make a playable game out of it.

Review by Todd Cash

Twilight Creations, Inc., the publishers of the popular Zombies!!! Board game, has reached an agreement with Pinnacle Entertainment Group to create a board game from their award-winning, best-selling Deadlands property.

The game, to be designed by Kerry and Todd Breitenstein of Twilight Creations with input from Shane Hensley, the creator of Deadlands, is set for initial release in June. “This will be one of the largest releases we have ever done,” said Mr. Breitenstein. “We really love the Deadlands world and we hope it shows in the final product.”

Special Birthday Price of $3.16 for ONE WEEK ONLY!

This high-octane Science-Fiction role-playing game for 2 or more players has your Space Troopers killing bugs all across the Cosmos. You’ll advance in rank, improve your weapons, slay civilization after civilization and find out who you are through an innovative “Flashback” mechanic.

“Out-Verhoevens Verhoeven” – Robin D. Laws
“Fantastic, gorgeous design” – Ron Edwards

Buy the 3:16 eBook for only $3:16 at the Flames Rising RPGNow Shop!

Green Ronin Publishing announced today that it would keep its classic d20 System titles available under its new 3rd Era brand name. The process began this week with the re-release of six books in PDF format and will continue on a regular basis until all the titles are updated.

“The status of the old d20 logo is now unclear,” said Green Ronin President Chris Pramas, “so we created a new logo to replace it. This will keep PDFs of our back catalog available. We’re also going to offer Print on Demand editions through Lulu, so gamers who want hard copies of difficult to find products like the Book of Fiends will be able to get them.”

Goodman Games’ first Age of Cthulhu adventure, Death in Luxor, is at the printer now.

While we all await its arrival, Goodman Games has posted previews to help you explore the mysteries of Luxor, starting with the mysterious Old Persian (pdf preview).

Holy hell, what a game.

A couple years ago, the folks at Dark Matter Studios released an RPG called Epic Role-Playing. It was a game I enjoyed, found very well-crafted for a first attempt, and ended up giving a generally positive review to. However, one of the complaints I (and several other reviewers) noted was that Epic was too segmented. The original Epic came in 4 parts—the Rules Manual, Bestiary, Book of the Arcane, and Atlas of Eslin (the default setting for Epic, which also listed many of the guilds/profession available). This compartmentalization was likely a big turn-off to many who otherwise may have given the game a try.

Review by Zach Houghton

The coming of the Shroud changed the landscape of the once-frozen North utterly—and called the dead forth from their graves. But its most subtle of changes was perhaps its most profound. Babes born after the Shroud came developed odd appearances, evincing milky skin, pale eyes, and strange auras in even the mildest of transformations. That would have been strange enough, but it soon became clear that more than just appearances had changed for these so-called shroudborn. They became creatures half a step outside of our own world, attuned to the call of the spirit-world, and at times living lives more in tune with that realm than our own.

Shroudborn Multiclass is available at the Flames Rising RPGNow Shop.

White Wolf and RPGNow have made a new PDF offering available today. This week delve into the Epic Fantasy with the Jewel of the Scavenger Lands bundle for Exalted.

Forged from the shattered remains of the Dragon-Blooded Shogunate and tempered in the fires of war, the so-called Scavenger Lands continue to stand in defiance of the tyranny of the Realm, as they have done for eight centuries. Ranging from mighty Lookshy in the west to the eclectic Hundred Kingdoms in the east, the states of the former River Province offer a treasure trove of First Age wonders, minor dominions and mortal followers for the returned Solar Exalt willing to risk the wrath of the Seventh Legion to claim them.

Secrets of the World contains a variety of Storyteller suggestions and articles to help expand your Scion cycle. There’s information on politics between the Gods and their Scions, more information on feats of strength, more equipment and weapons (including new Relics), a new antagonist group (the Order of the Divine Glory), information on Legendary companions for Scions, step-by-step advice on how to create your own pantheons, titanspawn and Relics, and 26 new story ideas for your cycle.

Secrets of the World is available at the Flames Rising RPGNow Shop.

The Midnight Charity Project focuses the generosity of RPG hobby enthusiasts as a force for bringing hope to those in need. This project uses a variety of RPG-related fundraising activities throughout the month of December to bring awareness to a worthy cause. The project for 2008 directly benefits the Autism Research Institute. Autism is unfortunately […]

The Doom from Below is a stand-alone (ish) Call of Cthulhu scenario from Super Genius Games. It can be, with minimum effort, tied directly to the events in their previous adventure Murder of Crows. The PDF weighs in at 38 pages (35 of these pages are pure meat) and seems quite generous for a one-shot adventure intended for four investigators.

First, a little blurb about the adventure itself. The Doom from Below takes investigators to the depths of a two-hundred foot chasm. The descent itself is semi-treacherous while The Things Not Meant To Be Seen at the bottom are even creepier.

Review by Todd Cash

Michael Reaves’ novel, Darth Maul: Shadow Hunter, really wants to be a good book, but it fails to achieve that goal for the exact same reason that many fans believe the film Star Wars Episode I – The Phantom Menace disappointed on so many levels…both were tragedies that had no idea that they were tragedies!

Be warned, the following contains numerous MAJOR SPOILERS and does so only because they are integral to telling why this book ultimately fails.

Review by Joe Rixman

A new horror novel from Permuted Press by Wayne Simmons!

As tattoo artist Star begins to ink her first client on a spring Sunday morning, something goes horribly wrong with the world… Belfast’s hungover lapse into a deeper sleep than normal, their sudden deaths causing an unholy mess of crashing cars, smoldering televisions and falling aircraft. In the chaotic aftermath a group of post-apocalyptic survivors search for purpose in a devastated city. Ageing DJ Sean Magee and shifty-eyed Barry Rogan find drunken solace in a hotel bar. Ex-IRA operative Mairead Burns and RIR soldier Roy Beggs form an uneasy alliance to rebuild community life.

Drop Dead Gorgeous by Wayne Simmons is available at Amazon.com.

Book three of this series has Tavi being sent out of the way (both because of who he is, and to get training) to infiltrate a new legion being created. Since most lord’s have their own legion, a new one was being created to try to serve no political uses. But Tavi is supposed to see if anyone in the legion is in fact a spy. That is what he does since he is a Cursor (also a spy) for the First Lord.

Quickly, things escalate. Lord Kalare, whom has eyes on the First Lord’s throne, launches an attack and starts civil war in the realm. He also kidnaps other high ranking nobles, and holds them prisoner at his fortress.

Review by Stacey Chancellor

White Wolf Publishing has a new eBook bundle available for a limited time only at the Flames Rising RPGNow Shop. This week explore the what it means to be a soldier in the World of Darkness. This bundle includes both World of Darkness: Dogs of War and the SAS Adventure Ruins of Ur.

These materials normally retail for $31.98, but in PDF form for the next seven days, you can acquire both products for $18.99 (USD), a savings of 41%.

The service trains you to be strong. It teaches you teamwork, how to rely on others and how to rely on yourself. Which is a damn good thing. You need every edge you can get. You’ll see for yourself when you discover what else is out there in the night…

The World of Darkness: War is Hell bundle is available at the Flames Rising RPGNow Shop.