One man stood between them and us.

U.S. Marshal Jameson Arkeley—the country’s foremost authority on vampires—taught police investigator and vampire fighter Laura Caxton everything she knows about monsters. After a bloody war visited upon Gettysburg by an army of vampires, Arkeley gave up his own life to save others. Except he didn’t exactly die . . .

The author of 13 Bullets and 99 Coffins, David Wellington takes the Laura Caxton series to a whole new level in this action-packed third volume.

Vampire Zero: A Gruesome Vampire Tale is available at Amazon.com.

Precis Intermedia bids you a wicked Halloween with a free adventure for Ghostories, the quick, easy, and versatile roleplaying game of the Supernatural. Download the classic Exit Music adventure, now updated specifically for Ghostories. If you don’t already have Ghostories, order the three-book PDF bundle now for only $8.50.

The paranormal is real, or is it? Find out with Ghostories and Exit Music!

A new twist on a classic horror favorite is today’s entry in the Halloween Horror series. Game designer Jared A. Sorensen (InSpectres, Requiem Chronicler’s Guide) brings us a story about the dead, although not in the way you might be expecting.

A new “working class” with only a few minor drawbacks…

Cheap Labor

Created by Jared A. Sorensen

There’s a stain on the floor and he’s scrubbing it like it’s blood and the police are on their way, lights flashing, tires squealing. Not fast but vigorous, relentless. We’re watching him. We’ve been watching him through the window for going on ten minutes and he hasn’t let up, hasn’t slowed down a beat. Constant, like a timepiece ticking away the seconds, minutes. Soon to be hours. Jim breaks the spell.

“Gus? Gus.”

The scrubbing stops. The man crouched over the coffee stain on the carpet stops and looks up. His face is old and gaunt, skin stretched tight over razor cheekbones. That vacant stare. Dead eyes.

Our author begins his book by informing us that table-top RPGs are at a crossroads. They are at a point in time where they must make a choice between a new system, something revolutionary and different, and the power of nostalgia, classic systems and tradition on the other. This is an easy assumption to make, casting your eyes about to the RPG market and seeing the 4E update and change in D&D in what seems, especially to outsiders, as very dramatic ways. It is from this premise our author builds his book. I would claim this is his thesis statement; the foundation of the argument for the book. Unfortunately, it couldn’t be more wrong.

Review by Vincent Venturella

Our new addition to the Halloween Horror series is brought to use by game designer Eddy Webb (Mind’s Eye Theatre: The Awakening).

Eddy brings us a tale of desperation and horror, just what is a Quisivore? Is it coming for you next?

The Quisivore

Created by Eddy Webb

Eyewitness Transcript: January 24. Cincinnati, Ohio.
“The name ‘quisivore’ is something I made up, just a name to give it. I’m not even sure if the creature has a proper name, or if he’s part of a species. The one I met called himself Claude.”

“Claude looks human enough on the surface. He’s got a long, diamond-shaped scar on his face, but since I saw him over the rim of a burning oil drum late at night, I couldn’t get a really good look at him. As we talked, I started to realize that the scar wasn’t the only unusual thing about him. Everything he said was a statement. Everything. He never once asked a question, not even a rhetorical one. He didn’t ask me my name. He said ‘I don’t know your name,’ and let me fill in the gaps.

FEAR THE NIGHT… BUT DO NOT FEAR THE SAVINGS!

In celebration of All Hallows Eve, the Flames Rising RPG Store is happy to guide you down the dark, dangerous path towards terrifying savings on the creepiest of products.

Save big on products from White Wolf Publishing, 12 to Midnight, Precis Intermedia, Postemortem Studios and more!

Horror author Scott Lette (Arkham Tales) brings us a tale of terror for the Halloween Horror collection. Scott gives us a glimpse of a man vs. nature story from Australia.

Have these creatures returned from someplace else, and if so, why?

Quinkana Prodigius

Created by Scott Lette

FAR NORTH QUEENSLAND TORN APART BY MONSTER CROC PLAGUE
Posted Sat. September 27, 2008 3.35pm AEST

“I have been in consultation with the Emergency Services Minister,” the Premier said during a Press conference in Brisbane today.

Not a Secret Crisis! Not a Final Invasion! On October 15th, it’s Cassie Hack versus Solomon Hitch in the brawl to end it all! Get ready for Hackoween!

Tim Seeley’s Spike TV Scream Award nominated Hack/Slash is teaming up with the cult favourite web comic Halloween Man for a special Halloween crossover!

See! Cassie and Vlad’s rampage through Solar City!

Tremble! As alien sex gods rip the universe in half!

Buy! Into our shameless hyperbole!

And it’s all for free on www.halloweenman.com! The only cost will be your immortal soul!

The Celestial Bureaucracy is a new pantheon for your Scion cycle. This section contains everything you’ll need, including the gods of the Bureaucracy, a complete 1 to 10 dot write up of their pantheon Purview, new Birthrights, new allies, new antagonists, details on their Overworld and Underworld, a new Titan that plagues the Bureaucracy and two sample Scions (one hero and one demigod) so you can jump right into the game.

The Scion Companion Part Three is available at the Flames Rising RPGNow Shop.

Author, editor and game designer Monica Valentinelli (Tales of the Seven Dogs Society, Violet War) introduces us to a different kind of mummy with her entry in the Halloween Horror series here are Flames Rising.

Artist Brad McDevitt contributes to the mystery with a bit of his artwork.

Babylonian Mummy

Created by Monica Valentinelli
With Art from Brad McDevitt

Deep in the heart of the desert, a circle of seven ancient Babylonian temples weathered by sand, stand testament to a forgotten age. Great stone wings adorn falling archways, covered with an undecipherable combination of script and hieroglyphs. There are no living priests in this hallowed place, no servants to call upon the gods and goddesses waiting in the heart of each gilded temple. There is nothing but the wind and the sand, blowing through abandoned temples and the resting place of the Babylonian gods and goddesses.

We have an early look at horror author Derek Gunn’s new Vampire Apocalypse novel Descent into Chaos. This is the sequel to A World Torn Asunder.

Here on Flames Rising today we have the Prologue of the new book.

Vampire Apocalypse: Descent into Chaos

Two Years Ago: Boston

It was still early evening but the relentless advance of the dark was already heralding its dominion as the sun began to slip slowly below the horizon. In places, patches of light still flared valiantly—though, ineluctably, they too began to give ground with each passing moment. Harris grinned wryly as he thought how fitting their predicament was as he and his fellow survivors defended themselves against the oncoming hoard in their last remaining stronghold. He rated their chances no better than the light that, even now, was relinquishing its last tenuous grip on the cityscape.

Horror author and game designer Richard Dansky (Firefly Rain, Worlds of Their Own) has offered up a new monster for the Halloween Horror collection here at Flames Rising.

Jeff Preston adds a little horror of his own with a stunning visual of this rarely seen but always felt creature…

The House Spider

Created by Rich Dansky
With Art by Jeff Preston

The House Spider does not feed on blood, or flesh, or anything so messy and gory as that. It lives in the dwelling places of the timid, the fearful, the cluttered and the cautious. It finds them by their tell-tale signs, their overloaded bookshelves and their disorganized collections, their piles of papers and dimly lit rooms, and there it settles, invisibly. In olden days, many lived in reading rooms, on top of green-shaded desk lamps or in the rare empty spaces on bookshelves. These days, they settle more beneath the computer desk, or near the television, or in amongst the video game consoles and their surrounding debris.

This is fairly hefty for a PDF, though it would make a slim book, 90 pages of rather dense rules information providing information for playing the aforementioned classes as well as a little supplementary information in the form of appropriate magical items and the idea of a post-cataclysm gaming in a fantasy world. The approach here differs from that hinted at in the Wizards’ books particularly in naming the source of Barbarian and Druidic power ‘Primal’ and that of Bards and Monks ‘Ancient’, rather than the ‘Nature’ spoken of in the official line.

Review by James ‘Grim’ Desborough

Game designer Eloy LaSanta brings us our next monster in the Halloween Horror series.

Thanks to the Tabbinius Cats, there just might be a reason for all the superstition about black cats crossing your path…

Tabbinius Cats

Created by Eloy Lasanta

This evil creature has origins of the days of witches for mortals and trials that surrounded. Some witches were banished them from society or outright killed, but they had other ways of messing with townspeople. They turned black cats into their familiars, making them spies and vessels for the witch. She has several cats, each powerful in their own right, but many were killed as stories of black cats spread throughout the colonies. Tabbinius, one of her particularly clever cats, made his own deals with demons that released him from his link to the witch and gave him the ability to speak, but required him to feed on human souls. He led the other familiars against their witch, making her the first soul to be a tribute to the demon.

This new twist on the legend of the werewolf is brought to us by author and game designer Jason L Blair (The Long Count, Little Fears).

Beware the Beast of Bedburg, it has a hunger that is never satisfied…

The Werewolf of Bedburg

Created by Jason L Blair

Under a pregnant summer moon, a boy named Peter Stübbe, followed a trail that led down to the creek that marked the boundary of his family’s farm. Lying in the muddy water was the body of a brown wolf cub. As its life escaped further with every breath, its lupine features faded and slowly Peter realized that it was no cub at all—but the body of a boy no older than he was. Against his better sense, he picked up a long thin stick and prodded the wolfboy with it. With its last raspy breath, it lunged at Peter, biting him on his arm. Peter’s parents found their son the next day, laying unconscious beside the body of a dead boy. Swearing never to speak of the incident again, the father went about burying the deceased child immediately while his wife tended to their son.

The Rose-Bride’s Plight (Changeling: The Lost)

A cold war between Spring and Winter threatens to tear the freehold apart.

Broken oaths, betrayals and bitter memories have widened the chasm between the two Courts for decades, with each transition from Onyx to Emerald becoming an ever more frigid and hostile affair. In the past, fanatics on either side have taken overt action against their enemies and tensions have swelled. Members of the freehold fear that if something is not done soon, one party or the other will take drastic action and drive the freehold into a true civil war.

Our latest addition to the Halloween Horror series comes from author Jensen Toperzer.

This creature could be found in any number of fantasy or post-apocalyptic worlds, so be careful where you go exploring…

Wastelands Stalker

Created by Jensen Toperzer

A wasteland stalker (or Khyr-garuke, as the natives call them) is a terrible behemoth generally found in areas destroyed by some horrible disaster. As the name implies, they favor wastelands, though some have said that they lair in the shells of ruined cities. Some say that they are given rise by the maddened and terrified spirits of those killed in disasters; others that they are disaster made flesh, the very incarnations of the forces of destruction.

Stalkers are strange beasts, being huge in size (the largest known specimen is thought to have been fifty feet long, as judged by the distance between its tracks) yet silent of step.

Talisman Studios is celebrating the anniversary of Suzerain, our Origins Award Nominee RPG. And we’re celebrating in style, with a couple of great bits of news for roleplay fans everywhere:

Suzerain is now free from our online shop! That’s $0.00 for the Suzerain rule book. The economy’s getting tougher and none of us has much money to play with, but from now on you won’t need any money to play with Suzerain. Enjoy the game at www.suzerain.info by clicking on the ‘Treasure’ tab at the top of the page and browsing through all our free goodies.

The Apelord is the first effort of new company ‘One Bad Egg’ and one of the first ‘proper’ 4th Edition D&D products to grace the virtual bookshelves. The Apelord is a new character race, with all the attendant options, but is also comes packaged with some monster ideas, numerous special abilities and a few adventure ideas. In short, it’s like an extended Monster Manual entry, such as were starting to become the norm at the end of 3.5.

Review by James ‘Grim’ Desborough

A new monster in the Halloween Horror series today from game designer Gregor Hutton (3:16, a|state) with art from Bradley K. McDevitt (Blood!).

The Heamogoblin is a mischievous little beast. You have to wonder if they are related to Gremlins or something far, far worse…

The Heamogoblin

Created by Gregor Hutton
With Art by Bradley K. McDevitt

Brad put Tara on the hallway stairs, she was a bloodied mess. He made his way in to the kitchen to see what she’d done to herself. Bloody footprints, like those of a rat, led from a smashed tumbler to under the sink. A tumbler? All the blood that only moments ago must have jetted from Tara’s arm was gone. It looked like it had been licked clean from the slate floor. Rats?

Brad looked around and saw a knife. It lay conveniently nearby, sharp and cool, and he reached for it with his hand. Suddenly and unexpectedly there was a scuttling beneath the sink, and he took his eye off the knife. A sharp pain and he felt blood squirting out his hand.