The second installment of the Elemental Witches perhaps unintentionally brings up the question of who’s more evil: demons, or the warlocks who summon them. Or, if you prefer: guns, or the people who use them. The answer in this novel seems to be demons (guns), which is good news for me, who had a thing for hot French warlock Stefan Faucheux in a previous installment.

Another perhaps unintentional issue is what’s more important: being protected, or being independent?

Review by Tez Miller

Marcus Alexander Hart’s apocalyptic novel The Oblivion Society has been chosen as a semi-finalist in the Fantasy & Science-Fiction category of the Independent Publisher’s Book Awards (IPPYs).

With over 3,100 entries for this year’s competition, the Independent Publisher Book Awards (since 1996) award the best indie-published books of the year in 65 categories.

View the full list of this year’s semi-finalists here.

Like a lot of folks ’round these parts, I’m a huge fan of Robert E. Howard. I think he had all the imagination of Tolkien, and for my money, was a better writer. Your mileage may vary, of course, but that’s all moot.

I own all of the Del Rey collections: The Coming of Conan, the Bloody Crown of Conan, the Conquering Sword of Conan, Bran Mak Morn: the Last King, Kull: Exile of Atlantis, The Savage Tales of Solomon Kane, Crimson Shadows,and Grim Lands. I eagerly look forward to the day when they finally release collections of his western stories, and would love to own collections of his letters (though I currently don’t).

I guess you could say that as a writer I hold the man in high esteem.

Review by Jason Vey

Suddenly, there’s a new kid at school today. No one has lived in the Mayfair House for as long as you can remember, maybe even as long as you’ve been alive. Like a big gray toad nestled into the woods, it gazes down on the corner, eyes empty and soulless. But that’s all changed. You […]

The power-mad Warlord stands poised to conquer–or destroy!–the universe itself. Can anyone stand in his way?

Enter the Sentinels: College student Lyn Li… brilliant inventor and smart-alec Esro Brachis… beloved hero Ultraa… flamboyant showman Damon Sinclair… and mysterious alien powerhouse Vanadium.

When at last they all clash atop the Warlord’s floating city, can the world itself survive?

Digital Adventures, LLC and Pinnacle Entertainment Group are proud to present Savage Worlds Online, a new community designed to support and bring together gamers using the Savage Worlds Ruleset for Fantasy Grounds II to play their favorite Savage setting online with friends across the globe!

At the moment Savage Worlds Online (SWO) supports a forum for everything Savage World and Fantasy Grounds, and a gaming calendar for linking up with other SWO members to find or host a game. There will also be product giveaways from Savage Worlds licensees, gaming and development blogs, officially sponsored PEG events, product support, gaming advise, and all great geekness associated with the Savage Worlds setting from Australia to Denmark to England to Arizona!

The World of Darkness Through Innocent Eyes

Monsters don’t just lurk in remote forests, nightclubs, slums and the rooftops of the city. They’re in your neighborhood, watching you as you walk to school. They’re waiting for you in the woods behind your house as you and your friends build your fort. They’re under your bed.

Adults have learned to live in the World of Darkness by ignoring the supernatural, by pretending it isn’t there and going about the lives they have made for themselves. You don’t have that luxury. You see the world through a child’s eyes, and that means you haven’t learned to look away.

The line between good and evil is clearly drawn in the first Elemental Witches novel. Coven = good. Duskoff Cabal = evil. Mira Hoskins doesn’t know she’s an air witch until there’s a home invasion, where she’s rescued/kidnapped by fire witch Jack McAllister who claims he’s hiding her away for her own good. Jack trains Mira to use her magick until the time comes to move to the Coven in Chicago.

Review by Tez Miller

The countdown has begun and gaming enthusiasts all across the country are planning their annual trek to Indianapolis in anticipation of what gamers everywhere know to be as The Best Four Days in Gaming. With 91,000 turnstile attendees, Gen Con Indy is understandably the place where consumers and the industry come together to see and play all that is gaming. For the sixth year in a row, the event will be held at the Indiana Convention Center in Indianapolis, taking place August 14 through 17.

“Blood of the Dead isn’t what you think it is. Sure—it starts out as a zombie jamboree that drags you through Hell on Earth, but then it goes further . . . a lot further . . . and takes you straight to Hell and back again. This is the stuff of nightmares, boys and girls, with some unnerving and frightening action scenes that will have you on the edge of your seat and haunt your dreams.”
– Rick Hautala, author of The Wildman and Occasional Demons

Pre-Order Blood of the Dead at Horror-Mall.com.

In 2037 there will be an outbreak (a plague, maybe) that kills a whole lot of people. Don’t say I never warned you.

Excluding the prologue, this novel takes place in 2093. The world is now divided into four parts: the Northern Waste, the Equatorial Band, Africa and the Southern Hemisphere. Born in a laboratory in the icy Northern Waste, Tatiana is now free. But there’s something seriously screwed with her genes, clearly evident when she slices off a bloke’s hand with no weapons other than her own hands.

Review by Tez Miller.

The new game by the Origins Award-winning author of Legend of the Five Rings and 7th Sea!

Ambition. Lust. Revenge. You cannot have one without the others.

Thousands of years ago, the ven ruled the world. They were a passionate people, obsessed with Romance and Revenge, opera and theater, and all the forbidden delights their decadent culture provided. In the end, that which made them beautiful was also the key to their own destruction. Houses of the Blooded is a game about tragic obsession. Set in the fantastic world of ven myth and legend, players take the roles of powerful characters bent on conquering their world, destroying their enemies and possessing all they desire.

It is curious that Vampire adventures seem to be particularly susceptible to this kind of role-playing when the rules-givers at White Wolf are forever bringing out new rules constraining vampire characters to behave in certain ways and to react to each other based on templates relating to membership of different social organizations and family structures. This seems to be rather un-American to me – no wonder there are so many foreigners in the World of Darkness. Europeans, for example, with their dastardly class-based societies and ability to speak languages. Rafael Pope, a central figure in this adventure, for example, is described as ‘a tall European man, probably Italian.’ Not Scandinavian, then or Slavic or Gaelic. In any case, obviously someone to be watched and subject to the vampiric versions of phone-tapping and having to take his shoes off before being allowed on an aeroplane.

Review by John Walsh

The Morningstar Saga continues in Thunder and Ashes…

A lot can change in three months: wars can be decided, nations can be forged… or entire species can be brought to the brink of annihilation. The Morningstar Virus, an incredibly virulent disease, has swept the face of the planet, infecting billions. Its hosts rampage, attacking anything that remains uninfected. Even death can’t stop the virus, which reanimates its victims as cannibalistic shamblers.

Thunder and Ashes is now available at Amazon.com and Horror Mall.

Postmortem Studios is proud to present the latest in the ‘100’ series of generic sourcebooks, ‘100 Dark Places‘.

Following on from 100 Planets, 100 Dark Places details a hundred different horror locations, the terrible things that dwell within each one of them and a handful of adventure seeds to get the Gamesmaster’s mind ticking over. Just what you need to kickstart your imagination or to come up with an adventure or campaign for modern horror on short notice.

Once Upon A Time…

Enter the Realm of Fable, where goblins, elves and sylvan spirits dwell in the deepest shadows of the forest beneath the wicked Witch Queen’s spell of eternal darkness.

Nox Arcana invites you to immerse yourself in a haunting soundscape of bewitching melodies, eerie sound effects and pulse-pounding orchestrations as you explore an enchanted land of dark fairy tales and childhood nightmares.

Pre-Order Grimm Tales at Amazon.com

Welcome to the future, where souls have the options of many planets and species to inhabit. The souls have invaded Earth, creating a utopian society where violence doesn’t happen and money is not an issue. Wanderer is inserted into host Melanie Stryder, after a mighty struggle to avoid the souls. Usually the host fades, though their body is well and truly active controlled by the soul. Mel remains fighting furious, but to reach common goals she has to work together and get along with Wanderer, nicknamed Wanda.

Review by Tez Miller

The contracts are signed in blood, the sacrifices have been made, and mighty Cthulhu has bestowed his blessings. Reality Deviant Publications is happy to announce we are the newest Chaosium licensee! RDP will focus on support of the True20 game system by bringing fans of all things Cthulhu outstanding game supplements which bring H.P. Lovecraft’s deliciously maddening Mythos to life!

“I am so excited about this agreement with the fine people at Chaosium,” said David Jarvis, president of RDP. “I’ve always wanted the chance to write and develop gaming material based on H.P. Lovecraft’s works. To be officially allowed to add our own pages to his legacy is a privilege, one which we don’t take lightly. Fans of True20 and Call of Cthulhu won’t be dissapointed.”

The Academy of Adventure Gaming Arts and Design (AAGAD) and the Game Manufacturers Association (GAMA) proudly announce the nominees in all categories for the 34th Origins Awards.

Game retailer attendees at last week’s GAMA Trade Show in Las Vegas reviewed the list and selected the finalists in each award category. From those finalists, attendees at the Origins Game Fair and members of the Academy of Adventure Gaming Arts and Design will select the ultimate winners of the 34th Origins Awards.

This year’s winners will be announced during the Origins Awards ceremony at the Origins Game Fair in Columbus, Ohio, on Saturday, June 28, at 8:00 p.m.

The Inquisitor’s Handbook is a hodge-podge of bits and pieces scattering all around the game system and the background. It’s a goody-bag of weapons, skills interpretations, new background options and new ‘fluff’ which may or many not suit a particular player group. To me it didn’t feel like it had quite the same character as a player’s guide for other systems – ones which generally limit themselves to player advice and increasing player options – but it felt like an expansion of the corebook material overall, for both players and Games Masters. I felt, reading through it, as though some of the content here should have been in the corebook and vice versa, particularly the background information and the Calixis sector particulars. It would have made more sense, to me, to have increased the player and character creation options in the main book and then had the Calixis specifics in a sourcebook, or collected in this volume with the specific data appropriate to it. The ‘imposition’ of the Calixis sector as the group’s playground is just another aspect of the ‘hemming in’ that has been a criticism of Dark Heresy.

Review by James ‘Grim’ Desborough