Bloodlines is a handy pdf for d20 Modern from the folks at 12 to Midnight. This adventure is written with 5th Level characters in mind, but is not a requirement. With a little prep, a GM can do just about anything with this material. Bloodlines uses the OGL Horror magic system from Mongoose Publishing, but has everything you need included. Coming in both “Printer-Friendly” and “Full versions as a set. The Full version is packed with handouts, bookmarks and is one of the best looking pdfs I’ve seen on the market.

Within the horror and dark fantasy realm, it seems as if a lot of fans are concerned about setting. Sorcerer takes an extremely bold approach – it is more concerned about how you play than where. The book, published by Adept Press, is beautifully bound in hardcover form and retails for about $20.00. At around 140 pages in trade size, the size of the book threw me for a loop. After all, how can such a thin book without a pregenerated setting pack such a big punch?

Sorcerer is a Faustian game for people who want to test the limits of their character and have complete freedom to use their own imagination to fill in all the details.

Available at RPGNow.com Written by Clash Bowley and El Zambo (Flying Mice, LLC.) In order to fully understand a game, there is nothing better than having the opportunity to run an adventure written by the game’s creators. The Prouty Island Adventure, available through RPGNow as a pdf, offers a lot in terms of history, setting, […]

Quick: An excellent game that captures the feel and fun of the movie and expands on the established mythos. Great as a stand alone game, as a “Campaign sourcebook” or as an addition to any other Eden Unisystem game.

White Wolf’s Mind’s Eye Theatre challenges us to enter a world just beyond the mortal senses, to look into the shadowy mirror of ourselves and find a world populated by the supernatural — vampires, mages, and others wage an eternal battle for dominance and survival. Choose your role in this World of Darkness … are you a defender of humanity, or a predator of the night?

How did you get into gaming? I was in a Gifted and Talented Education program in the fourth grade. My parents were given a list of games to help foster a child’s imagination. Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) was on the list. My mom bought me the “red box” version of Basic Dungeons & Dragons (BDD) […]

How did you get started in gaming? Unlike most of my gaming friends, I got into the roleplaying scene rather late. It was during my freshman year in High School that a few of my new friends introduced me to the concept of roleplaying and roleplaying games. They mentioned that they were running Giovanni Chronicles […]

The bullets fly and the zombies pile up in this game from Twilight Creations, Inc. Zombies!!! the board game proclaims to be a no-brainer, but assuredly this is a high-strategy game. As a player you have two goals, one of self-preservation and of zombie hunter. The game is never played the same twice, as you lie out the individual pieces of the board as you play. This adds to the frenzied anxiety of the game, you never know what will come around a corner.

Desert Dreams is the first supplement produced by Sacred Wolf for its Ignotus modern D20 setting. Ignotus is a dark world in which the eponymous supernatural realm poses a grave threat to humanity and its hideous denizens work to undermine society. Shadowy government agencies and vile religious cultists combine to make the real world, beneath the level of consciousness of most people, nasty, brutish and short.

There were parts that I loved, terribly, which were almost all thematic and setting/scene based. There were parts that I very very much hated, and that was all gameplay-based.

Here’s what I loved:

The sanity system. If you look at stuff closely (the priest crucified on the cross, for example) you get More out of the game, but you also lose more sanity points (which gradually recover over time). When you’re low on sanity, you start talking to yourself and hearing things. Apparently when you run out of sanity, you take whatever gun you’re holding and kill yourself.

In this interview, Elizabeth tells us about her work on In Nomine, GURPS 4th Edition and other projects.

Ignotus is Sacred Wolf’s game of modern horror, in which potent conspiracies exist to render miserable the lives of the ordinary people and dark secrets are revealed to show that man is not alone. In the Ignotus Player’s Guide, all of the information required for players to take part in this darkly present world is provided. From formative experiences to feats and skills, prestige classes to starting occupations, the book lays out in plain terms what is what. The emphasis is primarily on the nitty gritty of gameplay rather than the flavour of the setting and it is sometimes difficult to envisage exactly how characters can be made to come alive.

Throughout known history, mankind has been threatened by the malevolent plane known as the Ignotus. How the Ignotus came into being is not clear – some believe it was a remnant of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, while others consider it to be a punishment from God. What is known, though, is that the Ignotus is the source of numerous trials and tribulations, including manifestations of evil spirits, ghosts and all manner of frightful things. As the Ignotus moves closer to the earth, its effects multiply and inevitably it is the innocent who suffer the most.

Review by John Walsh

Many sequels have a hard time living up to the original. “The Ring 2” is no exception. However, it depends if you’re comparing it to the American version of the film, “The Ring” by Gore Verbinski, or the Japanese version, “Ringu” by Hideo Nakata. So, in this comparison the failure of “The Ring 2” makes sense. Let’s face it, “Ringu” was bad, therefore it’s not shocking that “The Ring 2” was bad as well. Maybe if more people had seen “Ringu” and compared it the “The Ring” they may not have been so eager to have Hideo Nakata direct it.

Imagine everything is quiet. You’re a foreign exchange student from American in Japan subbing for a nurse who disappeared. You enter the house of a woman who is mentally unstable in the middle of Tokyo. Of course something isn’t right. All that is going on in your mind is summed up in one thought: “The whole time I was in that house, I knew something was wrong.” You are now in the world of “The Grudge”.

Risla twisted and turned as she slept on the hard ground, her thoughts hunting for answers to Malik’s words. How could she convince anyone that she was the one that would fulfill prophecies? And even if she had the second sight, she wasn’t sure she could speak false about foreseeing the future. Truly, she was anything but blessed. When she told Malik this, he not only reminded her how many people were relying on this belief, but that some people would lay their lives down for such a person.

Part of an ongoing tale in the world of Conspiracy of Shadows.

If zombies took over, would you fight? One of the Living is a supplement for All Flesh Must be Eaten that focuses on the survivors.

The opening fiction sets the tone for this dark, survivalist supplement. While there were a few grammatical errors, the language is vibrant and photographic. You feel as if you are right behind Jack, with a hand on his shoulder, as he struggles to retell his story. When you realize that Jack’s hope orbits around the impending daybreak, you understand that this is not your typical All Flesh supplement. Overall, the flavor text is well-written and does a good job of enhancing the desperate setting.

Oft times in horror role-playing, characters endure deadly consequences to the blood, guts and gore that bleeds through so many games. Every once in a while a horror rpg strives to create the mood and theme of horror through fear, manipulation, and growth of character. Dead Inside: The Roleplaying Game of Loss and Redemption, is a game that steps away from combat and mechanics and focuses on “the reasons for and the manner in which tasks are attempted.”

The War of the Flowers is written in such a way that you forget the fae archetypes that run amuck in this novel. Williams’ quality of writing gives a visual feel to the book that lets you revel in the myriad of faerie types he describes. Sprites, pixies, hobgoblins, tommy-knockers, ferishers, selkies, goblins, trolls, poleviks and nixies are just a small part of this tale. Each type of faerie has been distinguished from its archetype in such a way you feel that Williams collected several as if they were fragile butterflies. Not so breakable are the trolls. While ugly and useful for their strength, their endearing quality is that they are named after their favorite childhood “toy.”

Grimm is a d20 setting part of Fantasy Flight Games’ Horizon line. It’s self-contained and only needs the 3 Core books. It’s designed with 3.5 in mind but I imagine the 3.0 Core books could be used without difficulty. The premise is that you play children who have been drawn into the lands where the Grimm fairy tales took place. It was the setting that caught my attention and is the reason I decided to buy it. Grimm definitely gets points for uniqueness.