The Ebonacht Trilogy by James Lowder.

Preview the cover (larger image below) with Art by Martin Hanford, and Pre-Order your copy of The Screaming Tower at the Elder Signs Press website.

Superstition shrouds the island of Thran and keeps the fear-plagued inhabitants subservient to the reclusive tyrant, Lord Ebonacht, and the denizens of the unseen Twilight Court. Only Janus, an orphan whose own mysterious past is discussed in frightened whispers, rails against the tales of the Strangerfolk and the other creatures that are rumored to stalk the night. His quest to prove the old stories false will bring him face to face with the prisoner of the Screaming Tower and reveal secrets about the world — and himself — far more terrible than those hinted at in the grimmest of legends.

The Flames Rising Favorite Horror Game Contest wrapped up on the 15th and our special guest judge, Jason Blair (author of Little Fears and The Long Count), helped us sort through all of the great entries. Don’t Rest Your Head, Chill and Kult were the top mentioned games. Great Cthulhu made a variety of appearances […]

Today is your last chance to get your entry posted in the Flames Rising Favorite Horror Game Contest! In one paragraph (250 words) or less, tell us what your favorite horror game is and “why.” By “game” we mean role-playing game, card game, computer/video game, or board game. It may also be alternative platforms like […]

Have you entered the Flames Rising Favorite Horror Game Contest?

Well, if you’ve been following the recent Flash Fire Mini-Reviews, you’ve just seen a small glimpse of what we have to give away. So far, in Contest Edition and Contest Edition 2 we’ve highlighted new games, like Thousand Suns and supplements like All Tomorrow’s Zombies. With over 12 publishers sponsoring our contest, our prize pool is getting so huge we just had to blog about more of the great prizes that are perfect for any horror fan.

Here are just a few of the great prizes available in the Flames Rising Favorite Horror Game Contest.

Welcome to the second set of “Contest Edition” Mini-Reviews.

These are just some of the products offered by the sponsors of the Flames Rising Favorite Horror Game Contest. This week we sci-fi adventure mixed with medieval horror, zombies, pirates and more!

If you missed out on the first “Contest Edition” from last week, be sure to check out that mix of great games from other sponsors.

Welcome to another collection of Mini-Reviews here on Flames Rising!

This week we are going to focus on some of the cool products published by some of the sponsors of the “Favorite Horror Game Contest” and the creative games they have released. Next week will be a few more of sponsors’ products. Including amazing art and funny cards.

So sit back and enjoy this collection of zombies, cannibals, strange creatures and nightmare cities…

We’re proud to announce the first Flames Rising Fan Appreciation contest. Some of you may remember that Flames Rising hasn’t always been a horror and dark fantasy webzine; it started out as a Live Action Role-Playing Site devoted to those dark and brooding vampire clans from White Wolf’s Mind’s Eye Theatre system. Through a love for gaming and other things that go bump in the night, Flames has evolved to its current incarnation, a horror webzine that shines the spotlight on up-and-coming authors, horror artists, game designers, and more!

To celebrate the new site launch, we want to show our appreciation to the fans who make Flames Rising possible by returning to our dice pool and pencils. Prizes include a variety of products from Abstract Nova, Apophis Consortium, Bob Goat Press, Cubicle 7 Entertainment, Eden Studios, Evil Hat Productions, Monolith Graphics, Neoplastic Press, Rogue Games, Snarling Badger Games, Talisman Studios and 12 to Midnight.

When Wizards first announced it’s new Open Game License (OGL) for publishers, a flurry of forum activity like this thread on RPGnet covered concerns from fans, contributors and publishers. Wizard of the Coast’s new OGL license for 4th Edition Rules hardly resembles the previous, free-flowing version, and while you may (or may not) agree with the way that Wizards has handled this aspect of their business, I still feel that it’s important to point out that this change could affect freelancers workflow and payment schedules.

Horror-genre lovers (like you and me) can’t resist sharing our love of the macabre. If we tell our friends about a dog of a film, they probably won’t go to see it. How then do we write a film review that finds the happy medium between gushing over the latest hit and bashing that worthless dud?

While the day may seem just like any other day, several people are hoping you’ll remember June 6, 2006, the so-called “number of the beast,” by doing something a little hellish, and maybe picking up an item or two along the way.

Not only did she play Tara on the Buffy: the Vampire Slayer series, she has also directed, written and created a variety of other products that range from comic books to role-playing games.

These days almost everyone with a home computer at some point or another wants to be a writer. As a consequence the fiction market has been flooded with new authors: some good, some bad. But what makes a piece of fiction “bad”? How does the average reader know what’s worthwhile to read and what isn’t?

The purpose of a review is to provide readers with enough information to decide whether they would like to spend their time or money on reading the book, watching the film or, in our case, playing the game. Whether or not the reviewer enjoys or is enthused by the game is of less importance. The reader must come first.

Plenty of articles deal with setting the mood for a horror RPG. As a result, I’m not going to tackle that topic. Instead, I’d like to talk about plot devices that, when in operation at a level of generality above specific mood elements, set the stage for creating a truly horrific RPG.

Have you ever noticed how some types of characters seem to lend themselves naturally to stereotype? In Vampire you can easily find multiple-personality Malkavians, limp-wristed über-goth Toreador, street-punk Brujah, and so on; in Changeling (which I play the most often) there’s big, dumb trolls and horny satyrs, and so on. Every clan or kith or tradition or group has a stereotype.