The Introduction sets the scene without ado: there are many threats facing the Solar Exalted chief of whom are the other kinds of Exalted, and the purpose of this book is to enable the Storyteller to create quick yet effective representatives of all other Exalts to serve as allies or – more likely – enemies in the course of the chronicle that is to be told. More detail on both the five kinds of Exalt and on creating antagonists in general than is to be found in the core rules is presented,along with information about the high-level politicking that goes on which can be used as background or even as something for the characters to get involved with if the thought of mixing diplomacy and intrigue with warfare appeals.

I’m still six feet under only I’m under snow and it’s actually closer to six inches. What’s a little bit of exaggeration between friends? After all, you’re the one reading a RPG review, so it stands to reason that you like either telling or hearing stories. For those of you who missed my review of Book of the Dead, which you can read here (don’t worry I’ll wait), I’m in the midst of a look at White Wolf’s view of the Underworld. Today, we’re going to visit the Ebon Gate, a SAS adventure intended for Geist: the Sin-Eaters.

This adventure is 38 pages, although the first and second pages are full color and black and white versions of the cover. The layout follows the Geist format, which means subtle blues for color, more keys than you’ll find on a school custodian’s key ring, and big whopping numbered pages.

When I first saw Goodman Games’ D&D 4e adventure, Death Dealer: Shadows of Mirahan, I had mixed reactions. First, I love Frank Frazetta’s Death Dealer. I’ve seen all the Frazetta paintings, read the novels by James Silke, collected the comics written by Glen Danzig, and bought the Molly Hatchet album with Death Dealer on the cover when I first saw it back in the 80s (it was actually released in 1978).

However, the gamer in me balked. I was wondering how they could pull off an adventure about the Death Dealer without having the nearly omnipotent figure overshadow the player characters. There is only one Death Dealer, and surely the players would not be playing as the legendary anti-hero. I was also wondering how the adventure dealt with non-human races (I couldn’t remember reading about elves and dwarves in the novels).

Writer Jason Becker and artist Jon Rea are back with the second twisted issue of their series Killing Pickman. Slower paced and more convoluted than issue 1, this issue dives deeper into the origins of Dick Pickman’s monstrous deeds.

As Detective Zhu makes his way to Herbert West Memorial Hospital to finish the job he started in issue one, the act of killing Pickman, Mr. Pickman waxes insane to a hospital psychologist about his transformation into a malicious child killer. When Zhu arrives outside the door to Pickman’s room, gun in hand, he’s confronted by Detective Raimi. Flash forward two months and we find out that this case hasn’t been very kind to those involved with investigating and cleaning out the Pickman house. Detective Zhu is the only one who understands the literally monstrous nature of the case and he has a plan, but can he pull it off while also looking out for the best interests of his wife and their child?

When I first sat down to read A DARK MATTER, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. Sure, I had read Peter’s work before and I’m pretty familiar with modern horror, but I didn’t know anything about this particular story other than one, little tidbit. In our interview with Peter Straub, he had mentioned that he was inspired by his experiences in Madison, Wisconsin. That little morsel made me curious, because I went to school in Madison and could see how he got the idea for this book. Madison is unique from the rest of the state, because you can study or pursue just about any religion, philosophy or political group in this college town. I could imagine that those same gurus that Peter saw in the 60s might be strolling around State Street today. Needless to say, the concept piqued my curiosity.

I’ve only been a reviewer on da’ flames for about a scant 6 months now (my, how time does fly), but I’ve already read and reviewed some good books within that time. In one particular case however, I decided to read and review a book (Personal Effects- Dark Art) after reading a featured preview. As it turned out, this was a good book and was worth taking the leap and I told myself I would review more featured books in the future. And now I’ve recently read the featured preview of This is My Blood. This preview also grabbed me by the attention and I took another leap of faith. Was my faith rewarded?

I’m looking at dead things, specifically games about dead things. My next three reviews are going to cover the World of Darkness’ shadowy afterlife and the things that sometimes make the doorway between worlds a bit more revolving than usual. These reviews will cover Book of the Dead, Geist: The Sin-Eaters, and Through the Ebon Gate. Today, we will take a baby step into the realm of the dead through the guise of the World of Darkness system’s Book of the Dead. This book intends to deliver an encompassing look at the underworld, although admits that having Geist makes things all the better.

Let’s talk about this book’s artwork. Artwork tends to have a direct relationship to the importance of the text. With that said, Book of the Dead must be a critical addition to the White Wolf line. The cover art, which features a Mercy Thompson look-alike, is exactly the kind of cover that prepares me to dig into a book.

Castle Panic is a cooperative board game where players work together to protect their castle from an invading horde of Orcs, Trolls and their little Goblin minions. These monsters are bent on destroying what the humans have built and have a few nasty tricks up their sleeves to help them batter down the defenses of the castle.

My favorite element of Castle Panic is the teamwork to defend the castle from the attacking monster army. With a little strategy, plenty of communication and often…a little luck, the Heroes can defeat the Monsters with most of the castle intact at the end of the day.

I have to make a confession. It’s not an easy confession to make since I’ve been a card carrying sci-fi geek all my life, but it’s best you all know the truth. The truth is this: I know next to nothing about the Doctor Who Series. Cubicle 7 games have decided to introduce me (and many others) to the good Doctor in a big way. Although I’m reviewing a full-color PDF of the game (thanks to Cubicle 7 for my reviewer’s copy), they have created a RPG rarity in this day and age–the RPG box set. Yep, for $59.99 game lovers will get three books–players, game masters, and adventures, a handful of blank and filled-out character sheets, and other bits of goodness. All of these are also in full color and look quite smart.

Necromancy and the undead are two of my favorite themes for roleplaying games. The undead have a strong presence in gaming and there are many interesting creatures that can be used in adventures. Unfortunately, there have not been many useful options for those that sit on the other side of the screen. As a player, I am always on the hunt for new and effective methods to harness the powers of death, the dead, and the undead.

The Genius Guide to: the Death Mage is a fourteen page supplement from Otherworld Productions & Super Genius Games for the Pathfinder RPG. The Death Mage is a new arcane spellcasting base class that provides players five paths to choose from: Corpse, Ghoul, Tomb, Reaper, and Shadow mages. The Death Mage also introduces some new spells and a new creature subtype, Unbreathing (a not quite undead creature).

Let me ask you a question or three; you ever watch a movie and think “Hey, isn’t this movie ripping off such and such movie?” You ever watch a film and ask yourself “Is this movie going anywhere?” And after watching a flick, do you walk away thinking “What was the freaking point of this movie?” Well my fellow legion of Da’ flames… I have the displeasure of telling you that I asked all three questions during the course of this picture, in some cases multiple times.

The poor excuse of a story goes something a little like this; god almighty above has washed his hands of the human race and he’s hiring a cleaning service to mop up the globe, namely his angels. His entire “legion” is gonna come down and lay a god sized smack down on all us mud monkeys. However, we’ve still got one angel on humanity’s shoulder that’s ready, willing and able to stand up for all of us schmucks.

In an era when comic books have the same relationship with zombies as ESPN has with football, it’s difficult to find something fresh about the living dead, no pun intended. However, Grim Crew’s Dead Future Issue 1 is an anthology comprised of three zombie apocalypse stories all of which offer an element of originality in this otherwise predictable comic book niche.

The first story, Real Monsters, written by Martin Brandt II and Illustrated by Paul Petyo is a tale of day-to-day urban survival in a world overrun by zombies. This segment has all the trappings of the archetypal zombie paradigm as well as a few unique wrinkles. One of these is that the living can go about their business among the living dead provided they don’t upset the zombies’ routines and that these excursions take place during the day time.

Picked up the book last evening, finished reading and turned out the light at exactly 3:33am. Coincidence?
My review? Go out and buy the book, absorb it in one sitting.

That’s it?

I have to admit that is this is a difficult book to read and review as I am forced to set aside any fanboy glee for what is my personal favorite Legion (1ksons) and the Horus Heresy novel I’ve been waiting for since the beginning. Deep breath. I’m a pro. Objectivity. GO!

Lots of guys have little black books, but mine is a mite bit different than most. The little black book on my shelf is full of monsters rather than phone numbers. It was intimidating because the majority of my friends prefer to play something superhuman than simply human. The idea of playing children is a tough sell to them when there are monster hunters, space pirates, and even anthropomorphic mice to choose from; nevertheless, the world of Little Fears has always intrigued me. In fact, the author’s own comments about playing children (play something you actually know) rings true to me. Well, the little book about children fighting the forces of Closetland has grown all up and I’m here to tell you about it.

When I look at the new edition (the Nightmare Edition) of Little Fears, I see some true growth. The artwork has improved, the material has expanded, and the direction seems a bit clearer.

This review is long overdue. Matt sent me Grants Pass, an awesome post-apocalyptic anthology edited by Jennifer Brozek and Amanda Pillar (more on why it’s awesome below) this past summer. It may have even been late spring. And after reading the introductions on my computer screen (which, on initial read, made chills creep up and down my spine), the anthology languished on my computer. I could not get myself sitting down in front of the screen long enough to read the carefully crafted short stories, couldn’t explore their interconnectedness while looking at them on a monitor. I printed out the whole pdf onto paper — but the formatting was a little odd, and not only was the collection heavy, the font was so large on the print out that it actually made it difficult to read. The three ring binder I put it in traveled from room to room in my house — but it didn’t open. The book languished… until I decided to try out an e-Reader. In less than a week, I’ve accomplished what it took me months to do: finished reading the whole anthology, cover to cover (as it were).

Crosscurrent is set some 41.5 years after the events of A New Hope…and some five thousand years before that. Crosscurrent is told through a series of flashes from the past and the “present”. It’s very much about threads of fate, plots and events of the past coming to fruition in the future.

Now most of the time this way of storytelling can be jarring. I’ve put books down and left them on the shelf because of this. Usually it’s hard to keep the flow of interest going on two simultaneous stories.

The author does a masterful job in tying the two together as well as keeping both halves of the story exciting. He makes it really work. I do love being surprised!

The concept of a group of people investigating contemporary strangeness and paranormal events is not a new one, but this book provides a coherent and well-considered approach to what is going on that makes it worth investigating.

It begins with a short Introduction that provides the obligatory “what is role-playing?” explanation and describes the core premise of the game: that the characters are members of a society dedicated to hunting out the truth. It also states that the following four chapters can be read by players and game masters alike, while the rest is best left to the game master alone. As with any game in which there are secrets to unearth, it’s best not to know those secrets in advance if you are one of the people trying to unearth them… but it does presuppose that only one member of your group wishes to game master at least for this system.

Certain time periods are overused in RPGs. This game, which comes to us from Flying Mouse Games (thanks for the reviewer’s copy), actually works the opposite angle. We may see many takes on Queen Victoria’s reign; however, Queen Elizabeth’s tenure is a little bit more open to exploration.

The default setting for this RPG allows players to take on the roles of adventurers under the leadership of Queen Elizabeth and John Dee. That is the core to this book, its heart. This 234 page PDF offers a wealth beyond that singular idea.

In my Eclipse Phase review, I phrased the series of two-page overviews that were designed to give readers some quick insight into the game. OHMAS would have benefited from doing something similar.

Dark Apostle is the third in the Word Bearers series and the culmination of a massive plot. Of course when you consider that the Word Bearers and other Traitor Legions are over 10,000 years old and their schemes stretch over millennia it’s hard to grasp the scope of such a “plot”. Wheels within wheels and the Word Bearers are plotters in the extreme.

The story of Dark Apostle Marduk continues and his goal of using the ancient Necron technology to essentially propel himself higher up the food chain and bring as much chaos to the Imperium as possible is fought with peril from within and without.

If you are already a fan of the Supernatural TV show and want to play out the kind of adventures that happen to its protagonists, this book will come as a real treat. If you don’t know the show, or are just looking for a game in which present-day heroes deal with supernatural menaces, this probably is not the game for you.

Written throughout in a casual style (almost as if written by Dean Winchester) and laid out in full colour with lots of (uncaptioned, alas, and rather dark) shots from the show as well as evocative collections of items that might rest on a hunter’s desk, the work begins with an Introduction by Sara Gamble, one of the show’s writers. Clearly, she’d quite like to join in, and it ought to get you into the right mood for this game from the outset.