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Be it in the real world or the fiction realm there aren’t that many themes that manage to give me the creeps: it’s not that I am a particularly brave (nor picky) individual, it’s more that I am rather rational and find it difficult to empathize with other people’s irrational feelings: say Carpenter, for example, if immensely enjoyable, isn’t going to give me cold sweats. Of course, there are exceptions like social, psychedelic or metaphysical horror, especially subjects that fiddle with the notion of paradox.
I grabbed Primer in the room of my friend during an afternoon of boredom. After reading the phrase “Donnie Darko for Grown Ups” on the DVD cover, I slipped it in the DVD player. Donnie Darko has always been a mystery for me, as my opinion has conflicted with the opinion of most of my friends.
White Wolf appears to be currently composed of scientists rather than writers. There is simply too much experimentation going on with these guys. They have released pre-generated characters for players who need that sort of thing. With Block by Bloody Block, they release pre-generated parts of a city. This isn’t a [insert city here] by Night book. No, these are the sections of any city, ready to be dropped into whatever city fancies your gaming group. The question becomes if the scientists are congratulating themselves over champagne or staring dumbfounded with charcoal-blackened faces and lab-coats.
The layout of this supplement remains true to the Hunter: the Vigil line (this game is intended for players of that game or the basic World of Darkness corebook).
The first time I reviewed one of White Wolf’s ready-made character collections (Slaughterhouse V), I wrote a bit about experimentation and the benefits of pre-made characters.
Now that I’m reviewing my second character collection–this time a group of Hunters–I’ll blur right past that noise. This collection shows that none of the White Wolf lines gets special treatment as the Hunter the Vigil supplement receives its own supplementary material. In this twenty-six page (no ads) PDF, a five-person group of relative strangers band together after a notas- dead-as-they-thought party girl ends up fusing their lives together.
The layout to the PDF is amazing. Sometimes I feel the borders in games are a little hit and miss; however, the borders to this character collection fit perfectly.
Super Genius Games unveils a little G. I. Joe spirit with Strike Force 7. This brief supplement (71 pages) introduces the game’s namesake as an international anti-terrorist organization. They combat terrorists both real (Al-Quida) and imagined (Skorpion). While it may seem like an odd choice for a Flames Rising review, you’ll find my speculation stretching beyond the confines of the book. First, let’s take a look at the material itself.
The layout of Strike Force 7 fits its genre as each interior page’s design mimics a dossier. Each exterior top or bottom corner has a cropped photo of three Strike Force 7 agents. I felt like this image could have been reserved for the chapter introductions as it becomes a little tiresome.
The Introduction dives straight in to the basic premise, that ancient and insane deities exist and are still trying to invade Earth and that someone has to stop them, whatever the cost to life and sanity. It then moves on to the burning question: there’s already a Call of Cthulhu RPG dealing with just that, so why a new game? The answer lies in the Gumshoe ruleset, developed by Pelgrane Press for the purpose of running games based around investigation and discovery, and built so that any adventure depending on certain clues being found will have those clues found! It’s designed for people – Keepers and players alike – who want to concentrate on figuring out what the clues mean, rather than having to wonder if they actually have all the clues. This game also aims to enable two styles of play – the Purist style of intellectual analysis which enjoys watching the horror unfold knowing that it will end in madness; and the Pulp style which allows for a more physical approach, value the actual struggle against evil… and pays a bit more regard to character survival. The best games mix a bit of both – certainly Lovecraft’s writing did! – but as parts of the rules favour one or the other style, they are marked so players can choose the bias they prefer, if any.
In fantasy, there are books that have high adventure and engaging characters; there are others that focus on the journey of one character through his (or her) trials and tribulations. The Magicians written by Lev Grossman, author of Codex, is a little bit of both.
When I received The Magicians, the first thing I noticed was the back cover. Why? Well, there were no less than six recommendations by authors including George R.R. Martin and Kelly Link. Normally I’m a bit skeptical about books (or movies) that are so highly praised, because immediately my expectations as a reader are a bit elevated. “Wow,” I had thought to myself. “This book better be that good.”
Life-hating Goth girl Lara Baxter just turned 16. Her birthday party mojo never materializes after her more popular sister, Helen, steals her thunder. Shunned by her secret crush and neglected by her own mother, Lara retreats to the sanctuary of her altar to Ann Rice where she casts a spell on Helen. The next day Helen wakes up bleeding profusely from her nose and dies a short time later.
Just as the family begins to mourn, Helen comes back from the morgue delirious and with an insatiable thirst for blood. Older brother Raymond, a cross between Re-Animator’s Dr. Herbert West and Milwaukee’s own Jeff Dahmer, performs some tests on Helen’s blood in his bedroom/laboratory and determines that she’s a vampire.
Malcolm Craig is a lunatic who loves his games. That single fact establishes him as one of my favorite game designers. I had the pleasure of meeting the kinetic Craig at my first GenCon where I picked up the then-fresh a|state. A few years down the road Craig brings us a new game he calls “something of a follow-up” to Cold City. He may not put much faith in urban dwellings (cities in all his games are filthy, vile things), but his ability to weave a story isn’t to be ignored. Just to prove this, Hot War was recently nominated for two Ennie Awards (Best Writing and Best Setting). Let’s take a look at the respectably large (204 pages) game.
Paul Bourne’s illustration, photography, and graphic design makes the full version of the book shine. Aged pages not only depict the rules, but some of the halted stages in London’s demised during the game’s time period (the early 1960s). Familiar British sites like Big Ben and Parliament take on a new look as they are rendered into decimated versions by the artist’s expert hands.
Every so often, you will see Catherine “C.L.” Moore’s hero Northwest Smith referred to as the model for Han Solo. This would only be strictly true in a world in which Josef von Sternberg directed Star Wars.
Yes, Northwest Smith is a wanted criminal and occasional smuggler; yes, Northwest Smith wears space leathers on his lean frame and a ray-gun on his hip; yes, Northwest Smith has a dangerous killing alien as a sidekick. But in the thirteen recorded Northwest Smith stories by C.L. Moore (all collected for the first time in this excellent Planet Stories omnibus), we only see the inside of one spaceship — and Smith is a passenger, not the pilot.
No, Smith may inhabit a solar system of Martian canals and Venusian swamps, but his adventures are less SF than a kind of lush, operatically colored noir.
12 to Midnight presents its first horror anthology, a twelve author collection centered around their well-established Pinebox, Texas setting. Buried Tales of Pinebox, Texas contains an impressively wide scope of stories (and horrors) while still maintaining certain key threads and locales throughout. There are even repeated nods back to various 12 to Midnight adventures like Skinwalker.
It won’t take long for me to talk about the artwork for the anthology. Jeff Varnes cover depicts what must be an image from within the Big Thicket, one of those recurring locales in the book. It’s simplicity makes it work. Any temptation to depict a horror of some sort would have probably stalled. Also, the artwork evokes common and well-ingrained childhood fears of being alone in the woods. Inside, there are two pages of cartography by T.C. Largent.
Primarily set in the city of Madison, Wisconsin, Amazon Ink is an urban fantasy novel where the fabled race of Amazonian women exist. Part of Amazon Ink‘s appeal, for me, was the way Lori Devoti handled the legend of the Amazon warrior women in today’s society.
The main character is named Melanippe Saka, who lives with her mother, grandmother and daughter. Although her daughter hasn’t been acclimated into the Amazonian tribe with its curious-yet-permanent encampments, both her mother and priestess grandmother have different roles that conflict with Melanippe’s ousted status. From the first chapter, you can tell that Melanippe is something of a rebel, which adds quite a bit of conflict when a dead, college-aged girl shows up on her doorstep.
The basic premise of this book is to provide a setting for ordinary mortal investigation of the supernatural as presented in the World of Darkness line. As sworn police officers, characters are in an ideal position to investigate odd goings-on, and – let’s face it – a lot of the things that your average werewolf, vampire or even mage might get up to are likely to break a few laws along the way. It would also make a good resource for the Storyteller who wants his vampire, etc., players face up to the consequences of their actions in the real world, as well as in the refined atmosphere of their own kind’s society.
The ‘flavor’ opening sequence takes the form of a newspaper interview of a veteran crime reporter, telling a new recruit to his profession the low-down on how policing works in Midway, the fictional city in which the 13th Precinct is located. The city itself, by the way, is left loose enough that it is very easy to transfer the entire setting into another city – real or imaginary – of your choice, to fit the rest of your chronicle.
In what I would consider to be the creepiest selection of music to date, Nox Arcana offers a new thematic CD for Blackthorn Asylum. Inspired by the horrors of a gothic, abandoned asylum, the songs are about over-the-top personal horrors coupled with dark, scientific experimentation inspired by the occult.
Having listened to several of Nox Arcana’s CDs in the past, this collection of songs is a marked difference between their other music. First, there are more piano-based melodies in songs like Blackthorn Asylum and When Darkness Falls. You’ll still hear the wail of the soprano and a harpischord, like in the song Tapestry of Decay, as well as the deep resonating tolling bells that are often present in Nox Arcana’s music. Although there are stormy sound effects and chants present in some of the songs, the primary emphasis of this horror collection is on writing a particular song as opposed to writing a score. With each CD, Nox Arcana gets more and more sophisticated with the way they leverage theatrical scoring with memorable phrasing and melodies.
In young adult fiction, you’ve probably noticed a lot of urban fantasy and paranormal books hitting the market. Strange Angels, written by veteran author Lili St. Crow (You might recognize Lilith Saint Crow’s work from the Dante Valentine and The Night Shift series), is a dark exploration of what happens when a teenager named Dru finds herself lost, alone and in a fight for her survival.
Strange Angels is clearly, in my opinion, a novel that is right on target in its depiction of teenagers. The characters are not fully grown, beautiful and confident; they are awkward, tumbling and self-conscious. Dru is not the prettiest, or the most popular, or even the most sought-after girl in this small town. She’s a transplant who meandered around the country with her father hunting beings from the Real World, which is a world hidden beneath the surface of our own that houses all manner of creatures.
Courage and Honour is the fifth book in the hugely successful Ultramarines series featuring the Courageous Captain Uriel Ventris and his Veteran Sergeant Pasanius.
This book is in many ways like coming full circle in the series. Uriel Ventris’ first mission as captain was to put down a rebellion on the Imperial world, Pavonis and this novel has the 4th company returning to the same troubled planet.
Following shortly after the events of The Killing Ground, we are shown flashback scenes of the testing of Ventris and Pasanius. Testing them both for purity: Mind and Body. After all, these two Astartes have been alone and fighting their way back from the Eye of Terror, a mission which should have most likely claimed his life (and possibly his soul).
Rather a long time ago, when I had just taken the Queen’s Shilling and the new game was Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, I thought about applying classic squad tactics to adventuring parties on the tabletop. War, after all, happens at least as frequently in a fantasy realm as it does in the real world, and small groups are the norm in both role-playing and Special Forces. So it is with a measure of glee that I find a book which has taken this route with the combat-orientated 4th Edition of D&D; providing both a rich but war-torn setting and ideas for building a special forces unit using the full potential of fantasy adventurers.
The Introduction explains precisely what is intended. Although it has the normal trappings of a standard fantasy campaign setting (and indeed if that is what you want you can play a normal fantasy game here), the intention is that player-characters will be members of an elite ‘special forces’ style group called Wraith Recon; and that rather than normal adventuring activities they will engage in classic special forces missions, acing often on their own but under direction of their commanders.
What do you get when you take one of the most popular comedy franchises ever, bring back the original writers and actors who made it so great, and have the original writers come up with a new script tying it all together?
You get Ghostbusters: the Video Game, of course.
Ghostbusters: TVG had been plagued from developmental issues from the start. Passing from publisher to publisher, the game faced cancellation several times despite promising trailers. Eventually managing to be released by Atari, this game features voice acting from the original cast. Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis, and Ernie Hudson reprise their roles as the classic supernatural investigators and eliminators.
Game books devoted entirely to the Art of Death, Destruction, and Detective Lieutenant John McClane rarely win me over. It’s a personal taste because I fully know that a handful of the players in my gaming group deeply appreciates the details that good combat manuals can offer. I assumed when diving into this book that it would be an updated version of the Combat book White Wolf released with their original run in the World of Darkness. That book always struck me as too much comic book and too little horror. Even the front and back covers had artwork that never matched anything else in any of the other lines. I must admit there were some flinchingly horrific pieces of art in that book that I’ll call Things You Don’t Want to Happen to You. Even with those minor high points, I felt cheated by that book.
That was then . . .
Armory Reloaded gets away from White Wolf’s Street Fighter RPG rules and tries to remain attached to the grit and horror of the setting. In the introduction, readers are told that “Combat is Horror.” The writers of this book don’t want to make the same mistake the miserable Combat made. The development of this project backs the statement through both its writing and artwork.
Aye Dark Overlord! defies precise description. It is at once a board game, card game and has elements of a party game and role-playing games as well. The players take on roles of sniveling servants of the Dark Overlord, a vengeful chap whose patience with his inept followers grows thin…
Players begin by randomly drawing a hand of six cards – three hint and three action cards. One player is selected to play the role of Rigor Mortis; the Dark Overlord of the title. Once the players have their cards in hand, the Dark Overlord addresses one of them by saying something like “So my faithful minions; I ordered you to kidnap the princess. Has this task been accomplished?” The player indicated must then fabricate a brief story – using the elements illustrated on the cards in the player’s hand — explaining why the task was not completed, and in so doing shifting the blame for the failure to one of the other players.
The guide itself does a very nice job breaking up the different planes. It gives quick rundowns on all the species you would find there, some brief history as well as each plane wishes to see. It also gives a very good indication of the dangers of traveling to each plane. A traveler can get a good sense of how to understand the culture they find themselves in.
After an overview of all the planes it also gives a well rounded layout of planeswalkers that can be found on each plane. It includes their species, current residence, home, and magic specialties. There is only one plane that does not have a listed resident planeswalker and that is Grixis. It is very clearly stated that Grixis should be a place to travel to study only, and to not make your home their too long. Death and plague rule the land, so it makes sense nobody wishes to live amongst that.
Be it in the real world or the fiction realm there aren’t that many themes that manage to give me the creeps: it’s not that I am a particularly brave (nor picky) individual, it’s more that I am rather rational and find it difficult to empathize with other people’s irrational feelings: say Carpenter, for example, if immensely enjoyable, isn’t going to give me cold sweats. Of course, there are exceptions like social, psychedelic or metaphysical horror, especially subjects that fiddle with the notion of paradox.
