Let’s get one thing out of the way first: Scott Sigler’s book entitled Infected was my favorite read in 2008. Written as the first book in this series, Infected‘s sci-fi/horror mood was set by a few inventive elements. Infected explored the now infamous blue triangles (and their hatching) with the claustrophobic devolution of Perry Dawsey’s (the main character’s) mental state. The book was an absolutely thrilling work, and left me quite excited for Contagious, the next story in Sigler’s current trilogy. The third book entitled Pandemic is the last work in this trilogy.

Review by William Aicher.

White Wolf Publishing is well known for their Horror and Dark Fantasy RPGs. From the World of Darkness to games like Exalted: Abyssals, White Wolf creates great tabletop RPGs that define and shape gaming. In addition to their core game lines, White Wolf Alternative Publishing products include a wide selection of horror board games that range from World of Darkness games to fun board games for kids.

Flames Rising has been fortunate to receive support from White Wolf over the years; they’ve provided us with review copies, contest prizes and give-a-ways. When we mentioned we wanted to check out their recent selection of board games, Kelley Barnes-Herrmann (White Wolf Marketing Director and all-around awesome individual) agreed and sent us a box of games to dig into. The box arrived a day or two ago and we’ve only had the chance to crack them open a bit. So, what follows are our initial impressions after messing around with the contents and skimming the rules. More complete reviews will be on the way after we’ve had the chance to play the games.

12 to Midnight’s Skinwalker (TWL-0021) is a modern horror campaign using the fictitious town of Pinebox, Texas as its setting. I reviewed the “Savaged” version of the rules, but a D20 version of the same campaign exists. The PDF, which is sixty-plus pages, comes in a regular and printer-friendly format (I suppose that makes it 120-plus pages). As with most of 12 to Midnight’s products, the attention to detail is the first aspect that pulls in the reader. They love their haunted town so much that fans can visit their website (www.12tomidnight.com) and print out their own map of the city. This attention to detail is why the scenario never puts in the “you can adjust this campaign to fit your own setting” speech. They went ahead a built the town you would need to create for the campaign.

Review by Todd Cash

It is a story of Richard Cypher, a woodsman in a village of the Westland. To him magic was a myth or a legend and he never thought of it more than an afterthought. Then he stumbled across a woman dressed in white named Kahlan and everything in his world changed instantly. He finds out he is the Seeker of legend and he must cross the boundry to fight the evil Darken Rahl.

The good and bad thing about fantasy is that there is a very true formula for how the story is written. It is good because when someone that can truly write gets a hold of it, it can be a magical thing indeed. It is bad because of how predictiable the story can be sometimes. This book had both the good and bad of that equation.

Review by Stacey Chancellor

I’m not entirely sure why Eve was Marked. Since sinners are drafted to kill demons, her sin must be…rooting Reed in the stairwell after they just met, and maybe didn’t know each other’s names. I’m not quite clear on that, or maybe because she “tempted” both brothers. I must have forgotten this detail, or it wasn’t explained well enough, which is a problem when your protagonist is a “chosen one” – readers want to know why.

The series concept seems so obvious in hindsight, it’s actually a surprise that no one thought to do it before. The author’s angels and demons are well-crafted and original, as is the world-building. But then when witches and werewolves come into the picture…it seems a bit kitchen sink.

Review by Tez Miller

The first half of the adventure is a straight up series of linear deadly encounters. By linear I mean that while there are a few options given, there is really only one path to succeed. By deadly I do indeed mean DEADLY. A party of 1st Level Adventurers needs to be balanced and smart. They need to be absolutely cautious or face mortality. True Dungeoneers only please! All other should stay on the porch. No real RP at all in the first half. It’s a series of combat encounters and traps only.

The second half of the adventure introduces some roleplaying opportunities. Actually, it’s a big opportunity for characters with social skills to shine because failure at this stage could almost certainly result in TPK as well. Poor rolls and accidentally insulting a faction can result in a massive attack or ambush by vastly overwhelming forces.

Review by Jeff Preston

First published in April 2000, Storm Front is the first in Jim Butcher’s popular series – the Harry Dresden Files. This particular story introduces us to the wily wizard from Chicago by telling a story about a mysterious murder. Dresden’s investigation involves a dangerous mobster named Johnny Marcone, a deadly-yet-beautiful vampire named Bianca, and Chicago’s finest. Along the way, you find out more about this unlikely investigator and why he’s the guy with this shingle outside of his door:

Lost items found. Paranormal Investigations. Consulting. Advice. Reasonable Rates. No Love Potions, Endless Purses or Other Entertainment.

The setting is an area of post-Convergance Boston known as the Weird. Having lived in Cambridge and worked in Boston, I was hoping for more sights and sounds that I would recognize, but other than the lack of complaint about traffic, the Boston that del Franco creates feels real. (The most difficult parts of the novel to believe were the sections where Connor Gray and his police detective companion Murdock were driving without any substantial effort through sections of Boston that I remember being constantly backed up.) It’s changed, mostly due to the growing population of Fae: fairies, druids, elves, and dwarves, who have bought high rises, businesses, and other city assets. (Maybe they’re one of the factors in the lack of obnoxious traffic!)

The protagonists in this tale are the drow mercenary Jarlaxle and the assassin Artemis Enteri; characters whom were originally a part of the tales of the drow ranger Drizzt Do’Urden and Company. These characters were apparently popular enough to have a spinoff series starting with Servant of the Shard.

This spinoff series The Sellswords started with Jarlaxle and Enteri and their attempt to establish themselves in the surface world using The Crystal Shard: Crenshinibon, an intelligent artifact that plays upon it’s bearer’s own desires for power. I say “their” attempt but really it’s about Jarlaxle; Artemis Enteri is largely a pawn, caught in a delicate but deadly web of deception amongst the drow of Bregan D’aerthe.

Review by Jeff Preston

At fifteen, Chloe Saunders still hasn’t menstruated. But the day it hits coincides with the ghost of a custodian haunting Chloe at school, until she finally breaks down. Told she has schizophrenia, she’s sent to live in a group home for other teens dealing with mental illness. Or are they?

But Lyle House’s patients are here by no happy accident, judging by the supernatural happenings. As Chloe comes to terms with her necromancy, she learns her powers are much stronger than they should be. Ghosts have been more hindrance than help in the past, but there’s one particular ghost who could provide information the group needs. If only Chloe can figure out how to contact her…

Review by Tez Miller

Goodman Games has a new Age of Cthulhu series, which starts with Death in Luxor. Set in 1924, this adventure centers around a group of investigators as they explore a murder/suicide and the events that could have provided the catalyst for the violence. This adventure comes in at exactly fifty pages (including cover art) and, due to its structure, is a hefty read.

The author, Harley Stroh, also directed the game’s art, which is one of its strongest features. The cover art provided by Eddie Sharam depicts the adventure’s more Sanity-blowing moments and is, quite simply, one of the better cover pieces I’ve seen in ages.

Review by Todd Cash

There’s a war brewing between Shadow Wolves and Werewolves in L. A. Banks’ Undead on Arrival.

Genetics, the military and the paranormal all feature in this third instalment of the Crimson Moon series. Newcomers will easily get lost trying to figure out the differences between clans and packs, Shadow Wolves and Werewolves, and who’s related to whom. In addition, some characters have different names for their different forms (human and wolf), and others are simply referred to as “Hunter’s mother” or “Shogun’s mother”. And since relations are a big issue here, this is rather confusing.

Review by Tez Miller

I was excited to receive my review copy of this corebook. There are genres that I enjoy and there are genres that I love. Preventing Apocalypses falls into the latter category. In fact, I hoped it could provide the mechanics for a two-year old campaign I have been running.

The idea of agencies combating the supernatural, while not original, remains a wide open field. There are several facets of the genre that can be explored, be it comedy, splatterpunk, or Lovecraftian horror. The game’s subtitle–An Action, Horror RPG . . . with a twist of Humor–relates the focus of API. This is a lighter look at the supernatural, something along the lines of Hellboy.

Review by Todd Cash

In my review of Key to Conflict, I expressed dismay at the use of forced sex by a ghost to move forward the plot. In Any Given Doomsday, the one feature that’s keeping me from recommending it is the repeated use of sex under duress (or sex under the influence) to propel the character forward. Elizabeth Phoenix, former cop and a psychometric, is dragged into a world of supernatural demons and the battle between good and evil kicking and screaming. Her foster mother gives her the “gift” of becoming a seer, one of the guides for demon killers who identifies threats to be eliminated, with her dying breath.

Review by Alana Abbott

After twilight, when the morning comes and the sun rises, will anyone be left alive?

Travis Adkins follows up Twilight of the Dead with a new adventure for the surviving Black Berets and the citizens of the walled town of Eastpointe. This book picks up the very next morning and continues the story after the characters confrontation with the mad Dr. Dane from the previous novel.

I’m going probably going to have some major spoilers in this review, so don’t read any further if you want to discover these story elements on your own. You’ve been warned…

I was so excited to learn that an RPG treatment of the sanity-blasting horror of H. P. Lovecraft had been made available using the True 20 rules that I went online and bought a copy within days of the discovery. Shadows of Cthulhu, designed by Russell Brown and published by Reality Deviant Publications, is a great way to introduce D&D gamers to a taste of something different without forcing them to learn an entirely new game system. In that vein its important top note that Shadows is not a complete game in itself: a copy of the Green Ronin Publishing’s True 20 Revised Rules will be required in order to play Shadows of Cthulhu.

Dog Days gets off to a somewhat awkward start with too much exposition during an action sequence to make the action feel immediate, but as I got accustomed to the voice of Mason, the hero and jazz/magic improvisation master that narrates the book, the world and story both began to come together. As a practitioner, Mason isn’t much good at the actual practice implied by such a title. His real talent is improvisational magic–something that most people never master at all. Other practitioners use spells to control magic, but Mason can pull energy from the surrounding environment, using ideas and archetypes and emotions to craft the effects he desires. He also has Louie: an Ifrit (named after the djinn, though no one is sure if they’re related) who takes the form of a small, mini-doberman like dog.

Review by Alana Abbott

Tales of the Seven Dogs Society is a collection of three novellas by authors, Matt McElroy, Jim Johnson, and Monica Valentinelli, based on the Aletheia role playing game from Abstract Nova Entertainment.

The basic premise of this book as well as the game is that the Seven Dogs Society is a group of investigators comprised of seven people who possess psychic or paranormal abilities. Based in Seven Dogs, Alaska at a refurbished Victorian mansion with powers of its own, the Society investigates cases involving things such as alien abduction, crop circles, spontaneous combustion, and all other manner of other worldly and supernatural phenomena.

Review by Jason Thorson

Human assassin Artemis Entreri and his dark elf companion Jarlaxle have come to the demon-haunted wastelands of the frozen north at the request of their dragon patron. It doesn’t take long for them to find themselves caught in the middle of a struggle between powerful forces that would like nothing more than to see them both dead . . . or worse.

But Entreri and Jarlaxle aren’t just any wandering sellswords, and the ancient evils and bitter blood-feuds of the wild Bloodstone Lands may have finally met their match.

The Sellswords Series has my attention. Largely because while it’s not Drizzt, Bruenor, Regis, Cattie-Brie and Wulfgar…but it’s set parallel to those stories.

Review by Jeff Preston

It starts with an ill conceived radio show. Megan Chase is a respected psychologist, as well as a psychic who uses her talents to help her patients without their knowledge. In order to stop a colleague whose practices she despises from becoming the psychology voice of radio, Megan takes a job as a radio host, which advertises her as a demon slayer. Understandably enough, the personal demons–small demons that encourage people to make bad choices and commit crimes–are a little threatened by what they view of as a declaration of war. But Megan is unaware of the world of demons, beyond her own psychic abilities, and so when she is approached by a mysterious (and sexy) figure who offers her help, she doesn’t know why she’ll need it, or why she should trust him. As it turns out, mysterious and sexy is Greyson Dante, who is also a demon, but is determined to keep Megan safe, whether she wants his help or not.

Review by Alana Abbott