“The planets line up, magic comes back in a torrent of confusion and mass panic, and what’s left of the general public is in chaos.” Chaos University is a tongue in cheek roleplaying game of magic and the occult published by Firewater Productions. Written by Jennifer and Daniel Schoonover, the Chaos University Student Handbook (i.e., […]

A soft-cover, perfect-bound book boasting gorgeous full color, wrap-around, Larry Elmore cover art, The Chronicles of Ramlar is a roleplaying game of high fantasy made available by White Silver Publishing, Inc. The book weighs in at a hefty 350 pages (including 19 pages of record sheets and quick references) and contains everything that you will need to run a campaign in the game’s default setting of Eranon, one of two continents on a nameless world (the titular “Ramlar” is the who created the world in question).

Into the Reach brings a small group of “heroes” together through unlucky circumstances that are forced to work together against an evil necromancer and his undead minions. Each of this tale’s protagonists have lost someone dear to them in the recent past and are attempting to start new lives on the outskirts of the Reach (a Northeastern corner of the continent, well-known for its blasted wasteland and mixed population of outcasts and outlaws). Some of them meet along the way to their new home and finish the journey together.

The most praise that I have is for the magic system. It reflects the dangerous nature of magic (as well as it’s unpredictability) and the steps needed to advance along your arcane studies. The power of spell casters is minor in the beginning, but just by looking at the math of any mid/high level spells you can tell that they will one day be capable of easily destroying hordes of enemies. In short, magic is taxing, dangerous, and a life long learning process, but well worth the effort in the end.

Rule of Rose tells the eerie and disturbing story of Jennifer, an apprehensive protagonist who must face the fantastic evil of a child’s imagination. Set in an English orphanage of the 1930’s, the game is a story of social outcasts, cruel violence, strained relationships and prepubescent sexuality. Since the cast of the game are almost entirely children, Sony was hesitant to release the game in America. Atlus, a company with a history of importing niche titles, stepped up and took the risk of bringing a game of challenging issues to the market.

My Life with Master is a self-contained role playing game of personal horror by Paul Czege of Half Meme Press. It contains innovative ideas and a workable game, albeit one which would work best with creative and probably experienced players willing to enter into a setting and help to create it themselves. The interaction between GM and players is essential both in creating the setting and in forming the style and nature of the game. As the description below will suggest, gameplay can easily veer between a type of romantic desperation with which Vampire lovers will be familiar, to Grand Guignol to something rather less serious and bizarre. Since it can be difficult to maintain an intense style over an extended period of time and because of the very structure of the game, My Life with Master is best run as a single session game or, at most, a small number of sessions building up to a well-defined ending and epilogue

Agon takes place in a mythical Greece, drawing heavily from the Iliad and the Odyssey as inspiration (along with other sources like the films Clash of the Titans and Troy). Characters take on the role of heroes serving the gods on quests throughout the land, seeking glory and fame so their names may live on throughout the ages…

Schism both builds on this game and subverts it almost completely. In Schism, there are no demons – instead, characters receive extraordinary psychic abilities that are, partly as a result of the accelerating pace of global change and its effect on the tortured human psyche, suddenly prevalent in society. Indeed, the title page uses the term ‘virulent setting.’ However, the virus of psychic abilities does not come without a price and in Schism that price tends to be psychic disorders and physical deformation. Anyone who has played (or perhaps tried to play) the Nephilim game will be familiar with at least this physical aspect. Characters in Schism progressively become more and more removed from basic humanity but have the advantage of being able to bring about powerful effects to further their own ends and those of the cabal (a kind of more or less secret organization) that they wish.

In short, Cold Space has the benefit of a setting which promotes instantly understandable motivations for action and this should at least help players and GM alike structure a campaign and anticipate what kinds of scenarios are likely to be played out. The game is not likely to promote a richer appreciation of the reality of recent history than one of basic confrontation but, then, that is not really its purpose. My immediate response is to conceive of campaigns or characters who would subvert what seem to be the premises of the historical background but then I am nearly always an outlier when it comes to these things.

The fleet of the Warmaster’s 63rd Expeditionary Force have departed the shattered system of the interex en route to Davin at the behest of First Chaplain Erebus of the Word Bearers Legion. Expecting to find a world left under control and compliance of the Imperium of Mankind, the newly christened Sons of Horus Legion instead finds treason. The occupational forces left behind by the Warmaster Horus himself have turned against the Emperor and the ideals of the Imperium’s Great Crusade, and Horus vows revenge against those he once trusted who have betrayed him.

Ahoy matey! These days pirates and swashbucklers are all the rage on land and on sea. With roleplaying games like the recently released Conan: the Pirate Isles by Paizo Publishing and the older title Skull and Bones by Green Ronin out on the market, it should come as no surprise that GMs and players alike are on the hunt for some mood-setting music.

As the modern supernatural genre swells to the point of over-saturation, it is difficult to read any new author that comes along without comparing the writer to something else. In Witchling, it’s almost impossible to think “three sisters” without thinking of the television show “Charmed” which ran for eight seasons on the Warner Brothers network. Because of a few similarities, fans of the show may find themselves scrutinizing Galenorn’s work just a little bit more to see just how alike Witchling is to Charmed. Are the three women really sisters? Yes. Are the three women empowered, fashionable and sexy? Yes. Do they always seem to come out on top even when things go wrong? Yes.

“A Delightful Southern vampire detective series” is how this book was described. Outward appearances give it a sort of adult Harry Potter look to it, making it a very outwardly appearing book. This story is only part for the main character in a series, though you don’t need to read those in order to follow this book, everything is explained.

For what it’s worth, it was definitely a good read.

The fictional universe represented by Warhammer 40,000 is intricate and full of no small amount of intrigue. There are hundreds of factions at work and in motion, set against one another. Plans within plans, mechanizations and motivations that prop up the grim darkness of the war without end in the 41st Century of the Imperium of Mankind. Within the pages of the Horus Heresy, a trilogy-in-progress, what can be described as the single most important chain of events in the history of humanity are brought to light and out into the open in colored detail rather than objective narration from the Imperial point of view; the civil war that befell the Imperium after the spiritual corruption of the Warmaster Horus, mightiest of the Primarchs.

“Monsters are Real!” claims the ad copy of this collection of horror stories from Crypto-American Press. Mad Marv tells us about zombies and other monsters created by science and technology throughout the book. Five short stories and a mix of “Recipes” featuring how-to guides for creating golems and other creatures from myth and legend (each with a short story of its own) make up this book.

The fourth in a series, Prince of Lies flirts with horror, magic and mystery. Cyric, lord over the realm of the dead and god of murder, desperately seeks the soul of Kelemvor Lyonsbane who was once lover and companion to Mystra, the goddess of magic. In his zeal for vengeance, Cyric traps several humans into his mad design as easily as if they were pawns on a chessboard. Not only does Cyric search for Lyonsbane’s soul, he also entraps a human female, Rinda, to write his notorious book in an effort to bend the entire world to his will, erasing the gods in all their might.

Available at Amazon.com Written By Joseph Nassise An action filled mystery into the depths of the modern Knights Templar (hidden from the world that thinks they were wiped out long ago); Heretic focuses on Cade Williams and his team. Cade is known as the Heretic because of his strange abilities and personal quest against the […]

The intro track had set a wonderful feeling for the soundtrack, giving a nice intro and everything. As the CD got going though, I found my self increasingly tuning it out. Not because the music was boring, but because besides the first intro track, every track is well over 5 minutes a piece, most being 7-9 minutes in length. Now, this isn’t some mainstream CD, so track lengths aren’t really applicable here. But over 7 minutes of non-developed musical ideas makes for a very boring CD to listen to.

For those who weren’t aware, Masters of Horror is a show that debuted on Showtime in October of 2005. The premise of the show was to round up some of the best horror directors in the genre, and get each of them to make a one-hour movie. The directors were pretty much given free reign to tell whatever story they wanted, however they wanted (blood, guts and all). The only real limitation that was put upon the directors was they had to complete their movie in ten days.

When USA Network’s limited series The 4400 premiered in the summer of 2004, the opening teaser said a lot. A little girl abducted; a soldier in Korea disappears; 4,400 abductees get dropped off by a comety ball of light. The Seattle branch of Homeland Security had its hands full, and over 7 million fans tuned in-setting records as the highest-rated and most-watched original cable series premiere to date.