Regency England: a time of social niceties, grand balls, romantic intrigues, and disappointments—as described in the novels of Jane Austen. Through the lens of the Cthulhu Mythos, horrors weave themselves into the hearts of everyday Georgians—from the richest to the poorest.

Regency Cthulhu: Dark Designs in Jane Austen’s England is a historical sourcebook for Call of Cthulhu.

In churches and convents and other religious communities, sisterhood takes many forms, forged and tested by such mundane threats as disease and despair, but also by terrors both spiritual and existential—Satan’s subtle minions and the cosmic nightmare of the Cthulhu Mythos.

Sisterhood: Dark Tales and Secret Histories presents sixteen horror stories by some of the genre’s leading female voices. Their settings range around the globe and across the centuries, from 6th century Ireland to 17th century Virginia to Indonesia in the recent past.

Chaosium has just released two new supplements to Call of Cthulhu 7th Edition RPG!

Calling All Heroes! It’s Time To Take The Fight to Cthulhu!

Pulp Cthulhu is a game of two-fisted adventure, weird science, dark deeds, and brave heroes. With this book, some roleplaying dice, and the Call of Cthulhu Rulebook, you have everything you need to adventure and explore games set in the pulp genre.

Tired of your investigators dying in quick succession when jaunting around the world in a desperate bid to save humanity? Wishing that sometimes your investigator could make a stand instead of hiding and waiting for the eldritch horror to pass? Pulp Cthulhu ups the ante and provides you with tougher, more capable heroes—ready to take on the villainous machinations of the Cthulhu Mythos!

H. P. Lovecraft was born August 20, 1890 and the DriveThru sites (RPG, Comics, Fiction) are celebrating with a huge sale on hundreds of Cthulhu Mythos eBooks, audiobooks and other goodies.

We’ve gathered a list of some our favorite titles from each site here on Flames Rising…

“The Americans were passing Intel to the Israelis, hoping that they’d act fast to grab the artefacts as a cultural priority, mainly to snub the Russians. They didn’t know about the Stasi mole funnelling everything back to Moscow, or that their Damascus network was wide open. We had some agents in place throughout, but I didn’t for a minute think we weren’t compromised in some way or another. And my code N sources were feeding back whispers from the cultists that they’d got a solid lead on the origins of the pieces and were getting ready to move. The whole thing was a murky mess, and I needed to clean it up. The only thing I knew for sure was that we needed to neutralise half a dozen people in the next 24 hours… but who?”

World War Cthulhu: Cold War throws you into one of the most paranoid and chaotic conflicts of the 20th century. The tangled webs of the spymasters tear and rejoin, double and triple agents make their moves and counter-moves, and it’s hard to be sure which side you’re really working for. Nuclear destruction hangs over everyone, and a few people at the heart of western intelligence continue their personal battle against the insidious influence of a much older enemy…

When Liz Drake’s best friend vanishes, nothing can stop her nightmares. Driven by the certainty he needs her help, she crosses a continent to search for him. She finds Blake comatose in a Vancouver hospital, victim of a mysterious accident that claimed his lover’s life – in her dreams he drowns.

Blake’s new circle of artists and mystics draws her in, but all of them are lying or keeping dangerous secrets. Soon nightmare creatures stalk the waking city, and Liz can’t fight a dream from the daylight world: to rescue Blake she must brave the darkest depths of the Dreamlands.

Even the attempt could kill her, or leave her mind trapped or broken. And if she succeeds, she must face the monstrous Yellow King, whose slave Blake is on the verge of becoming forever.

The world is broken in hidden ways. The truth is concealed for the sake of mortal minds. The unendurable reality that boils behind the stars is veiled by the pleasant blindness that human sanity requires. Yet every comforting shroud must fall in time, and for these investigators, that time is now.

Silent Legions is a game of modern-day Lovecraftian horror, one carefully designed to support sandbox adventures by hard-bitten investigators and fearless hunters of the dark. Its clean, lightweight old-school rules are compatible with the free Stars Without Number sci-fi game and give both GM and players a steady framework for plumbing the unspeakable secrets of the eldritch night. Now, after a successful Kickstarter with more than 1,100 backers, a Kickstarter completed a month early, this tome of dark secrets can be yours.

London-based Modiphius Entertainment has signed script writer Dirk Vandereyken and director Raine McCormack to work on a film adaptation of its award-winning tabletop gaming universe Achtung! Cthulhu.

A scant week after hauling in a prestigious Silver ENnie for best writing and another one for best artwork, the Achtung! Cthulhu gaming line will now be expanded upon with a feature-length movie that will bring many of the characters presented in the roleplaying game and board game to life.

A is for Azathoth, Who listens to flutes
B is for Blighted, Gardner’s farm, leaf to root
C’s for Cthulhu, Mile-high and squishy
D is for Deep Ones, Who smell mildly fishy…

An artist and lifelong fan of Lovecraftian literature, Ben Mund teaches the alphabet and important concepts of the Mythos in one fell swoop. From Azathoth to Zhan you’ll experience the ABCs in a maddening new way!

The Lovecraftian ABC’s features full-color illustrations by Ben Mund in the style of The Very Hungry Cthulhupillar, for adults to enjoy themselves or to read to their children*.

November’s issue of The Lovecraft eZine features a sordid tale of madness and persistence penned by yours truly. Titled “The Dig,” this is a gender-neutral story about a person and something (or someone) known only as “It.” Also included in this issue’s Table of Contents are stories from many illustrious writers — including a tale by Silvia Moreno-Garcia, who hails from the Innsmouth Free Press.

What’s more? You can read and listen to The Dig for free online.

Arc Dream Publishing is proud to present the first-ever ebook edition of the legendary Cthulhu Mythos Encyclopedia by Dan Harms.

“…some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.” –H.P. Lovecraft, ‘The Call of Cthulhu’

That day is here. The Cthulhu Mythos Encyclopedia explains every mind-blasting facet of the Cthulhu Mythos envisioned by H.P. Lovecraft and expanded by countless horror writers and gamers in the decades since the master’s death.

Back in June, I pledged to The Horror in Clay Kickstarter. The concept? Simple enough. Cthulhu’s sanity-blasting image immortalized in a glazed tiki mug. The Kickstarter got a lot of acclaim and was picked up by sites like Boing Boing, iO9.com, and the like. Their original goal was $12,500 and they successfully raised over $75,000. I was thrilled to be one of the people who pledged to this and look forward to sipping refreshing beverages out of Cthulhu’s unhallowed form.

Masks of Nyarlathotep is a masterful campaign by Larry De Tillo with Lynn Willis created for the Call of Cthulhu tabletop role-playing game. In it, the investigators are drawn into a plot to throw open the gates keeping the Great Old Ones at bay, causing the earth to become a nightmare landscape of death, destruction, and mind-shattering horror. Spanning five continents, Masks is an epic adventure of mayhem and supernatural evil that will consume many game-nights of play, and is suitable even for a larger group of investigators. Available again in a revised 4th Edition, it once more rears it’s terrifying, blood-red tentacle to drive us all over the brink.

At last the stars are almost right!

Soon Nyarlathotep’s plans will come to fruition. Then the world will be changed irrevocably — but not quite yet. Pesky human investigators have learned much. Now they must survive long enough to make sense of what they know, and take resolute action.

Masks of Nyarlathotep is a Lovecraftian exercise in horror and mystery. This Call of Cthulhu roleplaying classic is a series of linked adventures forming one long and unforgettable campaign. Horrifying deeds and dangerous sorcery dog those who dare attempt to unravel the fate of the Carlyle Expedition.

From the depths of R’lyeh come twenty-one brand-new, utterly terrifying, and thoroughly entertaining short stories of horror and the macabre!

Taking their inspiration from works by Lovecraft himself, prominent writers such as Caitlin R. Kiernan, Brian Stableford, Ramsey Campbell, Michael Shea, Darrell Schweitzer, Donald R. Burleson, and David J. Schow delve deep into the psyche, expanding on concepts H.P. Lovecraft created and taking them in new directions.

The result is stories that are wholly original, some even featuring Lovecraft himself as a character. Black Wings editor S.T. Joshi is the recognized authority on all things Lovecraftian, and is famous for his restorations of Lovecraft’s original works. He has assembled a star-studded line-up in a book that is essential for every horror library.

Flames Rising is pleased to present and exclusive excerpt from this new collection of Mythos tales which is published by Titan Books. Below is Usurped by William Browning Spencer.

We have a new design essay from Cynthia Celeste Miller. Cynthia stops by to tell us about the development of the brand new Macabre Tales RPG. Macabre Tales is the dominoes-based RPG of Lovecraftian horror from Spectrum Games.

Designing the aspects of Macabre Tales

Designing Macabre Tales was a labor of love. In fact, when I first conceived the game, I had no intention of releasing it commercially. Rather, the plan was to use it solely for my own gaming groups. Once I began putting the pieces together, however, it became clear that others might enjoy this drastically different take on Lovecraftian horror gaming too.

Spectrum Games is pleased to announce the release of Macabre Tales, a dominoes-based role-playing game that seeks to faithfully emulate the type of “weird stories” penned by H.P. Lovecraft during the 1920s and ’30s. The game is intended for use by one narrator and one player, but there are detailed optional rules for multiple players as well.

According to designer, Cynthia Celeste Miller, “While designing this game, my goal was simple: to accurately recreate the feel of Lovecraft’s fiction right at your gaming table. This required me to examine how an RPG functions, disassemble it all, modify it and then put it back together again. It was a time consuming and arduous task, but I think the final result was well worth it.”

Macabre Tales is available now at the Flames Rising RPGNow Shop.

We have a new design essay from Tomas Rawlings today. Tomas tells us about the work that went into developing the new Call of Cthulhu: The Wasted Land mobile game from Red Wasp Design.

Designing The Wasted Land

Hi there! My name is Tomas Rawlings and I’m the designer of the new game Call of Cthulhu: The Wasted Land. I’m one part of a small indie development team who’ve been working hard for almost a year now on a role-playing/strategy game set in the midst of the First World War. We’ve been working with Chaosium, the publisher of the multi-award winning paper RPG of the same name which, coincidently, this year celebrates its 30th anniversary and we’re aiming to bring the best of paper RPGs and mobile gaming together (and to sacrifice a few goats to Shub-Niggurath in the process).

I just had the chance to watch The Last Lovecraft: The Relic of Cthulhu and I was impressed! For an independent film (one that has also won a couple of awards, I might add) this is an awesome film. What’s it about you ask?

Well, there is a story to be told here and quite honestly, the reason why this is a mini-review is because I really don’t want to spoil it for you. I feel this is the type of film you have to discover… laugh out loud… groan… And realize the costuming is just that much better than Mighty Morphin Power Rangers or The Keep.

Part of what makes this movie strong is the characterization and the nerdly discussions, but there are some other surprises hidden between the script’s pages.

The 1974 television series Kolchak: The Night Stalker never got rave reviews from critics. Only twenty episodes of the show exist, plus two TV movie/pilot episodes: The Night Stalker (1972) and The Night Strangler (1973). The special effects, even by the standards of the day, were cheesy and unremarkable, though the stories themselves were interesting and provided a wide variety of paranormal beasties from folklore the world over instead of rehashing zombies or vampires week after week. Unfortunately, the TV movies proved vastly more popular than the TV series they generated.

It should come as no surprise that a graphic novel treatment of Kolchak might spring into being as well, and at that before the reboot of the series. Enter Moonstone Books with their long-running Kolchak series, and lo, Kolchak has been brought back from the dead, like many of the creepy entities he faced as a reporter with a nose for the paranormal.