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The Book of the Smoke: The Investigator's Guide to Occult London by Paula Dempsey
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Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master
Michael Shea - 2018
Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master uses the experiences of thousands of GMs to help us focus on how we prepare our games, how we run our games, and how we think about our games. It includes practical steps for focusing our preparation activities on those things that will bring the biggest impact to our game. Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master builds off of the concepts of the well-received GM's guidebook Lazy Dungeon Master, updating that book with five years of new experiences, new approaches, and new observations of the way people prepare and run RPGs. This new book is a completely self-contained work, which does not require anyone to have previously read The Lazy Dungeon Master. Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master offers a new focused approach for preparing and running our roleplaying games. The book includes an eight-step guide for lightweight game preparation and is focused on how we prepare for our games, how we run our games, and how we think about our games. Prepare what benefits your game.
Ghostland: An American History in Haunted Places
Colin Dickey - 2016
Crammed into old houses and hotels, abandoned prisons and empty hospitals, the spirits that linger continue to capture our collective imagination, but why? His own fascination piqued by a house hunt in Los Angeles that revealed derelict foreclosures and "zombie homes," Dickey embarks on a journey across the continental United States to decode and unpack the American history repressed in our most famous haunted places. Some have established reputations as "the most haunted mansion in America," or "the most haunted prison"; others, like the haunted Indian burial grounds in West Virginia, evoke memories from the past our collective nation tries to forget. With boundless curiosity, Dickey conjures the dead by focusing on questions of the living—how do we, the living, deal with stories about ghosts, and how do we inhabit and move through spaces that have been deemed, for whatever reason, haunted? Paying attention not only to the true facts behind a ghost story, but also to the ways in which changes to those facts are made—and why those changes are made—Dickey paints a version of American history left out of the textbooks, one of things left undone, crimes left unsolved. Spellbinding, scary, and wickedly insightful, Ghostland discovers the past we're most afraid to speak of aloud in the bright light of day is the same past that tends to linger in the ghost stories we whisper in the dark.From the Hardcover edition.
Races of Faerûn (Forgotten Realms) (Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition)
Eric L. Boyd - 2003
From the steppes of Thay to the shores of Evermeet, the inhabitants of the Realms are as distinct as the regions from which they hail, whether hero, henchman, villain, or villager. With complete information about the noteworthy races, subraces, and ethnicities scattered throughout Toril, Races of Faerun offers a detailed look at the many and varied peoples who inhabit the Forgotten Realms game setting. * 80 new feats * 26 new magic items * 8 new monsters * 9 new prestige classes * 13 new spells To use this accessory, you also need the "Forgotten Realms"" Campaign Setting," the "Player's Handbook," the "Dungeon Master's Guide," and the "Monster Manual."
Eight Ghosts: The English Heritage Book of New Ghost Stories
Rowan RouthMax Porter - 2017
Immersed in the history, atmosphere and rumours of hauntings, they channelled their darker imaginings into a series of extraordinary new ghost stories.Sarah Perry's intense tale of possession at the Jacobean country house Audley End is a work of psychological terror, while Andrew Michael Hurley's story brings an unforgettably shocking slant to the history of Carlisle Castle. Within the walls of these historic buildings each author has found inspiration to deliver a new interpretation of the classic ghost story.Also includes two afterwords: Andrew Martin's Within These Walls: How the Abbeys and Houses of England Inspired the Ghost Story, and Katherine Davey's A Gazetteer of English Heritage Hauntings, properties which are said to be haunted, including the eight locations which inspired the stories in this book.
Fading Suns
Bill Bridges - 1999
It's far-future setting allows stories from many genres: fantasy, horror, post-apocalypse, and more. Characters wield swords and blasters and fly starships to lost worlds, ancient ruins, verdant jungles or blasted wastelands. They encounter conniving nobles, vain priests, cunning merchants, bizarre alien creatures, evil occultists, and bodiless entitites from across gulfs of space and time. In other words, Fading Suns has everything a roleplaying game setting could possibly need. The Second Edition hardcover rulebook includes new rules adjustments based on the extensive playtesting and suggestions by players from all over the world, as well as new history, psychic powers and rites, and extensive equipment rules.
Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Ultimate Magic
Jason BulmahnRuss Taylor - 2011
In addition to the brand-new magus class—a master of both arcane magic and martial prowess—you'll also find a whole new system for spellcasting, rules for spell duels and other magical specialities, and pages upon pages of new spells, feats, and more. Because when it comes to magic, why settle for less than absolute power?Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Ultimate Magic is a must-have companion volume to the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook. This imaginative tabletop game builds on more than 10 years of system development and an Open Playtest featuring more than 50,000 gamers to create a cutting-edge RPG experience that brings the all-time best-selling set of fantasy rules into the new millennium.Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Ultimate Magic includes:- The magus, a new base class combining deadly arcane magic with the skills and weapons of a trained warrior.- Words of power, an innovative and flexible new spellcasting system.- New options for dedicated casters, such as alchemist discoveries, alternative uses for channeled energy, druid companions, sorcerer bloodlines, eidolon abilities, witch hexes, and oracle mysteries.- Additional feats and magical abilities for martially oriented casters, including monk ki tricks, inquisitor archetypes, and ranger traps.- New magical conditions called spellblihgts, as well as systems for crafting constructs, binding outsiders, and spell-dueling.- More than 100 new spells, plus detailed guidelines for designing your own.... and much, much more!Cover art by Wayne Reynolds
The White Devil
Justin Evans - 2011
When seventeen-year-old Andrew Taylor is transplanted from his American high school to a British boarding school—a high-profile academy for the sons of England’s finest—his father hopes that the boy’s dark past will not follow him from across the Atlantic. But blood, suspense, and intrigue quickly surround Andrew once again as he finds himself struggling with a deadly mystery left unsolved by a student from Harrow School’s past—the enigmatic poet Lord Byron.
Clanbook: Gangrel
Brad Freeman - 1995
Now learn the secrets of these enigmatic vampires - their history and legends, their allies and enemies, and the truth of their relationship with the fearsome Lupine. There is good reason why they stand at the forefront of every vampiric war: none can stand against them.Clanbook: Gangrel includes:* The history of the clan and its unique view of the world;* 10 sample characters suitable for players and storytellers, and;* How the Gangrel run with the werewolves and the powers they gain.
The Seance
John Harwood - 2008
Once, a family disappeared there. And now Constance Langton has inherited this dark place as well as the mysteries surrounding it. Having grown up in a house marked by the death of her sister, Constance is no stranger to mystery, secrets, and the dark magic around us. Her father was distant. Her mother was in perpetual mourning for her lost child. In a desperate attempt to coax her mother back to health, Constance took her to a seance hoping she would find supernatural comfort. But tragic consequences followed, leaving her alone in the world-- alone with Wraxford Hall. Saddled with this questionable bequest, she must find the truth at the heart of all these disappearances, apparitions, betrayal, blackmail, and villainy, even if it costs her life. John Harwood's second novel delivers on the great promise proven by his first with this gripping mystery set in the heart of Victorian England.
Cthulhu Mythos Writers Sampler 2013
David ConyersDavid Dunwoody - 2013
“The Great White Bed” – A senile old man makes a deal with a strange being for a new lease on life. What happens when a book reads you? “The Cellar Gods” – In the 1940s, a young medical student protects a beautiful Asian woman from prejudiced townsfolk, only to discover she is connected to mysterious entities from an unholy dimension. “The Locked Door” – The visions of a psychic threatens the existence of a secret order. “In the Gyre” – A research vessel investigating a growing pollution problem in the ocean finds that something else has discovered a use for our waste material—something designed for building, and growing, and multiplying. “The Gate and the Way” – Poking around the local spook house for redeemable cans and bottles, two brothers stumble upon cosmic horrors from beyond space and time. “I Cannot Begin To Tell You” – A desperate father kidnaps his infant son and flees to a remote cabin to wait out an apocalypse only he can perceive. Is the man psychotic? Or is the boy a conduit for an ancient malevolence from the depths of Time? “Cutter” – A man and boy are trapped in an abandoned house by plague of bizarre monsters. “Graveyard Orbit” – In the future, the deep space exploration vessel Wellington encounters the unthinkable orbiting the uncharted planet Osiris II. Amid the debris of a trillion alien corpses, the Wellington’s Captain Walker will stumble upon an unlikely ally—and potentially, the secrets of the universe. “The Weaponized Puzzle” – A Russian spy steals an alien artifact from the Australian Government which soon transforms into a prison, and Australian spy Harrison Peel must solve its various puzzles and confront its captive horrors to escape again. Fiction by Don Webb, Jeffrey Thomas, Brian M, Sammons, Peter Rawlik, William Meikle, Kevin Lucia, David Kernot, Scott R. Jones, C.J. Henderson, Cody Goodfellow, David Dunwoody, Shane Jiraiya Cummings and David Conyers. Cover illustration by Paul Mudie. This sampler collection provides links to the various author’s works, personal interviews, and further information on their e-books. Step inside, and discover the newest horror releases lurking in the nightmare lands of Lovecraft…
Silence for the Dead
Simone St. James - 2014
Hiding the shame of their mental instability in what was once a magnificent private estate, the patients suffer from nervous attacks and tormenting dreams. But something more is going on at Portis House—its plaster is crumbling, its plumbing makes eerie noises, and strange breaths of cold waft through the empty rooms. It’s known that the former occupants left abruptly, but where did they go? And why do the patients all seem to share the same nightmare, one so horrific that they dare not speak of it?Kitty finds a dangerous ally in Jack Yates, an inmate who may be a war hero, a madman… or maybe both. But even as Kitty and Jack create a secret, intimate alliance to uncover the truth, disturbing revelations suggest the presence of powerful spectral forces. And when a medical catastrophe leaves them even more isolated, they must battle the menace on their own, caught in the heart of a mystery that could destroy them both.
Drowned by Corn (Kindle Single)
Erika Hayasaki - 2014
But something went terribly wrong. By day's end, some would be alive. Others would not. A close-knit community would be devastated, forced to endure. This gripping true story centers on what happened to one courageous and flawed young man who survived, and how his life quickly spiraled out of control in the next two years. It is a story about love, unbreakable friendship, and "king" corn. “There are some forty-five thousand items in the average American supermarket and more than a quarter of them now contain corn,” writes Michael Pollan in The Omnivore’s Dilemma. But as international dependence on the highly subsidized crop for cattle feed, corn syrup and ethanol has surged—so have deaths by corn. Based on three years of reporting and interviews with the people involved and thousands of pages of court documents, transcripts, police reports, journalist Erika Hayasaki brings to life (in narrative nonfiction-style) this world of people who risk and sometimes lose their lives for this powerful commodity. Hayasaki, a former national correspondent for the Los Angeles Times, is the author of The Death Class: A True Story About Life (Simon & Schuster 2014), as well as the Kindle Single, Dead or Alive (2012). She is an assistant professor in the Literary Journalism Program at the University of California, Irvine, and a regular contributor to Newsweek and The Atlantic. *Cover design by Kristen RadtkePraise for DROWNED BY CORN:THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE: "The descriptions of the accident are chilling: a blow-by-blow account of the grain pulling the young men under and the dramatic rescue of Will, who survived after being buried past his chest. The piece follows Will as his grief sends him into a downward spiral. "Drowned by Corn" is a gripping narrative of tenderness and horror, friendship and loss." — Megan KirbySAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE: "Erika Hayasaki’s suspenseful account of the deaths of Paco and Wyatt and the harrowing rescue of Will is the stuff of nightmares. But what elevates this fine work of investigative journalism is her portrayal of Will in the aftermath: his survival guilt, his struggle with alcohol and drugs, his strained relationships and his eventual discovery of a way to endure his and his town’s unspeakable losses." — Porter Shreve
30 Years of Adventure: A Celebration of Dungeons & Dragons (D&D Retrospective)
Peter Archer - 2004
100,000 first printing.
Ghouls: Fatal Addiction
Ronni Radner - 1997
It seems so easy. Just a sip, a taste, and you're better than all the rest. You can suck up a bullet wound to the gut. You can knock your enemies through walls with a shove. You can have all the night has to offer without sacrificing your body and soul to it. This deal is too good to be true. Yeah. That's what Faust said. And now the Damned want their due. ...You Know You Want It! Ghouls: Fatal Addiction is a Vampire: The Masquerade sourcebook detailing the half-human servants of the Kindred. Whether you need a few new whipping boys or just want to taste the lash yourself, this book has everything you need to create ghouls as player or Storyteller characters. Watch out, though. This book just might make Renfield wake up and smell his fix...and the master who lives by blood might die by it, too. Ghouls: Fatal Addiction includes:* Rules for creating vassal, independent and revenant characters.* New Merits, Flaws, Derangements and other Traits to help you roleplay a codependent blood-slave.* Secret societies, ghoul "games," and clan-specific information on how vampires treat their servitors.
Changeling: The Lost
Ethan SkempTravis Stout - 2007
Now you have found your way back through the Thorns, to a home that is no longer yours. You are Lost. Find yourself.The Core Rulebook for Changeling: The Lost• A rulebook for playing the changelings, those humans changed by durance in Faerie to something more than human• A vivid imagining of the fae beings and places that hide unseen in the World of Darkness• Provides new player types and antagonists for crossover chronicles as well as chronicles focusing on changelings aloneChangeling: The Lost is the fifth game in the World of Darkness.