Sympathy for the Succubus, Part 3

Image source, but I have this figure too. 

An update to my Part 1 and Part 2 of my Sympathy for the Succubus.  Been reading a bunch on the Succubus and how she fits into the D&D game specifically. She has an odd place really.  A sex-demon in a game that downplays sex in favor of violence.

Ecology of the Succubus
The succubus can play the ultimate temptress. Typically we see the succubus as an agent of power in the game and that is certainly true for the latest edition. For D&D 4, we have the Ecology of the Succubus and the authors' blog, http://stevesgamerblog.blogspot.com/2012/11/fallen-angels-ecology-of-succubus.html.

There is another the Ecology of the Succubus from the late lamented Kobold Quarterly Magazine #21.
For 4th edition.  This article is by Sersa Victory and feels slightly longer (hard to say given the different formats), but there is a still a lot of useful material here regardless of the game you are playing.

They both used similar elements tot he succubi I have presented here in my blog and in Eldritch Witchery.  No big surprise there, we are all drawing from the same myths and legends. Both try to do some mental gymnastics to cover the change of succubi from demons to devils. Both work rather well, but I took a different approach myself.

For Pathfinder there is Mythic Menagerie: Demonic Harlots
Six new sub-types of Succubi for your Pathfinder/OGL game. Plus new magic, feats and plot devices for using succubi in your games. No rules for Succubi PCs, but nearly everything else is here.

For D&D 5, it looks like Succubus might be headed back to being demons.

Good Succubi
Succubi have always been a favorite of many gamers.  So it is no surprise that every so often we get a "Good" Succubus.  From D&D 3 we had Eludecia, the Succubus Paladin.  I liked her story and wish WotC had done some more with her. This link for example, makes her a Paladin of Heironeous. She appeared in the adventure, Legend of the Silver Skeleton [PDF]. I would use her as something like a Kwai Chang Caine character.  Roaming the lands, maybe incognito, trying to do the most good she can.

Nobility and Eros: The Noble Succubus
Love is a disease.  At least that is how the succubi might feel if you use this supplement in your OGL games.  The Noble Succubus (not 100% sold on that name, but it does work and I can't come up with anything better) is a succubus that has become infected.  She is no longer a demon, but a creature with a soul that feels.  In a sense a "good" (if chaotic) succubus.  The role-playing options here abound.
There is plenty of background information that can be used and plenty of hooks into various game worlds including modern, sci-fi and the standard fantasy.
The real meat though is in the crunch on what the differences between the Noble and Demonic Succubi and how to use Noble Succubi as characters.

Myself, I would make them much rarer, and still have it be a process that maybe one in 100 Billion succubi could go through.  I also think it would be interesting to have a Noble Succubus and for whatever reason choose to remain evil.  That would be an adversary worth having.

Succubi and their Kin
I have also been doing a lot of generic demon research lately.
101 Greater Demons to Summon
101 Lesser Demons to Summon
101 Names of the Devil

For a buck you get a list of 100 demons. There is a name and description. Culled from a variety of sources such as the Lesser Key of Solomon, the Pseudomonarchia Daemonum and others.
It also has tables for various demon aspects and motivations. The information here can be found elsewhere, but for a buck, you are getting it all in one place and formatted. It can be used with any game that has demons. There are no stats and nothing in the way of measuring the power of one demon to the next, but that is not what they are advertising here.  Great if you need new, random demons.

One of the great things about working on so many projects it has given me the chance to recast the demons as I like.    I am very excited to get some of the things I am working on into your hands and I hope you enjoy them too.

Sympathy for the Succubus, Part 1
Sympathy for the Succubus, Part 2

Sympathy for the Succubus, Part 4

Zombies....

I think. I just got out of a 4 hour long meeting to find a ton of email waiting for me and only a taco to help me deal with it.

Be back when I can actually think.

Reviews: Dragon Island and Magic

A few new products I picked up at the GM's Day Sale at DriveThruRPG.

My boys are getting ready for their huge campaign finale.  The giant battle against Tiamat on the Island of the Dragon Empire.  Back in the dawn of time the Dragon and their Dragonfolk surrogates ruled the world from the Dragon Island.  Those days are gone and the Dragon Empire has fallen.  But the Island remains and that is where the characters will make their stand.

Fantastic Maps - Iconic Island
I am gearing up for the BIG finale of my years long 3e game.  The final battle where the forces of good battle the forces of evil happens on an Iceland-like island in my world.  I could have drawn anything, I could have even taken an older module and altered the island in Photoshop.  With this product I didn't have too.  It even looks almost EXACTLY like what I wanted.  The ZIP file contains maps of the island. Non-marked, marked and hexed variants. Plus a BW version.  There is no text or fluff to go with this, which is great, I have my own.  This is my new Dragon Isle!  I would love to see more products like this one.

My new island is going to need people too.

Archetypes of the Jade Oath (PFRPG)
I got this product for the new witch hexes but the rest of it is great as well.  There is a cool Eastern Flavor to this and I want to see if there is more in this series.  While I have a lot of cultures on my game world the one thing that has been getting the short end of my attentions are Dragonfolk/Dragonborn.  This book, while not explicitly designed for that, is perfect for my needs (and the cover kinda helps with that).
So what do we get? 20 pages (with cover, credits page, OGL statement and 2 pages of "Ads").  While there is an Eastern "flavor" to this, it is presented mostly context free.
The Barbarian is based on totem animals, which is a really awesome variant.  I normally don't play barbarians, but I would try one of these.  The Cavaliers are the Order of the Ancestors and Order of the Creed.  Monks, a natural fit, are presented as Kensai (one of my favorite classes back in the day). Imagine the typical unarmed monk, now armed.  And finally, the Witch, with a bunch of new and exciting hexes based on Elemental magics or Dragon magic (see it is a perfect fit!!). In fact these are some of the best Dragon Witches I have ever seen.  So this is worth the price of the book alone to me.
We also get plenty of new feats.  This was a nice surprise and I am very happy with this.

Midgard: Player's Guide to the Dragon Empire
I own a few of the Midgard products, but this one really called to me.  This Dragon Empire is very similar to the one I was crafting for my own game world, so this saves me some heavy lifting.
The 30 pages of this book is jam-packed.  What did I like in this?
Well I love the castes.  Dragons seem very arrogant and a caste system makes sense. I liked how the castes were set up as well.  Lots of great role-playing potential in these.  We get a bunch of new Traits and Feats.
Classes get a bit of an update as to be expected.  There is a Cavalier archetype, the Order of the Firedrake (which is a PERFECT with my world's own White Drakes). The Druids have the Elemental Exarch. Fighters get Edjet Warriors, and the Magus has the Dragon Magus.  We get a couple new monks, Monk of the Fiery Fist and Monk of the Wind Palm. There is also the Mystery of the Void, Greyscale and Void Elemeentalist for the Oracle, Rouge and Elementalists respectively.  There is also the Dragon Emir prestige class which I am sure my son would love. The book end with new spells, exotic goods and magic items, including magic the magic carpet.  Cool stuff.  I am going to have to look for more books in this series.

Midgard Bestiary for Pathfinder RPG
We always need more monsters. Over a 100 new monsters for Pathfinder.  Lots of really interesting ones too.  I loved the Shadow Fae, Ice Maiden and Red Hag and have hooks already for all of them.  The new dragon types are also very interesting and I can't wait to use a Mithril Dragon or Baby Yaga's Horsemen. In fact there are two completely separate campaigns I want to use this book in, a Dragon based one and a Witch-centric one.  Both need unique monsters that the players have never seen before, and there are a number of monsters here that are perfect for one or the other or both!
Also available for 4e and AGE.

Lineage Draconis
This 28 page (27 + cover) pdf features 6 dragon crossbreads including the oft stated Orange and Yellow Dragons. But you also get the Blade, Steel, Rust and Gray Dragons.  These dragons are pretty interesting and for the game I have coming up I need a lot of interesting dragons.  The book also includes the Dragon Blooded "class" though it is also sort of a race.  They are humanoid dragons.  Plenty of things you can do with this class as well as alternate versions depending one where the blood came from.
In a neat little feature you also get the art from the book in a seperate file.  So now you can show your players exactly what a Yellow Dragon looks like.

The Modern Spellcaster Basic Class
This book is for the d20 Modern Game, Pathfinder and a few other d20 based games.   It presents a generic form of a spellcaster that isn't a wizard, cleric, witch or druid.  In a sense it is a throwback to the older "Magic User" class.  The basic premise here is to provide full powered (up to spell level 9) spellcasters from D&D like games to your Modern Games.  I am not sure how this works out in play, but the concept on it's own is interesting enough.  There are new feats and a fun "arcane death" table.  Frankly I would like to see that expanded into an "Arcane CSI" to be used in any modern game with magical elements.

White Dwarf Wednesday #55

White Dwarf #55 comes to us from July 1984.  Our cover this month is what can only be called a "Space Marine".  The cover is good as in well done, but it doesn't fill me with anything.  I might have passed this issue up in the stores. Still though, I was a bit down on Sci-Fi games at this point, so I am sure that it would have been lost on me anyway.

Ian Livingstone's editorial is once again ripped from today's headlines.  The Gaming Hobby is DYING! But he admits that despite the shrinking market and layoffs the hobby is only changing.  He is right of course and the hobby will never hit the peaks it hit at this time, but it is, and was, changing.  Interestingly enough I did not  have this perspective back then.  To me it seemed like the gaming hobby would go on forever, if I thought about it all.

Marcus Rowland continues his Name of the Game series with Supers, Spies and Scary Guys.  Superhero games are covered with Champions claiming the top spot.  Spy games are next with Top Secret featured. Next are the "odd" games which includes a diverse lot of Call of Cthulhu, Daredevils and Gamma World.  Historical games end the article.

Spiderbite is next and it is a short scenario for D&D/AD&D, for 1st to 2nd level characters.  There are some interesting changes here. First thing you notice are the "DM's" sections to each room/adventure area. Canned text for the DM to read that began with B3.  Also are the "newer" non-orthogonal maps, ala Ravenloft (see next section). It comes in at four pages, but seems smaller than that.  The newer format certainly takes more text.

Open Box has some reviews. We get our first supplement to Warhammer, Forces of Fantasy.  I will admit I know very, very little about Warhammer except what is commonly known.  Jon Sutherland gives it a 7/10 and asks why was the Warhammer book so full of errors (glitches as he says) to need this book?
A bunch of TSR modules are next, X5, L2, I5 and the immortal I6.  Dave Morris goes over them in turn. He has the highest praise for X5, Temple of Death which he gives 10/10.  L2 gets 7/10, I5 9/10 and Ravenloft gets a 8/10.  He loves the plot and does call it a straight Hammer Horror yarn, but bemoans the puns.
Sherlock Holmes - Consulting Detective and an associated adventure The Mansion Murders are reviewed.  Nic Grecas enjoys it as a welcome diversion from dragon slaying or blasting aliens and gives it a 9/10.  I have been looking for a copy of this for a while.  Still haven't found one yet.  Finally Stuart Aston has a few books for Starfleet Battles; SSD Books 1, 2 and 3.  All get a 9/10.

Critical Mass has more book reviews. The only book in the bunch I can recall is Stephen Donaldson's Daughter of Regals.  I remember getting this through the Science Fiction/Fantasy Book Club (ok hands up, who was a member?) and I enjoyed it, which is interesting because I didn't really care for much of Donaldson's other works.  The reviewer here disliked the book mostly (but liked his other stuff from the sounds of it).

ICE breaks up the flow (eh) with a full color ad for the Fellowship of the Ring boardgame.

Phil Holmes has more undead for RuneQuest.  Now back in the day I was not into RuneQuest except as a way to get more Call of Cthulhu into my D&D.  These days I am trying to educate myself more on RQ and this is the sorta thing I enjoy.

Another full page, full color ad.  This time to let us know that Finieous Fingers is going to Fantasy Gamer Magazine.  One though has to wonder if the big selling point of your magazine is the appearance of a comic.  BUT this is Fineous Fingers, and while I never was a big follower of any particular magazine comic (with maybe the exception of "What's New!") even I knew of FF.

Crash Course, bi-monthly Car Wars column is next.  This one concerns punks in 2034.  While it is easy to read this now and think "that is only in 20 years", its still an interesting insight into 1984.

Animal cults and worship for D&D is next.   Tony Parry and Jerry Vaughn correctly point out that this is an area that has gotten very little attention in D&D. And they are still correct.

Castle of Lost Souls part 4 is next, finishing up the series. This seems to be the longest one yet.  I think I should give this one a try sometime.

Letters covers some of the same observations that I have had.  The magazine looks better than ever, but showing signs of slowing down and not being as cutting edge as it once was.  Other bemoan the lack of Traveller articles and the increase in RuneQuest ones. Additionally one letter states how they don't like Travellers (the comic). 

Speaking of, Thrud is next.

Tabletop Heroes gets the color pages again.  It is my memory that at this time Dragon was moving away from minis while White Dwarf was embracing them more.  I could be wrong though.

RuneRites has some really cool looking threats for RuneQuest. First we have a bipedal bat-like monster, a rather nasty spell and a magic ring that seems to be just as cursed as it is magical.

Fiend Factory has the Gods of the Shapelings (from last issue). The gods seem more interesting than I recall the monsters being.  The trouble is they are presented as something along the lines of uber-archetypes to fit the psychology of the Shapelings.  Noble effort, but the result is the gods seem a little bland.  Though with some work I think they would work out well.

Treasure Chest has an interesting article about Arch Enemies in FRPs (and D&D in particular).  I like the idea.  The concept of the reoccurring villain is older than Lex Luthor or the Joker, and not something I think we use enough in fantasy games.  It is something VERY common in games like Buffy, or Ghosts of Albion sure.  But there is something to be said about having an enemy come back for more and more.  Keeping him alive though is the real trick.

Travellers is next followed by an article on variant universes in Traveller.

News is up. We learn about Mayfair's "The Keep" movie tie-in game/adventure.  Also from Mayfair are the Roleaids products.  RQ3 is on the way.  The Star Trek RPG from FASA will hit the shores of the UK soon.

We end with the usual rounds of ads.

Not much to say about this issue really. Nothing new or innovative from the last few issues to be honest, but serviceable material.  I think WD needs to shake it up a bit here soon.

Review: Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea

Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea

There is just something about a big red box for games.

I have not been able to get Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea in it's big red box form, but I do have it on PDF, and let me say it is really nice.
So what do you get with this?  Well there is a 256 page player's book, 240 page Referee's book, a map of Hyperborea and pdfs of the Box Covers.  So all in all about 500 pages worth of old school playing goodness.

Now there is a lot here that is old hat for the experienced role-player and some that is similar to many of the OSR games.  That all being said it does also make it a great intro game for anyone and there is a still so much here for the old-timers that I don't feel a page is wasted.

The Players Book focuses on making characters, magic and combat.  So ability scores are covered, alignment and classes.  Most of this is the same as say D&D or S&W, but there are enough little changes to make it worth your notice.
for starters the races of Hyperborea are all human-centric.  So we have Amazons, Kelts, Kimmerian, Vikings and Hyperboreans among others.  All what I call the "Conan" races.
Let's move to the classes. There are the four basic classes, the Fighter, Magician, Cleric and Thief.  But each also has 4 to 6 subclasses. Fighter has the Barbarian, Berserker, Cataphract, Paladin, Ranger and Warlock.  The Magician has Illusionist, Necromancer, Pyromancer and Witch. The Cleric has the Druid, Monk, Priest,  and Shaman.  Finally the Thief has the Assassin, Bard, Legerdemainist and Scout.
Each subclass is very much like it's parent classes with some changes.  The classes look pretty well balanced. I liked the bard as a single class option (nice to have and not something that we had in 1979).  I would love to try out the Necromancer, Witch and Warlock and I know my son would love to try the Pyromancer.
Each class has a "Fighting Ability" and a "Magic Ability" which relates to attacks. So yes, even magicians can get a little better in combat as they go up in level.  It's a great little shorthand and works great.  So a 4th level Fighter has a fighting ability of 4. A 4th level magician still only has a fighting ability of 1 and a cleric 3 and thief 3.  Sub classes can and do vary.

AC is descending (like old school games), BUT with the Fighting Ability stat it could be converted to an ascending AC easy. There are background skills and weapon skills.

The next 90 or so pages deals with magic and all the spells.  The max spell level is 6. Not a bad number really and that is still plenty of spells.

The last 60 pages of the Player's book deals with combat in all it's forms. So combat, mass combat, saves and conditions.  A great collection really of some of the "Best of" ideas I have seen in many games, but it all works really nice here.

The Referee's Manual is next.
It is nearly as big (240 pages vs 256).
The first half is fully devoted to monsters.  The format is most similar to Basic or Labyrinth Lord, and it is full of the usual suspects with some notable exceptions.  For starters this book includes the Demons (but not the devils).  It does NOT include any dragons. But to make up for it there are many of the "Lovecraft" races such as the Great Race, Elder Things and fish men.  Great inclusion.

The next 50 or so pages covers treasure. Among the magic items are things like Radium Pistols and other sc-fi artifacts. Very pulpy.

Finally we end with the Hyperborea Gazetteer. A great bit that I can easily drop into my game. The lands are a pastiche of Howard, Vance, Lovecraft and Smith.  If these names mean anything to you then you know, or have an idea, of what you are going to get here.

All together this is a package of such great ideas I can't wait to use it somewhere.

For me this would work perfect a "Hyperbora" in my own Mystoerth world.  I would include my own White Orcs in any AS&SH game though.  The witch is a nice class, I would supplement some of my own rules for it.

With the GM's sales going on this is a great buy. You can also buy the print version from their website (and find other goodies too). http://www.swordsmen-and-sorcerers.com/.

This game is so full of potential. Whether you play it as is or as a supplement to your favorite old-school game.

Creative Batteries need recharged

Don't you hate it when your creative batteries are running low.

I have been starring at the same doc file since Thursday and maybe added 200 words to the whole thing.

What do you all do to recharge?

GMs Day at DriveThruRPG/RPGNow, Part 2

Here is what I a getting out of my Wishlist thanks to the DriveThruRPG/RPG Now GM's Day sale.

• Elric of Melnibone
• RuneQuest 6th Edition Never got into RQ too deep.  Now is a good time.
• M&M3 Supernatural Handbook been wanting this one for a while.
• The Malefactor Base Class
• The RPG Handbook

and things that are on sale, but not due to GM's Day (I just want them).

• Archetypes of the Jade Oath (PFRPG)
• Fantastic Maps - Iconic Island

I am sure there will be other things I "need" later in the week.

Total value: $73.95, Price on sale: $52.70, that's a $21.25 saving.  Not a bad deal really.
I was going to get these all eventually, might as well get them now.

GMs Day at DriveThruRPG/RPGNow

It's GMs Day all Week at DriveThruRPG and RPGNow.

This is their biggest sale of the year so it's time to get all those items that have been collecting on your Wish List.

The sales start today at 9:00am Central.  I'll post some more when I see what is on sale.

Teratic Tome: Print Verison

I picked up the Teratic Tome on PDF a while back.
http://timbrannan.blogspot.com/2013/02/review-teratic-tome.html

I liked it. So I decided to pick up the hardcover too.

It fits in nicely with all my other 1st edition-ish books.

The author,  Rafael Chandler, did a really good job of capturing the look of the 1st ed books.

Maybe too good of job in fact.  In any case it fits in nice with my books as a Monster Manual 4 or Fiend Folio 2 (if Monsters of Myth is MM 3).

What really swayed me on this is the fact I am running a 1e game with my kids and I could use a couple of these.

If you buy the PDF you get a coupon to get hardcover at $6.66 off.  If you buy the hardcover at full price you get a free PDF.

Pretty nice really.

Red Sonja: She Devil with a Sword: Gail Simone on Red Sonja #1

Reblogged from Red Sonja: She Devil with a Sword: Gail Simone on Red Sonja #1

From: http://robojapan.blogspot.com/2013/03/gail-simone-to-wield-red-sonjas-sword.html
and http://www.wired.com/geekmom/2013/03/red-sonja-gail-simone/
and http://www.comicsalliance.com/2013/03/01/red-sonja-gail-simone-dynamite-comics-emerald-city-2013-fiona-staples/

Gail Simone, one of the biggest names in comics right now, is taking up the sword and mail bikini of Red Sonja in a new Red Sonja #1.
In addition cover art will be done by Fiona Staples, Nicola Scott, Colleen Doran, Jenny Frisson, and Stephanie Buscem

Here is Fiona Staples art for Issue #1.

According to Simone:

"It's like this...even most of the best female heroines when I was a kid were pretty polite. What I love about Sonja is that she isn't polite, she says what she means and if you give her any lip about it, hello, sword in the gut. She's smart, she has a heart, she has some compassion. But when it's go time, she's a hellraiser, a mad general, she's a sword edge virtuosa, she's death on wheels. She is the woman you never want to mess with. I can relate, Sonja. No offense to all her guy writers, but THIS Red Sonja is about sex and swords! It's everything you love about Red Sonja, except with more monsters getting stabbed in the eye."

Red Sonia #1 is out in July.

Busy Day and other stuff.

Gotta a lot of stuff to get done before the next half of the spring term starts.  blah.

Also I have a post over at my other blog, The Freedom of Nonbelief about the "Gay marriage" bill in Illinois. Pop over there and give it a read please.
http://freedomofnonbelief.blogspot.com/2013/03/sb-10-and-culture-of-blindness.html

Thanks

The Video Game question

We identify ourselves as Gamers.  To us it has been a mantle we have alternately been burdened by and worn with pride.  Mostly pride, given the group that usually reads my blog.  But we are not the only ones that call themselves Gamers.  There is that other group.   Video games and RPGs have always coexisted in the popular consciousness together.  Yeah..yeah H.G. Wells blah blah Little Wars...that is not what I am talking about.

In the popular consciousness RPGs hit the market maybe 30 seconds before video games did.  The Atari 2600 entered into home market in October of 1977, around the same time as the first printings of AD&D.  Sure OD&D was out before that and there were video games before the 2600 too.  Indeed the 2600 is part of the 2nd Generation of video games, with the 1st gen starting in 1972.

The cost of entry to the home video game hobby is higher than RPGs, the prices are remarkably stable.  For example RPGs have been something of a steady state tech, video games and their hardware are fully in line with Moore's Law; getting cheaper while getting better.  The 2600 retailed for $199.00 in 1977, the Wii retailed at $249.99 30 years later.

Video Gamers and TT Gamers have always seen to eye to eye.  I know for a fact that someone on my reader list has seen someone come into their FLGS to look for a video game only to be mocked out of the store.

The issue I have is that this divide really should not exist   Granted. I have no clue what some Video Gamers are talking about sometimes. I am still only level 2 in Skyrim, never played WoW, Everquest or anything else like that.  I have been playing Lolipop Chainsaw for about 8 months and still am not past "level 2" on it.

So before I go deeper into this I want to ask.  What video games are you all playing?

Did you pick them because they appeal to your TTRPG background? Or because they are opposite of an RPG?  Why that game?

White Dwarf Wednesday #54

White Dwarf #54 comes to us from the far off time of June 1984. This was a time when I probably played more AD&D than any other time in my life, before or since.  Let's talk about that cover for a bit. Wow. Could it be more 80s?  Mystical wizard with a glowing eye and a huge, almost to damn big to be useful Sword-Axe!  It's the mighty Sword-Axe! The only weapon that can kill the dark lord holding the hero's love.  Stick in a metal guitar riff and that is all you need.  Of course I love this cover.  The wizard is actually kind of cool looking and that sword is EXACTLY the sort of ridiculousness that I would loved to have stated up back in the day.

Ian Livinstone brings up the Satanic Panic issue. I guess he was abroad in Australia and New Zealand and the subject of "black magic" was brought up to him.  I like his response, one of dismissive confusion.

Not content on bring logic to the real world, the next article tries to bring logic to the fantasy world as well.  Christopher Hunt gives us Laws of Nature; or how to create a logically consistent game world.  There was a lot of this around this time and I think a hallmark of the Silver Age.  While older adventures were content with the dungeon crawl and room after room of monster and treasure; the mid 80s was a time when people began to ask why are these rats here? and why do they have a sack of 2,000 coins?  This is reflected in the modules and the articles we read.  I took a lot of this to heart then and as a consequence my games are still not full of gold or even magic items.

There is a Barbarian writeup for RuneQuest next. I know I never read it then because it was too new to me. I never got into playing barbarians at all.  I never read Conan growing up and I preferred the magic using types. But the article is quite good.

Marcus Rowland is back with Name of the Game.  This entry is on Sci-Fi games, with Traveller dominating the article.  Others are mentioned, Space Opera, Star Frontiers, Star Trek (FASA) and Laser Burn.

Microview reviews two computer games Apocalypse and Battle 1917, both are for the 48k Spectrum computer, which of course means most people could run an emulator and put these on their phones.  While reading about their tape loading woes was nostalgic, I never heard of either of these games.  There is a BASIC game aid included in the article as well, a random name generator.

Table Top Heroes is reserved for the color page again (as it should be) to show off the miniatures.

Open Box reviews Traveller Adventure 11 (7/10 by Andy Slack), Book 2 of Steve Jackson's Sorcery, Kharé -  Cityport of Traps (Marcus Rowland gives 8/10 as a book 2, 6/10 as a stand alone).  Espionage  and an adventure Border Crossing by Hero Games.  For Hero's entry into Spy Games Marcus Rowland gives them a   8/10 and 9/10 respectively.  Nic Grecas reviews Theatre of the Mind Enterprises' Pursuit to Kadath, a third part of a Call of Cthulhu adventure. He gives it 8/10.

Critical Mass has a review of Battlefield Earth.  I thought the book (when I tried reading it in the late 80 say 4 years from this review) was abysmal dreck.  I am happy say that all the reasons I hated it are brought up here. Well, not all, my reasons are a long and varied, but they hit on the big ones.

The solo "adventure" The Castle of Lost Souls is back for Part 3. This time it is longer than Part 2. A few of the entries are fun, but it's still a programmed adventure.

RuneRites has some undead.  As always, some great ideas for the the AD&D gamer here too.
Thurd is back.

Temple of the Doomed Prince is up. An adventure for 5 to 8 AD&D characters of 4th to 6th level  or RuneQuest characters of 45% to 65% weapons skills.  It also mentions Empire of the Petal Throne.  The adventure is simple and the monsters are dual stated.

Letters from Hobbits grace the Letters page.
What follows is a first, a mid magazine full color ad for Battlecars.

Fiend Folio has two related ghostly creatures; Surrogates and Shapelings.  Related in the fact that have one set of stats.

After that the parallel color page for I.C.E.'s Fellowship of the Ring boardgame.
Travellers is next.

Some more ads with color (but not full color) are next.  This is a change form all the ads being at the end of the magazine.

Treasure Chest cover Goals for Role-Playing. Or basically, what drives your character.

News this time looks like a posting board of newspaper clips.

Small ads, Gobbledigook and the ads close out the issue.

Like last issue this is a solid, serviceable issue but nothing that sticks out. It seems that despite all the physical growth of the magazine the creative and critical growth is off.  I see more of the same ahead at least for the rest of 84.  We will see.

Cover Me

I was reading the good old Facebook this morning and noticed this picture of author Joanne Brothwell's new book and the cover of another book by Loren Manns.

The books are of course not related outside of both in the modern paranormal genre. But I thought it might be fun to imagine one.

This is not uncommon for many indie and newer authors to use stock art for covers.   Sometimes you can even find them.  It is interesting though to see what a difference Photoshop makes.

It even happens in our publishing.
Here is a cover of a game you might recognize, and it's doppelganger.

 

Obviously mine and one called Magic & Miracles for the D6 system.  In this case though both of us are using the famous John W. Waterhouse painting.  I make no excuses for that, I love the Pre-Raphaelite style.

I'll have to go over this alternate version of the witch in detail.

I know they say you can't judge a book by it's cover, but sometimes you can use that cover for some fun!

New Releases Tuesday

Time for the 2013 edition of New Releases Tuesday for two of my favorite authors (you can click to see 2012, 2011 and 2010).

Up first is my talented friend Amber Benson with the next installment of the tale of Calliope Reaper-Jones, the girl that would be Death in The Golden Age of Death.

This book is out today!

Next is everyone's favorite red-headed witch/demon, Rachel Morgan in Ever After.

Rachel has more trouble, this time cleaning up a mess she made a few books back.  Of course if she doesn't fix it all the demons in the Ever After will be coming for her.

This one has been out for a bit.

Going to Valhalla, Alaska

Back when I was in high school I had these two friends that put together this "fake" band ala Spinal Tap.  The name of the band was "Harvey Goes to Valala" which was an obvious play on "Frankie Goes Hollywood" and my high school and college nickname "Harvey" (long story).  I say "fake" because it was supposed to be in fun, but my two friends really got into it to the point of "releasing" an album called "Pocket Full of Braincells" (also a full year before Spin Doctors came out with A Pocket Full of Kryptonite, no no there was nothing too that, something in the water in the late 80s/early 90s I am sure).

I liked the town, Valala, and always thought it was this out of the way place up north where the people were weird but had limited outside influences to keep themselves sane.

Valala, Alaska took various shapes and forms in my mind since the late 80s.  It wasn't till the late 90s/early 00s that I considered using the WitchCraft game.  I thought about it again when I was running a WitchCraft game online a few years back, "Vacation in Vancouver" which was a fun, but really dark and adult game (deaths in a prostitution ring that catered to supernatural clients).
The Valala game was going to be something along the lines of a weird Northern Exposure.  A town full of odd folk and supernaturals.  There was going to be humor, but dark.

Over the weekend I was doing laundry and found the "concert" shirt for the Harvey Goes to Valala World tour.  All the towns were places where we all had run off to go to college.  But it got me thinking about this game again.

I still think WitchCraft is a great choice for it, but again with dark humor and really strange people; both mundane and supernatural. Everything in most modern supernatural games are so serious.  This would be.  Sure things would still be dangerous. But the characters would all be locals and quirky ones at that.

With WitchCraft I could use all the supernatural types.  I have always wanted a Werebear character in one of of these games.  I also had this idea for an old and lazy vampire.  Basically the opposite of every other vampire you have ever seen. He's old, ugly, poor and lazy. He survives by trapping animals.
I'd also have to include some crazy ass, conspiracy theory- believing, "prepper" guy.  Someone living in a hole in the ground with his guns and cans of beans.

It was pointed out to me that this is a similar idea to Buffy.  But mine would be less Joss Whedon and more David Lynch.

I would need to get some basic adventure ideas together.  The trick is to take a normal supernatural adventure and do something bizarre with it.   The first one I came up with was about a Sasquatch.  In the normal adventure the Sasquatch is causing problems or killing the local livestock.  In a "Buffy" version the Sasquatch is a demon.  In the "Valala" version the Sasquatch is having sex with the females of the local moose population.  The cries of the moose are keeping people up at night.  The moose hanging around the outskirts of the city because they are enjoying are causing even more problems.  So the issue is not "wow Bigfoot is reall!" it's "Bigfoot is real. And he is a nasty perv keeping everyone up at night."

If I come up with some more ideas I'll share them.  Thought with what I have been thinking of lately you might not want me too!

I'll have to look to see what I have of this.  I seem to recall making a map of the town at one point.  It was on the water.

Though I think I am going to rename the town to be Valhalla, AK.  Kinda like calling a town "Hell" or "Purgatory".

Vampires and Demons

Working on a bunch of projects, might have over extended myself.

To maximize my time and effort (and everyone's enjoyment) one of my projects will be posted here.

I am just unsure about which one.  So I'll throw out to you all.  What do you want to read about more? Vampires or Demons?

Let me know!

The Foundations of Geek: A Blog Challenge

Jason Vey over at the Wasted Lands has issued the following Blog Challenge,
http://wastedlandsfantasy.blogspot.com/2013/02/the-foundations-of-geek-blog-challenge.html

The idea is a cool one honestly so I am going to participate.

My earliest memories are of horror movies.  Specifically Hammer Horror and the old Universal Monsters.
I could not have been much older than 4 and my first memories are of Dracula.  I used (and still do) love old Dracula movies.  From there things only got more interesting.

Some of my favorite TV shows growing up were Kolchak: The Night Stalker, the Twilight Zone and the Outer Limits.  Moving into the 80s it became Tales From the Crypt, Tales From the Darkside and Monsters.

At one point in time I could claim I had owned every movie that featured Dracula.

It should be no big surprise then that my games all had a horror bent to them.

My foray into pure fantasy lit was limited to be honest.  I read, and loved, Tolkien.  But that lead to the darker fantasy of Elric and the Eternal Champion and then into horror; specifically Lovecraft.  I never turned back.

I enjoy horror, I love all the tropes and the cliches to be honest.

The difference really between fantasy and horror for me is the power levels between the villain and heroes.  If the heroes have some expectation to survive (even if they don't) then that is fantasy.  If the heroes have no expectations to survive (even if they do) that can be horror.  I do like overlap though too.

I did and still do enjoy Sci-Fi.  More in the 70s and 80s than today I think.  I grew up on Star Trek and Star Wars and for the longest time The Next Generation was my favorite show.  My biggest sci-fi love though then as now is Doctor Who.

Doctor Who has been great for me since it includes so many genres. I can get horror, sci-fi, adventure and fantasy all in one package.

Even today, I find myself going back to the well as it were.  I get to watch the old Hammer Films on DVD or Blu-Ray now and the extras are more than worth the price.

What are your Foundations?
http://wastedlandsfantasy.blogspot.com/2013/02/the-foundations-of-geek-blog-challenge.html

"The new witch is adorkable"

If you have not been watching the BAMF Girls Club on Comediva then you are missing out.

The premise is that Buffy, Hermione, Katniss, Michonne, Lisbeth and Bella are all sharing a house in a reality show ala the Real World.

Episode 7 features a familiar witch!
http://www.comediva.com/bamf-girls-club-ep-7



Episode 8 though might have the best line in series.
http://www.comediva.com/bamf-girls-club-ep-8


Lisbeth: "I'll give him a special tattoo, 'I am a sparkling douche-bag.'"

I think the actresses are great.  I have to do a double take any time I see "Hermione" in that Allstate comercial. ;) My boys love the show too.

I'd love to build a game around this idea.  Players take any character from any media and throw them all together in a house and make them try to get along.

Something like Cortex+ would be the serious choice, but I am thinking something more along the lines of QAGS or Macho Women With Guns.

What game system do you all think would work the best?

Anyway.  Watch it. It is funny as hell.

Review: Teratic Tome

The Teratic Tome

The Teratic Tome is an "old school" monster book for OSRIC or any old School "Advanced" version of the game.  What do you get?  Well a lot.  Let's start with some of the things that others have not all mentioned first. This book is 100% OGC.  So if you want to use one of these horrors in one of your products go right ahead. Just abide by the OGL.  There are a lot of reasons why you might want to use these monsters too.  They are some of the most original horrors I have seen outside of indie horror games.

The layout and feel is evocative of those "monster manuals" of old. It does quite a nice job of it too.  The art though is much better than what you would have seen circa 1980.  The art varies in style, but all of it is quite good.   Now is a good time to point out that the art and the monsters they depict are not for the faint of heart.  There is a lot of "body horror" here.  The grotesque mixed with the commonplace or even the erotic.  The feeling is more Clive Barker than H.P. Lovecraft and I think that was a great direction to go.

Truthfully I would have picked this up for the demons and dragons alone, but there are 120 pages worth monsters here. Even the halflings are evil little buggers in this tome.

If you like horror and new creatures, and your players can handle it, then this is a great monster book.
If you like horror and monster books in general, then this is great to have as well.

Plus who can argue with a $6.66 price tag?

Who should not get this?  I don't know really.  I mean I am not going to use any of these creatures in my games with my kids.  So that does lessen the utility for me, but I can still use some ideas. And that is just as good.

A lot of people like to call this the "LotFP Monster Manual" but that is not being fair to this book to be honest.  It really is more than that.

You can learn more about the book at the author's website: http://rafaelchandler.com/rpgs.html

Or you can pick up a hardbound copy at Lulu:
http://www.lulu.com/shop/rafael-chandler/teratic-tome/hardcover/product-20695443.html
If you buy the PDF first then you get a discount on the hardcover.  Not a bad deal really.

Bite Me! and Doppelganger

Friend of mine, Christina Stiles, has a new Kickstarter up.

Bite Me! The Gaming Guide to Lycanthropes

It looks like it could be quite fun and so close to funding.

Misfit Studios is a good operation. They have produced a number of fine products in the past and I expect this to be no different.

The other cool one nearing an end is the Tabletop Doppelganger.  This one has farther to go, but it would be awesome to see it made.

Go forth and pledge!

White Dwarf Wednesday #53

White Dwarf #52 comes to us from May 1984.  Our cover this time is an army of orcs ready for battle; a tie-in to the Warhammer scenario coming up and a D&D article about orcs.

Ian Livingstone discusses the growing pains of the hobby.  Sure it is nice that so many people are now interested in it, and it is too bad that so many people are now interested in it!  So the exclusivity is gone.
This is the time of "Red Box D&D" (see last page).  Was this something you noticed in your games?  Many reading came to the hobby before this time, what were your thoughts then?  I grew in a small town where I knew everyone my age that gamed.  Or mostly everyone.  There was a feel of "get off my lawn" to some of the newer gamers.  Which of course is funny because there was the generation of War Gamers that looked at us the same way.  This is reflected in Livingstone's editorial.  We are now seeing the first glances of a generational effect in the Edition Wars.  Livingstone though gives some sage advice then and it is still good now, it is up to us (the older player) to help the newer player along and teach them "the old ways".

Marcus Rowland is back with Part 2 of his introduction to RPGs.  Continuing where he left off on D&D he moves to other Fantasy games for beginners starting with RuneQuest. Rowland is obviously a fan, and RQ gets the lion's share of the article (but still less than D&D).  He follows up with other games such as Tunnels & Trolls, Chivalry & Sorcery, Warhammer and Men, Myth and Magic.  Though these only get a paragraph or two each.

In our new full color section we get Minas Tirith, the Battle of Pelennor Fields for Warhammer. It's a long one, described as a Mega-Scenario. If you are a Tolkien fan then this is cool. Honestly few battles are as iconic to the Tolkien/Rings saga as this one, save for the Battle of Five Armies.

Our color pages continue into Open Box.  Up first Richard Meadows reviews Game Workshop's Caverns of the Dead.  The first in a new line of dungeon aids.  It gets a 7/10 noting that it compares less favorable to D&D modules.   We also get the 6th and 7th Fighting Fantasy books from Ian Livingstone, Deathtrap Dungeon and Island of the Lizard King. Both get an 8/10 from Marcus Rowland. Andy Slack gives us more Traveller material in the form of Book 6: Scouts. It gets an 7/10 overall, but the component ratings are all 8s and 10s with only one 7.  Not sure why it was rounded down like that.

Thurd the Barbarian is in more trouble. It looks like his biggest problem was that he was drawn by Rob Liefeld. Ok, in this context it is supposed to be funny.

We get a short (one page) Gothic tale from Chris Eliot and Richard Edwards.

Lew Pulsipher brings back Lew's Views. This time it is about demons, devils and pacts.  Something that would work well with the new lot of demon summoning and binding spells that seemed to be popular at this time (Module S4, Unearthed Arcana).  Still useful today in any game to be honest.  Don't like demons? Or you game has robots instead?  No big, the rules are really more "programmed" of any sort of guardian creature. So it could be a robot, a sphinx, a ghost, a curse or a golem.  Whatever you need.

Next up is The Naked Orc.  A new look at Orcs in D&D.  I think I have read this one before cause my own write-up of orcs is similar.  It's a good read and have some very interesting ideas.

Crash Course is our Car Wars column written by the American Steve Jackson.
Part 2 of the Castle of Lost Souls is next.  Not as long as last months.

More fawning over the changes in letters.
Starbase has some Traveller NPCs.
RuneRites has some spells based on celtic Druid myth.  These are pretty interesting to be honest.  Of course I look to them for conversion for D&D.

Tabletop Heroes has some more minis, but they don't take advantage of the color pages this time.  More is the pity to be honest.

Fiend Factory has some creatures and mini-scenario. The creatures are good for the scenario and maybe some eerie woodland area.
Treasure Chest has an odd collection of random treasures.

The News section under goes another makeover.  This time looking like a Bulletin board; a real one with tacks, not a virtual one.  Of interest is the upcoming "Dragonlance" which is listed as an RPG in the same breath that Marvel is listed as an RPG.  Was there a plan back then to have Dragonlance be a self contained game?

Color pages are next again and they are saved for the ads.  We have a few pages of those and then end with a full color ad for the new Red Box D&D Basic game.

For lack of a better word this issue feels like a "reboot" of the magazine.  No surprise that now it is available in a wider market they want to make sure it is accessible to all sorts of people.  There are still some interesting things going on, but not the same sort of things that were being printed prior to 83.  Still though, quite a fun read just nothing (other than the orcs) that jumped out at me.

Original D&D Premium Edition

Well it was going to happen sooner or later, but Wizards of the Coast will be releasing a Premium Edition of the Original D&D.  But it's not just a reprint.  

http://www.wizards.com/DnD/Product.aspx?x=dnd/products/dndacc/45390000


Volume 1: Men & Magic
Volume 2: Monsters & Treasure
Volume 3: Underworld & Wilderness Adventures
Supplement I: Greyhawk
Supplement II: Blackmoor
Supplement III: Eldritch Wizardry
Supplement IV: Gods, Demi-Gods & Heroes

Comes in a wood-grain or faux-wood-grain box with dice.
New cover art, but all the original art inside.

Price?  $150.00.  Honestly, that is not a bad deal.  This is a collector's piece and I am sure some will balk at that price I think it sounds about right to be honest.
I have been wanting to play some Original D&D again.  Haven't since 1987 so this might be my excuse.

Supernatural & Smallville

One of the BEST games I have ever played at Gen Con was a Supernatural/Buffy/Charmed mash up.  Characters were characters from the various shows and the system was the Buffy Unisystem game.  There was another version of it that was run the night before using the Supernatural version of Cortex.

It was a lot of fun.

So it is kinda sad to note that Margaret Weis Productions is closing shop on two of their popular game lines, Supernatural & Smallville.

It's not a surprise really, licenses like this come and go all the time.  But you only have to the end of this month to get books from either system.

I spent a lot of time with Cortex over the last few years.  You can follow those insights (and baseless opinions) here, http://timbrannan.blogspot.com/search/label/cortex

Supernatural is closer to the original cortex rules and more similar to Unisystem.  So close in fact it is pretty easy to use ideas from one game in the other. Willow and Tara (and Vampire Tara) converted rather nicely I thought.

Smallville is the first of the "Cortex Plus" games.  The conversions here are more concept based than actually crunching numbers.

In both cases these are fun games and if you haven't picked them up this is your last chance.

Family Game Night

Not playing a game tonight, fighting off a migraine at the moment.

But I was curious  about how many of you out there on this cold Sunday (in Chicago at least) are spending your time.  Or more to point, how many of you all have a family game night?
If you do what do you play?

Around here the old Dungeon! board game is a fave.  But we also play a lot of Scrabble and Monopoly.
I have gotten my wife into a few games of D&D before, but it's really not her thing.
I never gotten her to play Ghosts of Albion despite all the time I spent on it. ;)

Speaking of family games.  Just decided that we are not going to Gen Con this year.  Might go to Gary Con, but don't really know yet.  I am hoping some con opens up locally that I can take my boys to.

Zatannurday: Happy Valentine's Day

Some pics of Zatanna and her loves this Valentines Day.

Here is one from the Young Justice comic. Too bad the series is getting canceled.

With Blue Devil.

With Bats.

John and Zee.  The longest relationship she has had.  Though not always the healthiest (for either).

But not all is drama in Zee's love life.  She is also willing to help others.

http://agnesgarbowska.tumblr.com/post/3296746076/happy-valentines-day-zatanna-is-making-sure

Happy Valentine's Day!

It's Not An Olympic Medal, But I'll Take it!

I was on DriveThruRPG today to get a copy of my Witch book sent out to my brother when I noticed something really cool.

The Witch is a Copper Best Seller!

Not sure what the sales threshold is for that, but I'll take it!

Ghosts of Albion is doing well too.

It's not gold or platinum, but I am not complaining.
I am still pleased that there are people out there that like my stuff and are willing to buy it!

April Blogging A to Z

Good Morning!
We are half-way through February now and I wanted to talk to all bloggers in our little corner of the internet about April.

The April A to Z challenge is coming up and I would like to encourage you all to join.

http://www.a-to-zchallenge.com

But join with a purpose.  Last year I did a review of RPG games A to Z in an attempt to attract more people to our hobby.  This year I am working on a new idea for a monster book.  So all my posts will eventually be put together and published.  Either for free or for sale depending on the amount of art I have to buy for it.

Presently there are over 700 participants and it is expected there could be as many as four times that amount by April 1.  This is a great way to get exposure to you, your blog and our hobby.

The sign-up page is here: http://www.a-to-zchallenge.com/p/2012-to-z-challenge-sign-up-list.html

I am joining a team of ambassadors to help others with the challenge and basically be a cheerleader.
http://tossingitout.blogspot.com/2013/02/ive-got-team-arlees-atozchallenge.html

http://tossingitout.blogspot.com/2013/02/ive-got-team-arlees-atozchallenge.html

I also want to be your, or more accurately, OUR cheerleader and ambassador too.  I think we have a fantastic hobby here and one that should be shared.  Between the free games and the material offered by all of us on our blogs there are thousands of nights and weekends that people could fill for the price of dice.  Since I am not a high school kid anymore playing in friend's basement,  I focus more on "family game nights", but what ever your group looks like we can pass that on to others.

So please. Consider joining up and share with this this very eclectic group of people our love for this little hobby of ours.

Vampire Blog Hop

Little bit of history here.  Long before I was known as "The witch guy" I was "the Vampire guy".
So it is with a sense of homecoming that I participate in the Precious Monsters Vampire Bloghop.


I still tend to write a lot about vampires here.

My earliest memory of watching a movie had to be Bella Lugosi and Christopher Lee as Dracula.  I can clearly recall being no more than 3 or 4 and thinking anything with red eyes was a "dracula".  This extended as I got older (5) when the Count became my favorite character on Sesame Street.  I am pretty sure I have seen every film adaptation of Dracula there is and I have read the original book a dozen times.

So yeah. I like Vampires.  What made me "stop" liking them?  Vampire: The Masquerade.
Well, that is not fair.  It wasn't the game itself, it was the over exposure of the game and I'll admit, some of the players.  But I have gotten over that.  In fact I really enjoy the 20th Anniversary edition and the translation guide  The truth is that Vampire really changed a lot things in gaming. In recent years I have come back to Vampire (and to vampires in general) and find I am enjoying it so much more.
So let's have a look at some the Vampire games I have enjoyed the most over the years.  This is not all of them, but it is a nice sample of new and old.

Vampire: The Masquerade - Revised Edition
This is it, the original. Well, not the original, original, but the revised version. This game is the go to game for playing an angsty, tortured monster.  Nearly everything known about vampires in myth or fiction is in here somewhere.  Re-reading it today if you had no knowledge of this game you might be tempted to say that this game is full of cliches. But in truth this is the origin of a lot of things that we take for granted.
Truthfully this is a great book to get even if you never plan to play the game.  There are plenty of ideas for Role-playing as well as integrating it with LARPing. There is also a lot of ideas for vampires here.
If you like Anne Rice's vampires, then this is the game for you.
Play if you like: Anne Rice

Victorian Age Vampire
The Victorian Age is best time for vampires in my mind. This the age of Dracula, of Varney the Vampire and tons of great Gothic Literature.  Also it is a time of science vs. religion, the city vs. the rural, the traditional vs. the modern.  This is a perfect mix for a Vampire game. The Vampire game mechanics are well served by this mix; the human vs. monster. In many respects this game is actually superior to it's parent game V:tM.
All the same vampire clans from The Masquerade are here, but changed.  Not as much as the Dark Ages version, but the alterations fit the times well. The vampires here seem to be so much more than their modern counterparts.
Play if you like: Dracula or Varney the Vampire

Vampire: The Requiem
A while back White Wolf rebooted everything.  They redid all their game lines, edited the rules and gave us a new World of Darkness.  On the plus side Vampire the Requiem has much more cleaned up rules.  They were similar to the old rules, but just better in most respects.  The meta-rules or how the vampires are played though felt worse. Not worse really, but off to me.
Basically you can play the same kind of game you did in V:tM, though if you had a favorite clan in the old game it might not be here, or be changed in subtle ways. Still though this is a great game with less overhead than old World of Darkness. If you are choosing between this game and Vampire: The Masquerade then this might be the easier choice, even if it is less "classic" choice.
Play if you like: Modern supernatural

Vampire Translation Guide
So say you like both Vampire games, or you prefer one but like elements from the other.  Well White Wolf came up with this great guide that lets you translate between the two games. At least in a mechanical way you can translate clans from one to the other. I like this product on concept alone. While this book is not the Rosetta Stone between the games, it is a good translation guide. If you are fan of one of the game then this book gives you the chance to double your stuff. For fans of both games this is a good way to open up your world of darkness a bit more. It is lacking on some crunch, but I think I can be OK with that.
I also like this product for what it means. White Wolf is basically saying something new now, the world is yours do with it as you please. No more meta-plot no more rigid distinctions that always come in 5's.
I like the converted characters, but would have also liked to have seen the same character in both systems.

Vampire: The Masquerade 20th Anniversary Edition
The 20th Anniversary Edition combines the best of the best of the old Vampire the Masquerade game and strives for completion.  All the clans, all the powers and most of the iconic characters. It is more expensive that any of the other White Wolf Vampire games, but it is also the largest and everything you need for years of playing is right here.  Or more the point, everything from years of playing is right here.  It is easy to pick this up and feel like it is 1990 again.
I think this book is really aimed more at people that played V:TM back in the day and now have a desire to go back to those nights where monsters roamed the city.  There is a lot here for new players though too.  If you have never played a Vampire game then this has everything you need.

Chill Vampires
I have gone on about this book before.  Chill Vampires is the standard to which all vampire related supplements to a horror game must be measured. Any game can produce a bunch of stats, some bad fiction and link them together, Chill: Vampires is a Master's Thesis on combating the undead. Not just notes for the would be vampire slayer (and game masters) but also detailed accounts of the most brazen of the undead. Complete with stats, history, motivations and the notes of previous investigators and SAVE agents.
This book is fantastic for any game but essential for a good Chill game. I would recommend it on the basis of the Dracula and Bathory write-ups alone, but there are more and even stranger and deadlier vampires in these pages.
Play if you like: Supernatural or The Night Stalker

James Mishler is an old name if you been doing this for a while.
He has a personal blog and his game company blog.  He also has a really awesome vampire book that I won a few weeks back.

Vampires of the Olden Lands
The Olden Lands is James' in house campaign the Chronicles of Mhoriedh.  All the books in this series are dual stated with Labyrinth Lord and Castles & Crusades stats.  This appeals to me on a number of levels.  I like that he went through the effort to do this and the nice effect is that between these two sets of stats you can play this under any old school version of D&D you like.   There is also plenty in this book that work with any other game as well.
We start out with some common protections against vampires.  We follow with 8 very different sorts of vampires including living, dead and spirit.  All dual stated.  There is a new race to play, The Dhamphir.  I have seen a lot of "Dhampirs" over the years, but this one is one of the best so far just in terms of simplicity.
All in all a really nice take and these vampires are not like the Dracula-Lestat-Edward clones that can populate so many other games.

Fang & Fury: A Guidebook to Vampires
This is an older book for 3.0 (not 3.5) D&D but there is still a lot of great things here.  This is certainly written from the D&D-fantasy world vampire; so feeding off of dragons and the like, what happens to certain  classes.  There are feats, prestige classes, monsters and gods. There are plenty of spells, magic items, weapons and artifacts.  There is really a lot of good stuff here and if you have vampires in your game then you need this.  If you have any vampire big-bads in your game then this is also a great buy.  Some of the material needs to be updated to 3.5 or Pathfinder, but nothing that is a show stopper that I could see.

Out for Blood

If there was anything you ever wanted to know about vampires or those that hunt them then this is your book. In the 200+ pages there are 18 new prestige classes, new uses for skills, feats, and of course tons of vampires. There are a handful of new spells and campaign ideas for using or hunting vampires in your game.
What I liked best about this book though was the Fist of Light Prestige Class. It was exactly what I was looking for in one of my games and I was happy to see someone else had done all the work for me.
The layout is very clean and clear and easy enough to read onscreen. The art varies, but most it is rather good.

There are a lot more including all the Ravenloft stuff.

And an honorable mention, Buffy the Vampire Slayer Roleplaying Game.  Someone has to kill all those vamps. Or date them. Whatever.

EDITED TO ADD: Forgot my own Vampire Basic Class

Want to know about Vampires?  Check out all the other members of this blog hop!