James Raggi introduces the Nebulith

James describes it as "Zak's best work". Also as something that you, the audience, should buy as soon as possible. 

And here's why.  

 

Second to last F. Paul Wilson's book...

FPW is one of my favourite authors, ever. If you just count those who are alive tomorrow, he's definitely in top 3. 

The Keep was one of those books that defined fantasy to me. And then I discovered Repairman Jack, and the idea of an urban mercenary who is forced to fight the unnamed horrors from the pages of Secret History of the world was cool. And there were bits of real life in the stories that made them better - the dirty secrets of modern "psychics" and cults. 

The Upwelling is the penultimate book that he had written. 

The last one should come out this autumn. 

It's like those tales about master swordsmiths who create their finest blades before retiring forever. The Hidden duology is F. Paul Wilson's last. 

It might turn out to be his finest. 

Anyways, you can now buy The Upwelling, first book of The Hidden. 

And keep your eyes open for the second book, Lexie. 

Thinking of more LotFP-compatible stuff...

Fact: Ursula Le Guin was one of the great ones. That goes without saying. 

Fact: Le Guin's magic in Earthsea is cool. It is very non-Vancian mechanically (in the D&D fire-and-forget meaning), but also very Vancian in the mood (wizard of the Dying Earth desperately try to recover lost spells, out of which only about a hundred are still known; wizards of Earthsea spend years finding out a single word of True Speech - not that I think of it, "The Dying Earthsea" sounds like a good adventure title). A wizard talks to the world in the language of creation, and the world listens. 

Which is why I'm now working on a tribute adventure, with a new class and magic and probably a magic item or two and all that jazz. 

And it's probably going to be somewhat like silver bestseller All Dogs Go To Hell which you can buy here, and the magic items are probably going to be along the line of Magic Item Collection and Generator which you can also buy here. It's a little something that I like to call creative style. 

 

The greatest horror game ever is here.

That's pretty much it, folks. 

DEMON CITY can now be bought, both in printed format and as a PDF. 

I've had the PDF for some time now, and I'm really happy with how it's designed.

It's pure poetry, in the sense that it's strange, follows its own rhyme and reason, and has a really high information to volume ratio.

For example: explanation of how to play takes a couple pages, and it's presented as an "Actual Play" situation. The players make decisions, forget about stuff, remind each other about the stuff, and face the consequences. It's very comprehensible and fun to read. 

Character generation is smooth and bright. 

The art is gorgeous. It's Zak Smith at his best, and Shawn Cheng also at his best. Linda Tirado added to it, too, text-wise.

There's a bestiary of sorts - descriptions of the many kinds of monsters and horrors and what they do. 

There're adventure seeds presented as movie posters, which is a great way to do this thing. 

There are rules for how to play monsters as PCs if you're into it, and frankly, who's not into it? 

My favourite part of the game is, like I always say, how easy it is to play it in the Here and Now. We played it in war-torn Ukraine, as members of local territorial defense unit who are called upon to investigate stuff that the police has no time or desire to deal with, and it felt very natural, the real bits of the city around us naturally flowed into the game. Later we played it online and the game took place in LA and it still felt natural and living. 

It's a great game.

You should get it. 

This is gonna be good.

In case you didn't know, Zak is taking down his Cube World adventures that are available from his Store. They'll be gone after this year ends. 

Instead, he suggests this. 

The Compendium that has all the Cube World stuff and then some. 

Hardcover. 

Efficient. 

Beautiful. 

I mean, look at this. 

 

So if you, like me, want this, you have until January 1st to write to Zak and to ask for it. 

Sweet.

Zak's new art book

So here's Zak's new book, collecting his artworks from 2000's and until today. Twenty years ago the Orange Revolution halted the totalitarian usurpation in Ukraine. Today things are quite horrible, but art is still art.

I've ordered it already, but it'll take some time to get it from Europe. 

Personally, I like this spread. 

Something in the colour scheme appeals to my Ukrainian patriotism. 

The cover looks cool, too. 

 It's discounted now, but soon will be sold at full price. 

You can get it here.