Published Friday October 1st, 2010 The Associated Press SAN DIEGO - San Diego will be inundated by comic book collectors, celebrities and superheros every summer for at least five more years, following Comic-Con International's decision to stay where the event started 30 years ago despite competition from other cities wanting a piece of the sci-fi pie. San Diego city officials and the company that puts on the huge pop-culture event will announce a five-year contract Friday morning. The San Diego Union Tribune reports the contracts that Comic-Con negotiated for discounted hotel rates through 2015 were key to the decision. Other cities that tried to woo the company with offers of cheap hotel rooms and convention space included Anaheim and Los Angeles. "It's never been a secret we'd hoped to stay here, but the real challenge was that those who want to attend the event can afford to attend, in terms of size and space and cost," said Comic-Con spokesman David Glanzer. Comic-Con started in San [...]

Group vows to fill vacuum in space tourism market with orbiting facility Published Thursday September 30th, 2010 THE ASSOCIATED PRESS MOSCOW - A Russian firm announced an ambitious bid to fill the vacuum in the space tourism market by stationing an orbiting hotel in the cosmos yesterday. The Moscow-based Orbital Technologies has sky-high hopes that its planned Commercial Space Station can serve as a tourism hub for well-heeled travellers and offer overspill accommodation for the International Space Station and workspace for science projects. But it's unlikely to come anytime soon - the company wants to launch a seven-room station by 2016 but may increase or decrease that capacity based on customer demand. It also remained unclear whether the state-controlled RKK Energia company, named as the general contractor for the project, would have enough funds and capacities to carry out the plan. Energia builds Soyuz crew capsules and Progress cargo ships to deliver space crew and supplies to the International Space Station that would be the [...]

A NEW BASIC ROLEPLAYING SETTING Devil’s Gulch is a typical town of the American Old West from 1870 through 1885. It is a collection of buildings set along a single dirt road with side streets where private residences are found. It features saloons, a bank, a general store, and a church. Most buildings are made of wood, though some boast of a brick addition or a stone foundation). Hitching rails are found in front of most buildings, and water troughs are set sporadically along the main street. Train tracks form one of the town’s borders. On the outskirts of Devil’s Gulch are mines, ranches, and box canyons perfect for hiding desperadoes. The cast of characters includes gamblers, gunfighters, a preacher, a blacksmith, and a nymph du prairie (that’s a prostitute to those in the know). If you make Devil’s Gulch a base of operations for your Wild or Weird West campaign, the players may be interested in taking on the roles already filled by NPCs. [...]

An all-new sourcebook for Call of Cthulhu and Delta Green, developed by Arc Dream Publishing for publication by Pagan Publishing, and licensed by Chaosium Inc. Delta Green: Targets of Opportunity is a conglomeration of evils, many of them whispered in hints and rumors since the earliest days of Delta Green. Delta Green: Targets of Opportunity includes: Black Cod Island: An inhuman menace rises from the frigid waters of southern Alaska. Three hundred years ago the Haida Indians fought to stamp it out. They failed. Can a handful of Delta Green agents fare any better? M-EPIC: More than 100 years ago, Canada's Northwest Mounted Police established Division M to investigate unusual deaths in the far north. Over the years the division grew, slowly and quietly, as one after another of its own men died in bizarre attacks and uncanny circumstances. Today, M-EPIC is a top-secret agency with a nationwide charter. Few of its members know of its long history of using supernatural methods to battle the [...]

While we await the arrival of our next releases from the printers, we restocked our inventory of the ARKHAM HORROR boardgame and the CALL OF CTHULHU CARD GAME living card game from our friends at Fantasy Flight Games. ARKHAM HORROR For this classic co-operative boardgame comes a new expansion: THE LURKER AT THE THRESHOLD. Across Arkham, strange doors to other worlds have been opening. They seem to be a living part of an ancient and arcane creature that is reaching out, tempting the unwary with eldritch power. Now people are vanishing without a trace, and it’s up to a handful of bold investigators to confront the profane being who dwells just beyond these passages. CALL OF CTHULHU CARD GAME Erin Morai, a troubled but dedicated biology student, found herself strangely attracted to Tyler Scindere... which is why she agreed to follow him in the first place. Now, lured into darkness, will she retain her composure, and her very sanity, long enough to save herself? MURMURS [...]

Published Sunday August 29th, 2010 Mary Gazze, The Canadian Press TORONTO - Superheroes, video game characters and trekkers spent Sunday wishing they could get beamed up straight into the FanExpo convention in Toronto. Demand to get inside was so high, hundreds of fans lined up for hours around a city block to try to get into the convention, which celebrates many aspects of nerd-dom. The convention featured the latest in video games, comic books, science fiction, horror and Japanese Anime. Once inside, they stood shoulder-to-shoulder as they navigated through aisles of colourful comic books and plush toys. Many of the fans were happy to wait in line throughout the weekend-long event to meet celebs from TV's original Batman and the Star Trek series, including the man who starred as the original Captain Kirk. "It's worth it because we get to meet William Shatner!" said Robbie Nagle, from Brantford, Ont. "We get to meet all these cool people like Adam West. Who doesn't love the original [...]

Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows: Part 1 The latest installment of the Harry Potter saga deals with the hero's efforts to thwart the evil Voldemort's Death Eaters who have seized control of the Ministry of Magic and even Hogwarts school. BURIED This thriller starts with a truck driver waking up six feet (1.8 metres) underground, having no idea of his location, who put him there or why. He has only a lighter and a cellphone, whose battery is draining, to help him. Resident Evil 4: Afterlife The latest sequel in the popular sci-fi series, will see the heroine Alice (Mila Jovavich) continuing her journey to locate and rescue survivors in a world where a virus infection is transforming victims into the Undead. The Town Ben Affleck stars as an unrepentant criminal who leads a group of bank robbers who have built up a reputation for stealing what they want and getting away with it. Secretariat In this feature, the lead character is a horse [...]

September 10-12 is fast approaching, and sponsorship support is rolling in! The wonderful people at Chaosium, Studio 9, Out Of the Box, Midnight Syndicate have already delivered goodies for YOU, our players. There's even more incoming from across the globe, but I'm keeping them secret for now. When they arrive, you'll know in grand fashion. See everyone at our 9th annual gaming convention September 10-12 at the Chinese Commerce Center / Kent Theatre on Coburg Street.

Folks from Chaosium will attend a couple of conventions over the coming weeks. Charlie will fly out to Indianapolis for Gencon, and Meghan took off yesterday for a new German show, The Kraken, hosted and organized by the guys that ran the Tentacles show. Also next week we receive copies of a cool new Call of Cthulhu monograph exploring the cruel empire of Tsan Chan, and new Arkham Country adventures. CRUEL EMPIRE The cruel empire of Tsan-Chan will rise in 5,000 A.D. The liberated Old Ones will teach new ways to shout and kill, and revel and enjoy, and all the earth will flame in a holocaust of ecstasy and freedom. THE CRUEL EMPIRE OF TSAN CHAN offers a future history of the Cruel Empire of Tsan Chan, being an account of the year Five Thousand and the creation of Empire. ARKHAM COUNTRY TALES Our friends at Miskatonic River Press have just released their new collection of Call of Cthulhu adventures, MORE ADVENTURES IN ARKHAM [...]

Welcome to the Theater of Illusion, the legendary stage of magic hidden beyond the threshold of dreams and nightmares. Behold strange and mystifying acts performed by phantom magicians and discover the dark secrets that lie in wait beyond the veil of shadows. Nox Arcana invites you to enter a realm of magic and dark fantasy to immerse yourself in a soundscape of haunting melodies, mystical rhythms and pulse-pounding orchestrations. A lifelong fan of magic, Nox Arcana founder Joseph Vargo was inspired to create a musical tribute to the mysterious realm of illusion. "The setting for this concept album is an old Vaudeville theater, hidden from the outside world, where master magicians gather to display their talents every Halloween night. The 21 tracks take the listener on a musical journey throughout the theater and provide a cinematic soundtrack for the eerie acts that play out on stage. "Our music has always been very popular with magicians, and several professional illusionists have used various Nox Arcana CDs [...]