Dark Ages: Vampire takes you to the nights before the Camarilla, when kine truly had reason to be afraid of the dark. The vampires of this bygone age ride the dark as lords, play their games with the crowned heads of Europe, and travel to the mysterious lands of the East as they wage their ages-old war.The diablerie of saulot, the waking of Mithras, the destruction of Michael the patriarch, the return of the Dracon -- it all means the time of reflection is over. The Inquisition stirs and the time to act is now. Across Europe, monarchs of the night set princes and barons at each other's undying throats. Young vampires take to the field ready to claim their domain and become powerful lords in their own right. Blood calls to blood.A complete guide to the dark faiths promoted by Cainites in the Dark Ages.

Did you know? • Freemasonry's first American lodge included a young Benjamin Franklin among its members. • The Knights Templar began as impoverished warrior monks then evolved into bankers. • Groom Lake, Dreamland, Homey Airport, Paradise Ranch, The Farm, Watertown Strip, Red Square, “The Box,” are all names for Area 51. An indispensable guide, Cults, Conspiracies, and Secret Societies connects the dots and sets the record straight on a host of greedy gurus and murderous messiahs, crepuscular cabals and suspicious coincidences. Some topics are familiar—the Kennedy assassinations, the Bilderberg Group, the Illuminati, the People's Temple and Heaven's Gate—and some surprising, like Oulipo, a select group of intellectuals who created wild formulas for creating literary masterpieces, and the Chauffeurs, an eighteenth-century society of French home invaders, who set fire to their victims' feet.

What is the relationship between religion and multi-player online roleplaying games? Are such games simply a secular distraction from traditional religious practices, or do they in fact offer a different route to the sacred? In eGods, a leading scholar in the study of virtual gameworlds takes an in-depth look at the fantasy religions of 41 games and arrives at some surprising conclusions. William Sims Bainbridge investigates all aspects of the gameworlds' religious dimensions: the focus on sacred spaces; the prevalence of magic; the fostering of a tribal morality by both religion and rules programmed into the game; the rise of cults and belief systems within the gameworlds (and how this relates to cults in the real world); the predominance of polytheism; and, of course, how gameworld religions depict death. As avatars are multiple and immortal, death is merely a minor setback in most games. Nevertheless, much of the action in some gameworlds centers on the issue of mortality and the problematic nature of resurrection. Examining EverQuest II, Lord of the Rings Online, Rift, World of Warcraft, Star Wars: The Old Republic, and many others, Bainbridge contends that gameworlds offer a new perspective on the human quest, one that combines the arts, simulates many aspects of real life, and provides meaningful narratives about achieving goals by overcoming obstacles. Indeed, Bainbridge suggests that such games take us back to those ancient nights around the fire, when shadows flickered and it was easy to imagine the monsters conjured by the storyteller lurking in the forest. Arguing that gameworlds reintroduce a curvilinear model of early religion, where today as in ancient times faith is inseparable from fantasy, eGods shows how the newest secular technology returns us to the very origins of religion so that we might "arrive where we started and know the place for the first time."

*Named a Distinguished Favorite in the LGBTQ Fiction Category of the 2021 NYC Big Book Awards!* An orc will take a human into his arms! When David went exploring with his friends, he figured they might come across some old ruins or maybe even fight a few monsters. He never expected that he'd wind up captured by an orc and turned into his pet; he expected even less that he'd actually like it! It all started when he was sitting in a jail cell, so desperate to escape that he agreed to trial by combat: The Ritual of Steel & Thunder. He opens the fight strong, but when his competitor manages to overpower him, things start to heat up and he realizes he may have signed on for more than he bargained for. Captain Khazak Ironstorm is the orc ranger responsible for David's arres—and after defeating him in combat, his new owner. Initially amused by his slave's antics, something deeper begins to grow between them—something dark that draws Khazak in as much as it troubles him. More confounding than that are the feats of agility and speed his new pet seems able to perform as if they were nothing. What he does know is that if there is anyone capable of taming this barbaric human's behavior, it's him. A tale of romance mixed with some humor, adventure, and a heaping helping of kink. Read all about the journey of David and Khazak as they learn to understand each other and uncover the mysteries of the magical world around them. Readers who love kink, BDSM, Dom/sub, and other elements of gay/male-on-male romance will love what this story has to offer.

The concentration of this monograph on Chinese spirit mediumship in Singapore is chiefly a device for focussing attention upon the most typical, although rather extreme, manifestation of the major religious orientation of the overseas Chinese. The accounts given here may chiefly be of value as a detailed record of religious rites, but it is hoped that the rites, shown in their institutional context, can also throw some light upon the wider ramifications of culture and society among the Chinese