If I haven’t had time to blog as much this month, it’s because my work as the Creative Director of Story & Setting at Asmodee has kept me busy! March saw the release of the first Legend of the Five Rings video game, the launch of a brand-new Arkham Horror website, as well as my guest appearance on a livestream of the newly released Arkham Horror Lovecraft Letter!

It’s been some time since I posted an update about the projects I’ve been working on as an Asmodee Franchise Development team member, so I wanted share some of the recent and upcoming releases set in the world of Arkham Horror!

This spring, Aconyte Books released what I consider to be the first true Arkham Horror setting guide, Welcome to Arkham: An Illustrated Guide for Visitors. I’m so incredibly proud of the work put in by the team on this full-color hardcover book, as it turned out beautifully and is absolutely stuffed with amazing artwork, pieces of ephemera, and detailed lore from the Arkham Horror series of games.

Back when Arkham Horror Third Edition was released, circa 2018, I worked as the editor on the lore sections of the Deluxe Rulebook, a limited-edition pre-order bonus which detailed the various neighborhoods and locations featured in that game. However, the base game covered only parts of the legend-haunted city. For Welcome to Arkham, we brought back my dear friend A.P. Klosky to flesh out the remaining locations from the Arkham Horror games, including the classic Lovecraftian locales of Dunwich, Innsmouth, and Kingsport, as well as some brand-new locations that have never appeared in the IP before! The 176-page book also includes excerpts from “The Book of Living Myths,” the in-world bestiary of Mythos monsters put together by Kōhaku Narukami, one of the new investigators from The Feast of Hemlock Vale expansions for Arkham Horror: The Card Game. Horror author David Annandale also contributed an eerie tale told across letters, postcards, and other pieces of ephemera scattered throughout the book.

I view Welcome to Arkham as the setting gazetteer companion to Dark Horse’s The Art of Arkham Horror, a traditional coffee-table art book, and Fantasy Flight Games’ The Investigators of Arkham Horror, a short story anthology I edited in 2017. To celebrate the release of Welcome to Arkham, Aconyte Books also released a digital updated edition of The Investigators of Arkham Horror, which you can purchase from DriveThruFiction or your preferred ebook retailer. The updated edition includes the two stories of Calvin Wright and Daniela Reyes from the Arkham Horror Third Edition Deluxe Rulebook, as well as a brand-new tale featuring Alessandra Zorzi. The Countess originally debuted in Josh Reynolds’s Arkham Horror novels but made her way into the card game as a playable investigator this spring in The Feast of Hemlock Vale.

Looking ahead to this summer, Edge Studio is releasing their starter set product for Arkham Horror: The Roleplaying Game, Hungering Abyss, just in time for Gen Con! Based on the “Night of the Zealot” scenario from the Arkham Horror LCG, it’s meant as an introduction to roleplaying, the setting, as well as Edge’s new Dice Pool System (DPS). If you’ll be at Gen Con this year and want to check out the game, get yourself a ticket for the Comets of Kingsport scenario or drop by the Grand Central Ballroom (rooms A – D) in the Crowne Plaza Hotel with some generics in case a seat opens up.

Finally, in Arkham Horror comic book news, take a look at this awesome cover featuring Jenny Barnes for The Terror at the End of Time from Dark Horse Comics! The issue comes out August 7, so be sure to stop by your friendly local comic book shop to get the first installment of the limited series.

Image Source: Aconyte Books

In my role as Creative Director of Story & Setting for Fantasy Flight Games, I had the opportunity to talk along with designer MJ Newman to NPR’s James Perkins Mastromarino about the ways Arkham Horror differs from “pure Lovecraftian” horror, as well as the recently released The Scarlet Keys campaign expansion for the card game. Working to make the game world one where everyone can have fun and feel included hasn’t been without its challenges, but I’m so proud of the team and grateful to our cultural and sensitivity consultants for making The Scarlet Keys so special.

You can read the interview “How ‘Arkham Horror’ games take the nihilism and racism out of Lovecraft” on WBUR’s website.

Part of my day job involves reading the amazing tie-in fiction from Aconyte Books featuring Fantasy Flight Games’ proprietary IPs, and now you can grab up to 22 titles from their backlist at an amazing price as part of this month’s Humble Book Bundle. Plus, you’ll be supporting Worldreader, a global nonprofit bringing digital books children and their families, empowering them to read, think, and grow in order to improve their lives and their world.

From June 30th through July 21st, you can get an incredible collection of books by Aconyte’s fabulously talented authors. Explore the settings of Arkham Horror, Legend of the Five Rings, Twilight Imperium, and a slew of other fantastic properties for just $1, $10, or $18.

The collection also includes an anthology of the first four Arkham Horror novellas I edited. It was amazing to work with the authors of Dark Origins: The Collected Novellas, Vol. 1 to bring some of the investigators of the famous board game to life. If you haven’t read how Jenny Barnes, Roland Banks, Norman Withers, or Silas Marsh first encountered the Mythos, now’s your chance!

Head over to @HumbleBundle where you can snag 3, 8, or 22 titles from across our many worlds! You get an amazing deal, and you're also supporting a great cause.

Check out the bundle here: https://t.co/LiTh5ibkgJ pic.twitter.com/VbHO2uedcV

— Aconyte Books (@AconyteBooks) July 1, 2022

As part of the #GenConOnline programming this year, I got to chat all things Arkham Horror with my colleagues MJ Newman and Philip D Henry as well as some of the awesome authors at Aconyte Books.

Arkham Horror is the classic board game of Lovecraftian adventure originally designed by Richard Launius in 1987 and revitalized in 2005 (2nd edition) and 2018 (3rd edition) by Fantasy Flight Games. As a setting, its stories primarily revolve around a group of ordinary folks investigating mysteries of cosmic horror in and around Arkham, Innsmouth, and creepy New England. Unlike some traditional Cthulhu Mythos games or stories, Arkham Horror has strong pulp and even noir influences, so during the game players can end up with a nun riding a motorcycle shooting Cthulhu in the face with a blessed shotgun. That’s one extreme, anyway, and other games and novels explore the creeping dread and horror aspects of the setting.

Like many people, Arkham Horror 2nd edition was actually my first “hobby” board game. I’ve been working on the Arkham Horror brand since 2014, first as the editor for the Investigators of Arkham Horror anthology and the seven Arkham novellas that are soon to be collected in Aconyte’s first omnibus, Dark Origins. As time went on, I also began coordinating FFG’s internal story group for the Arkham Horror setting, so I’ve gotten to work with MJ and Phil on games such as Mansions of Madness 2nd edition, Arkham Horror 3rd edition, the Living Card Game, and more. Now I get to work closely with Aconyte to get the tone and feel and details of the setting right.

Check out the full video on YouTube here, or watch it below!