Book O' the Dead

by Lester Smith

The Book o' the Dead draws back the curtain of death and reveals the secrets of those who have been beyond the veil - and the horrifying Harrowed. These die-hard heroes live with the curse that while they should be pushing daisies, an evil manitou has hooked into each of their souls, keeping them from their rightful rest. This terrifying text contains new rules for generating undead heroes from scratch, as well as over 50 new mystical powers for the Harrowed to draw upon. There's more about the mysterious Prospector and his plan for the manitous' bosses, the all-powerful Reckoners. Plus, it's got a full-scale adventure for cadaverous characters still knocking the grave dirt from their wobbly knees. So, it's time to turn to the business of living (so to speak) as an undead hero. It's time to turn away from the light and ignore the voices of loved ones calling you to paradise. It's time to return to your cold flesh, scrape the grave dirt from your eyes, and start learning the forbidden secrets in this book o' the dead. And never you are the bogeyman.

Genres: Role Playing Games

127 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 1997

About the author

Elissa Malcohn has been published in Amazing Stories, Asimov's, Hugo Award winner Electric Velocipede, Hugo nominee Helix: A Speculative Fiction Quarterly, IPPY Silver Medalist Riffing on Strings, Tales of the Unanticipated, Bram Stoker Award winner Unspeakable Horror, and elsewhere. Her story "Hermit Crabs" (Electric Velocipede #14) appears in the recommended reading list in The Year's Best Science Fiction, 26th Annual Edition.

She was a John W. Campbell Award finalist in 1985 for best new science fiction writer of the year, reached preliminary ballot for a Nebula Award in 1989, and is a four-time Rhysling Award nominee for best speculative poetry of the year.

Covenant, the first volume of her Deviations series, was released by Aisling Press in 2007. See this blog entry for publication changes.

Covenant is now available as a free download (ISBN 978-0-9819764-0-2), in formats compatible with Kindle and other e-book readers, Palm and other PDAs, HTML for reading on a browser, and PDF (Acrobat Reader) reflowed to fit different-sized screens. In May 2009 Elissa released Volume 2, Appetite (ISBN 978-0-9819764-1-9).

Downloads are available at The Deviations Series website, Smashwords, and in even more formats at Manybooks.net.

Thanks to Rachel Baker for this review of both volumes at the Old Musty Books website, and to hosts Mark Eller (Chronicles)and Cyrus A. Webb (Conversations LIVE!) for having me on their shows. You can listen to the Chronicles interview here (click here for a transcript with accompanying photos and links) and to the Conversations LIVE! interview here (links-inclusive transcript here).

Elissa's novelette "Flotsam" and poem "Derivative Work" appear in the Oct./Nov. 2009 Asimov's. Work is forthcoming in the Dybbuk Press anthology She Nailed A Stake Through His Head: Tales of Biblical Terror (expected 2010), and elsewhere. Publication details here.

Elissa is also a participant in Operation E-Book Drop and keeps a Facebook fan page here."

Reviews

[Arthur B · Rating 3 out of 5]

Expansion on what's probably the most interesting part of the Deadlands setting. Full review: https://refereeingandreflection.wordp...

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favorite Rulebooks for my favorite RPG. Great rules for playing as a zombie. It's got so many great powers, easily just the best class in a table top RPG.