Need a Valentine's Day palate cleanser?

Whether you want to get the sticky-sweet taste out of your mouth because you're bitter, or because you want to prepare for what's to come on this Day of Celebrating Romance and Love, we have just the collection of stories for you to read!

Art by Basil Wolverton

Weird Romance, the latest release from NUELOW Games is a collection of short horror, humor, and fantasy tales that are all tinged with the rosey color of romance. These stories were produced by great talents such as Steve Ditko, Dick Giordano, Basil Wolverton, Sam Schwartz, and others. They are well worth your time and money, whether you are just looking for some great reading material or have an interest in the lesser-known works of men who helped build the foundation upon which modern sequential storytelling rests. In addition to the great comics, the book also features a series of tables with which you can randomly generate a love interest for a player character in just about any RPG syste, (It wouldn't be a NUELOW Games release if we didn't toss RPG support in with the comics!)

You can get Weird Romance at RPGNow, DriveThruRPG, and DriveThruComics.

And for good measure, here's a trio of Valentine's Day-related adventure seeds...

* A cleric (or otherwise spiritual character) is awakened in the night by a small, winged humanoid--Cupid! He is being hunted by a group of cultists who want to eliminate love and romance from the world, clearing the way for the return of the Great Old Ones. Cupid is begging for the character's help and protection.

* A sworn and very deadly enemy of a player character suddenly wants not only a truce but also a romantic relationship with him or her. If rebuffed, the enemy will start to make life hell for everyone around the character until he or she accepts the offer of love. Investigations reveal that Cupid missed a shot his magic arrowand has caused this trouble. The party must find the demigod and get him to lift the spell. (In the end, the enemy, if the situation is handled correctly, could end up as an ally of the party, due to residual effects of the magic;)

* Cupid is distraught, because his female counterpart has been abducted by persons unknown. He demands that the party find and free her, or he will not inspire love and romance in anyone every again.

Piper Perabo (cos)playing Female Cupid

Reintroducing Zaza the Mystic

Last year, in the pages of News Hounds #1, we included a scenario for Lester Smith's CORE RPG where the Black Cat and reporters Ace Williams and Foggy Gibbons meet Zaza the Mystic and team up to defeat a Swami who has marked them all for death.

Now, Zaza returns in her own self-titled book, Zaza the Mystic, starring with her boyfriend, police detective Lt. Bob Wilson in four thrilling tales of mystery from NUELOW Games. In addition to the classic comics written by Jerry Seigel and drawn by Charles Nicholas, Rocco Mastroserio, and Jon D'Agostino, the contains OGL d20 System rules that will let players create "fake psychics" like Zaza, as well as criminal profilers, who use their powers of observation and insight into human psychology to get one step ahead of criminals and other enemies. This material, fully compatible with d20 Modern and NUELOW Games' other OGL d20 releases, was designed by our own Steve Miller.

In addition to the original game material, Steve also filling in tiny bit of information about Zaza's background, including her full name and a little bit about her childhood. Her original publisher, Charlton Comics, never explained much about where she came from or where she learned her cold-reading skills, other than to describe her as the "Queen of Gypsy Mystics." (A total of six Zaza stories were published in 1956, in issues 10 and 11 of Zaza the Mystic. (The numbering continued from Charlie Chan Comics.)

Here's how Steve summed up how Zaza came to be a crimebuster:

How do you rebel if you're a teenager who's been raised in a circus to be the Gypsy Queen of Fortunetellers and to bilk the rubes out of money? If you're Zaza Kamlo, you run away to the big city, date a police officer, and use your talents to catch criminals rather than being one.

Zaza the Mystic is on sale now at RPGNow, DriveThruRPG, and DriveThruComics. Click on the name of your favorite Onebookshelf site to get your copy today!

A new comics/rpg hybrid for 'new comics day'!

Comic readers all across the land know that Wednesday is tthe day new comics arrive at the store. Well, we actually got our act together here at NUELOW Games, and we've released a new comic book on New Comics Day!

Feary Tales is our latest addition to our line-up of comics/rpg hybrid books. It contains six short horror stories, all twisted adaptations of fairy tales, and most of them from the brilliant mind of Steve Ditko (in his pre-Marvel Comics days).

For RPG gamers, it presents an all-new race of monsters--the Faery Ghouls. They can be dropped into pretty much any d20 System game you like, although, like most NUELOW OLG material, they are designed foremost for OGL Modern. The book also contains Tom Thumb is lost, a single-player mini-game.

Feary Tales is available at all the usual outlets. You can click here to see previews, or to get your own copy. It is presently on sale for 25 percent off the usual price, as part of the ongoing Christmas in July celebration! (The discounted price is good until August 1.)