Vade Mecum is a 160-page hardcover book with full-color art. And the art is amazing, really helping to evoke the gloomy, decadent world of CthulhuTech. This is definitely not a game for young children (if you couldn't tell by the cover). Further enhancing the "futuristic Lovecraftian" atmosphere are seven short stories, so there's plenty of backstory to flesh out your campaign (so to speak). For more hardcore gamers, there's plenty of crunch for the $39.99 cover price, including, "more than a dozen new unspeakable horrors, including the option to portray corpse-eating ghouls as Characters."

I'm not sure anything else in the book will top that, but it also has over 20 new "machines of death," a bunch of new magic rituals, a system for psychic powers, and three new professions. It could be interesting to play a Zoner, a character who starts out insane. Or perhaps you'd prefer portraying the lovechild of a human and an otherdimensional being. There are detailed fighting trees that allow you to chain together certain moves for devastating attacks, and those attacks can target specific body parts with the hit location chart. It's all fun and games until someone suffers a "Genital Injury." Ow.

Apparently, the CthulhuTech core book has been selling very well (the first printing sold out), so if you're looking for an RPG that's quite a bit darker than the usual swords and wizards affair, there are some kindred spirits out there. Image by: Catalyst/Widlfire.

Dust is actually two different games. The "Premium Rules" allow each player to control an established superpower in world that has been divided by the battle to acquire and use alien technology. The "Epic Rules" start each player with a meager power base that gradually expands as the game goes on. The epic version can take up to six hours, compared to the three or four hours for the shorter version.

Each game plays out on a large map of Earth, and has some similarities to Axis & Allies - you produce units, move existing units and then fight your battles. The turn order is determined by an innovative mechanic in which each player secretly chooses a card. The cards set the order of battle along with production and combat limits. On any given turn, you're forced to compromise with yourself and hope your cards fit in with your plans for conquest. The coolest part of Dust is the mix of WWII flavor with alien tech. The mechs look like walking Sherman tanks, and the air units are strange, boxy machines. You can read both versions of the rules online. Images by: Fantasy Flight Games.