A town with as many dark secrets as Pinebox is bound to have an equally spooky Halloween, right? Our friends at FlamesRising.com have posted a short travel essay on the Pinebox Fall Fest written by 12 to Midnight’s Preston P. DuBose. Fall Fest begins on Halloween and extends through Day of the Dead. The festival includes a parade, food tents, costumed street dance, and much more! Read between the lines and introduce your players to a weekend of mystery, intrigue, and danger at the Fall Fest!

The day that we have been waiting for has finally arrived–the day that we can talk about this announcement on the Pinnacle front page. Since the news there rotates weekly, I’ll paste the most relevant part here below. To say we’re excited about this new direction is an understatement. Having Pinebox become an official Savage Worlds setting is like watching our high-schooler graduate and move off to college. And with ETU: Degrees of Horror coming out, that description is very apt!

The terrifying tales of Pinebox, Texas are coming to Pinnacle Entertainment! With the writing of ETU: Degrees of Horror all but complete, the stars have aligned and the time has come to reveal the Grand Convergence. Effective immediately, longtime Savage Worlds licensee 12 to Midnight is passing the reins to Pinnacle for the production and sale of Pinebox setting titles. This lets Ed Wetterman, Preston DuBose, and the rest of the 12 to Midnight creative team concentrate on what they love (writing for the Pinebox setting) and Pinnacle to give you more of what you love (in particular, Pinebox horror materials for Savage Worlds).

So what does this mean, exactly? It means that Pinebox will be getting more exposure than ever before. It means that we can focus on producing more new, cool Pinebox material while someone else focuses on production schedules, art direction, layout, and so on. For you, it’ll mean more new Pinebox content, more regularly than we’ve been able to produce before.

With this new focus comes changes to our catalog of titles. Now that Pinebox is an official Pinnacle setting for Savage Worlds, we are retiring the d20 editions of our Pinebox titles. That means that if you want PDF copies of Last Rites, The Beast Within, Brainwashed, Bloodlines, or Skinwalker for d20 Modern, you’d better get them this month. At the end of the month, they’ll be retired for good. Expect a sale shortly. On the flipside, since we’re focusing on Pinebox for Savage Worlds, our military horror PDF titles Weekend Warriors, Innana’s Kiss, and Fire in the Hole will be retired from the Savage Worlds system. After the end of this month, they will only be available for the modern d20 System. Don’t worry– we’ll put the affected titles on sale this week so that you can afford to stock up before they’re gone for good.

I know the 12 to Midnight front page has been dead lately (ba-dum-dum-chit), but that has partially been by design. We haven’t been able to talk much about the future until this news became public. Expect a lot more news here in the coming weeks and months. ETU is completely written and is being proofread. The Raven’s Report is rising from the ashes. A new stand-alone Pinebox adventure is almost done. We’ve got great things in store for Pinebox, so we hope you’ll stick around… if you dare!

It’s official! Buried Tales of Pinebox, Texas is shipping this week to distributors. If you want the print book, visit the Buried Tales site for a list of online retailers or ask your FLGS to order TWL6001.

Today also marks the release of the Buried Tales ebook. At the moment, you’ll find Buried Tales on the Midnight Cellar and the OneBookShelf family of sites, including RPGNow, DriveThruRPG, and DriveThruHorror. From those sites, you can download a PDF. Within the next couple of days we’ll be adding a second file in EPUB format, which is the relatively new universal ebook format. That format, which is reflowable, makes for a better reading experience on portable e-ink devices. We also have a Kindle edition in the works, which will be available through Amazon.com (naturally). We hope to have that up by the end of the weekend.

There’s one thing I’d like to mention about the e-book. We’re pricing it low–only $4.99–compared to the print price. At that price, we’re not making much money on the ebook. We priced it low because we really want y’all to give Buried Tales a try. We have faith that if you try it, you’ll like it enough to buy it in print. If (or rather when) you read and enjoy the Buried Tales ebook, please consider picking up a print copy for your shelves.

Everyone should extend Mike "Bloodshadows" Dukes some holiday cheer, because we all have him to thank for a special Christmas-themed Bite of Midnight. That’s right! Just in time for some holiday gaming, we are pleased to offer you a new, free adventure called Five Days Until Christmas. In this adventure for the Savage Worlds system, not all is merry in Pinebox. A series of strange, "accidental" deaths plague a family mere days before Christmas. Five Days Until Christmas expands upon Pinebox lore, bringing greater detail to a previously mentioned location. Get your copy today!

PINEBOX, Texas — RPG publisher 12 to Midnight is launching a monthlong charity initiative called the Midnight Charity Project. This year the initiative, which runs from midnight December 1 to midnight December 31, will raise money for the Autism Research Institute. 

12 to Midnight is offering several ways for gamers to participate. First, they can bid in an online auction to win a guest role as an NPC in the upcoming college-horror RPG campaign book, “ETU: Degrees of Horror.” You can also bid on an official City of Pinebox death certificate or an autographed copy of 12 to Midnight’s adventure “Bloodlines.” Finally, when you purchase products from Midnight Cellar, 12 to Midnight’s store, the company will donate 100% of the purchase price of Last Rites of the Black Guard, Brainwashed and Skinwalker, as well as 20% of the proceeds from all other titles, to the Autism Research Institute.

Anyone who participates in the charity project is invited to further help raise awareness by using the html or BB-code snippets found on the Midnight Charity Project home page. Also, throughout the month of December, 12 to Midnight will post articles about autism at 12tomidnight.com.

Other RPG publishers, podcasters, bloggers and everyday gamers are invited to participate in the Midnight Charity Project and help grow it into a hobby-wide, focused campaign. If you would like to donate merchandise, airtime, space on your blog, banner ads or anything else, please send an e-mail to mcp at 12tomidnight.com.

The Autism Research Institute (ARI) is the hub of a worldwide network of parents and professionals concerned with autism. ARI was founded in 1967 to conduct and foster scientific research designed to improve the methods of diagnosing, treating and preventing autism. ARI also disseminates research findings to parents and others worldwide seeking help. The ARI data bank, the world’s largest, contains over 40,000 detailed case histories of autistic children from over 60 countries. 

12 to Midnight has been publishing RPG materials—primarily adventures for modern horror campaigns—since 2003. The company also publishes the works of two game design studios, Dirty Unicorn Games and Fabled Environments. This year marks the inaugural year of the company’s Midnight Charity Project.