Happy New Year from the Rolemasterblog. 2021…what a year…I’m going to call this past year a loss and move on to the next, but wanted to put some thoughts in order and reflect on a few items.
R.I.P. Terry Amthor. 1958-2021. For the Rolemaster and Shadow World community, there is no greater loss than Terry’s passing. While Shadow World is his most comprehensive work product, Terry was an icon in the early days of roleplaying: one of the founders of I.C.E., author to seminal MERP products, author of the Mentalism realm to note a few. While the future of Shadow World seems dim, many of our lives were brightened by his creativity.
RMU. Another year gone by and RMU is still in process. While I use my own rules (SWARM: Shadow World Alternate Rolemaster), I see RMU as a critical milestone for the company. I’m not sure if there is another ruleset left “in the tank” for ICE given everyone’s age and their resources. I imagine someday in the future–the IP might be bought out and given new life as a legacy product.
Priest-King of Shade. PK was submitted in 2013 in first draft form. Since then, during the editing passes, I have made roughly 200 changes for spelling, punctuation and grammar and added roughly 4 pages of finishing material. That’s not a lot of editorial work–the product is basically complete. However, I always felt it was a long shot given Terry’s reluctance for third party work, and the other priorities in the queue at I.C.E. However, my goal has always been, and still is, to get at least 1 Shadow World product officially published! I still have hope!
Rolemasterblog. This was not a great year for the team here. It looks like we only posted about 60 times TOTAL–a little over 1/week and I had 40-45 of those. Our past output of 1 blog/day seems unreal!
RMBlog Adventues and DrivethruRPG. Our RMBlog adventures production sort of whimpered out…BUT…for 2021 we sold a total of 1280 units via DrivethuRPG. That’s something!!!!! The top selling hook was The Inn of Dusk with 60 sold, followed up by Grosks Tavern with 51 sold. Thanks everyone!
My Shadow World Stuff. This was not my most productive year getting new material up on the Forums or RMBlog. In January I put up the last Chapter 5 of my “Legends of Shadow World” 50th lvl adventure module, and the Shadow World “Channeling Handbook”. That was it….
There were some good conversations over on the Forums, including this one about the nature of “Evil”.
Best wishes for a great 2022!