Monte Cook (born January 29, 1968) is an American professional tabletop role-playing game game design and writer, best known for his work on Dungeons & Dragons.
Role-playing industry career
Early years
Cook has been a professional game designer since 1988, working primarily on role-playing games.
Much of his early work was for Iron Crown Enterprises as an editor and writer for the
Rolemaster and
Champions lines.
Cook was at one point the editor in charge of both the "Campaign Classics" line of books for the
Hero System and the
Rolemaster line.
Cook worked for Iron Crown Enterprises for four years; two as a freelancer and two as a full-time designer.
During this period, Cook wrote the multi-genre setting
Dark Space (1990), which was a blend of fantasy, science-fiction, and horror.
Cook became the line editor for
Hero System, replacing Rob Bell, who left ICE in 1990.
Cook left ICE in the early 1990s.
TSR
Cook began working for TSR in 1992 as a freelancer: "writing a whole slew of stuff for the old Marvel game that never came out because the game got canceled".
In 1994 Cook came to work at TSR as a game designer.
Cook designed
Dungeons & Dragons modules such as
Labyrinth of Madness (1995) and
A Paladin in Hell (1998), and dozens of supplements to the
Planescape line including
The Planewalker's Handbook (1996) and
Dead Gods (1998). Cook also designed the conspiracy game
Dark•Matter in 1999.
Wizards of the Coast
After TSR was purchased by Wizards of the Coast, Cook became a senior designer, and was part of the team working on the
D&D game's third edition. Cook,
Jonathan Tweet, and
Skip Williams all contributed to the 3rd edition
Players Handbook,
Dungeon Master's Guide, and
Monster Manual, and then each designer wrote one of the books based on those contributions.
Cook was proud of the work he did on the new
Dungeon Master's Guide, especially after
Gary Gygax gave his team feedback on the book: "He said that the material in the new
DMG would help him become a better DM... That was really cool–and satisfying in a 'completion of the circle' sort of way."
In 2000, Cook said of his involvement with Wizards of the Coast and
Dungeons & Dragons: "It's a great time to be working here... because every product is big, important, and innovative."
Cook also worked on
Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil, and the d20
Call of Cthulhu (February 2002).
d20 licensed works and Malhavoc Press
Cook left Wizards of the Coast in 2001.
Cook wrote the adventure
Beyond the Veil (2001), one of the later releases in the "Penumbra" line of d20 System books from
Atlas Games.
Cook formed the new company
Malhavoc Press in 2001 to work with the Sword and Sorcery Studios imprint of White Wolf, starting with the d20
The Book of Eldritch Might (2001) as his first product.
was the first commercial book sold exclusively as a PDF to be published by a print company.
It was an immediate success and has been credited with demonstrating the viability of PDF publishing within the role-playing industry.
This and other early Malhavoc products were initially released only in electronic format, though print versions of most of them have since been released by White Wolf, Inc.
Malhavoc Press worked with Fiery Dragon Productions after Fiery Dragon ended their arrangement with Sword & Sorcery in 2002, and the majority of the licensed work from Fiery Dragon was through their arrangement with Malhavoc.
Cook's work under the Malhavoc banner has included
Arcana Unearthed: A Variant Players Handbook.
Cook set the d20 rulebook
Arcana Unearthed in his giant-dominated world of "The Diamond Throne".
He caused controversy in mid-2004 by exclusively selling his electronic d20 material with the DriveThruRPG.com store, which then used only a proprietary digital rights management-encrypted PDF system.
In August 2006, Malhavoc released Ptolus, a campaign setting based on Monte Cook's home game that was used as the playtest campaign for the third edition D&D designers.
Shortly after the release of Ptolus, which Cook has often described as the culmination of his original ambitions for Malhavoc, he announced that he would be focusing on writing fiction and other unspecified forms of creative work, rather than role-playing games, for the foreseeable future.
However, due to demand by fans reading his LiveJournal,
D&D Next
Cook returned to Wizards of the Coast in 2011. On September 20, 2011,
Mike Mearls announced that Cook would be taking over his "Legends & Lore" column for the Wizards of the Coast website.
In January 2012, it was revealed that Cook was to be the lead designer for the 5th edition of
Dungeons & Dragons.
In April 2012, Cook announced his departure from Wizards of the Coast due to "differences of opinion with the company" but not "with his fellow designers".
Monte Cook Games and Numenera
Cook co-founded Monte Cook Games, LLC with Shanna Germain in 2012,
which is a roleplaying game company that has produced
Numenera,
The Strange,
The Cypher System Rulebook,
Invisible Sun, and
No Thank You, Evil! which went to press in Fall 2015 after a
Kickstarter campaign raised over $100,000 to fund its publication.
Numenera is a Kickstarter-funded table-top RPG created by Cook, set a billion years in the future in a science fantasy and post-apocalyptic setting with streamlined rules that prioritize the story, the action, and the wild ideas. It raised over $500,000 (more than 25 times its goal of $20,000).
The Ninth World of Numenera was also the setting for a 2013 release of the Thunderstone Advance deck-building game by Alderac Entertainment Group,
The Strange is a Kickstarter-funded table-top RPG created by Cook and Bruce Cordell using the same Cypher System ruleset as Numenera. The game, which involves traveling through different worlds known as Recursions, was released in August 2014.
Invisible Sun is a Kickstarter-funded table-top role-playing game created by Monte Cook Games, with a street date released of September 20, 2018. It is a surreal fantasy game with many game accessories.
Stealing Stories for the Devil is a Kickstarter-funded table-top role-playing created by Monte Cook Games. It was released in February 2023.
Tidal Blades, the Roleplaying Game
Career
Author
Monte Cook is a graduate of the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writer's Workshop.
After graduating from the 1999 workshop, he has published the novels
The Glass Prison and
Of Aged Angels.
He has also published short stories like "Born in Secrets" (in
Amazing Stories), "The Rose Window" (in
Realms of Mystery), and "A Narrowed Gaze" (in
Realms of the Arcane).
He also writes a continuing
Call of Cthulhu fiction series,
The Shandler Chronicles, in
Game Trade Magazine.
In the non-fiction genre, Cook has written The Skeptic's Guide to Conspiracies.
Video games
Cook wrote dialogue for the
MMORPG Marvel Heroes.
Personal life
He is married to Sue Weinlein Cook.
External links
