17 Facts About Monte Cook

Monte 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.

Monte Cook worked for Iron Crown Enterprises for four years; two as a freelancer and two as a full-time designer.

Monte Cook became the line editor for Hero System, replacing Rob Bell, who left ICE in 1990.

Monte 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 Monte Cook came to work at TSR as a game designer.

Monte Cook wrote the adventure Beyond the Veil, one of the later releases in the "Penumbra" line of d20 System books from Atlas Games.

Monte 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 as his first product.

Monte Cook set the d20 rulebook Arcana Unearthed in his giant-dominated world of "The Diamond Throne".

Monte Cook caused controversy in mid-2004 by exclusively selling his electronic d20 material with the DriveThruRPG.

Monte Cook eventually succumbed to pressure from his customers to sell his products in standard-PDF form, and DriveThruRPG has more recently done the same.

Shortly after the release of Ptolus, which Monte 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, and posting their desires on the Malhavoc message boards, Monte Cook released one more RPG product in early 2008, The Book of Experimental Might.

Numenera is a Kickstarter-funded table-top RPG created by Monte 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.

Monte Cook has stated that David "Zeb" Monte Cook's Planescape fantasy world was a significant influence on concepts in Numenera.

Monte Cook is a graduate of the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writer's Workshop.

Monte Cook writes a continuing Call of Cthulhu fiction series, The Shandler Chronicles, in Game Trade Magazine.

Monte Cook was married to Sue Weinlein Cook, although they are now divorced.