High Rock Press At Year's End

The end of another year is upon us.

I always feel dispirited when contemplating the passing of a season, let alone an entire year. Maybe it's the bitter Nevada cold (I'm a Floridian by birth), or maybe just the symbolic death of the trees in Autumn. And with the passing of 2017 I feel particularly melancholy, as this year has seen the death of author Michael Satran, my friend and colleague. It seems surreal that I won't go to Gencon next year, see him, and hear all about whatever bizarre madness he is currently working on. I'll miss that. Probably for the rest of my life.

However, in all fairness, this passing year has not been unkind to High Rock Press. We've released three books: Jess Nevin's Encyclopedia of Golden Age Superheroes, Darren Watts's Golden Age Champions, and Michael Surbrook's Goblins, Ghouls, and Golems. In conjunction with these three projects, we've also released another ten minor electronic projects. So not too bad, all things considered.

Thinking forward to next year, I've got some projects I intend to work on. They are not exactly the same as the projects I proposed a year ago in my ambitious (and retracted) production schedule, and I don't know if they will be the projects that, in the end, get produced. Who knows? Life is uncertain and the future is unknown. But I'll try to stick to it.

What I do know is that, going forward, I'm going to use this blog space in this website to post sections of whatever I'm working on so that you can see it. I think that's a better way make use of this website, and a good way to keep all of you interested in what I'm doing here at HRP. So, in no particular order, the 2018 products:

Champions Character Creation Cards: Create your Champions character in less than one minute using this versatile deck of 54 cards. Pick one Characteristics card, one Complications card, and three to ten Abilities cards to make your point-averaged superhero! Then upload the card numbers to the Hero Designer software to print your character sheets. Electronic files will be made available through Bits & Mortar for retail store customers.

The Last Orc: An epic fantasy novel by Scott Bennie set in a world where the war between Men, Orcs, and Dragons is reaching a horrifying conclusion. I'm editing it now, and it's written in a wonderfully high style, with engaging characters, and underlined with tragedy and loss. If George Martin possessed dignity, subtlety, or a sense of grandeur, he might have written something like The Last Orc.

Michael Satran's Imperial Throne: An organization book for the Hero System about a deadly conspiracy whose goal is to transform the world into a model of Chinese Heaven. It's 110,000 words of sheer Satranalian Champions madness. It's also the last 110,000 words of sheer Satranalian Champions madness we're ever going to see. So I'm going to publish it.

A Hero Book By Michael Surbrook No idea which one yet. Which ever one looks best. Ego Auditum Libri Ab Amicis Meis. And Michael always writes good stuff. 

So there we are. Keep an eye on this website to see parts of these projects as they are made public. And, as always, thank you for your continuing support.

Jason Walters, Publisher