Monte Cook's World of Darkness

Right on the heels of their merger with CCP, White Wolf Publishing recently announced that they’ve tapped Monte Cook, author of the third edition D&D Dungeon Master’s Guide, Ptolus: City by the Spire, and the Book of Vile Darkness (among MANY other things), to recreate their core commodity, the World of Darkness campaign setting. The backdrop of the Vampire: The Masquerade, Werewolf: The Apocalypse, Mage: The Awakening, and several other modern-gothic RPGs, the World of Darkness has been the playground of choice for angsty gamers of all stripes since 1991.

Aside from Monte being probably the best-known “gaming celebrity” in the pen-and-paper industry, this seems like an odd step for White Wolf. With a fanbase that largely eschews the hack-and-slash, dungeon-crawl aspects of other fantasy RPGs, choosing the author of Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil and The Banewarrens mega-adventure feels like a disconnect. However, the announced book, Monte Cook’s World of Darkness, sounds more like a special stand-alone interpretation of the World of Darkness and not a revamping of the campaign setting’s still realitively new edition.

Monte Cook’s World of Darkness is scheduled for release next August at Gen Con 2007. You can read the full press release here.