https://www.rolemasterblog.com/shadow-world-as-a-cross-platform-setting-what-would-it-take/
I have the fear of SW just fizzling out. In the best of worlds, there would be a couple of new books a year (thinkiing back to the time when SW was launched). I'm not in the position to write material myelf, but if someone decides to start working on something, I would be prepared to step up to do something, because SW is worthy of getting a lot more recognition than it has, at the moment. A coversion to 5E, yes, why not! To start working on the completion of the Grand Campaign, would be great, too!
It likely will. Let's face it, Terry was the only one keeping it afloat publishing-wise. And I shudder to remember all that was published without his direction and was awfully incompatible with his own publications and seemed to stem from different settings. The lack of strong editorial supervision was killing the line.
I also think that having the timeline progress in the official Shadow World products was a mistake. A moving timeline potentially invalidates everything that people have done in their own campaigns and that does not fit the updated timeline, and Shadow World was never a large market to begin with. I know for a fact that I could only use part of some products because of the progressing timeline, which was a shame.
Only a major effort would allow the Shadow World line to prosper, and this would require a bunch of engaged and involved people, a strong and committed direction, and proper investment to capture a market worthy of that effort and worthy of pushing out products on a regular basis. Historically, Shadow World never had those even in the heyday of ICE, and I can't see how it would get them now (no fault of the current iteration of ICE - there are things a small business just cannot do).
I also happen to think, after having played and GMed in Shadow World for the better part of 35 years, that RM is not an ideal ruleset for Shadow World. Or maybe it never had the RM hack it required, with a significant magic overhaul to fit the setting to a T.
Is Shadow World dead ? I don't know. A D&D 5e version could attract interest but would require both a large amount of work to convert it properly and significant effort to tweak the D&D rules to fit the setting properly (the recent Iron Kingdoms Requiem is an example of the kind of work required, not necessarily in terms of illustration effort, but at least in terms of design). Re-statting for RMU is IMHO secondary unless Shadow World becomes the official setting for RM, which opens its own can of worms ("official setting" means that the rules are made for this setting first and for others as an afterthought, which is definitely not the case for RM in general and RMU in particular). Porting it to HARP would be in the same boat - superfluous unless it becomes the official HARP setting. Other popular rulesets could be targeted but would require significant work as well (BRP-like - e.g. Mythras or similar; 2d6/Cepheus; or even the Cypher system which powers a variety of Monte Cook's settings).
But the first order of business is obviously to complete and publish what Terry left 'almost done' - namely, Emer IV. Personally, I will find it a waste of effort because I've already GMed a campaign in southwestern Emer and, as such, already have material that will likely be incompatible with what Terry wrote, but I guess most people want it published and I fully agree that it should be (I might even buy it, just because).
Beyond that, I would welcome new campaign modules - Terry hinted at Wuliris and northeastern Jaiman (presumably to complete the Jaiman setup and replace Sky Giants of the Brass Stair). I think Kelestia would be interesting as well - close enough to Jaiman and Emer to actually be useful, and not large enough to require multiple books (the other main point of interest would be Thuul, but there's no way you can do Thuul justice in a single book - it would require the same kind of effort as Emer).
Adventures, why not - I'm not sold on them because I never use them, but I gather that most people prefer to use existing adventure material (I don't) and it probably makes sense from a commercial point of view. But having a blank permission to publish anything under the Shadow World license without proper supervision would be a huge mistake in my opinion.
But most of all, I think the powers that be at ICE must have a long hard look at Shadow World and decide why it is a setting that is worth investing into. What makes it special ? What makes it an attractive, non-generic product ? What makes it something that make people buy books ? A run-of-the-mill medfan setting will not make the cut - there are plenty of those out there already. I know what made me buy the products from the days of the World of Loremasters onwards - it was the early work [Vog Mur, Cloudlords of Tanara, Iron Wind] and the feeling of a post-post apocalyptic multicultural fantasy setting where unfathomable darkness (not "evil" but "darkness") is lurking in the corners, not eager to conquer but eager to lure and consume. The Unlife is not evil so much as it is utterly alien - evil is for people who are deceiving themselves into thinking they can use the Unlife for their own benefit. The K'Taa'Viiri were alien as well - somewhere between men and gods, having self-destructed and left remains of their incomprehensible civilisation behind.
I had trouble with Terry's more recent work - the "lurking Unlife" was not lurking anymore, it was in full swing, and it made things less interesting. It also identified as evil and it made things less interesting as well. I partially blame the progressing timeline and the fact that he was probably feeding material from his own games into the line.
But I am only one person. And I don't need the line to survive commercially to continue using it for years - I have all I need and can imagine the rest. I would like to get more information on the setting - information on cultures, on religions, on social setups because it makes life easier and is more difficult to come up with than a campaign plot. But I don't *need* it from an official source.
What I would *really* like is to have Shadow World published for/with a ruleset that really does it justice. As far as I'm concerned, RM is not that ruleset.
