Welcome

To the one hundred-and-twenty-sixth Briefing and first scheduled Briefing of 2022, and a very happy and healthy new year to all of you.

My Christmas reading was the duology of novels by Proxima and Ultima by Stephen Baxter, River of Stars (set in an alternate 12^th-century Song Dynasty China) and Children of Earth and Sky (set in an alternate Europe). Elsewhere I watched Spiderman: No Way Home and Ghostbusters: Afterlife.

A Retrospective on 2021

2021 has been another year dominated by the pandemic.

2021 was the year in which we tragically lost Terry Amthor.

The website issues were successfully resolved with a move to a new hosting provider. HARP Bestiary completed layout and was published in pdf and made it to print in December. HARP Garden of Rain completed layout and has also been published in pdf (with a print master in progress). HARP Beyond the Veil and HARP Subterfuge remain in layout. The full manuscript of HARP Steampunk has arrived. All of the artwork was completed for RMU Arms and Character Law, nearly all is completed for RMU Spell Law, and the commissioning process is well underway for RMU Treasure Law. The RMU Character Companion has been extensively worked on.Although we decided to roll over our Gen Con 2021 spot to 2022, we cautiously attended Dragonmeet.

2022

Looking to our hopes for 2022 in terms of new products.

In HARP, we will progress HARP Garden of Rain to print. Both HARP Beyond the Veil and HARP Subterfuge will be published as they are nearly finished in layout. We also expect to see HARP SF Poseidon Gambit see publication. HARP Steampunk will go to editing and beyond. We received an unexpected adventure module manuscript (Tales from Banecroft) in December, which we will seek to progress through to publication.

Colin and I will continue the Cyradon work in terms of the adventure module refresh.

For Shadow World, I will be working my way carefully through the Emer IV files to piece together Emer IV, Terry’s last full manuscript. We expect to publish Priest-King of Shade and will progress The Night of the Third Moon adventure module through editing, and make further headway on the HARP Handbook for Shadow World.

In RMU, I have now completed a full editing pass on the first volume of Creature Law. It is back with Aaron for some minor corrections and adjustments.Given the artwork status achieved already for Arms and Character Law and Spell Law, both of those will be heading into layout shortly. Expect 2022 to be the year when we publish RMU.

In software, we expect to release a set of ERA datasets for Spacemaster: Privateers.

With a little luck, other projects for HARP and Rolemaster will reach full draft or equivalent status in 2022.

The ongoing pandemic means that conventions remain uncertain. However, we hope that Gen Con 2022 and Dragonmeet 2022 will run in a more normal way, and we will gladly support any fans who are willing to run games at conventions (physical and virtual), through prizes and other assistance.

Until next time

Please stay safe.

Best wishes,

Nicholas

Director, Iron Crown Enterprises Ltd