The Gate

Invisible Sun

by Monte Cook

Genres: Role Playing Games, Fantasy

152 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2018

About the author

The game designer
Monte Cook started working professionally in the game industry in 1988. In the employ of Iron Crown Enterprises, he worked with the Rolemaster and Champions games as an editor, developer, and designer. In 1994, Monte came to TSR, Inc., as a game designer and wrote for the Planescape and core D&D lines. When that company was purchased by Wizards of the Coast, he moved to the Seattle area and eventually became a senior game designer. At Wizards, he wrote the 3rd Edition Dungeon Master's Guide and served as codesigner of the new edition of the Dungeons & Dragons game. In 2001, he left Wizards to start his own design studio, Malhavoc Press, with his wife Sue. Although in his career he has worked on over 100 game titles, some of his other credits include Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil, The Book of Eldritch Might series, the d20 Call of Cthulhu Roleplaying Game, The Book of Vile Darkness, Monte Cook’s Arcana Evolved, Ptolus, Monte Cook's World of Darkness, and Dungeonaday.com. He was a longtime author of the Dungeoncraft column in Dungeon Magazine. In recent years, Monte has been recognized many times by game fans in the ENnies Awards, the Pen & Paper fan awards, the Nigel D. Findley Memorial Award, the Origins Awards, and more.

The author
A graduate of the 1999 Clarion West writer's workshop, Monte has published two novels, The Glass Prison and Of Aged Angels. Also, he has published the short stories "Born in Secrets" (in the magazine Amazing Stories), "The Rose Window" (in the anthology Realms of Mystery), and "A Narrowed Gaze" (in the anthology Realms of the Arcane). His stories have appeared in the Malhavoc Press anthologies Children of the Rune and The Dragons' Return, and his comic book writing can be found in the Ptolus: City by the Spire series from DBPro/Marvel. His fantasy fiction series, "Saga of the Blade," appeared in Game Trade Magazine from 2005–2006.

The geek
In his spare time, Monte runs games, plays with his dog, watches DVDs, builds vast dioramas out of LEGO building bricks, paints miniatures, and reads a lot of comics.

Reviews

[Taddow · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the fourth of the Invisible Sun’s “core” rulebooks and I enjoyed a lot of the content inside. It’s an Invisible Sun Game Master book, and it offered information that helped me understand some of the game mechanics detailed in the other books. It also offers some additional “Advanced” rules for play and tips on running specifically an Invisible Sun game/campaign. Many of these tips were not that insightful to me, as I have used many of these methods/techniques before in non-Invisible Games (side scenes run by text, phone calls, email or short in person meetings are nothing new; I once ran an entire Dak Heresy adventure with a group of six players using only text message), but these ideas could be new material for those new to the hobby who have not yet realized that gaming can happen away from the group table (online or physical).

I found the best part of this book to be the section on the individual Soothe Cards with their meanings, possible interpretations, and how to use these in the game. While not every game should have it, I like the concept of including some type of tarot-like system in an RPG. Incorporating the Tarokka Deck (from Ravenloft) or the Emperor’s Tarot (from Warhammer 40,000, which I’ve tried to create on my own for my Dark Heresy games) offers some unique and potentially great game story/play opportunities.

[Jacob Heiner · Rating 2 out of 5]

As someone who is not planning on running this game, but who wants to plunder it for ideas, this has very little I found useful. I thought the GM advice was condescending, the tarot deck descriptions were plain, and the description of the gameplay was not particularly inspiring. I enjoyed the art, though.