Week 28 of 2025
Greetings all
Wooofff. It’s been a while, hasn’t it. I’ve definitely gotten out of the habit, but there’s no better time to get back on the horse than now, or so they say.
Anyway, thanks all for your patience.
I’ve been contemplating how better to serve you all with this newsletter, both to help you help me and also get value out of it. I’ve been dabbling with Substack and I think I might migrate over there. It’ll be free for you, but you might need to get a Substack account to access some of the better stuff. Anyway, it’s time for me to update this particular process, not simply get back to riding regularly.

The big news this week is the upcoming release of Vice Noir, including as you can see from the cover, myself! My story is a riff off some happenings in Kansas City in the mid 80s. It also mentions Lawrence, KS, where I was theoretically attending the University of Kansas at the time of this story. So my character could’ve met me if, of course, I’d actually gone to class.
I’ve also been traveling quite a bit of late. There was the trip to Lilies, where the wife spent the whole week at our merchant booth and I covered the store.
Then there was LibertyCon a couple of weeks ago. I’d give you an AAR, but it’ll match every other one. Those people are awesome, I got to do a bunch of cool stuff with them, and I got to talk about writing and my work. Great times as always.
Also in June, I did a bunch of work on Okkorim stuff. I’m excited to see us expanding to the Shadowdark RPG, as it’s much stronger than 5E, IMHO.
I’ve also been working on a couple of other projects, nibbling away at them now because they’re large. I do hope to have a bunch of news on these in the fall, though. I have ideas and I’m putting them down on the page.
Next week, as well, I’ll go over a smaller project I’ve been working at for a while that is almost ready to come out.
Okay, that’s enough for now, but I’ll try to keep this going better. Also, please let me know what you think of Substack. It has some real possibilities for me to provide content in better way.
What I’m Listening To
Schism from Tool. I love how Tool manages to take disparate elements into something amazing.
Quote of the Week
Today, in 2011, the Space Shuttle Atlantis made the final shuttle launch. Despite the Challenger and Columbia tragedies, I looked upon these as something special. I’d like to see us get to space. For a while there, I’d lost hope, but SpaceX has been amazing.
Anyway, today’s quote is from Countdown, the song by Rush after they got to watch the very first shuttle launch.
The bright stuff of dreams is still in me.
Circling choppers slash the night
With roving searchlight beams
This magic day when super-science
Mingles with the bright stuff of dreams
– Countdown, Rush
Rob’s Works in Progress
- Sowing Spring’s Wrath (3,213)
Upcoming Events
- Pennsic War, July 25 – August 10, Slippery Rock, PA
pennsicwar.org/ - P-Con, February 14-16, Dallas, TX
p-con.us//
New Releases
This week we have Vice Noir. I don’t have a link for it, but keep an eye on their Substack page for details: raconteurpress.substack.com.
Honestly, they’re kicking out so much awesome stuff, you should keep an eye there anyway.
Tracked Items
My Weight Today: 359.8lbs
Let me know if you have any suggestions on the website, this email, or cool story ideas at rob@robhowell.org. Especially let me know of suggestions you have for the Spotlight section.
Have a great week, everyone.
Rob Howell
Creator of the Firehall Sagas Universe
- Amazon Author Page: amazon.com/-/e/B00X95LBB0
- Website: robhowell.org
- Blog: robhowell.org/blog
- The Firehall Sagas: firehallsagas.com/
- Facebook Author Page: facebook.com/robho
well.org/ - Twitter: twitter.com/Rhodri2112