Monthly Archives: July 2025

Weekly Update

Rob’s Update: Diary of a Madman

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Week 30 of 2025

Greetings all

It’s almost time for Pennsic! If you see me there and mention you saw this message, I’ll give you a special discount.

I’ve spent much of the past two weeks packing and prepping. At Gulf Wars, I tried out a new layout. It wasn’t perfect on the trial run, of course, but I enjoyed it anyway and I think this will be better. Let’s hope my measurements work.

I also edited another module in Okkorim. We put one out each month, and I like the steadiness of the work.

Most of what I did these past two weeks is worldbuilding, or rather, galaxy building. I’ve had an idea for a mil SF in the style of Red Storm Rising, one of my favorite books, and I’ve written a bunch of snippets here and there over the past few years. I’m finally getting serious about it.

I focused on the astrography and political structure. This involved picking out a nearby set of stars that might have planets, setting up governments, fleets, and so on. I’m not done with that, but I’ve made huge progress. It’s exciting.

Over Pennsic, I aim to do a bunch of editing on some existing projects, expanding the worldbuilding, and perhaps even writing another short story for Raconteur Press.

With that, I’ll see you all soon!

What I’m Listening To

We’re watching Burn Notice tonight. What a fun show.

Quote of the Week

I saw Ozzy a few times over the years, though sadly not the farewell show. No More Tears remains one of my favorite albums, though my favorite of his non-Sabbath songs is Diary of a Madman.

Today’s quote, however, is from Flying High Again.

I can see through mountains, watch me disappear
I can even touch the sky
Swallowing colours of the sound I hear
Am I just a crazy guy (you bet)

– Ozzy Osbourne, Diary of a Madman

Rob’s Works in Progress

  • Sowing Spring’s Wrath (3,213)

Upcoming Events

Tracked Items

My Weight Today: 360.2lbs

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

Weekly Update

Rob’s Update: Vice Noir

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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.

Vice Noir
Vice Noir

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

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