Editing Ronin Arts (section)

==History==
Author [[Philip J. Reed]] and artist [[Christopher Shy]] formed the new company Ronin Arts in 2003 to showcase their talents.<ref name="designers">{{Cite book|author=Shannon Appelcline|title=Designers & Dragons|publisher=Mongoose Publishing|year=2011| isbn= 978-1-907702-58-7}}</ref>{{rp|374}} The first version of their website sold both the ''101'' series of books by Reed as well as illustrated art books such as the edition of ''[[Herbert West: Reanimator]]'' (2003) featuring artwork by Shy.<ref name="designers"/>{{rp|374}} Ronin Arts expanded that same year beyond their [[D20 System|d20]] collections by purchasing the rights to ''[[The Whispering Vault]]'' by [[Pariah Press]] and ''[[Star Ace]]'' by [[Pacesetter Ltd|Pacesetter]].<ref name="designers"/>{{rp|374}} Reed and Shy started producing new material for ''The Whispering Vault'' soon after, starting with ''Mortal Magic'' (2003) that was previously unpublished by [[Ronin Publishing]], but after publishing several more PDFs in 2003, that line ceased.<ref name="designers"/>{{rp|374}} Reed wanted to convert ''Star Ace'' to ''[[d20 Modern]]'' but never finished work on that.<ref name="designers"/>{{rp|374}} Ronin Arts was so successful that Reed left [[Steve Jackson Games]] in 2004 to work full-time on the company.<ref name="designers"/>{{rp|374}} Around that, freelancers such as [[Bruce Baugh]], [[Michael Hammes]], [[James Maliszewski]] and [[Patrick Younts]] started to produce material for Ronin Arts.<ref name="designers"/>{{rp|374}} 

Ronin Arts has produced material for other licensed systems, such as publishing the "Runic Fantasy" series for the [[Mongoose Publishing]] version of ''[[RuneQuest]]'' (2006-2007), the "First Edition Fantasy" series for [[retro-clone]] ''[[OSRIC]]'' (2006-2007), and supplements for ''[[Mutants & Masterminds]]'' (2003-2008).<ref name="designers"/>{{rp|374}} Hammes and Reed designed the ''[[4C System]]'' (2007), a retro-clone of the ''[[Marvel Super-Heroes (role-playing game)|Marvel Super Heroes]]'' role-playing system, which then received supplements from [[Hazard Studio]], [[Highmoon Games]], [[Seraphim Guard]] among other companies.<ref name="designers"/>{{rp|374}} Ronin Arts was also able to publish an early Freeport licensed supplement, ''Treasures of Freeport'' (2004) followed by some ''[[True20]]'' supplements (2005-2006) and a long-running series of ''Mutants & Masterminds'' Archetype books (2006-2007) which [[Green Ronin]] sold directly.<ref name="designers"/>{{rp|374}} Reed was able to sell an extended PDF series in 2006 called ''ePublishing 101'', which explained how to succeed at PDF production.<ref name="designers"/>{{rp|374}} The market for PDFs had slowed down greatly by 2007 so Reed went back to work for Steve Jackson Games, and in 2008 he became their Chief Operating Officer.<ref name="designers"/>{{rp|374}}

Ronin Arts began as an experiment, when Reed wrote the company's first PDF ''101 Spellbooks''.  Surprised by how quickly the gaming community embraced the product, he quickly set out to produce more. The company soon made its products available at [http://www.rpgnow.com RPGNOW.com], one of the first sites to exclusively handle the sale and promotion of roleplaying games in electronic format. From 2003 to 2007 at least,<ref name="dd00s" /> Ronin Arts was considered one of the most successful publishers in the emerging PDF industry.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.therpgsite.com/node/511 |title=theRPGSite |publisher=theRPGSite |date= |accessdate=2013-09-01 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20120206235617/http://www.therpgsite.com/node/511 |archivedate=2012-02-06 }}</ref>

In February 2007, however, they ended their relationship with RPGNOW due to creative differences.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.thegpa.org/index.php?module=tRSSNews&func=view&option=article&id=103205 |title=:: Game Publishers Association :: |publisher=Thegpa.org |date=1969-12-31 |accessdate=2013-09-01}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|author= |url=http://rpgdesign.blogspot.com/2007/02/may-you-live-in-interesting-times.html |title=Design Notes: May you live in interesting times |publisher=Rpgdesign.blogspot.com |date=2007-02-02 |accessdate=2013-09-01}}</ref>

As of March 2015, Ronin Arts' website is no longer active, having apparently been let go as of late 2012 or early 2013. Many of its products are still available by way of [[Lulu (company)|Lulu]], [[Warehouse 23]] and [[Paizo Publishing]].

Not to be confused with [[Green Ronin Publishing]], another popular producer of RPG supplements.