Draft:Dean Shomshak

Dean Shomshak (born 1964) is an author of supplements for role playing games.

Early life and education
Shomshak attended Peninsula High School in Gig Harbor, Washington and was a semi-finalist for a Merit Scholarship in 1981.

Career
After starting his career writing articles for game magazines, Shomshak moved on to writing supplements for Hero Games's Champions system. Shomshak wrote The Ultimate Super Mage debuted on February 17, 1996 at DunDraCon and was then the first text product published on floppy disc for computers through the Hero Plus division of Hero Games. Shomshak wrote The Mystic World (2004) for Champions, a subject which had previously been covered in Mystic Masters by Allen Varney and The Ultimate Supermage by Shomshak, with an RPGnet reviewer commenting that "In developing the cosmology of The Mystic World, Shomshak has drawn primarily from Kabbalah, mixed it with Comic-book Metaphysick, and thrown in a dash of William Blake for flavor."

Shomshak was later hired by White Wolf Game Studio in the early 2000s to develop role-playing game supplements. Shomshak wrote the Vampire: The Masquerade supplement Clanbook: Followers of Set (2001), which attempts to address some of the issues in portraying that clan from previous publications, with a reviewer from RPGnet saying that "Dean Shomshak's new book addresses most of these issues, but does little to solve them. The image problem is lessened with advice on playing Setites seriously, but their focus is largely unchanged. ... In terms of style, Mr. Shomshak's writing is accessible, and apart from the regularly-repeated error of 'Clanbook: Setite' the text does not have an excessive number of typos."

Magazine articles

 * "A Ghastly Grimoire," Dragon #126 (October, 1987)
 * "The Dragon's Bestiary: Colder Than Ice," Dragon #129 (January, 1988)
 * "Unspeakable Secrets Made Easy," Dragon #150 (October, 1989)
 * "The Well-Rounded Monster Hunter," Dragon #150 (October, 1989)
 * "How Far Did Grond Throw You?" Adventurer's Club #20 (Spring, 1993)
 * "What the Deities Mean," The Unspeakable Oath #10 (Fall, 1993)
 * "Crooks and Crusaders: Edomite Monsters," Adventurer's Club #22 (Fall, 1993)
 * "College of Alchemy," Adventurer's Club #23 (Winter, 1994)
 * "Mega-Villains," Digital Hero #3 (September, 2002)

Books

 * Creatures of the Night: Horror Enemies. HERO Games, 1993
 * The Ultimate Super-Mage. HERO Games, 1996
 * The Super-Mage Bestiary. HERO Games, 1999
 * Time of Thin Blood. White Wolf Games, 1999 (with Sarah Roark)
 * Aberrant: Year One. White Wolf Games, 1999 (with James A. Moore, John Snead)
 * "Introduction," in Nights of Prophecy. White Wolf Games, 2000
 * Exalted Storyteller's Companion. White Wolf Games, 2001 (with Heather Grove and Adam Tinworth)
 * Clanbook: Followers of Set. White Wolf Games, 2001
 * Blood Sacrifice: The Thaumaturgy Companion. White Wolf Games, 2002 (with Ari Marmell)
 * "Guardians of the Invisible Fortress," in Time of Tumult. White Wolf Games, 2002
 * Mexico City By Night. White Wolf Games, 2002 (with Philippe R. Boulle and Lucien Soulban)
 * Relics and Rituals. Sword and Sorcery Studios, 2002 (with diverse hands)
 * EverQuest Role-Playing Game Game Master's Guide. Sword and Sorcery Studio, 2002 (with diverse hands)
 * Sunset Empires. White Wolf Games, 2002 (with diverse hands)
 * Lair of the Hidden. White Wolf Games, 2003 (with Sarah Roark and Janet Trautvetter)
 * Vampire Player's Guide. White Wolf Games, 2003 (with diverse hands)
 * Orpheus. White Wolf Games. 2003 (with diverse hands)
 * Shades of Gray. White Wolf Games. 2003 (with diverse hands)
 * Gehenna. White Wolf Games. 2004 (with diverse hands)
 * End Game. White Wolf Games. 2004 (with diverse hands)
 * The Mystic World. Hero Games, 2004
 * Arcane Adversaries. Hero Games, 2004
 * Vampire: The Requiem, 2004
 * The Ultimate Mystic. Hero Games, 2005
 * Scroll of the Monk. White Wolf, 2006
 * The Manual of Exalted Power: Sidereals. White Wolf, 2007
 * The Compass of Celestial Directions, Vol. IV: The Underworld. White Wolf, 2008
 * Scion Companion. White Wolf, 2009
 * Return of the Scarlet Empress. White Wolf, 2010