Monte Cook (born January 29, 1968) is an American professional tabletop role-playing game designer and writer, best known for his work on Dungeons & Dragons.

[2] Cook designed Dungeons & Dragons modules such as Labyrinth of Madness (1995) and A Paladin in Hell (1998), and dozens of supplements to the Planescape line including The Planewalker's Handbook (1996) and Dead Gods (1998).

After TSR was purchased by Wizards of the Coast, Cook became a senior designer, and was part of the team working on the D&D game's third edition.

[5] Cook was proud of the work he did on the new Dungeon Master's Guide, especially after Gary Gygax gave his team feedback on the book: "He said that the material in the new DMG would help him become a better DM... That was really cool–and satisfying in a 'completion of the circle' sort of way.

"[5] In 2000, Cook said of his involvement with Wizards of the Coast and Dungeons & Dragons: "It's a great time to be working here... because every product is big, important, and innovative.

[4]: 258  Cook formed the new company Malhavoc Press in 2001 to work with the Sword and Sorcery Studios imprint of White Wolf, starting with the d20 The Book of Eldritch Might (2001) as his first product.

[4]: 226 He caused controversy in mid-2004 by exclusively selling his electronic d20 material with the DriveThruRPG.com store, which then used only a proprietary digital rights management-encrypted PDF system.

Shortly after the release of Ptolus, which Cook has often described as the culmination of his original ambitions for Malhavoc, he announced that he would be focusing on writing fiction and other unspecified forms of creative work, rather than role-playing games, for the foreseeable future.

Monte Cook's World of Darkness, his own take on White Wolf's modern horror setting, was released at Gen Con 2007.

[12] However, due to demand by fans reading his LiveJournal,[13] and posting their desires on the Malhavoc message boards,[citation needed] Monte Cook released one more RPG product in early 2008, The Book of Experimental Might.

[17] In April 2012, Cook announced his departure from Wizards of the Coast due to "differences of opinion with the company" but not "with [his] fellow designers".

Tidal Blades, the Roleplaying Game[32] is a Kickstarter-funded table-top RPG created by Cook and Shanna Germain using the Cypher System ruleset.

[citation needed] It is a tropical fantasy game located around the near islands and coastal city of Naviri, surrounded by a frozen temporal rift called The Fold.