Midkemia Press was started by a group of friends in 1977 in San Diego. Steve Abrams, Jon Everson and Conan Lamot. After experimenting with D&D and finding it tended towards bash and crash, they started to develope their own system, based on their knowledge of medieval history, fantasy literature, and experiences recreating medieval fighting in the Society for Creative Anachronism. It was during a particularly extended mult-night, miniatures oriented scenario, they were introduced to a friend of a friend, named Raymond Feist.
Having built all these rules into a playable game, Jon Everson and Steve Abrams decided that they might as well start a company and produce gaming products. Midkemia Press was born and produced their first product, the book CITIES, in 1979. This book was usable with any FRP game system and provided tables for generating encounters when running games in city environments and a set of rules for running 'character catch-up' - sort of a solo adventure that your character had while waiting for the next game. It became obvious that April and Anita Everson were really part of the company and Ray was brought in as a partner.
The second product was Midkemia's first fully populated role-playing city, The City of Carse. Based on a revised map of medieval Carnarevon in Wales. This was followed over the next years by: The City of Jonril, Tulan of the Isles, Towns of the Outlands, The Black Tower, The Heart of the Sunken Lands, and (for Sorcerer's Apprentice magazine) The Village of Hoxley.Midkemia products have been licensed and printed in German, and have until recently been in print through Chaosium Inc. The CITIES product, was also printed as Avalon Hill's RuneQuest Cities.
Today, Midkemia Press, is principally a license holder to Midkemia game products, which they share with Raymond E. Feist.
