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My name is J. Hanju Kim. This site began around 1994 as a section of my newly-made personal web page. At that time I was a graduate student in high-energy physics at Fermilab in Batavia, Illinois. The URL at that time was www-e815.fnal.gov/~jhkim/rpg/. The web at that time was just expanding out from being a tool for physics documentation. Eventually I got my PhD in 1999, and moved to a post-doc position at UC Irvine -- so the pages migrated to www.ps.uci.edu/~jhkim/rpg/. In 2001, I left academia for the software industry and the pages moved to a private site at darkshire.org, generously hosted by my friend Graham who had his own startup company. The startup eventually failed and the server began to drop off the net regularly, so I eventually migrated it to a parallel site at darkshire.net -- a domain currently hosted by pair.com.
As for what is here -- it is my personal collection of RPG information, including my own thoughts, material for campaigns I am playing in or running, and facts gleaned from the web, newsgroups, or email. Over many years, it has simply accumulated into a very large collection.
The site is hosted by pair.com. It is on an x86 FreeBSD box running the Apache webserver. Pair supports various PHP and Perl extensions, but mostly I rely on flat pages. I have a set of Perl scripts for a number of automated editing functions like the alphabetized entries, and a few CGI scripts. I edit it with emacs and use CVS for version control and backups. It is fairly plain in design, since my priorities are that it load and display on any browser, load quickly, and be as functional as possible.
Basically I am a long-time RPG gamer. You can see my home page for info about me in general. I was introduced to D&D in kindergarden 1977 or so, and have been playing RPGs pretty much ever since. In undergraduate at U of Chicago, I had the good fortune of meeting a terrific gaming club. In grad school at Columbia, I discovered newsgroups and vastly expanded my understanding of games. I maintained the FAQ for rec.games.frp.advocacy for a while, but unfortunately that group seems to have all but died. You can see my Campaigns page for a history of my gaming, or my reviews list page for notes on my taste in games.
I am not an RPG professional. I play RPGs for my own enjoyment and curiosity. My two writing credits are largely accidental: (1) as a contributor to FUDGE by Steffan O'Sullivan, because I was part of discussion on the newsgroup rec.games.design in 1992 when FUDGE was first proposed and hashed out, and (2) as a contributor to Hero System Fifth Edition, for an article I wrote in 1991 and submitted to the Adventurer's Club magazine. It was never published in AC as far as I know, but it circulated around the net, and ten years later they wrote me that they wanted to incorporate it as an option in the 5th edition rules.
In general, I have no problem with anyone using any of my material: including my essays, game descriptions, reviews, and play aids. If you are using a significant chunk of material, then I would have a few simple conditions:
There is one exception for translations into Greek. Send me an email first, asking permission, and I will specify the requirements. (Each article should be on a distinct webpage rather than forum post, and some assurance of translation quality.)
As long as the above is true, then I have no problem with most any usage. You can copy it, or edit it into part of your own material, print it in a newsletter, or whatever. My rationale is that someone who reads it should be able to [1] find the original (if your version is modified), and [2] find updates and expansions that I may make in the future.