By the time you read this, there is a good chance that the revised Angmar realm module will be in the stores. (As I write it is supposedly on its way back from the printer's.) Directly following on its heels (scheduled for a December release date) will be the revised Mirkwood module. As many of you are probably aware, both of these MERP modules have already undergone a revision in the past, and (I believe) their current incarnations will not contain any major expansions of new material. There will, however, be new artwork, and all stats will be updated to the 2nd edition MERP, Rolemaster, and Lord of the Rings Adventure Game systems. Also in December will be the anticipated release of Middle-earth: the Wizards, ICE's first collectible card game based on Tolkien's world.
Next in line, and projected for a February 1996 release, will be the Southern Gondor realm module, which is almost entirely original in its content. Not counting the adventure material and the artwork, this tome is nearly 225 pages in length, a hundred of which are taken up by an exhaustive gazetteer (with full translations of the Elvish) of all place-names appearing on the maps accompanying the module. It also includes a thirty-page history of Gondor, covering the entire span from the First through the early Fourth Ages, and a forty-page chapter of biographies and full stats for the most important individuals in Gondorian history (e.g., Aragorn, Castamir, Eärnil, etc.). Another prominent feature of the text is a chapter on Corsair warfare, which provides a set of easy-to-use mass naval combat rules (similar in scope to the mass land combat rules that appeared in The Kin-strife). In addition to reproducing the existing maps of Gondor, this module will also contain the first-ever fully detailed map of Harondor, which has been devised in close collaboration with the authors of the current Umbar and Near Harad projects.
The next MERP module which is definitely scheduled for release (after Southern Gondor) will be called The Rohirrim, and will comprise a re-issue of material from the now out of print Riders of Rohan, as well as a complete "rogue's gallery" of bios and stats for all the most prominent Northmen in Tolkien's world (following the model of the Elves and Valar & Maiar supplements.
As for work in progress, Wesley Frank has recently received the green light to write a Near Harad realm module, which he hopes to have completed within six months. (Is this guy on speed, or is it just that the rest of us are overly slothful?) The most recent news on the Umbar revision is that Jason Beresford is currently attempting to adapt and expand his material in relation to the new information contained in Southern Gondor and the revised layout of Umbar that appeared in The Kin-strife module. He is shooting for a completion date sometime next year (maybe over the summer). The latest news from William Wilson is that work on the Southern Middle-earth Gazetteer is still underway.
I myself plan to begin serious work on Northern Gondor sometime next year (summer or early fall), and will probably take about a year to finish it. After that comes the Dúnedain peoples book, and then (gasp) it looks like I will be embarking on a Paths of the Dead citadel module. Around the year 2000 (far too distant in the future for anything certain), I will hopefully be undertaking citadel modules for Dol Amroth and Pelargir. Anders Blixt and Company may be making a proposal to ICE in the near future to write a Wainrider Wars sourcebook (similar in scope to The Kin-strife, but focused on Gondor and Rhovanion in the 19th and 20th centuries of the Third Age), depending on whether a rather lengthy mini-campaign which has been written for the Southern Gondor module gets included or not.
That's all for now, see you again in three months!
Reporter: Chris Seeman