FRONTLINES

There's been quite a bit of news to relate since our last column, so let us dive into the thick of things.

Due to rising paper costs and other marketing considerations, ICE has decided to release Southern Gondor as not one but two volumes (the first to be subtitled The People, the second, The Land—each about 200 pages in length). The first volume has already gone into production, and my rough guess is that it will be in the stores within a month's time. The second volume will be released approximately one month after the first. A re-issue of Arnor based on the same principle of division is currently being planned. Among the virtues of this publication strategy are: 1) more reasonably priced products and 2) more space for detailing the various realms of Middle-earth. Modules of under 200 pages, however, will probably still be released as single volume works. Another happy consequence of this turn of events for Southern Gondor is that ICE can now afford to commission a full-scale color map (1" = 20 miles) of Harondor for the second volume, along with improved versions of all the other previously published maps covering Gondor south of the White Mountains.

A contract for the Near Harad module will have reached Wesley Frank's doorstep by the time you are reading this, and Wes hopes to have a manuscript ready for publication by this August. Meanwhile, Jason Beresford, having done more than his duty for Southern Gondor, has at last found time to return to his own Umbar project in earnest. At the moment, the triumvirate of Umbar, Near Harad, and Khand authors are continuing their collaboration in order to work towards a consistent chronology for the highly interconnected histories of their respective regions. A similar coordination of efforts has begun between myself and Pete Fenlon, who will soon be preparing the Rohirrim and other Northmen peoples book. I have sent him a prospectus of issues raised by that module's predecessor (Riders of Rohan) for my own Northern Gondor work. Together, Pete, Wes, Jason, Jesse Dallin, and myself all hope to bring inter-module consistency to an unprecedented height for the entire span of territory from Rhovanion to Umbar.

Other Hands subscriber Jason Vester has responded to Jessica Ney-Grimm's search for new MERP authors. He has sent in a proposal to ICE for a Nazgûl sourcebook, based on Pete Fenlon's bios in Lords of Middle-earth II, which will more fully detail the history, realms, and powers of the Nine Ringwraiths. This promises to be an exceedingly fruitful endeavor.

As for future projects, Jessica has informed me that an Athelas and other Herbs sourcebook is being planned. Also, Pete Fenlon has made some overtures to myself and Patrick Wynne regarding the possibility of expanding the linguistic sections of the existing Middle-earth Campaign Guide book. This would be a particularly exciting development, since (as some of you may know) Pat has access to a significant corpus of unpublished material by Tolkien pertaining to the languages of Middle-earth, which he has been preparing for eventual publication with Chris Gilson and other Tolkienian linguists of lofty repute.

That's all for now. I hope someone will send us a review of Southern Gondor: The People for our April issue. Until then...

Reporter: Chris Seeman