As we speak, the Elves people supplement and the revised Creatures of Middle-earth should be arriving at your local game store. The Kin-strife is out (at last!) and appears to be doing fairly well (though it is still dwarfed by the success of the Dol Guldur citadel module, which is also out). Finally, a Northwestern Middle-earth Map Set has been released which contains the great majority of Pete Fenlon's work (including hitherto unseen maps of Anfalas and Lindon). Regrettably, these maps do not all fit together (perhaps this will be remedied in a future edition).

On its cover, The Kin-strife is described as a "Sourcebook." This category of product was not mentioned in ICE's original announcement of their MERP revision project, but subsequently came into being as an "anomaly" rubric, for use with publications that did not quite fit the purer description of Realm, Citadel, People, or Adventure module.

This accommodation promises some interesting possibilities for future MERP projects that could be devoted to other specific eras of Middle-earth history. Palantír Quest, for example, offers some tantalizing ideas for an early Fourth Age sourcebook that might detail northwestern Middle-earth during the reign of King Elessar and his son.

As for up and coming publications for 1995, here is the latest timetable. The Shire realm module has been pushed forward to a June release date, a recently announced Angmar realm module (a revision of Empire of the Witch-king) is scheduled for August, and a Northmen people supplement (including material from Riders of Rohan) should be appearing sometime in September. At the moment, we are hoping (perhaps optimistically) for an October or November release date for the Southern Gondor realm module.

Finally, there has been a recent turn of events with the Northern Gondor realm module. The current revision authors have decided to abandon the project, and have turned it over to yours truly. Given my current work on Southern Gondor, work will not be able to proceed on the sister module until the Spring of 1996. The completion of the Gondor modules is of high priority to both ICE and to myself, so Northern Gondor will be taking precedence over the Dúnedain people book I was to begin following my work on Southern Gondor. But fear not! I remain committed to the Dúnedain project, and it will appear eventually.

Reporter: Chris Seeman