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The Unspoken Word (#1) is a new Gloranthan/Hero Wars fanzine. The magazine has 68 pages in black and white but a full color cover, it’s size is A4 (approx. 21 x 30 cm). The layout has three columns and there is plenty of illustrations and maps. A minor fault here is that there is no name beside each illustration, you therefore most often can’t identify which artist made which illustration.

Each issue will have a theme, the first one is Tarsh. Tarsh is a province at the edge of the Lunar Empire bordering to Sartar and the Dragon Pass. The issue starts with a overview of Tarsh., its geography, its people, its gods, its history and its politics. The different articles then expand on this information. The background is set in the 1610s and 1620s, that is, before the official Issaries material which is set in the 1630s.

If you are going to play a campaign in Tarsh you better get the supplements Thunder Rebels and Storm Tribe because the occupation keywords in those are also valid for character’s from Tarsh. The magazine only lists the keywords specific to Tarsh that’s not listed in those two supplements.

The articles cover such things as: major political figures, the tribes of Tarsh, gods of Tarsh, the capital of Furthest and the city of Copper Town. The material is full of useful ideas which would be easy to use in your own campaign. As usually I’m not very fond of the more fictious articles like: A Day at the Executions, Jaxarte in Furthest and The Travelling stone, but that is really a matter of taste.

The back cover of the fanzine contains a beautiful color map over the lands of Tarsh.

For being a fanzine publication it’s in my opinion very good and useful. I can recommend it.

The web address for the magazine is: http://www.celtic-webs.com/theunspokenword

/Henrik S Törnblom Sweden

A note. The first issue has already sold out at the publishers, but you ought to be able to get it from specialized game stores like Leisure games in UK and Wizard’s Attic in the US.