Trolls are cool, especially trolls in Glorantha. These uz are smart, powerful, but they still like to eat everything they can (come on, these guys have an Eat Anything skill!). This supplement, from the Unspoken Word, is a licensed, semi-official book on them - it says that some day Issaries, Inc. will be producing the officiall book, no, series, on the uz, but given their delayed schedules, I wasn;t going to be holding my breath.
So, what's the book like. It's a full-size, 64-page book, with color cover. The front art is a but blurred, but the back is great, showing a small, color map of Dagori Inkarth, one of the uz lands, and small colored images (computer-generated?) of three locations there. In fact, the art all through the book is really good, something that really helps set the tone. A lot of the art is funny, too: the size comparison chart running through the different uz races starts with 'human' for comparison and ends up with 'human roleplayer' - fatter, with a beard!
Inside, you get 64 pages of dense, but readable stuff on the uz, everything from their history to the keywords for different uz races and occupations, to lots of cults. It's very nicely written, and although I recognize a few bits and pieces from Trollpak and other stuff produced for RuneQuest, most of it is totally new.
In summary, the sections are:
1. Uz is What Uz Is. History, the different races, the distribution of trolls across Glorantha.
2. Playing Uz. Essays on troll life, religion and attittudes, notes on playing troll PCs, keywords ('Trollball Player'! Flying Insect Pilot!)
3. Powers of the Underworld. Troll cults, shamanic practices and dark magics. Some really cool ones here, from scary insect shamans to Zorak Zorani berserkers.
4. Narrating Uz. GM's notes, a 2-page (black & whie) map of Dagori Inkarth, NPCs, trolball rules, etc.
It's short, but that's not a problem. I love Hero Wars, but Issaries have been giving us supplements that look and read more like university texts. This basically gives you what you need to know, not a master's thesis on uz funeral customs and whatever else.
I would have liked to see an adventure or scenario in here, but I suppose you can't have everything.There are also some rough edges, but I think Unspoken Word is basically a fan outfit, so the rating of '4' is considering that. Overall, though, this is great stuff - cool ideas, fun read.
