FASA Corp.
120pp £ 8.99

What's this then? It's not really a sourcebook although it does provide plenty of back ground for you to set your games in, and it's not really a scenario, although you'll get a lot (and I mean a lot) of adventures from it.

Perhaps the best place to start is with the cover. There's a brilliantly rendered painting of a Theran general standing before a floating stone fortress, which tells you in no uncertain terms exactly what's up. Yep, the Therans have finally pulled their collective fingers out and are re-invading Barsaive. Except they haven't really, this book just gives you the low-down on some of the major events that the reappearance of the Theran armada triggers off And when I say major events I mean seriously major events.

There are four separate plots that kick off as a result of the new threat to Barsaive. As this is just the prelude there is plenty of opportunity to get your players involved before the Therans really put the cat among the pigeons.

The first event is the landing of the behemoth itself and the first reaction of the major Barsaivian powers. Next you get the assassination of King Varulus III himself, then the Great Dragons get involved, and if that wasn't enough, the Orks mobilise themselves and reclaim the lost nation of Cara Fahd! See, I told you it was big stuff!

The best thing about all this is that the players are actually given plenty to do during each of these events and it should be no problem tailoring the resulting adventures to your group. There's some superbly imaginative ideas at work here, some of which tie in with previously published adventures. Of course these are earth shattering events and so it's impossible to provide fully fleshed out adventures to replicate them, and in all honesty that would be a bad thing. What "Prelude to War" manages to pull off so artfully is the illusion that the players themselves are calling all their own shots and having a direct influence on the world around them.

Be warned though, if you're trying to run a Barsaivian campaign your own way then this could seriously upset any work that you may already have done. FASA have definite plans for their world and after this Barsaive will truly never be the same again.

Overall: Epic fantasy at its best, but be prepared to do some work as you are given an adventure framework. With a good GM, this is going to be amazing to play.

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