La qualité du livre est au rendez vous.
Que du neuf (texte et illustrations) et une très belle couverture.

Church Fiefs is the seventh part of the Imperial Survey series of the roleplaying game "Fading Suns" and the first source book that has been published since "Fading Suns" went from the original Canadian publisher Holistic Design to Redbrick Limited from New Zealand. This makes the book especially interesting to all players and gamemasters of the Fading Suns roleplaying game, since it is (hopefully) an outlook for things to come from the new publisher in the near future.



Title: Imperial Survey Vol.7: Church Fiefs

Publisher: Redbrick Limited

ISBN: 978-1-877451-21-8

Author: Mat Wakefield

Tested version: Printed softcover, first printing from October 2007

Pages: 60 plus cover



Content summary

The Imperial Survey series features reports written by the Questing Knights of Emperor Alexius in which each one describes planets of the Known Worlds of Fading Suns, their history, inhabitants and notable places.

This report is written by Sir Peregrine Obadiah Torenson who just came back from a 3-year-mission for the emperor to do research on the planets of the Known Worlds that are ruled by the Church of the Celestial Sun. The planets Artemis, Holy Terry (Urth), De Moley and Pyre are described in detail (9-13 pages each), the recent history of Pentateuch is updated on two pages and two pages were written about the church holdings on Grail and Stigmata.



Layout:

The layout of Church Fiefs is similar to that of its six predecessors. The book has US-letter format, the same color scheme of the cover, a pleasing piece of cover art and fits nicely into the same bookshelf with its precursors. The main difference that strikes the reader immediatly is the length of the book. Over 60 pages is roughly double the length of any one of the other parts of the Imperial Survey series.



Cover Art and interior art:

As mentioned above, the cover art is pleasing, if not ground-breaking. The drawings inside very much reflect the mood of the planets described. They stand any comparision with the interior art from the Holistic Design Era of Fading Suns - kudos to the new artists!

The planet maps are full-page and offer a adequate amount of detail.



Quality of printing:

The cover printing is high-quality glossy print. Interior is black-and-white (as in all Fading Suns products). From page 31 to 60 the printing is set slightly closer to the border of the page. There is a mistake in the contents-table where the "History"-entry of a given chapter is assigned to the chapter before.



Writing:

Partly due to its length, Curch Fiefs manages to catch the atmosphere of each planet described (no pun intended) very thoroughly. The author has a very convincing style to tell how history and environment of a planet shape its people and politics over the course of the centuries. As a non-native english reader, this part of the Imperial Surveys series was the hardest for me to read, for the author often uses intricate expressions - maybe to reflect the unique voice of the Torenson-Knight writing to his Emperor?



Summary:

Church Fiefs is one of the best parts of the Imperial Survey series. Every gamemaster or player interested in the church planets of the Known Worlds should not miss it. The price of 15 $ or 15 € (incl. shipping) is o.k., considering the length of the book. If this kind of stuff is what Fading Suns fans can expect from the new publisher in the future, then it was certainly worth the long waiting.