Hello again,

Another issue of the Seeing Stone has arrived and just in time to help celebrate one year of The Palantir being online! With this issue comes an announcement that the Seeing Stone is heading back to a more standardized release timeframe. We have added a new staff level member to help oversee the zine as well as being in the process of hiring a number of Heralds to assist in this important function. Our committment to bringing you excellent, unique articles remains as strong as ever. Thanks for your patience with the erratic release schedule, we intend to reward that patience with more, better articles and a firm committment to a better timeframe.

Scouring of the Shire and Battle of Five Armies have been released recently by Games Workshop. Whether you like the Hobbits or even the story concerning the scouring you have to appreciate the fact that more fine work has been put in by the folks in charge of this aspect of our hobby. Mat Ward and Adam Troke have teamed once again to create the Scouring of the Shire supplement. There have been mixed reviews but the fact that Games Workshop is committed to providing a steady source of supplements and miniatures for our favorite gaming world is a positive even to those who did not like this particular release.

Battle of Five Armies (BoFA) is Games Workshop's newest specialty game, based on their longstanding rule set for Warmaster. BoFA is a strategic level game which recreates the grand battles from J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit. 10mm tall armies of Elves, Men, Dwarves, Goblins and Wargs are all included in the main box, allowing for epic battles on battlefields that require small physical spaces.

The rest of 2005 looks to be great with at least two major releases still slated from Games Workshop, perhaps three. We have recently learned of the Mines of Moria starter boxset, intended for wider distribution than the normal releases in hopes that it will reach and draw in new gamers to the hobby.

The Palantir has recently launched our user articles area to a great reception. A recent poll on the site has shown that an amazing 80% of those who have given it thought considered the system to be "perfect." Another 12% believed the best part of the system to be the excellent feedback our writers recieved. Speaking for the staff, we are very pleased to offer this service to the community and are overjoyed at the feedback we've been getting.

If you haven't had a chance to look through the User Article area please take a moment and do so after you're finished with the Seeing Stone. You'll notice we have instituted a few wrinkles that are totally unique to the online lotr community. First, we have an article ranking system which allows you to sort through the offerings and pick the level of detail and intricacy you wish to have. Second, as a reward for those who have submitted work for the community, our art staff creates unique banners for each and every article! The banners are beautiful and include the article name plus the writer's username.

If you're considering writing an article we heartily recommend it! The Palantir is ready and willing to help you in any way we can. After a recent scare on another site in which many writers thought their hard work may be lost to the online community, we would like you to know that we do also accept submissions of older articles. Even if they are published on other sites, you may still submit them for inclusion to the Palantir's article area. We will look them over and edit for spelling and grammar followed by the creation of a unique banner celebrating the article and writer and then make them available for the entire online community.

I would like to invite those of you who normally only visit the Palantir to read the Seeing Stone and perhaps catch up on hobby news to take a few moments to register an account on the site (it's free!) and spend a short time reading through the forums. You will find that a thriving, warm and accepting community exists on the Palantir and we invite you to consider it as a stop in your daily web travels.

Lastly, I am asking each person who reads the Seeing Stone to drop a quick greeting into the feedback link at the bottom of this page. We would like to get to know our readership a lot better and would appreciate your time in doing this. Make sure to let us know what you think about the magazine! What do you enjoy? What aspects could we improve on to make it more valuable to you? We're looking forward to learning a bit more about each of you and hearing your thoughts about the Seeing Stone.

Thanks for the great year!

Until next time,

Krahl

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