Targum Magazine Issue 1 is a 35 page d20 pdf magazine aimed at providing material for Testament: Roleplaying the in Biblical Era, a Mythic Vistas product from Green Ronin. The material is also equally suitable to other Ancient World campaign settings. The aim of the Targum Magazine is also to provide support material for Green Ronin's Mythic Vistas line of products, including Eternal Rome, Trojan War and Hamunaptra. While this first issue focuses only on Testament, further issues of this magazine will be supporting other Ancient World products.
The product comes as a single bookmarked pdf file. Like most magazines, it has a combination of editorial, articles and advertisements. Presentation and overall look of the product is great, with some wonderful art and overall top-notch job. The articles inside add to the high quality with some good writing, well-referenced works and interesting themes and concepts. For a magazine, this is a very good support product for Green Ronin's Testament and other Mythic Vistas products. A great effort for an inaugural magazine.
There are four main articles to this magazine: Ostraca: Lost Books, The Caravan, The Hekau Adept, and the Twelve Tribes of Israel. The first two are largely flavor offerings, while the latter two are heavy on additional mechanics, overall thereby providing a good balance of different material for most gamers. In addition to the articles, there are also a number of paper miniatures from Arion Games, a company well known for its high quality paper miniatures.
Ostraca: Lost Books is a brief article detailing how DMs can use the lost books of the Bible in their games. These are specifically the books that are mentioned in the Bible, but for which no copies actually exist. The article is interesting and provides some valuable advice. One thing that I'd have appreciated a more detailed look into, while not specifically lost books, would be the Biblical Apocrypha. Using these would be largely as valuable as using lost books, although in a different context. Perhaps future articles could deal with this myriad of books.
The Caravan offers a look at the inns of the time and provides a detailed overview and floorplans for a typical waystation. Again, a very useful article, with good and explanatory detail. The Hekau Adept, my favorite article, deals with Egyptian Sorcerers, and provides full mechanics for the base class, including a new spellcasting system. This is ritualistic use of written magic, and an intriguing and usable way to make a different sorcerer, in any game era, with some modifications to the flavor. A well-presented class and good mechanics.
The last articles deals with the Twelve Tribes of Israel. This takes a detailed look at the twelve tribes, including their history and background. PCs or other NPCs can belong to a specific tribe, and that provides them with certain characteristics such as benefits and access to certain feats (a whole slew of which are listed). This is an interesting article, and I'm looking forward to seeing Part II in a later issue of Targum.
Overall I think this is a very good offering from Highmoon Media Productions. With Targum expanding into the other Mythic Vistas products in later issues, I can certainly see this as a high quality magazine of note for those campaign worlds. Interesting articles, well-researched work, good balance of crunch and flavor, and lots of readable articles.<br><br>
<b>LIKED</b>: Targum Magazine is a good-looking and professional product offering a wealth of new material and interesting articles. It maintains readability, a good balance between mechanics and flavor, and provides the reader with numerous options for their campaign world.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: Nothing much - one or two articles could've touched on additional details, but they're fine as they are.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Very Good<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>
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