Eric,

I wanted to write and congratulate you on another excellent magazine. They really do keep getting better.

Alex White's work on Zorastrianism and Simon Magus is really excellent; I think it's some of the better work I've seen. He really seems to have gotten his head around the concept of the divine in Persia.

I also particularly liked Tyler Larson's article on combat — he brought up some good points and got me thinking about a number of issues. While I like the concept of Michael's column, I think it also really helps the game when others address and simplify the game mechanics, because it provides different perspectives and more solutions for me to consider.

I hope that many other authors have written to you with articles addressing combat, too — several people on the list seemed to have ideas, and I'm curious to read what they came up with.

The artwork, as always, was inspired and impressive. In fact, I realized that I should list Radja, Angela and Alex in the ArM FAQ's index, because the magazine wouldn't be the same without their illustrations.

Once again, thanks for producing such a great resource for Ars Magica. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Regards,
Erik

I went out to the RPG site looking to vote for your Zine, but voting was already closed. I was really disappointed in that...

In the month+ (I'm bad at keeping track of time) that it's been since I subscribed and bought your back issues, I've looked them all over about 5 times. It's almost hard for me to write this in fact because I want to dig into the new one I just got. BUT, I thought I'd get back to you just to say that I can't imagine running my Ars Magica game without your Zine. I consider it indispensable...the game is much, much better with it. That's why I was upset that I couldn't vote in the RPG context...you deserve to win. I've in the past subscribed to Dragon, SJ Games online Zines, even White Wolfs old mag...name escapes me...and a few others. Often they were OK, idea generating...not entirely worthless. Your Zine however is essential. I pity someone who is running Ars Magica without it. I'll e-mail Atlas Games to that affect if you'd like, and get other people to do so too so that maybe you can get a link there.

Thanks for the incredible work you and your team do in getting this Zine together. Like I said, I wouldn't want to run my AM game without it.

Thanks again!
Shane B. Bauer

Thank you. Wow, HP #6 looks great! I'm really impressed.

Matt Ryan

Jeffrey Miller

Hello Eric,

Thank you very much, I am looking forward to see the new issues. It's really a great fanzine and I hope it will have many readers and a much, much longer life than the late Mythic Perspective (which was great, too) - Hermes Portal is one of the things that helps make up for the sorely missing books from Atlas Games. Especially the rules discussions and the example characters are very much appreciated.

Best Regards,
Johannes

Thank you. issue #4 is great (printed and read this afternoon...)

keep up with this fantastic work,
federico

Eric,

I just wanted to congratulate you on an excellent issue of Hermes Portal. I read through the entire thing and loved every minute of it. It's definitely a fine piece of work and I hope everyone in the Ars community subscribes to it with all speed. Your contributing authors do very good work, and the quality of the editing and layout is exceptional.

Kudos and cheers! Very well done!

Regards,
Erik Dahl

Eric,

I've finished reading HP 1 now. An excellent first issue, in my opinion. Timothy's adventure has a lot of interesting characters and ideas, but it is hard to judge it without the second part: I look forward to seeing that. I like the idea of the Hermetic University, and the way in which Schola Pythagoranis was incorporated into the article. While I don't agree with all of Michael's suggested changes, that is the nature of heretics -- we tend not to agree with one another, either. Finally, Andrew Gronosky's article on flaws is very well thought-out, and seems to work well in practice. When do we get to see the corresponding article on virtues? The illustrations are all good, particularly the ones with cats in. I still haven't worked out exactly what is going on in the marginal illustrations, though.

All in all, a good magazine, and one that makes me look forward to the second issue. Congratulations.

David Chart

Eric:

I successfully recieved your email, and found the first issue to be thouroughly interesting! I look forward to the second one!

thanks,
Max Nevill

Thanks, browsing through it looked excellent. I'll definitely go for issue #2, and will recommend it to my friends.
Ars Magica seems to provide best (gaming) magazines/fanzines :)

Pekka Marjola

Got #2 just fine. I'll be printing them up and reading through the articles (I personally hate reading extended e-documents, but that's me.). So far though it looks like it was money wellspent.

Thanks,
Pat Sheehan