It depends a lot on what you are looking for, and what you like.
There are not a lot of adventures or adventure + settings (such as Griffon Mountain for RQ) published for HQ yet. What has been started is the "Sartar Rising" adventure arc, which starts (sort of) in Barbarian Adventures, and really gets going in Orlanth is Dead. More books will be coming out on a reasonably regular basis, detailing the rebellion of the Orlanthi in Sartar against the Lunar Empire. If you want adventures, with more to come, this is your best bet.
On the other hand, if you want design your own campaign, or don't
have a campaign and just enjoy the setting, then:
a) if you like the freedom loving, accepting of all, civilized and
subtle lunar empire, by all means get Imperial Lunar Handbook, volume
1. It is an overview of the empire, with introductory info on each
of its regions, and some material overviewing it more broadly. There
will be more books coming out in this series, with the next one
focussing on the Lunar Religion.
b) If you like the freedom loving, "No one can make you do anything"
rough and tumble Orlanthi barbarians, then go get Thunder Rebels, and
start saving up for Storm Tribe. Thunder rebels gives incredible
detail about the Heortlings (the cultural group of Orlanthi that live
in Dragon Pass, in case the terminology has gotten foggy on you). It
gives a lot of mythic background, a lot of detailed magical
background that overlaps with cultural background and environment,
because magic is in everything (there are mythic associations with
different weather patterns, for example). And finally it gives a lot
of professions (some now replaced by those in HQ, but some unique)
and most critically, the FULL cults of Orlanth and Ernalda. Orlanth
has three aspects (adventurous, allfather, and thunderous), and
Ernalda had four (healer, allmother, Queen, and as plant/animal
goddess). Each aspect has multiple sub-cults. Each sub-cult has a
bit of mythic background, and skills, attitudes, and magic for that
sub-cult. There are sub-cults for farmers, for crafters, for
visionaries, for various kinds of warriors, and so on. It adds up to
the sort of book that you may keep looking back into for small
details. Storm Tribe describes the other significant gods in the
storm pantheon (humakt, issaries, and so on), each with some mythic
background and a variety of sub-cults. Just with Thunder Rebels you
could run any sort of Heortling campaign, if you put the work into
making the adventures--certainly it would do a great job of
supporting "you are the brightest lights in a struggling clan, that
you have to help shepherd through the increasing mess of the hero
wars"
Hmmmm, I guess you can tell which book got me more excited :) But a lot of people really didn't care for Thunder Rebels--"a lot of fiddlefawddling detail then a list of too much magic, with nothing exciting" was roughly how some people found it.
Mind you, all of the books are pretty good, and the reaction to most of them will be to want more books, so it may not matter too much which one you start with. (OK, maybe don't start with Barbarian Adventures, it waited so long to come out that it possibly tried doing too many things in small a space, and probably didn't do any of them quite as well as it could have. It is a good book to have, but probably not the most exciting to start with).
All totally in my, totally biassed, opinion, of course.
--Bryan
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