> But all of this raises the question of what constitutes
> canon or not. Am I to treat works in such products,
> and YBOT as canon or optional?
The "canon" will only contain published Issaries, Inc. products for "Hero Wars". Fan publications are always non-canonical, as are drafts on the issaries.com site and products for previous games (RuneQuest and the like).
Until the official Hero Wars products come out, you use any fan or previous products at your own risk. This is true irrespective of who wrote them -- even Greg Stafford's articles in "Tales" aren't part of the Hero Wars canon.
When the authors of a fan publication are now working on forthcoming official Issaries books, though, you're probably in good hands. The Shargash and Alkoth material in Enclosure #1 should certainly be good enough to run with until something better comes along.
Also, fan and old publications are always likely to have some "extra bits" that -- while perfectly good in their own right -- won't make it into the "official" publication.
This isn't worth getting hung up over, frankly. If you want to use *only* official materials in your game, stick with Issaries' books. If you want to ask where you can find other stuff to game with, feel free to ask away on this mailing list and elsewhere.
Cheers, Nick
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