hello,
i just got my copy of Shadows of Europe (my local gaming store is a little slow) and i really enjoyed the section on Portugal. being portuguese myself i was afraid to see what the write was but i was pleasantly surprise when i read it. some parts had me laughing out loud, i can really picture lusida happening. i just want pass my thanks to everyone who worked on that section....great job!!!

one question: what's going on in the acores??? wait, i know....you guys are saving it Target Awakened Lands: Acores!!!

Thanks. Portugal has been slightly overlooked on the boards, mainly because it's off the beaten track, but reviews so far have been quite positive. I'm quite proud of the way it turned out as its one of my favorite pieces in the book. As you said the way Lusiada actually comes together makes a lot of sense if you actually live here.

Now if I can only find the time to put the other 60+ pages of background up...

É claro que para um português tem muito mais piada porque apanha-se detalhes que os Americanos nunca vão perceber, né?

Pretty good for a beginner.

"It is clear that for a Portuguese there is much more fun (piada = joke) because you catch (apanha-se) details that the Americans will never notice, no? (note -né is extremely colloquial and Portuguese rather than Brazilian)."

or

"It's obvious that its funnier to someone Portuguese, because they'll catch details Americans will never notice, right?"

é verdadeiro. há algumas peças que os americanos não compreendem.

my group is made up of three portugees and two non-portugees and we spent an hour straigth talking about the section and the non-portugees where staring at us like, what's the big deal??? there is stuff you can only relate to if you've been to portugal for a while.

did you write most of the section, synner??? if you did, we're toasting a shot of beirao to you on friday.

trabalho grande, meu amigo!

p.s. if you ever flesh out the acores and need help let me know...i'm from terceira and i still go back to angra every summer for the feasts....the city has more churches than most states...you know freaky stuff happens there when magic returns.

Yep, I wrote Portugal with support and inspiration from Humberto Fonseca (who was in line to write Greece and whose work will appear in upcoming books) and João Nunes (who wrote Poland). Like most SoE writers we're all locals. We're all Portuguese (I'm half-British) and we all live in Lisbon, so we knew what we were talking about.

Stuff like the Kussundulola, Galo Negro, "Colonel" Valentim, the 4 families, as well as a lot of the throwaway background references, while they should be cool in context to anyone, should also make it extra fun for a local who recognizes them.

For instance: Kussundulola is a popular Afro-portuguese hardcore rap crew who pioneered the whole black youth culture movement in Portugal, and Restelo, the voice of the piece, gets his name from a Portuguese expression "Velho do Restelo" which means naysayer or wet-blanket.

I do have some plans for the Açores but they're on the backburner for now and there simply wasn't enough space in SoE.

Okay I am running a Mercenary campaign for my people based out of Portugal. I would like some good english language resources for this locale. I can translate other languages, but I am limited to Dictionary.com's capabilities there.

I am already in the process of locating various tour style websites to get virtual tours of the country, but I wouldn't mind some input.

My overall theme is to have missions that take place across Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Asia.

Need anything on England or Wales give me a shout i would glad to help, can't help with Portugal, appart from i have a freinf in Lisbon and it's cool??

torz x

Paul, gimme until the weekend and I'll see what I can dredge up of the unpublished material I was saving for the Helix. I've got a few megas of unused material iirc including a more indepth first draft of Lisbon. Most of the material needs serious editing and is pretty rough.

Paul, though there're a couple of Germans around here, PM me if you need anything specific. Though I have certain reservations about DidS (Germany SB), I'll gladly help you out with locales, names, little cities, and information on regional culture and customs, as well as other stuff.

And, Synner, if you don't mind, I'd be interested too.

Thanks all. I may have to take you all up on this. I will post more of my game notes as I organize them for some peer review.