Has anyone picked either of these up?
Are they any good?
Do they add anything or are they just fluff? Kheldor DeWinter - 50 Inf - Pellinor
Malikai Kain - 35 Inf - Kay
Cullyn - 20 SB - Merlin

I have my copy.
Yeah, I think it's pretty good, but I'm biased

It makes the Commonlands, Freeport, Ro, and Ocean of Tears into something more for a pnp game.
There are maps that fit together better than the zones really do.
There are stats for the major personalities of the area.

It is mostly "fluff" (as opposed to crunch stuff) but it does have some crunchy stuff in it.
Some monsters that haven't been converted to eqrpg yet.
There are some feats for learning at various places, like the arcane school in Freeport.

What's the scoop on Opal Darkbriar? Brother Pren, Human Transcendent on The Tribunal Server
Officer: Mithril Heart Brigade
If I would shed my skin, the layers left,
But not the lessons learned
It would not undo what I have done
Or grant forgiveness in some better days to come

I went and picked this up on my lunch hour. From what I saw as I flicked through, it looks ok. The little quests seem like a good idea.

Seems the Befallen book hasn't been released yet. I had misread another site where some people at Fanfaire got hold of some copies as a promo thing.

The scoop on Opal Darkbriar is in the book

Got the Freeport book. Love it. Reminds me a lot of the "(insert name of major city here) by Night" series for Vampire.

Waiting for Befallen, should be on shelves end of next week.... mmm... buying Befallen then going to see X-Men 2... mmm.... and I'll be done with school to boot!
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They are good books. Even for non-tabletop players, they are a good read. They have wealths of information about the areas and even several specific NPCs. They make the world really come to life, but they are by no means a necessity to run a good campaign.

Space Dracula's Super Laser League of Extraordinary Mother *@$&%#

Just remember this is information adapted for the P&P game; don't expect some / most / all of the information to be good for online play - information in previous books (Monsters of Norrath and the Game Masters Guide) are known to be inconsistent and just plain contradictory to lore within the game.

Doesn't stop it from being good, though.

They handed out the Befallen one at the Fan Faire banquet.

True Tibishatter, however some of the non-pnp lore of Eq is also contradictory

Some of it may be contradictory to you because you didn't see the material that author was working with. Or in some cases, there was no lore to begin with.

Though some of it is just plain contradictory and there is nothing to be done about that.

However, all the material does go back through Sony and they do "okay" all the material before it is printed. For whatever that is worth to you.