History: 1996-2009

Though the Reaching Moon Megacorp, the Tales of the Reaching Moon magazine, and the Convulsion conventions are usually considered the foundation of international RuneQuest fandom, in Germany the RQ Society ("RuneQuest Gesellschaft e.V.") was no less active. They began holding their own yearly RQ-Cons in 1990 and began publishing a German- language fanzine, Free INT in 1992. The magazine lasted under its original name through Free INT #14 (1996), and then changed its name to "Schattenklinge" ("Shadow Blade"), which published six more issues through 1999.

Meanwhile, new things were afoot. In the Summer of 1996, the German RQ Society reached out to British fan Tom Zunder to translate Free INT articles into English. The result was a new magazine: Tradetalk #1 (1996). The magazine was rebooted after the first issue to become the flagship of the RQ Society's new Chaos Society, which was meant to support all of Chaosium's games internationally. However, it still remained largely focused on RuneQuest and Glorantha, making Tradetalk the sixth in the wave of English-language Glorantha fanzines that originated with Tales of the Reaching Moon. It would be the second most prolific, after Tales itself.

With Tradetalk #2 (1997), editorship was taken over by Ingo Tschinke, one of the principals of Free INT, and starting with that issue, the content was all new. Layout was initially done by Rick Meints, also a member of the Reaching Moon Megacorp, and much later, the president of Chaosium itself. Arist Dario Corallo soon took over layout, while André Jarosch stepped up as co-editor with Tradetalk #10 (2002), and eventually became the chief editor for the end of the run.

Tradetalk was eventually joined by two sister publications. Ye Book of Tentacles (1998-2006) was a con fundraiser that supported the Tentacles conventions that were the continuation of the classic German RQ Cons. It ran six large issues. The Pavis & Big Rubble Companions (2001-2004) then spun off of Ye Booke and focused on Ian Thomson's Pavic content, which had debuted in Ye Booke of Tentacles #3 (2000) and also featured in Tradetalk #8 (2001) and Tradetalk #9 (2001).

Tradetalk's non-Gloranthan Chaosium content was authored by Shannon Appelcline, the "Editor for Related Games". Some of the early content originated in the electronic Chaosium Digest, but most was new. Not quite a dozen articles covered Call of Cthulhu, Elric, Nephilim, and Pendragon. However, with Tradetalk #13 (2003), the magazine officially transitioned away from its attention to all of Chaosium's games, and instead became Gloranthan specific. (Ye Book of Tentacles would continue to include content for those other games, written by divers hands.)

After Tradetalk #14 (2004), the magazine went on hiatus for a few years due to uncertainty over the Gloranthan Fan Policy at the time. It returned with Tradetalk #15 (2007), but would only run through Tradetalk #17 (2009). The last three issues bore the "Boldhome Press" logo, which was Issaries' short-lived attempt to license Gloranthan fanzines. The final issue featured the magazine's only full-color cover and was the only one to change its subtitle from "The Chaos Society Magazine" to "The Chaos Society Gloranthan Magazine".

Theme Issues

1. "Broos in the East" (1996)
2. Safelster (1997)
3. East Wilds (1998)
4. "Kethaela Issue" (1998)
5. "Kethaela, Part Two" (1998)
6. Catch up (2000)
7. "Non Humans Special" (2000)
8. "Pavis & The Big Rubble Special" (2001)
9. "Pavis & The Big Rubble Special Part II" (2001)
10. "Wenelia & Ramalia Special" (2002)
11. "Handra & The New Fens" (2002)
12. "Heortland" (2003)
13. "Outside Genertela: The Islands" (2003)
14. "Outside Genertela: The Southern Continent" (2004)
15. "The Savage West" (2007)
16. "Heroes & Strangers of Dragon Pass" (2008)
17. "Pavis & Prax Special" (2009)

This index is © Copyright 1997-2023 by Shannon Appelcline. It is released under a cc-by-4.0 license, allowing reuse with attribution. Map background is courtesy of Chaosium, used per their fan material policy.