Dark Force Rising Sourcebook

In 1987, four years after the release of the third (and at the time, the final) Star Wars movie, Return of the Jedi, West End Games published the popular Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game. However, by 1992, having published many supplements and adventures,[1] West End Games was finding it increasingly difficult to create original material out of the original trilogy of movies; they decided to release a second edition of the game called The New Republic, based on the Thrawn trilogy of novels by Timothy Zahn. Several sourcebooks were released based on the novels; the second book, Dark Force Rising Sourcebook, takes its material from the second novel of the trilogy, Dark Force Rising.[2]

Dark Force Rising Sourcebook is a 144-page softcover book written by Bill Slavicsek, with graphics and illustrations by Stephen Crane, Mike Nielsen, Dana Knutson, Rob Caswell, John Paul Lona, and Mike Vilardi, with cover art by Tom Jung. The sourcebook gives biographical profiles of notable personalities from Zahn's novel, and brief profiles of planets and aliens mentioned in the novel.

In the November 1993 edition of Dragon (Issue #199), Rick Swan found that although the biographical "background summaries are informative and enlightening," the book was otherwise remarkably light on substantive content. Swan thought the book "feels tentative and inclusive; there doesn't seem to be enough material to justify a 144-page book." Swan gave Dark Force Rising Sourcebook an average rating of 3.5 stars out of 6, saying that "players on a budget" could probably get along without it.[1]

• White Wolf #35 (March/April, 1993)