Changeling: The Lost (White Wolf) is the new World of Darkness' take on Changeling. If you're familiar with Changeling: The Dreaming this is quite a different feel although if you're at all familiar with the tone of the new World of Darkness this should not be terribly surprising. The book itself is very attractive with one of the better covers of the new core books. Binding is good (something that can be iffy on White Wolf books at times) and art is a good representative of the feel that the book itself invokes.
Changelings represent people who've been abducted by the True Fae at some point in the past and have spent time in Faerie (referred to also as Arcadia). Eventually they manage to escape their abductors and find their way back through the Hedge (the barrier between our world and Arcadia). However rarely do they find happiness when they return. In their place a simulacrum called a Fetch has replaced them so no one is even aware they are gone. Worse they have been changed by Arcadia becoming half-Fae taking on aspects of whatever their masters had them represent or do in that realm. Having fought their way home they now find that it is not really home anymore. This is the lot of The Lost.
This fairly evocative set-up lays out the theme and feel of the whole book. Sort of a sad, behind the scenes despair of a non-homecoming and a struggle to keep going from there. This theme is very strongly reinforced throughout the book that happiness is a struggle for the changelings. Between battling the loss of their old homes, the mental and spiritual damage caused by the True Fae, and the changes to their very beings Changelings face a myriad of challenges to coping with everyday life. This bleakness saturates the writing almost overmuch as in some cases it's hard to see why most changelings haven't outright committed suicide in face of such negative circumstances. There is little to no hope presented. While this holds to the outlook of the World of Darkness as a bleak and depressing place this felt a bit overdone. Hunter: The Vigil gave a better hope at least winning some small battles even if the larger war might never be won. It felt like Changeling lacked even that small hope.
Changelings aren't left entirely defenseless. They do have a system of courts that provide varying levels of structure and support to local freeholds (freeholds being the name given to a local society of Changelings). Their true form is also hidden from mortal eyes by the Mask hiding their true mien allowing them to walk amongst the regular human throng. Changelings also have access to powers called Contracts giving them an edge over the normal mortal. These power stems from their Fae roots. Where their former Fae masters or powerful Changelings have negotiated certain responses from a concept in Arcadia allowing them to manipulate that concept in our world. They also have the ability to create exacting Pledges which are binding promises with consequences, durations, etc all determinable allowing for interesting roleplay especially for devious players or storytellers.
Characters themselves have a Seeming which represents what they did in Arcadia. So a Changeling who acted as his master's hunting hound might have a Beast Seeming. Narrowly defining the Seemings can be done by selecting a Kith which indicates a more specific aptitude. Most characters will also select a Court. These Courts represent the political/idealogical outlook of character. In the core book the four courts represent the seasons. It is entirely possible to have a courtless Changeling but they tend to be mistrusted by those who are aligned and also limits their access to some Contracts.
Changeling caters well to a variety of play types although for once it feels that players who enjoying politicking, negotiations, and more socially aspected games may find more to enjoy in this then other World of Darkness games. Given the ever-shifting nature of the freehold courts and the general paranoia of Changelings and the overpowering scary of the True Fae direct combat seems less likely an option in many cases. Interestingly the True Fae could be used a big bad for nearly any World of Darkness campaign (especially cross-overs) as they represent a threat to all creatures that reside on Earth. The True Fae would surely be interested as much in a vampire or werewolf (at least for curiosity's sake) as a regular human. Some broad campaign ideas could be developed there!
Final thoughts: if you're looking for a dynamic but bleak game with a touch of madness thrown in this may be your game. If you want to expand your World of Darkness collection you definitely want to pick this up. If you are looking to play Fae-touched superheroes you're going to be disappointed or spending a lot of time rejiggering the system to your tastes.
Available in print* and pdf.
Links: DriveThruRPG, Amazon, Noble Knight
Next Up: Panopticon (Eclipse Phase)
Showing posts with label White Wolf. Show all posts
Showing posts with label White Wolf. Show all posts
Friday, December 30, 2011
Saturday, February 26, 2011
Exalted: Scroll of Sorcery Vol 2 The Black and White Treatises
Exalted: Scroll of Sorcery Vol 2 The Black and White Treatises provides the real firepower for any sorcerer or necromancer in Exalted. This book is actually two books with one on either side (so while reading White Treatise to get to Black Treatise you flip the book over). It's quirky but allows for obvious separation of the two similar but different topics.
White Treatise goes over the origins of sorcery, the process the for learning it, where to learn it and what schools those places follow, and just who knows what sorcery and how deep that knowledge is. This gives a much deeper understanding and background to the system and allows for many more interesting stories while a character tries to learn sorcery. Of course the main meat of this book are spells and there are a lot of them. Unsurprisingly most of these spells are for the Emerald (1st) circle but Sapphire (2nd) and Adamant (3rd) circles get their fair share as well. A decent amount of the spells just do direct damage to some degree but there are also many spells that creatively solve other problems or can be used in interesting ways to the sorcerer and her circle's advantage.
The Black Treatise is almost an exact mirror of the White Treatise except that it covers the art of necromancy. It does make good on the point that necromancy is not just "evil" or "dark" sorcery but a separate power source that is designed to do a little bit different things then sorcery (although the two obviously overlap a bit). There are a wide array of necromancy spells available allowing for many different themes of necromancer. It should be noted that in 2nd Edition this book is the only one that contains necromancy spells so it's a must if your character wants to use it. Abyssals only has the 3 requisite charms.
Overall this was a highly quality book with a diverse range of spells and interesting history and geography and artifacts relating to sorcery and necromancy useful to Storyteller and players alike. If spellcasting is going to be used this book is almost essential unless someone wants to do a lot of legwork in creating their own spells. A solid Exalted supplement. This gets a 9 out of 10.
Available in physical* and PDF.
Links: White Wolf Store, Amazon, DriveThruRPG, and Noble Knight
Next Up: Eoris Part 2
White Treatise goes over the origins of sorcery, the process the for learning it, where to learn it and what schools those places follow, and just who knows what sorcery and how deep that knowledge is. This gives a much deeper understanding and background to the system and allows for many more interesting stories while a character tries to learn sorcery. Of course the main meat of this book are spells and there are a lot of them. Unsurprisingly most of these spells are for the Emerald (1st) circle but Sapphire (2nd) and Adamant (3rd) circles get their fair share as well. A decent amount of the spells just do direct damage to some degree but there are also many spells that creatively solve other problems or can be used in interesting ways to the sorcerer and her circle's advantage.
The Black Treatise is almost an exact mirror of the White Treatise except that it covers the art of necromancy. It does make good on the point that necromancy is not just "evil" or "dark" sorcery but a separate power source that is designed to do a little bit different things then sorcery (although the two obviously overlap a bit). There are a wide array of necromancy spells available allowing for many different themes of necromancer. It should be noted that in 2nd Edition this book is the only one that contains necromancy spells so it's a must if your character wants to use it. Abyssals only has the 3 requisite charms.
Overall this was a highly quality book with a diverse range of spells and interesting history and geography and artifacts relating to sorcery and necromancy useful to Storyteller and players alike. If spellcasting is going to be used this book is almost essential unless someone wants to do a lot of legwork in creating their own spells. A solid Exalted supplement. This gets a 9 out of 10.
Available in physical* and PDF.
Links: White Wolf Store, Amazon, DriveThruRPG, and Noble Knight
Next Up: Eoris Part 2
Friday, February 18, 2011
Adventure!
Adventure! is a pulpy action game set in the mid-1920s of Earth where players play slightly above average humans pushing the bounds of science, exploration and humanity. For my take it provides the timeframe of Call of Cthulhu but instead of a theme of incomprehensible cosmic horror we get a tone of hopeful optimism about the future. It's all the 3rd part of the Aeon Universe trilogy of games from White Wolf. The book has a large section in the beginning filled with short stories that do a great job at conveying the atmosphere and themes that Adventure! is aiming for as well as giving some background to the game. I found this part to be a very quick and entertaining read. This flows rather seamlessly into providing the setting of the game including locations worldwide and major organizations.
Character creation feels quite similar to other White Wolf storyteller systems. Characters in Adventure! are on the lower end of the power scale so I suspect some of the inherent problems with the Storyteller system in handling high power games will be less prevalent here. Still Adventure! offers players some interesting powers (referred to in the game as "knacks") for characters. They are set into 3 categories which do overlap somewhat but also maintaining their own niches. Coming up with a character concept shouldn't be too hard for most players. Since this is another iteration of the Storyteller system anyone who has played World of Darkness (old or new), Exalted, Scion or (perhaps obviously) other parts of the Aeon Universe should be able to hop into Adventure! with minimal additional learning.
All in all I thought this was a quality game nicely contained into one book. The challenge nowadays is finding a copy as the non-D20 version is quite rare and rather expensive unless you can stumble upon it in a Half-Price Books like I did. The good news is the PDF is reasonably priced and with White Wolf converting their whole catalog to Print on Demand in the future this may be available in print again. I would rate this a 8 out of 10.
Out in PDF and Physical* copy (but physical is long OOP making it quite hard to find)
Links: DriveThruRPG
Next up: Books of Sorcery Volume 2: Black & White Treatise for Exalted (Eoris rules is slowly coming along as well but crunch takes me longer to process)
Character creation feels quite similar to other White Wolf storyteller systems. Characters in Adventure! are on the lower end of the power scale so I suspect some of the inherent problems with the Storyteller system in handling high power games will be less prevalent here. Still Adventure! offers players some interesting powers (referred to in the game as "knacks") for characters. They are set into 3 categories which do overlap somewhat but also maintaining their own niches. Coming up with a character concept shouldn't be too hard for most players. Since this is another iteration of the Storyteller system anyone who has played World of Darkness (old or new), Exalted, Scion or (perhaps obviously) other parts of the Aeon Universe should be able to hop into Adventure! with minimal additional learning.
All in all I thought this was a quality game nicely contained into one book. The challenge nowadays is finding a copy as the non-D20 version is quite rare and rather expensive unless you can stumble upon it in a Half-Price Books like I did. The good news is the PDF is reasonably priced and with White Wolf converting their whole catalog to Print on Demand in the future this may be available in print again. I would rate this a 8 out of 10.
Out in PDF and Physical* copy (but physical is long OOP making it quite hard to find)
Links: DriveThruRPG
Next up: Books of Sorcery Volume 2: Black & White Treatise for Exalted (Eoris rules is slowly coming along as well but crunch takes me longer to process)
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