The Inside Scoop on Gaming

I've always felt fairly ambivalent about Wraith. To be sure, it had some interesting ideas, like having a second player run a resident in another player's head - Shadowguiding - but the conflicts felt weak to me, and the conflicts within the Afterlife between various factions struck me as a little artificial. Once you were dead, there was nothing really to do. Sure, you could mess with your passions, the things that you cared about in the afterlife, but once you were done, you were effectively dead. There was nothing more for your character to care about, and all there is left to do is Transcend. These aren't overwhelming problems, but they do make it difficult to lure players in. (I have the 1st edition too, which obviously has problems; still, Wraith 2nd edition didn't seem too different. Take the above as tenative, since things may have changed.) It's a bunch of interesting ideas that just don't cohere.

Then there's Doomslayers, which'll make you want to play Wraith until your dice lose their edges.

What Doomslayers changes about Wraith is the nature of the conflict. Instead of fighting against the real world in an attempt to finish what you didn't when you were alive - the role-playing equivalent of a mid-life crisis - you're fighting against the very forces of Oblivion itself, in a struggle to preserve the afterlife against dissolution. You don't wait around for the Spectres to come to you; you lock and load and descend into Hell, literally, trying to do what you can to disrupt the enemy. In other words, it's a metaphysical dungeon crawl.

Not that it spends a lot of time in philosophical debate. The book starts off running, with four stories that range from a Doomslayer's encounter with a Spectral ex-boyfriend (so-so) to describing the details of a soldier fighting for Oblivion (top-notch).

It segues into a description of how Doomslayers operate, including the difficulty of keeping secrecy when every member of your group has his Shadow leaking details into the Labyrinth's hive-mind. The main text has various Doomslayer operatives detailing how to work with Spectres, useful relics and Arcanoi (wraithly abilities), and so forth - and the wonder of it is that the narrative voice doesn't sound forced, unlike other White Wolf books that I could name. (Verbena splatbook, I'm looking at you here...)

Not content to leave Doomslayers as simple adventurers, the book lists several different kinds of operative. Doomslayers dive into the Labyrinth for the purpose of general recon; Martyr Knights, who try to redeem Spectres (without much success) and who watch other important wraiths for signs that they've been possessed; Solos, who work alone; and Helldivers, who literally disguise themselves as Spectres to go undercover into the Labyrinth. There's no shortage of story ideas for any of them.

Probably the highlight of the book is the detail of the Labyrinth, and the terrifying nature of what the Spectres actually worship, which makes up the second half of the book. The hierarchy ranges from simple Nothings, who are Spectres too wasted to die, to the paranoia-inspiring Dopplegangers, to the just-about-Gods Hekatonhire - massive spectres who didn't quite make it to godling-status, and who are now massively powerful with a mind composed of one, maybe two simple desires. They also have access to Dark Arcanoi, like Corruption, Hive Mind, Tempestios, Malefience - all stuff that's guaranteed to knock players for a loop when they first see it going off. The religious aspects of Oblivion are handled very well; there's even a warning against using religion in too blunt a fashion - something that I've done wrong myself.

The Labyrinth itself is more complex than the average dungeon - it's more like a living entity than a complex made out of stone. Toxic plasm is everywhere, tunnels twist without logic, and physical location wraps like putty; like the book says, a tunnel can be empty one minute and full of fast-moving Spectres the next. Maelstroms, usually disaster for Stygia and normal wraiths, are disasters for the Labyrinth too, with Spectres being hurled out of their comfortable homes and into a desolate place. The flow of energy ranges - Kindled spectres have an abdundance of energy, while Barrow spectres sit around waiting for the world to end.

And there's the amphiskopoli, where the Spectres make their cities...

The interior art is nothing short of amazing. The chapter pictures are amazing, depicting Spectres as bloated parodies of humans; the rest follows up decently, including depictions of Harrowings and some Hellraiser-inspired self-mutilations. Good, clean, wholesome fun!

Problems? A few. Some of the descriptions of what Spectres are like were confusing - I wasn't sure what Dopplegangers were until I re-read Wraith: The Oblivion. There's an extended reference to a bunch of useful relics for Doomslayers that are in another book entirely, which makes that particular part of the book useless. But these are minor quibbles with what's otherwise an excellent book.

So, final analysis? A must-buy if you own Wraith, without a doubt - it's the flagship of the line, IMHO. And if you can understand the specialized jargon that accompanies any White Wolf game, then I would recommend buying it even if you don't own the rules, just for the concepts alone. Send your fantasy characters into the Labyrinth and watch them scream....

-Darren MacLennan

Style: 5 (Excellent!)
Substance: 5 (Excellent!)

Doomslayers: Into the Labyrnith, for Wraith the Oblivion
Author: Bruce Baugh, Geoffrey Grabowski, and Fred Yelk Category: game Company/Publisher: White Wolf Cost: $18 Page count: 168 ISBN: 1-56504-635-8 Capsule Review by Darren MacLennan on 11/10/98. Genre tags: Modern_day Horror Gothic	I've always felt fairly ambivalent about Wraith. To be sure, it had some interesting ideas, like having a second player run a resident in another player's head - Shadowguiding - but the conflicts felt weak to me, and the conflicts within the Afterlife between various factions struck me as a little artificial. Once you were dead, there was nothing really to do. Sure, you could mess with your passions, the things that you cared about in the afterlife, but once you were done, you were effectively dead. There was nothing more for your character to care about, and all there is left to do is Transcend. These aren't overwhelming problems, but they do make it difficult to lure players in. (I have the 1st edition too, which obviously has problems; still, Wraith 2nd edition didn't seem too different. Take the above as tenative, since things may have changed.) It's a bunch of interesting ideas that just don't cohere. Then there's Doomslayers, which'll make you want to play Wraith until your dice lose their edges. What Doomslayers changes about Wraith is the nature of the conflict. Instead of fighting against the real world in an attempt to finish what you didn't when you were alive - the role-playing equivalent of a mid-life crisis - you're fighting against the very forces of Oblivion itself, in a struggle to preserve the afterlife against dissolution. You don't wait around for the Spectres to come to you; you lock and load and descend into Hell, literally, trying to do what you can to disrupt the enemy. In other words, it's a metaphysical dungeon crawl. Not that it spends a lot of time in philosophical debate. The book starts off running, with four stories that range from a Doomslayer's encounter with a Spectral ex-boyfriend (so-so) to describing the details of a soldier fighting for Oblivion (top-notch). It segues into a description of how Doomslayers operate, including the difficulty of keeping secrecy when every member of your group has his Shadow leaking details into the Labyrinth's hive-mind. The main text has various Doomslayer operatives detailing how to work with Spectres, useful relics and Arcanoi (wraithly abilities), and so forth - and the wonder of it is that the narrative voice doesn't sound forced, unlike other White Wolf books that I could name. (Verbena splatbook, I'm looking at you here...) Not content to leave Doomslayers as simple adventurers, the book lists several different kinds of operative. Doomslayers dive into the Labyrinth for the purpose of general recon; Martyr Knights, who try to redeem Spectres (without much success) and who watch other important wraiths for signs that they've been possessed; Solos, who work alone; and Helldivers, who literally disguise themselves as Spectres to go undercover into the Labyrinth. There's no shortage of story ideas for any of them. Probably the highlight of the book is the detail of the Labyrinth, and the terrifying nature of what the Spectres actually worship, which makes up the second half of the book. The hierarchy ranges from simple Nothings, who are Spectres too wasted to die, to the paranoia-inspiring Dopplegangers, to the just-about-Gods Hekatonhire - massive spectres who didn't quite make it to godling-status, and who are now massively powerful with a mind composed of one, maybe two simple desires. They also have access to Dark Arcanoi, like Corruption, Hive Mind, Tempestios, Malefience - all stuff that's guaranteed to knock players for a loop when they first see it going off. The religious aspects of Oblivion are handled very well; there's even a warning against using religion in too blunt a fashion - something that I've done wrong myself. The Labyrinth itself is more complex than the average dungeon - it's more like a living entity than a complex made out of stone. Toxic plasm is everywhere, tunnels twist without logic, and physical location wraps like putty; like the book says, a tunnel can be empty one minute and full of fast-moving Spectres the next. Maelstroms, usually disaster for Stygia and normal wraiths, are disasters for the Labyrinth too, with Spectres being hurled out of their comfortable homes and into a desolate place. The flow of energy ranges - Kindled spectres have an abdundance of energy, while Barrow spectres sit around waiting for the world to end. And there's the amphiskopoli, where the Spectres make their cities... The interior art is nothing short of amazing. The chapter pictures are amazing, depicting Spectres as bloated parodies of humans; the rest follows up decently, including depictions of Harrowings and some Hellraiser-inspired self-mutilations. Good, clean, wholesome fun! Problems? A few. Some of the descriptions of what Spectres are like were confusing - I wasn't sure what Dopplegangers were until I re-read Wraith: The Oblivion. There's an extended reference to a bunch of useful relics for Doomslayers that are in another book entirely, which makes that particular part of the book useless. But these are minor quibbles with what's otherwise an excellent book. So, final analysis? A must-buy if you own Wraith, without a doubt - it's the flagship of the line, IMHO. And if you can understand the specialized jargon that accompanies any White Wolf game, then I would recommend buying it even if you don't own the rules, just for the concepts alone. Send your fantasy characters into the Labyrinth and watch them scream.... -Darren MacLennan Style: 5 (Excellent!) Substance: 5 (Excellent!)

Doomslayers: Into the Labyrnith, for Wraith the Oblivion