The Inside Scoop on Gaming

As I mentioned in my review of the Conspiracy X main book, I found the rules for the supernatural really dull, especially compared to the spiffy psionics system. At the time, I didn't think anything could salvage the somewhat interesting concepts from their poor execution, especially since I'm unimpressed with Eden Studios' attempts at expanding their game line so far (in a nutshell, the Aegis Handbook and Shadows of the Mind have their moments, but the three alien books and Cryptozoology range from poorly handled to insipid). John Snead managed to do the impossible; I actually find myself interested in using the material in Forsaken Rites.

This book is to Con X as Liber Ka was to Nephilim; a system that can recreate pretty much any concept, creature, or effect from real-world occultism. There aren't any tremendously original concepts or mechanics in this book, but I don't consider that a flaw; FR is a tool for designing interesting things for your games, and it has scads of well-written and intriguing examples suitable for play (not unlike GURPS Illuminati). The relatively high price is a stumbling point (as it is across the Con X line), but this is the only one of Eden's supplements that I think is totally worth the money.

The art and layout are a little above for the line; generally good but usually not great (although there's a lot of Christopher Shy art, which is always nice, especially since there's reason for the people he draws here to have modern-primitive tattoos all over them; take a look at the art for the elders in White Wolf's Guide to the Camarilla for him doing this inappropriately). One glaring exception is the crude and bizarre S&M cartoons running through the Rituals section for no apparent reason.

The Con X line has a nasty habit of presenting deep setting secrets as in-character reports on the subject, which implies it's ok for players to look at (especially when quite a few of them are written from the perspective of groups PCs can be full members of), but Snead thankfully goes easy on the IC text; the sections in here don't spill anything serious.

My biggest problem with Con X's existing magic rules were their extreme blandness. FR handles this by revamping the Ritual skill, so that every mage learns a particular flavor of magic that they filter their rituals through. While I'm normally opposed to sourcebooks rewriting rules from the core book, in this case the increase in flavor is worth it. The schools provided more or less map to the West (ceremonial magic), Asia (Taoism), the African Diaspora (Caribbean magic), and the Third World (shamanism). Each school has its own set of advantages; for instance, Caribbean-trained ritualists are especially good at summoning and controlling spirits. I could quibble a bit with the requirement that all Taoists be good martial artists, but that's minor.

The rituals themselves are more plentiful and flavorful than the ones in the main book (each one also includes flavor text on suggested trappings, which is a nice, evocative touch), and they fit in nicely with both the "real" laws of magic (contagion, sympathy, and so on) and the game's rules (one bit I liked was that the rituals to increase or decrease prosperity actually affect the Influence attribute). In general, rituals have relatively subtle or intangible effects; magicians can't throw fireballs or summon lightning, but they most certainly can give their rivals heart attacks or toy with people's minds. Also, as the name "ritual" implies, they generally take too long to cast to fire off on the spur of the moment or during a combat. Additionally, each ritual now costs points to learn (as near as I can figure, the original ruleset granted all ritualists access to all rituals), so magic-users converted to FR rules will likely be a bit less knowledgeable than before.

There's a fine section on the role of the occult in the game's secret history (which involves themes and races from Atlantis Rising... but *not* the writeup on the Pilosi) and details on handling secret societies of mystics in play (level of knowledge, sphere of influence, and logistics), with three very cute examples suitable for use as antagonists or PC Credentials. Another nice touch is that none of the groups presented use actual game terminology in-character; too many games make their secret organizations all-knowing or have curiously unified terminology across mutually exclusive belief systems (Mage is often guilty of this, for example).

Speaking of Mage, Snead takes a cue from its notion of Paradox (ok, the law of karma isn't unique to Mage, but it makes for a good segue) in how he handles Corruption. Now, rather than making PCs go to the Dark Side of the Force, Corruption turns up the knob on one of the PC's obsessions while eroding the rest of the personality; as PCs become corrupted they don't necessarily become evil, but they will be somewhat alien and probably dangerous to anyone who opposes their aims. Corruption is also sort of an inevitable consequence of abusing natural laws; most magicians can expect to get a little corrupted every so often, but now that there are decorrupting rituals, it's less of an irreversible tragedy (if, of course, the PC in question *wants* to get decorrupted, or even knows he's been affected).

The flip side of playing down Corruption is that PCs might be tempted to pursue it, in hopes of getting more power (it's technically possible for PCs to continue play even after reaching terminal Corruption, but the book spells out that the ramifications of the downward spiral of that PC's sanity shouldn't be ignored by the GM or any of the PCs). This section is especially interesting and well done; pointedly the opposite of how the main book handles it.

The rest of the supernatural hijinks are equally well-handled and proceed logically from the archetypal basis of Con X magic; the tired rules on Forsaken, Incarnate, and spirits are revitalized and actually made interesting, and a new section on handling demons is rather creative and adds a new wrinkle to dealing with the Incarnate. Even the requisite adventure is better than usual.

In general, Forsaken Rites is a lot better than I've learned to expect from a Conspiracy X supplement; most of the general ideas and underlying concepts are straight out of the core rules, but the execution is worlds above it. I'm genuinely impressed by the craftsmanship that went into this book, and I'd recommend it to anyone else who found the magic from the main book lacking. While it's too strongly tied to the Con X ruleset to be easily converted to other game systems, I'd say it's indispensable for people who actually use the game already, if only as a change of pace from shooting Greys.

Style: 4 (Classy and well done)
Substance: 4 (Meaty)

Forsaken Rites
Author: John Snead (jsnead@netcom.com) Category: game Company/Publisher: Eden Studios (www.edenstudios.net) Cost: $17 US Page count: 112 ISBN: 1-891153-65-X Capsule Review by Joe Iglesias on 02/23/99. Genre tags: Modern_day Horror Conspiracy	As I mentioned in my review of the Conspiracy X main book, I found the rules for the supernatural really dull, especially compared to the spiffy psionics system. At the time, I didn't think anything could salvage the somewhat interesting concepts from their poor execution, especially since I'm unimpressed with Eden Studios' attempts at expanding their game line so far (in a nutshell, the Aegis Handbook and Shadows of the Mind have their moments, but the three alien books and Cryptozoology range from poorly handled to insipid). John Snead managed to do the impossible; I actually find myself interested in using the material in Forsaken Rites. This book is to Con X as Liber Ka was to Nephilim; a system that can recreate pretty much any concept, creature, or effect from real-world occultism. There aren't any tremendously original concepts or mechanics in this book, but I don't consider that a flaw; FR is a tool for designing interesting things for your games, and it has scads of well-written and intriguing examples suitable for play (not unlike GURPS Illuminati). The relatively high price is a stumbling point (as it is across the Con X line), but this is the only one of Eden's supplements that I think is totally worth the money. The art and layout are a little above for the line; generally good but usually not great (although there's a lot of Christopher Shy art, which is always nice, especially since there's reason for the people he draws here to have modern-primitive tattoos all over them; take a look at the art for the elders in White Wolf's Guide to the Camarilla for him doing this inappropriately). One glaring exception is the crude and bizarre S&M cartoons running through the Rituals section for no apparent reason. The Con X line has a nasty habit of presenting deep setting secrets as in-character reports on the subject, which implies it's ok for players to look at (especially when quite a few of them are written from the perspective of groups PCs can be full members of), but Snead thankfully goes easy on the IC text; the sections in here don't spill anything serious. My biggest problem with Con X's existing magic rules were their extreme blandness. FR handles this by revamping the Ritual skill, so that every mage learns a particular flavor of magic that they filter their rituals through. While I'm normally opposed to sourcebooks rewriting rules from the core book, in this case the increase in flavor is worth it. The schools provided more or less map to the West (ceremonial magic), Asia (Taoism), the African Diaspora (Caribbean magic), and the Third World (shamanism). Each school has its own set of advantages; for instance, Caribbean-trained ritualists are especially good at summoning and controlling spirits. I could quibble a bit with the requirement that all Taoists be good martial artists, but that's minor. The rituals themselves are more plentiful and flavorful than the ones in the main book (each one also includes flavor text on suggested trappings, which is a nice, evocative touch), and they fit in nicely with both the "real" laws of magic (contagion, sympathy, and so on) and the game's rules (one bit I liked was that the rituals to increase or decrease prosperity actually affect the Influence attribute). In general, rituals have relatively subtle or intangible effects; magicians can't throw fireballs or summon lightning, but they most certainly can give their rivals heart attacks or toy with people's minds. Also, as the name "ritual" implies, they generally take too long to cast to fire off on the spur of the moment or during a combat. Additionally, each ritual now costs points to learn (as near as I can figure, the original ruleset granted all ritualists access to all rituals), so magic-users converted to FR rules will likely be a bit less knowledgeable than before. There's a fine section on the role of the occult in the game's secret history (which involves themes and races from Atlantis Rising... but not the writeup on the Pilosi) and details on handling secret societies of mystics in play (level of knowledge, sphere of influence, and logistics), with three very cute examples suitable for use as antagonists or PC Credentials. Another nice touch is that none of the groups presented use actual game terminology in-character; too many games make their secret organizations all-knowing or have curiously unified terminology across mutually exclusive belief systems (Mage is often guilty of this, for example). Speaking of Mage, Snead takes a cue from its notion of Paradox (ok, the law of karma isn't unique to Mage, but it makes for a good segue) in how he handles Corruption. Now, rather than making PCs go to the Dark Side of the Force, Corruption turns up the knob on one of the PC's obsessions while eroding the rest of the personality; as PCs become corrupted they don't necessarily become evil, but they will be somewhat alien and probably dangerous to anyone who opposes their aims. Corruption is also sort of an inevitable consequence of abusing natural laws; most magicians can expect to get a little corrupted every so often, but now that there are decorrupting rituals, it's less of an irreversible tragedy (if, of course, the PC in question wants to get decorrupted, or even knows he's been affected). The flip side of playing down Corruption is that PCs might be tempted to pursue it, in hopes of getting more power (it's technically possible for PCs to continue play even after reaching terminal Corruption, but the book spells out that the ramifications of the downward spiral of that PC's sanity shouldn't be ignored by the GM or any of the PCs). This section is especially interesting and well done; pointedly the opposite of how the main book handles it. The rest of the supernatural hijinks are equally well-handled and proceed logically from the archetypal basis of Con X magic; the tired rules on Forsaken, Incarnate, and spirits are revitalized and actually made interesting, and a new section on handling demons is rather creative and adds a new wrinkle to dealing with the Incarnate. Even the requisite adventure is better than usual. In general, Forsaken Rites is a lot better than I've learned to expect from a Conspiracy X supplement; most of the general ideas and underlying concepts are straight out of the core rules, but the execution is worlds above it. I'm genuinely impressed by the craftsmanship that went into this book, and I'd recommend it to anyone else who found the magic from the main book lacking. While it's too strongly tied to the Con X ruleset to be easily converted to other game systems, I'd say it's indispensable for people who actually use the game already, if only as a change of pace from shooting Greys. Style: 4 (Classy and well done) Substance: 4 (Meaty)