The Inside Scoop on Gaming

Bear with me for a second while I discuss something that'll inititially seem unrelated to this product. Also, please try to muddle through the White Wolf terms.

I've been running an online Mage campaign for quite some time - forty-five session, in which the players discovered an entire village that had been lost in a subrealm, accessible through an alley in San Francisco. It was also a former chantry for a cabal of powerful mages - all of whom were dead, insane or Embraced - and was under siege by vampires, who lived in tunnels underneath the town.

So: one of the players, an investigator for the Arcanum, sends to the Arcanum for a vampire. I had the communication intercepted by the Inquisition, who sent its own vampire hunter - a Puritan named Xavier Stallburg. Xavier pretended to be Arcanum and hooked up with the party; later, they descended into a basement where they knew the vampires had a tunnel. Xavier, through no real fault of his own, wound up being grabbed by at least a half-dozen vampires and bitten repeatedly. The Arcanum character decided that Xavier was already dead, and said that he wanted to shoot Xavier in the head. (It wasn't clear that Xavier was definitely dead, incidentally.) So, Xavier wound up getting shot in the head and killed.

And an NPC character that I liked quite a bit bit the dust, mostly because the Arcanum character was feeling trigger-happy. What to do now?

You can guess by the product that I'm reviewing exactly what happened. The Arcanum character woke up two weeks later with Xavier hunched over him, stale water dripping out of the missing part of Xavier's head. It was not a good time to be the Arcanum character.

_The Risen_ isn't meant to be crossed over with Mage; as a matter of fact, at the time, I knew about the Risen only second-hand. Until I picked up The Risen at my local gaming store, at least.

What's _The Risen_ about? Wraiths who are motivated strongly enough to reanimate their old bodies in order to do whatever they were planning to do in real life. If you're thinking "Hey, that sounds an awful lot like "The Crow", then you're on the right track. As a matter of fact, there's parts of _The Risen_ that are _awfully_ close to The Crow - some of the Arcanoi directly mimic effects pulled off by Eric Draven.

Is it a bad thing? Not at all. As a matter of fact, The Risen obviously knows that it has to be something more than "The Crow"; and it succeeds admirably. The Risen are stitched in with the rest of the World of Darkness enough that they survive on their own.

Piece by piece: I wasn't terrifically fond of the opening story, just because it was so hopeless - not in the sense of bad writing, but in the sense that nothing's really accomplished. Agreed, the Risen have the capacity for extreme violence, and the story makes sense, but it's just not something that makes me eager to play a Risen - or a Wraith, for that matter. It's an effective horror story, at least.

The details of being a Risen are next - it's essentially a devil's deal between you and your Shadow, in order to fulfill a driving passion. You go into your body, your Shadow goes into a Conduit, and the both of you have to be together in order to operate fully. Character creation is limited by certain restrictions, both on Arcanoi (wraithly abilities) and on Attributes. The limitation on Attributes is somewhat annoying - I understand why Appearance has limits, but putting limits on Strength - and Arcanoi - seems to be railroading characters a bit. Nothing to stop you from ignoring them, I suppose. There's also some remarkably interesting Merits and Flaws, including one that lets you walk around with your head disconnected from your neck - good, clean, wholesome fun!

The Risen are also unique - and possibly twinkish - in the respect that they can actually learn certain Vampiric disciplines. The explanation listed is that the Risen, like vampires, are walking corpses, and so the two can share abiliities - but shouldn't vampires be able to learn certain Wraith arcanoi? Then again, most Arcanoi don't really have any useful effect in the real world, so it balances out. The addition of vampiric disciplines makes the Risen a match for a single supernatural opponent, or a group of mundane thugs; I don't think that I can really fault White Wolf for allowing them to learn disicplines, but you'll need Vampire in order to use them.

There are two new Arcanoi for the Risen, and - I hate to say this again - both mimick, to some degree, The Crow. Fascinate allows you to give commands to people ("Mother is the name for God in the minds and hearts of all children.") and Serendepity aids you quite a bit in finding out what you need to do in order to resolve your conflicts - including flashbacks to important events and so forth. Definitely useful for the Risen, but Serendepity almost seems like a bit too much of a tool for Storytellers to point characters in a particular direction. Making it an Arcanoi, instead of a random effect, also makes it a little too convenient; I'd almost be inclined to just skip learning the Arcanoi in a linear fashion and allow Wraiths with the ability to spend a variable amount of Pathos to get the effect.

Lest you think that the Risen are for twinks only, there's two or three factors limiting the Risen. Their Shadows are much more powerful, thanks to the stresses of being a Risen, and they ususally lose their bodies once they've achieved their goals. In addition, the Risen tend to cause a lot of innocent casualties during their un-lifetimes, although this isn't mentioned in the book.

And that could pose a problem with any team-up between the Risen and another White Wolf character - while the average White Wolf supernatural can do anything he wants, within reason, a Risen comes up for a specific reason and goes down once that job is done. It does accurately simulate The Film Which I Will Not Type the Name of Again - and much more - but putting a Risen in with a regular gaming group, or even with a group of Wraiths, could cause some problems. For a one-shot game, or short campaign, it's fine, but the impression that I get is that the Risen aren't supposed to stay above ground for a real long time. You can massage a Risen into a group, but it'll take a little effort.

The story ideas provide a lot of decent story-telling ideas; not just the single-minded quest for vengeance, but adventures about how to rise from the grave in the first place, and the relationship between the Risen and the various factions of the afterlife - they're useful. The character archetypes range from the interesting - the Occultist/"True Goth" - to the obvious - the Vengeful Vigilante - to the somewhat foolish, like the Abused Child. (It's an idea with its heart in the right place, but it just seems...kinda awkward, and a little goofy.) The Occultist has a neat picture, if you look out for it.

The art is up the usual White Wolf art - as a matter of fact, a lot of it is pretty evocative. The opening story has a bit too much art depicting pretty much the same event in different locations, although the chapter opener - by Andrew Ritchie - is a stunner. Some of it is a bit baffling - are the two men in masks Risen, or is their victim a Risen-to-be? - although still quite evocative. It definitely catches your attention, to be sure.

The book closes with a list of remarkable Risen, but most of them aren't terrifically evocative. Ian Jackson, a Risen who's after vampires, is interesting, but the other two are a little bland - they're both mad-dog killers, after their respective groups of targets. They'd make great NPCs, but as inspiration, they don't entirely cut it.

So: I would definitely recommend this book for Wraith players, especially those interested in running games that hop back and forth between the realms of the living and the dead; however, there are a few flaws in the book that prevent me from giving it top marks. It's definitely a useful resource, but it's also a book that demands a 2nd edition to clean it up, and make it more clear about what the perspectives of the Risen themselves. There's a lot of potential, but it needs to be fleshed out more for this book to truly shine.

Oh: How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?

-Darren MacLennan

(Depends on the tune. Second-to-last line in the Crow graphic novel. May God strike me down firmly if I ever mention it again within the confines of a review.)

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

The Risen - For Wraith: The Oblivion
Author: Elizabeth Ditchburn and Heather Grove Category: game Company/Publisher: White Wolf Publishing Cost: $12.00 Page count: 78 ISBN: 1-56504-663-3 Playtest Review by Darren MacLennan on 02/24/99. Genre tags: Modern_day Horror Vampire Gothic	Bear with me for a second while I discuss something that'll inititially seem unrelated to this product. Also, please try to muddle through the White Wolf terms. I've been running an online Mage campaign for quite some time - forty-five session, in which the players discovered an entire village that had been lost in a subrealm, accessible through an alley in San Francisco. It was also a former chantry for a cabal of powerful mages - all of whom were dead, insane or Embraced - and was under siege by vampires, who lived in tunnels underneath the town. So: one of the players, an investigator for the Arcanum, sends to the Arcanum for a vampire. I had the communication intercepted by the Inquisition, who sent its own vampire hunter - a Puritan named Xavier Stallburg. Xavier pretended to be Arcanum and hooked up with the party; later, they descended into a basement where they knew the vampires had a tunnel. Xavier, through no real fault of his own, wound up being grabbed by at least a half-dozen vampires and bitten repeatedly. The Arcanum character decided that Xavier was already dead, and said that he wanted to shoot Xavier in the head. (It wasn't clear that Xavier was definitely dead, incidentally.) So, Xavier wound up getting shot in the head and killed. And an NPC character that I liked quite a bit bit the dust, mostly because the Arcanum character was feeling trigger-happy. What to do now? You can guess by the product that I'm reviewing exactly what happened. The Arcanum character woke up two weeks later with Xavier hunched over him, stale water dripping out of the missing part of Xavier's head. It was not a good time to be the Arcanum character. _The Risen_ isn't meant to be crossed over with Mage; as a matter of fact, at the time, I knew about the Risen only second-hand. Until I picked up The Risen at my local gaming store, at least. What's _The Risen_ about? Wraiths who are motivated strongly enough to reanimate their old bodies in order to do whatever they were planning to do in real life. If you're thinking "Hey, that sounds an awful lot like "The Crow", then you're on the right track. As a matter of fact, there's parts of _The Risen_ that are _awfully_ close to The Crow - some of the Arcanoi directly mimic effects pulled off by Eric Draven. Is it a bad thing? Not at all. As a matter of fact, The Risen obviously knows that it has to be something more than "The Crow"; and it succeeds admirably. The Risen are stitched in with the rest of the World of Darkness enough that they survive on their own. Piece by piece: I wasn't terrifically fond of the opening story, just because it was so hopeless - not in the sense of bad writing, but in the sense that nothing's really accomplished. Agreed, the Risen have the capacity for extreme violence, and the story makes sense, but it's just not something that makes me eager to play a Risen - or a Wraith, for that matter. It's an effective horror story, at least. The details of being a Risen are next - it's essentially a devil's deal between you and your Shadow, in order to fulfill a driving passion. You go into your body, your Shadow goes into a Conduit, and the both of you have to be together in order to operate fully. Character creation is limited by certain restrictions, both on Arcanoi (wraithly abilities) and on Attributes. The limitation on Attributes is somewhat annoying - I understand why Appearance has limits, but putting limits on Strength - and Arcanoi - seems to be railroading characters a bit. Nothing to stop you from ignoring them, I suppose. There's also some remarkably interesting Merits and Flaws, including one that lets you walk around with your head disconnected from your neck - good, clean, wholesome fun! The Risen are also unique - and possibly twinkish - in the respect that they can actually learn certain Vampiric disciplines. The explanation listed is that the Risen, like vampires, are walking corpses, and so the two can share abiliities - but shouldn't vampires be able to learn certain Wraith arcanoi? Then again, most Arcanoi don't really have any useful effect in the real world, so it balances out. The addition of vampiric disciplines makes the Risen a match for a single supernatural opponent, or a group of mundane thugs; I don't think that I can really fault White Wolf for allowing them to learn disicplines, but you'll need Vampire in order to use them. There are two new Arcanoi for the Risen, and - I hate to say this again - both mimick, to some degree, The Crow. Fascinate allows you to give commands to people ("Mother is the name for God in the minds and hearts of all children.") and Serendepity aids you quite a bit in finding out what you need to do in order to resolve your conflicts - including flashbacks to important events and so forth. Definitely useful for the Risen, but Serendepity almost seems like a bit too much of a tool for Storytellers to point characters in a particular direction. Making it an Arcanoi, instead of a random effect, also makes it a little too convenient; I'd almost be inclined to just skip learning the Arcanoi in a linear fashion and allow Wraiths with the ability to spend a variable amount of Pathos to get the effect. Lest you think that the Risen are for twinks only, there's two or three factors limiting the Risen. Their Shadows are much more powerful, thanks to the stresses of being a Risen, and they ususally lose their bodies once they've achieved their goals. In addition, the Risen tend to cause a lot of innocent casualties during their un-lifetimes, although this isn't mentioned in the book. And that could pose a problem with any team-up between the Risen and another White Wolf character - while the average White Wolf supernatural can do anything he wants, within reason, a Risen comes up for a specific reason and goes down once that job is done. It does accurately simulate The Film Which I Will Not Type the Name of Again - and much more - but putting a Risen in with a regular gaming group, or even with a group of Wraiths, could cause some problems. For a one-shot game, or short campaign, it's fine, but the impression that I get is that the Risen aren't supposed to stay above ground for a real long time. You can massage a Risen into a group, but it'll take a little effort. The story ideas provide a lot of decent story-telling ideas; not just the single-minded quest for vengeance, but adventures about how to rise from the grave in the first place, and the relationship between the Risen and the various factions of the afterlife - they're useful. The character archetypes range from the interesting - the Occultist/"True Goth" - to the obvious - the Vengeful Vigilante - to the somewhat foolish, like the Abused Child. (It's an idea with its heart in the right place, but it just seems...kinda awkward, and a little goofy.) The Occultist has a neat picture, if you look out for it. The art is up the usual White Wolf art - as a matter of fact, a lot of it is pretty evocative. The opening story has a bit too much art depicting pretty much the same event in different locations, although the chapter opener - by Andrew Ritchie - is a stunner. Some of it is a bit baffling - are the two men in masks Risen, or is their victim a Risen-to-be? - although still quite evocative. It definitely catches your attention, to be sure. The book closes with a list of remarkable Risen, but most of them aren't terrifically evocative. Ian Jackson, a Risen who's after vampires, is interesting, but the other two are a little bland - they're both mad-dog killers, after their respective groups of targets. They'd make great NPCs, but as inspiration, they don't entirely cut it. So: I would definitely recommend this book for Wraith players, especially those interested in running games that hop back and forth between the realms of the living and the dead; however, there are a few flaws in the book that prevent me from giving it top marks. It's definitely a useful resource, but it's also a book that demands a 2nd edition to clean it up, and make it more clear about what the perspectives of the Risen themselves. There's a lot of potential, but it needs to be fleshed out more for this book to truly shine. Oh: How many angels can dance on the head of a pin? -Darren MacLennan (Depends on the tune. Second-to-last line in the Crow graphic novel. May God strike me down firmly if I ever mention it again within the confines of a review.) Style: 4 (Classy and well done) Substance: 4 (Meaty)

The Risen - For Wraith: The Oblivion