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I spent a long time considering whether to buy "River o' Blood" before I actually took the plunge. Other Pinnacle boxed sets have been decent but not, in my humble opinion, worth the high price. Happily, this boxed set was well worth the expense.

The box contains a main book detailing the happenings along the Mississippi river, a dime novel–size adventure, and another dime novel–size book providing rules for voodooists. There is also a large color map of New Orleans, with illustrations of a riverboat on the flip side for those interested in using ship-to-ship combat or miniatures in their campaign. It's a nice map, but nothing special.

The main book is one of the fullest, most useful supplements produced for the game thus far. It opens with the ubiquitous issue of The Tombstone Epitaph, which starts by describing the river itself and the state of the Civil War along the Mississippi. From there it proceeds to describe war-torn St. Louis, genteel Memphis, and spooky New Orleans. Being born and raised in St. Louis, I particularly enjoyed that section of the book. It included some nice detailed items about the city that are still relevant today.

The sections on Memphis and New Orleans, with the latter being by far the longer, are nicely detailed and provide a great deal of expansion on two of The Weird West's major villains, the rail barons Mina Devlin and Baron Simone Lacroix. As usual, statistics are not provided for these two characters because there are plans for them in the future, but there is a significant amount of further insight into there plans provided. This business of not letting the characters enter into high-stakes confrontations with the big-league villains detracts a little from the epic battle in which Deadlands characters are engaged. Occasionally, it would be nice to tackle the big guys without wrecking "the big picture."

The main book also provides statistics for several types of riverboats. I am not a big fan of the ship-to-ship combat rules for the game because I prefer a more fast-paced game, but statistics for steamboats, mudwheelers, and other river craft are provided. You can use the rules provided to play a basic ship battle, but the vehicle rules in the supplement Smith & Robards are useful if you like complexity in your vehicle battles.

The adventure that comes with the package is a pretty scary little tale that involves the characters with Baron Lacroix. It's fun and fast paced, with a pretty fair mix of role-playing and combat.

The voodoo book provides rules for a new type of mystical character, the voodooist. Basically, each voodooist has a particular spirit being or loa to whom they pray for mystical assistance. The loas allow for the casting of voodoo spells, most of which are cast as rituals that require time to take effect rather than flashy bursts of magic. Some voodooists can become favored by a particular loa or loas and receive special abilities activated by the use of a fate chip.

Overall, this is a well-packaged supplement full of new source material and a solid adventure. There is nothing special about the layout of the product, and spelling and grammatical errors are typically frequent.

Style: 3 (Average)
Substance: 5 (Excellent!)

River of Blood
Author: John Goff Category: game Company/Publisher: Pinnacle Entertainment Group Line: Deadlands: The Weird West Cost: $30.00 Page count: 128 for main book, 32 for voodoo book, and 32 for adventure ISBN: 1-889546-41-0 Playtest Review by Andrew Schubert on 07/06/99. Genre tags: Horror Old_West	I spent a long time considering whether to buy "River o' Blood" before I actually took the plunge. Other Pinnacle boxed sets have been decent but not, in my humble opinion, worth the high price. Happily, this boxed set was well worth the expense. The box contains a main book detailing the happenings along the Mississippi river, a dime novel–size adventure, and another dime novel–size book providing rules for voodooists. There is also a large color map of New Orleans, with illustrations of a riverboat on the flip side for those interested in using ship-to-ship combat or miniatures in their campaign. It's a nice map, but nothing special. The main book is one of the fullest, most useful supplements produced for the game thus far. It opens with the ubiquitous issue of The Tombstone Epitaph, which starts by describing the river itself and the state of the Civil War along the Mississippi. From there it proceeds to describe war-torn St. Louis, genteel Memphis, and spooky New Orleans. Being born and raised in St. Louis, I particularly enjoyed that section of the book. It included some nice detailed items about the city that are still relevant today. The sections on Memphis and New Orleans, with the latter being by far the longer, are nicely detailed and provide a great deal of expansion on two of The Weird West's major villains, the rail barons Mina Devlin and Baron Simone Lacroix. As usual, statistics are not provided for these two characters because there are plans for them in the future, but there is a significant amount of further insight into there plans provided. This business of not letting the characters enter into high-stakes confrontations with the big-league villains detracts a little from the epic battle in which Deadlands characters are engaged. Occasionally, it would be nice to tackle the big guys without wrecking "the big picture." The main book also provides statistics for several types of riverboats. I am not a big fan of the ship-to-ship combat rules for the game because I prefer a more fast-paced game, but statistics for steamboats, mudwheelers, and other river craft are provided. You can use the rules provided to play a basic ship battle, but the vehicle rules in the supplement Smith & Robards are useful if you like complexity in your vehicle battles. The adventure that comes with the package is a pretty scary little tale that involves the characters with Baron Lacroix. It's fun and fast paced, with a pretty fair mix of role-playing and combat. The voodoo book provides rules for a new type of mystical character, the voodooist. Basically, each voodooist has a particular spirit being or loa to whom they pray for mystical assistance. The loas allow for the casting of voodoo spells, most of which are cast as rituals that require time to take effect rather than flashy bursts of magic. Some voodooists can become favored by a particular loa or loas and receive special abilities activated by the use of a fate chip. Overall, this is a well-packaged supplement full of new source material and a solid adventure. There is nothing special about the layout of the product, and spelling and grammatical errors are typically frequent. Style: 3 (Average) Substance: 5 (Excellent!)

River of Blood