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The Book of the Unliving is an ambitious undertaking by Steven Brown; it is part one of four complete role-playing games that can be used in conjunction with each other or seperate. The easiest game to compare it to is White Wolf's World of Darkness and it's various settings. This isn't too shocking since Mr. Brown is a former writer for White Wolf and at times Everlasting seems a bit derivative. This isn't necessarily a bad thing since Brown takes a straight forward approach in his style rather then hiding material behind too much flavor text.

The Secret World is the main stage for the protagonist who are the eldritch; various races that are immortal and go stomping around the modern world battling each other. The first foundation book focuses upon the Eldritch who are Undead. They compose of Vampires, Ghuls, Revenants, Reanimates, and Dead Souls. Each one of these races get their own chapters with more information being provided for the former three races since they are the primary focus of the book. Before we get into the races we are first introduced to character creation and the main system of rules.

Character creation involves picking your aspects, skills, powers, background, and various other little things to flesh out your character. Nothing too innovative here. Next is the system which allows you to either play free form, with dice, or with cards. The mechanics are very simple and is a variant of the White Wolf system with some twist like rolling a twelve sided rather then a ten sided and having your skills rating subtract from your target number to hit. The system is simple and with the advanced guidelines you can customize what you want and don't want.

The meat of the book comes with lengthy chapters on Ghuls, Revenants, and Vampires. Each chapters explain's each ones society, anatomy, powers, and guidelines. The Vampire chapters is the longest with various bloodlines to choose from. This may remind you of clans and in a sense they are very similar, but each bloodline has alot of personality. There is the bloodline of Dracula, Lilith, Tantulus of greek mythology, Kali from Indian, the African Obayifo, and many more.

Each bloodline is nicely defined and well written. The Revenants are also handled nicely. They are souls that come back to earth by kidnapping a human host and feeding upon mortal life-forces to sustain themselves. They are hunted by another group of Revenants called the Ankou. They work for Death himself and are in the business of being Grim Reapers. They hunt down the Revenants since they feel that they have cheated their master and must be returned to the underworld for punishment.

The Ghuls are mortals who drank the elixir of immortality called Anecro that transformed them into undead. Some take too much and become a horribly deformed walking corpse while others take just the right amount to retain their human appearance. The deformed ones can still hang out in modern society with skinsuits, the flesh of humans that is properly prepared by magic. However, most Ghuls live in catacombs, graveyards, sewer systems, and tunnels.

Rounding out the undead are the Reanimates and Dead Souls. The Reanimates are your classic frankenstein monster that are broken down into Death Mechs, Fleshfreaks, and Golems. The Dead Souls are your ghost that hold onto the real world because of a strong emotional connection.

The book ends with advanced guidelines, storytelling sections, a small adventures, and helpful advice. The Advanced guidelines introduces the magick system that is a blend of Mage and AD&D. You have spontaneous magick and spell based magick. Spontaneous is harder to cast, but has a lot of freedom while the spell based is an established effect with less of a chance to fail. The path of magick you choose helps to determine your specialty. Four paths are introduced complete with spells.

The Everlasting RPG is a good one and well worth the price of admission. There is tons of neat information, a nice twist on the supernatural in the modern world theme, and most importantly it has charm.

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

Everlasting: Book of the Unliving
Author: Steven Brown Category: game Company/Publisher: Visionary Entertainment Studio Line: Everlasting RPG Cost: 29.95 Page count: 318 Capsule Review by Steven M. Marella on 07/16/99. Genre tags: Modern_day Horror Gothic	The Book of the Unliving is an ambitious undertaking by Steven Brown; it is part one of four complete role-playing games that can be used in conjunction with each other or seperate. The easiest game to compare it to is White Wolf's World of Darkness and it's various settings. This isn't too shocking since Mr. Brown is a former writer for White Wolf and at times Everlasting seems a bit derivative. This isn't necessarily a bad thing since Brown takes a straight forward approach in his style rather then hiding material behind too much flavor text. The Secret World is the main stage for the protagonist who are the eldritch; various races that are immortal and go stomping around the modern world battling each other. The first foundation book focuses upon the Eldritch who are Undead. They compose of Vampires, Ghuls, Revenants, Reanimates, and Dead Souls. Each one of these races get their own chapters with more information being provided for the former three races since they are the primary focus of the book. Before we get into the races we are first introduced to character creation and the main system of rules. Character creation involves picking your aspects, skills, powers, background, and various other little things to flesh out your character. Nothing too innovative here. Next is the system which allows you to either play free form, with dice, or with cards. The mechanics are very simple and is a variant of the White Wolf system with some twist like rolling a twelve sided rather then a ten sided and having your skills rating subtract from your target number to hit. The system is simple and with the advanced guidelines you can customize what you want and don't want. The meat of the book comes with lengthy chapters on Ghuls, Revenants, and Vampires. Each chapters explain's each ones society, anatomy, powers, and guidelines. The Vampire chapters is the longest with various bloodlines to choose from. This may remind you of clans and in a sense they are very similar, but each bloodline has alot of personality. There is the bloodline of Dracula, Lilith, Tantulus of greek mythology, Kali from Indian, the African Obayifo, and many more. Each bloodline is nicely defined and well written. The Revenants are also handled nicely. They are souls that come back to earth by kidnapping a human host and feeding upon mortal life-forces to sustain themselves. They are hunted by another group of Revenants called the Ankou. They work for Death himself and are in the business of being Grim Reapers. They hunt down the Revenants since they feel that they have cheated their master and must be returned to the underworld for punishment. The Ghuls are mortals who drank the elixir of immortality called Anecro that transformed them into undead. Some take too much and become a horribly deformed walking corpse while others take just the right amount to retain their human appearance. The deformed ones can still hang out in modern society with skinsuits, the flesh of humans that is properly prepared by magic. However, most Ghuls live in catacombs, graveyards, sewer systems, and tunnels. Rounding out the undead are the Reanimates and Dead Souls. The Reanimates are your classic frankenstein monster that are broken down into Death Mechs, Fleshfreaks, and Golems. The Dead Souls are your ghost that hold onto the real world because of a strong emotional connection. The book ends with advanced guidelines, storytelling sections, a small adventures, and helpful advice. The Advanced guidelines introduces the magick system that is a blend of Mage and AD&D. You have spontaneous magick and spell based magick. Spontaneous is harder to cast, but has a lot of freedom while the spell based is an established effect with less of a chance to fail. The path of magick you choose helps to determine your specialty. Four paths are introduced complete with spells. The Everlasting RPG is a good one and well worth the price of admission. There is tons of neat information, a nice twist on the supernatural in the modern world theme, and most importantly it has charm. Style: 4 (Classy and well done) Substance: 4 (Meaty)

Everlasting: Book of the Unliving