The Inside Scoop on Gaming

Werewolf: the Apocalypse has always been a love-hate kind of game to me. I love many of the central ideas of it, the hopeless war, the religious under and overtones, but so often I have seen the game fall into a sad, pathetic game of "Kill the Wyrm!" Maybe it's just me, but the idea of some Get Ahroun saying "Shh! We're huntin' Wyrm taint!" doesn't appeal to me at all. I've always had a problem with the lack of cultural diversity in Werewolf: the Apocalypse, the sometime focus on combat moves and Gifts over religion and culture. So sadly, I don't play Werewolf: the Apocalypse nearly as much as I wish I could, but I still buy the books because I often love reading them. The Breedbooks, in particular, have had a nice history of being nice, solid and very entertaining. Bastet was superb, Corax a riot, and Ratkin surprising. Mokole is easily among the best, I think, filled with damned useful material and written with a nice flair that manages to bring that sense of religion, wonder and diversity to the game that the Garou lack so desperately.

Walking the Dinosaur

The comic book at the beginning of a Werewolf book is a long and generally annoying tradition. In Mokole, the comic has a wonderful plot, serving as an introduction to the bits of flavor fiction that weave throughout the entire book, telling an entertaining tale throughout. However, the art was terrible. Joe Corroney's work really does not appeal to me. I didn't like what he did in Ratkin and I like it less here. Steve Prescott should have been given that assignment, he has shown just how great a comic he can do with the great little story prefacing Ratkin. Corroney's work seemed distorted and much too busy for comic work.

Sunrise: Dragons in our Midst

This is just the introductory chapter that prefaces all of White Wolf's books, providing just enough baseline knowledge that later usage of terms are not met with frequent and required page-flipping and consternation. A bit longer and more detailed than most chapters of its ilk, I think it may be a bit more effective than shorter prefaces.

Morning: Was

This chapter (surprisingly short considering the power of Mnesis) is a look at the history of the Mokole, their tales of creation, development and deeds. There were several amazing revelations in the section of the book, including verification of the age of the breed (they were indeed the first of the Bete) and the fact that there was supposedly fully sentient dinosaurs that maintained a civilization of surprising complication. Their description and style of technology (all organic and grown, not "artificially manufactured" like with humans) all remind me very strongly of Harry Harrison's Eden series of novels with their bio-engineering and bipedal dinosaurs. In some ways that is good, but in others very bad.

While I like the idea of the Dragon Kings and their civilization, I don't feel that it is even remotely possible, not without leaving some trace behind. Sure, the evidence could have been covered up, or destroyed by the Wyrm, or even edited out of reality through the efforts of the Technocracy, but I tire at such suggestions and they grate on me unimaginably. There is a sidebar at the end of the book saying that if the idea doesn't appeal to you, simply ignore it and say that the Mnesis has been corrupted, but that is completely unsatisfying as well. The only way to come close to resolving this is to say that some form of dinosaur did manage to get the most basic level of society going, perhaps some desperate hunter-gatherer at best and the memories have been warped through time and nostalgia. They seemed grand at the time and so they were remembered as such. All other options lean too heavily into the realm of the supernatural for me, requiring a suspension of disbelief that begins to stretch too far.

The rest of the history was quite nice, however, and I especially enjoyed the mentions of how the Mokole tried to shepherd humanity into sentience as well as those Bete who did not make through the War of Rage. The history of the interaction between the Mokole and mankind only serves to re-enforce their dragon nature, the breed becoming more and more observers out of time, toying with mortals at their whims. The Unchanging, or those Bete who are now extinct, include the Grondr (wereboars), Apis (wereaurochs) and the Camazotz (werebats). It is great to finally have a bunch of really and truly dead breeds to actually show just what the Garou did during the War of Rage, instead of "Oh, you only thought that they were dead, but they're fine!"

Noonday: Us

This is the chapter on how the Mokole divide themselves, and how they deal with others. The breed is divided into four "streams," separated according to geography and suchid (lizard) form. In Australia are the Gumagan, in India the Makara, in Africa and the Americas the Mokole-mbembe, and in the East the Zhong Lung. For the most part, the descriptions are excellent. There is a definite feeling of cultural diversity (which is a good thing) but there are also special benefits and flaws for each stream (which is a bad thing) and it seems that such details were forgotten for some of the streams (which is a worse thing). On top of that, the descriptions of Forms and Auspices seems to have been forgotten for the Mokole-mbembe (which is the worst of all). Sadly, this lack of organization is merely foreshadowing for what happens later in the book.

After the streams, there is a discussion of other breeds and other supernatural beings, and I was more than pleasantly surprised to find a group in the World of Darkness that was not entirely blinded by prejudice and an obsession with the past. The Mokole are not only capable of cooperating (yes, even in the World of Darkness) but would actually voluntarily play nicely with others. The rabidly isolationist bent of nearly all of the groups in the World of Darkness was beginning to seriously chafe and this was a nice relief.

The chapter finished out with the Mokole "version" of the Litany, called the Duties, but I was again pleasantly surprised to find that it wasn't simply a re-writing of said Litany with "cold-blooded" snuck in when we weren't looking, it is actually different, if not radically so. Even more so, the Zhong Lung, with their ancient, philosophical ways, follow a version a bit different (but again, not simply a re-hash) called the "Mandates of Earth." Once again the cultural diversity shows through to enrich the supplement.

Afternoon: Dragon Making

This is where the book rapidly begins to lose cohesion and content. The book begins to get more and more disorganized and hard to follow as it goes along, and this is first most obviously apparent in the character creation section. No where near abysmal or impossible to follow, it (and the latter half of the book) could have definitely been arranged better.

There is a huge mass of fetishes and talens here, for example, when they would have been much better served placed in the chapter on Gifts like all of the other Breedbooks. Things like Matre dice and the details of Mnesis (which are in a later chapter) should also have been included here.

The character creation chapter also has a huge buttload of merits and flaws, almost all of them interesting in one way or another. Very few of them really bored me, and that is saying a lot.

On the whole, the chapter has just about everything you would need to make a Mokole character (which is a good thing, since that is what the game was designed to do) but it could have been laid out better and some of the details seemed very odd, like how Mokole only begin with 2 Gifts. The greater detail on Archid form characteristics was nice though.

Evening: Dragon's Eye

This is the toys chapter (although not for fetishes and talens, which are in the previous chapter for some reason), detailing Gifts and Rites of the Mokole. As is typical of Werewolf: the Apocalypse products, if follows the pattern of having interesting Rites and generally boring Gifts, but that may be again, to the detail and culture put into the Rites which is almost impossible to slip into Gifts.

Sunset: Dragon Lore

This is the storytelling chapter of the book, but it has a surprisingly small amount of "storyteller advice" for a White Wolf book, much of the chapter is taken up with rules and setting details. After a very quick mention of how to run clutches of Mokole and some campaign ideas, the text turns to details of the breed's life, from shapeshifting and reproduction to the Mokole and the Umbra. All of the information is needed and is both interesting and informative (and provides more opportunities for crossovers), but much of it also belonged in other chapters. Much of the Matre and Mnesis information should have been with character information and the Camps should have been with the streams, but at least it was here at all. The information is good, just not laid out the best.

Night: Lizardskin

This is where the book rounds out with templates, famous Mokole, real-world lizards and crocidilians and some notes on spirits and other special beings. Even more a hodge-podge than the previous chapter, this one seems jumbled together. The templates are good (and they are all only on one page, thankfully, and the Triceratops Poet is hilarious) and the famous Mokole are all interesting (and Braney the Wyrm-tainted Mokole with his own "children's show" was a riot as well). The real-world information on lizards and other Mokole kin was great as well, providing me with a great deal of essential knowledge that I didn't have, but the information on spirits and vampires seems horribly out of place, they would have fit better in the previous chapter than here, and their placement seemed odd and jarring.

So I liked dinosaurs when I was a kid, so what?

In the end, Mokole is easily one of my favorite Breedbooks to date. While the layout seemed flawed, I have to say that the cultural details that went into it really make it great and the sheer sense of excitement I felt reading it is enough reason to recommend it alone. It might be because I really do love dinosaurs and dragons, but this book has really made the Mokole one of my favorite breeds, and I almost itch to play one. It's saying something for the series of books that they have all had this effect on me. In each I have found a wealth of ideas that I would have loved to mine and play and twist and try. That's what makes for a good supplement in my eyes, and Mokole more than accomplishes that.

Style: 4 (Classy and well done)
Substance: 5 (Excellent!)

Mokole
Author: Jim Comer Category: game Company/Publisher: White Wolf Game Studio Line: Werewolf: the Apocalypse Cost: $19.95 Page count: 130 ISBN: 1-56504-306-5 SKU: WW 3081 Capsule Review by Derek Guder on 11/08/99. Genre tags: Fantasy Modern_day Historical	Werewolf: the Apocalypse has always been a love-hate kind of game to me. I love many of the central ideas of it, the hopeless war, the religious under and overtones, but so often I have seen the game fall into a sad, pathetic game of "Kill the Wyrm!" Maybe it's just me, but the idea of some Get Ahroun saying "Shh! We're huntin' Wyrm taint!" doesn't appeal to me at all. I've always had a problem with the lack of cultural diversity in Werewolf: the Apocalypse, the sometime focus on combat moves and Gifts over religion and culture. So sadly, I don't play Werewolf: the Apocalypse nearly as much as I wish I could, but I still buy the books because I often love reading them. The Breedbooks, in particular, have had a nice history of being nice, solid and very entertaining. Bastet was superb, Corax a riot, and Ratkin surprising. Mokole is easily among the best, I think, filled with damned useful material and written with a nice flair that manages to bring that sense of religion, wonder and diversity to the game that the Garou lack so desperately. Walking the Dinosaur The comic book at the beginning of a Werewolf book is a long and generally annoying tradition. In Mokole, the comic has a wonderful plot, serving as an introduction to the bits of flavor fiction that weave throughout the entire book, telling an entertaining tale throughout. However, the art was terrible. Joe Corroney's work really does not appeal to me. I didn't like what he did in Ratkin and I like it less here. Steve Prescott should have been given that assignment, he has shown just how great a comic he can do with the great little story prefacing Ratkin. Corroney's work seemed distorted and much too busy for comic work. Sunrise: Dragons in our Midst This is just the introductory chapter that prefaces all of White Wolf's books, providing just enough baseline knowledge that later usage of terms are not met with frequent and required page-flipping and consternation. A bit longer and more detailed than most chapters of its ilk, I think it may be a bit more effective than shorter prefaces. Morning: Was This chapter (surprisingly short considering the power of Mnesis) is a look at the history of the Mokole, their tales of creation, development and deeds. There were several amazing revelations in the section of the book, including verification of the age of the breed (they were indeed the first of the Bete) and the fact that there was supposedly fully sentient dinosaurs that maintained a civilization of surprising complication. Their description and style of technology (all organic and grown, not "artificially manufactured" like with humans) all remind me very strongly of Harry Harrison's Eden series of novels with their bio-engineering and bipedal dinosaurs. In some ways that is good, but in others very bad. While I like the idea of the Dragon Kings and their civilization, I don't feel that it is even remotely possible, not without leaving some trace behind. Sure, the evidence could have been covered up, or destroyed by the Wyrm, or even edited out of reality through the efforts of the Technocracy, but I tire at such suggestions and they grate on me unimaginably. There is a sidebar at the end of the book saying that if the idea doesn't appeal to you, simply ignore it and say that the Mnesis has been corrupted, but that is completely unsatisfying as well. The only way to come close to resolving this is to say that some form of dinosaur did manage to get the most basic level of society going, perhaps some desperate hunter-gatherer at best and the memories have been warped through time and nostalgia. They seemed grand at the time and so they were remembered as such. All other options lean too heavily into the realm of the supernatural for me, requiring a suspension of disbelief that begins to stretch too far. The rest of the history was quite nice, however, and I especially enjoyed the mentions of how the Mokole tried to shepherd humanity into sentience as well as those Bete who did not make through the War of Rage. The history of the interaction between the Mokole and mankind only serves to re-enforce their dragon nature, the breed becoming more and more observers out of time, toying with mortals at their whims. The Unchanging, or those Bete who are now extinct, include the Grondr (wereboars), Apis (wereaurochs) and the Camazotz (werebats). It is great to finally have a bunch of really and truly dead breeds to actually show just what the Garou did during the War of Rage, instead of "Oh, you only thought that they were dead, but they're fine!" Noonday: Us This is the chapter on how the Mokole divide themselves, and how they deal with others. The breed is divided into four "streams," separated according to geography and suchid (lizard) form. In Australia are the Gumagan, in India the Makara, in Africa and the Americas the Mokole-mbembe, and in the East the Zhong Lung. For the most part, the descriptions are excellent. There is a definite feeling of cultural diversity (which is a good thing) but there are also special benefits and flaws for each stream (which is a bad thing) and it seems that such details were forgotten for some of the streams (which is a worse thing). On top of that, the descriptions of Forms and Auspices seems to have been forgotten for the Mokole-mbembe (which is the worst of all). Sadly, this lack of organization is merely foreshadowing for what happens later in the book. After the streams, there is a discussion of other breeds and other supernatural beings, and I was more than pleasantly surprised to find a group in the World of Darkness that was not entirely blinded by prejudice and an obsession with the past. The Mokole are not only capable of cooperating (yes, even in the World of Darkness) but would actually voluntarily play nicely with others. The rabidly isolationist bent of nearly all of the groups in the World of Darkness was beginning to seriously chafe and this was a nice relief. The chapter finished out with the Mokole "version" of the Litany, called the Duties, but I was again pleasantly surprised to find that it wasn't simply a re-writing of said Litany with "cold-blooded" snuck in when we weren't looking, it is actually different, if not radically so. Even more so, the Zhong Lung, with their ancient, philosophical ways, follow a version a bit different (but again, not simply a re-hash) called the "Mandates of Earth." Once again the cultural diversity shows through to enrich the supplement. Afternoon: Dragon Making This is where the book rapidly begins to lose cohesion and content. The book begins to get more and more disorganized and hard to follow as it goes along, and this is first most obviously apparent in the character creation section. No where near abysmal or impossible to follow, it (and the latter half of the book) could have definitely been arranged better. There is a huge mass of fetishes and talens here, for example, when they would have been much better served placed in the chapter on Gifts like all of the other Breedbooks. Things like Matre dice and the details of Mnesis (which are in a later chapter) should also have been included here. The character creation chapter also has a huge buttload of merits and flaws, almost all of them interesting in one way or another. Very few of them really bored me, and that is saying a lot. On the whole, the chapter has just about everything you would need to make a Mokole character (which is a good thing, since that is what the game was designed to do) but it could have been laid out better and some of the details seemed very odd, like how Mokole only begin with 2 Gifts. The greater detail on Archid form characteristics was nice though. Evening: Dragon's Eye This is the toys chapter (although not for fetishes and talens, which are in the previous chapter for some reason), detailing Gifts and Rites of the Mokole. As is typical of Werewolf: the Apocalypse products, if follows the pattern of having interesting Rites and generally boring Gifts, but that may be again, to the detail and culture put into the Rites which is almost impossible to slip into Gifts. Sunset: Dragon Lore This is the storytelling chapter of the book, but it has a surprisingly small amount of "storyteller advice" for a White Wolf book, much of the chapter is taken up with rules and setting details. After a very quick mention of how to run clutches of Mokole and some campaign ideas, the text turns to details of the breed's life, from shapeshifting and reproduction to the Mokole and the Umbra. All of the information is needed and is both interesting and informative (and provides more opportunities for crossovers), but much of it also belonged in other chapters. Much of the Matre and Mnesis information should have been with character information and the Camps should have been with the streams, but at least it was here at all. The information is good, just not laid out the best. Night: Lizardskin This is where the book rounds out with templates, famous Mokole, real-world lizards and crocidilians and some notes on spirits and other special beings. Even more a hodge-podge than the previous chapter, this one seems jumbled together. The templates are good (and they are all only on one page, thankfully, and the Triceratops Poet is hilarious) and the famous Mokole are all interesting (and Braney the Wyrm-tainted Mokole with his own "children's show" was a riot as well). The real-world information on lizards and other Mokole kin was great as well, providing me with a great deal of essential knowledge that I didn't have, but the information on spirits and vampires seems horribly out of place, they would have fit better in the previous chapter than here, and their placement seemed odd and jarring. So I liked dinosaurs when I was a kid, so what? In the end, Mokole is easily one of my favorite Breedbooks to date. While the layout seemed flawed, I have to say that the cultural details that went into it really make it great and the sheer sense of excitement I felt reading it is enough reason to recommend it alone. It might be because I really do love dinosaurs and dragons, but this book has really made the Mokole one of my favorite breeds, and I almost itch to play one. It's saying something for the series of books that they have all had this effect on me. In each I have found a wealth of ideas that I would have loved to mine and play and twist and try. That's what makes for a good supplement in my eyes, and Mokole more than accomplishes that. Style: 4 (Classy and well done) Substance: 5 (Excellent!)