The Inside Scoop on Gaming

In Feng Shui, the sole method of time-travel is a maze of twisty passages, all alike, known as the Netherworld. The mysteries of this unusual place stand (mostly) explained in Elevator to the Netherworld.

On the Outside

The cover's nice. The cover has a picture of a woman dangling from the doors of an elevator car which open onto a tunnel leading downward. She's also pointing a gun at the forehead of a cybernetic ape that seems to be attacking her. Or maybe it's doing a Jolson impression and she wants it to stop. Either could be the case, I suppose, and either way it's a nice picture. My only complaint is that the Feng Shui label is located in the lower left-hand corner of the front cover and it's no bigger than the Atlas Games logo in the lower right-hand corner. The reason this is a problem is that a lot of game stores use a type of shelf that obscures the lower couple of inches of the book--and that's if there's not another book in front of it. Still, though, nice cover.

On the Inside

The first part of the book is an in-character introduction to the Netherworld for a newcomer. The topics covered include geography (mostly stable, but be alert), physics (unreliable), politics (power emanates from the barrel of a gun, or the hands of a sorceror, or whatever), and economics (if you don't want it, try to trade it for something you do want). There are also four crude maps of the four "levels" of the Netherworld. The maps are useful for showing roughly where things are, but they also reduce some of the mystery of the Netherworld. Still, it can always change at the drop of a hat, and it doesn't depict anywhere near the whole Netherworld (somewhere there's a passage to ancient Rome, but no one can find it!).

Next up is an in-depth discussion of the domains of each of the Four Monarchs. The Four Monarchs, for those who aren't clued-in about the Secret War, are two brothers and two sisters who used to be the immortal sorcerous rulers of the world, up until 1988, when a group of animals masquerading as humans changed things 500 years before the Monarchs were born and erased their timeline from history. They took refuge in the Netherworld, where they continue to scheme against each other to this day. Each domain has its own flavor, themed around ice, fire, thunder, and darkness. The fortress of Pui Ti, the Ice Queen, is a fairy-tale winter wonderland on the surface but underneath is a high-tech training ground for her small cadre of elite warriors. By contrast, Ming I, the Queen of the Darkness Pagoda, rules from a step pyramid formed from pure darkness, keeps herself young by eating the hearts and drinking the blood of virgins, and in general is a great place to rip off Conan the Barbarian for your adventure plots.

After that, we get the strongholds of each of the other factions in the Secret War, including the laboratories of the Buro, the well-hidden base of the Ascended, the jungle home of the Jammers, the Temple of Boundless Meditation where the monks of the Guiding Hand practice, and the fortress of the Lotus, which has an entry into the Underworld (different from the Netherworld), from whence demons are summoned--all you have to do is be eaten by the head of a colossal demon and he'll excrete you into the Underworld . . . .

There's also misfit people, like Johnny Java the assassin who drinks coffee and takes speed by the handful because when he's asleep the nightmares come, the Brotherhood of Hebrew Champions--heroes from a nonexistent timeline who fight for what's right with a combination of kung-fu and Judaism--or a robot from a timeline that is so long forgotten that no one remembers it. Where you have misfit people, you need misfit places for them to go--places like the Sunless Sea or the Forest of Fallen Banners (a haunted forest where each tree commemorates a war and each leaf is a banner representing someone who died in it) or Pinballhalla (an arcade with security provided by honest-to-gods Vikings on loan from the King of the Thunder Pagoda).

There are a few strange monsters, including the strangely lethal face crabs (they look like crabs underneath, but actual, though nonsentient, human faces on top--whatever you do, don't eat them!) and the Giant Firebreathing Infants whose existence was shown in Seed of the New Flesh.

What this book is lacking is premade templates--making this only the second Feng Shui supplement ever without templates (and the first was a book of adventures). I'd've liked to have seen some templates built around heroes from lost timelines or points in time no longer accessible, but I also know that it was probably a smart move on the part of the authors. After all, the possibilities for characters from the Netherworld is infinite. It'd be hard to stop once you started.

Overall, Elevator to the Netherworld is another one of those books that Feng Shui GMs will definitely want to have. It's rules-light and heavy on the setting without changing the game world to any appreciable degree (a good example of detailing rather than advancing the setting). The book veers from serious to wacky and back again at breakneck pace, and it makes the Netherworld a viable place for adventuring rather than just a device for getting from one time period to another.

Style: 3 (Average)
Substance: 3 (Average)

Elevator to the Netherworld
Author: Tim Dedopulous, Bryant Durrell, David Eber, Geoff Grabowski, Mike Lee, Mike Mearls, Chris Pramas, Greg Stolze, and Tim Toner Category: game Company/Publisher: Atlas Games Line: Feng Shui Cost: $19.95 USD Page count: 127 ISBN: 1-887801-83-9 SKU: AG4003 Capsule Review by Kevin Mowery on 05/12/00. Genre tags: Fantasy Science_fiction Modern_day Historical Conspiracy Asian/Far_East	In Feng Shui, the sole method of time-travel is a maze of twisty passages, all alike, known as the Netherworld. The mysteries of this unusual place stand (mostly) explained in Elevator to the Netherworld. On the Outside The cover's nice. The cover has a picture of a woman dangling from the doors of an elevator car which open onto a tunnel leading downward. She's also pointing a gun at the forehead of a cybernetic ape that seems to be attacking her. Or maybe it's doing a Jolson impression and she wants it to stop. Either could be the case, I suppose, and either way it's a nice picture. My only complaint is that the Feng Shui label is located in the lower left-hand corner of the front cover and it's no bigger than the Atlas Games logo in the lower right-hand corner. The reason this is a problem is that a lot of game stores use a type of shelf that obscures the lower couple of inches of the book--and that's if there's not another book in front of it. Still, though, nice cover. On the Inside The first part of the book is an in-character introduction to the Netherworld for a newcomer. The topics covered include geography (mostly stable, but be alert), physics (unreliable), politics (power emanates from the barrel of a gun, or the hands of a sorceror, or whatever), and economics (if you don't want it, try to trade it for something you do want). There are also four crude maps of the four "levels" of the Netherworld. The maps are useful for showing roughly where things are, but they also reduce some of the mystery of the Netherworld. Still, it can always change at the drop of a hat, and it doesn't depict anywhere near the whole Netherworld (somewhere there's a passage to ancient Rome, but no one can find it!). Next up is an in-depth discussion of the domains of each of the Four Monarchs. The Four Monarchs, for those who aren't clued-in about the Secret War, are two brothers and two sisters who used to be the immortal sorcerous rulers of the world, up until 1988, when a group of animals masquerading as humans changed things 500 years before the Monarchs were born and erased their timeline from history. They took refuge in the Netherworld, where they continue to scheme against each other to this day. Each domain has its own flavor, themed around ice, fire, thunder, and darkness. The fortress of Pui Ti, the Ice Queen, is a fairy-tale winter wonderland on the surface but underneath is a high-tech training ground for her small cadre of elite warriors. By contrast, Ming I, the Queen of the Darkness Pagoda, rules from a step pyramid formed from pure darkness, keeps herself young by eating the hearts and drinking the blood of virgins, and in general is a great place to rip off Conan the Barbarian for your adventure plots. After that, we get the strongholds of each of the other factions in the Secret War, including the laboratories of the Buro, the well-hidden base of the Ascended, the jungle home of the Jammers, the Temple of Boundless Meditation where the monks of the Guiding Hand practice, and the fortress of the Lotus, which has an entry into the Underworld (different from the Netherworld), from whence demons are summoned--all you have to do is be eaten by the head of a colossal demon and he'll excrete you into the Underworld . . . . There's also misfit people, like Johnny Java the assassin who drinks coffee and takes speed by the handful because when he's asleep the nightmares come, the Brotherhood of Hebrew Champions--heroes from a nonexistent timeline who fight for what's right with a combination of kung-fu and Judaism--or a robot from a timeline that is so long forgotten that no one remembers it. Where you have misfit people, you need misfit places for them to go--places like the Sunless Sea or the Forest of Fallen Banners (a haunted forest where each tree commemorates a war and each leaf is a banner representing someone who died in it) or Pinballhalla (an arcade with security provided by honest-to-gods Vikings on loan from the King of the Thunder Pagoda). There are a few strange monsters, including the strangely lethal face crabs (they look like crabs underneath, but actual, though nonsentient, human faces on top--whatever you do, don't eat them!) and the Giant Firebreathing Infants whose existence was shown in Seed of the New Flesh. What this book is lacking is premade templates--making this only the second Feng Shui supplement ever without templates (and the first was a book of adventures). I'd've liked to have seen some templates built around heroes from lost timelines or points in time no longer accessible, but I also know that it was probably a smart move on the part of the authors. After all, the possibilities for characters from the Netherworld is infinite. It'd be hard to stop once you started. Overall, Elevator to the Netherworld is another one of those books that Feng Shui GMs will definitely want to have. It's rules-light and heavy on the setting without changing the game world to any appreciable degree (a good example of detailing rather than advancing the setting). The book veers from serious to wacky and back again at breakneck pace, and it makes the Netherworld a viable place for adventuring rather than just a device for getting from one time period to another. Style: 3 (Average) Substance: 3 (Average)