The Inside Scoop on Gaming

Despite my vocal criticisms of many of the basic elements of the Trinity game line, I still find myself reading and owning a fair number of the supplements - I think I have just about everything except the adventures (no, wait, I don't have Shattered Europe). If I don't like the game, why do I keep spending time and money on the books? Because they are written so well. They are usually packed with good ideas, good writing and a general feel of humanity - even if it's hung on a few pegs I can't swallow. After Stellar Frontiers, however, I realized that Trinity as-is is never going to win me over completely, and I revised not to buy any more books without reading through them first and really being certain. That didn't stop me from asking RPGnet for Aurora Australis though, and they sent it to me. Until recently (right about when I got it, actually) I was unaware that Trinity had fallen from favor, at least a bit. Relegated to the Arthaus imprint, it had (like Changeling: the Dreaming before it) lost its wonderful color. It makes me wonder what the future holds for the game line, will it actually survive in Arthaus, or will it finally fold in? I actually want it to continue, perversely enough, mainly because I still want a Norca sourcebook, really the only one I'd like to look at no matter what happens to the rest of the line. If anyone can enlighten me to the apparent future for Trinity please do so, I'd like to know.

Enough chatter and on to the book, however. As I mentioned, Aurora Australis (and presumably all future Trinity releases) will no longer have a nice color section in the beginning, due to cost consideration I would assume. The loss is no problem for me, but I was quite surprised to find that the book didn't even have the "color section" anymore. This is the first Trinity book I know of that hasn't had an in-character section in the beginning and then the real truth in black-and-white (so to speak) later on. Sure, the color is gone either way now, but it wasn't flashy colors and neat pictures that made that element of the game, I like the division a lot. Now the book is just one giant blur, like all of the World of Darkness lines. The lies and the truth are right next to each other (although, as usual, the lies seem much too few). That can work (although it often doesn't) for the mysterious World of Darkness, Trinity really worked well with the division, and the books have lost a lot with it's absence. I really hope that it is brought back in later volumes.

Now the book is organized in a much more straightforward manner. There's a chapter on the Legions, a chapter on Psychokinesis, a chapter on Australia and the rest of the Pacific, a Storyteller chapter, a short tech section and then a section on Dramatis Personae. All the chapters have just about what you would be expecting from them, although there are a few surprises, like the secret of the Legions' Prometheus Chamber (and an acknowledgment of one of the problems I had with the game since its release). I was surprised at the Legions section, however. Usually I quite like James Kiley's work quite a bit, but in this case I found the Legions to be very bland on the whole - few character and chronicle ideas seized me. The chapter also have Larssen's personal history and that of her Psi Order, which is interesting in the personal details brought in through in the sidebars. By coincidence, I saw the old movie God Told Me To while reading this book, and I have to say that it has a lot of similarities to the story of the Proxies - definitely worth watching for dark Trinity fans. The new Psychokinesis powers were not really that interesting, I found them only okay, and they made me want to use the freeform Psi system more than use them, if that says anything. Psionic Dysfunction was, as usual, terrible, horrible, no-good and very bad. Cryokinesis turns you into an emotionless machine? Telekinesis makes you manipulate stuff at random? I was intrigued by the idea of Dysfunction when it was introduced in the ISRA book Luna Rising, but since every other Dysfunction since then has been a complete waste of time, I've given up on the idea as a whole.

The geography section does a pretty nice job of providing detail and culture, giving us an Australia that is understandable but still different enough to be interesting. The information on the tiny islands of the Pacific made me instantly want to run a game there, just for the sheer perversity of it, who would expect a game set on Guam in an age when man is jumping to the stars? This section was seriously hampered by the lack of a proper map, however. While the doctored satellite photos worked okay in color, a single shot of Australia in black and white with little detail just doesn't fly in black and white. Further along, the Storytelling chapter gives a basic outline (really basic, in fact, it could have used a bit more detail) of military structure and tactics and how to use them in a game, as well as Austronesian law and some of the major Aberrants in the area. Some of the secrets that used to be all around the black-and-white in older Trinity books are gathered here, but not all of them.

The technology chapter is short and not really memorable, except for the odd inclusion of micromechanics - essentially tiny Babbage Difference Engines, mechanical (instead of electrical) computers. Why anyone would build them, I have no idea, and I really can't say that I find them reasonable by any stretch. They served as little more than an amusing tidbit in the end. The book closes with the Dramatis Personae, including the famous leaders of the Legions (meaning Larssen and the heads of each individual Legion) and then the five templates. While the famous leaders were generally interesting, they didn't seem to have quite the same richness as older Trinity characters. As for the templates, I was really amazed at how boring they were. The three psions didn't really do anything new with the idea of the Legions, they were just examples of rather standard Legionnaires. The two normals were a bit better, but simply pages to read, really. Not much flair at all.

I already mentioned that there is no color in the book, and that's the biggest visual change between this and other Trinity books, but it also has the only picture by Langdon Foss I actually really like (although more for its content than its style). His illustration of Ayers rock on page 87 is easily my favorite piece of the book, if only for its amusing juxtaposition of the old and the ever-racing new. I found Jeff Holt's work to be largely disappointing, but I was surprised in the improvement of Melissa Uran. She seems to have (for the most part) gotten over many of her problems of proportions to produce some of her best work yet. Andrew Bates actually did some of the illustrations himself as well, but the quality ranged wildly, placing him in the same boat at Holt. It's also worth nothing that I think White Wolf may have printed Aurora Australis on different paper stock than they normally did before - it doesn't have the same satisfying feel to it, despite being the same size and dimensions as older releases.

In the end, Aurora Australis does not live up to the footsteps of the books that have paved the way for it. It may have been the move to Arthaus, maybe it was the Legions themselves, or maybe Trinity is just spiraling down, but in any case the book just doesn't measure up to par for me. Even if I was intending to use the Legions heavily, the book only really provides me rank titles and details on the leaders of the Order, neither of which are worth $19.95. Trinity fans should think before they pick this up, but everyone with a passing interest should flip through it, there is just something about an Aberrant with the power of mind-controlling and corrosive ejaculate that just has to be seen to be believed.

Style: 2 (Needs Work)
Substance: 2 (Sparse)

Aurora Australis
Author: James Kiley and Scott Nimmo Category: game Company/Publisher: White Wolf Games Studio Line: Trinity Cost: $19.95 Page count: 140 ISBN: 1-56504-764-8 SKU: WW 9006 Capsule Review by Derek Guder on 06/13/00. Genre tags: Science fiction Space Espionage Conspiracy	Despite my vocal criticisms of many of the basic elements of the *Trinity* game line, I still find myself reading and owning a fair number of the supplements - I think I have just about everything except the adventures (no, wait, I don't have Shattered Europe). If I don't like the game, why do I keep spending time and money on the books? Because they are written so well. They are usually packed with good ideas, good writing and a general feel of humanity - even if it's hung on a few pegs I can't swallow. After Stellar Frontiers, however, I realized that *Trinity* as-is is never going to win me over completely, and I revised not to buy any more books without reading through them first and really being certain. That didn't stop me from asking RPGnet for Aurora Australis though, and they sent it to me. Until recently (right about when I got it, actually) I was unaware that *Trinity* had fallen from favor, at least a bit. Relegated to the Arthaus imprint, it had (like *Changeling: the Dreaming* before it) lost its wonderful color. It makes me wonder what the future holds for the game line, will it actually survive in Arthaus, or will it finally fold in? I actually want it to continue, perversely enough, mainly because I still want a Norca sourcebook, really the only one I'd like to look at no matter what happens to the rest of the line. If anyone can enlighten me to the apparent future for *Trinity* please do so, I'd like to know. Enough chatter and on to the book, however. As I mentioned, Aurora Australis (and presumably all future *Trinity* releases) will no longer have a nice color section in the beginning, due to cost consideration I would assume. The loss is no problem for me, but I was quite surprised to find that the book didn't even have the "color section" anymore. This is the first *Trinity* book I know of that hasn't had an in-character section in the beginning and then the real truth in black-and-white (so to speak) later on. Sure, the color is gone either way now, but it wasn't flashy colors and neat pictures that made that element of the game, I like the division a lot. Now the book is just one giant blur, like all of the World of Darkness lines. The lies and the truth are right next to each other (although, as usual, the lies seem much too few). That can work (although it often doesn't) for the mysterious World of Darkness, *Trinity* really worked well with the division, and the books have lost a lot with it's absence. I really hope that it is brought back in later volumes. Now the book is organized in a much more straightforward manner. There's a chapter on the Legions, a chapter on Psychokinesis, a chapter on Australia and the rest of the Pacific, a Storyteller chapter, a short tech section and then a section on Dramatis Personae. All the chapters have just about what you would be expecting from them, although there are a few surprises, like the secret of the Legions' Prometheus Chamber (and an acknowledgment of one of the problems I had with the game since its release). I was surprised at the Legions section, however. Usually I quite like James Kiley's work quite a bit, but in this case I found the Legions to be very bland on the whole - few character and chronicle ideas seized me. The chapter also have Larssen's personal history and that of her Psi Order, which is interesting in the personal details brought in through in the sidebars. By coincidence, I saw the old movie God Told Me To while reading this book, and I have to say that it has a lot of similarities to the story of the Proxies - definitely worth watching for dark *Trinity* fans. The new Psychokinesis powers were not really that interesting, I found them only okay, and they made me want to use the freeform Psi system more than use them, if that says anything. Psionic Dysfunction was, as usual, terrible, horrible, no-good and very bad. Cryokinesis turns you into an emotionless machine? Telekinesis makes you manipulate stuff at random? I was intrigued by the idea of Dysfunction when it was introduced in the ISRA book Luna Rising, but since every other Dysfunction since then has been a complete waste of time, I've given up on the idea as a whole. The geography section does a pretty nice job of providing detail and culture, giving us an Australia that is understandable but still different enough to be interesting. The information on the tiny islands of the Pacific made me instantly want to run a game there, just for the sheer perversity of it, who would expect a game set on Guam in an age when man is jumping to the stars? This section was seriously hampered by the lack of a proper map, however. While the doctored satellite photos worked okay in color, a single shot of Australia in black and white with little detail just doesn't fly in black and white. Further along, the Storytelling chapter gives a basic outline (really basic, in fact, it could have used a bit more detail) of military structure and tactics and how to use them in a game, as well as Austronesian law and some of the major Aberrants in the area. Some of the secrets that used to be all around the black-and-white in older *Trinity* books are gathered here, but not all of them. The technology chapter is short and not really memorable, except for the odd inclusion of micromechanics - essentially tiny Babbage Difference Engines, mechanical (instead of electrical) computers. Why anyone would build them, I have no idea, and I really can't say that I find them reasonable by any stretch. They served as little more than an amusing tidbit in the end. The book closes with the Dramatis Personae, including the famous leaders of the Legions (meaning Larssen and the heads of each individual Legion) and then the five templates. While the famous leaders were generally interesting, they didn't seem to have quite the same richness as older *Trinity* characters. As for the templates, I was really amazed at how boring they were. The three psions didn't really do anything new with the idea of the Legions, they were just examples of rather standard Legionnaires. The two normals were a bit better, but simply pages to read, really. Not much flair at all. I already mentioned that there is no color in the book, and that's the biggest visual change between this and other *Trinity* books, but it also has the only picture by Langdon Foss I actually really like (although more for its content than its style). His illustration of Ayers rock on page 87 is easily my favorite piece of the book, if only for its amusing juxtaposition of the old and the ever-racing new. I found Jeff Holt's work to be largely disappointing, but I was surprised in the improvement of Melissa Uran. She seems to have (for the most part) gotten over many of her problems of proportions to produce some of her best work yet. Andrew Bates actually did some of the illustrations himself as well, but the quality ranged wildly, placing him in the same boat at Holt. It's also worth nothing that I think White Wolf may have printed Aurora Australis on different paper stock than they normally did before - it doesn't have the same satisfying feel to it, despite being the same size and dimensions as older releases. In the end, Aurora Australis does not live up to the footsteps of the books that have paved the way for it. It may have been the move to Arthaus, maybe it was the Legions themselves, or maybe *Trinity* is just spiraling down, but in any case the book just doesn't measure up to par for me. Even if I was intending to use the Legions heavily, the book only really provides me rank titles and details on the leaders of the Order, neither of which are worth $19.95. *Trinity* fans should think before they pick this up, but everyone with a passing interest should flip through it, there is just something about an Aberrant with the power of mind-controlling and corrosive ejaculate that just has to be seen to be believed. Style: 2 (Needs Work) Substance: 2 (Sparse)