The Inside Scoop on Gaming

Quote of the Game: "In short, you've performed a bunch of ritual, symbolic actions that shifts the odds of the conflict in your favor, just like those yahoos in the Invisible Clergy do every day -- only they don't have to piss on a dead dog."

Statosphere is the third sourcebook for Unknown Armies, this time focusing on the "Cosmic Level" of the game. The book contains rules and information about Archetypes, Avatars, Godwalkers, the Invisible Clergy and Agents of Renunciation. It's a hefty chunk of terrain to cover and while the overall quality is very high, Statosphere is probably the weakest of the supplements so far.

The book starts off with the short fiction piece "A Stone in a Shoe". Unknown Armies is one of the few games with fiction I don't immediately skip every time I pick up a new supplement. The stories are always intriguing, off-center snippets that set the tone for the topic to be covered in the rest of the book. In this case, we get a short story about the Comte de Saint-Germain.

Next we launch right into the heart of the matter with a chapter on the Invisible Clergy. After describing how players might "see" the Statosphere, the book begins to lay out the details of how one goes about being an Avatar of a particular Archetype. It describes the external behaviors and symbols a particular avatar will manifest as it attempts to improve its connection to the Archetype it servers. A lot of this is fairly similar in style to the list in Postmodern Magick of behaviors that various magic users fall into. Following this, the book gets into Godwalkers.

This section of the book deals with the different ways in which an avatar can unseat an existing Godwalker. It's not as simple as getting the existing Godwalker to break taboo either. If you do manage to claim the Godwalker's place, you'll have to start defending your job against every other avatar out there and the book goes into that as well. Finally, if you've come all this way, you're just one step short of the ultimate prize, ascension into the Invisible Clergy. At this level, you'll have to manipulate the way society views your archetype if you hope to have a shot at getting in. Otherwise, it's a trip to the House of Renunciation and a new life dedicated to bringing down everything you stood for.

Finally, this chapter of the book closes out with rules for Tilts. Tilts are basically home-brew rituals that cost no magical charges. A Tilt causes small probability shifts on specific dice rolls that the it was designed for. They are a small-scale version of what the Invisible Clergy does every day and once a given Tilt has been developed, it can't be used again (the loophole in reality gets closed after you exploit it).

While this chapter did satisfy a lot of my curiosity about Avatars, Godwalkers and the Invisible Clergy, I found myself wishing there had been more. In particular, the section on Godwalkers raised a number of interesting possibilities about how PCs might interact with them but there wasn't any real information on potential Godwalker NPCs you could encounter or their agendas. The section on Tilts was another example of the symbolic nature of magic in Unknown Armies, but it's use in actual play would be so limited as to be almost worthless.

The next chapter is a laundry list of new Archetypes in the Invisible Clergy. While it is nice to have new Archetypes for Avatars to follow, only The Hunter and The Messenger has descriptions of how the Archetype has changed or is in danger of changing. Again, this was another place where it would have been nice to have seen more information about the current status of the different Archetypes.

The third chapter covers the House of Renunciation and is probably the best reason to buy this book. The book goes into great detail about what the House of Renunciation is, why it exists and the agents who carry out its work. People singled out for a trip to the House are sent to one of its many Rooms. Here, a particular aspect of their life is brought into focus before them, torn to shreds and reoriented 180 degrees. Sometimes it's a change for the better, sometimes it's a change for the worse. Each Room has its own Agents and different Agents and Rooms may have conflicting agendas. Four different Rooms and their Agents are wonderfully detailed and provide a wealth of ideas for incorporating them into your game.

Easily, this is the best part of the book. It takes a previously unrealized part of the Unknown Armies universe and provides a head-twisting look at its reality. The motivations of the House and its Agents are explored deeply enough to open up a whole new world of possibilities but not so strictly defined that you feel confined to canon.

The final chapter of the book contains three different interpretations of the Comte de Saint-Germain. While this does provide you with options on how you might play out Saint-Germain in a game, it didn't provide anything too startling or revolutionary. Considering how Saint-Germain has been portrayed as the immortal Everyman, I wasn't too concerned with exactly how he might be portrayed in a game. In fact, he's probably one of the few mysteries better left unexplained.

So what's the final verdict? Well, clearly I think a range of NPCs from Avatars and Agents to Godwalkers and Archetypes would've been really helpful. Similar sections in Lawyers, Guns and Money and Postmodern Magick really added a lot to their respective sourcebooks. A short adventure centered around some of the concepts in the book would have been nice as well. I think the main problem is that the book simply laid out rules and templates and didn't do enough to show how they might be used in a game. Still, the overall quality of the book is superior to a lot of other sourcebooks and the House of Renunciation is just fabulous. So if you're interested in Cosmic Level games or the House, you should probably consider picking this one up. Otherwise, it's a nice supplement, but certainly not a Must Buy.

Style: 4 (Classy and well done)
Substance: 3 (Average)

Statosphere
Author: James Palmer, Greg Stolze, John Tynes, and others Category: game Company/Publisher: Atlas Games Line: Unknown Armies Cost: $19.95 Page count: 125 ISBN: 1-887801-84-7 SKU: AG6004 Capsule Review by Tom Russell on 07/11/00. Genre tags: Fantasy Modern day Horror Conspiracy	Quote of the Game: "In short, you've performed a bunch of ritual, symbolic actions that shifts the odds of the conflict in your favor, just like those yahoos in the Invisible Clergy do every day -- only they don't have to piss on a dead dog." Statosphere is the third sourcebook for Unknown Armies, this time focusing on the "Cosmic Level" of the game. The book contains rules and information about Archetypes, Avatars, Godwalkers, the Invisible Clergy and Agents of Renunciation. It's a hefty chunk of terrain to cover and while the overall quality is very high, Statosphere is probably the weakest of the supplements so far. The book starts off with the short fiction piece "A Stone in a Shoe". Unknown Armies is one of the few games with fiction I don't immediately skip every time I pick up a new supplement. The stories are always intriguing, off-center snippets that set the tone for the topic to be covered in the rest of the book. In this case, we get a short story about the Comte de Saint-Germain. Next we launch right into the heart of the matter with a chapter on the Invisible Clergy. After describing how players might "see" the Statosphere, the book begins to lay out the details of how one goes about being an Avatar of a particular Archetype. It describes the external behaviors and symbols a particular avatar will manifest as it attempts to improve its connection to the Archetype it servers. A lot of this is fairly similar in style to the list in Postmodern Magick of behaviors that various magic users fall into. Following this, the book gets into Godwalkers. This section of the book deals with the different ways in which an avatar can unseat an existing Godwalker. It's not as simple as getting the existing Godwalker to break taboo either. If you do manage to claim the Godwalker's place, you'll have to start defending your job against every other avatar out there and the book goes into that as well. Finally, if you've come all this way, you're just one step short of the ultimate prize, ascension into the Invisible Clergy. At this level, you'll have to manipulate the way society views your archetype if you hope to have a shot at getting in. Otherwise, it's a trip to the House of Renunciation and a new life dedicated to bringing down everything you stood for. Finally, this chapter of the book closes out with rules for Tilts. Tilts are basically home-brew rituals that cost no magical charges. A Tilt causes small probability shifts on specific dice rolls that the it was designed for. They are a small-scale version of what the Invisible Clergy does every day and once a given Tilt has been developed, it can't be used again (the loophole in reality gets closed after you exploit it). While this chapter did satisfy a lot of my curiosity about Avatars, Godwalkers and the Invisible Clergy, I found myself wishing there had been more. In particular, the section on Godwalkers raised a number of interesting possibilities about how PCs might interact with them but there wasn't any real information on potential Godwalker NPCs you could encounter or their agendas. The section on Tilts was another example of the symbolic nature of magic in Unknown Armies, but it's use in actual play would be so limited as to be almost worthless. The next chapter is a laundry list of new Archetypes in the Invisible Clergy. While it is nice to have new Archetypes for Avatars to follow, only The Hunter and The Messenger has descriptions of how the Archetype has changed or is in danger of changing. Again, this was another place where it would have been nice to have seen more information about the current status of the different Archetypes. The third chapter covers the House of Renunciation and is probably the best reason to buy this book. The book goes into great detail about what the House of Renunciation is, why it exists and the agents who carry out its work. People singled out for a trip to the House are sent to one of its many Rooms. Here, a particular aspect of their life is brought into focus before them, torn to shreds and reoriented 180 degrees. Sometimes it's a change for the better, sometimes it's a change for the worse. Each Room has its own Agents and different Agents and Rooms may have conflicting agendas. Four different Rooms and their Agents are wonderfully detailed and provide a wealth of ideas for incorporating them into your game. Easily, this is the best part of the book. It takes a previously unrealized part of the Unknown Armies universe and provides a head-twisting look at its reality. The motivations of the House and its Agents are explored deeply enough to open up a whole new world of possibilities but not so strictly defined that you feel confined to canon. The final chapter of the book contains three different interpretations of the Comte de Saint-Germain. While this does provide you with options on how you might play out Saint-Germain in a game, it didn't provide anything too startling or revolutionary. Considering how Saint-Germain has been portrayed as the immortal Everyman, I wasn't too concerned with exactly how he might be portrayed in a game. In fact, he's probably one of the few mysteries better left unexplained. So what's the final verdict? Well, clearly I think a range of NPCs from Avatars and Agents to Godwalkers and Archetypes would've been really helpful. Similar sections in Lawyers, Guns and Money and Postmodern Magick really added a lot to their respective sourcebooks. A short adventure centered around some of the concepts in the book would have been nice as well. I think the main problem is that the book simply laid out rules and templates and didn't do enough to show how they might be used in a game. Still, the overall quality of the book is superior to a lot of other sourcebooks and the House of Renunciation is just fabulous. So if you're interested in Cosmic Level games or the House, you should probably consider picking this one up. Otherwise, it's a nice supplement, but certainly not a Must Buy. Style: 4 (Classy and well done) Substance: 3 (Average)