This is a follow-up to my reviews on the previous two Shadowlands works - Book of the Shadowlands and Bearers of Jade. Thus, if you haven't read them, you may want to take a peek at them first if something in this review seems unclear.
Way of the Shadowlands is a much different book than the two that precede it. The majority of the book is presented in an 'out-of-character' fashion rather than as a series of narratives or in-character descriptions. Thus, the book has a very dry feel compared to the previous two works. This is both good and bad, of course - while it's very good to have some solid definition to the material, it's nowhere near as inspiring or evocative as the previous works in the series.
Much like Bearers of Jade, this is a 'grab bag' of miscellaneous information on the Shadowlands, and varies from a player guide to gamemaster tips to creature feature. As a 'Way of' book, it's ostensibly meant largely for players and gamemasters alike, but there's enough stuff oriented solely towards gamemasters that it's hard to tell exactly what Alderac was intending with this book. While it indeed gives player options for creating and developing extremely Tainted characters, the actual utility of such is questionable - I doubt most Legend of the Five Rings GMs would allow those sorts of characters in their games due to their highly disruptive nature. I suppose that this information opens up possibilities for a 'Shadowlands campaign' where the players take the the role of Rokugan's greatest adversaries, such a topic is, sadly enough, never really addressed. While it's mentioned that some of the new character types are really NPC-only, it still seems odd to give such specific advancement rules and point costs if the rules aren't intended for PCs of some type.
That being said, a number of the new schools are more playable, such as the witch-hunter / shugenja hybrids, or the Unbroken, a group of ronin dedicated to cleansing themselves of the taint. It still feels strange to have both PC and NPC schools right next to one another, however. It feels as if the book should have been split in two, with one book detailing the new forces against the Shadowlands and one book detailing the new forces of the Shadowlands, but it's a relatively minor gripe.
In any case, the first chapter - "The Eternal Shadowlands" - offers up some passable game fiction. While not really exceptional, none of it is really bad, though some bits are painfully predictable (mainly where the Shadowlands are laughed off by somebody and - surprise! - they then meet an untimely fate at the hands of Shadowlands minions). The description of a man pulling off his nose seems more comical than horrific, though the description of a Tainted little girl nicely hammers home the fact that nobody is immune to the Taint.
The second chapter, "Unredeemed", is somewhat unfocused - but the gist of it seems to mainly deal with the interaction between Rokugan and the Shadowlands. Various pieces detail with everything from how the various clans of the game view the Taint to historical battles against the Shadowlands. I especially liked the bits on 'False Paths', where even monks are turns towards evil through false paths to enlightenment, but some parts are somewhat redundant - the section on Goblins, Oni, and other creatures seems more reworded from previous works than offering much that is new or interesting. Only the details on what happens to various Shadowlands critters outside of the Shadowlands keeps a part of this chapter from being simple regurgitation (or "Yes, we know Bog Hags can steal the skins of those they kill - it's been mentioned about four times in previous books - and will be mentioned again later on in this same book!"). The weakest note in the chapter is where it details the interaction between the Living Shadow (of Way of Shadow fame) and the Shadowlands, as the book concludes that simply nobody knows how they interact. If nobody knows, why spend two whole paragraphs on the fact?
Chapter three, Character, deals with the various new character options. While my gripes with how this information was packed together have already been covered, it is a very nice section for those GMs that which to customize their various Shadowlands baddies (both human and non-human) beyond the stats previously published. Thus, stock creatures can be customized to have unexpected surprises for players, much like the new Monster Manual did with its various packages for monsters. And, of course, there are some interesting new character options (like Taint Resistance) for both PCs and NPCs alike.
Chapter four, Who's Who, deals with a variety of Shadowlands baddies and Shadowlands hunters. While this section is good, the amount of time it spends on the simple adventure hook dealing with the destruction of the Badger Clan is questionable (three to four pages - seven if you count the opening fiction). This section is also where the metaplot is really pushed forward, if you like that sort of thing... but enough of it is still usable outside of metaplot-tied games that it doesn't weigh the chapter down. A section on Yokai, or Tainted ancestors, adds nicely to the chapter with even more character creation options.
The fifth chapter, Sample Characters, is sadly more-than-useless. Honestly, I don't know that many people that get real use out of these sorts of sections, and the chapter itself admits that most of the characters aren't really useable as PCs. Why bother, then? Line uniformity, I suppose, but still - given that there's already a Who's Who full of NPCs, this chapter doesn't seem to do much more than take up space.
The appendix, however, ends the book on a much better note, and is easily one of the best sections in the book, ironically enough. It gives more detail on dealing with the Taint, travelling through the Shadowlands, summoning Oni (and the aftereffects thereof), the Dark Oracles, new Oni, new Maho, and dark Kiho. It's this section (combined with the Character chapter) that earns the rating of 'meaty', but those that don't really want new Shadowlands goodies might want to mark this down to an average in regards to substance.
Strangely enough, there's some slight conflicts between this book and Bearers of Jade - there are sections that directly contradict the information given about the Shuten Doji and Baku given in Bearers of Jade - and no real continuity is made between the human servants of the Shadowlands presented in Bearers of Jade and the human servants in Way of the Shadowlands. Is there a difference between the extremely Tainted and the Akutensai? Should the leader of the Dark Moto in Bearers of Jade, Moto Tsume, have the new Dark Moto school put forth in Way of the Shadowlands? While I'm sure gamemasters can work out these small problems, it seems odd that there's no real continuity between the two books, as if Bearers of the Jade is now somewhat unofficial (or perhaps disliked by the authors of Way of the Shadowlands).
While not a bad book by any means, this book suffers from the problem of covering a subject that has already been covered through two previous books - as such, there's more than a little redundancy. It's also somewhat inconsistent, shuffling between highly useful information and utterly useless fluff. Overall, it's a book I would recommend to the Legend of the Five Rings GM with a taste for more Shadowlands information after the first two books. While not a bad book by any means, it relies so much on expanding material already mentioned in previous works (Way of the Crab, Way of the Phoenix, Way of the Unicorn, Book of the Shadowlands, and Bearers of Jade), that I couldn't recommend it to anything but staunch Legend of the Five Rings fans.
Go to forum!
(Due to spamming, old forum discussions are no linked.)