There are two types of RPG sourcebooks centered around locations: “The Location as Setting,” and the “Location as Target.” The old Seattle Sourcebook or Chicago By Night typifies the Location as Setting—you get the lowdown on the people and the places, and plenty of plot hooks. The location is supposed to be a place to live or visit, and it’s supposed to come alive. The Location as Target’s archetype is the old AD&D Ravenloft adventure—the location exists to either be saved or destroyed.
Scavenger Sons is the latest supplement for White Wolf’s Exalted RPG, and it gives the purchaser a healthy dose of both “Location as Setting” and “Location as Target.” Contrary to the blurb on the back cover and what one can glean from the title, Scavenger Sons covers most of the world of Exalted, sans the Blessed Isle. Every Threshold city mentioned in the core rulebook is dealt with in brief, and Nexus and the Scavenger Lands are handled in some depth. At the end of the book are two appendices, with the first appendix covering the Guild and the human tools of the Fey, known as Ravagers. The second appendix gives rules for the Fey in some detail.
Details:
After a brief introduction detailing the book’s goals Scavenger Sons jumps right into the North. It’s important to understand that this sourcebook doesn’t try to describe the Threshold in enormous detail—the introduction points out that in a game with a power level like Exalted’s, any enormous amount of detail is likely to be useless.
Each chapter detailing the Threshold (North, East, South, and West) describes in limited detail the culture of the major cities, presents pieces of game information where relevant, and then describes the areas off the beaten path, including the region’s barbarian peoples. This section is relatively well written, but the game information isn’t quite as error-free as it might be. A weapon is missing details on whether it’s Lethal or Bashing, and the Haltan pets are…odd. They could just as easily be detailed in the existing rules for the Allies and Familiar backgrounds, but they’re not. That’s not to say that every piece of game information is in error—they’re not, and the more important ones are in perfect order, especially the “firewands.”
One nice touch in these sections is that several of the larger cities have “potential destinies” listed that describe what might happen if the characters don’t get involved. In addition, each location has a number of concepts listed as origins for Solar Exalted, which is a wonderful touch. If I have to complain about anything, it’s the haphazard statting out of beasts—several monsters are mentioned and don’t get written up.
In regards to the distinction between Location as Setting and Location as Target, there are plenty of fully formed cities out in the Threshold that could hold an Exalted campaign, and this book gives a Storyteller plenty of ideas to work with or branch out on his own with. In the Threat department, there are several cities just waiting for a Circle of Exalted to come in and clean house, from Paragon and its omnipotent Perfect to the lost city of Rathess. Overall, there are a few cities I didn’t care for, but they’re far outnumbered by the cities I want to add to my campaign.
Chapters 5 and 6 describe the history of the Scavenger Lands and Nexus in detail, including a map and a timeline. There are some questionable elements—I have no idea how one city, allied with the Realm, can be as distant and isolated as it is and still be under the Realm’s thumb, and the Salamander’s Tale in the Nexus section just seems odd and meaningless to me. But all in all, these sections are interesting and come alive nicely, written as they are in more detail than the previous chapters.
Plenty of detail is given to the people of the Scavenger Lands, and there are a lot of hooks and exotic elements for a Storyteller to work with. The history of the Scavenger Land’s dealings and conflicts with the Realm are described, and there’s a nice epic feel to the city of Lookshy that stems from this.
Chapter 6 is devoted to Nexus, which is supposed to be the Lankhmar or Mos Eisily of the Exalted world, and it shows. The only long piece of fiction is to be found in this setting, in a short two pages, and it deals with the members of the Council of Entities—I have to say that the lack of color fiction pleases me, since it means more room for hard facts rumors rather than first person character studies. Because of it’s rarity, I appreciated the short color fiction that was there more. I can’t say I loved the writing style used in the Nexus chapter, but it wasn’t bad, just not to my tastes.
Finally, two appendices follow, one with information on the Guild and the human pawns of the Fey known as Ravagers. The section on the Guild seems haphazardly placed, given that info on the Guild’s ranks and affiliates is placed in the Nexus chapter. The Ravagers are interesting but not anything revolutionary, although the idea of people willing to sell their souls and work against their own kind in order to live in imaginary splendour is wonderfully wicked.
The Second appendix covers the Fey in copious detail, and the information presented is solid enough to allow for Fey PCs, if desired. I enjoyed this section, coming as it did with several example NPCs, but I do have to complain that no mechanics were present for two of the Fey vulnerabilities discussed in the main book—there’s just no way of telling if this is an oversight, if the vulnerabilities are supposed to be role-played and not resolved through mechanics, or if they were just mythical. They’re simply not mentioned at all. Still, this doesn’t detract from a very short, but concise and useful, section.
Reviewer’s Spin:
Scavenger Sons is an excellent supplement, and bodes well for the future of the Exalted line. The art was good, and Tracy Yardley, the one artist I had a problem with in the core rulebook, seems to have come along nicely. It’s my firm belief that anyone not wholesale inventing their own setting for Exalted will appreciate Scavenger Sons.
With that said, I said that there was nothing in the Storyteller’s Screen and Companion that really made me stand up and notice, and the same is true here—it’s a great book, but it doesn’t turn things up to eleven like the Book of 3 Circles does. One of the pieces of advice for Storytellers in the core rulebook is that there’s no such thing as “over the top,” and I’d like to see more stuff that’ll really kick out the jams in Exalted. Still, this is a great start to the line, and having every book up the ante is more than likely problematic.
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