War in Concordia: The Shattered Dream
for Changeling: The Dreaming
by Jackie Cassada and Nicky Rea
128 pages, perfect bound
$18.00
ISBN 1-56504-724-9
Grade: C
Reviewed by: Lisa Padol
I had been looking forward to this, hoping for an overview of the Changeling world at war, and for guidelines about running this war. The book provides both of these things, but I find myself unsatisfied. This is due to a combination of my dislike for official timeline, the limited amount of coverage, and a feeling that this isn't how I'd write such a book.
The first of these can largely be discounted. War in Concordia is clearly part of the official Changeling timeline, so people are not likely to buy it by accident. Folks who buy it want to play in the official timeline. There is nothing wrong with that, and I have no quarrel with a book that is clearly packaged as part of the official timeline, so long as it isn't part of a core rulebook that one must buy for the game to be viable and playable. White Wolf packaged this one exactly the way it should be packaged.
Nevertheless, I wish the package had contained more. War in Heaven is a snapshot of the situation in Concordia at one point in time. This might be enough if White Wolf intended to publish nothing more on the war and tell all GMs to run it their own way. But I am sure there will be further material on the war, scattered through multiple books. This makes War in Heaven neither a scenario nor a complete supplement of background information.
The reader is left with a snapshot, as I said, but this snapshot is useful. War in Concordia opens with a vignette of a homeless sidhe knight who still retains honor as he tries to protect a satyr childling. The first chapter describes the events leading up to the war from several different points of view. This chapter also describes the positions of various factions, old and new. There is also a timeline, although I think David's disappearance occurred in 1999, not 1998. The next chapter describes important locations, while the third describes the NPCs at the center of the action. No stats are given here, but I do not mind. This is a primarily a book of background, not mechanics, although the fourth chapter and the appendix have rules for battles, new merits and flaws, treasures and vehicles. The layout is decent, while the art ranges from good to awful, with not merely bimbo art, but sideways bimbo art. There is no index. Nor are there any maps, and this is a book that could really use them.
There is plenty of material keep a campaign running for months. Yet, even considering War in Heaven as a set up for GMs to run their own war, free from the constraints of any official timeline, I find myself dissatisfied. There are things that could have been done to create a better setting.
First, I wish the parallels to the American Revolution had been downplayed. While I wouldn't have minded a few references to it, I don't play Changeling for a rehash of history class.
What I do play Changeling for, what it is at its best, is an examination of the intersection of the everyday world and the enchanted world of the fae. The story in the main rulebook illustrates this well. A magical ring came out of a crackerjack box, and a young troll fighting dragons is also a child dodging in and out of traffic.
War in Concordia is not utterly devoid of this sort of thing. The opening fiction shows a sidhe as both honorable knight and homeless bum. A small, but nasty, incident in the war is reported in the paper as an unsolved multiple murder. But I want more. What are the mundane explanations for the gathering factions? How are the mundane faces of their headquarters perceived? What about all the battles and quests? Is there a mundane dimension to the hunt for the High King? Has anyone filed a missing persons report or put an ad in the papers?
Some fae kingdoms are closed to non-local fae. How does this translate into mundane terms? In Vampire, if a city is closed, it means vampires, or vampire-controlled humans watch airports, train stations, and bus depots. I'm not sure how cars and walkers are kept out, but my suspension of disbelief can handle the general idea.
I have no idea of what is meant by disallowing changelings in one's kingdom. How is this enforced? Are mortals enchanted? Is only the fae self banned? If so, what effect does this have on Glamour and Banality?
War in Heaven is certainly useful for GMs who want to play in the official timeline, but it could have been better if more space had been given to a consideration of the intersection between mundane and fae worlds. Less warmed over history and more details of the time would also have helped. The book covers the bare essentials, but anything else is up to individual GMs.
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