One of my earliest reviews was for
The Everlasting: Book of the Light, followed closely by
The Everlasting: Book of the Unliving. Now, after a long delay -- which is only fitting, since the book in question also was long delayed -- I'm now ready to review the third book in the series:
The Everlasting: Book of the Spirits. As in my
Book of the Unliving review, I will restrict this review to new material appearing in this book for the most part. For my thoughts on the rules and setting information common to the Everlasting line as a whole, please see my
Book of the Light review.
THE SETTING
The world of The Everlasting, like Eden Studio's WitchCraft and White Wolf's World of Darkness, is a kind of catchall modern-day fantasy setting. The Book of Spirits, as the name implies, focuses on spirits dwelling in this setting. Contrary to what you might expect, however, the spirits in question are not ephemeral ghostly beings, but rather spirits bound in various ways to physical forms and the physical world.
Creatures
As in the Book of the Light, this book presents three Eldritch (immortal) PC races, one antagonist race that is completely off-limits to players, and one non-Eldritch race that's open to players at GM discretion. In order of appearance, they are the gargoyles, the manitou, the possessed, the abominations, and the djinn.
Gargoyles
In The Everlasting cosmology, gargoyles are beatific ethereal spirits called celestines who were bound long ago into golem-like forms known as simulcra to serve a cruel sorcerer. The other members of the sorcerer's order destroyed this magician for his crime, but they were unable to free the trapped spirits. Instead, the gargoyles became first the order's protectors, then their allies.
The gargoyles are interesting in both their powers and their torment.
Their physical attributes vary based upon the substance of their current simulcrum, and they can transfer their consciousness temporarily to animate other inanimate objects as well. So, a super-strong, super-resilient gargoyle of heavy stone who finds himself in need of a more nimble form might temporarily switch to the agile glass statue he's created for just such an occasion. In fact, gargoyles can place multiple statues all around their sanctuaries to fend off attacks on multiple fronts, "leaping" from statue to statue as needed.
Furthermore, the shape of a simulcrum is limited only by the carver's imagination. So, while most gargoyles prefer to start out with beautiful human forms, they could just as easily look like giant stone spiders.
All simulcra must be of a single nonliving substance, however. For this reason, out of all of the Eldritch, I find it hardest to suspend disbelief regarding the gargoyles' ability to remain hidden amongst humanity. The text explains that gargoyles often take wax forms or cover themselves in false flesh, but this strikes me as a pretty fragile ruse, at best.
The main drawbacks of gargoylehood are twofold. First, under ordinary circumstances, they cannot physically experience the material world beyond sight and sound and are emotionally remote. And second, they must feed on sins to survive, passing along a Ghost Rider-esque "Curse of Absolution" to the sinner while experiencing the sinner's full sensory input during the commission of the sin. In other words, the only time a gargoyle literally "feels alive" is when he is feeling what it's like to be a murderer, a rapist, a pedophile, or what have you. Over time, the gargoyle becomes corrupted by this process -- physical sensations become permanent, but his personality and physical form become progressively more demonic in nature. Eventually, the gargoyle's simulcrum will be destroyed by his fellow sin-eaters so that the slate may be wiped clean and the gargoyle may start over in a new and unsullied simulcrum. This makes for some challenging roleplaying, since the player must first play a cold but pure being with short periods of sensuality and corruption, then gradually portray that same being growing steadily less pure yet more alive. This is nothing compared to the roleplaying challenge presented by the Possessed, however (see below).
A cool twist on this idea is the Sodality of the Blackhearts: A group of gargoyles who have given themselves over completely to corruption, reveling in the sensations it provides while still hunting the most evil of beings to feed on their sins. They'd make great "enemy-of-my-enemy" allies against a greater threat.
As a strange little aside, the gargoyle chapter includes information on virtual reality gargoyles -- gargoyles that exist in cyberspace and can affect the physical world by controlling machinery. It's an interesting idea, but with next to no information on cyberspace provided, it's not a particularly useful one.
Manitou
The Everlasting world, like the World of Darkness, has its werewolves, which appear in Book of the Light. It is the manitou in Book of the Spirits, however, who far more closely resemble White Wolf's environmentalist Garou.
The Manitou are immortal animal spirits (called Totems) bonded to a human host, and they, like the Garou, are the guardians of Gaia. However, while environmental threats are certainly a concern for the manitou, their main objective is combating Lovecraftian abominations -- creatures dedicated to the corruption of Nature itself. (More on abominations in a moment.) This serves to keep the Everlasting setting as a whole from becoming too humanocentric -- sure, mankind can pollute, but only the abominations can truly and completely destroy the natural world.
A nice bonus is the sheer number of Totems provided: Alligator, Bat, Bear, Beaver, Bull, Coyote, Crow, Dolphin, Eagle, Elephant, Elk, Fox, Hawk, Horse, Leopard, Owl, Rat, Rhinoceros, Snake, Spider, Tiger, and (of course) Wolf. Presumably, the stats given for these totems could be used to extrapolate the stats for their natural counterparts as well.
(And a cute touch: The book offers information on playing plant manitou as well. Swamp Thing, anyone?)
The Possessed
I've heard second-hand that Wraith was a very difficult game to roleplay and that this difficulty is one reason that it ultimately failed. If so, it's probably a good thing that the Possessed are only one of several PC races featured in this book.
Imagine, if you will, trying to play a good human possessed by an evil dream spirit delighting in the person's corruption (the Yugtuhul) or an evil human possessed by a good dream spirit using the person as cannon fodder against evil (the Benedera). It's a cool concept, but in either case, you're going to be playing a truly evil character part-time. The human side is in nominal control most of the time, with the possessing spirit exerting influence through temptation and brief periods of outright domination, so playing a Yugtuhul might be a bit like playing a Deadlands Harrowed and the possessing manitou -- tricky, but doable. But in the case of the Benedera, the player will be running an evil person most of the time. Explaining why the other characters would tolerate such an individual in their midst alone is a formidable challenge.
Abominations
The Abominations are the primary foes of the manitou, although they certainly threaten everything and everyone in the world of the Everlasting. They are Lovecraftian cosmic horrors that are beyond human concepts of good and evil, unlike the clearly evil demons presented in Book of the Light.
Most of them come from Otgon, a corrupt and sentient planet from another dimension. However, the Everlasting also makes room for the original Lovecraftian horrors: The entities of the Cthulhu Mythos. Their inclusion -- and the author's acknowledgement of and praise for Call of Cthulhu as the ultimate game of cosmic horror -- is an admirable alternative to presenting Lovecraft's creations with the serial numbers filed off. However, the lack of either stats for Lovecraft's creations or conversion notes for CoC limits this inclusion to a token gesture. And, at any rate, I'm not entirely sure that Cthulhu & Co. really fit that well into a universe that also includes the Judeo-Christian God. (The WitchCraft RPG also merges semi-traditional theology with Lovecraftian horror, but because that game does not use the actual Cthulhu Mythos, it doesn't have to worry about diluting the nihilism inherent in the Mythos. But then again, you don't get the "real" Cthulhu in WitchCraft.)
A more definitive plus is the inclusion of a bestiary of Abominations. A bestiary of any sort was sorely lacking from the prior two Everlasting books, requiring that any foes be created from scratch using the laborious character-creation guidelines. Included are the Leviathans, which are Abominations formed from the negative emotions of dragons, and siltim, which are the Abomination equivalent of the manitou.
Djinn
The djinn (otherwise known as genies) are half-spirit entities, similar in some ways to angels but far more diverse in moral outlook. They are arrogant, hedonistic, and flamboyant in the extreme, possess a quirky variety of powers, and generally look like a whole lot of fun to play. Thankfully, the djinn are more or less evenly split into good guys and bad, so djinn are entirely viable PCs.
The djinns' powers are just as flamboyant as the beings themselves. Their abilities include shape-changing into certain creatures determined by their tribes, conjuring items out of thin air, and creative delightful weird science creations that blend the Arabian Knights with Flash Gordon. Furthermore, the djinn seem connected to the Cthulhu Mythos in some fashion, and djinn magick draws upon the chaotic power of those cosmic entities.
All in all, this chapter gives a remarkable degree of depth to a class of being that usually exists only to pop out of lamps and grant wishes.
Places
Aside from the aforementioned Otgon, Book of the Spirits describes the Doomlands (a Mordor-like place ruled by a Sauron-like entity and more or less coterminous with Canada) and the Dreamworlds (very much akin to Lovecraft's Dreamlands). All three have possibilities -- especially Otgon -- but none are really fleshed out enough to be particularly useful. Certainly, none are described as vividly as are the realms of the Dead in Book of the Unliving. We are, however, given information on creating cat (of the intelligent Lovecraftian variety) and somnomancer (dream-wizard) characters for Dreamworld use.
THE RULES
Not much new to report on the rules front.
In the gargoyle chapter, we get the first martial arts system for the Everlasting, and it seems rather... well, pointless. Basically, it offers several martial arts styles that give practitioners bonuses to certain combat skills balanced out by an equal number of penalties to other combat skills. Which begs the question: "Why bother?"
THE BOOK
The artwork somehow didn't seem quite as evocative as that in the previous books, but it's still quite good. Some of it is outstanding, in fact -- the animal illustrations in the manitou chapter, for example. The cover, as usual, looks worthy of a coffee table book, complete with gold leaf text.
The font is still a little hard on the eyes, but the layout is sound. The writing is heavy on the jargon but manages to get its point across with minimal typos.
The editing, however, needs serious work. A central location for all the powers in the book would be helpful, for one thing. As it is, many of the Eldritch powers are common to multiple races but are reprinted in each race's section with different names. And the powers of non-Eldritch creatures are described in full every time they appear -- in some cases, multiple times on the same page. That's a lot of wasted space.
In addition, the setting descriptions are restated word-for-word in several different chapters, while certain setting information -- such as the information on cats and sonomancers for the Dreamworlds -- appears in the character chapters rather than in the settings chapters.
On the bright side, the book cuts way down on the extraneous "legendmaking" chapter as compared to the previous books, with its suggestions for opening and closing ceremonies, color-coded candles, and lucid dreaming. Taking up some of this freed space is an example of play, which includes a sorely needed example of Reverie perception.
The opening fiction continues a story that began in Book of the Unliving and continued in Book of the Light. It's not bad, but unfortunately, it has next to nothing to do with the subject of this particular Everlasting book aside from the rather tangential inclusion of a virtual reality gargoyle.
Like the other Everlasting books, Book of the Spirits includes a very good index.
CONCLUSION
The whole time I was reading this book, something about it bothered me - something that I couldn't quite put my finger on. I mean, the book follows the same format as the other two Everlasting books, and I liked those well enough, so what could be wrong?
Then today -- the day I'm finally wrapping up this review -- it hit me. The problem with this book is a lack of a central theme to make everything fit together. The Eldritch of the Book of the Unliving are all undead and share certain concerns related to that state of being. The Eldritch of the Book of the Light are all heroic types dedicated to fighting the forces of evil, particularly demons. But the Eldritch in the Book of the Spirits share nothing much in common aside form the fact that they are spirits bound to physical forms. In fact, with the possible exception of the gargoyles and the benedera, the feelings of the Eldritch in this book toward one another range from apathy to attack-on-sight hatred. Add in the fact that all three breeds have strange dual natures with which to contend, and you have a book based around some very fringe and unrelated character types. This, in turn, makes Book of the Spirits the least effective "stand-alone" game out of the three published Everlasting rulebooks.
That's mainly a problem for people who are planning on using Book of the Spirits as a stand-alone game, however. For those wanting the book to add another missing piece to the puzzle that is the rather vast Everlasting universe -- which I suspect would be the vast majority of purchasers -- it serves its purpose admirably.
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