Hunter-Book Wayward is the final Creedbook from White Wolf, and perhaps the most anticipated of all of them. Waywards are those members of the Vision Creed whose contact with the Messengers has left them with tendencies that the words "excessive violence" only scratch the surface of. I'd heard from several Hunter fans that Wayward was the "make-it or break-it" book for them, and that if it wasn't good they were dropping Hunter forever. I thought that odd, until I read both the Hunter Players Guide and Hunter Storytellers Handbook; after those books I vowed that if I bought Wayward and found it sucked the only way I would buy a Hunter book again was if it was on sale on E-Bay for a $1.00. Well, I finally got my copy of Wayward this week, and I can say that White Wolf has, at least partially, redeemed itself in my eyes. Wayward is in my opinion one of the best two Hunter supplements to have been released, tying with my favorite book (the Martyr Creedbook) in terms of both quality and entertainment value.
I do want to voice one complaint right now, which is the fact that this book is published under White Wolf's "Black Dog Game Factory," label. According to White Wolf, the reason they published Wayward under Black Dog was because it puts players in the position of playing mass-murdering psychos who inflict their violence on innocent bystandards in addition to villains who deserve it. HELLO? Vampires see humanity as a herd from which to feed upon and toys to abuse (and that's not even talking the Sabbat) and Garou slaughter people all the time when in frenzy, and see nothing wrong with culling the human population to make the world a better place, not to mention forcing people to breed with them; shouldn't all their books be published under Black Dog as well? Aside from that complaint, two rule-related problems I'll address later, and some continuity problems, I have nothing to complain about when it comes to Wayward.
The first nine pages of this book are devoted to the infamous Hunter Peleus, who is believed to have come back from the dead yet still appear normal to Hunter Second Sight. The relevance of some of the material here won't make since until you are well into the book, but it is still very enjoyable to read. I was especially amused by a doodle on page three, reminding of my old Call of Cthulhu gaming group's habit of drawing all sorts of bizarre things on their character sheets. There's also a page of text here that's reprinted from The Walking Dead, so those without that book can follow along with this one.
What follows is a short story entitled "The Prodigal," which follows the legendary God45 as he acts on what he believes was an epiphany for him. While building off the God45 story found in the Inherit the Earth anthology, you do not have to have read that excretable work to follow along. This is an excellent story, its two best points for me being God45's observation on monster-loving Hunters and their reactions to dead bodies, and a lovely moment where God45 reacts to the comments of a monster-loving, politically correct, fellow Hunter. In between this section and the next is the credits page, and I notice that White Wolf avoided putting cute nicknames for each of the people involved in the production of the book, an absence I wish could be found in ever Hunter product.
The introduction that follows the fiction is different than the intros found in the other Creedbooks, in that it does a good job of describing the Creed the book focuses on and the purpose of the book. It does make a point of referencing the reader to the Hunter Players Guide for its description of Waywards, but it is unnecessary to read it to understand this book.
Chapter One, "Chaos Theory," beings our look at Waywards by introducing us to God45 and Scottish Hunter Kirsty McCallum (though we don't learn her name for a bit), and we hear from the likes of Bookworm, Shophet, and other established Hunters as they over the facts concerning the racist Wayward known as Peleus. God45 is followed by his imbuing, though given previous descriptions of imbuings it's curious that there's such a length of time between his first contact by the Messengers and his first encounter with a monster---though perhaps "first time recognizing a monster" is a better choice of words. McCallum is also followed from her imbuing, and her mental problems quickly become apparent in several ways. The accounts by Shophet on Peleus are interesting, though for some reason the author of this book seems to think Ward requires constant concentration to keep active, but so long as I pretend the monster just made its Stamina roll to get through the Ward I'm happy. Count666372 is introduced in this chapter, and I'm guessing his countdown throughout the book is ticking time away until Demon: The Fallen comes out. One thing that is annoying in the Count's first entry is that there's a bit of underlined text, which online means it's a link to something on the web, and in the Hunter books it usually means there's a box of text related to it somewhere, though not necessarily in the same book; no such boxed text exists in this book. There's an excellent illustration on page 27, and the first two times I looked at it I thought the curtains were actually demon wings attached to the woman depicted. My anti-Bookworm nature was quite amused when Mr. Innocent Can't We All Just Get Along Idiot Bookworm can't understand why if a black, female friend of Shophet was killed, then why wasn't Shophet killed as well; apparently it never occurs to the idiot that Shophet may be white. Wow, apparently Bookworm can see humans and vampires getting along someday, but can't comprehend that white people and black people can be friends. As the chapter closes we learn Soldier91 (introduced in the Avenger Creedbook) has been framed for murder, and we get the first inkling of a lack of chronological continuity in this book.
Chapter Two, "Method to the Madness," covers Waywards' approach to the hunt. We learn from Soldier91(who appears to be abandoning the United States) that sometimes this approach includes framing other Hunters for your crimes, bits from previous books involving Shaka74 are followed up on. There was a bit in here that disappointed me at first, as it promoted the idea I first encountered in volume one of the Year of the Scarab trilogy that in the World of Darkness zombies are especially vulnerable to head shots. Then I remembered that Waywards can only identify monsters as monsters with Second Sight, and not differentiate the different types, so it may simply be the Hunter in question was fighting vampires who were fairly young and so did not rot when they were re-killed, and the head shot vulnerability refers to the third edition Vampire rules. There's also some posting in this chapter by Cassie247, tying in to some of her posts that were in the Visionary Creedbook.
Chapter Three, "Friendly Fire," goes over Wayward views on and their interaction with the other Creeds. There's an excellent detailing of God45 working to make a weenie Hunter see the truth, and more tales of Pennsylvania Hunter activities. Those familiar with Mage may be disturbed by the suggestion that the Time Sphere can be shrugged off with Conviction, but I like to think the mage in question was using the Mind Sphere to mimic the Time Sphere ability to distort time for an individual. Also in this chapter Shophet finally spells it out to Bookworm about his race, and we get the idea Shophet may have some dark secrets of his own. What especially impressed me in this chapter was a comment by a Hunter on Memphis68 and her former belief (presented in the Avenger Creedbook) that using people as unwitting suicide bombers was alright. I was glad to see this addressed, and you can look at my review of Avenger to see why. Maybe somebody at White Wolf saw my lengthy post on their message board regarding her.
This chapter ends with the Cassie247's death, a rather ironic fate given one of her comments in Visionary, and the repercussions on it. Information presented here, along with some tidbits earlier in this book, make me all the more eager for the upcoming Hunter: First Contact (which chronicles the meetings of Hunters with other anti-supernatural groups for the first time). There's an odd bit involving Traveler72 and his take on Edges, but I can think it can written off as shock after seeing Cassie's death.
I mentioned earlier a lack of chronological continuity in this book, and we get more of that here. What I mean by a lack of chronological continuity is that, for the most part, the timeline of events in the Hunter books followed the release dates of the books. So if Book A came out in 1999, and Book C came out in 2000, then the events in Book C would occur after the events in Book A, and Book A occurred in 1999 in the World of Darkness and Book C occurred in 2000. An example of this lack of continuity is that events in Walking Dead, published in 2000, are said in Wayward to have occurred last year, yet Wayward was published in 2002. Since Hermit was similarly out of continuity I can pretend that both books in the "Lost Creed" series are supposed to be that way, though I hope it's not going to be a trend for future Hunter releases. Evidence, both direct (talking to a freelance writer who has done work on Hunter for White Wolf) and indirect (Shophet first appeared with a write-up in Creedbook Judge that seemed as though it'd been taken out of a story bible for something, and that was published in 2000; see my review of Judge for more on that) suggest the lack of chronological continuity stems from in-house problems with White Wolf, and not any intentional ignorance of continuity.
Chapter Four is good, as McCallum learns what's been going on with herself, and God45 gives us some insight on Hunters he thinks may be good allies, with a reference to an individual known as Thurston who has yet to appear in any published Hunter products. There's also a great example here of my problems with ghosts and anchors; my review of Walking Dead covers that subject well enough I won't go into it again here. I was amused, as long ago I postulated that a certain Wayward might have multiple identities on Hunter.net. This chapter provided I had the right idea, but the wrong address, as they say.
Chapter Five covers the rules for Waywards. Among the highlights are:
-It hints that some Waywards exist who are gibbering idiots, unable to carry out their duty.
-We learn that Wayward Derangements can never be alleviated in any way, so don't think an Innocent with the Ease Edge will make your Wayward more of a people person. The only exception is that when around Visionaries Waywards can spend a Willpower point to overcome a Derangement for a scene. From the wording of the text it seems that Waywards who have a Derangement that can normally be temporarily overcome by the spending of Willpower can only do so in the presence of a Visionary. For those paying attention, this is the first rules problem that I had with the book, as it took a few reads to figure this portion out exactly.
-Waywards' continual Second Sight only allows the detection of monsters, and they must still spend a point of Conviction to gain the protection benefits of Second Sight. This is something the Hunter Players Guide totally blanked on in their description of Waywards.
-While the book follows the other Hunter books that beliefs and outlook before the imbuing shape what Creed a Hunter becomes, there is the option for Waywards that they become a Wayward "Just Because," as though the Wayward is truly a flawed Creed.
One thing that I glossed over in my description of the other Creedbooks is that in the Camp Descriptions (an attempt in each book to break Creed members down into three distinct groups) the writers made is sound like a character is reborn when imbued, as though none of their stats had any dots in them beforehand, and at the moment of imbuing they suddenly got to assign points to said stats. "Hmmm...I'm an Avenger now, so I'll suddenly have Arsenal at 5" is how one player put it after reading the camp descriptions. Also, the sections on Conviction made it sound like each Hunter knew Conviction was measured in points, and carried a little scorecard around to determine when it was time to turn in ten points for a new point in a Virtue. Wayward is the only Creedbook that writes both camp descriptions and Conviction from a Hunter, not player, point of view, and it does so in an excellent manner.
The new Wayward Edges are interesting. The Level One Edge allows Waywards to activate the detection ability of other Hunters' Second Sight, while the Level Two Edge provides Spider Sense to a Wayward, though I can see the rule system for it resulting in a lot of dice rolling for a Storyteller.
The Level Three Edge, first seen in the Hunter Players Guide, allows a Wayward to instill rage into fellow Hunters toward a target, forcing them to attack it while gaining bonuses to all attack rolls made. The power forces the recipient to use their most powerful attacks, so don't use it on a guy carrying dynamite when you're in 10' x 10' room with him. My second rules problem with Wayward shows here, as I believe the author(s) meant to say the power does damage to the recipient at the end of its use, not at the end of each turn its active, as otherwise it's pointless to get more than three successes, as the recipients will all be dead after the third turn of combat (and don't bring up that Defender power from Holy War in any argument you might have with this).
The Level Four Edge seems to be a Giovanni Kindred's Necromancy on steroids, as it allows a Wayward to probe a deceased person's (whether they're still animate or not) mind to learn information. I can figure out no logical reason how or why the Messengers would bestow such a power.
The Level Five Edge is what I call the Whirlwind of Death, summoning up a windstorm around your Hunter that affects not only the normal world, but the surrounding portions of the Umbra and the Shadowlands. Reading the description you can tell the author(s) really, really wanted to use the term "Aggravated Damage."
Rules for improvised and homemade weapons are next. Since it's in tone with the working-class joe tone of Hunter I'm surprised these rules weren't published earlier. Still, the Wayward book is a good place for them, and the rules are excellent, covering meele, chemical, and incendiary weapons. We also finally get a ruling that Cleave can't be used on power tools, so those of you who've been itching to Cleave with a chainsaw can be quiet now. I do notice that flame damage seems to have been pumped up since my days of reading Vampire products, but I'm not complaining.
The Wayward Creed-specific power is next, which allows them to learn special symbols that, when inscribed upon themselves and fueled by Conviction points, provide bonus dice in a wide variety of areas. It's interesting to note that, with one exception, other Hunters don't perceive the symbols as anything special---most other Hunter powers create things that with the use of Edges Hunters can identify. I was surprised Waywards can't gift other Hunters with their power---it would add to the horror of a Wayward if he carved symbols into you to "make you better."
Chapter Six covers some ready-to-go Hunter templates, several Waywards from the main body of the text, plus one who only appears here. Stats for God45 are available, and I was proud to see he's another Pennsylvania Hunter. The pregenerated characters are okay, though the only one I'd play (the Gun Advocate) seems misnamed---Weekend Hunter would be a more appropriate description.
I should also comment that I was impressed with the quality of the art throughout the book. Even when the art wasn't done in a style I like, the artist usually had subject matter in the picture that made me impressed anyway.
I really can't recommend Wayward enough. This book and Martyr should be the first two supplements you get after the Hunter rulebook. If White Wolf can keep up this level of quality I'll be very, very, impressed.
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