If you don’t know, Demon: The Fallen is a new core rulebook from the people over at White Wolf. I run a small, poor website dedicated to its slobbering fans, established before the book even came out. Through the generosity of Mike and Janet Lee (the developer and his wife), I received a signed copy of the book eleven days early.
This is a little bit about where I’m coming from in this review. I’m also a failed Christian (former Mormon) and a devout Nothing now when it comes to religion. I’ve gamed for over thirteen years, starting with D&D (the red box). I’ve played White Wolf games off and on for most of that time; I own every first and second edition book for Mage: The Ascension (couldn’t get into revised) and lately I’ve been playing in an unsatisfying hack-and-slash game of Exalted (love the setting and the rules, not liking my Storyteller’s plot). I’m a Sagittarius with a High School Diploma and a little bit of college, but I have dictionary.com as on of my links on my browser so I can look up big words.
This review was written over the period of a week, so it’s a bit uneven despite my attempt at editing. I also tried to playtest the rules; that experience follows my review.
Now on to the book!
Cover
You can’t tell a book by its cover, but you can start a review there. The cover is blue, more of a hexagonal scale pattern (my wife said that it looked like reptile skin) than the cerulean flames that we thought we were going to get. The title is black and orange flames, although shows its ancestry clearly as a smaller computer image that was digitally enlarged and cropped after enlargement. You can still see the pixels in the words and a sliver of white on the curves. Underneath the title is the game’s logo, a transparent eight-pointed star with a five-pointed star within. I was very pleased with it (although it has sparked discussions about the alignment of the star; I think that it is Neutral Evil, myself (D&D joke)).
Prelude: Stage Fright
The book begins with “Stage Freight”, a short story of a demon on earth that does a good job of introducing the themes of faith and memories. It also introduces a demon-hunter, one of the antagonists of the fallen. It’s up on White Wolf’s site, so you can read it yourself.
Introduction (and other random thoughts)
The Introduction contains introductory material on demons (very briefly showing the main difference between the fallen and traditional demons), role-playing, the Gothic-Punk World of Darkness, some demonic terms found throughout the book, and Live Action; a list of Source Material finishes off the chapter nicely. I know that it sounds like a standard Introduction chapter from White Wolf, but I was surprised by the inclusion of a basic introduction to role-playing. It would seem to me that Demon, with its mature themes and controversial protagonists, would scare away most first time role-players. Of course, what is the difference between a game called Demon in the relaxed ‘00s and D&D in the age of more fundamental extremism that we like to call the ‘80s; both are clearly tools of indoctrinating our youth into Satanic Cults (see www.father-ramos.com for more details (it’s ran by White Wolf)). The short introduction to the demons themselves was great and set the tone for the whole book.
I can’t really comment on the Source Material since I haven’t read or seen most of them. “The Prophesy” movies weren’t mention, neither was “The Great Divorce” by C. S. Lewis although quotes from “The Great Divorce” did make it into the book at the start of chapter nine and ten.
The artwork in the book ranges from good to fair. Sadly none of Andy Brase’s works that were leaked early are to be found within; perhaps they are in the Storytellers Companion. I mention the artwork now because I like the full page piece that frames chapter one. I enjoyed most of the chapter artwork, but that one struck me as particularly good. The smaller pieces found scattered in the book are hit-and-miss; I think that I disliked more of them than I liked. It was more of a style thing than anything else.
The first four chapters detail the background and the setting for Demon: The Fallen. They are written as pieces of fiction, two of them being In Character and the other two using third person. There is overlap material in each chapter so the narrative flow continues through the changes of point of view of each chapter (such as Gaviel mentions briefly about the first murder while in the next chapter Malakh goes over it in detail). The page of fiction that precedes each of the books chapter and the appendix highlight character from the seven Houses, a thrall, an Earthbound, a thrall to an Earthbound (I think), and one of the new demon-hunters (these pieces do double duty for the first four working as mini-preludes, introducing the demonic protagonist that serves as the in character point of view for the chapter and setting up flow of the chapter that follows).
Chapter One: In the Beginning
“In the Beginning”, chapter one, is one of the best chapters that I’ve ever read in a gaming book. It is engaging and entertaining while being incredibly informative. It paints a vibrant picture of the glory that was creation before the Fall; it was truly paradise in which angels existed and could perceive the universe on many different layers. The story itself played on at least three levels (and I’m sure that you English Majors can find more): as a demon new to this modern world looking for a follower, as a faithless televangelist dealing with proof, and two broken men talking about the beginning of the world. The chapter explains the seven days of creation in a logical manner that Sunday School never did and expands those ideas into the Houses, metaphysical representations and personifications of the complex interactions and separation between Infinite and finite (the book explains it much better). It also describes the Fall of both angels and mankind in a compelling way; the fallen sound like they did the right thing or at least tried to do the right thing (that’s another theme, that “the road to Hell is paved with good intentions”). It goes on to describe the Silent War, a bloodless war between angels in which they dueled with artistic creations, not weapons. The idea of murder hadn’t existed yet; that’s next chapter.
I loved the first chapter; I loved the universe that it described and the nobility of the fallen host. The angels and demons in this chapter are much closer to William Blake’s ideas in “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell” than any real world religions; the ones that would become demons were active, they saw that Something Bad was coming and they took the steps that they thought were best to stop it while those that remained angels did nothing. (Also, the demons say that they Fell for love of humanity; I think that this is false. They didn’t love humanity as much as they wanted humanity to see what marvels the angels had created for them. When the angels found the smallest pretense, they were more than happy to come up with a plan in which it was necessary to do so. Not that the other side were much better; there was no mercy offered for the fallen, only rebellion or oblivion.) When I finished the chapter, I was half tempted to just stop there and try to find a game that could describe such a world; I didn’t want to see the fallen fall further. But curiosity killed the cat.
Chapter Two: Better to Rule in Hell
“Better to Rule in Hell” is framed as one demon trying to help another demon remember the past. In doing so, the protagonist, Malakh, tells of the war between angels that lasted a thousand years. He describes the Five Legions and the Age of Wonder with its Silent War, the first murder and the blood rage that it released inside the fallen that led to the Time of Atrocities when the fallen truly became demons. The Time of Babel, the fallen’s “greatest age”, follows. All that goes up must come crashing down around our protagonists and we watch as they are defeated, not by angels, but by man turning away from everything that they offered (and the destructive Nephilim might have helped as well). The chapter ends with the fallen marching unbowed into the Abyss only to find that their Prince didn’t come with them.
The second chapter covers a lot of ground quickly and well. The War is given enough details to be the springboard for many plot ideas, but not so much that it takes away from the demons’ present situation. I’d like to see the War and the Legions explored further especially the Alabaster Legion, which seemed very mysterious. Perhaps two books, since I think that the Watchers and the Nephilim were very interesting and deserve further detailing.
The thing that I found odd was the absence of any mention of the Flood. In the Bible and also the Ethiopian Book of Enoch (the one that talks about the Watchers), the Flood is a direct response to the Nephilim, basically they were so evil that they just had to be wiped off the face of the planet. The Flood is an almost universal theme in many old myths from across the world; many cultures have myths and legends that are similar to the Old Testament’s Flood. Of course if the rebellion lasted only a thousand years, the Flood would have happened after their imprisonment, but it deserved some mention.
Chapter Three: Apocalypse Now
Chapter three picks up where chapter two left off, with the demons entering the Abyss this time with a different narrator, Magdiel. She is writing down her recollections as a memory aid since the human mind is too fragile to comprehend all its demonic host’s existence. She describes the journey into the Abyss, the awful despair of the place, the disappearances of some demons (it can be assumed that those that didn’t come back stayed and become the Earthbound), the factions that were founded within the Abyss (briefly, there is a lot more details in chapter five), and the recent escape of some of the smaller spirits. She then describes how she sees the World of Darkness and the sorrow that she feels at the fallen state of humans, our culture, and our religion. The last section details her brief encounter with a thrall of an Earthbound, one of those powerful and mysterious beings that somehow left the Abyss and were able to stay on earth.
Of the chapters that describe the history and setting of Demon, chapter three is perhaps of the most immediate use to Storytellers and Players as this is what a character’s prelude should cover, and yet it is still easy to read, never getting too dry to get through. The World of Darkness is a perfect fit for Demon; the demons have seen the World of Light that existed before and inadvertently caused the darkness through their actions. The Earthbound in the story even claims responsibility of the current state of the World of Darkness.
Chapter Four: Legions of the Damned
This is the story of a German homicide detective that is also a demon who is tracking down another demon with the help of his sidekick/thrall/witch friend. It almost reads like a supernatural buddy cop story complete with the obligatory trip to a strip club. As Liebner, the name of the demon’s host, is chasing the homicidal demon, he is also explaining to his thrall, a person that the demon has made a pact with usually for some power in return for a stable and reliable source of Faith, some of the basics of demonic existence so she can theoretically help him (although, in the tradition of sidekicks she doesn’t really do anything; she should count herself lucky that she wasn’t kidnapped).
If chapter three is a prelude, then chapter four is an example of a story. It has a lot more immediate action and a demoness stripper; what more could you ask for? The story itself is engrossing and would make a decent short story if half of the explanations were cut or the action was doubled. But with the explanations still in, this chapter finishes off the In Character setting portion of the book with a bang.
Chapter Five: Houses of Darkness
Chapter five begins the rules portion of the book with the two page write-ups of the individual Houses, collectively known as the Sebettu, and the Factions. This was the second part of the book where I felt a little let down (the first time was the lack of the Flood; I mean, come on, you’ve got to have the Flood). The write-ups were serviceable, but they lack the cool Babylonian names and it would have been nice if there were explanations of why the Houses were the keepers of the specific lores here; to get all of the Babylonian names and the explanation of why and how the Houses got the lores you have to wait until chapter seven, but I would have loved to have seen them here. I also would have preferred to see the Houses listed in their natural order instead of alphabetically (although I just spent the extra two seconds and read them in that order anyway). I didn’t like the added complication that some Houses have a starting Torment of three and other have a four until I playtested it. I think that it helps to subtly balance out the characters (Devils, Devourers, and Slayers, arguable the top three most popular Houses are the Houses that start with four while the others start with three permanent points of Torment).
The Faction write-ups are great, giving us a good idea of how they felt and why as well as briefly mentioning two important characters within each Faction and their goals and headquarters. They are great springboards for chronicle ideas (I would have liked to have seen them formatted in a splat style (the same format that they used for the Houses) for easy referencing, text boxes demonstrating how they stereotypically viewed each other, and just a larger word count, but I can’t name one thing in the book that I didn’t want to see more about). The Factions should be expanded later (Players Handbook is my bet), and even if they aren’t or you don’t get that supplement, the information provided is more than enough for a million stories of infernal intrigue; I’m just greedy.
Chapter Six: Feet of Clay
As the first chapter with hard rules, you can start to see some of the seams of this first edition. If you’ve already read a core rulebook from White Wolf, you know exactly what to expect from this chapter; all of the basics needed for character creation is found in this chapter. An explanation of the character sheet, some basic character guidelines, and some gray pages with a lot of helpful information on it starts off the chapter. Character creation itself is detailed step-by-step next followed by the prelude, some questions-and-answers to help you flesh out your character, and a step-by-step example of character creation. The chapter finishes off with a bang with the archetypes, attributes, abilities, and advantages (all except for the lores, that’s next chapter). The little paragraphs of fiction that proceed each description are very entertaining and most seem to point back to either the characters from the first four chapters or the character that was created in the step-by-step example. The rules for Faith and Torment leave you begging for more (and there are more rules in the next two chapters).
I mentioned that you can see the seams of the game in this chapter; sadly I found character creation a little confusing (and I consider myself a veteran White Wolf character creator). Most of the confusion centers on the lores; how many and what choices you have available at character creation. (It is mostly cleared up in the next chapter, but it should have been cleared up in this chapter; well, mostly cleared up. It’s clear that you get to choose from five lores (three from your House and two common lores), but even if you spend freebies you can’t begin the game with lores from other Houses? It says that you get a number of starting lore dots equal to your starting Faith, which is three. But what happens if you raise your Faith with freebie points? It only costs six to raise Faith but seven to raise a lore; so I would say that freebie Faith doesn’t add Lore dots.) There is also mention of on p. 136 of an innate ability that demons have to increase physical attributes to superhuman levels with Faith; that rule is never mentioned again. And as one reads, one discovers that the rules for unintentional use of the high-Torment version of powers are split into two and in this chapter you get the second half (I mention this because it took me a little while to piece this together). It may sound like I’m nit picking, but it is important for people to know what they are getting with this book. The rules are still heads and shoulders above most other games’ first editions (I still remember Mage first edition). For completeness sake, I would have also liked a small chart with adjectives for each of the ten levels of Faith, but I’m anal like that. But, by and large, this was one of the best character creation chapters that I have read. It’s hard to make lists of attributes and abilities readable and they succeeded at that.
Chapter Seven: Eyes of Fire
As a small note, the fiction at the beginning of the chapter answered one of the most important questions for me, “who’s sexier: Magdiel or Sabriel?” It basically comes down to the fact that Sabriel sounds like she would kill me after a time of mental torture, so I’d go with Magdiel. But back on topic, this chapter is the “powers” chapter that details both the innate powers as well as the lores of the infernal host. There is a laundry list of innate powers that would make most comic book superheroes drool (well, at least Super Friends’s Aquaman will once again feel as if he got the short end of the stick). The lores are presented by Houses with an introductory paragraph for each House describing how and why that House has its lores. It was very enlightening to read those paragraphs showing the devolution of each House from angels to demons and how they developed lores to fight the War. This is also the first organized mention of the Houses’ Babylonian names with cool graphics and everything.
I like to think of myself as an intellectual gamer, who values story and character development over “kewl p0w3rz”, but fuck this is a sweet chapter! Every power detailed is described clearly both with system and the all-important special effects. I walked away thinking that every lore was cooler than the last. One of the true hallmarks of a great game is the ability to add new stuff, for the game to grow over time. They have created a detailed and potent system of powers that is complete by itself and yet still has room to graft ideas on and make the game yours. I had a list of five or six other mini-lores in my mind by the time I was halfway through with this chapter (I’m calling them secret lores or just secrets for short). The only thing that bugged me about this chapter is that difference between Paths and Portals seemed vague; Portals seem to be able to do everything that Paths can and more and with more panache (my friend pointed out that Paths are permanent, but I still question the specifics like can a Path be big enough for a car? Maybe a taxi driver with the Lore of Paths would make an interesting character). We also get the first half of the rules about how to determine if your character accidentally uses the high-Torment version of an evocation without reference to the second part in the last chapter (in fact it seems to pretend that part doesn’t exist so read carefully).
Chapter Eight: Rules
This chapter contains the basic rules for the Storyteller system, how to roll, what to roll, how multiple actions work. It does its job well, but is a short chapter without any demon specific information contained within, so I don’t have much to say about it.
Chapter Nine: Systems
This chapter goes into more depth about how one uses the Storytelling system to resolve actions in the game. The first part of the chapter describes generic systems (like driving and combat) while the second part contains more rules about Faith, empowering thralls, and other demon specific systems. The chapter ends, off oddly, enough talking about derangements and environmental sources of damage (like fire and drowning).
I wanted to see some rules about gliding in this section. Many visages have wings and talk about gliding, but there isn’t any system about it. As something that I can’t do, I would have liked more information describing what can happen and maybe some rules about aerial combat.
The rules about thralls were very interesting. The book further detailing thralls can’t come soon enough for me. In fact I would have liked it released before this book, as a more humanistic introduction to the Infernal.
Much has been made about how the demons don’t have a Masquerade and how they would be detrimental to the rest of the World of Darkness. The next section shows why demons don’t go on the evening news. Humans have become so jaded, cynical, and agnostic that it is difficult for demons to perform miracles in front of some of them, and it becomes more difficult the larger the crowd. But the surprises don’t stop there, I was amazed to find out that holy ground and objects don’t cause as much damage as I thought that they would, and some demons, the more moral demons, don’t even take any damage. The book follows up the powers of holy items and places with the powers of the faithful which itself should be expanded upon in “Saviors and Destroyers: The Book of Exorcists” coming out Spring 2003.
I didn’t mean to get into a point-by-point commentary of this chapter, but everything within is so cool.
Chapter Ten: Storytelling
I love Storyteller chapters, and this one was no exception. In fact Storytellers Handbooks are almost always my favorite books from a line. I hope that with the Players Handbook being released next year, the Storytellers Handbook for Demon can’t be far behind. Every little bit helps. This chapter answers the most important question that I had after reading the rest of the book: where the fuck do I begin? It focuses mostly on creating chronicles and stories with the help of your players but has important discussions, such as the different game styles and several ideas about how to get the characters together (which was useful because demons seemed rather solitary throughout the book). The whole chapter is full not only of great advice but of examples that you can use. It’s a very useful chapter and one of the most practical that I’ve read.
Appendix: Antagonists
The appendix on antagonists was a welcomed departure from the traditional White Wolf antagonist chapter. Instead of tackling the complex and confusing issues of crossover and how demons see and are seen by the other World of Darkness-ites, this chapter focuses on monstrous demons (those that didn’t “see the light” and are still truly demonic), demon-hunters (none of which were very combat oriented), and some of the types of human thralls of the mysterious and powerful Earthbound (including Leo Daschell whom I used in my playtesting).
The antagonists that were presented were thought out and surprising well rounded but I missed the wholly human templates for beat cops and FBI agents. Although I didn’t miss the write-ups for vampires and werewolves, I would have liked to have seen a sample ghost or two (known to other World of Darkness fans as wraiths) since the Seventh House has interactions and relationships with the lands of the dead and its unhappy residents.
Playtest
Warning: this playtest uses game-speak to illustrate what happened. I’ve tried to write this review with minimum game-speak, but this section uses it extensively. I tried to get some people to playtest Demon with me, but one thing happened after another and by the time we started there were only two of us, which worked out better in the end. First came character creation. He wanted to make a complex character that had a lot of dichotomy; he ended up with a Slayer (Visage of Death) Reconciler “secret agent” who didn’t actually like humans but saw them as an import part of his redemption. He felt as though the character’s abilities leaned further towards the human host’s than the demon’s but created the character without referencing his lores; that comes back to bite him on the ass later. The character creation proceeds very smoothly with the only bump being a lack of dots (isn’t that always the way?). He decides that his character will be named Hecubus.
I decided to throw his new character into a random combat against an opponent that should be a little challenging, but not too difficult to defeat; I chose “Leo Daschell”, thug thrall to an Earthbound. The combat started simply enough: dark alley, fake mugging but Leo betrayed that he knew whom he was dealing with before the combat. Hecubus revealed his visage, but Leo was very unconcerned (Willpower roll (5) difficulty of Hecubus’s starting Faith (3)). Hecubus reached out to decay Leo’s body, but his player realized that he didn’t have any Medicine (I should have allowed him to default to his attribute even though it was a Knowledge roll); I offered to let him move things around but he wanted to continue as is. So Hecubus filled Leo’s mind with a Vision of Mortality, but the difficult of the roll to resist it was Hecubus’s Faith again so Leo once again was unafraid. It basically turned into a running gun battle with Hecubus winning because he invoked the high-Torment power of his visage Damage Resistance.
What did I learn from this? It might be important to keep one eye on your lores if you want to be able to use them. Also without their lores, demons aren’t that much stronger than thralls of course this might change from visage to visage.
Parting Thoughts
So what have we learned? We’ve learned that I’m a little biased and very opinionated. I loved this book, not only for the ideas within but for all of the ideas that I had while reading it. We learned that this game isn’t going to be for everybody; those that are overly nit-picky of a first edition book, those that are easily offended or uncomfortable with the subject matter of demons, those that are immature, and those that hate the World of Darkness won’t like this game at all. For the rest of us, we have Demon: The Fallen.
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