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The Everlasting: Book of the Light was one of the first review copies I received from RPGnet. Despite my annoyance at the World of Darkness-like “separate games/same setting” approach, and at some wildly pretentious elements that made the World of Darkness look like Toon, the concepts behind this epic urban fantasy setting hooked me almost immediately, and I eagerly followed the line’s development. And of all the books, I looked forward to none so much as Book of the Fantastical, which was to cover the setting’s counterparts to traditional fantasy elements: dragons, elves, faeries, and dwarves. For a while, it looked as though the book might never see the light of day due to Visionary Entertainment founder Steven Brown closing up shop, but an enterprising fan by the name of Chip Dobbs eventually purchased the company. Thanks to his efforts, Book of the Fantastical is here at last, as is my review.
[Note: Based upon recent feedback, I’m going to try to be less wordy in this review. (Well, for me, at least.) Also, I’m experimenting with a couple of formatting tweaks. Further feedback is more than welcome.]
CONTENT
Book of the Fantastical follows the exact same format as do the three previous books in the line: Book of the Unliving, Book of the Light, and Book of the Spirits. Like the games of the World of Darkness setting, each game in the Everlasting line repeats the same overall rules and setting information while focusing on a specific aspect of that setting. That being the case, I will refer you to my review of Book of the Light – and, to a much lesser extent, to my review of Book of the Unliving – for my observations on the system and general setting. Here, I will deal only with what’s unique to this book. But briefly, The Everlasting, like the World of Darkness and WitchCraft, deals with an alternate modern-day Earth in which astounding amounts of myth and legend are, in fact, reality, albeit a reality hidden for various reasons from mundane sight. In general, The Everlasting, like WitchCraft, is more heroic and optimistic than is the World of Darkness; however, unlike WitchCraft, the focus in The Everlasting is much more strongly on playing non-human supernatural beings – in the case of Book of the Fantastical, beings out of Tolkienesque fantasy.
Rules
Again, the majority of rules here are identical to those already described in my previous reviews of the game line. There is one addition here, though: the use of poker-style card play for task resolution.
Each poker hand gets a point value that's added to the sum of relevant attribute and skill scores, with difficulty ratings expressed as a minimum point requirement. As in standard contested actions, players may bid Destiny points and/or experience points; unlike standard contested actions, Destiny points aren't required to discard and redraw.
The book suggests that this method may be easier for new gamers to learn. That could be true in terms of the basic mechanic involved – provided that said players are already familiar with poker, of course – but resorting to a card game for task resolution sounds like a recipe for slowed game play to me. And even if it's only used occasionally, the options to gamble and bluff don't seem particularly useful, considering that the opponent in most contested actions will be the GM, who has no experience points to gamble and much less incentive to hoard Destiny points.
Also, the text says that in a contested action, the player with the winning hand wins the contest. Assuming it means what it says, that would imply that success in such contests depends completely upon the cards, which seems strange. I assume that what's meant is that the one with the highest total score wins, but that's not the way it reads. And if it is the highest total that matters, then the best hand wouldn't necessarily win, which runs counter to the suggestion that this option might make more sense to new roleplayers.
Dragons
The dragons of The Everlasting are extremely potent elemental beings responsible for the creation of Nature, divided into six species associated with four classical elements of air, earth, fire, and water, as well as light and darkness. In their natural forms – the giant winged reptiles we all know and love – they are far more powerful than are the other PC races. Unfortunately for them, they're also the victims of some of the roughest game balancing restrictions I've ever seen.
For starters, their natural form isn’t their default form in modern times – that would be their human form, which, while superhuman in many ways, is nothing compared to their dragon form in terms of sheer power. And changing from human to dragon form requires both a Spirit/Focus draw and an expenditure of Destiny points – 9 of the latter to assume full dragon form, less to assume one of five progressively more draconic intermediary forms. And it's harder for dragons to assume their natural form when mortal humans are watching. And the dragon form is only temporary, barring the expenditure of even more Destiny points.
Again, all of this is the difficulty a dragon faces to assume and retain its natural form. So why is it so hard for a dragon to, you know, be a dragon? Well, the book speaks of lower magic levels in the modern era. Okay... so why does the exact same problem plague them in the much more magical Reverie, a place where ghosts can become flesh? And even in the Astra and the Dreamworlds, the difficulty and cost are only reduced, not eliminated. And at any rate, if it’s an issue of magic, why don’t the transformations cost animus (magic points) rather than Destiny points?
What's more, dragon PCs start out with no Destiny points (as compared to 10 for other PCs) and 30 Backlash points (as opposed to none for other PCs). This means that until a dragon's player earns those Destiny points, the dragon will not be able to become a dragon. (Which, given the odd combination of in-character and out-of-character means for earning Destiny points, could lead so some pretty silly situations – a dragon's player repeatedly springing for pizza to buy his character the right to do his dragon thing, for example.) Meanwhile, the GM will be able to torment the poor beast with automatic failures and disasters courtesy of that hefty pool of Backlash points.
This is all the more puzzling and frustrating considering the lovely details about the lairs dragons keep for their natural forms – the cloud-lairs of the air dragons, for example, which are solid for them and their guests but ordinary clouds to everyone else. Why would a dragon even have a lair for a form that it can't assume and maintain without a tremendous expenditure of precious Destiny points?
Finally, dragon PCs get no starting points to spend on the special Elemental Inheritances available to dragons of their type. They’re limited to those powers common to all dragons of their type, with only a single power or two distinguishing individual species at this level. (In at least some cases, this is just as well. The air, earth, and water dragons can pick up the ability to summon and command nearby creatures native to their realms, but the book includes no stats for ordinary animals. Some of these might be adapted from the natural forms of the shapeshifting manitou featured in Book of the Spirits, but that’s a separate book, and – in theory, anyway – a separate game.)
In short, it almost seems as though players wishing to play dragons get the big munchkin smackdown. Which is really a shame, given the many fresh takes the game brings to traditional fantasy dragons.
Dragons maintain hordes not simply for love of wealth, for example, but also because they can consume gems and precious metals as sustenance. And yet, because their treasures are reminders of their pasts, they're generally loath to do so – it's like burning family heirlooms in the fireplace to keep warm.
And the game incorporates the classic sleeping dragon imagery as well, but with still another twist: Dragons sleep for months at a time to regain lost animus and/or to heal debilitating damage, but they may remain active in the Dreamworlds or the Astra while asleep… and some of them can project their astral forms into the bodies of mortals, thus remaining active (and hence in the game) even while technically asleep.
Elves
The elves of the setting are a crossbreed of Adapan (early advanced humans) and faerie. (And, interestingly, the fey are as alien to the elves as the elves are to normal humans.) For the most part, they are unabashedly Tolkienesque: Tall, beautiful, and graceful, needing trance-like rests but not sleep, immortal but yearning to leave the world for a far-off idyllic homeland – in this case, their ancient First City.
This is not to say that these elves are complete Tolkien clones, however. As with the dragons, there are plenty of original touches. Among their powers are the abilities to maintain a human façade and to spirit-bond with spirits or animals – including animals of the mythic variety – with each member of the bond gaining some traits of the other. (Animals bonded with elves gain greater intelligence and appreciation of beauty, for example.)
Unfortunately, also as in the dragon chapter, some of these original touches get descriptions without all the stats or mechanics necessary to back them up. Again, there are no animal stats in the book, making the beast-bonding aspect of spiriting bonding useless. The text also speaks of the elves as being the caretakers of the remaining mythical beasts in the world – basilisks, rocs, griffins, etc. – and the keepers of the Shollari, a powerful and intelligent horse breed; however, there are stats for neither mythical beasts nor Shollari in the book.
Nevertheless, I was truly impressed by the sheer number of immersive details provided, such as their clothing, hairstyles, common outlooks, speech patterns, and even body odor. These details really brought the elves to life for me.
There are seven Elven Nations:
- Valmori: Wood elves
- Xeysori: High-tech city elves
- Aedrith: Gray elves, wanderers with origins on another world
- Dru’Galeeth: Demon-worshipping subterranean Drow
- Dumasta: Extremely fey elves, masters of illusion
- Karges: Fire elves, tough and militant
- Lethquesti: High elves, keepers of tradition
(Half-elves appear as well, with the twist that some are half-dwarven rather than half-human.)
The selection handily covers a broad swath of typical elven stereotypes, although once again, the degree of detail makes this section much more than a simple recitation of the familiar. For example, I found the description of the typical Valmori estate, with its forests larger than they appear to be due to overlap with the Reverie, to be particularly enchanting. I expected to roll my eyes at the Xeysori, but the description of these cyber-elves ended up hooking me as well. (Maybe it was nostalgia for my Shadowrun days, or maybe it was just the imagery of an elf techno-rave party.)
Faeries
Fantasy in general and roleplaying games in particular often associate faeries with nature. The Everlasting has a bit of fun with that idea: Faeries aren’t selfless caretakers of nature; rather, they are thieves, parasites, and warpers of nature.
The fey folk fall into three general categories:
- Ferrishyn: These are the indigenous inhabitants of Faeryland – faeries born of other faeries. In general, they are the Little People: pixies, brownies, goblins, etc.
- Sidhe: Humans who, through their powerful imaginations, have slowly transformed themselves into faeries. They’re generally of the human-sized or larger variety: sidhe lords, hags, nymphs, ogres, etc.
- Elves: Technically fey, although they’re different enough to warrant their own chapter in the book.
The chapter makes the nature of the fey and Faeryland both fascinating and tragic. The fey must feed upon “foyson”, the inherent “goodness” in everything. Ordinarily, parcels of land (called “learigs”) produce enough foyson to keep the fey satisfied without harming the land itself; however, if the fey need more foyson than that, they can leave crops blighted, gems flawed, stories dull, food tasteless, and (in classic gremlin mode) human machinery malfunctioning. So, sure, that dryad loves her trees… because she leeches off of them!
Furthermore, to save Faeryland from the Cataclysm that befell Earth in ancient times, the fey made a deal with demons, who moved Faeryland to its own dimension and taught the fey how to steal pieces of the Earth to replenish it. In exchange, the demons require the fey to provide them with one human soul a year – hence, the Wild Hunt. This is the sort of clever fresh-yet-faithful take on a myth that makes me love this setting.
The tragedy of the fey’s demonic deal forms the basis for the four main faerie groups, both traditional and not-so-traditional:
- Seelie: The Summer Court, rebels against the deal with the demons.
- Sluagh: The Winter Court, all for the deal with the demons.
- Gwydions: Focused on finding alternatives to the deal with the demons, including burning out portions of Faeryland to power their search for gates to other worlds. They’re also considering the possibility of killing Yog Sothoth and making a new Faeryland from its corpse. (Yes, that Yog Sothoth. How many are there?)
- Obalisi: The Court of Steel – high-tech faeries roughly corresponding to the alien "Greys", abducting and experimenting upon humans to breed faeries that can survive indefinitely on today’s more mundane Earth.
This had the potential to be my favorite chapter. Its failing, however, is a microcosm of the biggest flaw of the book as a whole: It aims too high. There’s just no way that the game could have stayed with the standard Everlasting format while covering every sort of faerie in the same space elsewhere devoted to individual races. The sidebars discuss all manner of faeries – including some less obvious choices like faeries’ Native American counterparts and even Santa's elves(!) – but there just aren’t the stats to support them. Instead, you get about the same number of perks and drawbacks elsewhere used for individual races with which to make every faerie breed. What's more, there are only two sample faerie races provided – brownie and ogre – both of which violate the faerie character creation rules later in the chapter.
Dwarves
Each rulebook in the Everlasting line includes one “extra” race – one that could be used for PCs but that’s treated more tangentially for whatever reason. In this book, that’s the dwarves. Now, dwarves are probably my favorite fantasy race, so I’m rather particular about their portrayal in any given setting. On the whole, The Everlasting meets my high standards.
For starters, these dwarves share a common ancestry with humans – specifically, they’re an evolutionary offshoot from Neanderthal man. In practice, this gives them a unique and interesting origin without requiring a gratuitous deviation from their familiar stereotype.
And speaking of the familiar stereotype, that's the default variety: the Ancient Folk, living in massive underground cities deep beneath the surface of the earth, looking much like their Tolkien/D&D counterparts but possessing both modern human technology and advanced tech of their own design. Other dwarves turned to the worship of powerful Law or Chaos spirits, and the civil strife between these two groups led to their banishment with the help of still another group, the Or'Valderis, created to reign them in. These three factions all have more dealings with the surface world than do the Ancient Folk, and have more advanced technology.
There are also three dwarf races: the Urgathnor, who resemble traditional fantasy dwarves; the pale and wrinkled Druegnor, once the foes of the Urgathnor; and the beardless Vorgul. Most dwarves possess an inherent magic resistance, but the small and secretive Vorgul minority are skilled magicians.
Featured examples of dwarf tech include power armors, exoskeletons, lightning blasters, and ultratech firearms. As might be expected, dwarves also craft superior weapons carved with powerful runes.
I like these dwarves quite a lot. The visual of dwarves on motorcycles driving through tunnels connecting their subterranean cities just appeals to me somehow. In fact, my only problem with these dwarves is their status as the book's obligatory second-class character race. They are imminently more playable based on the information provided than are the hyper-generalized faeries, and also more generally likable. As such, I'd have swapped their places in the book, making the fey the “also-rans”.
Orcs
Like the elves, the orcs of The Everlasting stick pretty closely to the Tolkien model: squat, brutish humanoids bred out of a torturous process to serve as warriors for evil. There's even a more intelligent and human-like breed known as the "urkhai". The setting emphasizes the orcish predispositions to both evil and servitude, making them ideal goons for demons. (Orcs who've turned from their evil ways may be PCs, however.) The demons, in turn, provide their orc servants with human-like facades that allow them to interact with human society – generally in thuggish capacities, from biker gang members to assassins, all with access to modern weapons.
Beyond their use of modern technology, the biggest changes to the traditional orc result from an attempt to stay true to standard Everlasting character creation. Specifically, to keep the orcs balanced with other races, they get an array of innate special bonuses and abilities and access to a small list of optional powers as well. Now, I kinda like that last part. Orcs able to grow claws and regenerate damage are a great way to keep jaded players on their toes. But really, the problem with the orcs is the inverse of the problem with the dragons: where game balance concerns beat down the latter, here they raise up the former. Orcs are just too tough to be the standard mooks the game seems to want them to be. Consider that the typical orc (Strength bonus +2) can toss around the typical angel (Strength bonus +1). I would suggest that The Everlasting take a cue from Eden Studio’s WitchCraft and Armageddon lines, making certain supernatural species only available at certain levels in lieu of awkwardly leveling the playing field for everybody.
The Adventurers' Society
Each Everlasting book includes a chapter dedicated to thumbnail sketches of the Eldritch races featured in the other three rulebooks. Also appearing in that chapter in Book of the Fantastical is the Adventurers' Society. And for the life of me, I can't tell if it's meant as a joke – which would make it an anomaly in the otherwise serious Everlasting universe – or one of the most groan-inducing examples of gamer elitism I've ever seen.
The idea is that wargamers playing in steam tunnels in the 1970s managed to kill an orc in some secret passages they discovered. To better explore the strange new world of magic and monsters upon which they'd stumbled, they decided to expand their group with only the best and brightest individuals.
Their screening method? They created roleplaying games.
In the tradition of The Last Starfighter, they draw in candidates with gaming, initiating only the finest into the "real thing". This entails training in an actual "character class" – fighter, ranger, mage, cleric, thief, and so on – complete with levels and alignments (the reasoning for the latter being that it’s best to know up front where all these potent mental and physical giants stand). Training comes at the hands of a specialist in the relevant field – would-be fantasy rangers get training in wilderness survival and tactics from ex-Special Forces commandoes, for example.
Again, these are gamers we're talking about.
Mysterious Worlds
In addition to the selection of dimensions and places covered in all Everlasting rulebooks – the multi-layered magic realm known as the Reverie, the mental realms of the Astra, etc. – the “worlds” chapter in Book of the Fantastical takes a look at modern dungeons and Faeryland.
The former include ghul tunnels, orc strongholds, drow and dwarf subtropolises, faery mounds, and any other subterranean labyrinths those able to enter the Reverie can explore and loot D&D-style. As over-the-top as I find the aforementioned Adventurer’s Society, I do confess to liking the whimsical notion of magically aware modern humans able to engage in some old school hack-and-slash adventuring just for the heck of it beneath their own home towns, and with whatever mix of ancient and modern weaponry that suits their fancy. Maybe it just makes me nostalgic for those idle, geeky, “Hey, wouldn’t it be cool if…?” discussions from my childhood.
The chapter really shines, though, in its description of Faeryland and its wonders. The gazetteer of locations, which includes such legendary places as Avalon, Tir-na-Og, and Neflheim, is nice enough, but most appealing to me are the evocative descriptions of the surreal nature of the place – what looks like a lighthouse in the distance might turn out to be a clever arrangement of a tree and some boulders right in front of you with the moon shining through the leaves, for example.
And the setting makes excellent use of the stolen patchwork nature of The Everlasting’s Faeryland as well, especially given that some sections are stolen from realms other than Earth. (Neflheim, for example, may have been swiped from Asgard.) So, one might find a glacial waste bumping up against geysers of lava. It all adds up to a Faeryland that truly feels fey.
Paths of Magick
Each Everlasting book includes magick paths practiced by its featured supernatural races. In this case, those paths are Bardic Magic (originated by, but not limited to, elves and the fey), the mysterious Quanraic Magick of the dragons, Faerie Rievery (used for stealing lands to add to Faeryland, among other things), and the Technomancy of the Xeysori elves. The various trappings and abilities of each path hold very closely to the path’s theme; for example, bards have a hard time throwing around fireballs and lightning bolts but are especially handy with emotions. Some of these aspects even raise intriguing questions about the practicing races; for example, why is it that the draconic practitioners of Quanraic Magick have a harder time affecting angels, demons, and manitou?
Each path gets three sample spells. Those of Quanraic Magick are particularly impressive, including ceremonies to call down meteors and create vast, customized caverns. The Faerie Riever spells wisely include the path’s signature invocation used to steal lands to expand Faeryland, and the Xeysori spells include abilities to both control and to create high-tech devices. Oddly, along with spells to evoke strong emotions and vivid story images, the Bardic examples include a spell to boost personal personality traits – a thematic enough ability, I suppose, except for the fact that one limitation of Bardic Magick is difficulty with casting magic on the caster himself.
STYLE
The quality of the art varies wildly, from the gorgeous and elegant portraits of elven nation members to the sketchily cartoonish image of an anime nymph in a pond with a troop of fey waiting in an outhouse line in the background. Thankfully, however, the art leans more towards the attractive end of the spectrum.
The layout remains as dense as that of the other three books, making reading something of a strain. Also like every other book in the series, this book is in dire need of an index. I’d strongly encourage Visionary Entertainment to post one on their web site.
And even more than an index, the book needs serious proofreading. In several places, for example, the author obviously cut and pasted blocks of text from the previous rulebooks while forgetting to change the relevant names. That’s merely annoying and occasionally confusing. Far less forgivable is the write-up of Quanraic Magick, in which blocks of text from corresponding sections of three different books appear, one right after the other. That’s the sort of thing that makes me wonder whether a proofreader ever so much as glanced at this book. Now, it’s important to note that I have been informed that the book’s been cleaned up in subsequent printings, so this may no longer be an issue; however, I have no way of knowing what was corrected and what was not.
One definite improvement over previous games is the removal of the extended game fiction and (especially) the creepy New Age-y Jack Chick fodder – color-coded candles, opening and closing ceremonies, lucid dreaming, etc. All of this has been moved to the company’s web site. My only regret is that the space wasn’t put to more practical uses, such as more comprehensive stats for the other Eldritch races or a bestiary of fantasy creatures.
CONCLUSION
Of all of the Everlasting books, this was the one I’d most eagerly awaited, and the one I most doubted I’d ever see. Kudos to Chip Dobbs for having the moxie to purchase a game line he loves and make it live again.That having been said, I also found this to be the most disappointing of the four books. The majority of the fault lies not so much with the execution of this book, however, but rather with the content forced to fit the pre-established rulebook format. Races that should be particularly powerful (like dragons) or weak (like orcs) get compressed into the same power level as all other races, and an extremely broad category of beings – the fey – is crammed into insufficient space.
And, in general, the book just feels less self-contained than do the other books, due in part to its choice of adversarial race. In Book of the Unliving, there’s enough World of Darkness-style politics to make the featured races sufficient adversaries for themselves. Book of the Light has its demons to oppose the angels, daevas, and questers, with the wer thrown in for spice, and the otherwise scattershot Book of the Spirits has an actual bestiary of Lovecraftian monsters. But this one just has the orcs, plus the adversarial factions of the elves, dwarves, and fey. Those factions take up some of the slack, true, but the elves and dwarves seem to me to function best in the context of a larger fantasy setting that’s yet to be fleshed out – i.e., with a fantasy bestiary – and there’s just not enough detail about the various fey races to do the job.
In short, this book, like its predecessors, presents a compelling world of modern epic fantasy; but it, more so than the others, offers up more great ideas than it has either the space or inclination to fully develop for play. As a result, I can only recommend this book to complete your set of Everlasting books or as a fine but pricey idea-mine, not as a stand-alone game. And even in the former case, be aware that the four rulebooks still haven’t completely covered some key details about the setting. But I suspect that the dedicated fans of the line will be willing to overlook these flaws and enjoy this long-delayed labor of love.
SUBSTANCE:
- Setting
- Quality = 5.0
- Quantity = 3.0
- Rules
- Quality = 4.0
- Quantity = 2.0
STYLE:
- Artwork = 4.0
- Layout/Readability = 3.0
- Organization = 2.0
- Writing = 3.5
- Proofreading = <2.0>
