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In Short

The Good: Great writing, a real page flipper. Interesting ideas all the way through. While focused on Werewolf, offers something to other World of Darkness games that involve spirits or monsters as a common element. One of the best books you can own if you’re playing Werewolf.

The Bad: A little more art would have been nice. Sometimes it’s not clear why the example spirits, ridden, and other creatures have certain powers/stats, which makes them less useful when the reader decides to build their own.

The Physical Thing

The Ideas

Under the Cover

Chapter One Denizens of the Shadow 56 pages.

Shadow is the spirit realm that mirrors our world, with a surreal, animistic cast to all of its features. This chapter is focused on the denizens of that realm, spirits of all stripes, and is unbelievably useful for any World of Darkness game. If you’re running something other than Werewolf, this is the chapter you’re going to refer to the most. This single chapter is one of the best game resources for WoD games, and even if the rest of this book was average to bad (and it’s crazy good) I’d recommend this product.

The chapter kicks off with several short discussions of dark animism, the immortality of spirits, and how werewolves go about dealing with spirits. For instance, werewolves almost always give appropriate gifts to the spirits – that much is obvious. What’s less obvious is that spirits, based on their concept, are more or less inclined to deal with werewolves in different ways. A spirit of war might demand a battle of some sort, or just attack on site, before anything else occurs in the meeting. A spirit of redwood trees might only respond favorably if the negotiations proceed at a very slow pace, acknowledging that importance of that spirit’s place in the world.

The alien nature of spirits is stressed, as is their general hostility towards the Forsaken, and the reader is left with a vision of strange, unknowable beings go about tasks they feel compelled to do. The section does an excellent job of distinguishing between the age of spirits, stressing how a spirit gains more individuality and strange habits as it ages – becoming more and more like an independent being and less like a conceptual creature spurred onward by compulsions.

After that we have a lengthy listing of all different types of spirits. Every spirit type includes a flavorful example spirit, a quote, and a stat block to make it immediately useful in your game. Storytelling hints, background, and description really help bring the spirit to life and give the reader a strong impression of what this spirit is like. There are a lot of spirit entries here, ranging from elemental and forest spirits to concepts (fear, pain), technologies (plastic), and even celestial spirits (aspects of Luna). One of my favorite parts of this section is the idea that spirits take on the properties of other spirits they consume. If a spirit of toys consumes spirits of anger and grief then, well, it becomes a much less happy and pleasant spirit. In some instances this can even result in strange spirit hybrids, such as a Rainsliver (made up of Swarm/Rain/Murder spirits). These strange combination spirits, called Magath, make an already diverse and interesting world of spirits even stranger and more compelling.

The chapter wraps up with a variety of new numina (spirit powers) that really expand on the capabilities of spirits. While some classic abilities, such as telekinesis and telepathy, are presented, others, such as mechanical possession and spirit venom, do a good job of introducing interesting abilities that some readers might not initially consider.

If you enjoy animism or want to add more spirits to your game then you’ll love this chapter.

Chapter Two The Spirit-Ridden 44 pages.

For various reasons, sometimes spirits decide they want or need to influence or control a living host. This chapter discusses those spirit possessions, breaking them down into three basic types collectively called hithimu. The hithisu, or Urged, are people who are influenced by spirits. Perhaps an anger spirit keeps nudging a girl to greater and greater acts of violence, so it may feed off the situations she creates. The duguthim, or Claimed, are bodies controlled by spirits that ride around inside of them. A serial killer, for instance, could be a person who was replaced with a spirit of murder that directly engages in the acts it needs to survive and grow. Finally, the nanutari are like the Claimed above but the spirit didn’t take the proper time to prepare the body as a host. It jumped in, kicked out the former owner, and now uses the body with imperfect skill to accomplish whatever it needs done.

The joy riding hithisu only requires a spirit to be present in the physical world and to spiritually anchor itself to the target. Not everyone is suitable for this, and some strong willed or particularly unsuitable hosts can shake off the attaching spirit without realizing anything has happened. Once attached the spirit begins to nudge its host towards performing more and more tasks that please the spirit. A technology spirit might take an engineer and nudge him to keep developing new ideas while a spirit of loneliness might push a host towards cutting off contact with friends. While this is a relatively minor invasion of the host it can still lead to serious long term consequences (though if the spirit chooses to leave the host is left unharmed). Because of the tenuous nature of the connection, hithisu are very difficult to detect and often use their influence to keep the host away from potential threats (such as werewolves).

The Claimed, or duguthim, settle deep into the soul of their victim and even go so far as to physically change the host body to become more… appropriate. It takes time, sometimes even months or years, for the duguthim to fully possess a host and it takes some time to remove them when they’re discovered. Their patience pays off, however, as the duguthim have more control and power than any other spirit host. Finally, spirit thieves, or nanutari, forcefully take control of a body in an instant. This control is far from perfect, and even under the best of conditions the controlling spirit is able to access little of the hosts thoughts and doesn’t understand what sleep is or how to respond to police officers. This romp often ends with the host dead, a victim of any of a number of problems that result from an ignorant spirit controlling a body like a puppet.

Full system support is present for all three types of possession, with the most robust support appearing in the form of powers the duguthim hosts develop. Everything from seeing in the dark, extra limbs, and slipping through the gauntlet to life draining and poison can be found here. Not only can a Storyteller use this system to generate a wide variety of spirit ridden adversaries, but it’s possible playable characters could be built using this system (though the book doesn’t recommend it). The powers are pleasantly generic while still retaining an appropriate feel.

The chapter wraps up with a lengthy list of example spirit possessed creatures, from monstrous dogs to succubi and serial killers. Full stat blocks combined with a half page to page of description each results in quick, easy to use NPCs that come with story hooks to make the Storyteller’s job easier than ever. The chapter even goes so far as to provide a discussion of what sorts of bodies each of the spirits from chapter one would possess, what their motivations are, and what the consequences would be. Great stuff!

Chapter Three Swarms Within: The Hosts 58 pages.

The Hosts constitute two major groups: the Azlu, or spider hosts, and the Beshilu, or rat hosts. If you’ll recall, the Azlu are always spinning webs that strengthen the Gauntlet (barrier between our world and Shadow) while the Beshilu are eating away at the Gauntlet (which makes it easier for spirits to pass into our world). In some rare instances werewolves may be happy to have one or the other of these groups around, as the gauntlet is already out of balance, but for the most part these are constant adversaries of the werewolves. This chapter substantially expands upon these two groups, in terms of mythology, behavior, and game mechanics.

The Azlu are descended from the Spinner-Hag, a great spider spirit that once plagued the world in the days of Father Wolf. Father Wolf eventually took notice of her, and began a great hunt to slay her. Knowing she could not possibly stand up to Father Wolf, and with fear in her heart, she fled across the world – all the while laying eggs in a last ditch effort for immortality. Father Wolf eventually slew her, but her essence passed on to her newly hatched children and, in a way, she managed to continue beyond death. These children, born with an instinctive fear of werewolves, managed to survive the millennia into the modern day.

The largest Azlu may be the size of a horse, enormous spider-creatures that have formed from many, many smaller Azlu merging together. These creatures are powerful, but cowardly, and are a serious threat to a werewolf pack. They may not be as frightening as the tiniest Azlu, however. The smallest spiders enter into a victim’s skull, eat out the brain, and control the dying body from within. They even physiologically alter their host, making them more powerful or better able to survive whatever task the Azlu has for them. Predators provides a comprehensive list for both the natural Azlu and those that have taken hosts, allowing the Storyteller to build diverse monsters for their players to encounter while maintaining a unique theme.

Similar to the Azlu in many respects, the Beshilu arose when the Plague King, knowing his days in the spirit world would soon end at Father Wolf’s fangs, concocted a plan similar to that of the Spinner-Hag. Upon his death thousands upon thousands of rats appeared, tearing at his corpse and consuming his essence. While many fell to Father Wolf and his children, enough survived to allow the Plague King to continue on. Now, fueled by hate, the rat hosts work to destroy the world by making the spirit and earthly realms one again.

Beshilu also come in two main varieties. The rats themselves can grow to be very large, up to the size of a wolf or possibly a small horse, but most remain rat sized. Some will find a human host, tunneling into the body through the stomach and eating out the heart. From that cavity they keep the body alive for as long as they can, controlling and shaping the host to suit their purposes. Like the Azlu above, extensive mechanical support is provided for the Beshilu allowing the Storyteller a great deal of customization. Even for a pack experienced at fighting the Beshilu, every fight is likely to be different.

In addition to a significant expansion on these two groups, three new optional hosts are presented. The Locust Hosts are driven to consume anything and everything they can, and have become a true plague on the land. The Crow Hosts are creatures of patience and observation. What they’re after remains in enigma. The Snake Hosts also have an unknown purpose. While the idea of new hosts is welcome, so little information is presented on these three groups that the reader is left in about the same position as if they had created their own. It is, without a doubt, the weakest part of this product.

Chapter Four Horrors of an Ancient Age 19 pages.

This final chapter presents six different Things We Were Not Meant To Know type monsters, each with two different explanations for its existence and purpose. All of these creatures have an apocalyptic flair to them and would be ideal additions to the climax of an adventure involving some ancient, forgotten terror. The creatures are also wonderfully unique and in some cases the entry writes adventures around itself thanks to the excellent writing and presentation here.

My Take

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