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In Short

The Good: The attention to historical detail is excellent, allowing the reader to rely minimally on outside sources on the Civil War. The short fiction does a great job of placing the reader square in the setting. The attention to rules details for the sake of realism is well thought out.

The Bad: As a product that prides itself on historical detail and appropriate mood, the inclusion of any superpowers at all almost feels like a mistake as they are encouraged to be low key and to specifically not change the world through their use.

The Physical Thing

Under the Cover

The setting assumes that everyone in the world shared a dream, and that the thereafter some people began displaying unusual abilities. These abilities might have allowed a character to escape from slavery or found an organization meant to aid others with similar powers. They trigger prejudice and hatred in others, drawing the ire of normal humans without such gifts. Pro-slavery advocates, in particular, are afraid of what slaves could do with such abilities and actively hunt anyone with such gifts. Despite how flashy these powers are, the vast majority of humanity is completely unaware of them.

The setting is designed such that the super powers have no actual impact on the Civil War. Those with these gifts may accomplish important victories, but they're victories we never heard of or attributed to a more mundane explanation. The setting is one of heroes fighting from the shadows to accomplish their goals. Personally, I find this to be a difficult stretch of the imagination. A single person with the ability to heal fatal injuries, or even a problem like dysentery, would be an enormous boon to any army and word of their gift would quickly travel to the rest of the world.

Indeed, it's hard to imagine any super power that wouldn't be a big deal here. Someone who can teleport allows for instantaneous communication between armies, extreme scouting, and assassinations at a minimum. You can do the math on any other super power being introduced into the Civil War – it's likely devastating. Yet, the setting asks the players to put all of this aside and find a way to really embrace historical roleplay without necessarily upsetting the big events. I find this to be a tough request at best considering the power available to any band of heroes. I, personally, believe the book needs an entire chapter focusing on major turning points in the war and how the heroes actions at various times could radically change things for better or worse. While it does include a couple of pages on this at the end, more attention to the significance of these powers in the Civil War era would have been a wonderful addition.

However, the game is what it is and groups using this resource will either have to ignore the setting as established and create their own or acknowledge that their characters won't have an overt impact on the setting but will instead be fighting a shadow war. This isn't a terrible thing, of course, but it does limit the versatility of This Favored Land as a setting resource. Several different political factions have been created solely for this purpose, and characters may well find that they're too busy countering the moves of another secret society to engage in the war in any direct way.

For the remainder of the book-specific setting, it differs little from history. Secret societies incorporating the existence of these powerful individuals are introduced and the author does a good job of describing them in an in-setting fashion. The source of the Gifted's powers is revealed as a supernatural occurrence, though I found the explanation to be boring, nonsensical, and completely uninteresting for play. All that griping aside, for those who want a game that is 90% historical play with just a touch of the supernatural I consider This Favored Land to be well done.

Mechanical additions and changes are present here, but they're really focused on setting simulation. Disease is a big one, with rules for digestive system diseases, but no part of civil war life is left unruled. Era appropriate weapons, cover, the horror of battle, sawbones surgery, an altered Skill list, and all of the other joys of the civil war are included here. Let me stress that this product really strives to simulate this historical period as closely as it can within the Wild Talents system.

In terms of historical accuracy and striving to bring that to the table, This Favored Land should be applauded. Much of the product consists of a detailed timeline of major events during the Civil War, and every organization, rule, and game suggestion focuses in on this singular goal. For history buffs excited at the thought of adventuring in this era, the product does an excellent job of delivering on historical roleplay. But for the introduction of super powers this would be a solid product for what it's trying to do.

Ultimately, however, This Favored Land offers little to those who don't want to engage its specific setting. The timeline and other information on the Civil War is readily available through many free and easily accessible resources, and those who are interested in actively changing the setting will find little support here beyond a few useful rules to aid setting-specific play. The back cover paints a picture of people with super abilities coming to the call of their country and conscience, but the gameplay encouraged is such that the Civil War itself may be only indirectly engaged to avoid the obvious implications of a group of people with supernatural abilities going to war.

My Take

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