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The book starts with an extensive table of contents and a short introduction. Included in the introduction are the Color Axes for the setting. For those unfamiliar with Wild Talents, the Color Axes are broad measures to help define a setting using a combination of colors and numbers. In TFL’s case we have a Red 1, Gold 4, Blue 2, Black 2 setting; in laymen’s terms it’s a temporally and socially static setting where morality is complex but realistic and super powers are limited in origin and somewhat in scope. It’s that “Red 1, Gold 4” bit that I’ll come back to later, but I appreciate that the book uses the system from the start in defining what it is and is not.
Chapter 1: A Dark Unfathomable Tide explains the origins of the Gifted, people across America (and Mexico and Canada to a lesser, unexplored extent) whose only apparent commonality was experiencing a supernatural event called the Dreaming. With the death of Edgar Allen Poe (a guardian of the Dreaming), this event was unleashed across the United States giving people the power to bring their single deepest desire into reality if they believe in their Gift. There are limits, as the Gift typically requires willpower to make manifest; and the more the Gift has to distort reality the more costly it is upon the user’s will. Precognitive visions are cheap and (relatively) easy to manifest, manifesting the speed of a train might be costly, and the ability to blot out the sun is beyond the scope of the Dream. At least by default.
But if the Gift has been around for 20 years by the time of the Civil War, surely somebody has noticed it? Not just somebody, but several somebodies, as covered in Chapter 2: Upon the Verge of a Great Secret. Four organizations are described, each with a different understanding and approach to the Gift and the Gifted. The Knights of the Velvet Glove are pro-slavers who seek to aid white people and purge slaves “tainted” with the Gift. The Sons of Canaan are slaves and freedmen with the Gift who seek to aid their fellow African Americans, but are somewhat divided as to what limits they’ll pursue. The Convocation of God is a Christian cult of personality lead by a super-charmer who has yet to understand the nature of the Gift or the ghosts he exorcises. Finally the Society of the Raven is a cabal of Gifted who know the most of what’s going on, and they seek to protect those with the Gift even at the cost of unGifted lives. This was a pretty strong chapter really, and the author’s eye for detail really pays off here. None of the groups are entirely morally good or bad, but that doesn’t mean they can’t heavily lean one way or the other. The Knights of the Velvet Glove are quite gentlemanly… if you’re the right skin color. The Sons of Canaan want to help their fellow blacks… which for some means preparing to wage terror against the whites. The leader of the Convocation is pretty power mad, but not all of his followers are bad people. And maybe the Society of the Raven is right in their visions of the Gift’s extreme importance in saving the future of the world?
But beyond these four groups people don’t really notice the Gifted, and the Gifted tend to keep a low profile anyway. One of the recurring themes throughout the book is that ultimately the Gifted just appear one day and disappear over time, and during their time they mainly keep to the shadows so they are forgotten by a world that barely noticed them to begin with. It’s that whole “Red Gold” thing I mentioned earlier.
Chapter 3: Circumscribed in Rule presents the more fantastical rules of the setting. Gifted are created on between 150 to 200 points, with limits on their powers detailed. Powers are intended to have a mid-19th century feel to them; steam powered armor suits are one thing, nanite transforming armor from alternate quantum dimensions is entirely another. What’s really interesting about the Gift though is the sense that it’s a temporary thing. New Gifted do not occur after (or before really) Poe’s death, and eventually the Gift is destined to fade away. The one exception are Ethereals. When a Gifted dies, if his passions are unfulfilled and he realizes his death coming (if only for an instant) then his Gift may manifest itself after his death to fulfill his driving passions. This manifestation, an Ethereal, may act on its own or “possess” a person, passing the Gift (and the driving passion) on to them. Optionally (although in keeping with the spirit of the rest of the book), this passing of the Gift by an Ethereal to a still living person ends once the living person fulfills the passion. Eventually though the Gifted and Ethereals alike will all pass away from the world, a fact few Gifted themselves even realize (although the Society of the Raven may suspect this fact).
If Chapter 3 covered the rules for super stuff, Chapter 4: On the Field of Battle is strictly more mundane-relevant mechanics. And in a game covering the civil war you’ll probably want some of this. Besides the obvious stats for contemporary weapons, the chapter also includes rules for bayoneting a person (psychologically harder than you might think), cover, horses, bleeding, infection, and amputation. Yum! There are even optional rules for determining if a character dies under surgery or anesthesia. And be sure your PC has fresh food, because scurvy and the trots have stats now. Fans of ORE who like gritty combat options and realism should be really happy here.
Now we get to about 60 pages of American history. Chapter 5: A House Divided provides all sorts of details regarding life in America during the civil war. Not just military information, although that is the main focus and there’s a lot of it (for example, there’s great sections on war balloons and military communications), but also social information pertaining to events away from the battle lines. It goes into the changing roles of women, the attitudes towards minorities, the costs of goods (and slaves), along with lots and lots of other interesting details. Now, I've seen other games set during this time period gloss over the unpleasant social realities of the time; TFL does an excellent job of exploring racism, sexism, and prejudices in general, without wallowing or condemning. That it also sneaks in all sorts of examples of real people who broke the stereotypes of their time is just icing on the cake.
Chapter 6: The Journal of William MacKay is a little over 50 pages of Civil War timeline. Maybe there are hidden secrets in the actual timeline, but to me it looked like a spot on “could have been on Wikipedia” historically accurate timeline. To compensate somewhat, Chapter 6 has numerous vague references to Gifted activities in the form of standalone journal entries set is sideboxes; you can use them or ignore them to your heart’s content.
Honestly, I was kinda’ disappointed with these last two chapters. Chapter 5 reads like an impressive history text but still a history text, and Chapter 6 is… well, it’s a timeline that could have probably put together after a few (okay, several) hours of research on Wikipedia. But that’s the thing, TFL has such a great attention to detail that I feel I have enough information to at least get started playing a realistic campaign during the Civil War. It saves me the trouble of doing that initial research. I just like my gaming books to focus more on fantastical new things I didn't think of than stuff I can go research myself.
Chapter 7: New Birth of Freedom picks up the weirdness factor a bit, offering advice for running a game using TFL in general but also suggesting how to run alternate historical games. Of particular interest to me were the several suggestions for when and how and why events in the Civil War could have lead to a Southern independence. Chapter 8: Broken in Their Violence is a pre-made adventure about the characters sent to rescue a black Gifted woman who can sense the Gift in others before the Knights of the Velvet Glove get her and use her to track down “tainted” slaves who possess the Gift. It’s a bit linear, but I think it really hits on the various social themes of the setting while showing that you don’t have to work the actual war into everything. Wrapping up the book is a series of pre-generated PCs, NPCs (mundane, Gifted, and otherwise noteworthy), animals relevant to the setting, some recommended reading and DVDs, some slang of the time, and a slightly modified character sheet.
Style: Honestly, it’s not bad but it’s not good either. The text is well edited (certainly better than recent offerings by White Wolf for example), the layout is simple but clear, and the art feels fairly relevant (although more pictures of the Gifted doing Gifted things would have been nice). It doesn’t stand out, but it’s not awful either. It might lose a notch for not having an index, but I’ll give it back for having that rarity in gaming manuals these days: maps. Based on the maps alone I’ll bump this up from an average 3 to a strong 3. More impressive art, and a snazzier layout would bump it up from being merely functional. By comparison, I’d say it’s less impressive than the overall style of Godlike but not bad by any measure.
Substance: For a supplement covering the American Civil War it gets a high 5. If you aren’t already a Civil War history buff and want to learn more for a game, this would be a great place to start. Furthermore its addition of new mundane rules for ORE really helps convey an authentic, gritty feel. Seriously, it has stats for the effects of scurvy and “the trots”! It doesn’t get much grittier than your character defecating himself to death due to bad diet. For those wonder, a good chunk of the book (like the entirety of Chapters 2, 5, 6, and 7, slightly over half the book) is completely system free, making it handy for other systems. Even though the timelines may differ, I will certainly be mining TFL intensely for ideas in my other western games.
But if you’re wanting something like Godlike where supers changing history (even if only slightly) are part of the premise, then I have to give the game a much lower score. There’s some really good supers stuff, but not very much and the general out of setting “vibe” is that none of the fantastic really matters anyway (despite what the Society of the Raven thinks). Not in the sense of "the Gift will fade away one day" which is cool, but in the sense that what the Gifted do is all limited to local, small-scale happenings at best. Of course grading the book for not being what I wanted seems highly unfair since the book (like I said to begin with) states from the start what it is and is not.
Conclusion: If you want a great reference manual for the American Civil War to use with the ORE system or in other games, This Favored Land is excellent and highly recommended. Those wanting a game of low-powered supers who hide in the shadows of the American Civil War may also find a lot to enjoy; despite what my review may have sounded like I was really impressed with the four factions and the entire concept of the Ethereals. But those who want to play a game where supers are changing the world by inventing helicopters for the North or teleporting regiments at Lee’s command will have to do a lot of work on their own. The supers are subservient to the history, and not the other way around.
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