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Chapter 1: the Grim War covers the basic history of the setting. Magic has always been around, but these days it’s strictly regulated and controlled; it was never really clear to me just how common magic is or isn’t, but global society seems to be engaged in damning the use of magic while governments and organized crime groups secretly build up their own pools of spell casters and magical secrets. Mutants have also always been around, but it’s only the recent combination of increased diets, improved life expectancy for children, and genetic spread that’s made them more common. They’re still very rare, but their numbers are growing. A dozen different factions are very briefly described here as well (with greater detail coming later in the book). Rounding out the chapter are some rough guidelines on what powers are and aren’t acceptable for different character types. Besides mutants, we have conjurers (who conjure demons), invokers (who invoke archons), spirits (a viable option, but spirits are limited by their natures), and conduits (people who are bound with spirits, able to access the spirit’s power but only if it meets the spirit’s nature). Combinations are possible, such as conjurer mutants or the more obvious conjurer invokers.
Chapter 2: Spirits covers the different types of spirits present in GW. In GW there are essentially three types of spirits: Ghosts, Archons, and Daemons. Ghosts are “merely the memories and reasoning structures of a dead person.” They (typically) dissolve into nothingness over the span of a year or so, but can be kept around longer through different means. Truthfully, they’re basically like classical ghosts, only with perhaps less initiative and free thought, and seem to be constructed so as to avoid questions of afterlives or souls. Archons and Daemons are basically opposing spirit forces; Archons exist to preserve something while Daemons seek to destroy it. Interestingly, almost all magic is based off of manipulating one or the other (or both) of these forces. Want to destroy a lock? Attack the Archon of that lock or make a deal with the Daemon of it. Want to protect that lock? Defeat the Daemon or summon the Archon of the lock. There’s also quite a bit about the different states of existence a spirit might be in, consisting of astral (the natural, intangible, state of a spirit), liminal (where a spirit is still intangible, but can perceive the physical world and interact with its summoner), bound (where a spirit is bound to an item or a person, and rendering service), and materialized (where the spirit is physical and can be banished back to an astral state with enough punching or bullets). Spiritual combat between spirits and mortals is also covered, and perhaps the most interesting idea is that summoners can absorb some of the power of spirits if the spirit is destroyed while in astral form (which is tricky, as such a spirit is likely to flee more easily than the caster will be able to defeat it).
But the bulk of the chapter is devoted to statted spirits. While generic placeholder spirits are provided, several dozen named NPC spirits are included as well, ranging from weak first circle entities (built on 100 to 199 points) to fifth circle greatness (built on 500-599 points); examples of both Archons and Daemons are provided for the first five circles. Greater spirits are hinted at existing, but nobody knows how to contact them since the secret of doing so died with the Nazi party. Conjuring the third circle Daemon known as The All-Preserver could make an item (or person) immune to age and decay; you can still die of course, but you’ll leave a very well preserved corpse. Jaded thrill seekers might invoke the third circle Archon, The Master of Delight, Despair, and Disaster, to experience the full concept of pleasure in all of its magically addictive glory. There are a few entries that kind of threw me however, like a daemon of madness that can create depression (I suppose it defeats insanity by tranquilizing the mentally ill with… more mental illness?) or a daemon of law that’s a giant bird monster (I’m guessing it attacks a city, Rodan-style, and provokes civil disorder through its mass destruction). But other than a few entries that left me scratching my head a bit, it’s a pretty good roster of NPC spirits.
But what good is a game about magicians casting spells on spirits without some sample magic? Chapter 3: Magic covers that topic pretty well. In order to conjure or invoke, a character has to either learn or invent a relevant spell (and spend XP to reflect this). Systems are included for building spells, in a manner similar to that used in constructing powers in Wild Talents. Unfortunately, I’m not certain this system is actually used in building the sample spells included. It could very well be that it is, but the spells don’t “show their math” and my attempts at reverse engineering tend to come up with different numbers. Mechanical complaints out of the way, the sample spells (and there are several dozen) cover flavorful summonings for all the fully statted spirits in Chapter 3 along with some more general spells (like one for growing spiritual horns for astral combat, or another to appease a targeted spirit). There are also “split spells” which either invokers or conjurers can use, faction specific spells, and an interesting bit on possible future developments of magic (which serves to showcase the current limits of magic as well as provide possible hooks for future surprises to show up in game).
Chapter 4: Cabals & Factions greatly expands upon the twelve groups introduced back in Chapter 1. Each chapter is broken down into stats for Reign-style companies (more on this in a second), a history of the group, an index of relevant characters (included in the next chapter), suggestions for using the group in your game, and how hard it is to join or leave the organizations. The twelve factions introduced are:
- Akrab-i-allah: Islamic terrorist sorcerers who are also considered the only truly evil group in Grim War, what with them being mass-murdering terrorists and all.
- Citizens Against Reductionist Genetic Obsessions: a group of politicians who use “the mutant question” to protect their own power and relevance. Not bigoted, but pretty self-serving.
- Direktiva Nul: former Soviet sorcerer-spies, using their knowledge of espionage and magic to protect the world from the shadows. They’ll do anything for the sake of a safer world.
- Iteration Next: a group of mutant supremacists. At best they pity normal humans, at worst “think KKK with heat vision” (to quote the book).
- People for Religious Freedom: pro-magic activists who don’t fully understand why magic is seen as so dangerous.
- The Piccione Family: an old-style family of Italian mobster mercenaries, noteworthy for the number of mutants and magicians among their ranks.
- Projekt ELSA: a group of super-power paramilitary forces, secretively protecting the EU interests. And if they hold themselves above the law, well that’s just a perk of defending the world right?
- ROSCRO: a US sponsored private think tank of magical academics engaged in all sorts of information trading and experimentation.
- The School of the American Future: what if Charles Xavier was a US patriot and ran his school for Gifted Youngsters with some federal backing? You’d get something similar to this.
- Squadron A1: a military organization of American mutants, with ties to the School of the American Future.
- The Way: an organization of Christian fundamentalists who are afraid of the rise of supernatural forces and mutants.
- The Xolotl Cartel: an organized criminal group of sorcerers dealing in illegal magical sales of artifacts, spell castings, enchanted drugs, and the like.
Honestly, I found most of the groups to at least be a little interesting, and a few were downright exciting. I also admire that the chapter makes efforts to show how none of these groups need be played as straight villains or heroes (Akrab-i-allah being the sole exception). But there is one little bit that truly bugged me.
On the back of the book there’s a blurb “Grim War brings the ‘company rules’ of Greg Stolze’s Reign to the superpowered action of Wild Talents”, which is apparently marketing speak for “you’ll need another book for a different game line if you want to understand what we’re talking about”. Now considering that the bit relevant to Reign’s mechanics takes up a measly sentence for each group, I don’t think anybody has a right to feel cheated or anything for the whopping paragraph of “wasted space”. But the idea that you need to purchase another book, for a different genre, that essentially repeats a huge chunk of the rules you’re already expected to have, to get the full use of GW really bugs me. I don’t blame people wanting to make a living off their work and trying to encourage people into buying other products the consumer might like, but if the rules add that much then including them in the back as an appendix or something would have been nice. And if they don’t add that much to the game, then why use them at all?
That small gripe aside, and it is small, the rest of the chapter is devoted to numerous sample NPCs for each of the factions. Every faction gets at least three fully detailed NPCs, with some getting as many as five. Just like spirits, the characters here are rated in Circles from one to five, to reflect how many points they’re built on. Not every faction has a sample of character from each Circle, but GMs should get a good idea of what typical and exceptional members of the various groups look like.
In Chapter 5: Shadows Stride Behind Us, I realize what GW is and why it disappoints me to some extent. This is the setting chapter of the book, and it covers various time periods from the nineteenth century up to the modern day. Examples of gritty street campaigns, intense espionage stories, two-fisted pulpy tales, and weird wars for each of the various time periods are suggested. Maybe you’ll focus on cult warfare and mutant caste struggles in early twentieth century Calcutta? Maybe you’ll build a campaign around the idea of federal agents who “recruit or shoot” the weirdness of 1930’s America? Or perhaps the conflicts of El Salvador in the 1980’s is more your thing? There’s a ton of ideas here, spanning decades and centuries even. None of them get much detail, and a GM can expect to do quite a bit of work to get one up and running, but there’s some pretty good stuff for idea mining.
But here’s the thing: GW isn’t a toolbox, it’s a hodge podge. All those NPCs in Chapter 4 are based around the idea of a campaign set in the present day (most likely in America), while Chapter 5 is based around the idea of GMs picking and choosing a time period and location that interests them. Chapter 4 implies that something big and bad happened in Austin Texas, but Chapter 5 makes no mention of it. The two Chapters don’t really mesh together as well as they should. And how is magical handled in this post-Internet age? It seems to me that the number of spell casters available thanks to Google or Pirate Bay would have lead to a world of spell casters running amok, regardless of the law. Another thing the book never really dealt with was what happens when a spirit is summoned as regards to other spell casters. If somebody binds or destroys the All Preserver, is it unavailable to other casters, or does each caster have their own personal All Preserver they can summon and muck with? I’m inclined to think the second, otherwise summoning spells aren’t nearly as useful. And if you’re going to add mutants to a game about magicians, at least try to tie them into the setting better; perhaps instead of being the next stage of human biological evolution they’re some form of spontaneous conduits (conduits being mentioned back in Chapter 1) and represent mankind achieving a higher state of spiritual being? An origin for mutants better than “just because” would’ve been nice.
It’s like Hite and Stolze had a bunch of various ideas for things that interested them, mutants here or a new magic system there, and decided to expand on them a bit but never really tie them all together enough to form a fully fleshed out setting. Instead we have bits and pieces of a setting, with GMs left to make it come alive on their own. Still, despite my complaints that the book feels like a collection of not always related ideas, the ideas it contains are still pretty good. I think the best use for GW is not as a stand-alone setting, but as something groups add to existing supers settings where magic and mutants already exist. For example Direktiva Nul would fit nicely into the world of Champions, as would the Xolotl Cartel in Freedom City. In that light, the book becomes much more useful and interesting, likely filling gaps GMs hadn’t already considered.
Style: If we start with an average of 3, the book never really break much past it. Todd Shearer does the art; it’s good, but often feels generic. Unlike Wild Talents, here the art is all in black and white, and Shearer’s art loses a lot of its power because of that. The layout is simple and clean, the editing is decent, as is the writing, and there’s a highly detailed table of contents as well. It’s not bad, but it’s not something I feel as being overly good either. It’s just a bit above average, so I’ll give it a high 3.
Substance: As a stand alone setting book, Grim War is not so hot. There’s a ton of great ideas here, but they don’t really gel together well, and GMs can expect to do a lot of work to actually get the most out of a game. As such I give the game a solid 3 as a stand alone setting, but as an idea mine for other supers games I give it a low 4. There’s a lot to like here, and GMs of other games may even find a little bit worth “idea mining” for other games; I can see a large chunk of Chapter 2 working in games of Nobilis or Exalted for example.
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