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Background
The year is 2280. Most of civilization has been wiped clean, both because of natural disasters and the devastating War that left the Earth in shambles after a number of biological and nuclear attacks. Between 2060 and 2062, most major cities in North America, Africa, Asia and Europe were either obliterated or badly damaged, resulting in many casualties. Since these times, great technological breakthroughs have been made. A.I. and biologically-engineered humans have become commonplace and vast corporations have begun to assert their foothold in some of the sprawling metropolises. Moreover, humankind has had to come to grips with the existence of other races, some of them obviously alien in nature.
Indeed, almost everyone now knows of the Seraph and the Orphanum, the two races that might have given rise to the belief in angels and demons. On Earth, these two species have left their legacy in the form of the Nephilim, the Annunaki and the Lesser Nephilim. All of these have sprung into existence because of natural or manipulated breeding between Orphanum, Seraph, Nephilim and other races. There’s also the Grigori, their servants and soldiers, and the Lesser Grigori.
Still, more creatures than the ones we already got to know in the superb and beautifully crafted Alpha Omega core rulebook abound on the planet. The Encountered Volume 1 presents 200 of them.
Review
It was a long wait, with some of The Encountered Volume 1 being previewed many months in advance before we were able to finally pick up this beautiful hardcover creature supplement for the Alpha Omega role-playing game at Gen Con 2009, but the wait was well worth our patience, since this is hands down the best-looking, most interesting ‘monster manual’ we’ve come across… ever.
Most creatures are presented on a single page, with some of them getting two pages, mostly because of the great, big illustrations that accompany them. All others get a stat block at the far end of the page, which is good for readability (i.e. it’s never close to where the book is bound) and which makes it very easy to flip to the correct page and find anything with just a glance. Luckily, none of the creatures are treated as generic monsters, with all of the stats PC’s have come to know listed: the Core Qualities (Strength, Agility, Conditioning, Vitality, Discipline, Intelligence and Charisma), the Secondary Qualities (Athleticism, Physical Reaction, Fitness, Will, Wisdom, Wit and Presence), the Tertiary Qualities, (Physis, Reaction and Defense Rating), the Movement Rates (Swim, Crawl, Monkey-Run, Climb, Walk, Run, Sprint and Fly) and the Armor (High Velocity Kinetic, Melee Kinetic, Energy, Chemical, Void, Alpha and Omega). Standard attacks and common Skill ranks are listed in a bar at the bottom, near the spine of the book, while Specials (usually special attacks), if any, are given their own space inside of the illustration, without ever ruining it. Height, Weight, Active Segments and Footprint can be found in a bar on the top of the page. The description of the creature can be found in a text block more or less in the outer middle of each page. It’s an example of the same expert insight in what a near-perfect layout should look like, but there’s more.
Three things make the creatures even easier to reference. The first: a three-digit reference number in a colored bar on top periphery of the page. The first digit is the Creature Type, the second is its Creature Category (which is akin to a threat level, indicating how dangerous the creature is) and the last digit denotes the exact creature. Are you in the mood to pitch the entire team of NPC’s against a single, terrifying Demon? Simple: just flip to 7.7. (5 = Demon, 7 = Creature Category, he wants the players to stand a chance and so doesn’t flip through toi 5.8.). 7.7.1. is a Legion Fallen, 7.7.2. is a Damned Pscion. If you want something less deadly, just go back a few pages, to 7.6.1. (a Damned Desecrated) or 7.6.2. (a Legion Executioner). Handy, no?
As noted, each Creature Type also gets its own color, which is also repeated in the bar where the name and Type of the ‘monster’ is printed. Thirdly, a list of vertically-placed icons on the far side of each page also denotes the Creature Type (or chapter) and color. A great way to make a game master’s job not only easier, but fun!
There are five Creature Types which all fit the setting perfectly:
Freaks of Nature: All of these creatures have come into being through accidental genetic alteration, mutations, changes in evolution or unnatural development from energy or matter into a sentient entity.
Tech Fiends: These beings are at least partially made up of machinery. This includes robots, cyborgs and automatons.
Abominations: Abominations have been deliberately created through genetic manipulation, perverse and purposeful experimentation or necromancy.
Spiritual Creatures: Spiritual Creatures are mostly comprised of Alpha or Omega energy. This includes ghosts and other, often-intangible, entities.
Demons: Organic creatures that have been corrupted by Omega energy.
Almost all of the creatures presented in this book are pretty original, even though some of them inevitably remind one of more traditional fare: Bloodbeaks and Skeeters seem to be modelled a little like D&D’s Stirges, Squicks (‘small humanoid creatures with limited intelligence and questionable hygiene’) look somewhat like evil Halflings (players should have a LOT of fun killing these), Garra Zenteer Scatter Cats might be stylized after Battlelord of the 25th
Century’s Cizerack, etc. There’s some genuinely BIG critters in this book and the inclusion of Tech-Kids and their ilk makes sure that PC’s won’t trust anything or anybody after playing Alpha Omega for a while. Also, there’s some cthulhoid monsters on these pages, which certainly isn’t a bad thing. Add to this the great, full-colour drawings and you have a winner.
There’s also seven Factions to be found, each of them getting its own page and symbol:
Augmented Sentience: A massive AI army, its membership comprised of subservient machines that exist only to follow the commands of the
Grid, which consists of an unknown number of loaded AI.
Colonials: A hierarchical society of insectoids, led by an insect-humanoid hybrid Queen and Princes and less-intelligent Workers, that has the expansion of its territory as driving goal.
Garra Zenteer: Led by the highly-intelligent humanoid Creators, the Garra Zenteer is a militaristic faction. Most of its members are only woken out of their sleep in order to do battle, granted no spare time for any leisure activity at all. One of our favorites, as it puts an interesting spin on what is otherwise a stereotypical (militaristic) concept.
Legion: Former Ophanum that have been corrupted by the Omega Convergence known as the Dark One. They are led by the Dark One’s right hand, Zea’tan, and come very close to your archetypical army of Hell.
Scag: Our favorite! Basically, ‘Scag’ is a derogatory bastardisation of the term ‘Scientific Agnostics’, a group of people who live in the Wilds, trying to protect the Earth from the dangers of technology. The way the Scientific Agnostics see it, mankind almost destroyed the world 200 years ago, living as parasites and using machines to wage war. Corporations hate them and the media are doing a good job portraying the ‘Scag’ as bestial primitives who should be shot on sight. Granted, most Scientific Agnostics aren’t all that friendly to outsiders. The fact that they have mastered biological alteration and genetic manipulation to a level far beyond what people are used to in the arcologies makes them very dangerous opponents, too.
Technocratic Coalition: Another militaristic organisation, this one made up of cyborgs. An unnecessary addition, given that the Garra Zenteer are a far more interesting spin on the ‘society-of-soldiers’
idea.
The Damned: Subterranean parasites that have been corrupted by Omega energy. They bond to Terran hosts, always inflicting a lot of pain while doing so. Often, the host actually loses a limb or worse. Cool!
Since a lot of the creatures presented in The Encountered Volume 1 belong to one of these Factions, it seems a little odd that the chapter describing them follows after the ‘monster’ write-ups. It probably would have a better idea to list the different Factions first, but that is just a minor qualm. Still, we could have used some more non-violent organisations. Right now, the majority is definitely based on causing harm and mayhem, which is a pity if game masters just want to find a fun organisation for role-playing purposes. For a good idea on extremely interesting subcultures and societies, check out some of the Dying Earth role-playing game supplements.
That being said, the chapter on creature creation is very, very good. We already loved the rules system (it’s a little crunchy, but we like that) and Creature Discovery makes great use of it. There’s a set of clear guidelines on determining the Creature Category (1 through 10), Qualities and other stats. It’s short, but succinct, and the templates presented two sections later are a great help if you’re in urgent need for a new critter. There’s dozens of templates, ranging from Acclimated and Amphibious to Undead and Vulnerable.
We also get information on how to build challenging encounters (a little ‘old school’, to say the least), a good but short glossary and a limited, one-page index, as well as empty creature sheets.
The Encountered Volume 1 is not a perfect book. The focus is too much on creatures that will provide a good fight and there doesn’t seem to be enough attention to the role-playing game aspect of things, even though good game masters will have an easy time to use most of these creatures in innovative ways that will provide great acting experiences. Not all of the critters and Factions are as imaginative, the glossary and the index feel a little incomplete and the supplement could have done with some more fluff. However, as a monster book, this is easily the best supplement to a role-playing game we’ve ever seen. The art is breathtaking, the layout is inspired and most of the creatures are a lot of fun. This will be very, very tough to beat and will hopefully raise the bar on monster manuals everywhere. A must-have. Now if only Mind Storms Lab started to churn out more than one book a year and we got a nice setting book and the much-needed supplement on Wielding…
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