I’ve followed this game since the first book came out, and although I haven’t had many opportunities to play it, I’ve always had a blast when I did. I won a “Submit us a monster” contest they did when they were getting their Creature Book put together (PoxWalker), I saw them enough at cons and events over several years that I was put into one of the books as the Chaplain Commander for the Texas Rangers (it’s in Lone Stars…baffling, but one of the prouder moments of my life). To say that I love this game is an understatement, so there will undoubtedly be a little bias here.
That being said: I am not a huge fan of Reloaded. Deadlands hit a sweet spot for me between system and setting that, although kludgey in places still was extremely immersive. The switch to Savage Worlds homogenized a lot of the system to the point where many things felt (and still feel) very similar. They have, in ways, sacrificed innovation for expediency, and while I understand why the changes were made (I went through one combat that took hours, and it was not a terribly complicated combat), I still mourn for a lot of what made Deadlands unique for me when I originally got into it. So there’s bias on the other side, too.
All that being said, (and with a hearty “Here There Be Spoilers”) let’s take a look at Last Sons:
The Hook:
Deadlands is a game that is affected at various times in various ways by metaplot. It is a quasi-historical game with a sequel game (Hell on Earth) that assumes certain things happen. When Deadlands relaunched as Reloaded, the in-game year advanced to 1878, and the history was advanced in-game accordingly.
The first of what have come to be called “plot point” campaigns was called “The Flood,” and it advanced the game year to 1879. We have been told by Pinnacle that at least four Plot Point books will be written, one for each Reckoner (the truly Big Bads of the Deadlands world, all modeled after the literary Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse). Famine was the Reckoner detailed in The Flood, and a major event metaplotwise took place in that book.
Last Sons picks up where The Flood left off. The game year now is 1880. While The Flood dealt with what was going on in California, Last Sons deals with what is going on in the so-called Disputed Territories of the Dakotas, Colorado, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Montana, Wyoming and Kansas. It also strongly deals with two in-game regions that are populated by the Native Peoples in Deadlands, the Sioux Union and the Coyote Confederation.
The Disputed Territories are the stomping grounds of another of the Reckoners, War, and he and his faithful servant are up to an epic level of “no good” here.
The Look:
The book is big. About 335 pages, give or take. Full colour, well put together index, and a mixture of new and recycled art (those who have been playing DL and its spin off games of Doomtown and Great Rail Wars are likely to recognize some of it). The pages are usually two columns of text (or one and a sidebar that will usually go the whole length of the page), so there isn’t a lot of wasted space. There is the odd full page piece of art, but not enough to make one feel pages are being wasted. The side margins are a little wide, but, again, not in a cheap feeling way.
So far, typos and editing errors appear to be minimal. Found one page that had two “see page ‘xx’”s on it, but that’s the worst that I’ve come across.
The Book:
The book breaks down thusly:
PP 1-13: Player “handout” of an issue of the Tombstone Epitaph (a sort of “more real than not” National Enquirer newspaper in the DL universe, giving “real world” accounts of events). It talks about the Flood, and what has been going on in locales gone into detail later in the book. A good primer for players to get a general idea of what’s going on without giving them details the GM might not want them to know.
PP 14-40: Player section with new Edges and Hindrances, Gear and Requisition Rules for the two types of Federal Agents that players can play, as well as updates for Shamen.
PP 41-58: GM’s section detailing setting info about events important to the Deadlands timeline and how they affect the Disputed Lands.
PP 59-73: Rules for the setting, including Weather, Relics, Stampedes and how to utilize the Hunting Grounds (the Deadlands version of the Spirit World) in your game.
PP 74-126: A GM’s Gazetteer alphabetically detailing important locations in the Disputed Lands from Abilene, Kansas to a place called Worm Canyon in the Badlands. Information for each includes Fear Level, “How to Get There,” Points of Interest, and a “Savage Tale” associated with it (more on those anon).
PP 127-135: An Adventure Generator for the Disputed Lands. Tables and descriptions that will allow the GM to throw together a side-adventure on the fly.
PP 136-220: The Plot Point Campaign that the book is named after; Nine linked adventures and an optional Epilogue, all of which advance the Deadlands metaplot.
PP 221-284: Savage Tales: Non-Plot Point encounters and adventures taking place in the Disputed Lands.
PP 285-331: A Bestiary and Who’s Who of the people and critters populating the Disputed Lands.
PP 332-334: A fairly comprehensive index for the whole of the thing.
Nuts and Bolts:
The new rules are new to Savage Worlds, but are oftentimes taken from other books from the DL Classic line. The requisition rules for the Rangers and the Agency are out of their own splats from DL Classic, and a lot of the Native People’s stuff comes from the excellent Ghost Dancers also from DL Classic.
In fact, there is a lot of information that is from other books. Around thirteen of them (I may have missed the odd one here or there), including from DL Classic itself, the Great Rail Wars and several of the Dime Novels that were also originally written for Classic.
While this is the case, it’s also very coherently put together, and doesn’t feel lazy in its execution. It feels in most cases like a revisitation, rather than a strict cut and paste. It is used in a way that makes sense for what this book is trying to do, so while there are a lot of callbacks, it oftentimes doesn’t FEEL like there are.
One bit that IS new is rules for the Hunting Grounds, and the place is as chaotic and woven of dreamstuff as you choose to make it. This will be handy if you want to do serious visionquesting for your shamen or houngans, and might be interesting if you choose to take the fight to the Reckoners. Useful stuff for higher level campaigns, but not essential for groups less interested in the spirit world.
One of the few places where the book fails for me goes back to a complaint in the very opening of this review…the various Native Peoples have little to distinguish themselves from one another and, like some of the other elements of SW Deadlands, feel far too homogenized for my tastes. Ghost Dancers (the Native People’s book for DL Classic) had a small number of concessions to this, but even this seemed kind of sparse. This is a place where I might have suggested that SW did something along the lines of what Gun Metal Games’ Totems of the Dead did. In fact, since TotD uses the SW ruleset, I might suggest importing some of what they did to make your Native Peoples a little more unique.
There could be an argument made that the book is already almost TOO big, so this information could not be included, and I might be persuaded to accept that. Nevertheless, when I finally do get to run DL, I will be utilizing elements from TotD to make my Native People more diverse.
The Gazetteer and the Savage Tale pieces are all useful, and should make the book itself get a lot of use by a GM running DL. As I previously mentioned, there are numerous shout-outs to previous products from the Classic line that get a mention or an update here, including the Butcher from the second Dime Novel “Independence Day,” the infamous party-killing Night Train(s), from the Dime Novel of the same name, and the reappearance of certain fungoid critters from a far away planetette that seem to have torn their way from another game line to this one via the Dime Novel “Adios, Amigo” (see what they did, there?).
You also get quick look-ins at the infamous Deadwood, and Dodge City…enough to make them bases for your posse if they want to set up camp there.
The critter/people section rounds the whole thing off nicely with new beasties to throw at your party, from Reckoner based Men in Black, used to give the Agency a bad name, to stats for Greater Manitou and Nature Spirits. More Human beasties include actual Men in Black “Cleaner teams,” generic Cowboys and various allies of Raven.
There is also a Famous People section, containing the likes of Andrew Lane (aka the Ghost), Jesse James, and even Lt Colonel George Armstrong Custer, amongst others, in case you have an itch to have your party brush up against actual historical figures.
WDIDWI (pronounced wuh-DIH-dwee; or “What Do I Do With It?”):
The extra rules will help make Shamen feel a little more unique in the setting, and might make Native characters feel the same.
The setting information gives you a pretty big sandbox to let your party loose in. You could keep them here for months and they still probably wouldn’t encounter a third of it.
The Plot Point campaign does advance the metaplot, so be aware of this if you are rabidly anti-metaplot in your games. Just know that unlike many previous DL “adventures” it doesn’t feel railroady upon reading. The idea behind the story feels pretty logical, with perhaps one instance of an Idiot Ball amongst one of the major characters. Forgivable, but a shame, nonetheless.
The individual adventure seeds are a great way to make use of the setting provided, and they all seem well thought out and appropriate to the setting.
The beasties all feel interesting, and the Famous Characters all add nice touches to make setting feel more alive than just words on a page.
The Verdict:
Well worth the money, whether you hate metaplot or not.
While there is quite a bit of info that is recycled from other sources, the updated and revised setting info and the sheer volume of the aforementioned setting info and one-shots make this a valuable purchase. I’d call it perfect, but for my previously mentioned niggle about the missed opportunity when it came to making the Native Peoples more diverse.
