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Introduction
Exalted: The Abyssals is the third in the series of "fatsplat" supplements for White Wolf's epic fantasy RPG, Exalted. As with the previous two - Exalted: The Dragon-Blooded, and Exalted: The Lunars - this book requires the Exalted Core Rulebook to play, being a large source book of information that builds on the rather complex setting.
Possibly one of the most anticipated of the recent Exalted releases, Abyssals not only provides information regarding the Abyssal Exalted but also information on The Underworld, The Deathlords - the dark Ghosts who created the Abyssals - and the various denizens of the Underworld.
Unfortunately I have some serious gripes about this book, which I want to get out of the way before going on to the good stuff. My reason for this is because despite the many faults with the book, it is still an excellent supplement - so I'd rather finish this review on a good note than bad. To this end I now present the problems with Exalted: The Abyssal most of which have nothing to do with the content, but with the quality of the book.
The Ugly
For a start this book suffers from the worst punctuation, grammar and spelling errors I have ever seen in a White Wolf product. The first chapter alone suffers from continuous errors that almost regularly occur every second page or so. However this remains prevalent throughout the book - one example is:
"Their trees - wide, strong and tall - are laden with the the white-wrapped bodies of the dead, while, high above, the giant woodland vultures circle."
There is a constant misuse of commas throughout the book - among other things. There are also such gems as:
"Standing as tall as a tall man," and "Sculpting his anima wiht a thought, the Abyssal summons a bow of calcified Essence and memory into her hands." (The bold type I added to point out the flaw in this sentence...)
Add to this certain charms that change name twice within the text of the charm, cases of words being repeated and pronouns, prefexes and the word "that" often missing from sentences, I'm sure some people can see why I'm very disappointed with the team at White Wolf. From a smaller company this king of thing could be overlooked - but we're talking about a professional, established business here. I find it amazing that with the eight plus people who were directly working on the project that this many errors made it past editing and proof-reading.
Gothic Softcore
Now I'm not usually someone who spends so much time picking at the grammar and punctuation of a book - but with so many blatantly obvious mistakes it was hard not to notice them. Yet this isn't solely what caused me to give this book a "3" for style. It was the quality of the fiction that finally convinced me to knock the style rating down from a "4" to a "3".
Usually I don't seriously consider fiction when reviewing a game - being such a subjective medium, what I consider bad someone else may like. But every so often I read fiction that is just bad. In fact, this line from the first page pretty much contains each element that I disliked about the book:
"It was a guiltless mad purr that mad(e) his skin crawl and his cock rise."
By the way, they aren't talking about a rooster. The initial fiction piece reads more like an amateur gothic softcore porn about a necrophiliac than providing any of the traditional flavour text. I didn't find it offensive as much as I found it disappointing. All the fiction managed to do was provide mirthful chuckling from the regular goth crowd at the local university roleplaying club. Later fiction segments contain contradictory situations - The Mask of Winters apparently sits in his throne room while Juggernaut moves while he always stands atop its back while it is moving. Disciple of the Seven Forbidden Wisdoms is unlike other assassins who move like ghosts - slaying their victims from the shadows without showing their passing. He is like a tiger, attacking from the shadows without warning and leaving no trace behind him.
I'm sorry if I sound really picky, but I do expect more from a company such as White Wolf. The opening fiction essentially started it all - I could have forgiven a lot of the issues I had if it had started off with a good piece of fiction - but as I read the book the faults just continued to mount, with the final fiction piece finally being the nail in the coffin. I just hope that the team at White Wolf take heed of these comments and take a little more care when proof-reading, editing and considering their fiction.
Well, that is enough bad stuff, on with the rest of the review.
Visuals and Layout
Visually, Exalted: The Abyssals is near flawless. The front cover is arguably the best out of the "fatsplats" with the figure of the Dusk Caste signature character the Maiden of the Mirthless Smile overlaid the standard Movie style background. There is no denying the attractiveness of the book.
The inside cover contains a map of the Underworld - a dark mirror image of Creation - which not only looks fantastic but provides a key for distances, finally allowing a storyteller to be able to accurately state the distances between locales both in Creation and the Underworld.
The layout inside is fairly much in line with previous Exalted books, although I feel that Brian Glass deserves mention for providing the cover design, layout and typesetting. He deserves a 5/5 for producing such an easy-to-read format and visually attractive book. The various artists also deserve a pat on the back - Abyssals' art is a damn sight more evocative than the fiction was. The art manages to capture both the grotesque nature of the Underworld as well as it seductive beauty - sometimes even in the same pictures. While I did think that the Maiden of the Mirthless Smile and the Lady of Darkness in Bloodstained Robes were both a little unnecessarily busty in their imagery, there is no denying that the artists are good at what they do.
Content
Despite the errors and fiction, most of this book is actually very well written. The various concepts and details of the Underworld are clearly explained and easy to grasp. Drawing heavily from Wraith: The Oblivion I found that a lot of the book's content not only made the Underworld of Exalted a truly playable place, but it also made the world of Wraith make more sense too. Hopefully many people who read this book will consider about giving Orpheus or Wraith a look over to see a more modern take on the same setting...
Setting
Essentially the Underworld is a dark reflection of Creation that lies, spiritually, beneath it. Created when the Primordials died - and thus creating the Neverborn - the Underworld is where those spirits who refuse to reincarnate find themselves stranded until they can either give in to the call of the natural wheel of life or are swallowed by the entropic pull of Oblivion.
Ruled by Deathlords and Powerful Ghosts, the Underworld is very much like that of Wraith a place where slavery and servitude are commonplace - where the useless may find themselves used as raw materials for Soulsteel. The book manages to provide a very concise overview of the funeral rites of the various nations of Creation as well as the state of the Underworld's multiple kingdoms.
Next is a discussion of nine of the thirteen Deathlords (Even though the introduction states that it will detail only ten, and the second chapter claims that it is only going to cover eight...) and the reader is given a clearer idea of the Deathlord's nature and goals. There is also a nice detailing of the convoluted politics that exist between the thirteen. The second chapter is devoted primarily to a history of the Deathlords and the Abyssals, how they came to be and what they are planning for the future. Again there seems to be a little confusion here about whether Abyssal PCs can ever be redeemed or not. While the book claims they can, the setting seems often claim that Abyssals are willingly nasty and destructive - thus a little unlikely to want redemption. This brings up a key theme I found in the book - there is this conflicting need to make the Abyssals genuinely nasty bad-guys, but to also make them playable at the same time. Usually this works - but sometimes the book states that there is no hope, only to then say that there is.
Another little hiccup like this is when discussing Necromancy. There is a sidebar that goes to great pains to tell us that Necromancy is not "evil". Then the main body of text tells us all about the dark and horrible Necromantic spells. Most of the spells provided seem to me to be pretty nasty spells - mostly to do with corruption and death, and very little to do with protection from the dark void...
Yet despite all this, the setting material is very inspiring - from the complex politics of ghosts; to the tragic and dark fates of the Abyssals - there is a lot on offer here for any player or GM.
System
The book not only provides rules on Abyssals, it also details rules for the innate powers of the Deathlords - all I'll say is you don't want to mess with these guys - and also character generation rules for ghosts. This is one of the great drawcards of this book, as ghosts are quite capable of heroic acts. System-wise a lot is again drawn from Wraith but the writers have done an excellent job of shifting the rules from Wraith into the Exalted rules system. Arcanoi are now a type of spirit charm.
The Abyssals start off considerbly more powerful than starting Solars. However this really helps to emphasise how scary these guys are meant to be. They have powerful masters and enourmous resources they can draw upon. A beginning Abyssal can effectively begin play with a 25 bonus points rather than the traditional 15... if she is willing to acquiesce to her Deathlord completely...
The Abyssal charms are also fantastic. While many are simply darker versions of Solar charms, there are some very nasty new charms - such as the Melee Ebon Lightning Prana charm that effectively allows the Abyssal to act first in combat. Combined into a combo with Unfurling Iron Lotus a single Abyssal can become very very deadly. There are also many charms involving mind control and essence theft - meaning that despite their inability to naturally draw essence in the Living world, most Abyssals will be constantly drawing essence in while in combat. One Necromantic spell essentially means that a War Necromancer could continuously feed his spells with the essence of every soldier who dies within a league of himself.
Finally, there is that Vampric link provided. Although Abyssals are incapable of drawing essence while in the Living World, they can grow fangs and draw essence from living blood. A nice little touch that I personally appreciated.
Conclusions
So despite the various flaws that plagued this book, I couldn't help but enjoy it. Upon finishing it I redesigned my Abyssal NPCs for the current campaign I've been running, and even used some of their charms. While they are extremely powerful, they are still not so powerful as to unbalance a game. I am yet to see how they work as PCs - although there is a storytellers section on how to run Abyssal games, I still found myself uncertain as to how the writers saw Abyssals being played. Ultimately I suspect that individual groups will want to play them to different themes - in which case the storyteller section will be a little helpful in that it does offer a few campaign suggestions.
It is a shame that the book has so many little faults that drag it down - this could have been one of the best supplements for Exalted to date, it certainly has a plethora of details, systems and ideas. Unfortunately the poor editing and other little details just prevent it from being as good as it could have been. Still, I can easily recommend this book to any Exalted group. It is certainly a great book despite its flaws.
Should I buy This?: If you play Exalted? Yes. If you like the idea of a darker scale fantasy game? Yes. Definitely worth the cash - even with its faults.
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