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The prologue, entitled “Murder Shows,” is reminiscent of the Ring, with possessed videotapes being the monster of the week in this tale; apparently the Ring was never made in the World of Darkness, as everyone in the story seems unbelieving and surprised by the concept of magically altered videotapes. It’s up to Cabbie22 to deal with this menace, having been alerted to it by the Rose Foundation, the mysterious group assisting Hunters that was established in the Defender Creedbook.
Frankly, this story was a disappointment. While I was impressed by the return of the Rose Foundation, they seem decisively less altruistic than they did in the Defender sourcebook, with no explanation as to why. Also, the author slipped a bit of humor into the book, referencing the contradictory information found in various Hunter sourcebooks regarding Hunter second sight. Unfortunately, these are the highlights of the story. Cabbie seems far less intelligent and insightful than she has in her previous appearances, especially at the end of the story; if I had just destroyed a collection of supernaturally-altered video tapes, and I had one in my possession that did seem to do odd things while I used the Sight, I doubt I’d just forget about it in my VCR and let it do whatever evil videotape spirits do when they’re bored. Even given their menacing nature, I find it hard to believe that the Foundation would have sent her such an artifact of evil without warning. Wait, maybe I can:
Faceless Member of Rose Foundation #1: Gee, guys, I don’t think it’s a good idea to send this possessed videotape to Lupe without warning her.
Faceless Member #2: Dude! White Wolf’s doing the Time of Judgement in a few months, and the Hunter line is supposed to be getting about fifty pages to tie everything up. Remember Ends of Empire, and how the authors tried to cover the final fates of every important character in the Wraith line? The way I figure it, if Lupe gets killed by this tape that’s a few more lines of text they can devote to the Rose Foundation.
Faceless Member #1: Well, when you put it that way....
The Introduction of the book explains how the purpose of the book is help Storytellers to introduce supernatural elements into their games that don’t involve such “mainstream” supernaturals as vampires and werewolves. There’s not much for me to say about this section, but, hey, in the recommended viewing section what do we find but . . . The Ring! Wow, I never would have suspected the authors of this book had seen that film.....
Chapter One, Contact From Beyond, is not one of the better stories to be found in a Hunter supplement. Almost all of the Hunters who appear in this story seem even more dull-witted than Cabbie was in the introduction, making me wonder if eating lead paint chips is the new cool thing for Hunters to do. The Imbued are all experienced Hunters-no newly touched by the Messengers here-which makes some of their reasoning even more absurd; after exposure to the supernatural I find it hard to believe a Hunter wouldn’t respond more quickly to signs of the mystical or be willing to accept a creature can do things beyond what it is said to be capable of in folklore.
Additionally, the author seems to have gone out of his way to make several of the characters unlikeable, with the main character being the most dull-witted and one of her Hunter allies being an elitist snob horribly offended by things as a lack of elevators in buildings and people eating cereal and carrots on a regular basis.
The big problem with this chapter, however, is the type of creature the monster turns out to be. In describing this book, the copy on the back cover reads “The limits of the Storyteller System are tested as bizarre creatures and beings never portrayed before emerge to perplex, plague, and prey upon the imbued.” Such is not the case with the monster of this story, as it is in fact a creature that has had a sourcebook devoted to it in the Hunter line, not to mention a plethora of books for its own game line from White Wolf. Sure, it may have screwed itself up in a fairly unique way with its powers, resulting in its misidentification by the Hunters, but it’s not a new critter by any means.
Chapter Two, Morbid Curiosity, is a very entertaining tale, detailing the last surviving member of a group of imbued, who has been contacted by a mysterious informant that one of her comrades knew. At times the technical jargon gets a little tedious, feeling as though the author had watched a few too many episodes of CSI before writing it, but all in all the story is very well-written.
The problem, however, is the same as in the first story, as the creature involved in the tale is something that has already received coverage in two previous Hunter books (though admittedly limited coverage in one of said books) and had its own game line, rather than being some sort of unique beast or something from another World of Darkness game that has yet to appear in a Hunter book. If you’re looking for a tale to give you ideas on how to bait and switch players on what kind of monster you are using this is a good story to read, but if you’re looking for fiction starring an honest-to-goodness all-new monster you’ll be disappointed.
Chapter Three, Once Upon A Time, strange as it sounds, manages to be both a really good tale and a really bad tale at the same time. The “star” of the tale is Anon52, last seen in the Martyr Creedbook, and follows up on his exploits there, though that book is not necessary to follow along with this tale. He’s gone mad, and had gone to New Jersey on a quest to bring his son back to life. The story is fascinating and well-detailed, and even brings back a number of established characters. I was especially impressed by the creature featured in this tale, at least until I got to the last four pages of the book. Before I hit that portion I was very impressed by the author’s apparent use of a unique creature in the World of Darkness. I could see three different ways that the creature could fit into existing WOD mythology, but in the most generic of ways, with two of the possible explanations for it fitting into the generic creature groupings two WoD game lines have. However, the author managed not to give away anything regarding exactly which line it would have fit in, so I was impressed by this unique monster.
Then I got to those last four pages.
What makes it bad is that as the creature is described there is a feeling that the author opened up various WoD books, picked bits at random, and then combined them all to form his monster. Reading the creature’s description, it sounded like a vampire with an optional rule/Flaw combined with one or two other established WoD entities. It might even have been a vampire, with the author confused on how the WoD works or making up his own rules, as he also has Anon using an Edge (or perhaps a fusion of two; the description is odd) that should affect only one person at a time and damage Anon each time he used it, but in the book the power acts as though it were a Nerve Gas Dispenser of Unlimited Ammo. Given the amount he seems to use it, he should have actually dropped over dead before he had dispatched most of his opponents.
The other flaw in the tale is a character on Hunter.net who is so stupid he feels less like the real world person that Hunter characters are supposed to be, and instead comes off like a character in a bad horror movie, the kind who usually get eaten by the monster first.
If you don’t mind the fiction not adhering to the rules, even fiction found in an RPG book, you may not have a problem with this. And if you don’t mind an apparent mishmash of established critters to make a new one, you’ll probably like it. Otherwise, I recommend the otherwise excellent tale and then closing one’s eyes tightly to avoid seeing page 59 as you read, since it holds the majority of problems with the tale.
Chapter Four, the Sea-Borne Darkness, is another well-written story which does not live up to what Urban Legends is supposed to be about. The story follows a Hunter on a boat in the middle of the ocean, whose pursuit of a monster has led him into something far bigger than he either expected or can handle. It’s an entertaining tale, made more so by the references to things that were established years ago in other World of Darkness books.
And there again is the problem: the creatures in this book are not all-new monstrosities, but again creatures from another game line who have appeared in Hunter products before, though admittedly they had little more than walk-on roles. There might even be a cameo from a critter from another game line in this story as well, though not enough information is given to confirm it. It also doesn’t help that, as in earlier in the book, the behavior of several established characters does not mesh with their previous appearances.
Chapter Five is the Storyteller portion of the book. It starts out with some rather pretentious writing, which in a White Wolf book shouldn’t surprise me. Following this is the usual “try to forget what you know about other Storytelling games when you play Hunter” spiel. Actually, I have to admit that after reading this portion I’m curious as to what the author’s gaming sessions are like, since he seems to think “We face it. We win” is the usual way a Hunter game goes, which is pretty much contrary to what most Hunter products espouse. Also, I like how the idea of saying “Something passes under the boat. Do you hear that sound? It’s like a voice! Is it . . . trying to communicate?” is a good way to describe a creature in order to invoke fear. I mean, I would have, I don’t know, made a sound that could have been mistaken for a voice, and maybe repeated the sound a few times so the players clue in on their own that it might be an attempt to communicate. Luckily I know now that what I should do is ask them if they hear a sound that I’ve never described to them and talk like a character from a 50s horror movie. Yeah, that’ll inspire the fear of God in them.
Following this is a section on red herrings, to enable you to confuse your players about exactly what kind of monsters they are facing. Let me just flip to the back cover . . . I see “bizarre creatures and beings never portrayed before emerge . . . ” but nothing about this book being a toolkit on how to alter previously established creatures so players don’t recognize them.
It doesn’t help that some of the suggestions for obscuring the true nature of creatures are a bit nonsensical. For example, one idea given is that if you have had one type of supernatural creature display a certain power over and over again, your players will be totally confused if another creature has the same ability. The rational given is that if characters see a creature use the same ability over and over again they will develop ideas on exactly what a creature’s role in “life” is, based on that power, and that if another creature has the same power the ideas of the characters will be turned on their ears.
This does not ring true. First, it assumes that characters (and players, for that matter) are too stupid to realize that creatures may have similar abilities. For a real world example, if you encountered a group of foreigners from a land you’re unfamiliar with who spoke their own language, then found out a friend of yours was fluent in their foreign tongue, how would you react? You might be shocked at first, but then you realize that you can’t know everything about a person, and that sometimes people have abilities that they don’t normally demonstrate while you’re around.. So why should it be a shock that monsters have similar powers?
The other problem is that it assumes characters are dumb enough to peg a creature’s role and habits based on repeated viewings of it using a certain power. If you were to see a bus driver doing his route for several months, would you be shocked if you encountered him riding a bicycle on his day off? Of course not. He was using his skill at driving when he was on the job because it was the appropriate thing to do, just like a monster trying to manipulate someone would use its mind control abilities.
Also worthy of mention is that in a section on mixing and matching creature powers the Storyteller is told that he should avoid implausible mixtures of powers, such as a water-borne shapeshifter who can breathe fire. You know, because in a game where animated corpses lumber about and some people can manipulate reality by will alone you don’t want to have something that doesn’t sound realistic . . .
Next up is perhaps the most likely portion to induce teeth grinding in readers, entitled Twisting Perceptions. One of the few advantages Hunters have against their quarry is their information gathering Edges, which can give them much-needed insight into their foes that they would otherwise be unable to get. Unfortunately the authors seem to feel that such powers give Hunters an unfair advantage, and give multiple ideas on how to limit their effectiveness. Considering how hard it can be for Hunters to increase their Virtues to gain new Edges, and how higher levels of Virtue lead to madness, this suggested weakening of powers is not something I would use in a campaign.
There is some nice material following this, with ideas on showing, not telling, your players what a creature is, along with some information on how monsters may be misidentified. It does have its flaws, with again the idea of only one type of monster can have certain powers showing its head. A trio of pre-generated creatures are found after this, the werewolf of which is a bit annoying, written as though to say “Hey, your players may screw up on ID’ing him. Isn’t that cool?”
Now we start to get to what the book is supposed to be about, namely new creatures to add into your Hunter game. The first section is entitled “Rarities,” and gives some information on running mutants (Fomori), the undying (Mummies), and Nightmares (Changelings). So really this section doesn’t so much introduce new critters as give game rules for two creatures who have made cameos in previous Hunter books but were never given rules systems, and a creature which has already received coverage in two supplements.
The section is a mixed bag. The section on mutants is good, though the example mutant given is a character that would be more appropriate for a game of Stupor-Powers than one set in the World of Darkness; I somehow a character with Mental Attributes of 2 across the board would accept the explanation that he has a “hyperactive version of stomach acid” to account for his vomit’s ability to dissolve toilets. There’s also a description of how Edges can detect Mutants, which suggest the author didn’t read over how the Edge descriptions in the main rulebook.
Mummies abilities are given only a short description, and again the rules regarding Hunter abilities and how they work with the Undying don’t mesh up with the Hunter rulebook, as it claims that “as is usual with second sight” the use of that special power protects against the physical manipulation of a Hunter’s body. Of course, on the next page when describing another Mummy power that affects the body no mention is made of this protection; perhaps the author found that odd ruling that expenditure of Conviction protects against Vicissitude and went with it. There’s also another bit of screwing with information-gathering Edges, which I guess the reader should be used to by now.
The section on Nightmares is okay, though it doesn’t do all that much to expand on previous descriptions of them.
Following this is Anomalies, which is the all-new critters which this book was supposed to be about. The majority of this section is devoted to helping Storytellers to develop new creatures on their own. For the non-experienced Storyteller this section will be very helpful, but veteran Storytellers will probably already be used to working out all the factors found in this section.
A trio of anomalies are statted out. Two of them are interesting (though Demon fans will find one very familiar) while the third is exactly the kind of creature with no real origin or purpose other than to be the Monster of the Week that the preceding text warns the Storyteller not to use.
Following this is a discussion of bad places. Carens, Nodes, and other places related to the supernatural are discussed here, along with how to use them in your game. I have to say that this section is excellent, especially with regards to the example locations given, which are truly unique places not seen before in the World of Darkness: if the entire book had consisted of such novel ideas I would truly have been impressed throughout.
Finally, the book ends with some so-so ideas on how to run varying styles of horror in a Hunter game. I didn’t find anything impressive here, but it’s only a few pages long.
One thing I can’t neglect to mention is the quality of the artwork in this book. The cover is excellent, with Alex Maleve doing the best work I’ve ever seen him produce. The interior artwork is also of superior quality, my only problem with it being one piece where the artist included a cartoony question mark over a character’s head to indicate confusion: Big Eyes, Small Mouth this isn’t.
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