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72 pages, 15.95, ISBN: 1588467511
This is one of the earliest products for White Wolf’s Demon: The Fallen line. It consists of two parts: a four-panel Storytellers screen, and a seventy-two page book containing additional information, storytelling advice, and information about the WoD as seen through the eyes of the Fallen. The product is strictly oriented towards storytellers, not players, so unless you run this game, you won’t get much use of it. If you do run the game, it’s probably one of the best products you can own.
The Screen
The storyteller’s screen is useful, if not particularly inspired. Four panels wide, the outer portion of the screen consists several full color pictures taken from the DtF main book. The art is pretty enough, but not so outlandish that it seems likely to be distracting (if you have the sort of players who get distracted by art).
The inside of the screen contains most of the charts that a storyteller is likely to need in game. The vast majority of it consists of combat charts, but there are also difficulty ratings, a hierarchy of sins, experience and freebie costs, and a summary of statistics for animals. This last one surprised me a little. I don’t know if animals come up with great frequency during DtF games, but I suppose it can’t hurt to have the information handy. The charts are printed on a gray and black background, and are pretty easy on the eyes overall.
The Book
The real meat of this product is (not surprisingly) this little gem of a book. The book is broken up into five chapters (six, if you count the introduction), each one detailing out a particular aspect of the DtF universe.
Appearance:
The cover sports the standard blue/black scales with flaming lettering, and a picture of what appears to be a summoning working a little better than the participants expected. The interior is all black and white, and is readable. The artwork is pretty nifty. Nothing really leapt out at me, but I didn’t have the urge to gouge out my eyes either.
Introduction:
This chapter turns out to be more useful than one might immediately expect. The chapter outlines the content of the book, and contains a short warning note to players not to read this book. What it also contains is a short summary of the DtF metaplot. It’s a very brief overview, but it does serve to give the storyteller a sense of what is to come. It even includes a discussion of where a few of the DtF products fall into the metaplot timeline. My only complaint about this section is that I wish they had listed all of the DtF products in relation to the metaplot timeline. As it is, this tells me where City of Angels and The Earthbound fall, but nothing about the other books. A small summary is better than none at all, I suppose, but it would have been nice to have a fully-fleshed out timeline.
Chapter One: Dark Gods This chapter provides an overview of the origins, history, and motivations of the Earthbound, Demons who have been trapped on Earth for centuries since the fall. They are generally quite powerful, manipulative, and completely insane (you would be too, if you were stuck inside a statue since Babylon was a world power).
The chapter is pretty short (about eight pages), and consists mostly of background information. There are a few rules for creating Earthbound (as villains, not as PC’s - these guys are not suitable for player use!), and a discussion of how their thralls work, but it’s not particularly detailed. If you’re looking for crunch on the Earthbound, this is not the place to find it. If you want some basic information to introduce them into your game, this should work just fine.
Chapter Two: The Factions
The largest (about twenty-two pages) and most interesting chapter of this book, Chapter Two discusses each of the factions of the Fallen, how they interact, their agendas, beliefs and goals, as well as how to use the faction within your Chronicle.
The chapter starts with a brief discussion of dealing with players who want to be from different factions, and how to integrate them into a campaign. After that, it’s straight into the faction overviews, each of which follow the same format:
Overview of Factions Goals: a short ‘reminder’ of what each faction is about.
Notable Members: Gives examples of a couple of well-known members of the faction, usually those members who are in a position of leadership. These are prose descriptions only. There are no stat blocks in this entire chapter, so if you want to know if Belphigor can beat up Ahrimal, this chapter isn’t going to tell you a whole lot. If you want to know who Belphigor IS, and if he’d WANT to beat up Ahrimal, you’ll get more out of it.
Unnoticed members: A nifty concept, this section details one or two members of the faction who no one really knows about or pays attention to, but are significant in some way. They are the spies, holders of secrets, or sometimes secrets themselves, and each one provides a nice plot hook. The great thing about these characters is that they give the storyteller someone for the PC’s to interact with, find out about, or whatever, who isn’t a big mover and shaker. Again, no stat blocks…you’ll have to work those out on your own.
Resources: This section outlines some of the financial, magical or other resources that the faction has access to. Some of them, like the Cryptics Scelestinomicon and Crucianomicon, are enormous plot hooks in of themselves, while others, like the Faustians magic bullet, are the sort of thing likely to come up as part of a larger plotline. Most of these resources are pretty unique and interesting, though the Luciferian diamond mine struck me as a little bland (unless you want to run a DtF version of Congo).
Protagonists: This section gives advice and several plot hooks on using the faction as the good guys of a chronicle. The plot hooks are not deeply detailed, but they do give enough information for a storyteller to work from.
Antagonists: The counter-part section to the one above, this gives a few plot hooks and ideas for how to use each faction as bad guys. Again, most of this is stuff designed to get your brain going, rather than a fully fleshed out adventure or chronicle.
Third wheel: Finally, there are those factions that the storyteller may not want to play a major role in the chronicle, but are still out there. This section gives some nifty info on how to make that happen.
Thriving/Declining Future: The last section of each faction write up details a few possibilities for how the faction might change in the future, either for better or for worse. It gives possibilities for WHY the factions would change the way they do, and how they’re likely to react.
Personally, I think this is a great section, because it puts a lot of control in the hands of the storyteller. Like the Luciferians and want them to succeed? Great, here’s some ideas on how to make it happen, and what it will mean. Think the Luciferians are a bunch of deranged idiots? Here’s how to move things so that they fail. This section does a nice job of taking the metaplot and putting it back into the hands of the people actually playing the game.
Of course, if you want an official, ‘this is how the metaplot will go’, write-up, this section is just going to annoy you. There’s no indication which factions, if any, are going to do particularly well or poorly. If you want to know exactly what White Wolf has planned for them, you’re looking in the wrong place.
Chapter Three: Lords of the Abyss
Chapter three tells us about the greater demons; the lords and ladies of the Fallen, most of whom are still trapped in the Abyss. It’s a very short, sparse chapter (about six pages), almost to the point where it doesn’t seem quite worth it. It’s nice that they included it in the book, but it seems like there could have been a bit more information in here.
This is one of the crunchiest chapters in the whole book as well. It provides rules for building greater demons of varying ranks, as well as summoning and binding them. In fact, that’s about all the chapter contains. There’s very little notes on the role-playing of these characters, their agendas, or anything else. A lot of that can be extrapolated from other chapters, or other books all together, but it might have been nice to have something along those lines here too.
Chapter Four: The Spirit Realm
Another short chapter (seven pages) that overviews the spirit realm (AKA the Umbra) from DtF’s point of view. There’s some interesting information in here on the origins of Charon, for the Wraith: The Oblivion fans out there, as well as an outline of the geography of the spirit realm as the Fallen know it. Also included are rules for building ghosts and dealing with ghostly possession using just the DtF rules (very nice for those of us who don’t own Wraith: The Oblivion). Not a whole lot of detail here, but the truth is, the Fallen don’t really want to spending a whole lot of time in the spirit realm, and this gives a storyteller enough info to have a good starting point.
Chapter Five: Monsters
The last chapter (about 13 pages) is really the "How DtF interacts with the rest of the WoD" chapter. It presents Hunters, Mages, Vampires, and Werewolves from the perspective of the Fallen, as well as rules for them using the DtF system (again, saving you the trouble of buying four other games if you want some cross-over). There’s also a short (two page) bestiary which gives stats for mundane animals like cats, dogs and crocodiles. Ok, so may crocs aren’t that mundane, but now you can have your Earthbound build that death-trap he always wanted.
Not surprisingly, there isn’t a whole lot of detail here, but there’s enough to have the other denizens of the WoD show up in your Chronicle, if you really want them to. The Imbued (Hunters) get the most attention, since they are the greatest threat to the Fallen. According to this book, the Imbued’s powers seem directly designed to counter the Fallen, suggesting that the Imbued are possibly part of some sort of anti-Fallen plot by Heaven. How true that is in Hunter, I have no idea.
Mages and Vampires get a little more attention, and Werewolves get a pretty brief note. Apparently, Werewolves simply attack Demons on sight, which makes interaction a little tough. Mages and Vampires are more likely to be interested in wheeling and dealing.
No references to Changelings anywhere in the book. I don’t know if that’s metaplot related, or simply because the game line is dead.
Summary:
Low on crunch, high on ideas. If you’re looking for a lot of new rules, nifty powers, and so on, this book will do absolutely nothing for you. If you’re looking for a lot of ideas to jump start your brain or your chronicle, this will be a big help. Most of the information in here is oriented towards the various factions. If you’re using the Earthbound as your primary antagonists, you’ll probably want to look into that book as well.
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