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This is the book that makes me regret the cancellation of the Werewolf: The Wild West line. Yes, there were problems of redundancy with the core book (I understand the justification of wanting to repeat a lot of the rules from the modern game, but did anyone really pick it up who didn't have Werewolf: The Apocalypse?), but the concept is great, and Ghost Towns makes it even better.

Ghost Towns is essentially a guide to running Werewolf/Wraith crossovers, although it's done in such a way that the extent of the "crossover" is really up to the Storyteller. Maybe you'd like to just have your troupe of Garou venture into Baton Rouge to discover that something's a little ... wrong. The ghosts can stay mysterious, odd, unknowable.

Alternately, players can mix and match a troupe of Garou and wraiths, bound together for who knows what reason. New abilities are detailed allowing your werewolves to travel to the Shadowlands of Wraith, and we discover that the Shroud is almost painfully thin in some areas of the Savage West.

Most of what I've just described is about a fifth of the book, and it is, frankly, that fifth - along with a very brief one-page discussion of the ways in which the Shadowlands of the nineteenth century differed from those of today - that make the book worth the money. The rest of the book is a description of five different ghost towns with the usual assortment of characters, story hooks, and so forth, but frankly I've never used pre-made settings from White Wolf (unless you count as such things like "the Shadowlands" or "the Digital Web") and I doubt I ever will. The same goes for the characters. The players are just as likely as I am to have read them, so why not just come up with something on my own, something they won't see coming?

For beginning Storytellers, though, such things can be useful crutches or examples. And, of course, they're well done for what they are.

The great thing about this book is that, as far as I'm concerned, is worth picking up even if you don't plan to use it with Werewolf: the Wild West. Although it's far from ideal as a sourcebook for, say, Wraith: the Wild West, it's a fine jumping-off point.

Style: 4 (Classy and well done)
Substance: 3 (Average)