Aspect Book Wood
Written by George Holochwost and Ellen P. Kiley
Published by White Wolf Game Studio
www.white-wolf.com
ISBN: 1-588466833
WW8844
96 black and white pages
$19.99
Aspect Book Wood is the last of the aspect books for the 1st edition of Exalted. This one finishes off the Dragon Blooded books that included Air, Fire, Water, Earth and Wood.
If you’ve seen one Aspect book, you’ve got a pretty good idea of what this book covers and how it’s designed. For layout, it uses two-columns with fair margins. Faded designs are behind the text on the pages with the top having a border of various images. Thankfully the faded images do not effect reading. Dragon Blooded Runes are at the top edge under that border. For white space use, only at the ends of the chapters do we see waste.
Art is handled by Eric Canete, Andrew Hepworth, Aaron Nakahra, Pasi Pitkanen, Ej Su, Melissa Urana and Eva Widermann with the cover art done by Kevin Lau with UDON. The book uses illustrations to showcase different scenes and different core characters. Chapters are broken up by full-page illustrations.
The thing about the Wood Aspect is that they are different than the other Aspects because they are not about a specific elemental force, but rather, almost a state of life. Wood is the one element that changes. It lives and grows, it dies, it continues to be something that the other elements are not, and that’s change.
The book starts off with a piece of fiction to set the pace and then goes into the introduction. Afterwards, it’s broken up into six chapters with two appendices, the book follows the lives of five Wood Aspects. Included here are the following Dragon Blooded: Rutanjali, Cynis Belar Norren, Sesus Nagezzer (the Slug), Tepet Ejava (The Roseblack)and Ragara Bhagewi.
These characters come from different backgrounds and bring different things to the game. While not a huge player of the Dragon Blooded, indeed of Exalted as a whole, I do recognize a few of them as being prime movers.
But beyond that, the book showed me a few things to take into account when designing my own campaigns. For example, Rutanjali is almost not even Dragon Blooded in terms of how she fits into the Empire. Her life and focus were taken away when bandits overran her home and she was married to a forest spirit. In her change to a Wood Aspect, she has become almost a force of elemental nature herself. This makes her far different than most of the other Dragon Blooded as it showcases the variety of types that a Wood Aspect can be.
She grows up in the arms of a forest god and has children who grow up and set off on their own adventure. She then sets out to see what they are up to. This makes her vastly different than Tepet Ejava who is a master commander or Sesus Nagezer who is a master manipulator.
In terms of tone, the book is defiantly not for the underaged. It follows the frequent use of things like drug use, murder, rape, and other sexual encounters. While I won’t say that they strike me as gratuitous, I think that those elements could’ve been toned down a little and saved for ‘horrific’ moments as opposed to just being in the background material as everyday events.
On the other hand, this is indeed the way the Dragon Blooded do things. While there are many who seek to bring stability to the Realm, there are those whose only pursuit is pleasure. I guess you could almost say that these descriptions of drug and sex are “keeping it real” so that the GM has more tools in order to properly portray the Realm.
Each chapter has a specific focus.
Chapter one introduces us to the five Wood Aspects during their childhood. This includes childhood experiences and education. Each section includes background, information on Exaltation, and secondary school. Is in such areas that you find more details. For example, the Slug was wounded, nearly killed by a spirit during his youth. Others like Tept Ejava were born in the field of battle.
Chapter two details how these characters fit into their world as Wood Aspects. This includes different details for different characters. For example, one character may have information on romance, family, and future plans, while another may mention aspects of their religious life.
Chapter three gives us the opinions of the Wood-aspected characters on a host of different subjects. This includes the Realm, Mortals, Fair Folk, and specific houses like House Cynis. Of course, the Anathema or Solar Exalted, are also mentioned.
Chapter four covers other people’s opinions of the Wood-aspected individuals. This covers a wide range of individuals from mortals, other Dragon-Blooded, Spirits, and even Abyssal Exalted.
Chapter five provides details on what the world was like before and what role the Wood Aspects played in it. This includes an Account of the Battle of Poplar Reef, as well as details on a Sheep Plague and bits from other books like the Forty Willow Sutra.
Chapter six is one of the church chapters here. New Charms for use by Wood-aspected characters and other Dragon-Bloods. Also included are Artifacts and Hearthstones. Charms start off with Archery, and include Medicine, Performance, Ride, and Survival. Hearthstones include a wide range of goods.
My favorite is the Black Widow Razors, fist-sized spier statueetes that when animated, wrap their legs around the user’s writs and extend four razors. If the wielder spends 2 motes of Essence, the weapons become envenomed and the target must make a Stamina = Resistance roll, difficulty 3. If the roll succeeds, the victim takes an additional lethal level. If it fails, the target suffers a variable effect, depending on what material the Razors are constructed from. For Jade for example, the victim suffers a two-die penalty to all actions for the duration of the scene. If the penalty goes past twice the victim’s Stamina, they collapse into a comatose slumber for a day.
Appendix I provides the game stats for the five characters detailed here. It’s important to note that these aren’t necessarily suited for starting characters. The Slug for example, is one of the signature characters of the Dragon Blooded. Tepet Ejava is another signature character, one that commands the Vermilion Legion and may be the one to claim the throne.
Each character is illustrated and takes up two pages. On the first page is the illustration, a good shot of the character in question and not some head shot. The section starts with name, continues with quote, includes prelude, roleplaying hints, image, and equipment.
The second page includes name, element, concept, nature, attributes, virtues, abilities, background, charms, combat statistics, and for those using it, Exalted Power Combat.
Appendix II provides with Wood-aspected Dragon Bloods that the GM can use in his own game. Unfortunately, they don’t come with game statistics. These characters have head-shoulders illustrated that are boxed away from the main text. They have background details that give you some insight into their personality.
Some of these are allies to the main characters detailed. For example, Autumn Spiral is the spiritual and martial advisor to “Slug”. The best thing about these characters is that they can be used in any sort of Exalted game. This includes one that may focus on Solar Exalted. What great hero wouldn’t want to take down Cynis Anbor, a murderer of children, for instance?
Aspect Book Wood is one of the better aspect books in my opinion. It showcases a wide variety of ways in which to use the characters, in some areas even away from the Realm, providing the players with options of running their characters almost as forces of nature or in others, as beings who sit at the center of the Realm and are posed to either protect it in their own way, or to take it for their own.
Review Summary