Review of Imperial Source Book

Blurb from the publisher: 'Clans of Damnation.

Scattered across the solar system, the Imperial corporation is united by mutual ambition. The disparate and eclectic Clans of Imperial are perpetually moving to acquire new territory and new companies, and war is simply one means to that end. Plagued by a dark and bloody history Imperial focuses its determination and its ambition outwards, to rival corporations and the Dark Legion…

The Clans: What defines the Imperial people? Discover the cultures of the corporation's numerous Clans and the history of strife and struggle that defines them.

The Holdings: Discover the territories of Imperial, scattered upon Mercury, Venus, Luna, Mars, the Asteroid Belt, and beyond.

The Serenity and Parliament: Learn about the inner workings of Imperial, from the Serene Leader and Houses of Parliament, to the complex bureaucracy that keeps everything running, to the agents of Imperial Security Command, and the doughty soldiers of the Ministry of War.

Rune Lore: Uncover hidden secrets of Runecraft and alchemy, which give the ferocious Wolfbanes an edge against the Darkness.

Character Creation: Expanded rules for the backgrounds and professions unique to the Imperial Corporation.'

What you get: Your EUR 21,99 or USD 27,99 buys you the full-colour 116-page Imperial Source Book for Mutant Chronicles 3rd Edition Roleplaying game in both softcover and pdf format. Those preferring the pdf version only can obtain it for EUR 10,99.

Contents: The Imperial Source Book is the fourth that covers one of the seven main factions of Mutant Chronicles 3rd Edition, namely the one that takes Great Britain as its main source of inspiration.

The book is broken into eleven main chapters. The Introduction is a short recap of the history of Imperial from the twenty first century up to now, some 1600 years in the future, based on its five core concepts: the controlled chaos of the clans, the legitimacy of conquest, the theatre of politics and the reality of the blade, the founding, the sad struggle, the great resentment and the wounds of Nero, as well as the pride and adventure of Imperial citizens.

The 39-page Imperial Characters chapter is not only the biggest in the book; it is also the biggest character generation chapter relating to the other source books. Starting from decision three of the lifepath as described in the basic rulebook, choices start to diverge. Imperial characters get to roll for a Clan and on whether they are part of the core family or an affiliated family therein. Each family has its small personalized Adolescence Events Table and Education Table, providing extremely different results. Depending on the family a character will get a different social standing, earnings rating, attribute bonuses, skills, trappings and family business, as well as a special of sorts. Fun fact: there is a Clan Fieldhausen, defectors from Bauhaus. Clan consistency has changed through the different timeframes Mutant Chronicles can be played at, thus in many cases the tables provide for differentiated results. Imperial's education works differently, with six education categories and two schools (one of standard and one of elite quality). As expected, Career Events are different as are the Primary Careers. Hint: there are a lot of militaries included. Twelve Iconic Careers further differentiate the Imperials, including barristers and Civil Servants, Storm Trenchers and Free Traders, as well as Special Forces (eleven all in all, each with different skills, talents and equipment) and Wolfbane Commandos. The latter are the RPG reinterpretations of unit types from Mutant Chronicles Warzone Resurrection, the miniature game iteration of the franchise.

Chapter three is about the Clans, all nineteen of them. Each of them gets around three quarters of a page, with info on its history, allegiances, feuds, holdings etc. There is also info about what a character belonging to clan usually does or is expected to do. There are additional minor clans and notable families, often with Polish, Indian and Spanish names.

Chapter four is a one-pager with four famous citizens: a barrister, an engineer, a yard detective and a commander of the Golden Panthers.

Chapter five delves deeper into Imperial professions, tackling them in the narrative way and outside of rules. Some of them are existing ones, like diplomat, doctor and entrepreneur. It does not however exlude the better known ones, like the Blood Berets, the Conquistadors and the Wolfbanes.

The Void & Settlements deals with Imperial space. Imperial is firmly based on the Asteroid Belt, it has however holdings on all the major planets with human presence. We finally get the times to cross the distance from one planet to the other, as well as write-ups for all the major Imperial installations in the solar system.

Chapter seven covers the Imperial Security Corps while chapter eight deals with the Ministry of War. The former relates to policing, counter-terrorism, covert operations and all that goes with it, while the latter is about the structure of the Imperial armed forces. Following them, a chapter on the Armoury deals with the equipment behind the army.

Rune Magic covers the seven different types of runic magic, as well as its nature, the fascination of Imperial with it and the involvement of The Brotherhood. Sixteen runes are described, providing results ranging from strength to endurance and from intuition to cleansing. The market is flooded by fake 'magical' items, be them permanent, transient or consumables. Buyers, and player characters, beware.

The last chapter of the book is about Gamemastering Imperial. Apart from recapitulating the obvious themes that Imperial campaigns might include, it also contains ten adventure seeds for both the Dark Symmetry and the Dark Legion eras. Amongst others, they include investigative, horror and search and destroy adventure hooks.

The source book closes with a rich, one-page index. And seeing how I did not mention it earlier, the book additionally contains two Imperial NPCs.

The strong points: Imperial is as complicated as it is rich. The miniatures game has already made it abundantly clear by adopting the two sub-factions within a faction approach, as well as putting out a rulebook exclusively for it, something rather unprecedented. The RPG confirms this complexity; there are countless facts and backstories that weave the intriguing tapestry upon which Imperial is based. I have a new-found appreciation for a corporation whose aesthetics I might have initially liked (their miniature line is exquisite), but which didn’t speak to me on an organisational level. Frankly, Imperial might be the easiest corporation to use for a single-corporation gaming experience, where both friend and foe belongs to the same faction. It is diverse, vibrant and in many ways reminiscent of the real world. Playing out a whole campaign without even bothering with the stuck-up Bauhausers, the wacko Capitolians or even the threat of Dark Legion is something that Imperial can handle with ease. Civil war is the most brutal of all, it seems.

There is once again a good balance between crunch and fluff. I enjoy how each faction alters in a small yet meaningful way the character creation process. If you only purchased the main rulebook, you are missing out. If you can't afford all of them, I definitely recommend procuring the one(s) for the faction(s) of your choice.

There are many things that surprised me pleasantly in the new ideas that the Imperial sourcebook brings forth. It has been stated many times how Imperial was initially an alliance of other enterprises, or how it aggressively promotes acquisitions. It is one thing however to see this as a one-liner, and another to encounter the Fukido settlement (stealthily purchased from Mishima, with some allusions to Hong Kong), or the Fieldhausen clan, the former Bauhausers. The hatred of Cybertronic is also better explained, as is the reasons for backing The Brotherhood. Successful inter-corporation campaigns need this info, and the book delivers.

Like the previous source books, its writing is neutral towards the corporation it depicts. It might be grandiose and leaning towards propaganda at times, but it does not shy away from describing the persisting problems in Imperial society, like the fact that without external enemies it would collapse due to the persistent in-fighting and the extreme gun violence, more marked even than Capitol. As I said before, it shed Imperial under a new light and made me appreciate things that had flown under the radar.

All that having been said, it is clear that this source book is a must not only for the RPG players but also for those enjoying Warzone Resurrection, the miniatures iteration of the franchise. It will add nothing to the rules. When it comes however to fluff and the feel of the megacorp, who Imperial is and what it does, how its citizens perceive themselves and others, you are in for a treat.

Physically speaking, the book is as pretty as soft-covers get, full of colour and gloss. Even though the art does not come from the same artist or in a single style only, it is both fitting and convincing. There is certain goofiness at times, this is however inherent of the game line, not a result of poor artistry. As in the main rulebook, the fonts are rather small and the amount of text in the book substantially more than you would have expected. The margins are small, much smaller than the competition; the price to content ratio is once again very high, seeing how there is no wasted space. There are no blocks of text. The chapters and subchapters give a nice, smooth flow to the whole thing.

The pdf is again an exercise in perfection, and in line with Modiphius’ releases in the main rulebook as well as other RPGs like Dust Adventures. Everything is right where you expect it to be, including bookmarks for every single chapter and sub-chapter. The art is kind of brighter; I presume the excellent quality of the printed version’s gloss paper has something to do with it.

The weak points: Some of the information presented in the Imperial Source Book is valid for every single faction and useful for any Mutant Chronicles campaign. A prime example is the Space Travel Time Table, which lists the times to travel between the different heavenly bodies. Another is advice and campaign seeds on how to gamemaster this megacorporation, a chapter that does not exist on the Bauhaus or Capitol source books. But then again, these two source books contained short adventures for their faction, while the present one does not; why is that? I enjoy the fact that each book is written differently and sheds a light on what each corporation holds dear. I am wondering however whether GMs' lives would have been made easier if certain things were constant, like having both an adventure as well as advice on how to gamemaster that particular corporation. Also, the commonly useful information (like distances from planet to planet) should have been gathered and included elsewehere, even in the main rulebook; not haphazardly distributed among the faction source books.

Imperial is probably the most complicated of the corporations, however I keep feeling that there is a certain degree of repetitiveness in the writing. Some things could have been more concise, and new things could have been covered, like for example the inclusion of more NPCs. Two NPCs is by far the least we have seen in any of these sourcebooks. As a GM expect to have work in your hands. Complicated structures by definition mean the writing can only scratch the surface. Some lists with names, ages and occupations of the de facto leaders of the clans would have been useful, just to have an easy-going starting point.

The shortage of crunch in all the sourcebooks we have seen up to now becomes progressively more annoying. How many Imperials live in Fukido? Or in Venus? Or in the asteroid belt? What do they produce? How well (or not) are they defended? I understand that the answers differ wildly depending on what era the game is set at, but even a hint could have sufficed.

Like the Capitol sourcebook, the Imperial one does not reach the 130 pages of content of the Bauhaus sourcebook, weighing in at some 10% less. I wish it did; there are quite a few things that could have been explored here. On the other hand, the pdf version actually costs cheaper.

There are a few typos here and there, but all in all, nothing serious. Also, due to a printer mix-up in the first printing of the sourcebook, the cover is matte while it should have been glossy; it will be corrected in subsequent printings. I don’t give a rat’s ass, personally speaking. If you do however, take a closer look on your FLGS’ bookshelves. They might carry both types at the same time.

Just like the main rulebook, there is no colour coding in the margins to find things more easily. The title number and mention at the bottom of each page is unfortunately not enough, even though the book is smallish. After a couple of source books, it is now evident that this impractical format is followed throughout the game line.

Conclusion: The Imperial Source Book skillfully continues where others left off. Slightly better than others in some domains, slightly worse in others, it is a solid purchase that pleasantly surprises with the amount of content it presents for a patently complicated corporation. Also: you also need these space travel time tables.

For more info on the Imperial Source Book and the Mutant Chronicles 3rd Edition Techno Fantasy Roleplaying Game visit the Modiphius Entertainment website at http://www.modiphius.com.

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