Steampunk Soldiery Spotter's Guide II

Steampunk Soldiers: The American Frontier is a sequel to Steampunk Soldiers: Uniforms & Weapons from the Age of Steam, which described a nineteenth century wherein the Great Meteor Shower of 1862 scattered deposits of an incredible energy source—Hephaestium—which set off a great age of technological development and innovation as the great powers sought to advantage of the new power source. Over the course of the next three decades, Great Britain radically extended her railway network across her empire and beyond; Prussia fielded new armour and armoured infantry to defeat Denmark and unite all of Germany; whilst France used her Peugeot-built steam-powered exoskeleton-equipped Foreign Legion units to conquer Indochina and invade China. Meanwhile, Russia developed Hephaestium-fuelled chemicals and submarines, the Ottoman Empire developed automata, and Nicolai Tesla developed Hephaestium-powered electro-weapons for the Austro-Hungarian Empire, whilst Italy stole blueprints and prototypes, sabotaged others, and kidnapped scientists and became Europe’s rogue state.

Now the Americas were not ignored in all of this. Steampunk Soldiers: Uniforms & Weapons from the Age of Steam described how General Lee’s land ironclads forced back the Union forces and held them to a stalemate until a ceasefire was agreed between the Union and the Confederacy in 1869, ending the Civil War. It is also how the volume left the situation, with the former United States divided between the Union and the Confederacy. Steampunk Soldiers: The American Frontier picks up where it left off to describe and depict the situations, forces, troops, and equipment of not only the Union and Confederacy, but also the Republic of Mexico, Canada, Alaska, the Disputed Territories, and the frontier.

The Union is technologically advanced, but her attention is divided between the Cold War with the Confederacy, surreptitiously running the blockade to Republic of Mexico, poor relations with both Canada and England, and with pushing back the frontier before the Confederacy does. Consequently, agencies like the postal service have been militarised, the Mailman of the United States Army Postal Service being shown armed and his faithful hound, being armoured and trained to attack mail thieves! The Union also employs numerous spies and agents, including Pinkerton agents to protect both the President and corporate interest; Special Service Agents with advanced monitoring equipment, such as Edison’s Kinetographic camera concealed in a carpet bag, and of course, US Marshals who wander far and wide. In the Confederacy, the Texas Rangers perform the same role as the US Marshals, but are not always welcome beyond the Texas state line. They are an effective force though, being equipped with modular, adaptable devices, such as the New Haven Arms modular Volcanic Pistols and Alamo Fortified Suit. The dominance of Texas in the Confederacy is show in the depiction of a Field Research Team from the Galveston Consortium testing out a new and advanced weapon—a Sonic Discombobulator! The Confederacy’s reliance on less conventional means of warfare is shown in its depiction of a Confederate Privateer, armed with a Winchester Boarding Carbine—which is fitted with an axe; a black-cloaked Night Ranger sharpshooter complete with starlight goggles; and a Bombardier of the Confederate Aeronautics Corps, whose mini-dirigibles are used for reconnaissance and raids, the latter including the famous bombing of the White House in 1864.

When not facing off against each other, the Union and the Confederacy have pushed West in search of new territories and fresh resources, but these lands have not become known as the Disputed Territories for nothing. The Chiricahua Apache are caught between the Mexico and the Confederacy, maintaining a guerrilla campaign against both with surprisingly modern weaponry—perhaps supplied by the Union; similarly caught between the Union and the Confederacy, the Five Tribes Confederation has declared itself neutral, adopted their technology to protect itself, and become a conduit for banned goods in both nations; and perhaps most amazing of all are the Sky Hawks of the Hualpai tribe, scouts who construct winged suits which they use to glide off all trees and the lip of the Grand Canyon. Despite the disputed nature of the territories, there are individuals and organisations who seek their fortune in the West. They include injured soldiers using technology such as ‘Quick Draw’ rigs to turn gunslinger; the members of Norton’s Guards who continue the legacy of the late Joshua Norton, self-proclaimed Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico, by keeping the peace in fractious San Francisco with their non-lethal, electrical Franklin Baton; mining companies and couriers have purchased ex-military Land Ironclads to protect their operations from Indians, bandits, labour agitators, and others; and some have established independent polities, such as the Independent Kingdom of Jefferson.

The other nations of North America are also affected. In the far north-west, extensive Hephaestium strikes in Alaska has enhanced the importance of the territory to the Russian Empire and Canada to the British Empire, leading to a shift in the Great Game from India to the western frontier. Russia uses Alaska as a scientific and industrial laboratory, prototypes being developed with ruthless, often unchecked efficiency by her Imperial Army military commanders in the region, sometimes in secret facilities. There are rumours of deserters or test subjects fleeing from such facilities, leading to tales of wild men or ‘skoocooms’ in the woods and caves, tales often repeated, or at least embellished by dime novels. Canada’s military is stretched thin along her border, facing Russia in the west and both Fenian and Métis native rebels internally. This has led her to raise militia regiments, such as the Royal Regiment of Toronto Volunteers, to protect her borders and the North-West Mounted Police to turn to technology—such as multi-terrain tracked vehicles—to get their man. To the south, the Union aided Mexico in kicking out the French backed Imperial forces and establishing the Mexican Republic, much to the consternation of the Confederacy. Now the republic’s ports are blockaded by Confederacy backed privateers, they raid each other back and forth across the Rio Grande, while Mexico supplies the Banditos—outlaws and brigands—who worry the border regions and disputed territories, with advanced weaponry that it can often ill afford to hand out to anyone other than its underequipped soldiery. The best of Mexico’s armed forces, are the 1st Naval Brigade or ‘Los Tiburones’, trained by German advisors and equipped with the best that the Kaiser can provide. The ‘Los Tiburones’—or ‘The Sharks’ are deployed as naval assault troops, often tasked with capturing with the Confederacy backed privateers.

Of course, this is all a conceit. For Steampunk Soldiers: The American Frontier is, like its forebear, a collection of artwork by the forgotten British artist, Miles Vandercroft, who travelled Europe and North America, sketching and painting the soldiery of the age. It develops the guide to the vivid and striking uniforms worn by the armies and the steam-powered weaponry and equipment fielded by these armies in the years between the fall of the meteors and the Great War of the Worlds previously seen in Steampunk Soldiers: Uniforms & Weapons from the Age of Steam. Of course, it is not this, but a second pictorial guide to a past that never was, beautifully depicted in a series of colour plates having been ‘rediscovered’ and collected in a second handsome book published by Osprey Books under its Osprey Adventures line. There is not so much pomp and pageantry in these images, which have a rougher quality, reflecting roughness of the frontier and beyond.

As with Steampunk Soldiers: Uniforms & Weapons from the Age of Steam, the problem with Steampunk Soldiers: The American Frontier is that leaves the reader either wanting more information or wanting to take its content and develop into a setting of his devising, whether a wargaming or a roleplaying setting. There are no suggestions to end given in Steampunk Soldiers: The American Frontier. Despite this, Steampunk Soldiers: The American Frontier is a beautiful hardback, full of intriguing detail, awaiting the reader to develop into something playable on the table.

Wolves on the Border

As its title suggests Time of the Wolves: An epic saga for the Age of Arthur roleplaying game is a campaign for the Age of Arthur roleplaying game. Published by Wordplay Games, Age of Arthur – Dark ages roleplaying powered by Fate—though written for use with an earlier itteration of the rules, both Time of the Wolves and Age of Arthur can work with FATE Core—is a gritty, Dark Ages-set Arthurian roleplaying game which presents a more historical approach to the Arthurian legend in comparison to the romantic approach taken by the classic King Arthur: Pendragon roleplaying game. Both are equally valid approaches to the Arthurian legend, but King Arthur: Pendragon is—and remains—the preeminent roleplaying treatment  of the genre, and rightly so. The historicity of Age of Arthur means that it does not quite have the grand sweep that King Arthur: Pendragon and The Great Pendragon Campaign together possess, but it does mean that there is greater scope for player character action and influence over a campaign.

Set in the Kingdom of Ebrauc—roughly equivalent to Yorkshire—Time of the Wolves presents four linked adventures which see a band of heroes attempt to stave off an invasion by Angles which threatens the kingdom. Ebrauc is not the only place facing the threat of invasion. King Wehha of the Wuffingas, ruler of the recently founded Kingdom of the Angles, has designs on the nearby city of Lindum as much as he does Ebrauc and has set a competition for his sons to impress him by capturing both. In the course of the campaign, the heroes will encounter treachery and greed, honour and ambition, Fae magic and Saxon magic, and more. The fate of Lindum and Ebrauc lies in their hands.

It opens with ‘Hammer to Fall’, in which the heroes are in Lindum, a city whose strategy in dealing with the threat of the Angles is to hire mercenaries—including Angle mercenaries—for protection and pay tribute to King Wehha. This has only put a temporary hold on the Angles’ ambitions and perhaps an opportunity has arisen with the news that pay for the mercenaries in Lindum’s employ has gone missing. The heroes are asked to investigate the loss and the process must deal with mercenary bands, hold off the approaching Angles, and somehow find a way of funding the city’s defence.

Yet as the heroes work to save Lindum, the Angles make a move elsewhere. In part two, ‘Play the Game’, news comes to them that the heir to Ebrauc has been struck down and lies dying whilst the command of his troops has passed to a cousin. He proves ill-suited to command and even when it becomes apparent that the heir has been poisoned, he inadvertently impedes the heroes’ search for a cure. This takes the heroes off into Britain’s wilder realms where the GM gets to portray some fun NPCs and the heroes get to step up to the stage. They should earn a favour by the end of the scenario, but also owe one in readiness for ‘Put Out the Fire’, wherein the heroes must travel north to pay it back. This third part is mostly a journey, but it does present the heroes with a question of honour when they return.

The last part is ‘Friends Will Be Friends’. Ebrauc’s situation looks perilous. The Angles have finally gathered enough enough forces to make their attack and the kingdom just does not enough men at its command to withstand their onslaught. The heroes must make one last desperate effort to bolster their forces before the invaders attack. This involves negotiation with an Angle Thane and his fearsome bodyguard and is a good opportunity for some roleplaying prior to the campaign’s climatic showdown between Ebrauc and the Angles. This allows the GM to bring all of the Angles’ forces to bear, including great magic and skin changing warriors, but there are opportunities for the heroes to counter these aspects and make the situation just a little less challenging… This is a suitably rousing climax to the campaign and hopefully, a chance for the make Lindum and Ebrauc safe for a few more years...

Although Time of the Wolves can be played with characters of the players’ design, it really benefits if these characters have ties to Ebrauc and Lindum as this will mean that they can better interact with the Aspects for both the campaign’s locations and NPCs. To that end, the campaign provides four pre-generated heroes. They include an illegitimate prince of Ebrauc and war leader, a druid in service to Ebrauc, the ambitious daughter of the Prefect of Lindum, and an ex-bandit in the permanent service of said daughter of the Prefect of Lindum. The characters are nicely tied to each other and the setting, so that they really have a stake in the future of the region. Of the four, the bandit has the weakest ties to the campaign, but they are all four very playable with Aspects that will bring the campaign to life.

One issue with the campaign is the problem with travelling. Time of the Wolves does involve quite a lot of travel and on almost every journey the heroes are attacked or ambushed by bandits or Angle warriors. The GM may want to vary these a little.

Physically, Time of the Wolves is a digest-sized hardback, done in full colour. It is lightly illustrated, but the artwork is excellent, being full colour paintings. The pre-generated hero portraits are particularly good. Likewise, the maps are done in full colour and very attractive pieces. The writing is clear, but perhaps it could have been slightly better organised within the various chapters so that some of the plot information could have been made a little more obvious. Some of it does appear after the NPC it relates to is presented. That said, the plots are not that complex anyway, but it makes finding the information not quite as easy as it should. Overall, Time of the Wolves looks great and it looks far more professional than a small press release has any right to do.

If you already have a copy of Age of Arthur, then Time of the Wolves is a perfect addition. It showcases the perilous situation in which post-Roman Britain finds itself and the efforts its peoples are making to hold off the impending threat from across the North Sea. It also showcases how to bring forth the storytelling possibilities of the setting and the Aspects of both this setting and the characters. It is also a good showcase for Fate and how it works, so if you wanted to try Fate, then Time of the Wolves with Age of Arthur is a really strong combination. Time of the Wolves is a good campaign, but it gets better when the character Aspects involve them in the narrative.

The Tools of FATE

The FATE System Toolkit is part of the sextet of books funded via Kickstarter for FATE Core, the newest version of Evil Hat Games’ ENNIE award winning light and cinematic generic RPG first seen in Spirit of the Century back in 2006. It began life as the guide to magic for FATE Core, but as the Kickstarter grew and grew, things kept getting added to it, many of which have nothing to do with magic. In each and every case, the FATE System Toolkit asks what the GM wants the new rule or approach to the rules to do and how it fits into the game. It never mandates that its solutions are how something should be done, but rather how the mechanics can be ‘hacked’ to get it done. As it states up front, the FATE System Toolkit is not ‘the’ toolkit for FATE Core, but ‘a’ toolkit for FATE Core. In other words, “Here is how you could do it” rather than “Here is how you should do it”.

In keeping with the Bronze Rule in FATE Core—that anything can be treated as a character—the first things that the FATE System Toolkit looks at are Aspects, Skills, and Stunts. Aspects underpin FATE Core and here we get a range of suggestions as what else they can do in addition to the options given in the main rulebook. This includes invoking them for effect rather than a bonus to a roll, such as a dwarf where he is underground and knows which way is North; detonating situation Aspects, that is going from ‘Weak Structural Integrity’ to ‘Collapsing Bridge’; representing quests as Aspects, for example, ‘Sabotage the Imperial Annihilation Station’; and making gear important by giving it Aspects, such as ‘Brutal Orc Cleaver’.  Skills are given a similar range of options, ranging from Professions as Skills or replacing Skills completely with adjectives that describe how a character does something, like Forceful, Graceful, Clever, or Resolute, to working into modes or bundles and even replacing them totally with Aspects. Modes package the skills into bundles for easy character generation and give bonuses to skills that duplicated between bundles. This is one of the options to replace FATE Core’s Skill Pyramid and enables a GM to design modes to fit particular genres or campaigns. Stunts receive a similar if much shorter treatment, including tying them to Aspects or gear rather than Skills, having pre-requisites—much like there was in Spirit of the Century, and so on.

The original way in which the hobby categorised characters is looked at in ‘The Big Game’ rather than campaigns as a whole. So we are shown a way to do Class and Race with Professions such as Fighter or Thief and Races like Elf or Orc. Both are packages that emulate an older style of game as much as FATE Core can. These come with an interesting side note that explains what we mean by Race in game terms. The new Origin Story method of character creation uses flashbacks rather than necessarily forging connections between the characters as per the FATE Core book whilst the Bronze Rule is applied to a scenario structure to use Aspects as the framework, a list of events leading to a crescendo that if reached means that the bad guys are winning! Special Circumstances covers particular situations, for chases which can be designed as challenges or contests and handling motivations and instincts in social interaction, whilst the section of Customized Tools is more a collection of odds and sods, from getting into the nitty gritty of Stress, Consequences,  Zones, and Refresh to creating your own FATE dice.

Given its original purpose, it is surprising that the FATE System Toolkit devotes less than half of its pages to its original purpose—magic. Even then it devotes more of those pages to examples than it does to discussing how to build magic systems for FATE Core. This starts out with what the magic system is designed to do and what its aims are before specifically looking at its tone, source, availability, cost, and limits. Once their ramifications are discussed, it looks at how magic can be modelled through the use of Aspects, Skills, and Stunts. Over all, it does not amount to more than a few pages, but they are a thoughtful few pages, prompting the GM to think about his intended design.

So where the section is lengthy is in its examples—and really good examples they prove to be. Stormcallers power their ambitions by tapping into the five Great Storms raging at the heart of creation—Earthquake, Flood, Glacier, Inferno, and Thunder, whilst Storm Summoners conjure the elementals of these storms to do their bidding. Each example can be used independently, but they nicely go together with the Stormcallers being a development of the magic system in Evil Hat Games’ The Dresden Files RPG. Thematically, The Six Viziers is a ‘Great Steppes of Russia’ inspired system where the characters are marked with a tattoo of one of the great constellations—or Viziers—in the sky and are thus capable of great actions with their skills. In comparison, The Subtle Art opts for the understated effect, that is, the placing of temporary blessings and curses—or Aspects—upon a target. It has a much grittier feel than the other example systems. All of these magic systems are great, but the highlight is Voidcallers, essentially the black, black magic version of the Stormcallers. Instead of tapping into an elemental storm, a Voidcaller draws on the Void for aid and ‘great power’, but this comes with consequences—consequences of the GM’s choosing. This begs to be used as the basis for ‘things mankind is not meant to know’ campaign and as written does not necessarily come with tentacular trappings, but there is nothing to stop a GM from adding these if so desired. Accompanying each of the worked examples is a ‘30-Second Version’ that summarises the system in easy to digest thumbnail fashion. Very useful—and that is before you get to the full details which beg to developed into a fuller setting.

Rounding out the FATE System Toolkit is a set of subsystems, ones that enable the GM to take his game into different directions and enable him to do different things in his game. These include Kung Fu, Cyberware, Gadgets, Monsters, military Squads and Mass Battles, Swashbuckling Duels, Vehicles, Superheroics, and Horror games. Of these, Kung Fu has been more recently done for the Wuxia genre with the alternate takes given in Tianxia: Blood, Silk, & Jade and Jadepunk: Tales of Kausao City. Military Squads and Mass Battles are handled as characters and character-versus-character—as per the Bronze Rule that turns everything into characters—just as you would expect, whilst the Monster rules  do a good job of handling Very Large Monsters across multiple zones. So good for fighting truly big dragons, kaijū, or monsters like those of the computer game, Shadow of the Colossus. The Duelling subsystem works in a similar fashion, enabling characters to swashbuckle back and forth across zones as well as giving advantage to the duellist who makes the best use of the terrain in each of the zones in addition to their opponent’s psychology. Both the Cyberware and Gadgets subsystems enable characters to build great devices, that is with advantages and weaknesses, whilst the Vehicles subsystem calls for the characters to emotionally invest in their joint-owned Mystery Van/Firefly class spaceship/Babylon 5.

Lastly, the FATE System Toolkit suggests ways in which FATE Core can do horror, a genre that it admits that it is ill equipped to handle. By turning up the Compels for an Oppressive Atmosphere, turning up the difficulty of any obstacles for Impossible Circumstances, and turning down player character resources—fate points, stress, and consequences—for Stark Desperation, the FATE System Toolkit shows how FATE Core could do horror, especially the more cosmic horror of Lovecraft’s works. These suggestions would also work nicely with the Voidcaller magic system given as an example earlier in the book.

Physically, the FATE System Toolkit is a sturdy hardback. It is well written, cleanly presented, and illustrated with some excellent artwork. This though, does not mean that it is without issue. Most RPGs involve one or more elements of the technical. Indeed the roleplaying game can be best described as ‘technical fiction’, their requiring technical information—or rules—to help the GM and his players participate in the fiction or setting. The FATE System Toolkit is more technical than fiction, which means that it is probably drier than most RPG supplements. Which does mean that FATE System Toolkit is not always the most engaging of reads and it explains why it took this reviewer more than one attempt to read through it, but to be fair, that is as much an issue with this reviewer as it is the book. In fact, it is probably more the former than the latter given that ideas in the FATE System Toolkit gives are imaginative and fun. There are, undeniably, great ideas in the FATE System Toolkit for adding this or that to a FATE Core game as well as, of course, for tinkering with different elements of said FATE Core game.

The rules and mechanics to almost every roleplaying game are written in stone. Their designers will doubtless note in the forward to said game that the game and thus the rules you have are now yours and can tinkered with or played the way that you want. Then they leave all of the effort making and implementing those changes up to you. Not so the designers of FATE Core. They give you a book that is entirely devoted to thinking about and implementing those changes to make FATE Core your game. Then they give you examples. Really good examples.

You never need anything more than FATE Core to run or create a FATE game, but the FATE System Toolkit may well be ever so useful when the GM and his players come to do so. The FATE System Toolkit is a thoughtful tinkerer’s guide to getting under the hood of FATE Core.

Final Fantasy FATE

In 2014 we were lucky enough to get not one, but two Wuxia RPGs, both of them powered by Evil Hat Productions’ FATE Core. The first was Vigilance Press’ Tianxia: Blood, Silk, & Jade, a traditional Chinese fantasy of honour and martial arts at the furthest edge of the Divine Realm. The second is Jadepunk: Tales From Kausao City, an RPG that combines martial arts and honour with elements of the steampunk and Western genres.
Published by Reroll Productions after a successful Kickstarter campaign, Jadepunk: Tales From Kausao City casts the player characters as members of the Jianghu, folk heroes rebelling against the Council of Nine, the oppressive, corrupt government of Kausao City. Little more than a century old, Kausao City is the greatest and richest city in the world, its power and economy based upon its vast deposits of jade—especially black jade. For it is jade, once refined, that underlies the technology of the world. Green jade is used to strengthen and fortify swords, armour, and tools; red jade is used to power engines, firearms, and explosives; blue jade is used for preserving, water engines, and working with ice; white jade is used to defy gravity and lighten devices as well as for lens; and lastly, the rarest of them all, black jade, is used for working with electricity and signals transmissions, although its full possibilities have yet to be discovered. All types of jade can also be used in concoctions and potions to various effects. Examples of Jadetech include dirigible airships, red jade cannons and six-shooters, tattoos that enhance perception amongst other things, demalian green-jade infused steel blades, and data processing devices. Many of these devices also involve clockwork or steam engines.

Kausao City’s status as the ‘centre of the world’ is not only ensured by its wealth, but also by the backing of the four great nations that maintain controlling interests in the city. They are The Aerum Empire, an industrious and mountainous European-like country, known for its inventions, airships, and arrogance; Kaiyu, a Japan-like archipelago whose people highly value their honour; Naramel, a Middle East-like desert country known for its nomads, bankers, and negotiators; and Tuyang, a China-like empire whose people are haughty if learned and who are renowned for their skill with alchemy and tattoos. In particular, the four great nations support the current governor, who has held the post for twenty years—despite there supposed to be an election every five—and who rules with a jade-infused fist.Under the governor’s rule, the people labour for little reward, have little recourse to the law, and almost no chance of bettering themselves. For the rich it is a different matter, but to keep the people in their place, the owning of weapons has been outlawed, as has the study of martial arts. Yet, overworked and downtrodden, the teeming masses who survive and work in Kausao City have at last found hope—the Jianghu. Consisting of a body of men and women who are prepared to flaunt the governor’s strictures on weapons and martial arts, those of the Jianghu are prepared to step forward and defend and fight for the people. To the governor and the city watch, they are criminals and rebels, but to the downtrodden poor, they are folk heroes.

There is a no limit as to what characters can be in  Jadepunk: Tales From Kausao City. As long as they believe in the aims of the Jianghu and the good of the people, they can be ex-members of the city guard or watch, Jadetech engineers, smugglers with hearts of gold, martial artists, airship captains, gunslingers armed with Jadetech sixshooters, and more… As with other FATE Core games, character creation involves deciding on a High Concept—or Portrayal as it is termed in Jadepunk—and assigning Aspects and Professions, before designing one or more Assets. A character then receives an Aspect each for his Background, his Inciting Incident—what drove them to join the Jianghu, his Belief, and his Trouble. He assigns set values to the six Professions: Aristocrat—social skills and standing, Engineer—fixing, building, and sabotaging technology and devices of all types, Explorer—movement and physical activities, Fighter—combat of all sorts, Scholar—knowledge and research, and Scoundrel—sneaking and deception. Essentially the Professions replace skills in other FATE Core settings, but there are fewer of them and they are very broad in nature. Lastly the Assets for a character need to be defined. Unlike the Portrayal and Aspects, these are more tightly designed, and can range from personal possessions and allies to devices and techniques, the latter a catchall Asset that might be special training, years of experience, natural talent, so on. So it could be a daisho of demalian green-jade infused steel, a former colleague in the City Watch, an airship, martial arts training, graduation from a university, deft fingers, and so on. Every Asset has a flaw, but they can also be made more powerful by expending further points of Refresh, the resource that determines how many FATE points—used to power Aspects—a player character has from one session to the next.

Name: Xiang Leung
Portrayal:  Ambitious AlchemistBackground: Sacrificed all for his apprenticeship
Inciting Incident: My master was murdered for his secretsBelief: An alchemical solution for every problemTrouble: I am wanted for murderProfessions: Engineer (+3); Scholar, Aristocrat (+2); Explorer, Fighter, Scoundrel (+1)
Asset: Exceptional Alchemist
Type: Technique
Features: Focus 2 (+2 to Engineer rolls)
Flaws: Situational (When applied to alchemical engineering)
Cost: 1 

The setting itself, Kausao City and beyond, is described in relatively broad details rather than in particulars. The aim here is not quite to give the GM a complete and ready to play setting as such, but rather allow the GM room to add the detail himself together with his players and thus create their own version of Jadepunk. A prime example of this is the identity of the Governor. His exact identity and thus his nationality is important, because this determines the most influential nation in the city. This does not mean though that there is not enough for the GM or the players to game with in Jadepunk: Tales From Kausao City, yet what it could have done with is more Aspects for the setting—whether for Kausao City or the great and other nations, for example—for the GM and the players to invoke and compel.

Physically, Jadepunk: Tales From Kausao City is a decent looking book that benefits from several very nice pieces of art that contribute towards its oriental feel and setting. The map is more representative than detailed and it does feel as if it could benefit from being bigger and clearer. For the most part, the writing is reasonable, but in places it is jaw-clenchingly execrable. For example:

"Kaiyu Lands: The Kaiyu Islands are comprised of hundreds of paradisiacal, tropical islands of various sizes on the far side of a perpetually violent ocean. For centuries the Kaiyu were forced into isolation due to the impassability of the Storm Sea, which was exacerbated by the violent winds that sweep through through the rocky cliffs that line the shores of islands around the Funarino Channel, a treacherous, quick-moving wide strip of water that spans the length of the thousand-mile archipelago."

These poor lines were almost enough to make me put the book down and stop reading it. Fortunately, the style settles down into something that more than readable after the descriptions of the various great nations.

Since Jadepunk: Tales From Kausao City has been written to be used with FATE Core or the FATE Accelerated Edition, it will be easy to pick up anyone who plays FATE. That said, there is still some decent advice on running the game for the GM, and if the GM and players are familiar at all with FATE Core then their Jadepunk could be run without the need for recourse to the rulebook. Also, given that Jadepunk: Tales From Kausao City is a wuxia setting, it bears comparison with the other FATE Core wuxia setting, Tianxia: Blood, Silk, & Jade. In that comparison, Jadepunk is the lighter of the two, broader in its detail, and broader in the number of genres that it encompasses. Tianxia is more detailed and more focused, much more of a martial arts game, but both share a by default lack of the outré or of magic. Of course, there is nothing to stop a GM from working to combine the two.

Despite its broad swathes of detail, the setting for Jadepunk: Tales From Kausao City feels very playable. A mix of familiar genres—wuxia, steampunk, and the Wild West—makes the game very accessible, as does the setting, which hint at an Dickensian version of a far eastern city like Hong Kong or Shanghai. There is another setting that Jadepunk: Tales From Kausao City feels like the computer RPG, Final Fantasy VII. It is not an exact match of course, but elements such as a single large city, a monorail, the city guard, large areas of wilderness, and so on, do echo aspects of that computer RPG.

Above all Jadepunk: Tales From Kausao City is a light, accessible setting, one that pleasingly blends and balances its genres  to leave room for the player characters to be the heroes.

—oOo—

Note: After taking advice, this review was amended on Monday, August 10th, 2015, to include an example of the text from Jadepunk: Tales from Kausao City that were found to be execrable. It has been included to support the use of the word, ‘execrable’ which has caused offence in some quarters. No offence was intended, but I stand by the use of ‘execrable’.

The FATE of Wuxia

Out to the west lies Jiāngzhōu, the ‘border land’ on the edge of the ‘Divine Realm’ that is Shénzhōu. Far from the capital, this province is a place of banditry, gangsters, and corruption that preys not only on the local populace, but also the merchants that travel along the Jade Road and the Silk River. In response, the merchants have formed trade houses and hire security companies to protect their interests—interests that sometimes extend beyond the simply mercantile. Pirates, like the Blue Carp Brotherhood, led by the infamous pirate king, Fish-Eye Cheng, prey upon the boats moving up and down the Silk River; Five Demon Forest is known to be a haven for bandits and thieves, but is reputed to be haunted too; and perhaps the best place to meet famous fighters, soldiers, and wandering warriors in Băo Jiāng, the ‘Jewel of Jiāngzhōu’ that is the province’s biggest trading city, is the Drunken Dragon Inn, Playhouse, and Bath. Such a place has become an important meeting place because Jiāngzhōu is also home to the Wuxia, the ‘Wandering Swordsmen’ and ‘Knight Errants’ who lead lives often independent of society. Many are mercenaries, some follow their own paths, but all seek to become masters of Kung Fu.

This is the setting for Tianxia: Blood, Silk, & Jade, a Wuxia RPG setting in which chivalrous knights travel the byways and rivers of a province of a China that never was, righting and redressing wrongs, fighting for righteous, thwarting oppression, and seeking retribution for misdeeds. Published by Vigilance Press after a successful Kickstarter, Tianxia combines martial arts and cinematic action to tell stories in the vein of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Hero, and Romance of the Three Kingdoms. It is powered by Evil Hat Games’ FATE Core, a generic system that is light in tone and more than suited to cinematic action that relies upon the narrative input of the players—and Tianxia: Blood, Silk, & Jade gives the means to do that Wuxia style.

As per the FATE Core rules, characters in Tianxia are still defined by their Aspects, Skills, and Stunts. Changes to these—and indeed to the FATE Core rules—are kept to a minimum. They include the addition of a new skill, Chi, used to regain focus and overcome distractions, to create temporary Aspects that complement Kung Fu manoeuvres, to withstand magical attacks, and so on, as well as suggestions as to what to rename the existing skills to better fit the setting.

More than anything in Tianxia though, characters are defined by their martial arts style. Each martial arts style consists two substyles—element and body. With six element substyles—forest, ghost, iron, lightning, stone, and storm, and six body substyles—crane, dragon, monkey, phoenix, serpent, and tiger, Tianxia gives a total of thirty-six martial arts styles. Each sub-style provides three techniques, so every style has six techniques plus a lost technique which can only be learnt once the others have been also been learned. Once all seven techniques have been learned, a practitioner is said to have mastered that style.

Picking a style will go some way to defining a character. Want to turn the whole of the field of the battle—including your opponents—to your advantage? Then select Forest Monkey. The Lightning Tiger style relies on hard strikes at range or up close, but movement for defense, whilst Stone Crane emphasises defensive blocks combined with a solid stance. The range of styles available also means that the average starting group is unlikely to share the same styles, although overlaps in terms of element and body is possible—and will become more likely as a campaign progresses. In addition there are several lost techniques are given that a character might learn, research, or indeed create himself. Some of the styles and the way they interact are nicely illustrated with a full example of play using a set of sample characters.

Our sample character is a Tax Inspector, a recent graduate considered to be too much trouble to have in the capital despite having graduated with top marks in his examinations. He is too attentive, too assiduous when interpreting the law, and as good as he is at his job, he is regarded as a fool. Thus he has been dispatched to Jiāngzhōu, ostensibly to ensure that the taxes are collected from a slightly wayward province. Either he will be successful and learn some judgment, or he will annoy the wrong person and be assassinated, or simply he will fail. Either way, Ning is out of everyone’s hair for the moment and someone else’s problem.

Ning Choi-san

High Concept (Aspect): Incorruptible Tax Inspector

Trouble (Aspect): Every errand needs a fool

Aspects: Numbers never lie, There are always lessons to be learned, Honour the ancestors

Stunts: Time to hit the scrolls, The quill is mightier..., Not sure I should be here!

Skills: Lore (Great +4); Investigate, Will (Good +3); Chi, Fight, Rapport (Fair +2); Athletics, Crafts, Physique, Resources (Average +1)

Physical Stress (Physique): 1 2 3

Mental Stress (Will): 1 2 3 4

Refresh Rate: 3 Fate Points: 3

Jianghu Rank: 1

Kung Fu Style: Iron Crane Form

Crane Hides in Reeds: Add an additional +2 bonus when in Full Defence to defend yourself in combat. If used to defend others, gain 2 Armour instead.

Mechanically, there is nothing to stop a character from learning techniques from more than the one style; story-wise it may be well be another matter. Learning and mastering more techniques and styles will increase a character's Jianghu rank, with  practitioners of a higher rank having advantages in terms of movement and actions when facing those of a lesser rank, particularly when facing mobs. Instead of a mob being a means to inflict damage on an opponent, in Tianxia it more becomes a timing tool, a narrative device to speed up or slow down the players’ progress . 

If there is a limitation to the martial arts rules in Tianxia it is that they focus purely on hand-to-hand combat and styles, so there are no styles for using melee weapons, missile weapons, or indeed firearms. Of course there is nothing to stop a character creating a signature weapon—as per the core FATE Core rules, but nevertheless the martial arts styles in Tianxia are resolutely hand-to-hand based. The lack of firearms is understandable given that in Shénzhōu gunpowder is only used in rockets and fireworks and as explosives. So no firearms, but the lack of styles for melee and missile weapons is at odds with the genre and many of the setting’s inspirations. That said, there are suggestions as to how they might be handled, but that is all that they are, suggestions.

The setting of Jiāngzhōu is rather broadly drawn, with little more than a handful or two of locations and NPCs being detailed. They include plenty of Aspects for the player characters to bounce off and for the GM to use as inspiration. This paucity of locations and NPCs is intentional though, because it leaves space and more for the GM to create and and detail himself. Most notable of these are the number and types of Kung-Fu schools, but again this is intentional, the GM being given room to develop them himself, in part based upon the styles employed by the player characters. That said, an example or two would not have gone amiss.

For the GM there are optional rules allow for faster fights; a guide to applying The Bronze Rule, that is, turning anything and everything into a ‘character’ so that it can be modelled using FATE Core; and a discussion of the game’s core genre elements in play. The Bronze Rule is supported by examples including mysteries, kung fu challenges, epidemics and ailments, corrupt Chi, whilst the genre elements discussed include ‘One person can make the difference, good or bad’, ‘Heroic isn’t always good’, ‘The best rewards do not always glitter’, ‘Equipment is always important’, and ‘It’s okay to lose, and sometimes you will’. Of these ‘Equipment is always important’ looks a little odd in the context of Tianxia because it is a game where equipment is not intrinsically important. Here though equipment is important because it tells so much about a character, whether player character or NPC. How well he dresses, whether he carries a broken sword, or whips out poison darts all tell much about a character.

Broader campaign advice suggests Campaign Aspects for the various Wuxia subgenres—comedy, epic, horror, romance, and so on. These, for example ‘Death isn’t funny… misfortune is’ for comedy and ‘Duty is the enemy of romance’ for romance, can be tagged like any other Aspect in the game, but these help enforce the feel of the game. Similar sections examine relationship triangles in the Wuxia genre and applying ‘Interesting times’ to a campaign. More specifically, the GM is provided with a lists of formidable opponents, dangerous mobs, and fierce creatures, the latter also including an option for the players to choose animals as their player characters. Rounding the section for the GM is a set of decent adventure seeds, each including more NPCs.

The setting of Jiāngzhōu is rather broadly drawn, with little more than a handful or two of locations and NPCs being detailed.This though, is intentional, because it leaves space and more for the GM to create and and detail himself. Most notable of these are the number and types of Kung-Fu schools, but again this is intentional, the GM being given room to develop them himself, in part based upon the styles employed by the player characters. That said, an example or two would not have gone amiss.

Physically, Tianxia: Blood, Silk, & Jade is pleasingly presented full colour hardback with bright artwork and some engaging colour fiction. That said, the book does feel slightly spacious in places, almost as if a slightly smaller book had been spread out to fit a larger book.

Tianxia: Blood, Silk, & Jade is not quite perfect. It is missing a decent treatment of martial arts weaponry and the setting could be said to be too broadly drawn, though to be fair, the former does not fall within the remit of the game and the latter is by design. That aside, what Tianxia: Blood, Silk, & Jade sets out to do, it does very well. It is accessible, it presents a solidly playable set of martial arts rules, and FATE Core supports the type of cinematic action that Wuxia calls for with just about the right amount of detail. In a very many way, Tianxia: Blood, Silk, & Jade is the Wuxia RPG I have always wanted.

A Shared Fate

The truth is that generic RPGs are not exactly interesting to review. They lack flavour, they lack the substance of a background that is usually the reason to buy into a RPG, and mechanics are never the most enticing thing to write or read about. Well, okay, but what you are reviewing when it comes to the generic RPG is its tone, the type of game it supports, and of course, its mechanics. So Steve Jackson Games’ GURPS is a mechanically detailed game with a realistic tone whereas Savage Worlds from Pinnacle Entertainment Group is broader in terms of tone and mechanics that particularly supports pulp action. Both are traditional RPGs in that they require a GM who creates the world and serves as the gatekeeper through which the players act and learn about the world. So what then of FATE Core, a more recent generic RPG?

Published by Evil Hat Games, FATE came to prominence in 2006 with the publication of the pulp action RPG, Spirit of the Century. It is a storytelling style RPG in which the player characters are competent and capable, and above all lead dramatic lives. The default game—other FATE-powered RPGs with their own settings do not necessarily require this—involves shared world building duties between the players and the GM. This is part of character generation, done through the creation of Aspects, the equivalent in FATE of advantages and disadvantages. Play is similarly collaborative, as players and GM alike can invoke and compel everyone’s Aspects to bring drama to the game. Above all, the task of both GM and players alike is to “make everyone around look awesome.”

The latest iteration of the game, the ENNIE Award-winning FATE Core was funded via Kickstarter and comes as a handsome digest-sized hardback. It is well-written, the content is clear and easy to understand, and it is engagingly illustrated. The illustrations primarily consist of kung-fu cyber-gorillas, magic cops, and the trio of characters—Landon (swordsman and ‘Discipline of the Ivory Shroud’), Cynere (‘An honorable thief with a fast blade’), and Zird the Arcane (‘Wizard for Hire’)—that together with their setting form the basis of the examples throughout the book. 

In honour of this artwork, our sample character is a combination of the magic cop and the kung-fu gorilla. Archibald  ‘Mourning Archie’ Maugham is a cop with the New Orleans police department, in a world where there is magic and there are intelligent gorillas and monkeys. 

Archibald  ‘Mourning Archie’ Maugham
High Concept (Aspect): Magic-Monkey on a Mission
Trouble (Aspect): Monkey in a man’s world
Aspects: Manners maketh the monkey, Should a monkey meddle in magic?, An eye for the ladies
Stunts: A good gorilla is hard to keep down, A gorilla’s grip, Just the facts, ma’am
Skills: Physique (Great +4); Investigate, Contacts (Good +3); Fight, Magic, Notice (Fair +2); Athletics, Rapport, Shoot, Will (Average +1)
Physical Stress (Physique): 1 2 3 4
Mental Stress (Will): 1 2 3
Refresh Rate: 3 Fate Points: 3

As can be seen by this example, characters are defined by their Aspects, Skills, and Stunts. Aspects describe elements of a character and to work effectively, they need to be double-edged, that is, each should be both an advantage or a disadvantage. For example, the Aspect ‘An eye for the ladies’ could be used as an Advantage to spot a particular woman in a crowd or a bonus to seduction attempts, but as a Disadvantage, it would mean that the character would be easily distracted in female company. In play, an Aspect is Invoked by the player to gain an advantageous bonus or a reroll, but Compelled to trigger its disadvantageous elements. It costs a player a Fate point to Invoke an Aspect, but he will gain a Fate point if the Aspect is Compelled. (A Compel can be resisted by a player, but this costs him a Fate point).

So for example, Archie is chasing Flyss the dip, a well-known pickpocket who frequents high class joints. With a flash of his badge he gets into the Cat’s Pajamas, a nightspot where Flyss is sometimes seen. He scans the crowd and will use his Notice skill of +2 (Fair) to spot the miscreant, but the GM knows that Flyss knows how to work the crowd and sets the difficulty at +3 (Good). This is not an easy roll, so Archie’s player Invokes one of his Aspects—‘An eye for the ladies’—to gain a +2 on the roll.

Conversely, instead of Archie’s player Invoking ‘An eye for the ladies’, the GM could Compel the Aspect. Were this to happen, Archie would charge into the Cat’s Pajamas and get distracted by the other pretty ladies in the joint so he fails to see Flyss slip out of the back door. In this, ‘An eye for the ladies’ has worked as a disadvantage, so why would Archie’s player let this happen? Well, for two reasons. First, because it earns Archie a Fate point, and second, because it is interesting and it contributes towards the drama.

Stunts provide advantages or bonuses under certain circumstances, usually to skills. Skills simply provide a bonus to skill rolls, there being a limited number of broad skills in the game. Where a character lacks a skill, he simply has it at Mediocre or +0.

Mechanically, whenever a player wants to undertake an action, he selects a skill and rolls four Fudge dice—FATE having originally been derived from the Fudge RPG mechanics—special six-sided dice, each of which has two faces marked with a ‘+’ symbol, two faces marked with a ‘–’ symbol, and two faces left blank. The ‘+’ and ‘–’ symbols cancel each out and the blank faces add nothing, so the results range simply between +4 and –4. The result is added to the player’s skill, aim being to beat a target set by the GM, an Average target being +1, a Fair target being +2, and so on, the targets matching the skill values in terms of progression. Should a player’s result match the target, then he succeeds at a cost; if the result is one or two points or shifts above the target, he simply succeeds; and if the result is three or more  shifts, he succeeds with style. In combat, shifts usually represent damage inflicted upon a target, but should a character succeed with style, then he can place a temporary Aspect in play, that can either be used once and then it is lost, or used once for free with subsequent uses requiring a Fate point to be expended.

For example, Archie has finally tracked down Flyss to her apartment, only to find that it is alight and burning furiously. He charges in to get his quarry out, only to discover that Flyss does not live alone. Now he not only has to rescue her, but also her roommates! As the building collapses around him, Archie’s player makes a Physique check against a difficulty of +2 (Fair) to hold up a support long enough for the girls to get out. He rolls ‘+’, ‘+’, ‘+’, and ‘–’ for a total of +3, which when added to his Physique gives a result of +7, which when compared to the target grants Archer five shifts! Archie’s player gets to set up two advantages at a cost of two shifts each. First, he buys ‘No-one gutsier than a gorilla’, essentially a temporary reputation, but second, he buys ‘I pulled your ass from the fire’, which he plans to Invoke when he interrogates Flyss.

Aspects like this can be set up on locations, objects, on NPCs, and on player characters, and then during play both the players and the GM can interact with them, Invoking and Compelling as necessary. Similarly, the GM can design and create places, people, and things all with the simple use of Aspects that get to the core of anything that he designs and creates, and again these can be Invoked or Compelled as part of FATE Core collaborative play. This collaborative element of the game begins before character creation, indeed it starts with the players sitting down with the GM and working together to create the world in which they want to play. This includes the genre, the campaign name, issues for the characters to face and deal with, and then locations and NPCs. From this the players can get an idea of their characters’ place in the world and what each wants to do before character generation. This in part is also collaborative, the players tying some of their character’s Aspects into previous experiences with each other. Should the players and GM know what they want, then it would be quite possible to create a world, characters, and the basis for a campaign just by sitting round the table and talking.

Further, Aspects are mutable. They can change as a game progresses and its events affect each of the players. Typically they come after a Milestone has been reached in a campaign, perhaps revealing thwarting the plot of a campaign’s villain, the greater the Milestone, the more that a player can change about his character. So for example, over the course of a campaign, Archie’s relationship with Flyss goes from cop and snitch to cop and contact to gorilla and girl, so perhaps the Aspect, ‘An eye for the ladies’ might become something like, ‘A girl for the gorilla’. In general though, FATE Core involves little in the way of character progression, skill improvement in particular, being slow and steady. The focus in FATE Core is the play and the drama, not gaining Experience Points, but a great touch is that alongside discussing player character progression, FATE Core looks at world progression, the idea being that both should go hand-in-hand. When you think about it, this is obvious, but it makes sense in as dramatic an RPG as FATE, that it should be an explicit point.

Mechanically, FATE Core is straightforward and not particularly complex—especially for the players. For the GM it is a slightly more complex game, but again not overly so. There is solid discussion of the mechanics and their nuts and bolts, of creating and running scenarios, and of designing and creating ‘Extras’, the elements that support a game, whether that is magic, cyberware, vehicles, and so on. This discussion of the rules and the mechanics is also supported by a discussion of how to run the game, but what it comes down to is a simple question, “What matters in this scene?” Answering this question should be dramatic and interesting—and it should have scope for equally dramatic and interesting failure.

In addition, it is easy to take FATE Core and use its mechanics to adapt the game, setting, film, book, or television series of your choice. Evil Hate Games has already done this with its The Dresden Files Roleplaying Game, but the simplicity of the game’s skills and the adaptability of its Aspects and stunts make this mechanically easy. 

Now this is all great, and FATE Core is a very readable set of rules, but FATE has a problem. It is not a fault intrinsic to FATE itself, but rather with what FATE is—a storytelling RPG. Arguably, every RPG involves storytelling, but FATE Core focuses on it in particular by shifting narrative control. For a quarter of a century, the RPG has followed the model mentioned at the beginning of the review, that is, a GM or DM serving as the gatekeeper for the world through which the player characters learn about and interact with said world. Coming out of the Indie School movement, FATE Core takes ‘aspects’ of the narrative away from the GM and hands them to the players and their characters. This can be seen at first in the collaborative process of creating the world, but shows most obviously in the use and application of Aspects. It further shows in the move away from the ‘yes/no’ binary mechanics of older non-narrative games, to mechanics where the mechanics not only give the ‘success/failure’ binary results, but also the results ‘succeed, but with consequences’ and ‘fail interestingly’. This is a shift in both play style and thinking. It takes adjustment.

In no way is this problem insurmountable and in no way is it an impediment to playing FATE. It is certainly not the fault of FATE itself, but of decades an ingrained play style, and for the players it is a matter of adjusting to thinking about how their characters interact with the world. It helps that FATE Core is well written and gives plenty of examples. It helps that FATE requires a GM, that it is not a wholly GM-less, narrative storytelling game, the distinction being that someone is still in charge, presenting the world, but that someone is someone the players interact with rather than work through. It helps even further that Evil Hat Games makes available FATE Accelerated, a much condensed, but still very playable version of the rules for the pocket-friendly sum of $5. Arguably worth each player having a copy.

At the beginning of the review, I stated that the generic RPG is all about its tone, the type of of game it supports, and its mechanics. FATE Core is light in tone, though like most generic RPGs the tone can be made much darker, depending upon the genre. Mechanically, FATE Core is definitely light and broad rather than detailed, veering towards the cinematic in style. The detail in FATE Core though is in the drama that comes out of its play with the use of Aspects. Its combination of a GM and narrative play elements, primarily its Aspects,that enable player input, arguably place FATE Core in between the traditional RPG and the GMless, narrative storytelling RPG, making it a highly accessible bridge between the two.

Steampunk Soldiery Spotter's Guide

After the Great Meteor Shower of 1862, the world would never be the same. For the meteorites contained a substance that turned out to be an incredible energy source—Hephaestium. Its discovery and refinement would lead to unprecedented technological development and innovation, each of the Great Powers harnessing both Hephaestium and the technological advances to their own ends. In particular, to protecting their empires! Thus Great Britain enhanced its railway network with the Ulster Bridge and Shetland Run, built the first circumnavigation cruisers, and of course, strengthened her Royal Navy. Bismark fielded first Prussia’s and then Germany’s new armoured Sturmtruppen and Kaiser-class armoured infantry in a lightening series of wars that saw him cow Denmark and then in turn defeat each of the little Germanic kingdoms, princedoms, duchies, and so on. While her domestic armies were often mutinous, France had great success in her colonies, for example, the Peugeot-built steam-powered exoskeleton-equipped Foreign Legion units lived up to their ‘March or die!’ motto in driving the Chinese out of Indochina in a counterattack that would be followed by an invasion of China in 1876. Russia experimented with both the chemical properties of Hephaestium and submarines, the Ottoman Empire with automatons derived from German designs, the Austro-Hungarian Empire lured Nicolai Tesla back to develop a variety of Hephaestium-powered electro-weapons, while Italy, with no access to the precious meteorite, became Europe’s rogue state. Its intelligence services have stolen blue prints and prototypes, sabotaged others, and kidnapped scientists—they may be perfidious, but they are extremely capable. Perhaps the most radically changed country is the USA where at the height of its Civil War, General Lee’s land ironclads forced back the Union forces and held them to a stalemate until hostilities ceased in 1869. Thus North America has remained divided between the USA, the Confederate States of America, and Canada ever since…

This is the background against which the forgotten British artist, Miles Vandercroft travelled the sketching and painting the soldiery of the age. This artwork has been rediscovered and brought together in a handsome book published by Osprey Books under its Osprey Adventures line, Steampunk Soldiers: Uniforms & Weapons from the Age of Steam. It purports to be a guide to the vivid and striking uniforms worn by the armies and the steam-powered weaponry and equipment fielded by these armies in the years between the fall of the meteors and the Great War of the Worlds. The descriptions of these uniforms, the arms and armour, and the units and the battles they fought, do much to capture some of the period’s pageantry and both honour and dishonour!

Of course, Steampunk Soldiers: Uniforms & Weapons from the Age of Steam is anything but this. It is not a pictorial guide to the past, but a past that never was. A Steampunk Age of fantastic invention, intrigue, and warfare that is captured in this collection of gorgeous colour plates each accompanied by an intriguing description. For example, where did the 24th Regiment of Foot disappear to from Portsmouth in 1886? What brought Austria and France to war in which the French 6th Engineers used steam-powered drills to break into the supposedly impregnable Austrian castle of Hochosterwitz? There are hints and mentions of events like this throughout the book.

In places the authors have their tongues firmly ensconced in cheeks. For example, the be-kilted Highlander Battlesuits worn by the members of The Black Watch not only comes with a claymore sword, but automatic bagpipes that play Scotland the Brave! One interesting aside about the artwork in Steampunk Soldiers is that it has a certain familiarity to it. Many of the art is posed in a similar fashion to pieces used in a range of other Osprey Books.

There is an undoubted pleasure to be had in reading through the pages of Steampunk Soldiers, but its intriguing nature irks as much as it delights. For the reader is very much left wanting more; if not necessarily more images and more descriptions, but very much more background, more backstory, more detail. The implied background of this new Age of Steam begs for a second book, one with more explicit history. For what Steampunk Soldiers begs for is something that can be gamed—either as roleplaying or a wargaming setting. Naturally, there is nothing to stop a gamer from building such a setting from the material and background included, but it will take no little effort. (Of course, it is a pity that no suggestions are given as what games might be used to this end, but that would break conceit at the heart of Steampunk Soldiers.)

Ultimately, this is one book whose content is something that you want to a read a little more about. Easy to dip into and peruse for ideas, Steampunk Soldiers: Uniforms & Weapons from the Age of Steam is a charming and engaging book that begs for a sequel or more information.

Your Vampire Primer

There are some people who contend that the United Nations is fighting a secret war on sovereignty and democracy in its pursuit of a ‘one world government’. This is not true. It is fighting a secret war, not against sovereignty and democracy, but a threat insidious and hidden that preys upon humanity–vampires. The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) fields ‘Special Action Units’ (SAUs) dedicated to the study, location, and eradication of vampires. Armed with automatic shotguns and assault rifles that fire blessed and consecrated rounds of wood, silver, and graphite, and wearing armour incised with religious iconography and inscriptions, once these teams have a target, they are sent out aboard ‘black helicopters’ to strike at the horridly implacable creatures that are vampires.

This is the set-up for Vampires: A Hunter’s Guide, published by Osprey Books as part of its Osprey Adventures line. Best known for its its military history books, each diligently researched and meticulously illustrated with period photographs and fully painted colour plates, entries in the Osprey Adventures series goes beyond the facts to meld it with fiction. The result is a sourcebook of ideas for a gamer’s current game or a background for a whole new game. All a gamer needs to do is add the rules of his choice. The series has already looked at The Nazi Occult and given us Zombies: A Hunter’s Guide–amongst others... 

Vampires: A Hunter’s Guide most resembles Zombies: A Hunter’s Guide, being an examination of several types of vampire, their creation, their feeding and hunting habits, their relationship to humanity, and humanity’s response to each of these horrors. It does these for five continents–Europe, North America, Africa, Asia, and South America. In doing so, it focuses upon five types of vampire–the Strigoi, the Asanbosam and the Obayifo, the Jiangshi, and the Chupacabra. Of course, the various chapters are nicely illustrated with pieces of period art, photographs of various artifacts, and full colour artwork.

It begins with the Strigoi in Europe and a raid on a nest during the Yugoslav Wars of the 1990s, before delving into the history and types of the Strigoi. They are closest in type to the vampire of the modern era, typified by Bram Stoker’s Dracula, but other types exist in the Balkans and beyond. The Strigoi of course feeds on blood, is capable of transforming themselves into bats or wolves, and possess a certain sexual allure. The Papacy was the first organisation to recognise the ‘satanic’ threat and attempt to deal with it, such that many of the creatures took the opportunity to flee to the New World. Here the only rivals they had were each other, for North America had no vampiric tradition, and so they hid themselves and through wise investments, managed to protect themselves with great wealth. This makes them extremely difficult to track down and identify–it can take years of careful work by the FBI before an SAU can strike.

Less familiar will be the Asanbosam and the Obayifo, the vampiric creatures native to modern day Ghana and the historical Ashanti Empire. The Asanbosam is an arboreal bat-like hunter that reaches down from the trees for its prey, which is driven to mankind when they enter and then cut down the forest. In response, vampire hunters would train to enter the canopy, armed with short, gold-tipped spears and knives, and often protected by the juju or magic of the Marabout. Where the Asanbosam feeds on blood and flesh, the Obayifo, a spirit vampire, feeds off negative empathic energy. There is the possibility that the Obayifo are capable of controlling the Asanbosam, but where the Asanbosam seems confined to the diminishing forests, the Obayifo seems to have spread beyond Ghana’s borders.

Conversely, the Jiangshi will be familiar to devotees of Hong Kong cinema. The ‘stiff corpsed’ hopping vampire takes decades to form after it was improperly buried and grows tougher, stronger, and develops a more potent breath over time. It is an empathic vampire that can track its prey by their breathing. Again a group trained to deal with the threat, this time of the monks of the Shaolin Temple, who would use their martial arts skills and meditative calming techniques to prepare themselves against the Jiangshi. Lastly Taoist magic is used to still the vampires so that they can be led away for a proper burial. Of course, with founding of Chinese communities around the world, there are innumerable cities where the knowledge and ability to deal with a Jiangshi has been lost.

The last vampire detailed in Vampires: A Hunter’s Guide is the Chupacabra, a large bat-like creature that in recent years has spread out of the cenotes found across the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico into the great cities of North America with their extensive subterranean infrastructure. In rural areas the dreaded ‘goat sucker’ is known to feed on large livestock, but in built up urban areas, the primary prey is humanity–particularly its dregs.

In addition to these five or so vampires, various other types are also discussed. For example, other types of Strigoi include the Balkan/Czech Pijavica which preys upon former family members and the Polish Vjesci which can be recognised by the caul its head. Similarly, the Dhampir human/vampire hybrids, hated by their parents, are said to have found a home with some SAUs. As much as Vampires: A Hunter’s Guide discusses its monsters, it is small details such as this and the fact that SAUs work with FBI forensics and behavioral analysts that provide hooks upon which to hang the role of SAU members or support staff, for example in creating a roleplaying campaign.

Unfortunately, a GM will need to extract such details if he wants to use them for his game. In a traditional Osprey Books title there will be colour plates depicting what an SAU operative wears and is equipped with, accompanied by suitable descriptions. Sadly, this is not included. Equally as disappointing is the lack of a bibliography in Vampires: A Hunter’s Guide. Where Zombies: A Hunter’s Guide had a short if imperfect section entitled ‘Further Reading, Watching, and Gaming’, but this is absent in Vampires: A Hunter’s Guide. There are some very obvious inspirations for many of the vampires presented in its pages–for example, the movie Encounters of the Spooky Kind for the Jiangshi and the ‘El Mundo Gira’ episode of The X-Files for the Chupacabra. Others like the Asanbosam will be more difficult to provide inspiration for, but it would certainly help the reader with his further research. Similarly, a list of games would help in applying the content of  Vampires: A Hunter’s Guide. Obviously, Pelgrane Press’ Night’s Black Agents is the go-to RPG for fighting vampires, but Pinnacle Entertainment Group’s Savage Worlds, White Wolf Inc.’s Hunter: the Vigil, Evil Hat Publishing's FATE Core, and even the recently released Cryptworld from Goblinoid Games would all work.

Vampires: A Hunter’s Guide is readable and a decent source of material to apply to the vampire hunting game of your choice. The lack of application to that end–no bibliography and no immediate material upon which to hang campaign, for example, does mean that it is just background when it could have been just a little more supportive.