Re: [HOE] Spirit Warriors...my $.02 (mild spoilers)

["J A" <danthius@hotmail.com>]

Yeah, but Jacques............IT HAS A FREAKIN' INDEX.   :)  It's not much of 
an opinion, but it just occurred to me, I really want the boys of writing to 
know, butcher history, make up weird and new things, throw reality to the 
wind, and give me something to scare my posse with, but please for the love 
of all......put an Index into everything.  I'll thank you for it.

                   Jason "The Guy in the Back Row" Adkins


>From: Xotzil@aol.com
>Reply-To: hoe@gamerz.net
>To: hoe@gamerz.net
>Subject: [HOE] Spirit Warriors...my $.02 (mild spoilers)
>Date: Thu, 8 Jun 2000 22:51:43 EDT
>
>
>
>You’d think that in a place like the Wasted West, a little more litter 
>wouldn’t be that big a deal. I mean, civilization as we know it has been 
>compressed down to the area west of the Mississippi river, and nobody 
>really knows if there’s anything else out there at all. Cities lie in ruins 
>with howling maelstroms of manitou-badness swirling around their respective 
>(and likely radioactive) perimeters. Scavengers poke around, looking for 
>junk they can turn into something useful, and if they can’t find it, they 
>just toss what they do find somewhere else. No harm done. Population has 
>shrunk so much that whatever black gunk spews from the back of spook-juice 
>fueled cars, there aren’t enough of them that are actually functional to 
>really do very much one way or another, right?
>
>Think again.
>
>Spirit Warriors is a new 128 page sourcebook for Pinnacle’s Hell on Earth 
>setting, detailing what the American Indian Tribes have been up to these 
>last umpty hundred years. It also adds a new archetype, the Toxic Shaman, 
>and gives you the skinny on how this new breed of Medicine Man views the 
>world around him. How does it stack up to the rest of the line? Let’s take 
>a look.
>
>First off, I was leery about buying this book, because I was afraid it’d be 
>something of a rehash from the Weird West Indian book, Ghost Dancers 
>(excellently written by Paul Beakley, and easily one of the best if not THE 
>best of the Weird West splatbooks). I probably shouldn’t have 
>worried…almost everything Pinnacle has done up to date has been its own 
>unique entity. However, I had a pet peeve about the crossover information 
>between Cyborgs (the Harrowed book) and Scrappers (found in Iron Oasis), 
>which was pretty much all verbatim info just transposed into a new book, 
>and I was afraid that much of Spirit Warriors would be a similar thing with 
>info from Ghost Dancers.
>
>Boy am I glad to be wrong.
>
>The first part of the book details what most people can glean about what 
>went on with the Native Peoples for the last umpty years (and if you grow 
>tired of hearing me mumble over the number, there is a reason, which I’ll 
>get to at the end). It tells you about Custer and his fight with the Sioux 
>nations, the rise and fall of the Coyote Confederation, the doings of the 
>Apache, and the escapades of the “new” tribe of NP’s, the Ravenites. All in 
>all, it’s a good read. Concise (to a point, see below) and good fun to 
>explore. It also introduces you to the other side of the Tech spirits you 
>got to hear about in Junkman Cometh…the Toxic spirits.
>
>See, if you’ve been gaming for a long time, you’ve been inundated with 
>Paracelsus’ concept of the four elements to the point where it’s second 
>nature to you. Earth, Air, Fire, Water. Blah, blah, blah, blah. Pinnacle 
>takes this one step further, reminding us what we as humans add to the mix, 
>and showing us the error of our ways by corrupting each one of those 
>elements in ways we’ve done for years. Thus Earth becomes Trash, Air 
>becomes Smog, Fire becomes Radiation, and Water becomes Sludge. There is a 
>fifth sphere, however, Insect, with its own unique flavour, so they still 
>manage to spring a surprise on you.
>
>The second part of the book gives you what it is you probably bought the 
>book for. Rules and new stuff on how to create your own Toxic Shaman (or 
>Spooks, as they tend to be called). Edges, Hindrances, and Toxic Guardians 
>are all introduced here.
>
>The system is straightforward for anyone who has played Hell on Earth 
>before, and an aspect of Ghost Dancers HAS been transported over (that of 
>the Guardian Spirit, in this case, the Toxic Guardian), but it gels nicely, 
>and is not a cheat in any way. Along with choosing a Sphere (Trash, Sludge, 
>etc.) Spooks also choose a “school,” whether they try to aid the cause of 
>the Toxic spirits by polluting the environment (called Corrupters), or, 
>like spiritual crack dealers, absorb the pollution into themselves and give 
>it to the Toxic spirits to placate them, and thereby remove it from the 
>environment (Caretakers). This seems like kind of a nod to AD&D’s Dark Sun 
>setting, but it is a friendly one, and one that adds a lot to the 
>atmosphere they are attempting to create.
>
>The third part is all the new favors (spells, if you insist) that Spooks 
>have access to. Each sphere gets its own unique way of influencing the 
>world. Will your Spook have an affinity for Radiation, and be able to see 
>through walls, and generate an EMP, or will he have an affinity for Smog, 
>and be able to create a whirlwind, or throw cigarettes like lethal little 
>darts? It’s all in there, and it’s all good. Each of the spheres are 
>innovative in their own ways, and each one leaves many delicious 
>opportunities for fun roleplaying and humor.
>
>Lastly comes the Marshall’s book, and gives you all the info that the 
>player’s section left out. Who of the Heavy Hitters lived through the 
>previous umpty years, and who didn’t, and what they’re up to now. Not a TON 
>of surprises in here, but one or two that will have you grinning fiendishly 
>at your party and have them nervously scratching their few remaining fate 
>chips together.
>
>What I Liked About Spirit Warriors:
>
>It showed a great deal of innovative evolution for this group of people. 
>Considering what we know about the Deadlands world and ethos, this is a 
>logical next step, and a very creative one, in my own opinion. The history 
>was concise, well written, and adds a great deal to the already established 
>setting (however, see below).
>
>Pinnacle also continues their tradition of homage to obscure cultural 
>references (the tagline on the back of the book is “Give a Hoot!” and the 
>picture is that of a crying Indian. A buddy of mine who has never even 
>PLAYED the game asked if he could borrow the book solely because of that 
>reference). I had a great laugh at more than one section of this book 
>(check out the taint for New Jersey Beach Sand), which just reinforces the 
>idea that you can still laugh at yourself in a post apocalyptic setting 
>(just before getting the guts ripped out of you by a zombie, that is).
>
>The new Arcane Background, the Toxic Shaman is well balanced, and I think 
>adds a nice new dimension to the setting. Not overpowered, and fairly 
>interesting to play.
>
>What I Didn’t Like About Spirit Warriors:
>
>Some of the favors, while I see where they were going, were kind of 
>repetitive (particularly Smog).
>
>Pinnacle has given themselves a passel of freedom when it comes to writing 
>the history of the Hell on Earth setting. We have few to no concrete dates 
>on almost any aspect of anything that has happened since the Weird West was 
>the setting to play. I know, I know, this is only a “What If…?” scenario, 
>and not having the dates gives us the freedom to put things where and when 
>we want them, but it’s starting to make it difficult to understand what 
>events lead to what outcomes. Take the several attacks of Custer in the 
>book. I’m not a history buff, and even if I were, I wouldn’t know when to 
>set these in the great scheme of things (especially, as it seems that by 
>that time, we’re already so far into “alternate” history that I wouldn’t 
>know when to place it anyway). Another important event is the Great 
>Summoning that happened with the Coyote Confederation (the one that brought 
>the Toxic spirits into the forefront of spiritual knowledge to begin with). 
>No date there either. Don’t get me wrong…I’m not so anal that I need to 
>have EVERYTHING dated and handed to me, but I’d kind of like to have a 
>general idea, since there is NO scale for me to even be able to make a 
>reasonable guess.
>
>The second problem with this is that some bits of continuity are being 
>fudged slightly. Okay, it’s not TERRIBLY important that Goose from the 
>Convoy (Road Warriors) says that he drives through Deadwood once a year 
>(which, according to Spirit Warriors, he can’t, since no tech works within 
>its borders). But it’s still a niggling annoyance, and since everything 
>else is of such a high quality, it seems a pity to let gremlins like this 
>creep in.
>
>Finally, and this is probably strictly my own pet peeve…
>
>The way that Spooks get their Strain [the fortitude they use to channel the 
>pollution through their bodies] back is to drink a concoction known as 
>Spook Juice, which is essentially the Wasted West’s version of gasoline. 
>The idea behind it is that it is such an evil substance, something so 
>corrupting that it draws Toxic Spirits to it where it rests in the Spook’s 
>soul and thereby gives him the ability to speak to them. Kind of an 
>interesting expansion on the original intent behind tobacco, I suppose 
>(though they didn’t know it was corrupting, and the spirits they were 
>speaking to presumably weren’t either, the same idea applies).
>
>I’m not PC…not by any stretch of the imagination. I tell off-colour jokes, 
>am probably more coarse than I should be when dealing with groups that I 
>have no respect for, and have no compunctions about calling a spade a 
>goddamned shovel, but the correlation between Spooks essentially drinking 
>gasoline and the real-life stereotype of the Amerind as alcoholic did 
>scratch a nerve with me. Not because I think that Pinnacle was in ANY way 
>purposely making the correlation, and not that I think that ANY gamer with 
>a 1d4-3 ounce of brain in his/her head is going to make the correlation, 
>but we don’t always have strictly gamers reading this material anymore, and 
>no group that has been (for lack of a better term) shat on as badly as the 
>Native Peoples have over the last 500+ years needs that kind of thing 
>associated with them by the (ignorant) masses.
>
>Again, and I’d do it in all caps, but it’d look wanky, I am NOT saying that 
>this was the intent behind it. Shane, John, John, Christopher, Steve, Paul, 
>Hal and everyone else who has written for Pinnacle has ALWAYS put across 
>nothing less than impeccable standards of respect for the material they’re 
>dealing with. In this instance, it just seems to be coming kind of close to 
>a line. It isn’t crossing it, but it is reminding me that it’s there.
>
>Is It Worth The Money?
>
>Oh yes. If you want to add a wonderful new dimension to your HoE game, 
>Spirit Warriors is the book for you.
>
>--Jacques
>
>
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