TORG: Review of _The Living Land_ sourcebook
Scott SCHULTZ
Well, since Ken is still working on his game review and no-one has
yet commented on the first TORG Sourcebook, I thought I'd try my hand at a
review of it.
_TORG - The Living Land_ is the first in a series of sourcebooks
which describe in detail the invading cosms. The Living Land is WEG's
"primitive reality" cosm. The Living Land sourcebook contains a good deal
of information that is barely touched upon in the worldbook, including info
on how the US and Canada are dealing with the invasion. Additionally, it
provides some guidelines for the types of adventures that the Living Land
was designed for and some ideas for building adventures on. _The Living Land_
was written by Christopher Kubasik, who is credited in the TORG rulebook
with "additional mythos and system work". Presumably, that indicates that
Chris took the Living Land idea from the designers and developed it into
the full blown realm that we see now.
The first thing that needs to be emphasized about _The Living Land_
is that it is a GM book. It contains a great deal of information that a
GM would want players to discover on their own. Anyone who wants to be a
player in a TORG game should skip buying this book unless they are very good
at "forgetting" information that their characters are not supposed to have.
Alternatively, ask your GM for pointers about what to read and what not to
read.
_The Living Land_ is divided into two equal sections. The first half
consists of background information. The second half consists of rules covering
miracles, creatures, and staying alive that weren't covered in the worldbook.
It also offers sixteen new character templates that are geared towards
playing in the Living Land. Each of these sections will be discussed
individually. From a campaign generating standpoint, the background section
is the most useful since it gives a good "feel" for the world that the
players will be adventuring in.
The background section is very important, in that it offers answers
to a lot of the questions that are posed by the worldbook. It covers three
different areas: The Living Land, The United States, and Canada. Of the
portions of Core Earth that are covered, the eastern US is given the bulk
of the coverage. The western US and Canada are given only a couple of pages
each. I'm sure that this is due to the writers writing about what they
know best. I would have liked to see some more information about the West
and North, but the information that is provided is generally applicable to
the other areas.
I don't want to give away any spoilers, so I'll summarize the
sections provided. The story of Baruk Khah's discovery of his Darkness
Device is told in the first section and how he used it to attain his
position as leader of the edeinos. The background on the edeinos is rather
interesting, as it goes more deeply into their religion, Kata Kelles, than
the worldbook does. When I read the worldbook and the novel _Storm Knights_
I came away with a view of the edeinos as somewhat bloodthirsty savages
(all that Delphi council propaganda, no doubt.) _The Living Land_ gives a
much more balanced look at the culture of the edeinos. In essence, each
edeinos lives for as much sensation as it is able. The edeinos are the sense
organs of their god/dess Lanala, and are rewarded according to the amount
of sensation that they are able to give her. They love life and they live it
passionately. They follow Baruk Khah because of the sensations he is able
to give them with each new conquest. While the actions of Baruk Khah's
followers appear evil to Core Earthers (as well they should), the evil is
not in the individuals; rather it is in Baruk Khah himself.
This is not to say that the edeinos are friendly. Because they
consider other races to be "dead", they are more than willing to destroy
the ones that won't embrace Keta Kalles, simply because they aren't entitled
to the priveleges of those who live in the Life of Lanala. The edeinos are
willing to accept those of other races who wish to embrace Lanala. The
collective term for followers is Jakatts. One of the more interesting side
effects of the invasion is that a significant number of Core Earthers are
voluntarily entering the Living Land and becoming converts to Keta Kalles.
Most of the voluntary converts are not working for Baruk Khah, so the US is
being presented with a moral dillemma that the government would rather not
deal with. This is touched on briefly in the worldbook and covered in more
detail in _The Living Land_.
Life inside the dominant zones is touched on as well as life in
Core Earth. Some time is spent on the current situation in New York City,
which is better than one might expect due to portions of the city being in
the dominant zone instead of the pure Living Land zone. The resistance
communities of "stayers" are touched on also and the way of life they are
required to follow. One of the surprising things in this section is that
the sourcebook implies that there are a lot more stormers and hardpoints
than I would have imagined from reading the rules. Besides Philadelphia and
Silicon Valley, Detroit is now listed as a hardpoint. The descriptions of
the cities deal fairly realistically with the cities, including the problems
of overcrowding, crime, etc that could be expected in an island of "reality".
In a way, it's too bad that the manual wasn't organized into a
player's section and a GM section. A lot of the background about Core
Earth USA and Canada would be useful for player's to use in getting the
feel for the world of a new TORG compaign. As it is, the "safe" background
and the "secret" background are mixed up together thoroughly enough that it
would even be difficult to copy pages and give those to the players. A GM
who uses this material should be prepared to do a good deal of stage-setting
for the players at the beginning of a campaign.
The Core Earth material is mainly concerned with the socio-political
effects that the invasion has had on the US. Canada rates only a couple of
pages, which is something of a short shrift in my book. Maybe they didn't
know many Canadians and so didn't have a lot of source material. Bascially,
the Canadian capital of Ottawa was captured and most of the government killed
or transformed. While the government regroups the provincial governments are
in charge and trying to deal with the incursions that have already been
made by Baruk Khah. The Cyberpope is dealing with Quebec in an attempt to win
them over to his side due to the common French culture.
In the US, things are about what one would expect. The Delphi Council
is further explored, and there are suggestions that they may even be
assassinating congressmen who get too nosy about what they are doing. The
Common Ground Association is also touched on along with some of the military
and economic consequences of the war. The city of Los Angeles is described
along with the fact that Hollywood has moved to Florida. Film footage that
can be obtained from the Living Land is sold to both the news programs and
the entertainment programs. Two of the most popular television shows are
_The Hastings_, a show about a family of "stayers", and _Rex Able, Freelance
Fighter_, a show about a retired mercenary who wanders the Living Land looking
for good deeds to do. The Borderlands which exist at the boundaries of the
realities have become home to adventurers, mercenaries, and people who just
like to shoot things. The military deals with these camps when they can.
Several paramilitary groups are also appearing, sponsored by rich Americans
who want to help "waste scales". There's a good deal of info but much
of it would be spoilers if written here. It does give a good "feel" for the
way the US is responding to the invaders and it is reasonable enough to be
believable.
One of the nice things that WEG did in the book is insert vignettes
related to a topic being covered. These usually describe a possibility rated
character and how they deal with the Living Land in terms of whatever
the text is discussing. These short descriptions are good for bringing the
text to life in a way that illustrates the concepts instead of just
dryly describing them. Aside from that, they provide the GM with a lot of
useful npc's with backgrounds that make them easy to work into a campaign.
The second half of the book is concerned with new rules and such.
It lists new creatures and miracles that are not in the worldbook. The
creatures are interesting because they include creatures from the homeworlds
of the Stalenger and Benthe as well as creatures native to Takta Ker. The
gospog of the second through fifth planting are also described in case you
were wondering what they were like. The miracles are consistent with the
way the edeinos and their drives are presented, mostly stuff to heighten
various senses and heal friends or curse enemies. There are a couple of
more interesting creatures but that would be spoiling...
From a GM standpoint, the two most interesting chapters of this
section deal with how to survive in the Living Land and how to make up
adventures for it. In a land where the Deep Mist blinds you and rots
your food in a matter of hours or even minutes, survival is more difficult
than it is in Core Earth. There are rules to cover use of the survival
skill, hunting, tracking, and other activities that are neccesary when
lost in the Living Land (being lost is the normal state of affairs, rather
than vice-versa).
Ideas are given for dealing with the lowered social
axioms as well as the lowered tech axiom and the effects these have on the
players. One thing that wasn't quite clear to me in the rulebook is the
influence of a pure zone. According to _The Living Land_, even a possibility
rated character will be affected by ALL of the axioms of a pure zone unless
she raises a reality bubble. Thus, a storm knight in Sacramento would forget
the meaning of advanced social concepts like "government" or "capitalism"
just as an ord would. A reality bubble would be required to use ANY of the
storm knight's native axioms, not just the tech or magic axioms. Even the
dominant zones have an influence, though not so strongly as a pure zone.
An example from _The Living Land_ of some characters in a dominant zone
(reprinted from _The Living Land_ without permission):
: "Duke: Right. I'll go up and take a sniper position. The rest of
: you wait here for five minutes, then charge in.
:
: GM: Matt and Jerry are a little fuzzy on this "minutes" concept.
:
: Matt: Oh.
:
: Jerry: (getting into the spirit of the Living Land) Hey, I know!
: Let's just attack!
:
: Duke: Sounds like a plan to me. Let's do it!
:
: Now, this doesn't mean that the characters can't sneak around and be
: tricky. It just means that the precision of the plan is going to be
: limited. If the group in the example above wanted to have one guy
: sneak around to the Jakatt camp and then have everyone attack
: "a little bit later", that would be fine. "
Another subject that gets touched upon in this section is that of
eternity shards. Here it is actually stated that there are several dozen
eternity shards in North America of both Core Earth and Living Land origin.
Indeed, it is stated that many eternity shards have come into being as a
result of the "reality tension" between the two cosms. Most of the Core
Earth reality shards listed are manufactured objects of semi-ancient
origin. Both of these facts seem to run directly counter to the idea that
eternity shards were created by Apeiros and have an eternal "lifetime".
There are some rationalizations that can be made to work this out but I see
it as an inconsistency that WEG needs to explain further.
The final chapters deal with some known locations in the Living
Land and some ideas for adventures. One of the points that the author makes
several times is that the Living Land is designed to be a "lost world"
adventure genre. Several guidelines are given for what a typical adventure
would be like. The main point is that the goal is not the adventure. The
adventure is what happens on the way to the goal. The goal may, in fact,
become secondary to the actual events that unfold on the way to and from
it. I've never played a "lost world" type of adventure but I've read some of
the source material and I think everyone has seen at least one "lost world"
type of movie to get the idea. The "lost world" scenarios will get you the
best flavor from the Living Land but I don't believe that it is neccesary
to use it a lot if you don't like the ideas. The Living Land makes a pretty
complete gaming world all by itself.
Finally, sixteen new character templates are presented. Many of
them are based upon the characters described in the vignettes that illustrate
the background. Most of them are geared towards adventure in the Living Land
but all would be useful in any cosm. The most interesting of these are based
upon edeinos and stalenger characters. I dunno, it might be interesting to
play a 3-foot long flying starfish, but I would think that the character
would have some problems in any other cosm.
Getting nit-picky, I have to say that I was annoyed by the large
number of spelling mistakes that I ran across. All of the TORG books put out
so far have had poor proofreading and _The Living Land_ is no exception.
I don't mind seeing this once in a while but it gets jarring when I mentally
respell a word every ten pages or so. WEG needs to either get better word
processing software or some proofreaders that can spell. At least they do
a good job of binding the books so that they don't fall apart after being
paged through a few times.
So, the bottom line. Is it worth shelling out $18 for another
rule book? My answer is yes, IF you are really turned on by TORG. If you
are then the background will be interesting and it will fill in a lot of
the gaps that you were trying to fill yourself. If you are only mildly
interested then you may end up wondering why you paid so much for a book
that is one-fourth illustrations. Regardless, I would recommend it as a
must-have for any GM that plans to make a lot of use of the Living Land.
The background is quite useful and there is information contained in the
book that is applicable to other areas of the game as well. If the price
was dropped to around $12 I'd recommend it whole-heartedly to anyone.
Unfortunately, it seems that ~$20 is the average price for any game book
these days and WEG isn't making themselves an exception to that rule.
Erich Schneider
+> Well, since Ken is still working on his game review and no-one has
+> yet commented on the first TORG Sourcebook, I thought I'd try my hand at a
+> review of it.
+> _TORG - The Living Land_ is the first in a series of sourcebooks
+> which describe in detail the invading cosms.
Does anyone have reliable data on when West End plans to release the
others? As it is, the only realms which really turn me on are Asyle
and the Cyberpapacy - which are to be released in October and "1991"
according to the only source I have.
So, does anyone know how fast WEG plans to release the things?
-Erich Schneider "You're excommunicated - all flames to godnet.hell"
--
er...@tybalt.caltech.edu or try er...@through.caltech.edu
"Even the AI hated [my book]?"
"The AI _loved_ it. That's when we knew for sure that _people_ were going
to hate it."
-Dan Simmons, _Hyperion_
Brian or James
[Most of a 'Living Land' review deleted so that I can pick nits]
> The background section is very important, in that it offers answers
>to a lot of the questions that are posed by the worldbook. It covers three
>different areas: The Living Land, The United States, and Canada. Of the
>portions of Core Earth that are covered, the eastern US is given the bulk
>of the coverage. The western US and Canada are given only a couple of pages
>each. I'm sure that this is due to the writers writing about what they
>know best. I would have liked to see some more information about the West
>and North, but the information that is provided is generally applicable to
>the other areas.
What little information they have on Canada is mostly wrong, as well.
The sad thing is that I was told by a WEG executive that they thought they'd
researched Canada well. Their 'Royal Mounties' [I think they meant either
RCMP or Mounties] are straight out of 'Sgt Preston of the Royal Canadian
Mounted Police'. For better info on Canada, go to your local library.
> The Core Earth material is mainly concerned with the socio-political
>effects that the invasion has had on the US. Canada rates only a couple of
>pages, which is something of a short shrift in my book. Maybe they didn't
>know many Canadians and so didn't have a lot of source material. Bascially,
>the Canadian capital of Ottawa was captured and most of the government killed
>or transformed. While the government regroups the provincial governments are
>in charge and trying to deal with the incursions that have already been
>made by Baruk Khah. The Cyberpope is dealing with Quebec in an attempt to win
>them over to his side due to the common French culture.
A note: our provinces swing more power compared to the Federal gov't
than US states do relative to their Federal gov't. I suspect that *some*
provincial gov'ts are lighting candles to God in gratitude for getting
rid of the two most populous provinces, *and* the Federal gov't. I guess Meech
Lake is somewhat moot now [Although Quebec *definitely* has a seperate and
distinctive culture now:)].
The Cyberpope may have real difficulty using the common french
culture gambit on Quebec. We have Acadians in the family and they do *not*
much care for the Francophones in Quebec. Remember the old joke about the UK
and the USA: Two countries separated by a common language. It'll be fun watching
the Cyberpope try, though. I'm curious what the Quebec r.g.frp readers think
on this.
JDN
Stephen Ardron
Actually, I'm not sure this is true. When I lived in Montreal, many
Quebecois felt more in common with France than any other country. We're
not talking about Acadians here, we're talking about a semi-paranoid
culture deathly afraid of dissapearing (though it may not be so paranoid,
since it is a real danger).
Witness the Quebecois reaction to the old DeGaulle speach, and the line
"Vive Quebec Libre!".
Certainly Quebec gives prefered immigration status to francophones everywhere,
especially those from France.
Steve Ardron
Ken Kofman
>
--
ken
Double feature, coming soon! Ken Kofman's _Torg Review Part II_, together with
Samuel R Delany's _The Splendor and Misery of Bodies, of Cities_.