Let's Sperg Angelo Reads a Terrible Supplement: Changing Breeds - Furry Deviants? In MY World of Darkness?

[AngeloTheWizard]

Blegh...so a lot's happened since my last thread. I got a new job, one that has me working 10 hour shifts 4 days a week. Which isn't bad, you get used to 3 day weekends. I also played Nier: Automata, and I think I got so drunk after completing it I made my own Pod.

Affirmative. This is Pod 042.

Oh shit I did. Good to have Albert Wesker's voice on hand I guess. I also graduated which means I have some more free time. I wanna get back in the swing of things, but what should I do? We've tackled most of the crappy stuff, @Randall Fragg and @Splendid Meat Sticks have Black Tokyo covered...sure there's FATAL but no one's topping the RPG.net review of that nonsense. And I did RaHoWa as a light snack between Bellum Maga chapters.

Proposal: Angelo should review a bad book in a setting he otherwise enjoys.

So, a terrible supplement? I mean, that's hard too. Most settings I enjoy are pretty good all around, there's no real big bad ones I can think of. I mean, some aren't as quality as the Core books but-

Query: What about the one Werewolf book that was changed to not a Werewolf book mid-production?

...You mean Changing Breeds? Well...alright.

Part 0: Old and New

Before I get into the real meat of Changing Breeds, let's step back a second and examine where this all comes from. We're in the World of Darkness, White Wolf's flagship title of seriously depressing games about the supernatural. But there's kind of two different lines, not even so much editions, but effectively two different worlds. Pod, can you take this one?

Affirmative. World of Darkness is split into Old and New worlds. While certain beings have "splatbooks" in both settings (examples include Vampires, Werewolves, and Mages), the New World of Darkness is a complete reboot to the setting. New world also has a sort of "second edition" in the form of books produced after the God Machine Complex, adjusting things to the new rules.

Pretty much. The reason I bring this up is because Old World Werewolf had a lot of things people liked-references to Gaia Earth Mother and the Wyrm that was poisoning human hearts, a lot more tribes to join, and the ability to be non-wolf shifters. That ability was brought back in a supplement called "War Against the Pure", which brought non werewolf shifters that had strange yet well written motivations, as well as a toolbox ruleset to build your own damn shifter. But that wasn't enough for some people. Enter Changing Breeds.

Spoiler: Front Cover

Well we're in for a ride. Notice how there's just a generic WoD tag and no Werewolf tag? Every supplement for a specific creature type gets a title with that tag, so War Against the Pure is more accurately "Werewolf the Forsaken: War Against the Pure". But the Werewolf devs took one look at this book and went "NOPE!", hence the generic tag. And this is what Pod 042 was mentioning earlier with the werewolf book that was stripped of that honor.

This book also came out 8 months after War Against the Pure, which came out April of 2007, so you'd think they'd have some feedback and could adjust things to be more in line with what Werewolf fans wanted, right? Ah ha, ah ha, oh you sweet summer child. Changing Breeds was meant for a very specific part of the Werewolf fandom. The furry degenerate kind that we mock relentlessly in Animal Control.

Proposal: Strap in.

Part 1: Your Opening Story is bad and you should feel bad.

So, the entire opening story is presented like this. Giant font with ink smudges passing themselves off as images. Most other WoD books have interesting art and aren't blown up to gigantic font size. Also, we start with illegal immigration and no explanation why, we don't know if the lady is fleeing an abusive home life or if she's seeking better opportunities, all we know is stale tortillas, cattle water, and man is the worst beast of all! Or something. I'm sure that bit about the only beast in Coyote being "MAN" is in all caps because it's BAD! MAN IS BAD!

The lady reveals that she's coming to America to escape her village, where people spit on her shadow and call her cursed. Why? Fucked if I know! She wants to disappear in America, and while that may have been true in the run-up to the great black hope's presidency, is gonna make sure you go right back over that border, hun.

Anyway, in case you're wondering, Pod's gonna be a little quiet for this part. He'll be back for mechanical analysis but fluff is my domain.

Anyway, as the story continues, the coyote escorting the group of illegals attempts to rape our PoV character. Three pages in and we have rape, it wasn't a good sign in Bellum Maga and it sure as shit isn't a good sign here. For some reason, she has a flashback to when her father killed a fox when she was young, slitting its throat with a big fuck off knife, and when the cut happened she screamed as if she was the one being cut. This is because she WAS the fox! Or her soul was the fox? Or...or...oh fuck it's impossible to keep up with this, point is, she turns into a gigantic war beast mid rape and kills the coyote. Oh sure, she perceives it as the gray fox her father killed coming to her rescue after raising itself from the dead, but it's her. Trust me, it's her. The story ends with her being naked and bloody, miles away from everyone else. That means the fox was her. She had a first change and her mind doesn't want to accept that she can awoo at the moon now, get it? But the story ends right there. Most other WoD stories for their cold open tend to go on a little farther and give us a peek at the world beyond the threshold, but not here! Fuck you, no explanation!

Well, Pod did tell you guys to strap in. If you haven't, do so. This crazy train ain't got no brakes, baby!

 

[NOT Sword Fighter Super]

"And who are you, GAY?"
-Angelo's Mom

 

[Zaryiu]

I'm sure i can find more terrible rpgs to review for those doing reviews , which ones were reviewed already?
Oh and Changing Breeds? That sure sucks

 

[AngeloTheWizard]

I'm sure i can find more terrible rpgs to review for those doing reviews , which ones were reviewed already?
Oh and Changing Breeds? That sure sucks

I did Bellum Maga and Racial Holy War, I know Randall has done Wraethulu and is currently doing Black Tokyo. I have a couple more I can do, I just did that opening bit for funsies.

Anyway, Part 2 coming.

 

[AngeloTheWizard]

So before we get to Part 2, I want to discuss our wonderful friend and creator of this book, Phil Bruccato. Phil was the lead writer for most of this, and his voice is...unique.

Read that paragraph carefully. Did you spot the two, count them, two references to feline lovers? This is repeated throughout the book-Phil LOVES cats, in an unhealthy kind of way. This dude goes straight past dangerously furry and goes right into you sick fuck territory. The objects of Phil's unhealthy obsessions do not improve from here on out.

Part 2: In which the writer really wants to fuck animals

So the whole introduction chapter can be summed up like this: Humans have fucked the planet, now the beasts will fuck humans-I mean, stop humans from polluting the land any more. My favorite line is one about "Man is the animal who shits where he eats and proclaims himself a god for it", mostly because that line is just so wrong. For starters, anyone who's had a bout of diarrhea does not get done shitting and proclaim themselves a God. Also, I don't know about you, but my kitchen and my bathroom are about as far apart as one can make them.

Moving on, we have another award winning paragraph:

Primal ways of hygiene, eh? So...licking yourself clean? I don't know if you know this, Bruccato, but animals do clean themselves. Of course we find out later that his idea of primal hygiene very easily translates to none at all, and "ferals" (our Changing Breeds Characters) are touchy about it. So are you telling me my dog wants to kill me because its natural instincts tell it that toothpaste is wrong?

And yes, that bit about personal space ideas becoming primal is another invitation to rape. We are seven pages away from the first reference to rape, and two of those are the credits page and the table of contents so it's more like we're 5 pages away.

BRUCCATO! :fistshake:

Also, there's a bit in this section about how "ferals" don't have a common culture. I want you to take that piece of information, and lodge it way deep in the back of your brainpan, ok? Thanks champ. It's going to hurt later.

There's a few bits of utterly boring history, about possible origins of the changers, that just doesn't have any of the unique joy that other splats had-mostly because there isn't one singular event to cause the return of the changers or anything like that. It feels like Man did a half dozen unspeakable acts throughout the ages, any one of which could have been expanded on, but a lot of them are just thrown out there and none of them are really developed. That's not important, what is important is the shared language of the ferals.

Oh yeah, remember what I said before? Despite not sharing a common culture, they have a common tongue. THAT MEANS THEY HAVE A COMMON CULTURE YOU UNRECONSTRUCTED MORON!

Fucking Bruccato...anyway, now we get to the myths and legends Q&A. Every major supernatural splat has one of these, to set the ground rules on what World of Darkness critters can and can't do. And sadly, a lot of this here is basically regurgitated from Werewolf-we'll see in a bit that a fucking LOT is regurgitated from Werewolf, but I'm going to discuss the unique stuff here.

Ferals are just eccentric human “furries”: Myth, with elements of truth. Some people consider themselves “animals under the skin”; a few of these therians even possess the Changing Gift. For the most part, though, furries are human beings and ferals are just a little bit more . . .

I have no better way to discuss this bit than to just state it in plain text. Werewolf felt no need to even mention furries, for which I am eternally grateful. And the less said about Therians, the better.

A couple of following myths are about the shapechangers all being predator species (not quite true) and all serving one God (total myth). There's also a bit about silver. Silver deals aggravated damage to werewolves, and also to shapechangers as described in this book. However, where Werewolf worked it into its fluff by saying that silver hurting werewolves more is a curse from Mother Luna for the werewolves killing their original patriarch, Changing Beasts just says "no one knows how or why, shut up!"

I bring this up to highlight the difference between good writing and bad. In Werewolf, the classic weakness to silver was giving a possible, lore-based reason for doing what it did, and was also used as a message of hope: The Forsaken Werewolves work to redeem themselves in the eyes of Mother Luna, and are actually starting to succeed as silver no longer burns to the touch like it did when the curse was fresh. The Pure Werewolves, usually enemies of the party, are still burned by silver's touch, giving the Forsaken a bit of hope that they're on the right path. Changing Breeds just throws up its hands and goes "well we needed to be somewhat related to Werewolf back when in happier days when we were a Werewolf book!"

Anyway, that about rounds out this chapter. Except for one thing:

If I had to look at this guy and his hastily smudged out dick, so do you.

Next time we'll be looking at the lore of the Ferals. Expect more catgirl fucking.

 

[Zaryiu]

Well this is getting disturbing fast, I bet we hit the really bad stuff soon... Oh shit, FATAL, Wraethlu, Black Tokyo have started to mess with my head, of course rape is absolutely terrible.
I meant the sanity hurting stuff
Will you review the Fursona rpg in the future to compare the level of awfulness between Changing Breeds and it?

 

[AngeloTheWizard]

Well this is getting disturbing fast, I bet we hit the really bad stuff soon... Oh shit, FATAL, Wraethlu, Black Tokyo have started to mess with my head, of course rape is absolutely terrible.
I meant the sanity hurting stuff
Will you review the Fursona rpg in the future to compare the level of awfulness between Changing Breeds and it?

Please tell me you're referring to Ironclaw, and there isn't another terrible RPG filled with furry degeneracy out there.

And Pod, please put Program A130 Bomb on the ready in case he tells me it's NOT Ironclaw.

 

[Zaryiu]

Please tell me you're referring to Ironclaw, and there isn't another terrible RPG filled with furry degeneracy out there.

And Pod, please put Program A130 Bomb on the ready in case he tells me it's NOT Ironclaw.

Uh i never heard of Ironclaw until now so urfortunately there at least 2 rpgs of that sorts and that's only the one i currently know

 

[AngeloTheWizard]

Uh i never heard of Ironclaw until now so urfortunately there at least 2 rpgs of that sorts and that's only the one i currently know

...Pod...

Affirmative.

So I'm sad to say Zaryiu is no longer with us after a freak accident involving energy bombs.

 

[Fagnacious D]

Please tell me you're referring to Ironclaw, and there isn't another terrible RPG filled with furry degeneracy out there.

How bad is Iron Claw anyway?

 

[knightlautrec]

I know there are normal people who like Werewolf but the ones who ONLY play Werewolf and Werewolf only always make me side eye a little bit like 'you wanna fuck wolves but you don't want to say it openly'.

I hadn't heard of this supplement. But yeah. This is furry RP territory.

 

[AngeloTheWizard]

How bad is Iron Claw anyway?

Honestly not that bad. It's just that all the player races are furry trash, but /tg/ ripped that out and made "Furless Ironclaw" with standard fanstasy races and it was pretty good. Take that as you wish.

I know there are normal people who like Werewolf but the ones who ONLY play Werewolf and Werewolf only always make me side eye a little bit like 'you wanna fuck wolves but you don't want to say it openly'.

I hadn't heard of this supplement. But yeah. This is furry RP territory.

I can appreciate Werewolf, I prefer Mage myself but I can roll a Werewolf if I feel like it. That said, Werewolf was always open to this particular line of degeneracy as New Werewolf explicitly says "Yes, a Werewolf in Wolf Form can fuck wolves and get pregnant from them if female".

Anyway...Part 3 inbound.

 

[AngeloTheWizard]

Part 3: In which bestiality is encouraged.

God I wish I was kidding.

The between chapter story snippet involves a Bear shifter who works as a trucker. He happens upon a town with a stupid sign that says "there are no bears in our woods" and decides "fuck these guys, I'mma terrify all of them by being a bear in their woods!" It's stupid.

Anyway. What follows is several paragraphs of how the world used to be green and lush and verdant until man discovered fire and everything went wrong. The story section lists "weapons, words, clothing and creeds" as the stuff MAN invented that set them on the path away from the primal nature of ripping an animal with non-existent claws and eating their flesh. So according to this book, a simple "Hello!" is EEEEEEEEEEVIL!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Also, the "Kin and Cousins" paragraph is hilarious. The Snake that tempted Eve in the Garden fucked her too according to this book. The Egyptian Gods are all the product of bestiality-and fuck, there's a cat goddess in there.

Bruccato!

Anyway, the next several paragraphs describe how a Feral grows up. Apparently, if you're gonna be one of these shifters, it's from birth. Such shifters are 'animalistic' growing up, and may be considered 'retarded' or :autism: by human standards. "Animal Magnetism" is a fact of life for a young feral, and the child is drawn to the power of nature. There's actually some interesting ideas here...but because of where we are it almost immediately goes to shit.

And it hits right when we discuss the lead-up to the First Change, I mean, the...oh they just call it First Change, just like Werewolf does. But, where Werewolf described the leadup as a terrifying storm of hallucinations and paranoia, Changing Breeds goes for more...well, berserk style. The feral attempts to create their own release via all manner of stuff-hard drugs? Self-cutting? Sex sex and more sex? All of this and more! See, Werewolf is all about the terrifying first glimpses of a world that you're suddenly thrown in to and told to swim, while Changing Breeds feels more like teenage rebellion-okay, "Beast rebels against Man" but this bit about how the First Change works feels like Bruccato had a strange upbringing at best.

And now for more ripping off of Werewolf, Delusion is Lunacy. Lunacy was one of Mother Luna's gifts to werewolves, that humans would refuse to believe the wolf-man in front of them unless their willpower was kick ass, and because Mother Luna actually EXISTS in the spirit world (or at least, her spirit children the Lunate Spirits do), you could buy it. Here, it's just "eh, Nature does it. Because Nature! Why do you not believe Nature?"

Anyway, once the First Change is done, the shifter must now balance the feral and human hearts they now possess. This will result in the Harmony table in a later section. Everything in WoD has a "Morality" score, and most supernaturals are based on human Morality (Mage, Vampire, Promethean) or has something completely different to highlight how alien they are to human morals (Werewolf, Changeling, Geist). When we get to the Feral's morality...well, you'll see.

Also, losing Harmony has a tendency to lock a shifter into one form or another, basically removing half the reason to play one of these guys. Werewolves don't, instead becoming more and more batshit crazy from the loss of Harmony until they hit 0 and become "broken", but still able to shapeshift. Of course, hitting 0 usually requires an intentional act that would get everyone at the table to stand up and shout "WHAT THE FUCK?!". Usually. I know what's coming...

Moving on, we find a brief summary of what gets covered: Accords (to put it in D&D terms, Accord is your 'Race' on the 'Race/Class' scale), Gifts, etc. We'll get there, the summaries aren't nearly as 'What the Christ?' worthy as the full write-ups. There is one bit that sticks out: The Fury.

(The 'Berserk' that is mentioned is a rage mode. Werewolves have it too)

The Fury is the worst thing ever printed. Many games have a written in 'leash' for the GM, whether its creatures way beyond the party's power, mechanical backlash from abusing powers, or just falling back on good old rule 0 (GM has final fucking say). The Fury is, instead of being something to limit the players, a free railroading tool. I skipped ahead a bit and the full writeup for it is that the Fury's response is "immediate", and requires a Resolve + Composure roll with a penalty to resist it, and even if you resist it, the book says "oh you'll probably be back to punish the stupid human later, you can just be more rational about it instead of instantly pissing in their soup". There is no reward for obeying the Fury, merely punishment if you fail to act on it, and punishment if you DO act on it cause, well, that human may be a bit ticked off that you just pissed on their car.

But, we're done with things on a personal level. Tune in next time as we discuss feral families and dynasties. Yeah, remember what I said about ferals not sharing a common culture? That's gonna get blown out the fucking water.

 

[Zaryiu]

...Pod...

Affirmative.

So I'm sad to say Zaryiu is no longer with us after a freak accident involving energy bombs.

Part 3: In which bestiality is encouraged.

God I wish I was kidding.

The between chapter story snippet involves a Bear shifter who works as a trucker. He happens upon a town with a stupid sign that says "there are no bears in our woods" and decides "fuck these guys, I'mma terrify all of them by being a bear in their woods!" It's stupid.

Anyway. What follows is several paragraphs of how the world used to be green and lush and verdant until man discovered fire and everything went wrong. The story section lists "weapons, words, clothing and creeds" as the stuff MAN invented that set them on the path away from the primal nature of ripping an animal with non-existent claws and eating their flesh. So according to this book, a simple "Hello!" is EEEEEEEEEEVIL!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Also, the "Kin and Cousins" paragraph is hilarious. The Snake that tempted Eve in the Garden fucked her too according to this book. The Egyptian Gods are all the product of bestiality-and fuck, there's a cat goddess in there.

Bruccato!

Anyway, the next several paragraphs describe how a Feral grows up. Apparently, if you're gonna be one of these shifters, it's from birth. Such shifters are 'animalistic' growing up, and may be considered 'exceptional' or :autism: by human standards. "Animal Magnetism" is a fact of life for a young feral, and the child is drawn to the power of nature. There's actually some interesting ideas here...but because of where we are it almost immediately goes to shit.

And it hits right when we discuss the lead-up to the First Change, I mean, the...oh they just call it First Change, just like Werewolf does. But, where Werewolf described the leadup as a terrifying storm of hallucinations and paranoia, Changing Breeds goes for more...well, berserk style. The feral attempts to create their own release via all manner of stuff-hard drugs? Self-cutting? Sex sex and more sex? All of this and more! See, Werewolf is all about the terrifying first glimpses of a world that you're suddenly thrown in to and told to swim, while Changing Breeds feels more like teenage rebellion-okay, "Beast rebels against Man" but this bit about how the First Change works feels like Bruccato had a strange upbringing at best.

And now for more ripping off of Werewolf, Delusion is Lunacy. Lunacy was one of Mother Luna's gifts to werewolves, that humans would refuse to believe the wolf-man in front of them unless their willpower was kick ass, and because Mother Luna actually EXISTS in the spirit world (or at least, her spirit children the Lunate Spirits do), you could buy it. Here, it's just "eh, Nature does it. Because Nature! Why do you not believe Nature?"

Anyway, once the First Change is done, the shifter must now balance the feral and human hearts they now possess. This will result in the Harmony table in a later section. Everything in WoD has a "Morality" score, and most supernaturals are based on human Morality (Mage, Vampire, Promethean) or has something completely different to highlight how alien they are to human morals (Werewolf, Changeling, Geist). When we get to the Feral's morality...well, you'll see.

Also, losing Harmony has a tendency to lock a shifter into one form or another, basically removing half the reason to play one of these guys. Werewolves don't, instead becoming more and more batshit crazy from the loss of Harmony until they hit 0 and become "broken", but still able to shapeshift. Of course, hitting 0 usually requires an intentional act that would get everyone at the table to stand up and shout "WHAT THE FUCK?!". Usually. I know what's coming...

Moving on, we find a brief summary of what gets covered: Accords (to put it in D&D terms, Accord is your 'Race' on the 'Race/Class' scale), Gifts, etc. We'll get there, the summaries aren't nearly as 'What the Christ?' worthy as the full write-ups. There is one bit that sticks out: The Fury.

(The 'Berserk' that is mentioned is a rage mode. Werewolves have it too)

The Fury is the worst thing ever printed. Many games have a written in 'leash' for the GM, whether its creatures way beyond the party's power, mechanical backlash from abusing powers, or just falling back on good old rule 0 (GM has final fucking say). The Fury is, instead of being something to limit the players, a free railroading tool. I skipped ahead a bit and the full writeup for it is that the Fury's response is "immediate", and requires a Resolve + Composure roll with a penalty to resist it, and even if you resist it, the book says "oh you'll probably be back to punish the stupid human later, you can just be more rational about it instead of instantly pissing in their soup". There is no reward for obeying the Fury, merely punishment if you fail to act on it, and punishment if you DO act on it cause, well, that human may be a bit ticked off that you just pissed on their car.

But, we're done with things on a personal level. Tune in next time as we discuss feral families and dynasties. Yeah, remember what I said about ferals not sharing a common culture? That's gonna get blown out the fucking water.

Holy shit it just keeps getting worse and Holy Pretentious Tone Batman! (Not you, the sick fuck who write this shit)

 

[thx1138]

I honestly thought this kind of RPG book writing style died with the death of Geocities sites, Portal of Evil exhibits and one-off-and-forgotten White Wolf games. I mean, this is shit. This is shitty shit. I would say this is probably worse than FATAL, as pretentious as that other one, Wraythulhu, and with the bestiality as creepy as Black Tokyo.

Anyway, good read. You're a better man than I, Gunga Din.

 

[AngeloTheWizard]

Holy shit it just keeps getting worse and Holy Pretentious Tone Batman! (Not you, the sick fuck who write this shit)

Yeah, I'm cutting out a lot of it, but there's a lot of choice lines that really highlight just how pretentious he is. For example, the hybrid "war form" of the Ferals is described as "An uncanny fusion of man, beast, and GOD." If that doesn't get you facepalming from how ludicrous it is, I can't help you.

 

[Zaryiu]

Yeah, I'm cutting out a lot of it, but there's a lot of choice lines that really highlight just how pretentious he is. For example, the hybrid "war form" of the Ferals is described as "An uncanny fusion of man, beast, and GOD." If that doesn't get you facepalming from how ludicrous it is, I can't help you.

The only reason i'm not facepalming is i risk doing serious damage from how hard i'd facepalm

 

[AngeloTheWizard]

Well, this trainwreck needs to keep going.

Spoiler: Tests and Rituals

Before we begin, I offer a sidebar that makes me really wonder what kind of upbringing Bruccato had...or if he got really high and figured any thought he had about how parents could beat their kids was good to throw into this book. It...scares me.

Part 4: Family Matters

So now we get into how the Feral fits into the world around him, how family acts, companions, how player groups (called "bands") interact, etc. This section is usually present in the "core" splats for each supernatural and give us a peek into how their various social groups interact. This book does not disappoint.

We're told the bloodline doesn't usually breed through, but it can. This is fine, Werewolf did the same, we were originally Werewolf, all good. But since there's a good chance a Feral is NOT born into a family of shapechangers, the kids are usually beaten in an effort to excise the curse. You saw the sidebar up there, I'm not repeating myself.

But for kids who ARE members of a shapechanger family, it's a little better. The kid is treated as a "prize breeding horse or honor student", especially if they're part of the Reagencies-oh yeah, there are whole noble families of these fuckers. 13 to be exact. I thought these guys only started popping up recently?

You know, there's a fan-made supplement called Princess the Hopeful, detailing magical girls in the World of Darkness. That book is a million times more consistent than this, and this was meant for commercial release. At least in Princess they flat out said "they didn't start coming back til the 80s and there's more and more popping up but their numbers are still limited". Anyway, I'll stop reminding myself of better games any time now.

Anyway, the Regencies attempt to foster and grow the changing gift. Some of their methods are a bit, well...

A bit "what the christ?" I swear there's also a bit somewhere in this chapter about feeding kids who don't have the gift to the actual shapechangers of the family, but I'm not scouring this fucking section to find it again.

If Regencies aren't your thing (and god knows they ain't mine!), Urban Gangs are also a possibility. Perhaps you will be a wanderer, an orphan, a gang leader, or fall in with otherkin-yes. Otherkin are mentioned.

And of course the juicy bit is right on a page break, the cocksuckers.

But after a little bit about ferals founding cults and friends they can make, we get to more personal relations, including lovers. The whole 'feral' thing is played up a wee bit too much, I mean, animals can get super jealous of mates so imagine what happens when that jealousy is applied to humans-and to be fair, Werewolf had the same thing where another man stealing a werepuppy's lover could result in a whole mess of blood. There's also Caretakers (people who help out) and Devotees (which would more accurately be called "friends and acquaintances"), and then Kin.

Kin know the feral is a shapechanger. Kin are considered family, and can include anything from lovers to cultists to slaves-wait, what? Yes, those two wildly inconsistent statements are right next to each other in the book.

And then it gets to animal companions. Including...

Why yes. That is two whole paragraphs devoted to having sex with animals. Boy, do I wish I could see the looks on your faces right now. We've gone from implied bestiality to "yeah the player characters can totally bone their dogs."

Moving on from that little bit, we discuss feral society. Which, since there's no guilds or cabals like in every other Splat, comes down to "well, you have your Band of player characters and that's about as far as society goes". Every Band also has an Alpha, which is usually a predator species if it's mixed up like that-a lion won't accept a rabbit as his alpha, after all. Territory is also something to keep in mind but again, it was all taken from Werewolf-with an extra dose of actual shit and piss being used to mark territory while Werewolf stuck with using signs and maybe a bit of blood and magic.

There's also a discussion of "bukotas", aka a big fucking party. I don't care, after some of the shit we've read I don't even want to know what happens at one. Does it involve sex? Probably.

We move on to how the Ferals communicate, all of which is pretty much copy-pasta'd from Werewolf, including "The First Tongue". The only interesting part is "shit-speak". I'm sure you can understand exactly what that means.

There's also "The Quiet Codes". These are all ripped directly from the Oath of the Moon from Forsaken, with a few changes. The only new one for Ferals? "Don't Shit where you Eat". It's basically 'actions have consequences' but my god I'm getting tired of all the shit references.

And that about rounds out Feral society-a bunch of things that Werewolf did a million times better, drizzled in a fine sauce of piss and shit. I think we need a breather. Next time, we'll discuss the many and varied enemies of the ferals.

 

[AngeloTheWizard]

Part 4.5: Enemies

Okay I read ahead and realized that 'enemies' are pretty easy. Let's just knock this one out of the park:

Humans! Humans suck and always always always destroy but some of them make cool stuff and you should respect that. But this is basically Grimdark Fern Gully or Captain Planet and you should probably be killing humans that do so much as light up a cigarette.

Other animals! Leave them alone, they can kill you just as easily.

Werewolves! They suffer the weird problem of being both 'related' to ferals and distant. Remember, we used to be a Werewolf book, so the poor fuckers had to quickly re-write everything when they got that honor stripped from them. Werewolves are best left alone but sometimes the werewolves hunt the ferals that turn into rats or spiders (Rat spirits and Spider spirits are well known enemies in Werewolf so it makes sense that some of them would kill anything remotely related).

Mages! Mysterious, tricksy little hobbitses. Sometimes they can cooperate with ferals. Other times it's a duel to the death. I know Doctor Angelo (my usual Mage character) is probably going to start punching all their blood out as soon as one tries to claim that modern medicine is unnatural and he should die for it.

Vampires! Kill them, and kill all the other undead while you're at it.

Other, worse things! You should probably kill them to.

Wow, that was fast! Now, next time, we'll be getting to character creation. Pod, you're back up!

 

[Zaryiu]

Well, this trainwreck needs to keep going.

Spoiler: Tests and Rituals

Before we begin, I offer a sidebar that makes me really wonder what kind of upbringing Bruccato had...or if he got really high and figured any thought he had about how parents could beat their kids was good to throw into this book. It...scares me.

Part 4: Family Matters

So now we get into how the Feral fits into the world around him, how family acts, companions, how player groups (called "bands") interact, etc. This section is usually present in the "core" splats for each supernatural and give us a peek into how their various social groups interact. This book does not disappoint.

We're told the bloodline doesn't usually breed through, but it can. This is fine, Werewolf did the same, we were originally Werewolf, all good. But since there's a good chance a Feral is NOT born into a family of shapechangers, the kids are usually beaten in an effort to excise the curse. You saw the sidebar up there, I'm not repeating myself.

But for kids who ARE members of a shapechanger family, it's a little better. The kid is treated as a "prize breeding horse or honor student", especially if they're part of the Reagencies-oh yeah, there are whole noble families of these fuckers. 13 to be exact. I thought these guys only started popping up recently?

You know, there's a fan-made supplement called Princess the Hopeful, detailing magical girls in the World of Darkness. That book is a million times more consistent than this, and this was meant for commercial release. At least in Princess they flat out said "they didn't start coming back til the 80s and there's more and more popping up but their numbers are still limited". Anyway, I'll stop reminding myself of better games any time now.

Anyway, the Regencies attempt to foster and grow the changing gift. Some of their methods are a bit, well...

A bit "what the christ?" I swear there's also a bit somewhere in this chapter about feeding kids who don't have the gift to the actual shapechangers of the family, but I'm not scouring this fucking section to find it again.

If Regencies aren't your thing (and god knows they ain't mine!), Urban Gangs are also a possibility. Perhaps you will be a wanderer, an orphan, a gang leader, or fall in with otherkin-yes. Otherkin are mentioned.

And of course the juicy bit is right on a page break, the cocksuckers.

But after a little bit about ferals founding cults and friends they can make, we get to more personal relations, including lovers. The whole 'feral' thing is played up a wee bit too much, I mean, animals can get super jealous of mates so imagine what happens when that jealousy is applied to humans-and to be fair, Werewolf had the same thing where another man stealing a werepuppy's lover could result in a whole mess of blood. There's also Caretakers (people who help out) and Devotees (which would more accurately be called "friends and acquaintances"), and then Kin.

Kin know the feral is a shapechanger. Kin are considered family, and can include anything from lovers to cultists to slaves-wait, what? Yes, those two wildly inconsistent statements are right next to each other in the book.

And then it gets to animal companions. Including...

Why yes. That is two whole paragraphs devoted to having sex with animals. Boy, do I wish I could see the looks on your faces right now. We've gone from implied bestiality to "yeah the player characters can totally bone their dogs."

Moving on from that little bit, we discuss feral society. Which, since there's no guilds or cabals like in every other Splat, comes down to "well, you have your Band of player characters and that's about as far as society goes". Every Band also has an Alpha, which is usually a predator species if it's mixed up like that-a lion won't accept a rabbit as his alpha, after all. Territory is also something to keep in mind but again, it was all taken from Werewolf-with an extra dose of actual shit and piss being used to mark territory while Werewolf stuck with using signs and maybe a bit of blood and magic.

There's also a discussion of "bukotas", aka a big fucking party. I don't care, after some of the shit we've read I don't even want to know what happens at one. Does it involve sex? Probably.

We move on to how the Ferals communicate, all of which is pretty much copy-pasta'd from Werewolf, including "The First Tongue". The only interesting part is "shit-speak". I'm sure you can understand exactly what that means.

There's also "The Quiet Codes". These are all ripped directly from the Oath of the Moon from Forsaken, with a few changes. The only new one for Ferals? "Don't Shit where you Eat". It's basically 'actions have consequences' but my god I'm getting tired of all the shit references.

And that about rounds out Feral society-a bunch of things that Werewolf did a million times better, drizzled in a fine sauce of piss and shit. I think we need a breather. Next time, we'll discuss the many and varied enemies of the ferals.

THE FUCK?! The writer is a sick fuck