Absolutely ESSENTIAL! Werewolf the Forsaken, the second core setting game for new World of Darkness is perhaps one of the best roleplaying games published TO DATE! It's just flexible as all hell - you can run a generational game in a small valley, or remake Wolfen, or delve into Unknown Armies territory in the backstreets of Detroit, or just play it for the combat value. Instead of cleaving narrowly to a particular adventure type, it offers room for expansion - it feels together. Predators expands it a little further, detailing spirits and going into more detail about the Ridden.
The core Werewolf rule book went into some detail about the spirit world and what it was like, but it not fully developed - it was more about impressions of the spirit world, rather than specific details.
Predators essentially lays out the blueprint for what spirits are like, broken down by category - tool-spirits, bird-spirits, plant-spirits and so forth. It's here that the book makes itself invaluable. Instead of describing spirits in vague terms, the book goes into specific, concrete detail about what a spirit's like - where it typically spawns, what they look like and how the GM can use them in a game.
Troublesome and individualistic, cantankerous and fastidious, imperious and demanding, cold and chilly - the personality of each spirit gets summarized in a nutshell. You don't have to guess at a spirit's motives anymore - look at some quotes from Predator, attach some human characteristics to the spirit and you can run the spirit for your group. All the traffic light ever says is "Stop!" and "Go!", but that's all that it needs to say. The storyteller advice is also pretty useful - in other words, it's all focused on why the players might have contact with the spirit, rather than how it fits into some abstract scheme that's of interest only to the authors of the book.
It's worth noting that the book covers the entire range of spirits, from high to low - besides natural and artificial spirits, we also get the Celestial spirits (sun and moon, including lunes), conceptual spirits (apathy, war, dreams) and the bastard hybrid Magath. The Magath get some nice writeups, including a dump-truck/pain spirit who wanders the spirit highways, destroying car-spirits to siphon off their pain, and a dog/information spirit that haunts a library.
We also get to find out how data/technology-spirits work, and how book and computer spirits prey upon them. We also get stats for Ghost Children, the spirit-children of two werewolves, who have some pretty nasty stats and a ban that demands that they must revenge themselves upon their parents. That's story hooks on the hoof, there. The chapter also includes some new spirit-powers, ranging from the generic but useful (Mechanical Possession, Speed, Emotional Aura, Telekinesis) to the specific (Dessicate, Fearstruck, Final Strike, Clasp).
There's a couple of clinkers in there, though. The playground spirit is particularly irritating - while it may seem innocent and sweet on the surface, it's actually tainted by tortured and abused children, attracts pedophiles and child molestors, and spreads experiences of neglect, depression and aggression to all who approach.
The next chapter deals with the Ridden - spirits who jump into people's bodies and ride them around. One of the best parts of the book is that it points out that Ridden can fill just about any need in a horror game, ranging from spooky Innsmouth folk (possessed by fish spirits) to cannibal hillbillies (gluttony spirits) to animals that are too smart for their own good (possessed by a spirit of their own species) to Swamp Thing (plant spirit in a human body) to any shapeshifter that you want as a villain. All that you have to do is to stick the appropriate spirit into the body, do a little chargen and you're set.
It's that flexibility - that ability to create a new race without having to create a splatbook, the ability to use what you've already been given rather than having to buy something new - that makes the new World of Darkness so damned good. The possibilities are just endless. They're especially good for games with regular humans, just because the Ridden are so versatile. Imagine, say, a military game, where part of the force is suddenly jumped by war spirits. They're lighting each other up with live ammunition, jumping from body to body (like the Koleris of Tribe 8), nobody knows what's going on and it's ten hours until morning - and your military characters are right in the thick of it. Can they stop them before they reach the nearby town? What about the local werewolf pack?
This book is one of the most essential and valuable books to the Werewolf the Forsaken game line.
Awwww yea!!! What can I say about this book except: GET THIS BOOK! It is an absolutely essential supplement for Werewolf the Forsaken, and just about tied with Lore of the Forsaken in terms of its importance to players and storytellers.
The book is split into three portions- the first goes into depth discussing various spirits, their social structure, their basic motivations and behaviors, and gives an example of at least one type of each spirit. The second part talks about various Hosts- the shards of powerful spirits who managed to figure out how to out-think Father Wolf and find sanctuary in the physical world by driving around bodies that they hollow out and live in until the body deteriorates. The third part talks about strange things from the distant past- powerful creatures who, for whatever reasons, are trapped in the physical world.... and very angry about it.
This supplement is also excellent for creating antagonists for mortals, mages and (of course) werewolves. As such, I also recommend it for anyone who just needs ideas for antagonists. I'll say it again- buy this book!
Anything Goes Trivia
Trevor
Megaton Man
