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Review by: Prax
Rating: 7/10
A very useful antagonist resource for Werewolf: The Forsaken.
Predators, written by Aaron Dembski-Bowden, Jess Hartley, Forrest B. Marchinton, Deena McKinney and Ethan Skemp, is essentially an antagonist primer for Werewolf: The Forsaken. In this respect it’s a useful book for any Forsaken Storyteller wishing to get a better handle on enemy spirits, the Ridden and the Hosts for use in pretty much any type of Chronicle.
As usual for White-Wolf resources the book opens with a piece of fiction titled “One Vengeance.” It’s a rather disturbing little tale that highlights exactly what sorts of dangers the denizens of the spirit world can pose to the Uratha. The story begins with a child being held hostage in her own body by a vengeful spirit and then ends with violence as these things typically do when you involve werewolves. After that the book moves on to the Introduction, a fairly cut and dry chapter that explains what the book is and isn’t for as well as going over each of the four chapters in brief.
Chapter 1: Denizens of the Shadow discusses the most pervasive of the Uratha’s enemies as well as occasional allies, the spirits. I really enjoyed the opening part of this chapter, which only consists of nine pages, but really does a great job explaining the overall motivations of spirits from certain unique psychological aspects like their inherent immortality, reasons they might have for interacting with werewolves and how they group and interact with one another. I continue to refer to those nine pages as I run my own chronicles even now and each time I do I usually learn something new that I either overlooked or failed to realize the true importance of on my first reading.
After the spirit overview the chapter moves on to the discussion of specific spirits in the form of a bestiary. The bestiary describes over sixty different types of spirits and provides full trait write-ups for each of them. Included among these are the unihar also known as Ghost Children, example of each of the five types of Lunes, Ancestor spirits, magath and many more. However, the bestiary is not and never was meant to be a comprehensive resource. What it does do is provide a myriad of examples of the possibilities inherent in the spirit world. Of these examples my favorites were the Mini-Mart spirits, the magath known as Wise Lost and the Ancestor spirits. Your own tastes may of course vary considerably. The chapter ends with full write-ups for the thirteen new Numina used by various spirits described within the chapter.
Chapter 2: The Spirit-Ridden begins with one of the more disturbing small-fiction introductions I have read in a long time. This chapter takes an in-depth look at the three types of Ridden that the Uratha may encounter during the course of a story. The first part of the chapter goes over a spirit’s motivations for possessing a human host and what motivations a human might have for voluntarily allowing a possession attempt. After that each type of Ridden: Urged, Claimed and Spirit-Thief are explained in their own individual multi-page write-up. Each write-up covers the Fettering or Claiming, the changes that occur to the mount because of the joining, conditions for release and finally all of the mechanics involved in the process from start to finish including the Numina required for the initial claim, maintenance and what the spirit can and cannot do while controlling the mount.
After the bare bones are explained a character creation process for Ridden, specifically Claimed, is provided who receive a new trait known as Synthesis. This represents the degree of change a spirit has wrought upon a mortal form. In addition to Synthesis a system of Aspects is explained and provided. Aspects amount to the physical powers and changes that the possessing spirit imposes on its mortal host body. All of the twenty-five Aspects are fairly straight forward, easy to use and cover pretty much any circumstance or type of spirit possession you could imagine.
After the character creation system is described the book then provides eleven full write-ups of example Claimed. Each one is fairly unique and one of them even describes a non-human Claimed. Further on smaller write-ups are provided that simply describe a number of spirits in brief, focusing on motivations for why they might enter the physical world and possess someone as well as possible results for that possession. The chapter ends with a sample scenario for including Ridden in a Chronicle. The Shadow Syllabus is a short, but well written open-ended scenario about a small cult. Full write-ups for the major dramatis personae are also included, which brings the total number of example Ridden included in this chapter up to fifteen.
The third chapter known as The Swarms Within: The Hosts covers two of the Uratha’s more potent enemies, the Azlu and the Beshilu. Each variety of shartha gets an in-depth look beginning with a legend of their creation, a brief history up to the modern day, their genesis, supernatural biology, the mechanical systems associated with that biology and what modern medicine has to say if you’re brain has been eaten by a flesh-spider or your heart devoured by a demon-rat. Each of the write-ups then ends with a Character Creation system for making your own unique Azlu and Beshilu antagonists. Similar to the Ridden chapter a list of unique Aspects ranging from the practical to creepy is provided for both the Azlu and the Beshilu. However, the system for creating Hosts is far more fluid then the mechanics described in the Ridden chapter and anyone searching for support for player controlled Azlu and Beshilu will likely be disappointed. Also provided are full write-ups for three additional Azlu and three additional Beshilu antagonists, ready made to spring upon unsuspecting players or serve as plot hooks in some player’s background.
The chapter closes out with a discussion of the Hidden Hosts, in which the possible existence of a Third Host is presented. Three potential types of Third Host are then briefly described with one example member with full stats provided at the end of each write-up. Much of the details about these entities is left entirely at the individual Storyteller’s discretion, up to and including even having them exist within the setting. For the curious the Hosts described are the Locust Hosts known as the Srizaku, the Crow Hosts known as the Halaku and the Snake Hosts known as the Razilu. None of them are meant to be enemies on the same scale as either the Azlu or Beshilu, but they are each satisfyingly mysterious and disturbing.
We end the book with Chapter 4: Horrors of an Ancient Age. The title basically says it all, these are things whose time passed long ago, but that have somehow lingered on into the modern age for the ill of all. These are not the idigam. Each of the six Horrors is a unique corporeal entity and not one, but two explanations for its existence are provided within the write-up along with its full listing of traits. Such entities are not things to be lightly tossed into any Chronicle though. Each of them can actually be the focus for an entire Chronicle with a bit of work. They are very powerful, nigh unknowable and each one is perfectly capable of besting a single, if not several packs on its own. None of these creatures particularly sparked my interest and it is probably the least useful chapter in the entire book, but I did enjoy reading about all of them. If mysterious ancient horrors are your thing though, maybe you’ll get a bigger kick out of this chapter then I did. Each one definitely has its place in a Werewolf: The Forsaken or even general World of Darkness story or chronicle.
I personally still hesitate to mark Predators as a completely essential book for anyone’s Werewolf: The Forsaken library. However, it should be noted that a great many satisfied customers heartily disagree with my assessment. That said this is the first book I recommend you purchase if you’re a Storyteller. The insight into the spiritual enemies of the Uratha is invaluable as well as the information provided about the spirit world. If you’re simply a player and fan of Werewolf: The Forsaken I’d recommend picking up Blood of the Wolf and Lore of the Forsaken first. Predators is a nice book and it can be useful to the average player, but in my opinion it is primarily a Storyteller resource. So in closing as a general resource I give this book a 7 out of 10 based on general usefulness for anyone (including players of other World of Darkness games). However, as a Forsaken Storyteller resource I give it a 9 out of 10. It accomplishes what it sets out to do pretty much perfectly.
