Minireview: Abyssals
After the somewhat shaky “Dragon-Blooded” book, I’ve really liked the new Exalted hardcover “splatbooks”. While some more anal rulesmongers like to whine about lack of playtesting with some specific charms, I don’t care that much – the ideas have been excellent and the writing good. Special mention goes to the “Lunars” book, which totally reinvented the Lunars and switched them from a boring “yarr, we’re barbarians!” role into being a fascinating group of Darwinist society builders.
So now we have Abyssals. While the original (1st ed) Abyssals wasn’t bad at all, this one is wonderful. Somehow, they’ve made the Abyssals both nastier and more understandable, at the same time. The first part of the book pulls together all the details on what happened when the Solars originally kicked Primordial ass, as seen from the other side. While a lot of this info has been available before, there are tons of small new details here and the whole thing is written in a clear fashion; it makes figuring out what makes the Abyssals (and the Deathlords and the Neverborn) tick a lot less headache-inducing. The Deathlords get great writeups, with some much-needed expansion and clarification on motives and abilities. Much weight is placed on how the Abyssals are complete slaves, and how the deck is stacked against them should they try to be anything else except evil death-dealers (Resonance is nasty now). On the other hand, many options for rebellion are presented.
After the initial overview section, we get the standard character creation stuff, then a long section on Abyssal charms (with some very nice innovations, for example the new Mirror Charm concept), then a section on Necrotech. A discussion on gamemastering an Abyssal chronicle finishes up the book.
If you’re running Exalted and want to use the Abyssals / Deathlords in your game, you want this book. No question. I think it’s one of the best new hardcover splatbooks – it paints the Abyssals in shades of grey while keeping those shades firmly on the “black(ish)” side. These aren’t cartoon villains – unless you want them to be. The art and comics are a mixed bag; some great, some not so, but nothing really bad. A few of the comics are very funny, and the one at the end continues the Arianna / Prince of Shadows / The Lover Clad in the Raiment of Tears story begun in earlier comics.
Warmly recommended.