intro

Changing Breeds Part I: The Introduction

Before I begin: the new World of Darkness line is, for the most part, well written and playable, with occasional bits of broken mechanics or asstastic fluff that we make endless fun of in the WoD thread. This book is not representative of the quality of the rest of the books White Wolf makes. This book is pretty much the distillation of absolutely everything wrong with oWoD that caused White Wolf to reboot in the first place, reprinted as an excuse to make loads of money off furries.

Let's just start with the cover.

http://i.imgur.com/wfmD1.jpg

A were-lion, Gorilla Grodd, and a were-baboon are all atop a pile of junked cars, apparently being led by someone who looks like Thor with antlers glued to his head. It's kinda weird how some hybrid forms in this book are way more human than others, Deerhoof Antlerdude here being the prime example (we'll get to see more of him later.)

We can't get any further without discussing the authors of this shitheap, however. Most of them have only been credited with writing Changing Breeds, as far as I can tell, but the main writer and developer of Changing Breeds is one Phil "Satyrblade" Brucato. Yes, that's how he's credited in the book. Let's see what he's done. To Wikipedia!

Wikipedia posted:

"Satyr" Phil Brucato is an American writer and game designer. He is best known for his work with White Wolf, Inc., including role-playing games such as Mage: The Ascension, Werewolf: The Apocalypse, and Mage: The Sorcerer's Crusade. He has also created Deliria: Faerie Tales for a New Millennium for Laughing Pan Productions.

Noted for his motto "To write is to tell the Truth,",[1] Phil uses fantasy fiction to inspire his readers toward real-life achievements. Although he's often considered a neopagan author, his work displays an openness and respect for all forms of spirituality.

[Bolded works are 'start running' levels of terrible, I added a few from RPG.net]

Selected Role-playing work with White Wolf, Inc

* World of Darkness: Changing Breeds
* The Swashbucklers Handbook - co-author
* Infernalism: The Path of Screams - author
* Revelations of the Dark Mother - co-author
* Freak Legions: A Player's Guide to Fomori - contributing author
* Vampire: The Masquerade, Revised Edition- (contributing author) by Robert Hatch & Various Authors (1998, White Wolf, Inc.).
* Kindred of the East - (contributing author) ()
* Mage: The Sorcerers Crusade - author & designer
* Bastet - co-author
* Cult of Ecstasy (1996, White Wolf, Inc.).

* Vampire: The Dark Ages - contributing author & designer
* Mage: The Ascension, 2nd Edition - author & designer
* The Fragile Path: Testaments of the First Cabal - editor & contributing author
* Changeling: The Dreaming - contributing author (1st and 2nd editions)
* Players Guide for Changeling: The Dreaming - author and designer
* Black Furies - author and designer

Other Books

* Ravens in the Library - editor & contributing author, with Sandra Buskirk (2009, Quiet Thunder Productions).
* Love Wisdom — A Soul’s Journey to Wellness (editor) by Dr. Shannon South (2009, Trafford Publishing).
* Rites of Pleasure: Sexuality in Wicca and NeoPaganism - contributing author, edited by Jennifer Hunter (2004, Citadel Press).

Oh. Ohhhh. Oh dear.

Moving on. The intro piece to the book is the standard White Wolf poorly formatted artsy attempt to make sub-par short stories look good, except this one is so short it could probably fit on a single page with normal editing. It's about a Mexican woman trying to cross the border into America to start over. It starts with these choice words:

quote:

When I came into this country, I crossed the desert on foot.

We moved at night, eating stale tortillas and stealing water from cattle troughs.

The man who guided our crossing called himself “COYOTE,” but the only beast in him was MAN.

She talks about how she'd heard about men like him doing horrible things to people in the desert, and surprise, he tries - scratch that, succeeds at - raping her one night. While being raped, she flashes back to her father killing a gray fox that had been eating their chickens, and how it made her break down sobbing as her father yelled at her for being a sissy. As she remembers her screams, she shifts and rips the rapist guide to tiny pieces, and wakes up soaked in blood and butt naked in the middle of the desert, alone.

We haven't even reached the contents of the book and we already have rape, symbolic rape of nature, natural vengeance, nudity, and murder. Well, I have to give it credit, the intro does tell you exactly what you're in for.

The introduction chapter proper sets the tone by describing Man as a clever monkey despoiling nature, hiding from the beasts in the shadows, etc etc yadda yadda all the stuff that made us cringe back when old world Werewolf was out. It also sets the tone where disturbingly almost-sexual language is used constantly when talking about Changing Breeds and animals in general, like "animal sensuality", "passionate," "beautiful," "quick to love," and the like. I know it's intending to talk about stronger emotion and instinct in general, but if they're trying to not sound like they want to fuck animal-people, they're failing pretty miserably, here.

The book defines what the Changing Breeds are, at this point:

quote:

A member of “the changing breeds” is a person who shares a metaphysical connection to an inner animal. This connection allows that person to shift between human and animal forms. The connection is innate, primal and mysterious. No one knows really why or how it happens, but once opened, that bond cannot be broken except by death.

Yyyyep. We've got ourselves a Therianthrope splatbook. And don't you think they're going to just gloss over the furry fandom, oh no my friends, they're gonna tackle that shit head on.

Moving on, we get the first mention of the first "axis" in character creation, Accords. In the new World of Darkness system, each line has two main categories for the supernatural type. Put very simply, it's generally 'race-analogue' and 'class-analogue,' but nowhere near as restrictive as that. The race analogue are the Clans in vampire, the Seemings in Changeling, and so on - the subtype of the supernatural race you belong to. The class analogue is usually a social group or philosophy you follow: Courts in Changeling, Tribes in Werewolf, etc.



The class analogue in this are "Accords", also known as "Songs of the Souls" (not even kidding.) It's "a spiritual harmony composed of longing, awareness, hunger and rage." This is basically the temperament of your character and what they do. The Accords are the Den-Warder (nurturing/protecting), the Heart-Ripper (predatory), the Root-Weaver (builder), the Sun-Chaser (trickster) and the Wind-Dancer (intuitive/thoughtful).

The book goes on to say that there's no real were-creature society, as it's too fractious and widespread. The reason I bring this up is because they use the term 'parliament of werebears' and it made me think of how much better Parliamentary politics would be if arguments could escalate into MPs turning into giant-ass bears and mauling each other.

Anyway. The second axis, and the one that is way the hell wider, is the Nahual, or spirit animal. Yes, you have a power animal that you can see in your dreams that reflects in your body and demeanor, and determines what shapes you can shift into and what stuff you can do. If you've ever read Werewolf or even seen a movie with werewolves, you have the general idea.

So, what artwork should you use to demonstrate this idea? Maybe a werewolf howling to the moon, perhaps? Or a werecrocodile eating people? Maybe something unusual, like a werespider in a web?










Fuck that. You're getting bird-woman tits. (Semi-, obviously.)

Keep in mind that, aside from the cover and introduction, this is the first piece of art in the book. This is what we're dealing with.

Also, if you look really closely at the hobo's bottle of Not-Jack-Daniels, "Daniels" looks a hell of a lot like "Dalek." I would totally drink Dalek booze.

Also on the same page as Avian Mammaries is a discussion about how mankind are a bunch of jackasses (with a cringe-inducing clarification that women can be just as bad as men) that Nature is starting to fight against with Changing Breeds, and how the Changing Breeds constantly balance their hatred for humanity's Earth-raping ways with their sympathy to humanity. Thus, they're never at peace, alien to both worlds, yadda yadda crawling in my exoskeleton this carapace will not heal.

Next is a list of legends and myths about shape-changers, most just reiterating things already said or setting up discussions in the next chapter, but two are so -inducingly bad I have to show you.

quote:

Animal-folk are all of “exotic” ethnic descent: Myth rooted in fact. A feral can be born from any ethnicity; most, however, come from regions where people live in close proximity with the animals in question, and have deeply symbolic attachments to them. A werecougar, for example, will probably come from American stock, while a werelion would probably have African ancestry.

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...

Oh joy, back to the awkward sexuality and I'm-not-racist-but from the oWoD. How I missed cringing every time I read a book. Speaking of which, the Theme of the line is "urgent righteous fury" and the Mood is "raw sensuality."

The last section is a "further reading/viewing" section with a ton of shit either vaguely relevant or blatantly ripped off from. What's hilarious is they credit Cesar Milan and Inconvenient Truth in here as inspirations. Lastly, a choice entry in the glossary.

quote:

“shit-speak”: Communication through elimination, animal-style; expressing one’s self in methods that humans find disgusting.

Next time: More fluff so bad you'll want to rip off your own skin.