War in Concordia: The Shattered Dream

Rating:
Summary: What has happened to changeling?
Review: Another inferior product for changeling from white wolf, this one is supposed to be a guide to the "war of concordia" but all it contains are the reactions of the kith and assorted houses, a few new art's,weapons,and treasures. It never really states how changelings make war in the 20th century. Things like tactics, what happen's when ordinary people happen across the rather large battle's are all glossed over if they are mentioned at all. One thing I have held that was unbeleiveable about the world of darkness is how people could remain ignorant about the vampires, changelings, wraiths, werefish ,ect around them when there are constantly large to small scale conflicts going on all around them. This book has no information on that or on the war in concordia in any meaningful way so I can't recomend it.

Rating:
Summary: Metaplot - Moves Things Along
Review: While I dearly love the old Changeling paradigm, where the worst thing most Changelings had to face was their banal Calculus teacher in fourth-period class, I have to say, that if moving the Changeling paradigm along had to happen sometime, this seemed the logical next step.

Since the High King's disappearance was established some years ago, in 'Kingdom of Willows', it only seemed a matter of time before civil unrest followed.

WiC details a logical progression of the breakdown of Concordian society, beginning with the upper eschelons, where bereft of David's moderating influence, Nobles declare a state of emergency, and began cracking down upon their commoner subjects. The commoners, having seen their worst fears being realized, become more resolute, thus calling down even harsher measures. Thus is born a vicious spiral.

Add to this mix, the covert movements of several 'Secret' societies, such as the Beltaine Blade, Shadow Court, Monkey's Paw, etc, and you begin to see the chaos that WiC strives to span. Included are the current, up-to-date status of many of the Kingdoms and people of note, strategies (some fairly ruthless)...that a Fae may employ in War, and the prevailing attitudes one may meet.

The things that detracted from the book, to me, as always; Contradictions, and ruined mood.

In one case, 'war letters' between a pair of lovers, a commoner sluagh and Noble sidhe (Whahuh?) ...fell somewhat flat by stretching credulity in just that mix alone. In others, strategies involving destroying Freeholds and using Cold Iron seemed to me almost as if the authors were trying to outdo themselves in 'How bad can we make it seem'? Add to this, that printing delays left the timeline of events as presented a year out of whack, the last recorded event occuring in late 2000.

To their credit, they left the book metaplot progression somewhat open, for ST's to add flavour and details, but being one who likes to know exactly what to do next, and where things are going, it can be a bit frustrating, to be left with such uncertainty.

And while I may long for a return to the Changeling of yore, when battles fought were against frailties of the human spirit, it seems a decent, if not 'necessary for play', book by Arthaus for the Changeling line, and a heroic attempt to stir interest in the game once more.