War's End Review: Act One

Let's start at the beginning, which in this case is the Introduction of the module itself. In this piece of prose we learn that the Gaunt Man has come up with a new plan to make himself Torg, one that uses an Occult ritual to place all of the Darkness Devices on Earth under his control, which will provide him with sufficient Possibility Energy to fulfil that requirement of becoming Torg. Heketon is not pleased with the idea but appears powerless to do anything to stop the plan (and in fact this Introduction is the only place Heketon appears in the module.)

Perhaps the most important part of the Introduction is not the Gaunt Man's plan but the sudden reversal of positions between High Lord and Darkness Device as servant and master. Throughout the course of the Possibility Wars we've seen Heketon use the Gaunt Man rather than the other way around, first as part of an Occult ritual (the reality storm he was trapped in with the Heart of Coyote) then later manipulated into creating the avatar of the Nameless One in the Brides of Darkness storyline. But now all the Gaunt Man has to do is say "I'm boss!" and Heketon meekly accepts the situation? It doesn't seem likely.

Perhaps, as with the Bride of Darkness, the Gaunt Man's plan is not his own creation but merely another idea planted in his mind by Heketon and The Nameless One. Is Heketon's opposition to the idea just a ploy to make the Gaunt Man feel that he's in control once again? After all, why exactly should Heketon be opposed to the idea of Core Earth finally being destroyed and the Gaunt Man becoming Torg (presumably allowing TNO into the cosmverse as was indicated could happen in the original trilogy)?

So here we are, four pages into the module and I'm already having problems with the concept behind the whole thing. Perhaps the most annoying part of it all is that with his novel Interview With Evil John Terra was one of the strongest proponents of the 'Heketon is manipulating the Gaunt Man' school of thought but here he completely reverses that position over the course of a few paragraphs.

Moving along, the first Act is set in the Nile Empire. As I mentioned in the introduction to this review, it bothers me that the least dramatic Act of the module occurs in the one realm that has a World Law specifying that things need to be dramatic. Not only that but the ending is anti-climactic, the most dramatic encounter IMO occurs two Scenes before the end of the Act (and is a Standard scene) with the final "Dramatic" scene consisting primarily of a monologue by Mobius who then escapes before the players can even attempt to bring him down. But I'm getting ahead of myself...

Our Heroes begin the adventure in Cairo, a Nile pure zone. So naturally the first thing they run into in an Orrorshan gypsy who uses True Sight on them to make sure they're good people. Oh, but don't worry, this nondescript gypsy has an Orrorshan hardpoint set up in his tent so he can do this despite being an Ord (presumably, he isn't given a writeup so can't be very important.) in a pure zone. I guess the local K(anawa)-Mart had a sale on hardpoints or something since I can't figure out any other way for a bunch of Orrorshan Ords to be running around the Nile with a hardpoint.

Anyway, Karlo the gypsy tells Our Heroes that his mother and one of the other gypsy women, both fortune tellers, have disappeared. Obviously the PCs are supposed to volunteer (or if they're more mercenary, be hired by Karlo) to find the women. Surprisingly, the module does not assume that the PCs will do this and provides a couple other possible methods for getting the PCs started on the adventure.

This is both good and bad. It is good because it shows that Terra understands not all PC groups are going to immediately do the heroic thing and get on the case. It's bad because the characters are in a Nile pure zone and their Good Inclination should make them do it anyway so there shouldn't be much need for alternate methods.

As I mentioned in my introduction, that's it for the first Scene, you talk to an NPC. I find that rather ridiculous myself, I feel that something has to be accomplished by the players before a new Scene can begin. While I can understand why the Scene ends here (the players have two routes of investigation to follow, hence a choice of which Scene to do next) there should be more to it, maybe a run-in with a pickpocket or thief in the market before encountering Karlo, something that will at least require the players to act instead of just being told by the GM what they need to do next.

Depending on which disappearance they decide to investigate first the players move on to either Scene Two or Three. Scene Two is a fairly stereotypical dockside encounter complete with a rundown bar and a by-the-numbers fight with some local toughs. Players who ask the right questions will get a lead that leads them to Scene Four, otherwise they'll have to investigate the other disappearance in Scene Three. Oh, and there's a red herring involving a French cargo ship if the party really feels the need to get into a fight with a bunch of Church Police (though why the Cyberpapacy would send a bunch of heavily-cybered individuals into a Nile pure zone to guard a shipment of fruit is beyond me.)

In contrast to Scene Two's two opportunities for battle, Scene Three has none, unless the players are trigger-happy enough to attack a well-equipped group of Akashan Monitors or a drunken bum who has the information they need. The bum's information leads to Scene Five. The Monitors are there to act snobbish and to let the players know that the Akashans have decided to pack it in and abandon Earth (they're actually looking for an Akashan precognitive who vanished in the Nile recently but the only purpose they serve in the adventure is to provide that information.)

I am assuming that the Monitors are equipped with at least one Akashan talisman since that is the only way they could walk around in a Nile pure zone without all their biotech withering up and dying on them as soon as they use up all of their Possibilities on reality bubbles. Of course the most likely explanation is that Terra kinda forgot that he'd set this in a pure zone....

Scene Four is a fairly good encounter with a Cairo mob boss and the twin bartenders are a nice pulpish touch. Unfortunately for the players the Scene doesn't really provide any new leads, which means they have to pick up on the clues in Scene Three to investigate the sewers (which is not difficult but it would have been nice if there was more than one method of reaching Scene Five.)

Scene Five, trudging through the sewers under Cairo, nicely picks up the action quotient by treating the sewers as a kind of death-trap with one threat after another plaguing the characters. Unfortunately, for every good (if stereotypical) danger like the rats and collapsing tunnel there's something silly like giant mummified crocodiles and giant mutated spiders. The crocodiles in particular are just plain stupid, how is something going to mummify ("to dry up and shrivel", Webster's Dictionary) in a dank, water-filled sewer?

But the crocodiles are just a minor problem with the scene. Where Scene One ends without the players actually having done anything, Scene Five has enough action for two Scenes and even a logical break in the action but it wasn't broken into two Scenes. The players make their way past eight dangers and get washed into the underground lair of Wu Han. Instead of starting a new Scene though, the fight with Wu Han and his ninja (?!?) warriors finishes out Scene Five.

Now what the heck is Wu Han doing with a bunch of ninja? Ninja are Japanese, Wu is Chinese. He should have something like "the Scarred Foot Clan" working for him, not "Japanese shadow warriors". It's not like there's anything about these pulp ninja that requires them to be ninja, they don't actually have martial arts or anything like that.

Before the fight begins, Wu tells Our Heroes that Mobius has been kidnapping people who can predict the future and imprisoning them at the Imperial Palace in Thebes, which conveniently means the players can kill Wu Han and not be stuck without any leads on what to do next. If the players don't pay any attention to that they can get the same information plus a lead to Act Two by searching Wu's desk after the battle. You might expect that the characters can capture Wu and interrogate him but think again....

This Scene has the distinction of having not one but two "Things NPCs Can Do But PCs Will Never Be Able To Do" and one of them involves attempts to interrogate Wu (the other is a nifty weird science creation of Wu's that is not really possible under the WS rules.) Simply put, Mobius has used hypnosis to make Wu, and I quote, "impervious to inclination seduction, hypnotism, psionic domination, magical charm, the Tharkoldu Law of Domination and any other will-bending method." Amazing what you can do with hypnosis, you can make someone immune to world laws! What a shame that the version of hypnosis available to PCs (and until now I'd assumed for NPCs too) doesn't allow for that kind of thing. But hey, Mobius is the High Lord, he can do whatever he wants, right? Oh, and if you push Wu too hard the hypnotic suggestion kills him, something else I don't think anyone else is allowed to do with hypnosis .

Scene Six is set aboard the train the PCs take to get to Thebes. What if the PCs have their own transportation? The module instructs you to force them into taking the train. Ah, forcing the PCs down the One True Plot Path, I was wondering how long it would take for it to show up in this module in such a blatent manner. Of course what would a Nile adventure be without the opportunity for a fight set on a train (or better yet, on top of a train?)

Is there any real purpose to this Scene other than a fight on a train? No, the only thing of note to the Scene is that it introduces an Orrorshan Horror that later shows up in Act Three and since he does nothing in this scene but observe the Pcs, they should be completely unaware of his existence. He could easily be introduced in Act Three and you wouldn't lose anything by not having him in Act One. In either case there certainly isn't any need for his writeup to appear in Act One and then repeated in Act Three.

Finally, Our Heroes reach Thebes and Scene Seven. The players have learned in previous scenes that Mobius is holding court and seeing petitioners, which means if they're sneaky enough they could actually get into the palace without having to fight their way in. Of course, if the players can't talk their way past the guy screening the petitioners they will have to fight their way in.

I was rather disappointed by the suggestion on how to handle the fight: "Add as many gospog and troopers on the grounds as you want...Play the combat out until you feel the characters are getting bored...". Oh yeah, I'm sure the players (somehow I doubt most characters in the middle of a fight will get bored, life-and-death situations tend to be anything but boring) will appreciate an endless stream of gospog and shocktroopers that won't run out until they're ready to pack up and leave the game because the GM won't stop throwing bad guys at them. And what if the players don't get bored, what if they get their butts kicked? Sure, gospog and shocktroopers are easy opponents but if there's an endless stream of them they can gang up on you and cause a world of hurt to some characters. Perhaps a better suggestion would have been to put heavy emphasis on the non-combative approach to entering the palace?

Anyway, regardless of how they get into the palace it leads to Scene Eight, the end of the Act. This is the Dramatic Scene that doesn't do anything. They see that Mobius has set his great palace on fire. Mobius tells them where they can find the missing prophets (with a clue so blatent any player who doesn't get it should be flogged), why he took them, he repeats the clue from Wu Han's lair to lead the PCs to the next Act, tells them that the Gaunt Man is making the other High Lords' Darkness Devices disappear (the Kefertiri Idol vanishes during Mobius' monologue), then pulls a vanishing act, leaving the players to rescue the missing prophets before the palace grounds blow up. Okay, I exaggerated slightly when I said the PCs don't do anything, they have to make a couple skill checks to rescue people. Yee-hah. You'd think he could have at least made the rescue attempt a Dramatic Skill Resolution or something like that.

The Act ends with the freed prophets warning the players that they see someone very evil (three guesses who) out to destroy the world and that someone who can tell them how to get to Act Three, er, I mean someone who knows more about what's going on is in danger and needs their help (like the PCs aren't already on their way to Act Two based on the clues Wu Han and Mobius provided them.) The PCs receive four to eight Possibilities for the Act depending on how well they did.

In between Acts One and Two are the first two cutaway scenes that reveal other events occuring around the world at time time. As I complained previously, I find it rather stupid that the PCs are actually being teleported to these locations and (sometimes) given the opportunity to interact (in minor ways) with the characters they encounter. I think having the GM say "Meanwhile, In Germany..." and then just acting it out or letting the players read it themselves would have been a lot better than this silly 'teleporting around the world and back' routine.

Anyway, in the first cutaway we join several members of the Mystery Men (Guardian, Colonel Cairo and the Wraith) in Germany where they have gone to visit Dr. Frest, who was treated very shabbily (to put it mildly) by John Terra in his novel City of Pain. Word of Mobius' defeat (and death, though of course that was faked) has spread (instantaneously it would seem) and in the confusion the Mystery Men have located a maelstrom bridge that will let them go back home to Terra. I'll ignore for the moment that the Nile sourcebook says that none of Mobius's bridges lead directly back to Terra, there's no way the Mystery Men could know that so they're probably just making an assumption that it'll take them home. Of course let's also ignore that there's still a lot of evil to be fought on Core Earth but this apparently doesn't matter to the Mystery Men, self-centered bastards.

The second cutaway is unnecessary since the players have already been told that the Akashans are leaving Earth. In this cutaway the only extra bit of information they're given is that the Akashans will leave a small group of observers on the far side of the moon to observe the progress of humanity. I have to wonder though, have the Akashans learned so little during their time here that they might not even consider the fact that the Earth could be destroyed by the High Lords? Or even worse, that the High Lords might be able to learn the location of the Star Sphere from those observers (presumably they'll have some form of communication with the Star Sphere, which I'm sure a Darkness Device could trace back to the cosm)? Oh well, I'm sure Terra was just following the company dictate that the Akashans are incompenent bumblers who deserve to be destroyed and aren't worth any effort to actually make them interesting or useful....

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