Books/ExaltedTheAutochthonians
Exalted: the Autochthonians
$29.99. Published on May 2, 2005; 256 pages. Hardcover. (£17.99 in the UK)
Writers: Kraig Blackwelder, Michael Goodwin, Michael Kessler, Alejandro Melchor, and John Snead.
Review total: 0.5
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Noone seems to have actually noticed this is out... that, or everyone is too busy reading it to talk about it here. I thought I'd do a quick preview for people that don't have it yet... I shan't be properly reviewing it, but I shall tell everyone how great it is, in my opinion at least. -- Darloth (P.S - Wow. Wordy. I still don't count that as a review, it's a rundown. But I do ramble, obviously.)
Mini-review/preview by Darloth
First things first - what's in it. Exalted:The Autochthonians has seven chapters and an introduction, titled as follows:
Chapter One: Autochthon and Autochthonia Chapter Two: Character Creation and Traits Chapter Three: Charms Chapter Four: Miracles of the Machine God Chapter Five: The Locus War Chapter Six: The Quest for the Great Source Chapter Seven: Engines of Extinction
The introduction is fairly standard, talks about what's in the book and has a glossery and such, much like any other exalted book intro.
Chapter One is 39 pages long, and does a pretty good job of expanding the world mentioned in Time of Tumult, describing hazards, society, and how the machine-god-world is set up and functions, along with much appreciated detail on the society living inside him.
Chapter Two is 27 pages long, and combines character creation and traits, which I think is a good idea, it makes them both easier to find and they often need to reference each other as well. It's written clearly, has the normal 5-caste spread of exalt types with full descriptions, example pictures, etc etc, and is generally the same as every other char-cre + traits chapter out there.
Chapter Three is 53 pages long, and details all of the alchemical's current charm set (they can invent more, and are probably doing so, but it takes a long time, because not only do they have to invent the charm (min attrib times weeks, much like a solar)but then they have to manufacture the charms, which takes another month.) The charms in general are brilliantly thought out, presented well, and fit togeather into trees nicely, although they're just a little 'close-combat' heavy, when you compare the numbers of those charms to everything else. That said, many of the close-combat charms actually have general utility in all combat situations, and some even are handy outside of it. Everything else is still represented, and everything works. Submodules are fun too, which are little mini-additions to charms, and the Array combo method is new, interesting, thematically appropriate and has good advantages and drawbacks.
Chapter Four is 51 pages long, and details all of the Stuff that you might find interesting in autochthonia... protocols (almost like sorcery... but not quite), machine-spirits, different elementals, artifacts, alchemical formulae, everything else. Togeather with chapter One, this gives enough detail to easily run a game set there, and indeed, it's almost as good as creation for all the weird environments you could concivably have adventures in, although most of them are a little too deadly to use often.
Chapters Five, Six and Seven take up the rest of the book, and each of them is a long, in-depth suggestion of one possible way of introducing, using, and generally integrating Autochthon and the Autochthonians. The Locus War is the 'typical' one, containing a war story, an impending apocalypse, and generally a lot of stuff being blown up and stripped of resources. The Quest for the Source is more for travelling adventurer type groups, with basically no city-destroying army combat in focus, but a quest for the infamous Eye (which is given a little more detail). Finally, there's Engines of Extinction, an interesting take on what could possibly happen if things -don't- go to plan for the Autochthonians, and involves the First and Forsaken Lion basically invading -them- instead.
The way all three of these 'possible' outcomes is presented differently and with space to expand them if necessary, yet with enough details to just run one from almost any perspective, is very good, and means that if you buy the book, there should at least be ONE idea you can use that fits into your current series. They even have lists of requirements the PCs need to have a chance at surviving/being useful in the various adventures, which is helpful. In general, I found these sections to be written well, and they're interesting stories, expanding -heavily- on the suggestions given in time of tumult.
All in all, a very good book, and well worth what I paid for it (unlike some of the castebooks and such).
Now... to conclude... GiantFlyingMechaRailgunShootingRobotSorcererCyborgs!!! They're so COOOOOOL!!!!
-- Darloth
Rambling by Falcon
I really liked this book too, with maybe a few caveats.
Before I get onto the caveats, I'd just like to say it's nice to see something like the main Exalted book in that it contains everything you need to play Alchemicals in Autocthchchchthochthon. There's plenty of material there to work with: politics, gods, maps, twisted metal monsters, void-spawned gribblies, etc. I also love the new stuff for alchemical artefacts, especially the totally sweet frisbees of DEATH. The sweet frisbees of death that have a martial arts style of their very own! A martial arts style which isn't described in the book! So I can make it up myself!
Ahem.
Anyway. Caveat 1: Alchemical charms are godly-powerful. Personally, I don't give a monkeys, but I say this so people know that I noticed. There is a handy disclaimer that says "Alchemicals are supposed to be powerful antagonists, so they're scaled that way." so that's enough to keep me happy.
Caveat 2: Some of it is very obviously in there so people can say "I want to be (insert name of robot or cyborg here)." The thing that leaped out at me was the eye implant artefacts that mortals can use that make you into Riddick from Pitch Black, right down to the mirror effect on your eyeballs. I suppose us lot who play Exalted can't really complain if random bits of cool are chucked in, but I wish it was just a shade less blatant.
Caveat 3: I'm a little iffy about the adventures. They're cool. They neatly avoid (for the most part) the usual WW adventure-writing problem of "some really powerful people do stuff, and if you don't do what they say and/or stand around quietly on the sidelines, you die". It's just that the end of each adventure ushers in the next Age. The world changes hugely and it strikes me that the Second Age should probably be a bit longer - like, long enough for your PCs to reach Essence 6, at least. I think I've come up with a method of staging the Locust War without having to rework the campaign setting, but I still don't like it when White Wolf arbitrarily muck with a good setting because now I'll probably have to compensate in every subsequent product they release. And what are they going to do with the Empress' return if they've already ushered in the Third Age? (Other than f**k up the setting even more...)
Anyway, these are all personal problems easily circumvented. So yeah, I like the Alchemicals book. Primarily for the inside-Autothctetchasketchothon adventuring, but they make pretty rocking antagonists for fleshy Exalts too.
Oh, yeah. Caveat 4: I hate trying to spell Autoc... you know.
I rate this product: Arboreal Yeddim out of 10.
