I understand wanting to avoid crossover in the final Werewolf book, to avoid diluting themes, but the later scenarios read as though the authors have forgotten that Mage is a part of the World of Darkness but have a soft spot for Vampire, bringing it up regularly. More coherently, it talks about the attitudes and potential roles of the Fera, and then has the discussion of "The Other Games" is not a good start for the book. It also covers a few things that seem a bit out of place, especially given how they're handled in the remainder of the book, like "The Machine Awakens" about an AI being created at Rice University. It covers the prophecies leading to the Apocalypse, the various strange events such as Anthelios in the sky, the Perfect Metis, and the prophecies of the Desperate One and of Zhyzhak. This is actually the strongest chapter in the book. In this chapter, the general run-up to the Apocalypse is discussed. But in any case, the reasons didn't come across as particularly strong ("We don't want to write The Book of Nature and Demeanor and devolve into crap!" well then maybe you should have put more effort into this book, because you did.) Given the 20th anniversary games and the 5th edition of Vampire, this seems kind of quaint in retrospect. The introduction is passable, and makes an attempt to explain why White Wolf was ending the World of Darkness. I don't know if these are signature characters that we're supposed to know or the like, but they were uninspiring and failed to make me care about them, though the final moments of the ending fiction did manage a small amount of power, with the Striders abandoning hope of re-entering Egypt in order to fight in the Apocalypse. The initial fiction and the ending fiction are actually solidly written, if unimpressive to an outsider. The book has many spelling and grammatical errors, several layout errors (text that should be italicized isn't, for instance) and a huge number of more specific issues in each section, described below: I learn systems by trying to break them, by seeing what happens in extreme situations, and what could be more extreme than the Apocalypse? I would have loved a good, well put together end of the world book for Werewolf. It is quite clear that it was written in a hurry, barely edited at all, and that the creators heart just wasn't in it. However closely you look at it, you find new levels of failure. That said, those things are unlikely to improve this review, and I don't believe I can give it a worse one. Warning: I am not an expert at Werewolf, and so I will likely miss many, many things relating to metaplot and fine setting details.
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