Dave's Gaming Rant: FENG SHUI - Back For Seconds

     Crossposting to rec.games.trading-cards.misc because the background
info in this product pertains to Shadowfist as well as Feng Shui, but
please direct followups to rec.games.frp.misc if possible.
     This book contains my first published piece of fiction (and one of
the darkest things I've written, too), so keep in mind this may color my
overall impression of the book.

CAPSULE REVIEW

     Lots of great background information on the Secret War and its players,
both entertaining and useful.  Contains new archetypes, schticks and weapons
and could be considered "the rest of the rulebook" in some respects.  Has
some trouble with typos and other errors, mainly nearer the end, and uses
jargon without always explaining it, but this should only cause minor
irritation.  Overall, Recommended.  $14.95 or so, more if you're unlucky
enough to be Canadian.  }->

REVIEW

     Let's just go through linearly, shall we?
     The cover art will look familiar to those who have visited past
incarnations of the Daedalus web page, as it shows a scene out of Operation
Killdeer, with a far more impressive-looking Thing With 1,000 Tongues than
the card art has.
     The credits page has one sorting error in it, but that's okay by me,
since the incorrect alphabetization moves me from second-last to second
from the top in the credits (my last name is Van Domelen, not Domelen).
     The contents page is pretty much the only place in the book where the
funky backgrounds make the book hard to read, and while the contents are
the last thing you want confused, the effect is minor.
     Chapter 1: Architects - Arcanotechnician, CHAR, Desdemona Deathangel,
Disintegrator Ray, Homo Omega and Tactical Team.  Most of these show either
a slice of life in 2056 or a bit of the overall plot.  Homo Omega's is the
big one you wanna read for plot information, since it deals with what
happens to Jason X after the events in Flashpoint.  A few new Arcanotech
items are introduced as well.
     Chapter 2: Ascended - Adrienne Hart, Church Official, Death Shadow,
Draco, Phillipe Benoit, Soul of the Shark, Sting of the Scorpion.  Draco
is SCARY.  REALLY SCARY.  Forget Homo Omega, the man you don't wanna mess
with is Draco.  Soul of the Shark gives the Shark Transformed Animal
package, for those inner walkers who like toothy grins.
     Chapter 3: Dragons - No characters.  This is more of an extension of
the character creation rules, with new shticks for existing archetypes and
six new archetypes (which have been on the web for a while).  Unfortunately,
the errors found in the archetypes several months ago were not fixed, which
along with the typos in this book and the Shadowfist Players' Guide suggests
editorial troubles of late.
     Chapter 4: Lotus - Big Brother Tsien, Jueding Shelun, Kun Kan,
Tanbi Guiawu, Thing With 1,000 Tongues, Walker of the Purple Twilight,
White Disciple.  Lots of plot-points here, now that Jueding has become a
ghost at the Thing has his own plots to run.  This chapter focuses on
Really Big Threats, like the football field-sized Tanbi, but does add some
cannon fodder in the form of White Disciples.
     Chapter 5: Hand - Green Monks, "Monkey" Chang, Old Master, One Hundred
Names, Orange Monks, Shaolin Monks.  Considering the number of "name"
characters out there in the Hand, this chapter surprisingly focuses on
generic types instead.  Lots of mid-level opponents or potential allies.
     Chapter 6: Jammers - Chromosome Screamers, Dump Warriors, Furious
George, Orango Tank.  Got any old favorites from Paranoia R&D that you'd
like to sic on the players in your Feng Shui campaign?  Introduce a Dump
Warrior to the situation.  This section was obviously the most fun to
write, and it's pretty fun to read, too.  I had something else to say about
the Dump Warriors, but I can't recall what it is.  ARGH.
     Chatper 7: Neutrals - Dapper Zhan (Abysmal Deceiver), The Mysterious
Stranger, Nine Cuts, Steven Chen, Timothy Smits, White Ninja, Yakuza
Enforcer, Ze Botelho.  The Mysterious Stranger seems to have been changed
from character type (like Dark Traveler) to a specific person.  Wonder if
he'll be reprinted as a Unique?  Steven Chen is a parody/homage of the
creator of Jademan and Crying Freeman, and has the Fu power "Wall of
Fanboys."  BWAHAHAHA!  A Scrappy Kid being attracted to his use of this
power would be a great hook to get the PCs involved with him.  White Ninja
is the sister of Death Shadow, but this doesn't show up in Death Shadow's
own entry (either an oops, or trimmed for space).
     Chapter 8: Feng Shui Sites - A primer on the kinds of funky powers
all those "non-vanilla" sites can give players.  Cards turned into game
mechanics are: Ancient Temple, Auspicious Termites, City Square, Perpetual
Motion Machine and Wall of a Thousand Eyes.  New sites are Heads Up Corner
and the Williamson Estate.  Some rather creative explanations are given
for how the sites' powers work in a way similar to the cards.
     Appendix: Operation Killdeer - Same stuff as has been available on
the web in the past, plus an explanation of What Really Happened.  Between
this and the information in the Shadowfist Players' Guide, a complete plot
of the game so far is now available.  Well, pretty complete, anyway.
The writing style of the Killdeer story is so-so, especially compared to
the prose of other writers in the book, like Rigney or Mangold.

     The final page has a blurb for Thorns of the Lotus and Seed of the
New Flesh, sourcebooks for the Lotus and Architects respectively.  Thorns
will give new ancient archetypes and magic, Seed will give more future
archetypes and tech.  Presumably there's gonna be a Hand book after that
with more Fu powers, etc.
     Overall, like most gaming sourcebooks, it's rather overpriced if you're
getting it just as a source of information, but about right if you plan to
actually use it in a campaign.  If you don't play Feng Shui but are a
Shadowfist player interested in the background, you may want to borrow
this book or pitch in for a copy for your entire play group.  It turns the
cards into more than a couple sets of numbers.

     Dave Van Domelen, "Build it, and they will come...to blow it up."
- Field of Dreams of Tentacles