Chapter 1
The first page
briefly describes the world of dreams. Dreamers, the typical
inhabitants of the land are born when a person falls asleep. They
live their life and age over time. Notably, when they die, this
indicates the sleeping person who generated them has woken up. This
raises the question of time frames. Are people born and age until
death over the course of eight hours? Do the people creating these
dreamers sleep for decades at a time? Does time work differently in
dreams? The last one seems most likely, but I would hope they would
explain that. Maybe they get into that later on.
There is some
descriptions of strange landscapes but nothing that hasn't been seen
in fantasy before. We also get our first taste of a real antagonist.
Nightmares, as the name suggests, come out at night. They are only
given a single mention, paired with the suggestion that dreamers are
capable of more mundane evil like banditry.
It seems that
Fluxborn are a type of dreamer, created upon falling asleep, not a
being that inhabits both worlds like I initially thought. The setting
is looking more like slightly strange fantasy than anything exciting.
I should mention that my observations so far are based off the first
page of chapter one. On the second page, it answers a lot of the
questions I presented earlier. Time runs much faster in the dream
world and the setting is medieval fantasy. I'm not holding out much
hope on getting into much detail about the interaction between the
waking world and the dream world. They do mention that every human on
Earth being awake at once would destroy the dream world. Earlier they
mention that the Fluxborn are lucid dreamers, how exactly that
interacts with the accelerated time frame is yet to be seen.
The section ends
with a piece of short fiction that is more or less indistinguishable
from fiction in a generic fantasy setting. The book then describes
the Fluxborn in general, noting they are relatively common and that
they can detect Leylines. Leylines are given a scrap of discussion,
mostly labelling them as places that Fluxborn can get power to do
Fluxborn things. Fluxborn things, in this case, being Stunts and
magic. Fluxborn, as they have active PC genes, are naturally draw to
great things either evil or good.
We then get a
description of the various types of Fluxborn. Boogeymen are the
natural choice for someone who wants to play a monster or a noble
monster fighting against the stereotype of his people. The art on the
page is high quality and interesting. We see what a generic
adventurer of both genders looks like, I think. They're both dressed
very similarly the only real difference being their frames. One is
broad yet lanky while the other is slim yet lanky. The description of
these Fluxborn says that they have four horns but in the illustration
they only have two apiece. There are some basic stats and their
inherited ability. This seems to be a category of powers that players
get to choose one of three effects.
Hares are the
next Fluxborn presented. The first thing I notice is the art. This is
the first example of bad art in the book. The two example Hares look
like they're wearing baggy footie pyjamas. Their ears, which the text
describes as coming out of the top of their heads, look like a part
of their clothing. Putting that aside, after all, bad art is part of
RPG history. AD&D has outright dreadful art. So what does this
class type
of Fluxborn offer a player? Lets see, short, curious, and lucky.
These are our Halfling analogues! Their abilities make then hearty,
brave, and lucky. It looks like Hares would appeal to people who play
Rogues in your usual fantasy games or Tolkien fans.
Next
we get to a type of character that we haven't heard about before.
Also, you know what, the lack of a defined term for the different
type of Fluxborn almost makes me wish they called them flavours.
That's it, from here on out, I dub these Fluxborn Flavours. Anyways,
to get back to the chapter, we get to a fairly normal looking flavour
in the form of the Generic. I'm kidding, the flavour's actual name is
Heroic. Not much better, right? The Heroic's art isn't bad, a bit
generic, but not bad. These Fluxborn are born looking like normal
dreamers until puberty which is when they acquire glowing gold or
silver eyes, long hair, bulging muscles, and a starring role in bad
fan fiction. Their abilities are pretty generic. I would imagine
they're intended to replace Fighters and the party leader role. Their
actual audience seems limited to fans of romance novels and the
painfully unimaginative.
After
we wake up, the book presents us with Frogkin. Honestly, I was
expecting bulging eyes, sticky hands, you know the sort of things
that fit with both a frog theme and their nature as living
reflections of greed.
Nope.
This
flavour is straight up anthropomorphic frogs. Unlike their previous
description as being of greed, they are jovial merchants and artists
that like eating. In fact, their abilities are about food, except one
of the three. That ability grants them a prehensile tongue. The art
is well done but this whole section is so thematically disappointing
that I don't want to spend any more time on it.
The
final flavour was a bit of a surprise at first. It turns out Sic
isn't this game's term for a Game Master. In hindsight it should have
been obvious, this has turned out to be more like a fantasy
heartbreaker than a twee story game. They have blue circuit board
patterns that grow all over their body as they age. They have
difficulty communicating with others because they can't show emotion
or understand body language. As a trade they have a strong
understanding of Flux. I don't think that term has come up before,
but I think it's essentially this game's version of magic. So, we
have socially awkward wizards. Oh, they can also fix things
particularly well, for some reason.
Luckily
the next section answers my Flux quandary. This is the name for the
mixed forces of Wild and Logic. We get a brief description of what
these forces are/what they do. We also get a hazard for both aspects
of Flux. Wild Winds and Blank Storms are weather patterns infused
with the relevant aspect. The affects of these are interesting and
slightly surreal. I'm interested in seeing if this game can reclaim
some of my interest.
The
description of Leylines are pretty generic. There is a bit of
mechanics here that are pretty interesting. Fluxborn can store 8
Flux, divided between Wild and Logic in any amount. The amount of
each type of Flux is randomly generated by two 3d6 rolls. I've been
trying to incorporate something along these lines in Crucible. The
next page is a full page art piece showing a Fluxborn harvesting Flux
from a Leyline. There is also a mechanic called Affinity. When
players use one type of Flux it makes it harder to gather the other
type. Similarly, they can gather their dominant form of Flux easier.
After
this delightful interlude, we get back to the meat of this fantasy
heartbreaker setting. The Nightmare is basically a knock off of D&D's
underdark. It also brings to mind Shadowlands from Exalted.
Apparently fear of the ocean is the reason that most of the setting
is covered in water.
Closing
Thoughts
As
you may have guessed, my opinion of this product rapidly diminished
as this chapter went on. The setting is really disappointing. The
initial pitch was promising but the application failed to live up to
what it suggested. The few mechanics I've seen so far have kept my
interest enough that I'm still reading this product. I still don't
know why this chapter exists, this product is small enough that they
don't need to repeat material. The next chapter is apparently about
setting and the third chapter is the games mechanics. Honestly you
could split the contents of this chapter throughout the rest of the
book and nothing of value would be lost. With the exception of the
illustration for the Hare flavour, the art in this chapter was
excellent. Really, the high quality of the art is the high point of
this book so far.
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