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Earthbound
Fiction
Paperback
Published January 1, 2003
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
April 4, 2019
Like every other Demon book, it's hard to give this one a rating. The stuff talking about modern nights is fine, the mechanics are mostly solid. However, when it goes into the history, it's awful to the point of being offensive.
First, the good: the book explains who the Earthbound are, WHAT they are, and gives solid mechanics for using them, even if it hints in the direction of Earthbound PCs, which...that's not a good idea. But the powers make sense thematically, the change from Virtues to Urges is interesting, and the details about the Apocalyptic Form of an Earthbound are particularly useful for running a game.
The bad, though, consists of a continued insistence that basically all human religions (with small exceptions that I will get to) are lies created by the Earthbound for them to gather Faith. The exceptions are the Abrahamic religions, which are handled ridiculously poorly, to the point of talking about Lucifer taking a special interest in the ancient Israelites and...we've been murdered for being the "Synagogue of Satan" as Revelation calls us. So I'm not happy about that bit. And otherwise, Christianity and Islam apparently, with a little bit from Buddhism, are what took the Earthbound off the board for hundreds of years. The game continues to be unable to make up its mind if it likes Christianity or hates it, and also continues to handle Judaism extremely poorly (in addition to the above, it acts like Judaism is a large-scale influential religion rather than an oppressed minority constantly on the brink of being destroyed, as well as some weirdness involving Solomon). I can't say much about its portrayal of Islam because it barely does it at all.
Overall, it's a very "meh" book, as are many Demon books, because though the good parts are quite good, the bad parts counterbalance that thoroughly.
First, the good: the book explains who the Earthbound are, WHAT they are, and gives solid mechanics for using them, even if it hints in the direction of Earthbound PCs, which...that's not a good idea. But the powers make sense thematically, the change from Virtues to Urges is interesting, and the details about the Apocalyptic Form of an Earthbound are particularly useful for running a game.
The bad, though, consists of a continued insistence that basically all human religions (with small exceptions that I will get to) are lies created by the Earthbound for them to gather Faith. The exceptions are the Abrahamic religions, which are handled ridiculously poorly, to the point of talking about Lucifer taking a special interest in the ancient Israelites and...we've been murdered for being the "Synagogue of Satan" as Revelation calls us. So I'm not happy about that bit. And otherwise, Christianity and Islam apparently, with a little bit from Buddhism, are what took the Earthbound off the board for hundreds of years. The game continues to be unable to make up its mind if it likes Christianity or hates it, and also continues to handle Judaism extremely poorly (in addition to the above, it acts like Judaism is a large-scale influential religion rather than an oppressed minority constantly on the brink of being destroyed, as well as some weirdness involving Solomon). I can't say much about its portrayal of Islam because it barely does it at all.
Overall, it's a very "meh" book, as are many Demon books, because though the good parts are quite good, the bad parts counterbalance that thoroughly.
November 22, 2022
The adversaries supplement for Demon: The Fallen, and goes a long way to actually clarifying what you are meant to be doing with that odd, odd game. Full review: https://refereeingandreflection.wordp...
May 28, 2016
One of the best antagonist books of the oWoD, and a Black Dog candidate that never was. Crude, full of anger, between the mythical and the red press, the stories inside are amazing. The earthbound deserve a place between the most dangerous villains of the oWoD.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews