Game: The Codex of the Immortals: The Everlasting
Publisher: Visionary Entertainment Studio
Series: The Everlasting
Reviewer: Wyrdmaster
Review Dated: 6th, September 2004
Reviewer’s Rating: 6/10 [ On the ball ]
Total Score: 30
Average Score: 7.50
The Codex of the Immortals is a players supplement for the Visionary Entertainment (aka VESI – add on Studio Inc) roleplaying series The Everlasting. It’s often the case in a supplemental product that you need the core product – makes sense? There’s a bit of a twist here. To use The Codex of the Immortals you need one of the four The Everlasting core roleplaying games. You need just one of them – not all four – and it doesn’t matter which. It’s a little unusual which is why I thought it was worth repeating, it is unusual but not unwelcome.
I best know the The Book of the Fantastical from the core rulebook set. In this RPG we look at how The Secret World interacts with the world we know, at player character races like elves and dragons and at the mechanics of legend making (which is VESI’s spin on storytelling or dungeon crawling). In practise The Codex of the Immortals mirrors this. You can play an immortal as a character without ruffling feathers or balance in The Everlasting. The Codex of the Immortals opens by looking at the history of the Secret World – before it was secret and when the dragons ruled. The supplement moves swiftly on to the mechanics.
It was the dragons who shaped the Earth – or so they say. I like this ambiguity. The Codex of the Immortals doesn’t come across as the canon history of The Secret World. The Codex appears to be one possible history of the Secret World and is good enough to be taken as read by Guides (VESI’s spin on gamesmasters or dungeon masters). The Dragons, more powerful then than now, created new forms of life. The dinosaurs may have been created in their image. The merodrachs were the first immortals – and they were mutant mortals. The Dragons came to love the merodrachs. In return the merodrachs revolted against the Dragons – and engaged in Dragon soul stealing.
Then the Daimons came. It was mankind’s fault. To survive the Immortals retreated to their Secret Word, it was all that was left of mighty kingdoms and cities after the rebellion against the Dragons. Mankind was left to innovate and grow their technology. Immortals find it hard enough to keep up with rampant pace of technology but when the atomic bombs fell near the end of World War II, reality was torn and the daimons oozed through the tears. There was a battle and it went well insofar as the immediate onslaught was avoided. The price as high and the Daimons are free now, though. They’re growing more common even as the corners of the Secret World shrink. After reading The Codex of the Immortals it is clear that the Secret World’s heyday has past.
The heyday has past but there are remnants of the past which the Immortals today hang on to. The Wisdom of the Ancients is a set of rules which guide. Okay; the other RPG where playing an immortal is common is Vampire: The Masquerade and I so it’s perhaps natural that I found myself thinking of the Traditions as I read through the Wisdom of the Ancients. It’s wrong, for example, to attack an Immortal, even your enemy, in a Sanctuary. Unlike Vampire’s Tradition of the Haven, the rule of Sanctuary is rather complex. There are times when attacking someone in Sanctuary is acceptable. There are also times when defending your enemy in Sanctuary is honourable and therefore wise. This makes for interesting RP. Other tracts in the Wisdom of the Ancients are also RP friendly; the Immortal are encouraged to move around and to keep up with technology. If the game encouraged Immortals to stay in place then it would make the Guide’s role in spinning epics rather trickier.
There are all sorts of tricky issues to cope with as an Immortal. I think most gamers are familiar with plot twists and moral myths where immortality is a curse and not a blessing. The Codex of the Immortals touches on this to. It’s worth reminding the players that immortal life isn’t a bed of roses and it’s worth reminding the Guide of such some of the reasons why so they can be easily brought into play.
The bulk of the book is given over to fleshing out mechanics and expanding on the range of powers and abilities players can shop from. The Codex is, after all, a players’ guide rather than a Guide’s guide.
There are pages of new abilities. The Everlasting is a game which downplays mechanics and plays up the importance of roleplaying; the Codex almost idly approves the notion of setting scores way above the usual maximum limits if it makes sense. Similarly we’re encouraged to hand out default skills as appropriate for the era. Characters operating in 2005 America are as likely to have computer use as a default skill as characters operating in wild west America will have survival. We give characters decent levels of these default skills to keep dice rolling down. The Everlasting, of course, can be played entirely with cards instead of dice. For ever expanded or new ability mentioned in The Codex of the Immortals there are appropriate card or dice mechanics.
There are plenty of abilities in the Codex but there are even more Distinctions and Preternaturae. Distinctions are, as you’d expect, those things which make your character distinct. Distinctions quickly become Benefits and Drawbacks. These are merits and flaws or advantages and disadvantages in other game systems. Essentially earn back some points for playing a disadvantaged character and spend them on a bonus, advantage, power. I’ve always found Benefits and Drawbacks (and their ilk) to be somewhat controversial among the sort of gamers who VESI hope to attract with The Everlasting. I’ll play a blind character for the roleplaying experience. Do I care if I get points back? Should I get points back for what’s essentially a roleplaying issue – as the mechanics are just there to resolve disputes? Leaving the debate aside it’s fair to say that The Codex of the Immortals does as well with Benefits and Drawbacks as any game or supplement I’ve seen does. If the gaming group wants to adopt them then they’ll have a good enough range to make it worthwhile doing so here.
There are pages of abilities and plenty of distinctions but there are even more Preternaturae. Preternaturae are the supernatural powers that the Everlasting have. As The Everlasting’s fan base grows I suspect we’ll see player created Preternaturae leak onto the internet but for now, with just the core rule books and a few supplements out, pages and pages of Preternaturae from the publishers are a welcome boost.
The Codex of the Immortals is a decent supplement for The Everlasting. The 192-paged book comes in at under US $20 but it is three-quarters sized in terms of height and width to the usual RPG supplement. I think that’s pretty decent value too. The illustrations are pretty decent too, nothing to knock you socks off though and that seems to be something that is missing from the Codex. I appreciate good artwork but rarely demand it. The epic legends of The Everlasting, on the other hand, seem as if they would benefit hugely with fantastic fantasy and urban fantasy supporting them. The Codex of the Immortals is significantly less preachy than the text I encountered in The Book of the Fantastical too. We’re not told about altered states achieved through roleplaying but we do have a lengthy sign off form the editor (in lieu of the author) and several pages, with photographs, of VESI team members. There’s enough in the Codex to stop me crying foul over the use of page space. I think there’s just enough in the Codex to stop me crying foul over the size of the text in the white-spacey index too.
The Codex of the Immortals will suit most Everlasting fans down to the ground. Visionary Entertainment, I suspect, are in the situation where many of their players aren’t the supplement buying kind but there’s the mix of both game world history and player friendly mechanics in the Codex to tempt many. It’s one of those books which you don’t need but which you might quite like.
