VtM - WhiteWolf: Genealogy

VtM - Review: World of Darkness: Blood-Dimmed Tides
World of Darkness: Blood-Dimmed Tides
WW 3350 $17.95 Mar-99
Written by Sean Jaffe, Clayton Oliver, Ethan Skemp, Adam Tinworth
● Review by Derek Guder (6 May 1999)
Review by Derek Guder (6 May 1999)
Style: 2 (Needs Work)
Substance: 3 (Average)
The seas have long been ignored by White Wolf, but for a good reason. What vampire lives on the sea?
What Garou takes the fight to the Wyrm under the waves? Mage, however, has a reason to go into the
oceans, and with the Rokea in Werewolf, the seas got more populous. So White Wolf finally put out an
ocean book, Blood-Dimmed Tides. It's an adequate attempt to detail the waters of the World of Darkness,
but don't look at the cover when buying the book. Just don't, it's better that way.
The fiction piece is one of the best I've seen in a White Wolf book because it is very understated. The
story ends once you realize what is happening and you get to fill in the details on your own, nothing is
spoon-fed to you. It is an attempt not to explain the setting, but to explain the mood of the setting. Quite
well done.
The first chapter starts out with brief descriptions of the oceans of the world, talking about everything
form the Indian to the Arctic. A nice, baseline description is fine. We also find out that there are no
caerns/freeholds in the ocean, that role is taken up by the Rorqual, which are basically spiritually-active
whales that harvest and collect the Gnosis and Glamour of the seas and provide it to the locals that need
it. A very interesting idea, although I would have liked more development. That is followed by brief
descriptions of the various supernatural races on and under the waves. I found this kind of out of place,
as the next chapter goes into detail on them. It seemed like they were opening sections that grew too
large, but weren't cut down. The information for Mage should have been in the Mage section in the next
chapter, not here. This should have been a "real-world history and setting" chapter. It would have worked
better like that, I think.
Speaking of Mage, I have to say that Project: Deepwater, the only concrete information given about
Mage on the seas, was disappointing. It was the typical "Technocracy = Evil" schtick, and it was also
strained and milked for everything to make a cross-over with the other games. Some reason, no matter
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