Pyramid Review
Glimpse of the Abyss: Enemies and Allies from the Underworld and Beyond (for Feng Shui)
Published by Atlas Games
Written by Darrin Bright, Chris Dolnunt, Will Hindmarch, John Seavey, and Jeff Tidball
Cover by Andrew Trabbold
Illustrated by Kelley Hensing and Conley Philpott
96-page b&w softcover; $19.95
This supplement is not just an anthology of Chinese demons. It is not just a collection of new schticks. It is not just a guide to Di Yu, the hell of Chinese mythology. Glimpse of the Abyss: Enemies and Allies from the Underworld and Beyond (for Feng Shui, the Hong Kong action movie RPG) is all of these and more.
It feels as if we have been waiting a long time for Glimpse of the Abyss, but the good news is that the wait has been worth it, because this supplement really does do a lot of things. At its most basic, the book is a collection of bad guys and monsters for the GM to throw at his players. Need a henchman, a mook or nine, an obstacle, or a delaying tactic fast? All the GM has to do is turn to the page of his choice and bang -- he is good to go. Of course, Feng Shui's stat-lite nature makes this easy anyway.
But Glimpse of the Abyss provides more than just game stats and descriptions. First, it adds a whole new type of monster -- "Generic Named" -- to Feng Shui existing two types -- the Named protagonist and the Unnamed mook. Generic Named monsters covers the types of creature for which there would be no average versions because every one of them is special in some . . .
This article originally appeared in the second volume of Pyramid. See the current Pyramid website for more information.
Article publication date: April 11, 2008
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