Customer Reviews

*OP Guardians of the Caerns (Werewolf: The Apocalypse)

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Guardians indeed. For all those who enjoy their home and hearth close by - this is the book for you. It featurs the intense atmosphere associated with the caern, guidlines refering to pecuilar way each tribe (and the other be'te as well) views its caerns, expanded rules concerning those who always get left behind to caern-sit (the metis - including new gifts, merits and flaws, and deformities), and in-depth system about the building of the holiest of all places. Overall? not a bad piece at all. I think some expanding about the spirit totems and umbrascape could do no harm, but that note put aside, what you have here is a good book detailing (almost) everything you need to run a caern gaurding story. Or the building of one. Or its destruction. He he.

Finally! A book that REALLY describes the way a generic caern (or one that you make) should work. This volume is not just a compilation of caerns from around the world and some glossy description of how a caern should work. This explians in depth traditional and necessary offices, moots, totem spirits, and even how metis are treated within the caern as they grow up. it has metis specific merits and flaws as well as a list of all the white wolf generated metis deformities in one handy list. Finally we can all add some real flavor to both our caerns and our metis. :-)

Time and time again, I run across statements like: 'metis are hated by every tribe.'

This prompted me to recommend one of my favorite supplement sections. The last and best chapter of this book is all about metis. It is a complete discussion about the biological, social, emotional and physical issues of conceiving, bearing, birthing, caring, feeding, raising, teaching and packing with the half-breeds. It has an exhaustive list of deformities. And a complex mosaic of opinions about them, including viewpoints both from within and without the various Garou tribes and Fera breeds.

The metis question is not an easy one to answer. This 'mini-breedbook' goes a long way towards illustrating the complex knot that are the metis.

This book is great for a storyteller who wants to improve their knowledge about caerns. It provides ideas for developing different types of caerns not listed in the main books as well as adds to totems. THe book goes into more depth about positions in the caern and how probable it would be for a player character to take up one of the positions and what this might mean for your chronicle. There is still a lot of information that seems to overlap from other books in 2nd ed but which might have been removed in those same books in 3rd.

Gaurdians of the Caerns is a fairly good book with some basic information. It is aimed at people who have trouble understanding how a Caern might run. While I found some of the info somewhat obvious, the best stuff was on ideas for getting your players involved at the Caern and at moots.

My biggest complaint is that the book seemed dumbed down at times. It could also have contained a lot more information. I kind of wish that White-Wolf had released this as a part of Caerns: Places of Power, and had expanded the information contained in both.

Despite these issues, it is a book that is probably worth owning.

I had always had problems running games that had involved Caerns and their effects. This book shed the light and helped me find the way. It built a way for my pc's to get into the Umbra easier.