Product Review
Paperback - 72 Pages
Q: How many Wendigo does it take
to change a burned out light bulb?
A: What's a light bulb?
Q: How many Red Talons does it take
to change a burned out light bulb?
A: WEAVER THING! DESTROY!
Q: How many Nuwisha does it take
to change a burned out light bulb?
A: Only one, he changes the house around the light
bulb.
(Copied from somewhere in the web.
No authorship denied nor copyright questioned)
The first thing that can be said
about this book is that it’s skinny. Skinny
like a clan-book, or a tribe-book. All of the other
Changing Breed books (except maybe Corax) double Nuwishas
page count easily. Why is this book is so skinny?
I have know idea, but in my opinion it could’ve
used some more pages, and not just for nice artwork.
So, what are Nuwisha? This is the
second of the Changing Breed books, the first was
BASTET. Click on the link to read more about the War
of Rage and other stuff already mentioned. Nuwisha
are, basically, were-coyotes. How is a coyote different
from a wolf? Don’t ask me for details, I’m
not a zoologist. But, these guys are a completely
different species, they don’t even have Rage.
Nuwisha believe themselves to be
the children of the creator of all, Coyote. Yes, that’s
right. These folks believe their totem created everything
else, and he did it out of boredom. After the customary
comic that appears at the beginning of the book (this
is a very good one, and features Laughing Manyskins,
a signature character of the Werewolf: the Apocalypse
setting) we get this new (?) cosmology, a very confusing
one, where Coyote seems to be the most important,
outranking even Gaia (maybe).
The Nuwisha do embrace some of the
same concepts used by other shape-changers to describe
the universe however. Gaia is only a world. The Triat
is most important. Werewolves perceive Gaia as the
whole of Creation. By the way, it seems that Coyote
offended Luna in some way, so now his children sing
to her, trying to atone for his wrongdoings.
Nuwisha don’t have tribes,
or auspices. But they do embrace one aspect of the
trickster totem (basically Coyote). Coyote has a lot
of different aspects, and for each of them, some Nuwisha
may become its agents. So, while some just enjoy wild
pranks, other try to nurture those who suffer, and
others try to teach. Yes, the pranks’ reason
is to enlighten their “victims”.
The were-coyotes, perceived by others
as the tricksters of Gaia, are in fact a sort of teacher…
teachers through nasty examples. They also try to
learn from what they see, so they know more about
other species than the average other Fera does, they
even know the secret existence of the Nagah, or were-serpents
(This is disproved in the Nagah book, where it seems
that only Manyskins knows this mystery.) They also
have the ability to go to wherever they want to go
in the Umbra, as opposed to most Shape-changers, who
can only go to certain parts of the Umbra. They even
claim to have taught this skill to the Garou.
After the cosmology section, and
a brief description on their views of other groups
and themselves, this book hasn’t much left to
offer. There are some gifts and rites, and some additional
information but that’s about it. It’s
an important book for a Werewolf Storyteller, but
is disappointingly short. The only bright side of
its size is that you can read it riding the train
to college or your work. All in all, I feel that there
could be some additional information on them. Like
I said, it’s essential, because these guys have
an important role to play in the big scheme of things,
or so it seems, and they seem very funny, as PCs or
as NPCs. Pray that your character doesn’t become
the victim of one of the Nuwisha’s pranks…
Also… The character sheet
has a weird recording space dubbed “Pants?”
Weird sheet-designer humour, I guess. Talking about
weird RPG humour…
Q: Why did a Marauder cross the
road?
A: Dunno, but it used to be a straight road
Reviewed by Matías Timm |
