Wraith: The Oblvion - What if That Voice in Your Head Answered Back? - Roll to Save

Episode Transcript
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Iain (00:09):
Welcome to Roll to Save, the RPG History Podcast.
Wraith the Oblivion.
Hello and welcome to anotherepisode of Roll to Save, the RPG

(00:29):
History Podcast.
Today we're going to be talkingabout one of my favourite
games.
It's a game that was very muchmisunderstood during its heyday.
It was often seen asovercomplicated and difficult.
No, I'm not talking aboutMiddle Earth roleplaying, I am
talking about Wraith theOblivion.
Wraith was the fourth game inWhite Wolf's World of Darkness

(00:54):
line, following the standardMonster the Noun format.
It came on the heels of Vampirethe Masquerade, Werewolf the
Apocalypse, and Mage theAscension.
And it promised a much darkergame than the previous ones.
It included some groundbreakingmechanics that had never been

(01:15):
seen before in games, and somethings that I don't think have
ever been seen since.
And it generally took gaming ina completely different
direction.
It prompted a much moreintrospective and melancholy
style of play, but it wasn't foreveryone, and this was
reflected in the sad end that itsaw to its line.

(01:37):
So grab yourself a beverage ofyour choice, sit back, relax,
and follow us as we take youthrough a history of one of the
darker games in the already darkworld of darkness.
It pretty much dominated mygaming life for well over a

(02:12):
decade, with Vampire sucking up,punfully intended, an
inordinate amount of that time.
Therefore, it's logical to mostpeople, when they ask me how I
got into the World of Darkness,to assume it was through Vampire
the Masquerade.
And I mean why wouldn't they?
Vampire was the big one, theflagship title, the game that

(02:34):
put White Wolf on the map.
It was a game thatfundamentally challenged people
to consider what therole-playing hobby was about.
However, at the risk of being acontrary mary, it wasn't
Vampire that dragged me into theworld of darkness.
No, my first World of Darknessgame was something first ranger,
far more melancholy, andhonestly far more interesting.

(02:58):
That game was Wraith theOblivion.
Fun fact, it was also the firsttabletop RPG that myself and my
co-host Steve played together.
We were at university andWraith wasn't exactly an easy
game to pitch or to explain toothers in the RPG club.
Usually the mention of you getto play a ghost led to lots of

(03:22):
sniggering and speculating aboutall the hilarious and comic
antics characters could get upto if they were ghosts.
Seemed like a lot of peoplewere way more interested in
taking advantage of beinginvisible or capering around
like a demented cross betweenCasper and Slimer from
Ghostbusters than they were ofplaying an introspective

(03:44):
brooding game that explored themeanings of mortality and loss.
So Steve and I more or lessplayed Wraith as a one-on-one
with another player occasionallyjoining.
And it was awesome, even ifSteve did have to put up with me
being his shadow.
What's a shadow?
Well, more on that later.
However, before I get into themeat of this, let's talk about

(04:07):
an odd little wrinkle inWraith's publication history.
The first thing released forthe game wasn't actually the
game.
No, White Wolf kicked thingsoff in June 1994 with something
called The Face of Death, whichwas this oversized art book.
I suppose he wanted to set themood right from the start and in
effect show people theaesthetic before hitting them

(04:29):
with the mechanics and rules.
Honestly, that's very Wraith.
This game has always been aboutatmosphere and theme first,
mechanics second.
So, what is Wraith theOblivion?
Well, put simply, it's a gameabout being dead.
Not undead, mind you, whilevampires get to cling to a sort

(04:50):
of twisted parody of life, inWraith you're properly,
definitely, thoroughly dead.
Dead dead, you're a ghost,stuck in the afterlife, and
you're dealing with all thebaggage that comes with that.
This setting is utterly uniqueamongst RPGs, at least in my
experience.
You exist primarily insomething called the

(05:12):
Shadowlands, which is this dark,twisted reflection of the
living world.
You can see everything that youleft behind, watched your loved
ones go through the liveswithout you, but you can't
interact with them.
Not easily anyway, you needspecial ghostly powers called
Arcanae to do that.
And even then it's difficultand draining.
Think of Patrick Swayze in themovie Ghost.

(05:35):
These powers are fuelled bysomething called pathos, an
energy that wraiths straw fromtheir emotions.
You regain it by indulgingthose feelings, by connecting
with the things that get youtethered to existence, or by
hanging around others who areexperiencing these strong
emotions that are important toyou.
Again, think of the Sways andGhost.

(05:55):
It's a brilliant bit of designbecause it mechanically
reinforces the theme.
You literally need youremotional connections to
function and survive.
You're also bound to the worldof the living through something
called fetters.
These are physical objects,places or people that tie you to
the world.
Maybe it's your childhood home,maybe it's your wedding ring,

(06:16):
maybe it's a person you leftbehind, or maybe it was that
girl you were just too shy toask out on a date.
These aren't just backgroundnoise, they're mechanical
elements that are vital to yoursurvival and, more importantly,
they drive your story forward.
Another interesting facet ofWraith's ruleset that really
helped create that ghostly vibewas how a character's health was

(06:38):
measured.
Instead of health levels, likeother White Wolf games, Wraiths
have something called corpus,which represents your ability to
maintain physical integrity inthe afterlife.
When your corpus is damaged,you're not bleeding or suffering
from broken bones, but ratheryou're leaking plasm and losing
cohesion as your spiritual formis literally coming apart.

(07:00):
And here's somethinginteresting, you can spend
corpus to make yourselfinsubstantial, to slip through
solid objects.
It's a trade-off, weakeningyourself to gain that classic
ghostly ability to walk throughwalls.
In addition, in other WhiteWolf games, as a character
suffers health levels of damage,they incur penalties to their
actions.

(07:20):
Not so for Wraiths.
You might be a bit moreinsubstantial, but it doesn't
matter if you've 10 corpuslevels or one corpus level,
you're just as effective.
Wraiths also seem to be studierthan their counterparts in
other games.
They have 10 corpus levelsinstead of the usual 7 health
levels, and they can regeneratea level of lost corpus every

(07:41):
turn by spending pathos.
So far, so ghostly.
You've got a character who'sbound to the land of the living
by things that were important tothem in life, who subsists on
the powerful emotions that drivethem, and whose phantom form is
durable yet substantial.
It's clear that you're playingsomething different.
However, Wraith did somethingthat made it really special,

(08:03):
something that even people whohave never played Wraith know
about and talk about, and thatreally is what sets it apart
from every other RPG I'veencountered.
This is something called theShadow.
You see, every Wraith has twosides.
The Psyche, which is you, yourpersonality, your goals, your
drives.
Every action you take, everypassion you explore, that's your

(08:26):
psyche.
Then there's the shadow.
The shadow is your dark side,the part of you that hates
yourself, that is overlycritical, and which ultimately
undermines your every action.
In the living world, we mightsuffer from imposter syndrome
before we do somethingimportant.
We've all felt it, that littlevoice in your head telling you

(08:47):
that you're no good, that you'regoing to fail, and that
nobody's going to appreciateyour efforts, it's just part of
being human.
Now, imagine that voice wassentient, had goals of its own,
and could hold two-wayconversations.
Imagine it could sometimes takecontrol of your body.
That's a shadow.
It seems that in themetaphysics of the world of

(09:09):
darkness, when you die,something about not being
tethered to messy biology freesthat little voice and gives it
free reign inside your mind.
Now here's the really cleverbit.
In the game, another playercontrols your shadow.
They play the voice in yourhead that is constantly trying

(09:29):
to undermine you, sabotage you,drag you down, and you, in turn,
play someone else's shadow.
So every player is juggling twocharacters at once, their own
Wraith trying to accomplishtheir goals, and another
player's shadow, trying todestroy them from within.
The shadow is powered bysomething called angst.
Yes, really angst.

(09:50):
White Wolf were really leadinginto their image of making games
for tortured goths, weren'tthey?
But it works thematically.
Angst is generated when Wraithfails, when they suffer, when
things go wrong, when peopleimportant to them are hurt.
And the shadow spends thatangst to make things even worse.
They have powers of their owncalled thorns that they can use

(10:13):
to affect the outside world.
And what's more, when the angsttotal gets high enough, they
can momentarily take over aWraith's corpus, relegating the
Psyche to the role of backseatpassenger.
If it gets too high, well, thecharacter succumbs to the dark
side and becomes a terrifyingNPC.
Let me tell you, it's bloodybrilliant when it works.

(10:36):
It can also be absolutelyterrifying if your group doesn't
have a solid foundation oftrust because you're essentially
giving another playerpermission to attack your
character psychologically, topush buttons and to whisper
terrible things to you.
If someone's being a dick aboutit, the whole game falls apart.
But when you've got a goodgroup, when everyone understands

(10:58):
that they're trying to createcompelling drama rather than
just win, it's one of the mostpowerful gaming experiences
you'll ever have.
Now I mentioned earlier thatwraiths are pretty hardy, but
there are lots of things in theunderworld that can harm them.
And when a wraith takes enoughdamage that their corpus is
depleted, they don't die,obviously, they're already dead,

(11:20):
but instead they undergosomething called a harrowing.
Harrowings can also betriggered by losing a passion or
a fetter as you feel a littlebit of what binds you to
existence fade away.
Now in the game's cosmology, aharrowing was supposed to be
this cathartic moment for thesoul to come to terms with a
loss, a way of processing traumaand moving forward, but what it

(11:44):
became in practice was apsychodrama run by the
character's shadow, anightmarish journey through the
wraith's fears and regrets wherethe shadow tries to break them
completely.
Fail to find a way out of aharrowing, and your soul risks
being consumed by oblivion, aprimal destructive force of
nothingness that sits at theheart of the underworld and

(12:06):
slowly drags everything towardsit like a bleak, nihilistic
black hole.
How do harrowings work?
Well, the storyteller will getthe other players to take on the
roles in the harrowing, playingout aspects of the Wraith's
mind, embodying their fears andacting out twisted versions of
their memories as the psychestruggled to try and solve the
harrowing and find a way out ofthis nightmare.

(12:28):
It was powerful stuff when itworked, but oh god, it was a lot
of work.
The storyteller basically hadto prepare harrowings in advance
because coming up with amorality play with parts for all
the players on the fly was notan easy thing to do.
You needed to know thecharacter intimately, understand
the psychological landscape,and craft something that was

(12:50):
both dramatically satisfying andthematically appropriate.
No small ask.
Deeper into the underworld isthe Tempest, this churning sea
of chaos and darkness, andwithin the Tempest are islands

(13:11):
of stability, the largest beingStagia, the Dark Kingdom of
Iron, this massive city-statefounded by the legendary Charon.
Yes, that Charon, the ferrymanguy that the ancient Greeks
believed ferried the dead totheir final destination.
In Wraith's cosmology, he'sreal, and he built an empire of
the dead.
Specifically an empire of thewestern dead, and yeah, we'll

(13:35):
get to that shortly.
Here's the thing though, thefirst edition could have done
with way more detail aboutStageir.
We're given a lot of backgroundand history, and a big deal is
made of how important it is, butit's hardly described as a
setting.
You get the broad strokes,sure, but if you're expecting

(13:55):
the kind of detail that Vampiregave you about the Camarilla in
its main rulebook, you're in fora disappointment.
For example, how do you get toStagea?
Don't know.
It's in the Tempest, but nomention is made of how to travel
there other than in the loosestpossible terms.
What would characters encounteren route?
How long does it take?
What happens when they getthere?

(14:17):
What does it even look like?
Don't know, it's not described.
The hierarchy as a whole isn'tmuch better.
The hierarchy is theorganization that governs Stage
and Ton governs the West Undead.
The legions, which aregroupings of wraiths divided
based on how they died, are avery cool concept and are
presumably the closest thingwraiths have to a social

(14:40):
structure, but they get asimilar short shrift.
We're talking about maybe asentence each.
There's definitely not enoughmeat there to really build a
character identity around.
And the opposition factions,because this is a White Wolf
game, and of course there areopposition factions, the
heretics and the renegades, theyget such a hand wavy treatment

(15:00):
that it's really left to thestoryteller to decide what they
actually mean.
It's obvious White Wolf figuredthey needed a structure similar
to Camarola Anarch Sabat fromVampire, so they came up with
Hierarchy Renegade Heretic, butthey didn't put in the same
legwork to make them feel realand lived in.
Renegades are basically anyonewho opposes a hierarchy, whilst

(15:23):
heretics are super religiouscults that oppose a hierarchy.
A storyteller wanting to usethem will have a lot of work to
flesh out a renegade gang orheretic cult for their
chronicle, and whilst this canbe fun, it does necessitate
early legwork for something newplayers might never interact
with.
All of this adds up to Wraithgames feeling much more homebrew

(15:47):
than the likes of Vampire orWerewolf, which have clearly
defined settings in the corebooks.
Whereas it was very easy topick up one of Wraith's sister
games and dive into a fullyrealized world, this game's core
book gave a skeleton, pun againvery much intended, for the
storyteller to hang theirchronicle on, which is fine if

(16:07):
you're willing to put in thework, but it did limit the
game's appeal.
One potential drawback foranyone who's experienced of
White Wolf's games will know isthat they are very fond of their
meta plot, so this airy fairymake the underworld what you
want approach meant that youwere putting your chronicle at
risk of falling out of sync withwhat White Wolf might release

(16:32):
further down the line.
Spoiler, but as we'll see, thiswould have very real
repercussions.
Oh, and I've also mentionedthis before, but the default
setting of the underworld alsocomes across as very western
focused, which is fine if you'replaying in Europe or North
America, but otherwise it was aproblem that wouldn't be

(16:53):
addressed until latersupplements.
Speaking of problematic,although I mentioned that we
have very little detail inStagia, what detail we do have
is fairly harrowing, and there'sanother pun for you, you're
welcome.
The Empire is run by thehierarchy, and while they give
Warhammer 40k's Imperium a goodrun for their money in the

(17:13):
grimdark stakes, Stagiapractices slavery extensively
and often.
Why?
Well, here's some trulychilling world building for you.
Slavery wasn't considered tabooin Western culture until
relatively recently, and thegenerations of dead from eras
where slavery was acceptablevastly outnumber the modern

(17:36):
dead.
Weirdly, it's unsettling logiclike this that makes the setting
feel genuinely thought throughrather than just trying to be
dark and edgy for the sake ofit, which, as fans of White Wolf
will know, they were certainlyguilty of from time to time.
Now, if that wasn't enough interms of horror, and this is a
horror game, remember, some ofthese enslaved wraiths can be

(17:59):
subjected to something calledsoul forging.
That's when you're literallydragged to an anvil and your
plasma is hammered and beateninto the shape of an object.
Every coin used for currencyand stagia?
That used to be someone's soul,someone who was once a person
now minted into cash.
Imagine spending the entiretyof the rest of your existence in

(18:21):
pain as a coin in someoneelse's pocket.
Imagine paying for somethingand your currency seems to shift
slightly in the palm of yourhand and moan.
It's horrifying when you startto think about it.
Now, the hierarchy claim thatthey only use soul forging on
threats to orderly society orweak-willed wraiths that are
easy prey for the shadows andoblivion, but really, this

(18:44):
reinforces the fact that thingsare much worse when you're dead.
It's not all despair andeternal servitude though.
Wraith offers players a way outof the unrelenting misery that
is the afterlife.
Transcendence.
It's similar to Golconda inVampire or Ascension in Maids,

(19:05):
those mystic states White Wolfwere very fond of that represent
some kind of apotheosis foryour character.
But unlike those, transcendencehas actual mechanics behind it.
If you can resolve yourpassions and fetters, in effect,
if you come to terms with yourdeath and let go of what's
holding you back, you canachieve transcendence and move

(19:27):
on to, well, whatever liesbeyond.
Your character leaves again,presumably in a bright shaft of
light.
It's a brilliantly bittersweetconcept that reinforces the
game's themes about loss, pain,letting go, healing, and moving
forward.
And no, nobody in any of mygames I've run of Wraith has
ever achieved transcendence.

(19:49):
I can hear my co-host Jasonchuckling from here.
Anyway, let's move on to one ofWraith's big differences.
This time it's not thematic,but instead it's part of the
game's design.
In short, Wraith didn't havesplats in the traditional sense,
and this was very different notjust from other White Wolf
games, but from most RPGs.

(20:11):
For those of you who haven'theard the term before, a splat
is in effect a character class.
In Vampire, your character ispart of a clan.
In Werewolf, they're in atribe.
In Mage, you're a member of atradition.
Not only do these splats definemechanical aspects of your
character, they also play avital role in determining your

(20:33):
character's sense of self, wherethey stand in society, and who
their friends and enemies are.
They're also not a new thing.
Splats have been part of RPGssince DD first said, What class
do you want to be?
It's a lot easier to play afighter, a cleric, or a thief
than some nebulous adventurer.
You have a framework, anidentity, a role, a job in the

(20:57):
party.
The Star Wars RPG gave youcharacter templates that
basically allowed you to play aserial numbers filed off version
of one of the characters fromthe movies.
You were a smuggler, yeahyou're playing hand solo.
A young Jedi, hello LukeSkywalker.
These templates let charactersjump into the world and start
playing straight away, and theygave you a framework for how to

(21:21):
interact with it.
Wraith had none of this, whichcreated both opportunities and
challenges.
On one hand, it allowed playersto devote much more effort to
who their character was as aperson, digging deep into their
specific history andrelationships and emotional
baggage.
Whenever I run vampire, Ialways make a point of having

(21:43):
the players create their humancharacters first, precisely for
this reason.
I don't want them creating acharacter who is a stereotypical
member of a clan and nothingmore than a walking set of
powers with no personalitybeyond how hard they hit.
I want them to think about theperson.
However, splats are alsoincredibly important, not least

(22:04):
because they give characters aplace in the world, a social
framework, and an immediategateway to interacting with
those around them.
It helps build camaraderie andreasons for characters to work
together, or, in some cases,oppose each other.
Wraith did none of this.
The hierarchy, the renegadesand the heretics, they were more
like factions and sparts, andthe legions were so vaguely

(22:27):
described as to be functionallyuseless.
There was another groupmentioned in the book, the
guilds, who were masters ofvarious Wraithly Arcanae, but
they were basically described ashaving been disbanded by the
hierarchy in ages past, so theywere a non-starter too.
It made Wraith a game that wasalmost impossible to just pick
up and play.
You needed session 0, actually,you needed session 0, 1, 2, and

(22:51):
3 before you even rolled anydice.
The storyteller and players hadto work together to create not
just individual characters, butthe web of relationships and
shared goals that would makethem a functioning group.
And that's a big ask,especially compared to other
World of Darkness games, whereyou could just show up, pick a
clan, tribe or tradition, andimmediately understand your

(23:13):
place in the world.
Okay, that's enough about thebackground, let's talk about the
actual publication history ofWraith because it's quite the
journey.
As I mentioned, the face ofdeath hit in June 1994, then in
August 1994, the core rulebookfollowed alongside two other
products.
The first of these was thestoryteller's kit, and that

(23:36):
included a three-panel screenwith all the essential charts
and tables, along with someadditional material for running
games, mainly around crossovers.
Nothing groundbreaking butuseful enough if you wanted to
hide your dice rolls from yourplayers during harrowings.
The second of these productswas the character kit, and I
actually really enjoyed thisone.

(23:56):
It included a little playerscreen which described character
creation as well as summarisingcombat and other key roles.
However, what I really likedwas the fact that a death
certificate came as part of thecharacter sheet.
There was something quiteaffecting about filling out your
character's death certificate,writing down when and how they
died, what they left behind, itmade death feel real and final

(24:19):
in a way that most games nevermanage, and it reinforced the
fact that you were playing aperson who'd been taken from
this life far too early.
The artwork from that firstedition book was absolutely
fantastic, all black and white,very moody, full colour honestly
would have ruined Wraith.
The stark, almost dreamlike, orshould that be nightmarish-ish
imagery perfectly captured thebleak, melancholy atmosphere of

(24:44):
the setting.
Best of all, the first editionbook had an actual glow in the
dark cover.
When the lights were off, theWraith symbol would glow.
Gimmicky, sure, but fun, yeah,it made the book feel special,
like you were holding somethingotherworldly.
October 1994 saw the release ofNecropolis Atlanta.

(25:08):
This was meant to be Wraith'sequivalent to something like
Vampire's Chicago by Night orWerewolf's Rage Across New York,
a detailed setting book for aspecific city, and it did a good
job of showing what anecropolis could look like, with
details on the local factions,important locations in the
Shadowlands, and various fettersand haunts throughout the city.

(25:31):
It gave you a solid example ofhow to build your own
necropolis, which was valuablegiven how little detail the core
book provided.
We finally got a look at whatWraithly Society could actually
look like, what the varioustitles were that the hierarchy
used, as well as ideas forRenegade gangs and heretic
cults.
However, it suffered fromsomething that White Wolf was so

(25:54):
fond of in their early years,something I call crossover
madness.
You see, Necropolis Atlantaalso served as a source book for
vampire, as a whole sectioncalled Atlanta by Night,
detailing local vampires andtheir schemes.
And look, I get it, White Wolfwanted to show how their world
of darkness games couldinteract.

(26:15):
It was also probably a cheekyway of getting vampire players
to check out a Wraith productand then presumably to move on
to investing in the game as awhole.
But was all that page countreally needed in a Wraith
supplement?
Kutner's pages have been betterspent and more Wraith-specific
content.
November 1994 brought us tworeleases.

(26:36):
First was Haunts, a supplementabout haunted locations in the
Shadowlands.
This was actually quite useful,it explored different types of
haunts, from simple residencesto castles.
It was great inspiration forstorytellers who wanted to build
out their own necropolisfurther, and it was a useful
peek into what the underworldcould actually look like.

(26:58):
Also in November was MidnightExpress, which was a collection
of five adventures from Wraith.
These scenarios covered a wholerange of tones and themes, and
as to be expected, the qualitywas variable as anthology
adventures tend to be, but therewere some solid ideas in there.
Incidentally, the titularMidnight Express was a spectral

(27:22):
train that passed throughvarious necropoli en route to
Stagia.
December 1994 gave us two morereleases.
Death and Damnation was afiction anthology of ghost
stories.
Now, I know fiction anthologiesare a bit hit and miss, and
yes, Death and Damnation wascertainly no exception.
Some stories were brilliant,really capturing the melancholy,

(27:44):
bleak horror of the Wraithsetting.
Others were less successful,but here's the thing, even the
weaker stories gave you ideasfor how a Wraith Chronicle could
look.
They showed different types ofWraiths, different passions and
fetters, different ways thatdeath in the afterlife could be
portrayed.
For a storyteller struggling toget their head around running

(28:05):
Wraith, that was valuable.
The book did a great job ofsaying, look, there's multiple
ways to play this game.
It doesn't have to be thatbleak nihilism that Ian seems to
be so in love with.
Also in December was LoveBeyond Death, and this was
probably my favourite supplementfor Wraith.
Not because it was particularlywell written or busting with

(28:26):
cool metaplot revelations, butbecause it was one of the first
supplements I'd ever seendealing with love as a main
story element within RPGs.
Now, some people in the RPGpress maligned this as sappy,
much as White Wolf were changingthe gaming landscape, it was
very clear that there were stillpeople out there who still

(28:47):
believed that unless you wereplaying a roidied-up barbarian
who was kicking ass and takingnames, you were somehow doing
the hobby wrong.
Regardless of them, I thinkthat this was a really important
supplement for Wraith.
In every game I've ever run,there's always been at least one
character who's taking love insome form as one of their
passions, and this is where thebook shines.

(29:08):
It explores building storiesthat deal with love, but tells
us that we don't need to thinkof it as a traditional love
story.
Sure, it talks about romanticlove, but there's also familiar
love, platonic love, evenobsessive destructive love.
It gave guidance in writingstories that had a powerful
emotional tone, but also on howlove could be twisted by the

(29:30):
shadow, because who doesn't likea tale of doomed, tragic love?
It also included four scenariosbuilt around these themes.
The Price of Love dealt withthe ghost of a young woman whose
plan she believes will let herbe with the man she loves
obsessively.
Objective Affection was abouttwo female wraiths struggling
over the forged remains of a manthey both had once loved,

(29:52):
forever years centred around apsychiatrist who has built a
machine in the hope that it willlet him contact his loved one
that is part.
On and a final farewellfeatured a heretic hunting for
the woman he loves, and whounknowingly allows his feelings
to let him be manipulated intodoing another's dirty work.
These scenarios matchedWraith's themes perfectly.

(30:14):
They were moody, introspective,focused on emotional conflicts,
and they didn't feature muchphysical combat.
1994 was White Wolf's year ofthe Hunter across their game
lines, and Wraith wasn't leftout.
But before we got to the Huntersupplement, March brought us
the Sea of Shadows, the TempestSource Book.

(30:35):
This had a lot of interestingmaterial about the churning sea
of chaos between the Shadowlandsand the Dark Kingdoms.
You got details on the strangephenomena that occurred in the
Tempest, the creatures thatdwelled there, how to navigate
it, and what treasures anddangers could be found in its
depths.
The sample adventure wasinteresting, but it suffered

(30:57):
from what a lot of early WhiteWolf adventures suffered from.
The main rule book had spentpages and pages and a ton of ink
explaining that Wraith was agame of moody introspection,
about personal tragedy andunresolved emotional conflicts,
but this adventure was a highadrenaline action romp that saw

(31:17):
the characters chased all acrossthe Tempest after MacGuffin in
probably the most railroady wayimaginable.
There was some nice adviceabout running this adventure in
parallel with a story set in theLands of the Living, showcasing
how events in the Lands of theDead can impact the skin lands
and vice versa, but overall itfelt like the authors wanted to

(31:38):
cram in as much of the sourcebook as possible, showcasing all
the weird phenomena, settings,and creatures, but in doing so
they created something thatdidn't really fit the game's
themes.
May saw the release of theWraiths Players Guide.
This was a hefty supplementthat expanded in character
creation options, provided newercan eye, merits and flaws,

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details in Wraithly Society,some rules updates, and a bunch
of essays designed to assiststorytellers and players.
The latter I really enjoy.
These types of articles reallyhelp get the creative juices
flowing.
In addition, this book finallygives us information on the
other Dark Kingdoms, which areother cultures equivalents of

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Stagia.
This was great world buildingand finally allowed for
storytellers to get a completeview of the underworld that
allowed for somethingapproaching diversity.
It also explored the conflictsamongst the Wraiths.
Despite being supernaturalcreatures, Wraiths were
obstensibly still human, so allthe prejudices and nastiness
that normal humans possessedcarried over into the afterlife.

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All in all, the player's guidewas genuinely useful, giving
players more options forcustomising their characters as
well as more guidance on how toroleplay them effectively.
It also gave Storytellers somegreat tools to make the settings
richer.
June brought us the Quick inthe Dead, and that was Wraith's
contribution to the Year of theHunter.

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I was always a bit disappointedby White Wolves' Year of the
Gimmick, as it usually meantthat each line got a single book
relating to that theme.
It was more like Month of theHunter.
Anyway, regardless ofnomenclature gripes, this book
was an interesting change fromvampires hunters, who were
usually just fanaticalhyper-religious inquisitors with

(33:26):
crosses and torches.
The Quick in the Dead presentedvarious types of hunter groups,
who varied from the scientific,to the pseudoscientific, to the
academic, to the occult.
You had some groups that wantedto gain power and influence
over wraiths, some who wanted tounderstand them, and some who
just explored the afterlife forkicks.

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It gave much more nuance to therelationship between the living
and the dead, showing that noteveryone who could perceive
Wraiths wanted to destroy them.
It also made regular humansviable antagonists for a Wraith
Chronicle.
July brought the Hierarchy, asource book detailing the
government of Stagia.
It had another chapter of thehistory of the hierarchy, which

(34:07):
honestly felt superfluous giventhat the history of Stagia was
explained in the core book, butthis is White Wolf, and they
always like to have a thehistory of chapter in each of
their books.
More interestingly, it had achapter on the culture of the
hierarchy, allowing storytellersto not only get an idea of what
day-to-day existence was likefor your average hierarchy

(34:28):
Wraith, but also to finally geta description of Stagia itself.
It was much needed detail thatthe core book solely lacked.
August 1995 gave us DarkKingdom of Jade, which explored
the Eastern Underworld, showingthat the cosmology was
completely different there.
Instead of Stagia and thehierarchy, you had the Jade

(34:51):
Emperor ruling from the YellowSprings.
It was a completely differenttake on the Wraith concept, and
it showed that White Wolf weretrying to make the game's
setting more diverse.
The book detailed the DarkKingdom's history, its
structure, how Wraiths in theEast operated differently from
those in the West.
It included new characteroptions, new powers, and

(35:13):
information on how death isunderstood and approached in
different cultures.
October 1995 saw the release ofDark Reflection Spectres, and
this was one of the most trulydark publications White Wolf
ever produced.
It was marketed as a Black Dogpublication for a very good
reason.
Black Dog was White Wolf'smature reader's imprint for

(35:36):
books that went beyond the usualdarkness found in the World of
Darkness games and taking theminto genuinely disturbing
territory.
In Wraith Parlance, Spectresare Wraiths that have fallen to
the shadow and that aretherefore consumed by their most
destructive, darkest urgies.
That opening piece of fictionin this book set the tone

(35:58):
immediately.
This wasn't a book aboutcartoon villains, this was about
genuine evil, about souls sotwisted and broken that they'd
become true monsters.
The main text it follows does agreat job of explaining
Spectres as more than justmindless cannon fodder that the
storyteller could chuck in whenthey wanted some combat to break

(36:18):
up all the melancholy andangst.
It showed them as tragicfigures, wraiths who'd fallen
into oblivion and been corruptedby it, and who were now trying
to drag others down with thembecause that was all that they
knew.
It detailed the society, theirgoals, and their relationship
with Oblivion.
There were also rules forSpectre PCs, but I'm honestly

(36:41):
not sure that that's the sort ofgame that would be kind of fun
to run or play in.
Also in October, White Wolfdecided to try and address the
lack of splat issues that Italked about previously.
When I mentioned all thereasons to include Splats,
providing a societal niche,defining character identity in

(37:02):
broader groups, helping withworld building, I forgot one
very important one.
Splats let White Wolf sell morebooks.
I can see the vast swathe ofvampire clan books in my
bookshelf looking at me smuglyas I say this.
Because of this, Octoberbrought us Guild Book Mascals,

(37:22):
which was about the Guild ofWraiths who could manipulate
their appearance.
I'll be honest, I wasn't amassive fan of the guild books,
they felt bolted on.
If I were to do splats forWraiths, I'd have done Legions
instead, especially as guildswere given such little space in
the main rule book and were alsomeant to be defunct.
However, clearly White Wolfdisagreed with me because in

(37:44):
December the Artificers gottheir book, and in February
1996, the Sand Men got theirstoo.
In April 1996, we got DarkKingdom of Jade Adventures, a
collection of scenarios set inthe Eastern Underworld.
The quality was okay, andthere's one absolutely bonkers
adventure that sees thecharacters going into a

(38:05):
Malfian's lair to find the ghostof a nuclear bomb that fell in
Hiroshima.
Yeah, really, the ghost of anatomic bomb, it's as wild as it
sounds, but it also attempts toexplore the trauma of nuclear
war and the scars it left on theEastern world.
In June, White Wolf gave ussomething fun.
You know how everyone wanted toplay the Crow after that film

(38:26):
came out?
Well, the release of The Risenlet you do exactly that.
These were Wraiths who managedto possess their own corpses and
return to the land of theliving.
But here's the catch, to becomeRisen, a Wraith had to make a
pact with a shadow.
That meant the shadow becamemore powerful more quickly, and
when the shadow took control,the thought of the damage it

(38:48):
could do with a nionindestructible body in the land
of the living was terrifying.
Risen were a candle that burnedtwice as bright and burned out
just as quickly.
However, fun as this book was,it was much more suitable as a
resource for making interestingand unique antagonists for other
game lines, primarily becauseRisen were lone, obsessive

(39:12):
figures.
Because of this, they didn'tfit easily into an existing
chronicle.
Do you just put things on pausefor the other players whilst
the risen player jaunts aroundthe skin lands in their body?
The book makes it very clearthat the risen are super rare,
so a party of risen are almost ano-no.
Especially given that the risenare a literal walking breach of

(39:33):
the dictum mortem.
That's Wraith's equivalent toVampire's Masquerade or
Werewolf's Veil.
Yes, this is a White Wolf game,so there has to be the
standard, and the main factionrigorously enforces a Mortal
Shall Remain unaware of us,Supernatural's Law.
Actually, as I talk about this,I've just had a brilliant idea:

(39:54):
a Risen Chronicle for twoplayers, one playing the Psyche,
one being the Shadow.
That could be a lot of fun.
Anyway, moving on, and Augustheralded the arrival of Wraith's
2nd edition.
This was a significant upgrade,the rules were streamlined and
clarified, and a lot of theclunky mechanics from 1st
edition were smoothed out.

(40:15):
The book also reorganised thematerial more logically.
The first edition sometimescould feel a little bit
scattershot, jumping as it didfrom topic to topic.
Second edition had a clearerstructure, making it easier to
find what you need.
One thing though, 2nd editiondid lack the funky glow in the
dark cover.

(40:35):
Boo.
All in all though, it was asolid book, and in White Wolf
Tradition, it was released as ahardback compared to the soft
cover of 1st edition.
September saw Buried Secrets.
This came packaged with astoryteller's screen and was a
companion to 2nd edition.
It covered a wide range oftopics including new artifacts

(40:57):
and relics, information onangelics and demonics, details
on human antagonist groups, asection on the far shows, and
the setting of Little FivePoints Atlanta.
It also included Errata for 2ndedition, mainly around how to
regain Pathos.
Yeah, for some reason that wasmissed in the early printings of
2nd Edition.

(41:18):
1997 brought severalsignificant releases.
The Shadows Player's Guide gavelots of dirty tricks and
tactics for Shadows, making themtrue Dark Sides, rather than
moustache twirling evil twins.
It included information on theDark Kingdoms, about 60 pages
covering the Yellow Springs, theFlayed Lands, the Bush of

(41:39):
Ghosts, the Millerlands, Swar,the Kingdom of Clay, and the Sea
That Knows No Sun.
It also had information on howSpectres and Risen interacted
with shadows, and information onthe Eidolon, that lighter side
of the Wraith's personality.
The section on the AustralianShadowlands though is
particularly interesting andit's somewhat problematic by

(42:00):
today's standards.
The authors suggest thatAustralian Wraiths of Western
descent carry such profoundguilt over colonial atrocities
that there's a physicalmanifestation of this collective
shame somewhere in theAustralian Shadowlands, and that
the shadows visit this.
Now, this was fairly typical ofWhite Wolf's approach in the
mid-90s, they were very keen toaddress historical wrongs, which

(42:24):
was admirable, but they oftendid so in ways that raised some
rather awkward questions.
In this case, why single outAustralian colonists?
North American wraiths didn'tseem to have a similar button
despite comparable histories.
Spanish and Portuguese wraithsin South America aren't
mentioned as having thisaffliction either, and if we're

(42:44):
holding people accountable forancestral sins, why only apply
this to Western colonisation?
History is sadly replete withatrocities committed by people
of all backgrounds from acrossthe globe.
The inconsistency suggestsWhite Wolf were more interested
in making a statement thanthinking through the
implications of the worldbuilding.
That said, it's an interestingmechanical concept, tying a

(43:06):
character's shadow to collectivehistorical trauma, even if the
execution was rather selectivein its application.
However, one of thefundamentally brilliant parts of
the shadow as a concept wasthat it was personal.
A shadow was interestingbecause it was a uniquely dark
mirror of one person'spersonality.
The instant we start trying totie shadows to cultural groups,

(43:30):
we lose what makes themindividual and unique.
Concurrent with this releasecame Medium Speakers with the
Dead, and this focused onmortals who could perceive and
communicate with Wraiths,building on concepts first
exploded in The Quick and theDead.
It provided rules for buildingclassic boardwalk mediums, as
well as people like falsemediums who made a living off

(43:52):
death without understanding whatthey were truly mucking around
with.
We also got an update on whatour friends from The Quick and
the Dead were up to and rules oncreating Spectre cults, groups
of deranged mortals that worshipand serve Oblivion servants.
April 1997 brought ChannelHouses of Europe, The Shoah,

(44:13):
which was a black dogpublication dealing with
probably the most delicate ofdelicate issues, the Holocaust.
Thankfully, for the companythat dropped the ball horribly
with Berlin by Night byincluding a bunch of real-life
Nazis amongst the characters,this book and the material is
handled in a very sensitivemanner.
We can say remarkably sensitivefor White Wolf.

(44:35):
Rather than being rules forplaying victims of Nazi
atrocities, the book ispresented as a memorial of
sorts.
It opens with an introductionexplaining that nobody should
forget what happened during thatdark period of human history,
and that stories are a valuabletool in ensuring that something
is remembered.
There's also a grimly beautifultwo-page art spread showing the

(44:59):
interminable numbers of thedead being pulled across the
sticks one by one with Charonand the words never again.
The book provides an overviewof the Holocaust, as well as
chapters exploring individualatrocity sites.
These are part history and partfiction, the history providing
an overview of what happened atthese places, and the fiction

(45:20):
exploring the effects on theunderworld of the Holocaust, how
the sheer scale of deathaffected the Shadowlands, and
how the trauma created lastingscars in the very fabric of
existence.
It doesn't shy away from thehorror, but it treats the
subject with respect andgravity.
It's not an easy book to read,the real history is genuinely
horrifying and unsettling, andit's certainly not one to use

(45:43):
lightly in a game.
In fact, I think I'd be contentto let the book stand as a
memorial to the Holocaust.
I doubt I could do the subjectmatter justice in any game I
run.
So after this book proved thatWhite Wolf could handle delicate
historical matters tastefully,June saw them chunning out guild
book haunters.
And if that wasn't enough,September saw a guild book that

(46:06):
chunted Pardoners and Puppeteersinto one book.
Clearly there wasn't enoughmaterial to give each an
individual book, which says alot about the content of these
guild books.
1998 saw several releases.
Ghost Towns leaned heavily intocrossing over with Werewolf the
Wild West.
This supplement explored hauntsin the wilderness and rural

(46:29):
areas of the West, places whereWraiths existed far from the
necropoli.
It detailed how Wraithsinteracted with werewolves and
the spirits of the Umbra.
This honestly felt a bit morelike a werewolf supplement for
storytellers who wanted theirguru to have dealings with
ghosts rather than anythingparticularly interesting for
Wraith.
Guild book spooks and oraclescombined two more guilds, the

(46:54):
aforementioned spooks andoracles, into one.
Fun fact, this was the lastguild book to be released,
meaning not all guilds got one.
Can you imagine Vampire notreleasing a clan book for every
clan?
Yeah, it shows kind of howpaper thin this whole guild
splat concept actually was.
Anyway, following this, theBook of Legions finally gave

(47:18):
proper detail to the Legionsthat'd been mentioned but never
fully explored in the core book.
Each Legion got a whole chapterand it made the Legions feel
like actual organizations ratherthan these throwaway labels
that they'd been in the corebook.
It also though came four yearsafter the main game had been
released, and people probablyhad their own ideas of what

(47:40):
legions were.
This is what I meant when Isaid at the beginning that not
having a lot of the stuff fullydetailed in the core rulebook
meant that by the time WhiteWolf actually released
supplemental material, a lot ofpeople's games would be
deviating from what was canon.
And as we're about to see, thisis probably a little bit too
little too late.

(48:01):
July 1998 brought usDoomslayers into the labyrinth.
This detailed a special groupof wraiths who travelled into
the labyrinth, you know, thatnasty place deep in the tempest
where all the spectres lived tohunt spectres.
The book covered the history,purpose, organizations, and

(48:21):
tools most commonly used byDoomslayers, including how to
create Doomslayer characters andhow they could use Darker
Canae.
It detailed the Society ofSpectres, Amalfians, and what
life in the labyrinth wasactually like.
It also provided rules fortravelling through the
labyrinth, something that hadonly previously been touched

(48:42):
upon in the adventure that wasbolted on to the end of the Sea
of Shadows supplement.
Now, the section on SpectralSociety in this book was
interesting, but this honestlyfelt like a book for people who
wanted to have a dungeon bash inthe Wraith game.
Great, if that's your thing,but it's not really in line with

(49:03):
the game's themes.
October 1998 saw the release ofRenegades, a source book
detailing the faction opposed tothe hierarchy.
And I say the faction, but thisbook isn't really sure what
it's about.
It opens with a chapter talkingabout the history of the
Renegades, as if they're acohesive body, but then goes
into different types ofRenegades.

(49:24):
After this, we've got theRenegades' opinions on the other
factions within the underworld,but are we back to this being a
cohesive group again?
If there are many, many typesof renegades, surely there will
be an equal number of opinions.
We also get character creationrules and the usual sample
characters that like White Wolfliked to throw in.
Honestly, it reminded me ofVampire's Anarch Supplement,

(49:46):
another group that is actuallymeant to be made up of basically
anyone who isn't in theCamarilla, but which the book
tries to put an organizationalstructure around.
Regardless, White Wolf didn'tgive as much of a chance to use
Renegades because one yearlater, in October 1999, they
released Ends of Empire.

(50:06):
This was Wraith's Apocalypse,the end of the line, the finale
to the entire Wraith setting.
And despite being criticallyacclaimed, Wraith was performing
poorly, so the Powers at Bdecided to wrap things up.
This book catches a lot offlack.
So this is a your mileage mevery warning, but I actually

(50:28):
kind of enjoyed it, primarilybecause it had some great
fiction that brought the variousstory threads I'd enjoyed
throughout the Wraith linecoming to an end.
It also finally lifted thecurtain on the ferryman's
secrets, as well as providing ascenario designed to finish the
story of the Dark Kingdom ofIron.
Okay, spoiler warnings for thescenario, because I can't talk

(50:50):
about it without giving stuffaway.
So if you want to avoid this,uh skip ahead, I don't know,
five minutes.
That's probably how long it'sgoing to take me to rant about
this.
The scenario, interesting as itis, is figuratively and
literally a railroad.
The characters are bounced fromscene to scene where important
stuff happens and importantpeople speak.

(51:13):
And at one point they're on theMidnight Express, so they're
literally on rails.
Regardless if this is anintentional metaphor, and if it
is, it's rather heavy-handed.
The characters scoot from setpiece to set piece with barely a
pause to catch their breath.
Sure, they're given some tasksto do in a vague you are the
chosen one's capacity, but onthe whole, they're largely

(51:36):
bystanders to history takingplace around them.
And none of their choices meananything, so that's fun for
sure.
The plot centres on Charon'sreturn amidst a war between the
Dark Kingdoms of Iron and Jade,and Wraith's background, Charon
sacrifices himself at the end ofWorld War II to fight off a big

(51:58):
monster that is buffedfollowing the bombing of
Hiroshima.
There's political manoeuvring,betrayals, last stands,
sacrifices, the ferryman,Charon's mysterious servants
play a major role.
It's absolutely an epic inscope, and the writing does a
good job of conveying the scaleof the catastrophe, but it is so

(52:19):
metaplot heavy that it reallysuffers as a result.
Unless your storyteller hasdone serious work to weave the
main villain into yourchronicle, for instance, he's
just another boss battle.
The fact that the charactersget to face him has no meaning
and no amount of yeah yeah, buthe's oblivion's general from the
storyteller, will be able toconvince him that this is

(52:40):
anything other than a big finalnasty to face, the same as you
get at the end of any RPG.
Likewise, the scenario assumesyour characters care deeply
about high-level stagingpolitics, about the fate of the
hierarchy, about themachinations of ancient wraiths.
But if your chronicle has beenmore focused and personal, and

(53:02):
really delved into characters'individual passions and fetters,
you know, like the rule bookhas been suggesting that the
game is about since day one,your players might just look at
each other during thesepolitical set pieces, shrug, and
say, I guess.
This cannot be overstated.
You only have to look at theearly supplements, things like

(53:22):
Love Beyond Death, they allfocus on Wraith's personal
interactions with the livingworld, with the people that they
leave behind.
There is so little informationon Stagia and the Dark Kingdoms
that it's not really thatinteresting to make an adventure
around them.
And if you had been making anadventure around them, chances

(53:43):
are it was your storyteller'shomebrew setting.
So all of this grand stuff inthe finale, a lot of it probably
didn't get used.
There's also a moment that'smeant to be a big reveal when
all the remaining Nimoy, who arean outlawed guild of memory
workers, are brought in and it'srevealed that their banishment
and persecution was all part ofthe plan, and those words are

(54:06):
all in capital letters.
This is meant as some stunningrevelation, but unless your
storyteller has really lent intothe whole fable of the Nimoy
being persecuted and outlawed,and it's unlikely they would
have because the Nimoy Guildbook is included as part of this
book, then this all just fallsa bit flat.

(54:27):
It's just another group of guysthat are wheeled out for the
finale.
Also, the whole reasoningbehind the war is very covert.
Storytellers may know about itif they've been keeping up with
the Wraith's Meta plot, but yourplayers probably won't.
Therefore, having an openingset piece that feels more like
the D Day landings might be abit jarring if your game is

(54:49):
previously focused on personalhorror.
Finally, Charan's proclamationthat the PCs are his chosen
heirs during the final Charantranscends and goes to somewhere
nice scene feels jarring.
Why have they been picked?
Because of the main characters?
In the grand scheme of things,they're only there because they
happen to be the ones that reapCharan's soul.
Other than that, they've merelyacted as glorified couriers,

(55:13):
hardly the stuff of kings.
In short, it suffers from allthe usual problem of published
White Wolf scenarios.
The core rule books, for thelikes of Vampire and Wraith,
spend a lot of ink musing on howthis is a game of personal
horror, tragedy, andintrospection, only for the
adventures to be these epicsweeping action romps that

(55:35):
jarringly and clumsily break themood.
Imagine you've been playingWraith for years, and your
chronicle focuses in your smallcircle, helping each other cope
with the depredations of theunderworld, as well as assisting
each other in coming to termswith a new existence and healing
the wounds of the past.
Fantastic stuff, very deep,very Wraith according to the

(55:57):
rulebook.
Then your storyteller describesa ghostly battleship appearing
and bombarding the town whilstghostly soldiers and what can
only be described asanime-inspired armors storm the
city.
Quite the discord, no?
With Ends of Empire, Wraithcame to an end.
Mark Reinhagen stated early inthe development of the game that

(56:26):
he wanted players to feeluncomfortable playing it, and in
that regard he succeededperhaps too well.
The themes were dark and oftentouched on topics that were
unsettling or triggering forplayers.
I know from experience thatWraith is the only game I've
ever run where a player hasasked for a timeout because
things were getting too intensefor them.

(56:47):
Concepts like the Shadowrequired advanced players, and
not everyone enjoyed being anantagonist to another player.
Also, brilliant as this wasconceptually, it often proved
difficult in practice.
Shadow guiding came out beforethe idea of collaborative play
to lift was commonplace ingaming culture, which meant you

(57:07):
had a lot of players shadowguiding aggressively or in ways
that were really competitiverather than collaborative.
It required a level of trustand maturity between players
that wasn't always present atgaming tables, and as a result,
Wraith as a whole lostpopularity.
Not just because of the amountof preparation required, but

(58:13):
because it was often a lot ofwork simply coming up with
things for players to do.
Sure Wraith had some politicsand antagonists built in, but
not to the same extent asVampire or Werewolf, and
besides, that's not what peoplewanted to play Wraith for.
This game was about exploringdeath, loss, and what was next.
And while that's a coolconcept, it's very hard to weave

(58:36):
a game out of it that works forall your players.
This was self-evident in theWhite Wolf line when they
started releasing things likeDoom Slayers, effectively
saying, Look, you can have acool dungeon bass with ghosts in
our game, right?
There was also the question ofwhy the characters were even
together in the first place.
Although White Wolf fanciedthemselves as having a

(58:58):
renaissance in gaming, groups ofplayers who were into the idea
of weaving a cooperative storywere still pretty rare.
A lot of the players of theirgame still came from traditional
ways of playing RPGs.
So if you didn't have thatcooperative storytelling
mindset, the mindset that hadplayers playing in their troupe

(59:18):
rather than a party, as WhiteWolf defined it in their
rulebook, your reasons for theplayers being together often
came down to the fact of theother PCs sitting around the
table.
Because of all these factors,Wraith had a very limited
audience throughout most of itshistory, and limited audiences
translate into limited sales.

(59:40):
When you're pulling in lesscash than Changeling, you know
that you're in trouble.
White Wolf discontinuedproduction of the Wraith Line in
1999, several years beforeother World of Darkness games, a
victim of poor sales and theinherent difficulty of
translating the game's mechanicsand themes into something that
players.
Enjoyed, but it wasn't quitedone.

(01:00:02):
Uh, there was a book releasecalled Wraith the Great War,
which dealt with the Shadowlandsand the period of the Great War
between 1914 and 1918.
Honestly, it didn't reallywork.
Wraith doesn't need ahistorical setting.
Whereas something like Vampire,the Dark Ages explored this
different world in differentsettings.

(01:00:23):
Wraith always kind of had that.
It dealt with other Wraiths whohad been dead for hundreds, if
not thousands, of years.
Therefore, the concept of ahistorical setting, especially
one as recent as World War One,didn't really change anything in
terms of how the underworldworked.
The hierarchy itself wasalready incredibly

(01:00:44):
anachronistic.
World War One would seempositively modern for the
hierarchy.
In 2003, White Wolf releasedOrpheus.
Now, Orpheus wasn't technicallya sequel to Wraith, and it
wasn't officially part of theWraith line, but it shared
enough in common that it's worthdiscussing here, and it
scratched that ghostly itch forpeople who were missing Wraith.

(01:01:07):
It was set in the modern day,in a world where death and the
afterlife were real knownphenomena.
The players took on the rolesof projectors, people who could
separate the souls from theirbodies and enter the spirit
world.
They worked for the OrpheusGroup, a slightly shady
corporation that hired theirprojectors out to do various PCs

(01:01:28):
of snooping and espionage.
The game was structured as ametaplot heavy story, released
as a series of six books thattold one continuous narrative of
each book, advanced the plotfrom the last one, revealed new
information, introduced newthreats.
It was designed to be playedthrough from beginning to end
with a definitive conclusion.

(01:01:50):
The tone was different fromWraith, it was much more
action-oriented, more focused oninvestigation and problem
solving.
You weren't playingintrospective dead people
working through their emotionalbaggage, you were playing cool
ghost spies working for acorporation.
That said, it shared Wraith'sthemes of death, loss, and what
lies beyond.
The story itself centered onthe Orpheus group getting caught

(01:02:12):
up in a conspiracy involving arival corporation, malevolent
spirits, and ancient evils frombeyond death.
The plot built over six books,cumulating in an apocalyptic
finale.
The final fate of theShadowlands played strongly into
Orpheus' storyline.
While it wasn't a directsequel, it did have many points
of interest to those familiarwith Wraith and who enjoyed that

(01:02:34):
game.
And then, for over a decade,Wraith was silent.
I'd say as the grave, but I'mkinda bored of writing puns at
this point.
The game was out of print, thesetting officially over, and
while fans kept playing anddiscussing it online, there was
no official new material.
But in December 2014, the OnyxPath team launched a Kickstarter

(01:03:00):
for Wraith the Oblivion 20thAnniversary Edition.
This is part of their ongoingseries of 20th anniversary
editions for classic World ofDarkness games following
successful releases for Vampire,Werewolf and Mage.
The campaign was verysuccessful, funding in December
2014.
However, the book's deliverywas massively delayed.

(01:03:23):
It didn't actually ship untilAugust 2018, nearly four years
after the Kickstarter campaign.
This was an extraordinarilylong delay and it frustrated
many backers who'd been waitingpatiently for the book.
Honestly though, whenever wecover a Kickstarter for this
podcast, I am no longersurprised by this stuff.

(01:03:44):
Thankfully, when the 20thanniversary edition finally
arrived, it was a beautifulbook.
Hardcover with art that managedto maintain the moody
atmosphere of the original andover 500 pages of content.
It compiled material from bothfirst and second edition,
including updated rules, newfiction, and all sorts of great

(01:04:05):
stuff from all the supplements.
The opening section was theoriginal art book from 1994 that
preceded first edition'srelease, which I thought was a
really nice touch as it boughteverything full circle.
It's also complete.
This book's details are more orless everything ever released
from Wraith, and it shows ittoo.
It's massive, bigger even thanVampire 20th Edition.

(01:04:28):
Yep, it's that big.
Having Wraith readily availablein such a complete form was
great.
For years, if you wanted toplay it, you had to track down
used copies of the originalbooks and supplements of Rely on
PDFs.
Now there was a definitiveedition that collected
everything in one place that wasprofessionally produced and
readily available.

(01:04:49):
So where does that leaveWraith?
Well, it's a cult classic.
It never had the mainstreamappeal of a vampire or werewolf,
it was always too dark, toointrospective, too demanding of
its players, but for those of uswho connected with it, it was
something special.
I love Wraith for a lot ofreasons.
I love that it addresses thethorny issue of the afterlife

(01:05:11):
and belief.
What if you died and found thateverything you believed in was
wrong all along?
What if your conception of theafterlife was completely
different from reality?
Wraith doesn't shy away fromthese questions.
I love that it's not just darkfor the sake of being dark and
edgy.
The idea that you could beforged into an item, that you

(01:05:33):
could spend eternity as anobject in someone's desk, that's
not just shocking, it'sgenuinely horrifying when you
stop and think about it.
And it makes the stakes feelreal and the afterlife really
seem like an unliving hell.
I love that it's one of themost original RPG settings I've
ever encountered.
The afterlife is a place wherethe ghosts and detritus of

(01:05:55):
society accumulates, wherenobody has any more answers than
they did in life, where ancientempires practice slavery and
hold souls like currency, it'sdisturbing yet brilliant world
building.
Nothing else quite capturesthat same feeling.
I love the shadow mechanic.
When it works, when you've gota group that trusts each other

(01:06:15):
and understands what they'retrying to create, it produces
some of the most powerfuldramatic moments I've ever
experienced in gaming.
Having another player whisperterrible truths in your ear,
tempting you towardsself-destruction, making you
question your every decision.
It's uncomfortable, yes, butit's also compelling in a way
few game mechanics ever achieve.

(01:06:37):
And I love the personal natureof it all.
Your fetters, your passions,your unfinished business, these
make every character story feelmeaningful.
You're not just another vampirein the internal jihad or
another werewolf fighting theworm, you're a specific person
who died with specific regrets,specific loves, specific
failures, and you're trying toresolve them all before you're

(01:06:59):
consumed by your shadow and fallinto oblivion.
But I'm also realistic aboutWraith's limitations.
It absolutely is not foreverybody.
It can be pretty depressing attimes.
The themes of loss and decayaren't everyone's cup of tea.
Some people play RPGs toescape, to be heroic, to have
adventures.
Wraith is about confrontinguncomfortable truths, about

(01:07:22):
life, mortality, and regret.
That's heavy and not everyonewants heavy.
Some people just want to killorcs and take their treasure,
and that's fine, that's what thehobby's about.
Wraith is also difficult torun.
The shadow mechanic requiresmature players who won't abuse
it.
The lack of clear splats meansyou need to do serious prep work

(01:07:43):
to create a cohesive group.
The setting requires buy-infrom everyone at the table.
If one player isn't fullycommitted, the whole thing can
fall apart.
You can't just show up with acharacter concept and expect it
to work.
You need to figure out whythese wraiths are together, what
they have in common, what theirshared goals are.
You need to weave the storiestogether so that helping each
other makes sense and it'ssomething the players want to

(01:08:05):
do.
You're going to have to spendhours as a storyteller just
finding reasons for charactersto play together without it all
degenerating into, and we all gointo the labyrinth to fight
specters.
Wraith works best with smallergroups.
Think about it, each playercontrols two characters, the
Wraith and someone else'sshadow.
With five or six players,that's 10 or 12 characters to

(01:08:28):
keep track of.
It gets unwieldy really fast.
3 or 4, that is the sweet spotwhere everybody can focus on
their Wraith and the shadow thatthey have without getting lost
in the crowd.
The real secret with Wraith isthat it's much more of a
collaborative storytellingexperience than a traditional
RPG, and yes, I know that soundspretentious as hell.

(01:08:51):
The storyteller isn't justrunning a game, they're
facilitating a shared narrativewhere every player contributes
to everyone's character arcslike no other game.
It's beautiful when it works,but man, it is a lot of effort.
Now this is the spot in theshow where I usually say, if
you've never tried this game,you should give it a go.
Well with Wraith I'd say giveit a go but with some caveats.

(01:09:14):
Make sure you've got a groupthat trusts each other.
Make sure everyone's on boardwith the themes of loss and
death.
Seriously, some people can findthe subject matter extremely
triggering.
Maybe start with a one-shot tosee if it clicks.
Use pre-generated charactersfor your first session so
everyone can get a feel for howthe mechanics work without

(01:09:34):
investing too much time incharacter creation, and you as a
storyteller have a group thathas a reason to be together and
doing stuff together.
So, if you're curious, the 20thanniversary edition is
available on Drive Thru RPG, andthere's physical copies out
there too.
You can also find all the oldstuff on eBay.
Give it a read, see if itspeaks to you, but be prepared

(01:09:56):
for something quite differentfrom your typical RPG.
Wraith isn't about going onadventures and killing monsters
and getting treasure.
It's about exploring what itmeans to die, what you leave
behind, what you hold on to, andhow you heal from all your
emotional baggage.
It's about regret, hope, hate,revenge, sorrow, joy, and love.

(01:10:16):
In short, despite being a gameabout the dead, it's very much
about exploring what it means tolive, about what makes us
vibrant and alive.
We are a semi-regular podcaston the history of RPGs.

(01:11:04):
We have over 70 episodes nowavailable in our back catalogue.
You can find other historyepisodes like this one, as well
as interviews, roundtables,product reviews, and even some
actual plays.
So if you're a new listener, goand check those out.
If you'd like to support theshow, we would be delighted if

(01:11:24):
you left us five stars on yourpodcast platform of choice.
A review would be great too.
This really helps withvisibility and it massages our
fragile little egos and makes uswant to produce more episodes.
If you want to get in touchwith us, you can do so by
emailing us at roll.two.save.podat gmail.com.

(01:11:47):
You can also find us onFacebook and Instagram by
searching for role to save, butalso on threads to at save
podcast.
Thanks again for listening.
And remember, in the world ofdarkness, death is only the
beginning.

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Wraith: The Oblvion - What if That Voice in Your Head Answered Back?

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