Welcome once more to our monthly roundup of offerings from the Statosphere, the community-generated content portal for the Unknown Armies RPG. This month, we're breaking from tradition to look at just one product...and it's a doozy.
In contrast to the smaller rules supplements we've mostly reviewed so far, Blighty (by Michael Rees) may be the most expensive product currently on offer in the Statosphere ($11.33 at the time of writing), but you get more than a fair share of content for the price. No mere pamphlet, this is a full 120-page sourcebook for setting your Unknown Armies campaigns in the British Isles.
Blighty is divided up into ten chapters, starting with an overview of modern culture and society in the United Kingdom before moving on to matters of interest to members of the Occult Underground, from gun laws to sunken isles and hill figures to red telephone booths.
The next two chapters cover Identities and Avatars specifically appropriate to the UK. Here we have such indubitably British Identities as Football Hooligan, Pigeon Fancier, Toff, and Train Spotter, and two new Avatars. Both of these chapters take advantage of the Identity and Avatar mechanics to effectively communicate the "feel" of the British setting, and provide an excellent template for other creators wishing to write more regional guides for UA. (That's a hint, folks.)
From Chapter Four onwards, we start to get into the realm of the weird. First up is "Adepts," which gives us five new systems of magick, all highly evocative of certain aspects of British culture or history: Alienacarnemology (a system of magick founded by Charles Darwin and devoted to eating the flesh of exotic animals), Caravanacracy (practiced by middle-class caravan/RV enthusiasts), Chronomancers (as you may guess, their magick has to do with clocks and the passage of time), Urbanusexploratiology (an off-shoot of Urbanomancy devoted to urban exploration), and Vetitumtabulasmancy (concerned with banned movies, it is now a dying art).
Chapter Five ("Rituals") provides a selection of minor and significant rituals with such suggestive names as "Bad Egg," "Cheese Rolling," "Pub Crawl," and "May Pole Dancing"—all in all, 13 new rituals for your game.
Chapter Six is particularly meaty, presenting 20 "Artifacts" of minor, significant, and major power. In addition to such folkloric classics as the Hand of Glory and Herne's Horn, we also have such UA-appropriate items as the "Have You Seen Me?" Poster, the License to Murder, and the Meat Kettle.
It wouldn't be Unknown Armies without some "Unnatural Phenomena," and Chapter Seven serves up a nice selection, ranging from strange animal behavior and phantom hitchhikers to spontaneous human combustion and big black dogs.
It's tough to have drama without antagonists, and Blighty's next two chapters deliver these in spades. Chapter Eight is concerned with "Opposition Groups," while Chapter Nine (the book's largest) covers "Inhumanity." Both of these chapters are absolutely chock full of inspirational material that any Unknown Armies GM could use in their game.
The book concludes with Chapter Ten: "Locations." Unlike the preceding two chapters, these are, obviously, highly UK-specific. We get details on actual British destinations like Dunwich and Reading along with write-ups on individual fictional places such as Goremongers video store and The Laughing Judges' Club.
All in all, the book is mostly typo-free and nicely laid out. I would have liked to see PDF bookmarks in a work of this length, but that's just a minor quibble. Blighty is a goldmine of new content for Unknown Armies, with a utility that stretches beyond games set in the UK. Hopefully we'll see more content of this type and caliber appearing in the Statosphere in the future.
Note: the product link in this article includes the article author's Affiliate Program code.
contributed by David Larkins
In contrast to the smaller rules supplements we've mostly reviewed so far, Blighty (by Michael Rees) may be the most expensive product currently on offer in the Statosphere ($11.33 at the time of writing), but you get more than a fair share of content for the price. No mere pamphlet, this is a full 120-page sourcebook for setting your Unknown Armies campaigns in the British Isles.
Blighty is divided up into ten chapters, starting with an overview of modern culture and society in the United Kingdom before moving on to matters of interest to members of the Occult Underground, from gun laws to sunken isles and hill figures to red telephone booths.
The next two chapters cover Identities and Avatars specifically appropriate to the UK. Here we have such indubitably British Identities as Football Hooligan, Pigeon Fancier, Toff, and Train Spotter, and two new Avatars. Both of these chapters take advantage of the Identity and Avatar mechanics to effectively communicate the "feel" of the British setting, and provide an excellent template for other creators wishing to write more regional guides for UA. (That's a hint, folks.)
From Chapter Four onwards, we start to get into the realm of the weird. First up is "Adepts," which gives us five new systems of magick, all highly evocative of certain aspects of British culture or history: Alienacarnemology (a system of magick founded by Charles Darwin and devoted to eating the flesh of exotic animals), Caravanacracy (practiced by middle-class caravan/RV enthusiasts), Chronomancers (as you may guess, their magick has to do with clocks and the passage of time), Urbanusexploratiology (an off-shoot of Urbanomancy devoted to urban exploration), and Vetitumtabulasmancy (concerned with banned movies, it is now a dying art).
Chapter Five ("Rituals") provides a selection of minor and significant rituals with such suggestive names as "Bad Egg," "Cheese Rolling," "Pub Crawl," and "May Pole Dancing"—all in all, 13 new rituals for your game.
Chapter Six is particularly meaty, presenting 20 "Artifacts" of minor, significant, and major power. In addition to such folkloric classics as the Hand of Glory and Herne's Horn, we also have such UA-appropriate items as the "Have You Seen Me?" Poster, the License to Murder, and the Meat Kettle.
It wouldn't be Unknown Armies without some "Unnatural Phenomena," and Chapter Seven serves up a nice selection, ranging from strange animal behavior and phantom hitchhikers to spontaneous human combustion and big black dogs.
It's tough to have drama without antagonists, and Blighty's next two chapters deliver these in spades. Chapter Eight is concerned with "Opposition Groups," while Chapter Nine (the book's largest) covers "Inhumanity." Both of these chapters are absolutely chock full of inspirational material that any Unknown Armies GM could use in their game.
The book concludes with Chapter Ten: "Locations." Unlike the preceding two chapters, these are, obviously, highly UK-specific. We get details on actual British destinations like Dunwich and Reading along with write-ups on individual fictional places such as Goremongers video store and The Laughing Judges' Club.
All in all, the book is mostly typo-free and nicely laid out. I would have liked to see PDF bookmarks in a work of this length, but that's just a minor quibble. Blighty is a goldmine of new content for Unknown Armies, with a utility that stretches beyond games set in the UK. Hopefully we'll see more content of this type and caliber appearing in the Statosphere in the future.
Note: the product link in this article includes the article author's Affiliate Program code.
contributed by David Larkins
