Obviously, this is an expansion to the rules set out from the Through the Breach core rulebooks. It's broken into several parts from Lore and character creation, new pursuits (classes), advanced pursuits, talents and skills, gear and stats for a number of creatures your party might encounter while in the Bayou.
Lore
This got me giddy with excitement as many of the books Wyrd releases for the Malifaux miniatures game really don't give much lore, other then a few stories, for the Gremlins. This gives a nice description of the Bayou area, the creatures in it and some of the more famous locations with in it (There are even rules to gamble against the Hag Witch Zoraida, though be aware that such a thing is very much in her favour). Gremlins get the most detail in this, such as their beliefs, habits and their love for booze. Family names are something they hold dear to themselves and work much like a community or tribe, so every Gremlin belongs to a family (or at least until they are thrown out). Life for a Gremlin child is rough, as a mother can sometimes forget you exist and can end up rounded into small groups that can form gangs. Some are more favoured by their mother (particularly girls, due to their rarity) and they tend to get better treatment (until the next back of children are born anyway).
Marriage and Love are also slightly bizarre. Love is fine, but the very romantic type many of us enjoy is seen to go a little too far, so they prefer you keep that level of affection at home. Marriage is more of a reason to just throw one massive party and booze up, but it's also to bring one member of another family into one's own. As such, a female Jones marries a LaCroix male, the female will change her family name to LaCroix and depending on her memory and booze tolerance, it will determine how much time it'll take for her to forget she was ever a Jones. Even Humans can marry Gremlins, for they are not overly against this as after all, once you are part of the family, you are treated as one of the family. It's not rare that a Gremlin can get so plastered at these events that they can end up marrying a Pig or even an attractive looking rock.
As mentioned, Family is important and the book give a page worth of detail for each of the major Gremlin Families (lesser families are mentioned, but they are kept unknown for the Fatemaster to expand upon). There is also some interesting information on the families from the Three Kingdoms region and they defiantly sounds like there will be problems with the Ten Thunders and the Black Dragon. I get the feeling the Gremlins will end up in a massive war amongst themselves when things go to hell.
There is also some brief information on Kythera, but more importantly, the Red Cage. While I'm not sure when this happened (was it due to the Nythera campaign or is it part of Ripples of Fate, I don't know), the Red Cage is the giant crater that housed one of the legendary Tyrants, which occurred when one of the other Tyrants called Plague tried to steal their power, but failed. Needless to say, it's an important part to the ever growing story unfolding in Malifaux and it's nice to see us Gremlins being dragged into it.
Pursuits
There are eight new Pursuits to pick from in this book, with the focus that Gremlin characters are more likely to be these compared to other factions like Humans or Neverborn. These consist of:
- Bokor (A Shaman like character who prefers to manipulate minds)
- Boomer (A shotgun fanatic)
- Boozer (Yes, alcoholic is now a playable class)
- Buckaroo (If it's big and not defiant, you can ride it)
- Copycat (Start with imitation, end with short bursts of becoming that person)
- Pugilist (Fist fights and Wrestling, what more could you want)
- Swineherd (Raise cute pigs to become killer pigs)
- Trapper (You use a variety of traps and trapping techniques)
All have their related Talents added to their descriptions, so no flicking between pages like in the Fated Almanac. But if that wasn't enough, there are five Advanced Pursuits to go along with it, with these first two being common in Gremlin lands, while the last three are very much Gremlin focus and will be extremely difficult for non-Gremlins to obtain.
- Virtuoso (Music that can effect allies and enemies)
- Rocketeer (Slap a rocket to your back and away you go)
- Lightning Bug (Beg Wong to teach you and learn just how dangerous you are to your friends)
- Taxidermist (You stuff animated dead animals.....with explosives)
- Big Hat (Get the biggest hat you can find and force them to make you the Boss)
Conflict Talents
Unlike the family history card flip for Humans entering through the Breach, Gremlins flip for a Conflict Talent. These are a special Talent as a result of your characters childhood, which grants them both a positive aspect and a negative one. The character creation example for instance give the character the Gator Bait Talent, which gives the character +1 Damage to creatures with the Swampfiend characteristic, but they also treat creatures with the Swampfiend characteristic as if they had Terrifying (All) 11. This represents their fear of such creatures, but also their desire to see them dead. Many of them are quite good at fleshing out a nice backstory.
There are also a few, more Gremlin related Talents (we have Squeal) and there are three new skills that anyone can use, but again, Gremlins will probably benefit from them depending on the Pursuit chosen.
Gear
Gremlin gear isn't known for their fine craftsmanship nor their reliability. It's no surprise then that some items lend themselves more to the comedic aspect of the Gremlins. Such items I'd like to point out are things like Fryin' Pan, Pig Prodder, Backwater Pepperbox and the classics like Metal Pot as a helmet and the old Whiskey Barrel.
Magic
They have a few new spells, but since I've never played the game, I can't tell you how effective magic is in it. That said, I do like the spell 'The Kitchen Sink' (summon a large, heavy and comedic item to fall on your enemies head) and the Bokor's own advanced spell 'Animal Hex' (transform a person into an animal for a number of rounds, with a trigger called 'Princess Clause', meaning they need someone to kiss them to turn them back to normal faster). There are also a few new Grimoires that tend to be located in the Bayou and are more likely to be useful to Gremlin casters.
References
As mentioned above with the 'Princess Clause', there are various references to other, more pop culture related references. Wyrd is well known for doing this and it's great to try and find a few of them. Obviously, the Rocketeer has the ability called 'Blasting Off Again', which clearly references Team Rocket and their iconic phrase as they are hurled into the distance. There's even a reference to that singing frog gag from the loony tunes cartoons. They even threw in a MLP gag with the Big Honkin' Gun, which states how Gremlins prefer this weapon as it's 20% Cooler then other rifles in the Bayou. Yep, seems they beat me to a Friendship is Magic gag.
Bayou Beasties
The end part features a story of a Human taking notes on their journey into the Bayou and the various stories and creatures they encounter. Designed to help Fatemasters by giving them the rules/stats of the various encounters one might have in the Bayou along with a quick sketch of what said creature looks like. For me, I really want them to make an Ahool model, those things sound bloody awesome. For that matter, why haven't they made Whiskey Gamin miniatures yet. Maybe they will in the future.
Overall
If your a Gremlin fan then you'll love this book. It gives you a lot to work with for both Gremlin lore or even to do a story campaign for the miniatures game. If you play the RPG and want to add Gremlin players or just some neat Bayou stuff, then you'll most likely get this book too. If you play the miniatures game (or even the RPG), but have little to no interest in the Bayou or it's inhabitants, then you can pass on this. For me, it was well worth the wait and cost. As a Gremlins fan, a must have.
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