Review: Nightreign

I was really excited to see Infinite Worlds: Nightreign come out. I bought it the first day, and read it quickly. It was not what I was expecting. It was, however, a good Gurps book.

Nightreign is published in the infinite worlds series, but it honestly draws a lot more from Gurps: Horror than from Gurps: Infinite Worlds. Nightreign does fit within the Infinite World setting, but the bulk of the material is a worked example of horror setting. And a worked example of a horror setting is a wonderful thing to have. Gurps Powers has many mechanisms that weren't really well polished until they appeared in worked systems. Nightreign does the same thing, but for Horror, and in a way many of the other horror supplements don't. It is perhaps the purest horror setting I've seen in Gurps. It not only works out some of the mechanics, but also gives narrow and directed advice for running game that firmly rooted in the horror genre.

Nightreign is much more successful as an alternate history setting than as an alternate history. All the big famous names it could have called on have been killed, exiled, sidelined, or corrupted to the edge of recognition. The birth of America touches on some political landmines, and Nightreign has gone to some lengths to remove them from the game. The result doesn't have many big names to interact with, but it really does feel like a strangely twisted version of 18th century America. At times, it felt more like pre-revolutionary than revolutionary America. The additional gear is sparse but it all feels like good stuff that players will use and helps to sell the setting.

The outtime elements are solid and occasionally brilliant but minimal. Rather than an Infinite Worlds setting that can be used as a Horror setting, this is a Horror setting with solid tie-in hooks for Infinite Worlds. The scope of the Icops in the setting is both properly justified and properly limited, and I have a much better idea of what they're doing on this timeline than many other worlds. Reich-5's involvement feels really slick. The IW adventure seed at the end is a slick scenario that looks easy to set up, but I've run enough infinite worlds and mysteries to know that it wasn't. The book does make it difficult to use Nightreign to be a "one-off" world: visiting it is not trivial. An Infinite Worlds game involving Nightreign will usually either focus on it or merely mention it in passing.

There are a few lines in the book that I'm sure people trying to build "strictly canonical" versions of Infinite Worlds are going to have a field day with, so if you're a collector worried about that, perhaps go ahead and get the book, but its just a few lines. The book seems to have the Infinite Worlds title because its about an alternate timeline. Of course, its been a long time since we've seen an infinite worlds book, so I'm happy to see it covered at all.

As a Horror book, this does everything I could have asked for it. It really delves into the corruption system and shows how to apply it to a game. It shows how to build a horror setting where your world could end at any moment. It gives us a few new horror monsters that wouldn't fit into Gurps: Horror's exploration of traditional horror monsters and yet feel like they could be ported into a lot of other settings. It sets up a system of rules for monsters and weaknesses and motivations and yet still leaves the setting open for just about anything the GM wants to throw in. 

Nightreign doesn't build a new magic system, but it takes the existing magical systems, applies modifiers, and makes them its own. It also seems to have a reasonably good grasp of what the magic system it made can do, which is nice. This is part of its worked version of horror, and I enjoyed that part of the book. 

If you read about the corruption system in horror and you're not sure how to use it, you should buy this book. If you want to see a worked horror setting that comes with some really good advice on end of the world one-more-step horror settings, you should buy this book. If you're looking for a world to fill out infinite worlds for color... you should buy the other options first, and then think about this book. I enjoyed this read, but I think I would have enjoyed it more if I had realized sooner what the intended ratio of Horror to Infinite Worlds would be. Of course, that is probably what we should expect from long infinite worlds

I hope this helps you when deciding to buy this book!