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Gossamer Worlds: Tetsujin Shogunate (Diceless) $1.49
Average Rating:4.5 / 5
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Gossamer Worlds: Tetsujin Shogunate (Diceless)
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Gossamer Worlds: Tetsujin Shogunate (Diceless)
Publisher: Rite Publishing
by Thilo G. [Featured Reviewer]
Date Added: 07/17/2014 02:05:38

An Endzeitgeist.com review

This installment of Rite Publishing's extremely affordable tour through the infinite worlds of the Grand Stair is 10 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, leaving us with 8 pages of content, so let's take a look!

The world of the Tetsujin Shogunate has been hit by a catastrophe - caught in-between the insterstellar warfare of the alien races oni and kappa, much of the world has become uninhabitable when the aliens crash-landed there. That being said, there also were positive aspects to all of that (or at least: supremely cool ones!): The kinda-slightly-benevolent Kappa came down in Japan and were coerced/swayed to help stem the tide of the monstrous oni that kept mutating and destroying the remnants of human civilization where the remnants of their ship didn't finish the job.

The result of that uneasy cooperation was the advent of Tetsujin - gigantic war-machines, piloted by humans and used to stem the tide of monstrous oni. On earth, which is now mostly a domain of nightmarish creatures, the last bastions of humanity thus wage war against the threat of the demonic oni and oni-blood tainted creatures, all while the kappa represent a dying breed on our planet and ninja seek to steal alien technology for their own inscrutable ends.

A sample Tetsujin is btw. provided (and yes, generally, it MIGHT be possible to bring these to other realms...though how is for you and your player's creativity to decide..), as is a neat array of massive adventure options.

Conclusion:

Editing and formatting are top-notch, I didn't notice any glitches. Layout adheres to RiP's two-column full-color standard with superb original artworks as we've come to expect from the series. The pdf comes with rudimentary bookmarks, in spite of its brevity - nice. Author Matt Banach weaves an interesting world here, somewhere between Cthulhutech, classic mecha-action and Japanese mythology for a thoroughly compelling world with enough potential to offer fodder for a whole campaign of LoGaS, should you so desire.

All in all, an awesome addition to the overall series and well worth 5 stars + seal of approval.

Endzeitgeist out.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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Gossamer Worlds: Tetsujin Shogunate (Diceless)
Publisher: Rite Publishing
by Mark K. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 05/30/2014 00:00:03

Well, one got by me! I was advised by one of my players that the Lords of Gossamer and Shadow had a bundle available through Drive Thru RPG that gives you all of the Lords of Gossamer and Shadow books to date that have been released (it is great value by the way). I went and had a look and I spotted a book I did not have by Matt Banach. Rectifying that mistake I grabbed it and have just finished reading it.

The Tetsujin Shogunate Worlds book is an alternate Earth world where two alien races crashed into Earth, the Oni and the Kappa. They are warring races and that war has exploded across Earth. The Oni have taken much of humanity into slavery by using pheromones to enslave them whilst the Kappa have allied with the humans and are teaching them to make giant samurai robots to fight the Oni and take back the planet.

Yes, that is right. GIANT FREAKING ROBOTS FIGHTING ALIENS PEOPLE. Not sure I should review it any further. That sentence says it all. But I must continue. They are not just giant robots but giant robot samurai...

I just want to play it right now.

The world has a political edge to it all also and ninjas and an Eastern setting and (wipes drool from corner of the mouth) so much goodness all in one little 8 page book. The setting is great, and while I have been getting involved in eastern settings of late with the honor caste and effects I have found this twist on it exciting.

What I did want is more detail in the book. But the way that these are set up is really to give you just enough information to get the game rolling. They leave the blanks for you the GM to fill in. That is all good but I am not really a hundred percent confident with eastern traditions yet and a lot of political detail needs to be fleshed out in that regard so I would have liked to see maybe a list of houses or political factions that I could start to build on. I only know that the structure is built around the shogun, daimyo and the alliance with the Kappa from really one small part of the book and to do that justice I feel would require a lot of work on my part (I am a bit of a perfectionist though).

That said though this book is excellent. One of my favorite world books so far. It may just be the fact that I loved Pacific Rim that is urging me on here but I think it is a little deeper. In fact if I were to run this world in game I think I would focus a lot more on the ninja culture than I would on the giant robots that battle the Oni. Having stealth missions into the encampments of the Oni would make for a tense and drama filled game.

At a $1.49 for the Gossamer Worlds: Tetsujin Shogunate is definitely worth shelling out for. Matt Banach has done a great job of bringing a world based on an alternate history of our own to life and it is not going to break the bank. I give this book a healthy four giant samurai robots out of five!



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
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Gossamer Worlds: Tetsujin Shogunate (Diceless)
Publisher: Rite Publishing
by Peter P. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 04/07/2014 22:44:57

I have been snapping up the books for Rite Publishing's Lords of Gossamer and Shadow line of pdfs as they come out. Originally I wasn't too impressed with the World Books. While they did show what could be done with a Gossamer World and had some interesting places. Nothing really captured my imagination like Tetsujin Shogunate. Broke World gave us a view of a hopelessly flawed garbage dump of a world heavily influenced by the Umbra. Epmryea showed us a pretty interesting take on an ultramodern beautiful technological version of ancient Greece. The Nightmare Kingdom was what one might expect of such a title a place influenced by the Umbra but even more a place of fear and terror. All nice in their own way. Tetsujin Shogunate though shows a battle between two forces and has some more in tune with the perfection of Eidolon with their technology, (Giant Robots, Power Armor wearing Samurai and Star Steel) siding with humans to fight the Oni a force decidedly more in tune with the Umbra and destruction as well as corruption. (Giant Kaiju like monsters, and their corrupted human blood tainted mutant warriors ) This book really shows the tension between these two forces playing out on this Gossamer world. Something which I really think needed to be highlighted and this world book does it well.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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Creator Reply:
I wanted to thank Peter Perkins for taking the time to do a review of our product.
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Gossamer Worlds: Tetsujin Shogunate (Diceless)
Publisher: Rite Publishing
by Trev W. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 04/07/2014 20:14:27

Reviewing Tetsujin Shogunate I will say up front that it is simply amazing. Bizarre settings like this are just what rpgs need. This is heavy on the Japanese themes (it is a shogunate setting of course) but also very sci fi and suitable even for abberation heavy or feudal but with lost tech fantasy.

The story and set-up is good. The alien kappa have fallen to Earth and allied with the Tokugawa shogunate and given them far future technology. The world has been devastated by the consequences of an alien war and the oni (also aliens) are on the loose. The kappa build their titans to counteract the Oni, who are not simply and singularly angry beasts, but manipulators and corruptors with a plan. It is quite an exciting set-up, although some may balk at mainland Asia being controlled by the Oni (and their mind-control technology) and Japan being the last hope of humanity.

Still it is a brilliant little setting, with a lot of good ideas in a small space. This is also so cheap at the moment, you really should get it.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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Creator Reply:
I wanted to thank Trev W. for taking the time to do a review of our product.
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