I'm glad I bought the complete Compacts and Conspiracies even though I would only play two or three of the twelve factions. In fact the one time I played Hunter I chose a Tier 0 unaffiliated character. There’s some great content here, though. The Ashwood Abbey for instance I find to be completely reprehensible reprobates but they'd make great villains in a Hunter, Requiem or Forsaken game.

What you get here is six pages expanding on the history and operations of each Hunter group along with a little bit of crunch. The profiles in the Hunter core rulebook just wasn’t quite enough because they had to fit in so many rules in the form of Professions, Tactics, Endowments and the like. I often found nagging questions answered. Null Mysteriis for instance left me dumbstruck until I read this supplement. They were my least favorite. Finally I understand what their deal is, as a kind of proto-Technocracy from Ascension. Clearly they know they are dealing with hunting supernatural creatures but their original profile claimed they didn’t believe in the supernatural (WTF)? This chapter explains what drives them. Each unexplained phenomenon they research, test, and explain though the scientific method takes a little bit of the supernatural out of the world and gives them a bit of power like learning its true name. Author Chuck Wendig also added some factional politics into the compact plus an awesome endowment called I’m Doing Science that has a lot of nifty effects. In fact, it could mean actual advances in the World of Darkness field of Science.

My two favorite compacts received fine treatment. Loyalists of Thule have a nifty recruitment tactic involving guilt and emotional blackmail as fitting their origin. They seek out people who have had a brush with the supernatural (and cocked it up somehow) and karmically draft then into their members. We also get the names and locations of the last three living founders.

I like Network Zero because they are the opposite of Loyalists of Thule or Aegis Kai Doru. A Thule explorer would like nothing else than to get their hands on an ancient text containing some spell or enchantment. A Network Zero member would react “Let me get this straight. You’re all excited because you have this thing that was written on reeds that grew on the banks of the Nile five thousand year ago? It’s got the names of how many daemons written on it? It’s not searchable and you have to translate each character by hand? Man, my phone has my entire library, plus when I record video it all gets geotaged and streams right to the web plus gets automatically stored and encrypted in two archive sites.” Network Zero gets a fine offering too in Compacts and Conspiracies.

There wasn’t space for any new Tactics in this volume but it answered a lot of my questions and gives ample story seeds and campaign inspiration.

Great sourcebook for a great game. Very impressed, gives secrets on all the Hunter Groups. Very impressed.

Hunter: the Vigil is my favorite game and this supplement is pure Awesome!

The writing is very interesting throughout the book. It takes a closer look into each of the core compacts and conspiracies. The compacts each get a new endowment that is very flavorful and very cool. They aren't as powerful as the endowments for the conspiracies, but that's as it should be! The conspiracies also get a few new mechanical things, but nothing huge or game-breaking. The new things fit into the flavor and character of the conspiracies very well.

The part that I love the most about this is the fact that it looks deeper into the organizations. Each group gets more explanation. The sub-groups with in the compacts and conspiracies get more treatment. It tells you who belongs to each group and why they tend to be there. You even get to see, to a greater extent than before, the views each sub-group has of the others within the organization.

Like with all White Wolf books, this supplement is very "take what you want... leave the rest", and that's part of makes it so cool!

I recommend it!

Disclaimer: I've done a bit of freelance writing for White Wolf, including some work with both the writer and developer in question. Take that as you may.

Compacts and Conspiracies is 84 pages of pure content. It's packed to the brim with ideas, toys, hooks and weird mechanical tweaks. It's more than worth $6.99.

What's it got inside?

The twelve Compacts and Conspiracies from the Hunter corebook are treated and expanded heavily. There's a couple of new takes on each, including treatments of their histories and mythologies. These things are particularly pointed, quick reads. The factions from the core book each get longer treatment, including a supercool secret each. Did you know one of the Ashwood Abbey got pregnant with a vampire? Truefact. Then, each gets a toy or two or three. For Compacts, this comes in the form of a new Merit, a sort of non-Endowment Endowment. For example, The Union get a network of neighborhood people they can call on for minor advantages. Conspiracies get more Endowment toys, like the head of Jayne Mansfield (I am not joking. Her head is a Merit. Your character can purchase it. No: Your character MUST purchase it.) Lastly, each group gets something else. That something varies, but it comes in the form of some mechanical element. With few exceptions, they're all suitable for different games with different characters. In fact, I think I'll be appropriating some of them to my Vampire game soon. It includes things like using red tape to hide your tracks. That sort of fun stuff.

Like Block By Bloody Block, the previous PDF-exclusive Hunter offering, Compacts and Conspiracies offers a lot of fun tools to make your Hunter (or any other World of Darkness game for that matter,) kick more butt. Get it. Love it. There's not a wasted page. That's rare in gaming supplements.