One last review, before I'm ran out of books to read.
The Clutch of Dragons is a sourcebook of 154 pages, divided into 19 chapters. The cover reads "a deep shadows sourcebook" which
as far as I understand means it's a themed sourcebook with a bit of gear at the end (officially,
War!,
Spy Games,
Conspiracy Theories and
Hazard Pay are Deep Shadows Sourcebooks, though only
Spy Games admitted it on its cover). If you consider
TCOD only have stats for two piece of equipment that are both in the prototype stage or so and not available for sell, you can call it a setting sourcebook for the sake of it. Anyway...
Enter the Dragon is a 3-pages long short story (4 pages counting a full page illustration) about a runner team inside a dragon's lair. Interesting for the demonstration of tactical software use.
War at 10,000 meters is a 22-pages chapter on the dragon "civil war". It starts with the information on the killings of talismongers that sold dragon body parts, drakes, and people involved in own-cycle dragon hunt, and nobody knows who's doing that. So much for a civil war of dragons fighting each other. By the way, no, dragons are not fighting each other directly with their bare claws, and instead use runners to strike at each others' interests, steal artefacts, spy on, and so on. I say it once because it must be a major point. Otherwise, the authors wouldn't have felt the urge to hammer it repeatedly throughout the book.
Then comes a part on Lofwyr. At least, the title suggests that. Well, it has info on Lofwyr
and Hestaby and Alamais actions. If you don't know yet, Alamais has laired with a dozen of dragons in the "Gemito" triangle (Geneo-Milano-Turin) in Northern Italy, and have been attacking and eating people in plain day, an estimated 300 a day, 54,000 over the last six months. This gets about a third of a page. Nothing too big (to let you understand how important this is, negociations over Denver budget and taxes will get about the same length in a later chapter). The following part is 2 pages on... Hestaby. So, if you want to gather information on Hestaby, you'll have to look into the part titled "Lofwyr" and the part titled "Hestaby". But the later also has information on Schwarzkopf, Celedyr, Mujaji... To put it another way, those two titles are meaningless, and it's just six and half a page on the dragon civil war.
The first half of the chapter tries to summarize all the thing about dragon that happened in the last few books, and add some more on top of that. The problem is, it often fails to properly explain things. First example, Hestaby speech at the UN. Page 10, she did one and it warned the humanity that dragons can be dangerous. Page 15, she asked for a dragon indictment for war crimes. Then only on page 19 we learn it was about Sirrurg attacks in Aztlan. Second example, Elliot of the Wyrms. We learn he has been assassinated and that's it relevant to the situation on page 10. We learn on page 20 that Hestaby may know something about his death, and only on page 62 (that is, in another chapter) that she is angry about his death. Hooray, at that point, I can
deduce Elliot probably was a servant of Hestaby. The audience that haven't read the previous book will be lost, the audience that have will be bored.
The book somewhat slows down with 7 pages on Ghostwalker and what happens upon his return to Denver (though it still has the occasional lack of information, like, who's Iain Lesker?). At that point, you realize it has one incredible great thing that missed so far and are called "intertitles". Every page or so, there are a few words in bold font that let you know or guess what the following text will be about, and find it back quickly on when you come back. Whoever wrote the wall-of-text in the first half of the chapter should have used some. It reintroduces Zebulon, the reunited spirit of Denver, who now acts as a consort to Ghostwalker, influencing him a lot. In Game Information, we will be told Zebulon is not just the spirit of Denver: Ghostwalker merged the astral form of his late dragon mate with the city's reunited spirit.
After that, there are 2 pages on Sirrurg, now operating in the north of Aztlan, and striking targets in Aztlan, Pueblo and the CAS.
Echoing the roar is a 18-pages long chapter on metahumans (or at least, non-dragons) playing a role related to the dragon war: Harlequin, Ryan Mercury and his drakes army, the UCAS government, the Draco Foundation, Johnny Spinrad and the Corporate Court.
The part on Harlequin has little interest, since a two-part short story later in the book will tell us really much more things. Not much to say on the rest. The part on the UCAS tries to suggest the Canadian-American government has some powers and can play a role in the ongoing world events. But they do nothing. The Draco Foundation doesn't change a lot, it's just a revamped board with new people. Johnny Spinrad moved to Asia, and now has Rolf Bremen, formerly of Saeder-Krupp, as his second-in-command.
Trickle-Down Effects is a 13-pages long chapter on things that are so remotely related to dragons that if you skip one line, you may never know how.
It starts with two and half a page on Seraphim. I missed them, and it's rather in line with what I imagined for them. After Cross end, the Seraphim joined a number of organizations, and not only Ares. I'm still dubious at the Vatican connection (as I say, devout christians would have been far more respectful in their use of biblical codenames). There's also no mention of the Proteus connection, which I think has a lot of untapped potential. Anyway, the real deal is that a group of Seraphim are planning a revenge on Ares and Damien Knight, and are ready to ally with anybody to reach that goal.
The next part is about some operations launched against Yakuza interests, how Art Dankwalther made "dry run" before attacking Neonet, and concludes that someone is planning a large scale attack against a dragon's interests. I see one big leap of logic here. That one would have been better suited for
Conspiracy Theories.
The part of shedims gives us an update on the New Islamic Jihad, and a bit of explanation on the "shades" from
Artifacts Unbound. It now seems the special forces operator bodies possessed by shedims are not just serving a master shedim, but get their order from the Pentagon. But the most important piece of information is now the Watergate Rift has been closed, no new shedim can get in. Only those already on Earth remain.
The last part of the chapter is a list of shadowrun types and how they could be different because of the dragon war. I didn't find it very interesting. There's actually one major piece of metaplot information in, but if you're like me, you won't even notice it.
The Thing We Do For Love is a two-parts short story, 3 and 5 pages. We follow Harlequin as he meets with Lugh Surehand in the first part, and Aden, Domingo Chavez of Aztechnology and Ghostwalker in the second part. To spoil a lot, Harlequin thinks Ghostwalker performed the ritual in Washington for the sole purpose of bringing back is loved one, and killed Aina, Harlequin's loved one, in the process. Harlequin wants to take vengeance, and ally himself with Aztechnology to get it. His decision shocked me the first time I heard about it, but it actually fits well with the clown. For once, someone is considering Aztechnology as something else than just the absolute big bad. It remains to be seen how this ends. But unless someone comes up with an incredibly well-thought out twist, I think it'll be disappointing if it doesn't end with the death of either Ghostwalker or Harlequin.
Ten chapters, between four and seven pages, each describe a dragon and his activities. Three of them are great dragons, the other are "only" adults, which makes them more "reasonable" for PC to oppose (especially the two in Seattle).
-
Aden is still in the Middle East, Morocco to Iran. Nothing special.
- The author of the
Celedyr obviously wanted to write on Albuquerque, not on a dragon. So the chapter is only about two of Celedyr secret projects in Albuquerque. The Jackpoint file is the story of a run as told by a runner, complete with discussions and how the floor looks like and discussions. Unless you plan on having your PC get through the exact same conversations, information of actual use could have been given in two pages max.
- Henequen is a feathered serpent heading an import-export corporation, who left Denver because of Ghostwalker and settled in Cheyenne. The chapter is actually called
Henequen in Cheyenne, which I fund somewhat ironic after the previous chapter, moreover since Henequen continued activities in Denver are also covered. For once, you see a dragon struggling to make allies and fend off enemies among Sioux criminals and spies.
-
Damon is dragon partying in nightclubs and investing money into those that are not cool enough yet for him to party, drugs dealing included. He moved to Boston, plus a few trips in Salem to spice up wiccan celebrations.
-
Fucanglong is a dragon that just left his lair under the terracotta army in China. Or he di it a decade ago, it's not clear. The chapter is mostly about people learning there's a new dragon, and not so much about what the dragon actually does.
-
Kalanyr is a dragon that settled in Redmond Glow City, and invests in estate and housing throughout Seattle. I laughed a bit when it says earthquakes are unusual... in Seattle.
-
Naheka is a former follower of Mujaji, who went to serve Ryumyo instead. Ryumyo gave him control of Hawai'i, and a growing share of Yakuza clans.
-
Perianyr is the music loving dragon, with a music label. Made the headlines in march 2074 as he prevented Ghostwalker from killing Aztechnology CEO and Aztlan president with a super-levitation spell. And some guts I guess.
-
The Sea Dragon is the last of his kind. She thus reign on all the oceans floor, and is trying to obtain dragon eggs and set them (since a dragon form does depend on who set them, not who lay them).
-
Urubia is a second dragon in Redmond, Seattle. She established a big nightclub-casino-brothel who became the neutral meeting place for local gangs who now work with her.
The War Room is a 4-pages short story (plus a full page illustration). Dragons from all over the world meet in a Saeder-Krupp building in Hong Kong (in human forms !). I didn't like it, mostly because the great dragons' dialogues are rather dull. Aden and Lung talk to Lofwyr as if the Loremaster title made him their chief or something, and the strategy they devise is about as subtle as a Korean MMORPG. It's a long way from
Survival of the Fittest introduction.
Tools of the Opposition is a 67pages chapters on weapons developed to face dragons. There's an Aztechnology nano-weapon targeting dragon DNA, an UCAS aerial drone, a CAS aerial drone, the use of spirits as pilots, plus some comments on dragons abilities. A bit verbose in places.
Game Information is a 12 pages chapter. Since I complained in the past about the lack of clear, objective out-of-context information in
Conspiracy Theorie, I can only rejoice. Well, at least for some part. For instance, the chapter "War at 10,000 meters" had things about talismongers, drakes, Lofwyr, Alamais, Hestaby, Ghostwalker, Sirrurg... In the Game Information, the part titled "War at 10,000 meters" only has information on Ghostwalker and Denver.
There are a bit more information on the UCAS governments, and stats for Harlequin (copied from
Street Legends Supplemental, a generic Seraphim, the aforementioned shedim commando called "shades", a few artefacts the Draco Foundation keeps, a runner team who get mentioned only once in the book as
not getting part the ongoing events (so why are they here?), the head of Sioux intelligence (with knowledge skills unworthy of her position), two dragons (Kalanyr and Perianwyr), the UCAS drone prototype and the prototype built by Aztechnology after the spec of the drone the CAS developed from plans stolen from Aztechnology (Got lost? Me too). And Miles Lanier (copied from
Street Legends). Miles Lanier?
I pause. Miles Lanier, for those who may not know, is/was Richard Villiers right-hand man at Novatech and Neonet. In the last few campaign books, he was on the run for no apparent reasons, him hiding, Villiers searching him. And not a clue about the reason for that. Was this related to dragons? I didn't remember reading anything about this, so I used the search function to find back where Lanier was mentioned. And so it was in that uninteresting and uninspiring part of the The Trickle Down Effect about run typology. So there are rumors of Lanier having personality disorder. Relation to dragon? None yet. One page to go to get one.
The section that follows Miles Lanier stats is called "Nest, Caves and Hoards". It actually contains nearly no information regarding nests, caves and hoards, but only about dragons' activities. Each subsection is titled after one of the dragon it describes, except for the first, which is titled "Albuquerque". Makes sense, in its own twisted way.
The Clutch of Dragons, page 142
[Celedyr] larger interest is technological, looking at ways consciousness can move between biological and technological containers. The research has shown some promising leads, but there are also issues that will be developed more in future Shadowrun books. For the time being, keep the focus on Celedyr’s research into consciousness, and perhaps provide hints of some disturbed people who have been experimental subjects (see description of Miles Lanier, p. 141).
I personally frowned upon the use of the imperative tense to address gamemasters, but if I'm quoting that part, it was to point out how we finally get to learn what's going on with Miles Lanier. Would it have been to much to ask for a full sentence?
Overall,
The Clutch of Dragons is providing plots and metaplot advances by the ton. Too much. It would just have been so much better if they first had been sorted, checked, fully developed and hierarchized, maybe some of them dropped, to make sure that all the relevant information are in, and that you can find them back easily when you want them. The major plot of the book is a war between dragons. You'd think something like a list telling on which side of the conflict each of the major dragons is, and which ones are still undecided, would be they key to follow what's going on. I've read the book from cover to cover, and if I was searching for that information, I know I'd start with
Conspiracy Theories instead. I really see a difference between plots that are clearly explained, and those who just throw information at you. It can also be fun sometimes to let the reader hunt throughout the book hints of the bigger picture. If that was the intent, it was a failure. The Miles Lanier thing for instance, was far more frustrating than it was fun to figure out.
