Pyramid Review
Ananasi (for Werewolf)
Published by White Wolf Studios
by Brett Brooks and James A. Moore
128 Pages; $17.95
The Changing Breed books for Werewolf have always been a step or two above most of their less exotic relatives. This is in part due, no doubt, to the extremely high cool factor of the subjects of the books (I mean, come on. We're sick of werewolves. Bring on the talking rats already!). But in general the books have also been of actual high quality as well. This book is no exception.
Ananasi are were-spiders. They walk around, looking like people, and when they get mad they turn into huge spiders. Or huge spider/human monster-types. Or hordes and hordes of little spiders (known to the layman as the ohmygodlookhowmanyspidersthereare form). As mentioned earlier, the "kewl"ness of this book goes right off the chart.
There's a real effort in this book to make the Ananasi unique, though, and to set them apart from the hordes of were-lions/bears/lizards/anteaters and so on who populate, seemingly, every nook and cranny of the World of Darkness. And they mostly succeed, making the Ananasi a joint creation of the various aspects of cosmology in the Werewolf universe (namely the Weaver, Wyld and Wyrm, although not in that order). One of the upshots of this aspect of arachnid existence is that they get to make the rote retelling of the history of the world at the beginning of the book substantially different and more interesting than those . . .
This article originally appeared in the second volume of Pyramid. See the current Pyramid website for more information.
Article publication date: May 26, 2000
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