Pyramid Review
Adrift in the River of Dream (for Tribe 8)
Published by Dream Pod 9
Written by Bradley Robins, Lisa A. Nichols, & Joshua Bishop-Roby
$22.95; 144 pages
For me, the first time I read Tribe 8 was like the first time I fell in love. I got this goofy look on my face, we spent all our time together, and we stayed up real late learning about each other. The main difference is Tribe 8 didn't leave me to get married to a sailor.
My greatest reaction to Tribe 8 was a desire for more knowledge. "I want to know more," I said, "about the Fatimas" . . . and then they gave me the Word books. "I want to know more," I said, "about the Z'Bri" . . . and Horrors of the Z'Bri soon found its way to publication. "I want to know more about Synthesis and Dreaming," I said.
So now, they've given me Adrift on the River of Dream. Very, very cool.
The River of Dream, for those of you who don't play Tribe 8, is fairly similar to that Billy Joel song (since, of course, we can only assume that everyone who doesn't play Tribe 8 is a Billy Joel fan). It is where the lands of spirit and matter meet, where Dreamers travel when they sleep. It's the source of Synthesis (the "powers" of Tribe 8 characters). It's where metaphor and prophecy become real.
And it's very ambiguous. If you think Mage has a tendency to be vague and open to deliberation by players & GMs, you've never seen Sythesis. The problem is that there are very few rules for it. Synthesis is covered in about fifteen pages or so. It's very . . .
This article originally appeared in the second volume of Pyramid. See the current Pyramid website for more information.
Article publication date: February 1, 2002
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