Rage Across Australia

Werewolf: The Apocalypse

by Marc Rudgely (Contributor), Ben Chessell, Marc Rudgley

About guess what? Including information on the Bunyip. The land down under breeds them tough and hardy - no more so than the Garou. But the harsh outback blisters even their thick skin - and their soul. The Garou did a great wrong here long ago and the ghosts still haunt them. The Garou must make amends for their past, lest they forever remain strangers in the Dreamtime, the spirit world of Australia.

Genres: Role Playing Games, World Of Darkness, Gaming

140 pages, Hardcover

First published December 1, 1994

Reviews

[Andre · Rating 1 out of 5]

To this book I would say:
The makers had the right basic idea, but the execution is terrible.

To create a book dealing with Australia in the setting of Werewolf the Apocalypse is not a bad idea to begin with and I think in this book there were several elements that could have been used to create a good guide book, but sadly they weren't used and other elements were pushed to the foreground that should never have been there to begin with. Allegedly this book is written by Australians, if this is the case, than I wonder what sort of people these were since this book was simply dealing too heavily with stereotypes and not thought through or looked at with a critical eye in my mind.

The opening story already revealed the three main problems:
1. The native Australian tribe of "werewolves" (technically were-thylacines, and that is already a problem) called the Bunyip exist just to be slaughtered.
2. The "invading" (a bit complicated to use that term here) werewolves are simply morons and the book seems to lay blame rather on those that did not commit the crime of point 1 rather than the ones who did.
3. Even within this universe the story is simply unrealistic and does not fit the wider cosmology. It just fails at consistency.

Most history sections you can skip, the geography section and Garou territory is ok I would guess, but all the stuff regarding economy and politics is surely outdated by now, respectively even back then too far away from reality to begin with.
In my mind it was a big mistake to give actual numbers for the Garou tribes in Australia, thereby making them seem insignificant and weak. They should have left it ambiguous, thereby allowing the players/readers to make up their own mind about this and customize the setting some more.

The structuring of the book was ok I would say, but the artwork was usually pretty bad and only sometimes managed to reach the status of mediocre, e.g. one piece of art is supposedly showing a diprotodon in the background, two Procoptodon and above them is what I think is a Thylacoleo jumping down at them. But its head and body posture is so weird that any average person probably would not have recognized it.
Actually the artwork often doesn't even fit the character descriptions respectively showed how little the makers understood certain topics of the time.

The picture of that Red Talon Garou called Mamu already looked not very dingo-like but since it was all black-and-white you could say that the described red highlights of the description simply weren't visible on such a picture and the rest was simply art style. But when the book said a photo of him hangs as some sort of fake environmental message it was clear the makers didn't know what they were talking about. Since the same school of thought normally wanting to protect dingoes also deeply hates what they assign as "hybrids" and "wild dogs", so a Garou who obviously looks so strange would immediately be seen as a hybrid and thereby having to go as quickly as possible, including said picture.


The guilt and atonement mood of the book would be ok if the Bunyip had been portrayed as actual people instead of another opportunity for mostly European Garou to feel guilty. As a matter of fact they are idiots as well and I think willingly or unwillingly the book described them as barely more than a bunch of xenophobic stereotypes. Not to mention that a lot about them makes no sense.

The chapter about them already started by having quotes from other Garou tribes and not a Bunyip; thereby not even giving the Bunyip a voice of their own except for that one Bunyip boy in the opening story that also shows them as nothing but peaceful victims and the other Garou either as violent idiots or impotent defenders.
And as if this wasn't enough, the Bunyip itself seem more like some other sort of shapeshifter but not Garou and barely more than some hastily put together ideas.
Now apart from that, the book even claimed at first that no other shapeshifter had travelled to Australia apart from the Bunyip, apparently ignoring the Mokole were-crocodiles and the Rokea weresharks which are both older shapeshifters and known to exist in the era, the book even mentions them later.
The story on how they came to Australia already showed them as nothing but hippies and their continued stance against violence makes no sense in the greater cosmology of the game line since Garou are supposed to be Gaia's (the earth) chosen warriors. The book clearly states that the Bunyip have the same Rage as all Garou do, but still they were portrayed as pacifists with great "wisdom." Furthermore while their aloofness is not such a big issue by itself in the cosmology (albeit it gets problematic for them) their "distance in the dreamtime" (aka the Australian Spirit world) is simply not fitting to the job they are supposed to do as Garou and this oddity is never addressed in the book. It is just stated that this is how it is with no explanation whatsoever.
And like I said their aloofness was a big part of the problem in this book, especially since it constantly claimed that they were poor victims with no fault of their own as to what happened. The Bunyip never even tried to communicate with the other Garou, they always kept apart and seemed more disgusted than anything else, and since they are supposed to be protectors of the land that is a pretty bad thing to do. This actually leads to the problem of the reasoning other Garou had to claim the Bunyip as unfit guardians of the land. Wide patches of Australia were quite barren and alien in contrast to the lands the Garou knew and it's not as though the Bunyip ever stepped forward and stated that this is how it was supposed to be (more on that later), they just ignored the newcomers. So they didn't actually seem to be that interested in protecting their land, they seemed to be sitting on their asses more often than not. They were in fact so uninterested in other Garou that they did not even spy on them or did any sort of observation, not even via the help of spirits. In fact when the Red Talons actively sought them out, with no bad intentions whatsoever as it seems, it was the Bunyip who attacked them, not the Red Talons the Bunyip. They even disdained meeting with the Stargazers, whose goals are very similar to the Bunyip way of life, seeing them as nothing but invaders.
This doesn't sound like a "pure people whipped" but more like a bunch of arrogant and lazy xenophobes who in their last days, at least according to this book where wiped out by "greedy invaders." These Bunyip are a mess world building wise. As a matter of fact I cannot remember the book ever explaining why they are were-thylacines.
And based on the Bunyip specific powers shown here you really have to ask yourself how the Bunyip were defeated in the first place. Australia is big and their powers often the same of other Garou so why is it that they did not manage to survive?
The last remnants of the Bunyip are the members of the so called spirit tribe, restless specters of the Bunyip existing in the Spirit world, but even they do nothing apart from haunting some Garou (and apparently any Garou) and sometimes form packs to raid some Caerns. If they are as hateful as the book claims they should be a tad more active.

The book doesn't even deal with this shameful part of the Garou's history appropriately, since interestingly the Garou tribes that did not participate are more often vilified than the ones that actually had done the deed.

The Children of Gaia, who actually tried to prevent the slaughter, are treated as the bad guys, being arrogant, patronizing and aloof when dealing with the other Garou (despite the book stating that the Black Furies work closely with them), who exploit the guilt of other tribes and always make their penance seem inadequate (which considered how many other tribes act actually seems justified). They are apparently despised by the book despite them and the Furies being the only two tribes that actually seem to do something to improve Australia again. Interestingly the Glasswalkers, despite their often criminal activities, do not seem to be demonized in any way, even the Get and Talons are apparently not as vilified as Children are and certainly not to the amount they deserve since it was basically their fault that the Bunyip are dead and apparently the whole of the Australian Spirit World became hostile to Garou. The Talons are not even blamed as it seemed. Not even by the spirits, you would think these beings are smart enough to realize what Garou tribe was it who started it all (sure you could say that they were tricked by the Black Spiral Dancers but the spirits do not even attack them), but nope, the Talons are actually actively breeding with dingoes (trust we will get to that point) and are even one of the more numerous tribes in Australia. Apparently not only are the “Australian werewolves” pretty toothless but the Australian spirits and thereby by extent Australia itself as well.

In my mind it would have been better to use the sense of alienation and being descendent from invaders or victims of migrant schemes that still seems to be ingrained in Australian culture. But apparently that didn’t occur to them, they didn't even seem to consider how an Australia like they claimed to be would actually look like.

The book talks about racism but seems to completely ignore the “White Australia policy” of the past that basically said that no “non-white” (based on British definitions of white) people were allowed to immigrate to Australia. The book speaks about some hostility and stereotypes but also that Australia is among the most successful multicultural countries and a rich bland of cultures where diversity is encouraged and to celebrate diversity (which could also mean "do not mix with us"), although in a country where the Aboriginal Protection Board is still active it is debatable if they had allowed so many immigrants to come in the first place or whether non-British cultures were even allowed to continue, it is not as though assimilation by force was something unknown in the history of 20th century Australia.


Similar to the Bunyip werewolves the way the first people of Australia are portrayed might have been meant well but it milks the stereotype of the noble and mystical indigenous person even more so than Croatan Song did.

It is not as though this "oldest of cultures" stuff about the first Australians was surprising to me since it is still used today, despite the fact that there were several cultures in Australia, of probably common origin no doubt but I doubt that people in the center of the Outback had the same culture as e.g. Torres Strait Islanders. Actually I think the differences in culture helped Eddie Mabo when he fought for the recognition of the rights he had to his land on Murray Island because it was closer to the concept the white Australians had. And, of course, it doesn't say why having Aborigines being raised by Europeans is bad save for "it's not their culture." Sure many might mean well but I think that they forget that any of their hated racists could make the same argument, that what they do is part of their culture and brought up any differently is therefore bad for them.
But while these two concepts are still perpetuated today, another claim the book does was recognized as crap even back when the book was written. The book claims that the first Australians where "isolated from external influence" but later on they clearly show that other Non-Australians visited the continent prior to the Europeans. They even mention seafarers from Timor in the section about the dingo and its introduction about 4000 years ago; then again despite this they also claim the Chinese were the first visitors. Basically that little bit of First Australian history the book has is already screwed.
In addition to this it treats all of them one heap and states that their culture did not change prior to Europeans, also as totally peaceful, kinda egalitarian and all, apparently they didn't care mentioning stuff like women not be allowed to do certain things or go certain places. So basically not as people but as eco-propaganda, and as usual with books like this, it totally ignores the mass extinctions occurring when humans first arrived in Australia and starting the bush fires that are so precious to the book. Furthermore it doesn’t treat them like active participants in their country; apparently the authors think not having much "Pride" means you are totally passive.
And as can be expected, they are totally mystical and could even will their own death. Their rites ensured spiritual healthy land which they honored (again the mass extinctions don't seem to matter, not even to the spirits of the species that did go extinct). And the book actually, albeit not surprisingly, has the "enlightened" crap by having Aboriginal mages, who of course also succumbed to disease. Why they couldn't survive by using their magic is anyone's guess.
This book is just so soaked with this "indigenous people always know better" concept that it actually became kind of difficult for me to read this. And as can probably expected from a book that basically presents humans in such a screwed image, the environmental message is also totally screwed.

The "alieness" of Australia and its contrast to Europe is totally overdone, the writers didn't even seem to be aware that many parts of Europe have no high mountains and fierce winters. And this goes all through this book, leading to such ridiculous stuff like claiming that introduced feral dogs inflicted massive damage on the environment when the dingo was already there for a long time and a feral dog of any origin can do nothing a dingo could not. Some would probably say that those dogs could breed twice a year but that doesn't matter because if there is not enough food the whelps will starve and if the dingo (the dog living in Australia for millennia) did not manage to have 2 litters per year on average so neither will the other dogs. This "alieness" of Australia goes so far that when the First Australians alter the landscapes it is never something bad but when Europeans do it, it is always something evil.
And you would really think that when this book is actually written by Australians they would try to be more knowledgeable about their native fauna. Not only are monotremes not unique to Australia but the native placental mammals are not even mentioned, not even fruit bats and these things are so big, smelly and noisy that they cannot be overlooked.
Now I can forgive that they got stuff about the thylacines messed up since at the time there wasn't that much info to use (e.g. a thylacine body was more like that of a cat than a dog) but in most of the cases the information was there to do better.
Now apart from the fact that the book has the old possibility of genes being swept away in tide of domestic and feral dog genes in the case of the dingo, which is nuts since natural selection would work against that even in this book and all "new genes" that would still be in the population could not be harmful, but the book claims that dingoes aren't dogs despite using the scientific name canis familiaris dingo, which clearly assigns the dingo to the status of a dog, since that is what "canis familiaris" means. In line with this they act as though the dingo being descended from the Indian plains wolf (probably referring to Canis lupus pallipes) is something special despite that one being the main ancestor for all dogs. Actually thy even say that the dingo is closer to dogs than wolves in their mind so I do wonder why breeding with dingoes to produce more Garou is possible but breeding with dogs is not. Actually the Bone Gnawers do breed with the wild dogs of the cities, so consistency once again goes out of the window.
I am not gonna bother with the pollution topic, it is just too over the top even for this game line.

Btw: Foxes do not compete with dingoes for food, that was known even back then.

Now as everyone reading the spoilers sections might have guessed already, this book has massive inconsistencies to the established world of the line.

The book speaks of a pregnant Metis Garou, which is impossible since Metis are always sterile according to the corebook.
Having vampires only recently be in Australia due to the geography and the Bunyip is pretty silly due to the Bunyip's apparent aloofness and due to the existence of the aquatic mariner Gangrel vampires who could have swam to Australia and like the book said a crafty vampire could make the sea journey by flying, so having them have to cross through territory of the deadly Kuei-Jin and let that be the reason why they did not reach Australia sooner makes more sense.
For some reason the spiritual world and the physical world remain closely linked, but then why are both so different? No introduced species exists in the Australian dreamtime, not even dingoes (although the book notes their significance to the First Australians), and long extinct species like Diprotodons still roam it. They literally say that it resembles Australia thousands of years ago because of "powerful wards" by the Bunyip. But according to the basic roles of the game the spiritual world reflects the material for both to be healthy. So shouldn't this difference actually spell doom for Australia?
And speaking of health, why does the significant decrease of thylacine's after the dingoes arrival not affect the Bunyip negatively? When something similar happened to the Japanese Garou, this was seen as something bad, but here it is considered as no big deal, allegedly Tasmania would produce enough thylacine born Bunyip, despite the fact that they are allegedly very rare and Tasmania had a thylacine population of about a few thousand only, there are and were surely even bigger wolf populations during the 90s so why were they considered too few and the thylacines of the right number?

Now due to these inconsistency there are some lost opportunities that I noticed.

1) After the Europeans came the number of dingoes increased and not decreased, so the Garou actually could have more breeding stock (they didn't mind breeding with them anyway despite the fact that they clearly look like dogs).
2) And speaking of breeding: If the extermination of thylacine by the dingo was seen as Gaia's plan by the Bunyip why not mate with dingoes? That could have eliminated many problems later on, since the European Garou probably would have had less problems with dingo Bunyips than thylacine Bunyips.
3) Allegedly there is a reincarnating mummy (just don' t ask) who knows more about the Bunyip than anyone else, but of course does shit to do anything about them. Not even the so-called spirit tribe did anything to maybe bring their people back or at least do something for their country.
4) The spirits could have taken an actually active role in this book, attacking certain tribes and ignoring others.

So like I said, they had the right basic idea, but the execution is just too bad to give any more than 1 star for this book.