The Gaming Outpost

One of the most unexpected recent entries to the well-worn category of
classic fantasy games is Gemini, a very dark fantasy game from Stockholm,
Sweden. It’s a fascinating study–on one hand, it’s a D+D retread game
without much to comment upon, but at the same time it subverts your
expectations again and again with some very interesting variations on
classic themes.

First, do not purchase the book unless your are willing to cut the authors
some slack for haveing to translate into their non-native tongue. Given the
state of most RPG editing, where extremely bad editing slips through from
people who are ostensibly natives, I don’t find this difficult. If you’re
sensitive to it you may wish to reconsider your purchase, or read some of
the book first to be certain it’s your thing.

The book itself is gorgeous. If you are one of those people who buys RPGs
for the art and art alone (and I can hear you breathing, so I know you’re
out there) then this is something you should pick up. The book is filled
with tortured, Scandinavian looking souls in glossy full-color plates and
ornately filigreed edgework for each page, proving that the Swedes have a
handle on darkness that the White Wolf kids would give their eyeteeth for.
Thematically, the book has Dark Ages written all over it, and the consistent
tone was a delight–even with the loopy grammatical constructions, it’s an
easier read than a lot of stuff written by native English speakers on the
market. Whether this is a sad statement on the RPG industry or not I leave
as an exercise for the reader.

The world of Gemini fits the book’s form– the Dark, Dark Ages, like the
We-all-suffer-and-God-has-abandoned-his-Faithful Darkness that makes a great
gothic novel. You have a monotheistic church that hold the only hope of
salvation, evil Inquisitors, a seeping corruption and (one of my favorites)
magic being definitely tied to the deviltry and darkness camp. In fact, in
Gemini all magic slowly warps and darkens you until you are a festering
pustule on the face of humanity. The metaplot ties directly into this, with
a rather elaborate story about the Great Seal being broken and the dark one
rising up to conquer the world. The refreshing change is that in Gemini,
due to the formal and ornate writing, the evil really does seem
overpowering–far more than the second rate evils in WitchCraft or many TSR
supplements.

A lot of this is due to the system constraints placed on piety. Gemini
closely maps your ‘goodness’, and as you fall from grace you become prey to
more and more of the filth of the world…even contact with the unnatural
will erode you. It’s a pleasant whiff of Cthulhu mixed with the kind of
controls that should have been In Nomine–you can be any way you like, but
being good is hard and being evil is ultimately a very bad idea.

The rest of the game’s system is by far its weakest quality. Although the
magic system is a notch more engaging, the resolution systems are ununified
and clunky…just figuring out how to conduct a combat round was an
extremely onerous exercise, made more difficult by how simplistic the
results were. Aside from a roughly sketched out skill system, this game’s
system is mired in late 70′s D+D mechanics–most GMs will want to tear out
the guts of this wholesale and convert to something more fluid, or at least
consistent.

The best element of the game is its take on demihumans. Dwarves are
dwarves, but they gain strength and blessings through the augmentation of
their body by piercing–the images in the book of Dwarves with horrendous
body piercings attacking the enemy are provocative, and the tales of the
dwarven race’s downfall and the horrifying Curse that many of its members
suffer from really differentiated them from other game depictions.

Likewise with the elves, who in Gemini are an artifact race created by
now-extinct masters. All elves are male, except for the Queen–who is the
giver of all life, and the bearer of every elf born. Different temperaments
and subraces of elves are generated depending on which consort the Queen
took to bed to create you. Furthermore, the elves have varying levels of
sentience depending on how much ‘caelum’ they are given by the Queen–so
elven society very much resembles an ant society, with a queen, workers,
drones and warriors. Very interesting stuff.

The Verdict

Gemini is an interesting exercise, and if you have any interest in running a
dark fantasy game with a very Catholic feel to it you should certainly get
ahold of a copy. Overall I think it’s more useful as a piecemeal
sourcebook–the poor system and choppily translated writing is compensated
by the great race and Church descriptions. Very dark and very Swedish.