The ~Twiztid~ Artwork of Werewolf: The Forsaken
White Wolf Game Studio’s Werewolf: The Forsaken was released in 2005 with a second edition released in 2015, but to classic gamers it will always be “the new Werewolf.” The book continued many of the themes of the original Werewolf: The Apocalypse including spiritual werewolves, the natural world versus the man made, and especially the corrupting otherworldly magic of the Wyrm. And when we say “corrupting” we mean the Wyrm literally transforms the bodies of those it possesses into horrifying monsters called Fomori. Which was evidently a lot of fun for the artists working for White Wolf.
Steve: I love Werewolf.
Zack: I played Vampire more back in the day. I haven’t even looked at these new books until today.
Steve: Werewolf was always like what if you could be Billie Jack fighting against Exxon and have a hot girlfriend who had a katana and was like a Japanese werewolf.
Zack: Nobody remembers Billie Jack.
Steve: Alright, how about if it’s Wind River only the good guy is the Native American dad instead of Hawkeye and all the security guys working at the refinery place were actually demons that oozed black out of their eyes and could shapeshift into huge bloated monsters with thousands of teeth.
Zack: Not gonna lie, crossing Wind River with The Thing sounds like a way better version of Wind River.
Steve: The Thing makes anything is better.
Zack: Except for The Thing itself, which breaks the universal theorem stating that “Anything x The Thing = The Thing.”
Steve: New Suicide Squad movie looking pretty solid.
Steve: Good lineup.
Zack: It looks like the world’s worst Shadowrun team.
Steve: Yeah, Suicide Squad, like I said.
Zack: I still can’t get over the lady with the soul-stealing sword.
Zack: That was the most ludicrous drop of information into a conversation that never gets talked about again.
Zack: Oh, this guy is a mutant alligator and this guy can throw boomerangs or whatever and this guy never misses a shot, need to explain that super power, but the lady with her husband’s soul trapped in a sword who can use that sword to steal other people’s souls? Five word explanation.
Steve: You sound pretty hot about this stuff.
Steve: I just appreciated it for a crazy lady in tight shorts and lots of machine guns shooting.
Steve: Take the world that is offered to you.
Zack: Isn’t that the problem these days, Steve?
Steve: Yeah, I guess the problem is that we all just accept Margot Robbie’s butt when really we should be demanding more.
Steve: Which is to say no, dude, incorrect.
Zack: Alright then, butt man. Enjoy the rat ass.
Steve: I will! Thank you very much.
Zack: Okay, so a couple questions on this one:
Zack: 1) Why is the guy naked?
Zack: 2) Why is she naked?
Zack: 3) Why is she holding a rat like she saved it from him?
Steve: Maybe it’s metaphorical, dude, like we reveal our naked selves when we perpetrate violence against animals.
Steve: So by setting a rat trap or something we are exposing our true nature.
Zack: And what about her being naked?
Steve: Maybe she’s married to the rat.
Zack: So she’s naked?
Steve: Rats don’t wear clothes. He wouldn’t tolerate clothes in his household.
Zack: So you assume the rat is the head of the household?
Zack: Way to impose the patriarchy on rats.
Steve: Uh, it’s rat KING not rat QUEEN, dude.
Zack: Those are rats that got their tails tied together. I don’t think they have a gender.
Steve: They have whatever gender they choose and, collectively, it is King.
Zack: My gender is also king.
Steve: The Crow reboot is rad as heck.
Zack: Guess what, bitch? It CAN rain all the time!
Steve: The Crow but he turns into a giant bird man that tears off heads would be so good.
Steve: Netflix make it a TV show now.
Steve: Spend you unlimited money on goth crow shapeshifter stuff.
Zack: His supervillain enemy in Seedbell.
Steve: The Crow didn’t really have a supervillain enemy dude, it was just the people that killed him and caused crime.
Zack: No supervillain? It had the “Warrriors, come out and play-a-ay!” guy and Michael Wincott the most gravel voiced human since Tom Waits.
Steve: And Bai Ling dude.
Zack: She could have made a great Harley Quinn if she hadn’t died while filming this movie.
Zack: She shot her butt off with what she thought was a blank.
Steve: Dark man. Dark.
Zack: It is the WoRlD oF dArKnEsS!
Zack: This is what it feels like when you crack an egg for breakfast and the yolk is all bloody.
Steve: That has never happened to me.
Zack: That’s because you eat pop tarts for breakfast every single day.
Steve: Not true.
Steve: Some days I have leftover pizza.
Zack: Okay, so picture the pizza egg hatching and this lovely hunk slurping out of the shell.
Steve: Oh, dude, yes. What if chicken laid eggs that hatched as slices of pizza.
Zack: Very small slices of pizza.
Steve: Like folded up dude, you crack the egg and the pizza unfurls.
Steve: This pizza man is making me hungry!
Zack: The Wyrm wins again!
Zack: When I think about some creature of the Wyrm, this is what I picture.
Steve: Man, it’s cool, but how do you even explain something like this to your players if you are the storyteller?
Zack: “Imagine the scariest bug you have ever seen, now picture it giant and combined with a skeleton.”
Steve: Wowwwwww. You sure transported me.
Steve: Remember when you wrote a novel?
Zack: Steve, what are you doing?
Steve: I’m just saying, you have to paint a picture, and telling me to think about a bug is leaving the work up to me.
Zack: Snarling jaws and bare, blackened sinews glistening with viscera, sawtoothed tendrils lash the air, etc.
Zack: Or picture a bug.
Zack: It’s not like I’m getting paid to run Werewolf.
Steve: You literally are.
Steve: Right now.
Zack: It is as if the bottomless dread of losing everything you love is given flesh and hungry jaws to tear it all from your body bite by bloody bite.
Steve: Alright, I’ll allow it.
Steve: I don’t know what to feel right now, dude.
Steve: It’s like if a fisherman walked into a bar, took off his raincoat and was like a curvy babe under the raincoat but was still a grizzled fisherman too.
Zack: Saturn Seducing His Son.
Steve: What?
Steve: I don’t get that one.
Zack: The Goya painting Saturn Devouring His Son.
Zack: This curvy lady looks remarkably like Saturn from that painting.
Steve: Let me see.
Zack:
Steve: Oh my god.
Steve: It is!
Steve: Do you think it’s intentional?
Zack: If it is, the artist is my favorite.
Steve: Get this……… it’s a monster truck.
Zack: I got it.
Steve: Because it’s a truck, but also it is a monster.
Steve: Therefore a monster truck.
Zack: Right, I follow.
Steve: Because instead of the facelike grill of a truck it has teeth.
Steve: And the headlights look like eyes.
Zack: Yep, still got it.
Steve: But it’s also literally a truck.
Zack: Sure is something, Steve.
Steve: It’s badass is what it is. If I had this thing to drive around I wouldn’t get passive aggressive notes from my neighbor Joanna about how bad my parking is.
Zack: Because you would become much better at parking?
Steve: No, because Joanna would be afraid of my truck.
Steve: Because it’s a monster.
Zack: How so?
Steve: Well…
Zack: Now this is definitely Twiztid!
Steve: Mom is just coming in there with the Thanksgiving turkey, but thins are about to get scary.
Zack: Uncle Johnny wants to talk about Black Lives Matter.
Steve: Got a lot of opinions about Treyvon and will be gesturing angrily with his sock puppet hands.
Zack: “They’re a terrorist group.” Then he swallows the whole dish of sweet potatoes in his puppet hand. “They chanted about killing cops. They are like the KKK, only some of the KKK people are good.”
Steve: The Wyrm definitely feeds off Infowars and arguments about Dreamers.
Zack: “Why should they get to have a job when I was fired from the Dollar General for stealing Mike & Ikes??”
Steve: I have a lot of questions about this one.
Zack: Let’s hear ’em!
Steve: Well, first of all, is he related to the decapitated girl? They have the same hair.
Zack: I think so, yeah.
Steve: So she is a tree person too?
Steve: Did he cut off her head?
Zack: I think you could take it one of two ways: he is either a tree man that is angry that his daughter’s head got cut off and used the murder weapon to exact revenge from the lumberjack. Or he is a lumberjack that was cursed for cutting down trees and tricked into killing his daughter.
Steve: I think he’s a tree man not a lumberjack, so I am going with the first one.
Zack: Either way, it’s extremely Twiztid.
Steve: I have a lot of questions about this one.
Zack: Some seriously 90s Twiztid vibes on this one.
Steve: Were the 90s Twiztid, dude?
Zack: Oh hell yes, that was when “lots of creepy doll heads” was invented.
Steve: So this is like, a world of nothing but creepy doll heads.
Steve: The people and everything are doll heads.
Zack: The ultimate 90s nightmare realm. As opposed to Hellraiser hell from the 80s and our actual world since 2001.
Zack: When the planes hit those Twin Towers and diverged us into Hellworld baby.
Steve: I’ll take doll head reality.
Zack: Too late, Steve. We’ve branched to Hellworld and it turns out it isn’t demons it is just misery and bad tech and extremely lame.
Steve: Hell YES this is the nightmare world I want.
Zack: This belongs in a Cthulhu book. It is pretty dope.
Steve: Nah, if it were in a Cthulhu book this thing would be 500 feet tall and have no human-like face.
Steve: Too easy to identify with the flesh angel with the eyes for wings.
Zack: What if… beyond the cosmic threshold… there was an endless realm of creepy doll heads.
Zack: At the Mountains of Doll Heads.
Steve: Somewhere out there Kurt Cobain is still fighting for us with Station at his side.
Zack: God bless America!
Steve: See you next time, folks!