Review: Book of Changing Years

Recently (as I write this in mid-August) I received the first of my physical rewards for the TimeWatch kickstarter: the Book of Changing Years. The Book of Changing Years consists of a collection of time travel stories written to complement the default setting for TimeWatch. Including an interesting (and humorous) timeline, it serves as a sort of physical handout for the game, a compilation of agent reports that give a sense of the range of the setting.

Review: Book of Changing Years

The book is a comfortable digest sized book, with an attractive if simple salmon cover. It presents itself as an in-game artifact: a limited print book from the late 19th century by a time traveler. Our fictional compiler comes off as quite snarky which might not be to everyone’s tastes. It is easy enough to ignore him however and jump to the rest of the anthology. The various sections detail missions and adventures by different time travlers (and written by various authors noted below).

The first and largest section is devoted to a timeline from the just before the beginning of time (where the TimeWatch citadel rests...until the Big Bang at least) to the 33rd century (and the founding of TimeWatch). You can find a number of references to the stories within the book in the timeline and it does a good job of creating a fullness to the history of time travel. It is really too bad that I’ll end up writing my own history instead. Some events referenced in the timeline are quite silly but for the most part the tone is kept serious.

The Logs

The rest of the book consists of agent reports which chronicle various time travel stories. There are some interconnections between characters, particularly involving Edward and Richard Plantagenet (who disappeared from the Tower of London during the reign of Richard the III).

Edward Plantagenet (written by Rebecca Slitt) hunts for goods smuggled from alternate timelines and discovers meddlers introducing techniques to turn lead into gold. The mission detailed would make a good adventure in addition to being a very enjoyable story.

Richard Plantagenet (written by Heather Albano), his brother, leaves TimeWatch to alter time on his own. Unfortunately preempting his own murder doesn’t go well and his attempts to get justice for his family fail. A nice tail about trying to alter history, it could make a good backstory for a bitter contact of a TimeWatch agent. Through this story we see a thread of conspiracy within TimeWatch, something that occurs again and again in these tales.

Kennon Bayman provides two entries for us: a short vignette involving Ambrose Bierce (with more conspiracy) and the excellent tale involving an independent (and very canny) agent known as the Surgeon. This awesome story involves Atlantean reality shards, treacherous TimeWatch operations, and a clever avoidance of an apocalypse. The narrator is a bit snarky in a very noir fashion (at least I imagine him functioning well as a hardboiled detective). One of my top two stories from this book.

Ruth Tillman is the other author to contribute two stories to the Book of Changing Years. The tale of Katia Filipovna focuses on tracing and stopping a string of temporal practical jokers. This silly mission wasn’t my cup of tea but I understand other people find this sort of thing hilarious. More to my liking was Publia Decia Subulo’s mission to uncover the source of a plague of cats. It ends with the destruction of a utopia of sorts, which is a nice ethical dilemma in my opinion. If a new timeline is more peaceful than ours, should we change it back? Food for thought.

Agent Snow's logs (by Marissa Kelly) chronicle a TimeWatch agent trapped in a temporal loop as she becomes the criminal she’s hunting. It isn’t the best version of such a story unfortunately. Perhaps expanded out with more depth it might have worked better. As it is, it feels unsatisfying from a character perspective.

Emily Dresner wrote Theodosia Burr’s story. This book hunter seeks a book that shouldn’t exist and explores the damage one text can do to the time stream. As a bibliophile this particularly intrigues me. This story would also work very well if adapted into an adventure scenario.

Liu Feiyan’s story (written by Emily Care Boss) involves another TimeWatch recruit going rogue, damaging the timeline, and ultimately failing to change their future. This brief tale at least has a happier ending than most.

Then we have the zombie apocalypse story. Engineer Priesh (written by Stephanie Bryant) jumps across the late 20th century fighting alien fungi, sneaking through Soviet gulags, and trying to trace the origin of a zombie plague that will destroy the world by the early 21st century. Alien horror, time travel and zombie plague in one story! This is the other top segment in this book and if it was an adventure scenario I would love to run it.

Jacob Moyer (by Epidiah Ravachol) provides what initially seems like a series of joke filled log entries. But it soon emerges that something more sinister is afoot and we end on a real cliffhanger. It might be a bit silly but would still be a very gameable scenario.

Lastly Lucas Lee (written by Emma Marlow) provides a look at a “typical” week of a TimeWatch agent: fixing World War I, patching a hole in time, stopping a singularity event, avoiding paradox, and more. Fun and useful for setting campaign expectations.

So all in all, a great collection of stories for what seems like a great game. Expect a review of TimeWatch itself in a month or so.