‘Lancer: Shadow of the Wolf’ Kicks Off a New Campaign With Decadent Opulence & Three New Mechs
Massif Press has a delicious new campaign out, Lancer: Shadow of the Wolf. Play as students in an elite academy full of intrigue—and crunchy mech combat.
Every now and then, a campaigm premise comes along that is so perfectly targeted at you, that you can’t help but start mentally clearing your calendar, rifling through responsibilities and hangouts that you feel comfortable putting off, so you can play it as soon as possible. After all, sometimes it’s worth battling a scheduling demon. I say this, because when I read the writeup of Massif Press’ new campaign, Lancer: Shadow of the Wolf, that’s what I started doing.
Shadow of the Wolf is a narrative campaign/mission series set in Lancer’s Karrakin Trade Baronies. Players are students at an elite mech academy where the best of the best come to train. But, the opulent, high-class decadence of the Baronies is rife with corruption and systemic oppression where institutional power is as deadly a weapon as a swarm full of mech-devouring nanites.
And in Shadow of the Wolf, class is in session.
Lancer: Shadow of the Wolf – A New Campaign
If you’re familiar at all with Lancer’s setting, you know that Union, the central focus of the setting is a nominally utopic, fully-automated gay space luxury communism kind of place. It has more than its share of problems. The government is a fractious melange of political alliances and there’s always something simmering under the pleasant surface.
The Karrakin Trade Baronies, on the other hand, have no pleasant veneer over their machinations. The Baronies, you could say, harkonnen back to a more opulent space dynasty. Shadow of the Wolf is, in the words of Writer/Developer Katherine Stark, a story that involves “mechs, ballgowns, and maybe
even mechs in ballgowns!”
Mechs in ballgowns, or at least with ballgown motifs to their armor, wouldn’t be out of place in Lancer. And it highlights the “elite” side of the elite mech academy that players will enroll in at the start of the game. There are even three new mech frame variants for players to experiment with:
- The stealthy infiltrator Hecatoncheires, above
- The long ranged Tagetes, a mech sniper
- The aerial support Taraxacrum
There’s also a suite of four new Archetypes, via the Bonds system. You can see the Firebrand above. And of course, there are plenty of NPCs and schemes to foment behind the scenes.
And if that doesn’t pique your interest, consider the following:
The adventure is designed as an introduction to Lancer for new players, who take the role of students at a school for elite mech pilots. Emphasising spectacular fights with giant robots and dramatic roleplaying with an ensemble cast of NPCs, Massif Press’ most fully-featured adventure yet draws on influences such as Dune, Top Gun, and Gundam: Witch from Mercury to deliver a rich and memorable story.
AdvertisementThe story of Shadow of the Wolf is a critique of a society that valourises war and perpetuates the heroic warrior myths of the knight and the fighter ace, drawing on my personal experiences of institutions designed to reinforce class divisions and a conservative status quo on impressional young people. The story explores how these institutions use young people as tools of war and propaganda, and ultimately reinforce the privilege and agendas of the powerful, and offers the players an opportunity to fight back and use their power for good
School is starting!
