Horizon Stronghold of Hope is best to me considered as the polar opposite of Destiny's Price. Here, Horizon, the mega-chantry of the Traditions, is presented as a medieval throwback to high fantasy that I feel does a small amount of dis-service to the game. In the quest to provide options for a traditional Dungeons and Dragons-esque setting, lost are the opportunities to explore fantasy outside the Tolkien vein and outside of just Europe. That isn't to say the book doesn't have its high points, just that it felt disappointing in some key ways.

The book opens with a 37 pages of something like a Scooby Doo mystery. Dante and Nile go through Horizon and meet various mages of note and Nile screams about things and most people look at her and go "how about that". Dante goes everywhere with his rig and uses computers to solve problems because Horizon has amazing wifi and throughout Porthos talks about his plan to renew the Council. Which is a ballsy ass move because he's doing so from the seat of the Council. Walk into the Senate or House of Representatives in the US and try to pull that shit and I think you'd have a fair number of Secret Service Agents following you for the next forever. But hey, Porthos, amirite?

The world's shittiest whodunit ends with Dante using a Pink Floyd laser light show to prove there was a Hermetic in a bubble and those lousy frat bros from Doissetep were behind it all along. Information is revealed about The Consanguinity of Eternal Joy and we learn Doissetep would have gotten away with it if it wasn't for those lousy kids. This set up makes Doissetep seem absolutely bumbling. These are Masters and Archmasters pitted against each other in the supposed den of vipers seemingly don't know what they're doing.

The next section is the gold of the book, a timeline. A timeline may seem boring but gives an idea of what has happened an idea of what could happen again. This timeline is detailed and breezes through the late 1800s to current when I would have liked some more detail. We find out the Hollow Ones applied for membership and were rejected as well as that the late 80s gathering of the Primii was very poorly attended. The text also provides some background on the documents that are foundational to the Traditions. These too are useful but I'd have liked a little more in the book about entities that may still have an outstanding vendetta against the Traditions. We also receive information on how hard it is to get to Horizon as well as how heavily warded it is...except that Porthos can just f-ing peace from it.

The review of locations on Horizon are kind of interesting but it kind of falls flat. What do the mortals do there? Why haven't expeditions been lead to kind of mine out all the magickally useful materials? How do other entities get there? Why is everything medieval? The section just kind of presents information with explanation. The holidays add flavor and the venues are cute but gheh they're very cartoony. The sword eating contest seems a great idea. Wanna participate in this festival? Just use matter magick or accidentally stab yourself in the throat!

We then get a section on the geography and make up of the Horizon and what powers it. The list of nodes is interesting and provides an idea of what the creators of the game think make for potent nodes. There's some discussion of the formation of the site and the Umbral entities that need to be beaten back to defend the place and the mages that do it. Few ongoing threats are listed except for the Technocracy possibly doing something but that seems distant and an artificial attempt at creating tension.

Horizon as a book makes the Mage world seem both larger and smaller. Larger in that it suggests 1200-1500 mages are there at any given time, smaller in that everything that happens seems to be driven by a handful of characters across two Chantries.

Luckily this book is huge for the time so even if you don't like half of it, get it discounted during a sale and you're coming out ahead.