my wife has been looking forward to this game for awhile, had a character ready to be statted out since it was announced. we loved the chance to explore this critical era of the Ascension war!

wonderful to have this splat detailed at last. amazing material

I wish that this was as updated as the other 20th edition books and a complete compilation of rules. It is nice to finally have all the Guilds, but with the delays completing this tomb it is painful how much of an after thought this was considering the history this game had in print. Get it for a setting update but don't look for this be a definitive edition like the other lines.

A lot of interesting options for novas, either as wider system changes, or simple rules that can be slotted into for adjusting campaigns.

The Exalted core book for the ninja accountants who live in Heaven. Whereas the Solar Exalted have powers based on excellence, the Sidereals have powers based on abstract concepts, metaphors, and sometimes simply puns. Sidereals reward planning and subtlety, thrive in mixed play with support abilities, are arguably the best and certainly the coolest at martial arts, and have a unique place in the setting.This book is also really useful for information on Yu-Shan. While I would love to play as a Sidereal, this would also be useful to Storytellers interested in using Sidereals as antagonists and NPCs. The style and art are of the same high quality as the Exalted 3E line, and the rules are similarly complex and crunchy.

A VAST improvement over Forsaken 1E. In the early NWoD, vampires and werewolves often came off to players as too fragile to be believably inflicting terror on any quick-witted Joe, which made selling players on continuing these games a bit difficult.

Along comes 2E, and now even though ordinary humans are more durable than they were in NWoD 1E, the new uratha actually feel like a monster that can send a SWAT team packing!

Of particular note, I found the choice to focus an equal amount of attention on what the Auspices mean to the Forsaken as the tribes do to be refreshing. Auspice is something intensely personal, the nature of your spirit side's connection to Luna- and it was largely glossed over in the 1E book.

While this is still Chronicles, and therefore requires buy-in from your players on the "evolution and history of monsters" (since the setting has a distinct take on that), the game still hits all the important base notes about being a werewolf right. To me, well worth the $20!

This book makes for a fantastic expansion of They Came from Beyond the Grave! Lots of new monstrous threats for your games, written to an excellent quality. Very much recommended! You can also put them in your other They Came From games, of course, with zero requirement for amendment!

This is a great title, especially for people who want to learn more into how to present Anarchs in their games and potentially run chronicle that solely consists of Anarchs. From explaining the history of the movement, to showing how the movement react to different societal changes and structures, be it within their own sect and others, it gives good balance of underlining hypocrises, but also hopefulness that some Anarchs might feel. Or pure destruction if that's their drift. Few example stories of Anarch Kindred were great too, fleshing out slightly world and potentially giving some inspiration.

Overall a great sourcebook, which I would personally give 9/10.

The Harcover Premium Color was of good quality too, which I'm glad - money was well spent.

I cannot believe how thundershit this jump start is.

Now that I have your attention, let me explain; 90% of the content here is Fine. Decidedly Okay. There's a couple of things I would have liked; more involvement in actually investigating the crime scene, a little more freedom that just being shuffled to the next NPC in the line until everything pops off, a portrait for the killer that doesn't make her look like the obviously evil NPC. But all of that is gripes from someone who's run this jumpstart three times. The Biggest Issue?

The Jumpstart is Factually Wrong about the rules of the game. Defense Pools are the biggest offender: Antagonists are supposed to have a static number as their to-hit stat, which is what Defense symbolizes. The Jump-start would have you roll a Defensive pool of 9 or 11 dice (depending on if they stop the second murder) like PCs do, which can in some cases be equal to the attacking pool of a PC not fully spec'd for combat. Lunacy.

Not only is the final boss incorrectly stat-ed, it's overly stat-ed as well. 13 dice attack pools and a feature that causes it to deal double damage (and a DOT if the GM spends a trivial resource!) will murder PCs in about two or three hits. There's also additional fodder that explicitly outnumber the PCs 2:1 (3:1 if the players didn't stop the murder, although if they didn't you're better off saving everyone time and telling them they die) regardless of their own numbers, as well as Boss fodder and the murderer cursing them while they try to fight.

It would be crazy to leave a one star review on a jump start that only had a few errors. It would feel crazy not to, considering how many times this has actively dissuaded people from playing Scion. Thank god we got over it, Storypath Ultra finally made this game great.

An excellent collection of Demigod-level scenarios for a Band of players to play through. Each details the perils of pursuing Apotheosis in its own way.

The system itself: 5/5 The book: 2/5 It's a very cool part of the World of Darkness and is very in depth. A shame that the book is printed on some of the worst paper I've ever touched so I'll probably have to stick to the pdf and relegate the book to a conversation piece. Do not buy the book, buy the pdf.

What's not to love? Look at majestic Thor on the cover. I love that Thor gets to shine with pride in the best way possible. Another thing I really like are the Axehandlers (one of the birthrights). It's also great to see some more attention spend to Gilgamesh. Keep going bright and with pride!

Not sure how to report an issue, but my PDF won't fully download. Its mostly just blank pages.

Easily the worst book for the M20 line to date.

It has no soul, little creative zing, no compelling vision of the Traditions as a unified whole, and much of the writing is mediocre to outright bland. It spends so much time addressing or calling back to old editions of the game that it forgets to tell us what's cool and interesting about playing a Tradition mage NOW. It feels more like a lesser offering of the Storyteller's Vault than an official Mage release.

The good: The write up of The Cult of Ecstasy was engaging and thought provoking. The bad: The Verbena section felt like a particularly weak pastiche of previous work with little to inspire players. The Celestial Chorus bit was so busy trying to expand the appeal of the group or give us alternative takes that it lost the soul of the Tradition.

I spent a lot of time trying to figure out why I found this book so disappointing. Lore of the Traditions spends too much time, energy, and word count -- particularly for a book this thin -- apologizing (or, should I say, doing apologetics) for events that took place in previous editions of the game. Future Fates was sensible and cool in the 20th anniversary core book, but there's WAY too much of that in Lore of the Traditions. It feels repetitive and overstated in this book, and it's really unnecessary. Just tell us what's fun, interesting, and new about the Traditions. Inspire us without all the "but if you didn't like Mage Revised or the end of the old World of Darkness metaplot, just ignore it," which is what most of the Future Fate stuff boils down to.

Also, a thread of didacticism runs through every Tradition in this book in a way that feels REALLY tedious by the end. What I want from a book like this is playability, fun, and cool in-game goodies (Tradition-specific Merits & Flaws, anyone?), not the subtle (or not-so-subtle) finger wagging that feels like it takes place on nearly every page of this book. Lore of the Traditions should inspire me to want to play a member from each and every Tradition; it should NOT make me feel like I'm being lectured or told what to think. Give me the vehicle; spare me the map. Give me a book that makes me say "Cool!" not a book that makes me say "Sorry." like Bart Simpson after being reprimanded.

This review is, obviously, highly subjective, as all reviews are. I've been playing Mage since 1996. I've had the luxury of reading multiple editions of Tradition books, and this one just feels threadbare in comparison. Players who are new to Mage might find more to love in this volume than I did, and I hope they do.

I still have high hopes for the Disparates book, but it needs to be much better than Lore of the Traditions, otherwise I'll be going back to my sweet old 2nd ed and Sorcerers Crusade books.

I love this book. And I love how the brutal imperialism is not adress properly.

It's well written and My player love the campaign we play. And yes the "liberal flavor" is a must have, we put it as an element of personnal horror, the punk and the gothic are in it.

And for those who think the book is just a woke essaie, I hope they never open any Mark Twain books, charles dickens or Flora Tristan (a french victorian marxist, antimperialist feminist and one of the best writter of her time that wrote an entire london description in 1840 ...).