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Technocracy: Iteration X
Publisher: White Wolf
by Charles S. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 06/29/2019 12:12:13

This is a difficult book to review for me. On the one hand, I hate it. On the either, it is a well written book that is just part of first edition where the Technocracy is an irredeemable villain rather than a potentially valid antagonist.

It is told from the point of view of a recent recruit, who was given advanced prosthetics that were necessary due to thalidomide. He breaks conditioning for long enough to describe how terrible Iteration X is, and it's bad down to explicit comparisons with Nazis. The book gives a general overview including introducing the Artificers who are prominent when Sorcerer 's crusade is written. They effects and wonders are some of the most interesting parts of the book, along with the running theme that the Dreamspeakers are the biggest rival of the Convention, due to being the two oldest groups focusing on the spirit world and on tool use. It also introduced the Computer explicitly as a spirit that has some goal in Reality and is using Iteration X to achieve it.

Overall a solid book, but not great in many places if you prefer a sympathetic Technocracy.



Rating:
[3 of 5 Stars!]
Technocracy: Iteration X
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Razors and Thunderbolts: The Ksirafai
Publisher: White Wolf
by Charles S. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 06/21/2019 03:22:31

This product consists of a brief introduction on who the Ksirafai are (were, rather) and how to use them in a Sorcerer's Crusade game, followed by 9 sample characters. It was a bit light on background material and didn't really extend the Ksirafai in any way, and functioned mostly as a pregen character pack rather than anything else. It's solid, but unfortunately not exceptional, and something more along the lines of a Convention Book: Ksirafai (Guild book?) from this author could be something special.



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
Razors and Thunderbolts: The Ksirafai
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Apocalypse
Publisher: White Wolf
by Charles S. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 06/21/2019 03:16:48

SPOILERS BELOW (for a 15 year old game supplement)

Warning: I am not an expert at Werewolf, and so I will likely miss many, many things relating to metaplot and fine setting details. That said, those things are unlikely to improve this review, and I don't believe I can give it a worse one.

This book is bad. It is fractally bad. However closely you look at it, you find new levels of failure. It is quite clear that it was written in a hurry, barely edited at all, and that the creators heart just wasn't in it. I would have loved a good, well put together end of the world book for Werewolf. I learn systems by trying to break them, by seeing what happens in extreme situations, and what could be more extreme than the Apocalypse?

I'll start with an overall impression. The book has many spelling and grammatical errors, several layout errors (text that should be italicized isn't, for instance) and a huge number of more specific issues in each section, described below:

The initial fiction and the ending fiction are actually solidly written, if unimpressive to an outsider. I don't know if these are signature characters that we're supposed to know or the like, but they were uninspiring and failed to make me care about them, though the final moments of the ending fiction did manage a small amount of power, with the Striders abandoning hope of re-entering Egypt in order to fight in the Apocalypse.

The introduction is passable, and makes an attempt to explain why White Wolf was ending the World of Darkness. Given the 20th anniversary games and the 5th edition of Vampire, this seems kind of quaint in retrospect. But in any case, the reasons didn't come across as particularly strong ("We don't want to write The Book of Nature and Demeanor and devolve into crap!" well then maybe you should have put more effort into this book, because you did.)

Chapter One: The End Times In this chapter, the general run-up to the Apocalypse is discussed. This is actually the strongest chapter in the book. It covers the prophecies leading to the Apocalypse, the various strange events such as Anthelios in the sky, the Perfect Metis, and the prophecies of the Desperate One and of Zhyzhak. It also covers a few things that seem a bit out of place, especially given how they're handled in the remainder of the book, like "The Machine Awakens" about an AI being created at Rice University. More coherently, it talks about the attitudes and potential roles of the Fera, and then has the discussion of "The Other Games" is not a good start for the book. I understand wanting to avoid crossover in the final Werewolf book, to avoid diluting themes, but the later scenarios read as though the authors have forgotten that Mage is a part of the World of Darkness but have a soft spot for Vampire, bringing it up regularly. This is particularly egregious when they come up with scenarios that often can be solved by a single determined cabal of Mages, or else which morally should have a major role for a large group of them (and they don't hesitate to do things like give the Striders a final showdown with the Settites).

Chapter Two: The Last Battleground This is the first of four Apocalypse scenarios, and the best thought out (or perhaps least poorly thought out). It starts by describing three sacrifices needed to bring the Wyrm into the world, and the first one was the Vampire from the Week of Nightmares (Ravnos, to be specific, though they aren't), which plays up the lack of a coherent rule for them with respect to crossover. Now, this is where the bad editing is first evident, as they say the Week of Nightmares was in 1997, when it was 1999, there was a whole thing, company wide about it (the Reckoning!) and this has implications on the age of the perfect metis. In this, along with all the other scenarios, much is made of Zhyzhak's prophecy of grinding the last Gaian King under her heel. This is an easy prophecy to disrupt: get some snipers, give them silver bullets, go to town (also, if you have a high rank PC Silver Fang with a lot of True Breed, what stops them from picking up the crown and saying "Well I'm the king now." just to stop the prophecy?). No one Garou is immune to proper weapons. So either this is ludonarrative dissonance causing the whole scenario to fall apart in the hands of players, or else there needs to be some reason not to do this. As I said above, I'm not super-familiar with Werewolf, but given the setting, it's kind of ridiculous that the vast majority of Kinfolk don't go through paramilitary training and have stashes of weapons they can use to kill Black Spiral Dancers should the need arise. I'm putting this complaint here because I don't want to repeat it, but it goes for every single scenario in the book, and from what I can tell, is a significant issue with Werewolf. Kinfolk should be like the militia people out in Montana and the like, but the books want to paint them as helpless while still giving Werewolves weaknesses that humans can exploit to be threats.

Moving on, at least THIS scenario says something about mages, but...it doesn't say anything that makes sense. If magic is becoming more powerful and backlashes becoming rarer, mages can't help but become important elements of the story. If mages become more powerful, banes would have more trouble possessing them! Mages are high willpower, and many have significant spirit magics, and those without usually have allies that do. Even if the Garou wouldn't accept the help of mages, they would be unlikely to get a choice as mages would, despite the sidebar on them, notice what's going on and that leaves several world-spanning organizations of people who can remake reality itself looking to stop the Wyrm, seeing it as the source of the Nephandi, one of the few things that can cause the mystics and the technomages to set aside their differences.

The rest of the chapter is mostly OK. But the problems above are significant.

Chapter Three: A Tribe Falls This was the chapter I was really looking forward to. It should really reveal the true nature of the tribes, showing what happens if each of them falls to the Wyrm (or the Weaver!). This chapter can best be described as "lazy." Many of the Tribal Fall scenarios depend on them just being overwhelmed from outside and forced to fall rather than making it a consequence of their fundamental flaws and inner nature. The Weaver falls are particularly lazy, only getting one and a half pages for all the tribes together, and several of them being cop outs with "Oh, well, this is unlikely, so work hard to make it plausible" when I feel like making up a plausible way for it to happen is the job of the writers of this book. The discussion around how to handle the fall, other than talking about it being due to a "wave of corruption" or other such deus ex machina (diabolus ex machina?), it then proceeds to discuss what a fall to the Wyrm looks like for each Tribe. Most of them are tolerable. Not inspired but not horrible. Most of them that fall from their own actions just do so due to Hubris, rather than anything else, and not spectacularly Tribe-based hubris, either. Some of them fall from sheer stupidity, especially given that much of this assumes the Apocalypse is happening as they fall.

For example, the Furies fall to the Wyrm because they are panicking and absolutely will never ever ask the Weaver for help, even when the issue is that they are becoming fundamentally unstable. The Bone Gnawer fall is mostly OK, but it is followed by the Children of Gaia who fall from...hubris. One of them attempts to revive the lost Bunyip tribe, and this triggers the tribe to try to restore the Wyrm's sanity directly themselves. This is clearly stupid, and the writers kind of joke about how ridiculous it is by saying "someone botched a roll!" in describing why the ritual didn't work, suggesting this may have been RANDOM. The Fianna fall isn't terrible from an outside perspective, but depends on characters I don't know. The Get of Fenris fall is particularly stupid. No, the Wyrm doesn't get them through their eugenics, their racism problem, nothing of the sort. No, they chase the Spirals trying to kill them (non-specific hubris!) and then just...fall to the Wyrm because they are driven insane by the Wyrm because they went too deep. The Glass Walker fall is one of the better ones, with the tribal totem, Cockroach, joining the Wyrm as a method of survival, and the Tribe, influenced by that, starts to see the Wyrm as a path to living through the Apocalypse. The Red Talons (and the Wendigo for that matter) take no effort to convince me that they've fallen to the Wyrm, so we'll move on. The Shadow Lords have a decent fall, where they fail a significant quest to become the leaders (with their tribal totem) of Gaia's armies for the Apocalypse, and they lash out, letting their rage and despair get the better of them. The Striders fall is basically "Found a thing from Wraith, it's bad, maybe worse than the Wyrm" and it's not clear they're WRONG, so that's OK. The Silver Fang fall is another Hubris fall, but for the Silver Fangs, that MAKES SENSE. I like the general outline of this one, including them wiping out the Black Spiral Dancers because they are unworthy of serving the Wyrm. It is, however, still handled somewhat lazily. And finally, the Uktena basically succumb to the whispers of the banes they've been tending, the end of a long slow process. Not spectacular, but at least it focuses on something specific to the tribe.

Chapter Four: Weaver Ascendant I'm going to start this one by saying that the forces of stasis win, a tech company dominates the world, and the Technocratic Union isn't mentioned once, and if that's not damning enough, I'll continue. Because a more aggressive aspect of the Weaver shows up, one that's been gaining power since the Industrial Revolution: the Machine. And YET, NO MENTION OF ITERATION X OR THE TECHNOCRACY AS A WHOLE. This should be a great crossover scenario, where the Garou have to figure out if the Traditions can be trusted and fight the Technocracy. Instead, we get a lackluster "end of magic in the world" story where the most interesting action is happening in the board rooms where Shinzui conquers Pentex. (including the Special Projects Division, where Pentex and the Syndicate crossover, seriously, this scenario NEEDS Mage to function, but excludes it, though other Weaver-Wins scenarios could avoid it.) The most interesting point in this is the potential alliance between Gaian Tribes and the Black Spiral Dancers, as the Wyrm isn't the biggest threat anymore. The Ananasi play a major role, and that is also interesting, but the scenario as a whole doesn't seem (pun intended) woven together very tightly. Though that problem only gets worse in the final scenario.

Chapter Five: Ragnarok This scenario makes no sense and only vaguely attempts to actually use all the things it introduces. Plot threads (such as the AI in Texas) get mentioned and then dropped, sections transition in incoherent ways that SHOULD indicate that they flow logically into each other but they really, really don't, and despite trying to bring physics into things, there's a startling lack of correct physics. This is a kitchen-sink scenario where they just throw everything they can think of in and hope for the best. For instance, there's a box on one page that takes up about 2/3 of the page about the Singularity and the AI in Texas, and then...nothing else happens with it at all. The scenario involves Rorg, planetary incarna of the asteroid belt, chucking an asteroid at the Earth and (hopefully, because it's game over otherwise) Luna taking the hit...and apparently breaking into pieces so that not only do the pieces of the asteroid hit Earth but ALSO pieces of Luna. And the way they describe the aftermath, it's still more-or-less a planet killer, which is not how a broken up asteroid would affect the world on impact. (It does not escape me that there are similarities with The Earth Will Shake from Ascension, and this aspect of Apocalypse could dovetail in nicely with that, making Werewolves and Mages have to work together to negotiate with the planetary courts)

The story just keeps throwing stuff out, so that before one thing can be absorbed, it's on to the next. Periodically picked up and dropped but never actually started is a subplot about a bunch of werewolves and kinfolk hiding in the Umbra until the dust thrown up by the impacts settles down, there's a little bit about an ark (though not named as such) that comes right out of left field, there's earthquakes and the ground splitting open in Wyrm runes, there's great dragons waking up to destroy everything, Zhyzhak and Albrecht fight (shoot her!), a lot of discussion of where to have the final battle and then suddenly talking about things like if the PCs missed it to cower in the Umbra (which is possible, but any ST whose players do that should tell them how disappointing they are). It then presents four endings: Wyld, Weaver, Wyrm and...Exalted. Though the "Exalted" ending as described looks literally nothing like Exalted, instead it looks like...Werewolf but with depressing low technology instead of depressing high technology. That's it.

Chapter Six: The Last Tales This final chapter is advice on how to run the end game. It's not all bad, but there's two things that really stuck out. One of them is the suggestion of surprising your players with the Apocalypse. The book is FOR this. I repeat, FOR it. This is a BAD IDEA and will likely create bad blood with players who aren't ready to finish off the game, by forcing it on them. I'm going to close this review with a quote from the book, and I invite everyone to, before they pick it up, ask them if they agree with it, because it strongly applies here:

"Even a badly thought out conclusion works better than no conclusion."



Rating:
[1 of 5 Stars!]
Apocalypse
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Werewolf: The Apocalypse 20th Anniversary Edition
Publisher: Onyx Path Publishing
by Charles S. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 06/17/2019 21:58:35

I'll preface this review by saying that I've not been particularly sympathetic to Werewolf in the past. But Werewolf 20th Anniversary Edition has been enough to intrigue me, and soon I'll be playing in a short Werewolf game to see if there's anything for me in it.

This book is very thorough, if not quite as massive as the book in the Mage series. It covers who the Garou are, their mythology, cosmology and society effectively right up front, before going into who an individual Garou is.

The two most interesting chapters, though, are the Spirit World, which explains how the Umbra is laid out and how Werewolves interact with it. The next is The Enemy, which cover Black Spiral Dancers (to more-or-less the same level of detail as the Gaian tribes), Fomori and other enemies. An honorable mention goes to the end of the chapter on Allies for giving spreads for the Lost Tribes and the Changing Breeds (who get more detail in the Changing Breeds book).

Overall, the book is solid, but it does have problems. There are a few layout errors (bolding the wrong text, etc), and it falls apart a bit when crossover is mentioned (my favorite page involves them trying to refer to the Zigg'rauglurr from Mage). And of course, a core problem for Werewolf: the game itself seems to be fairly pro-eugenics, and there's not really any way to separate that out.



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
Werewolf: The Apocalypse 20th Anniversary Edition
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Witches and Pagans
Publisher: White Wolf
by Charles S. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 06/09/2019 16:04:43

This book was exceedingly uneven.

The interstitial fiction was well-written, but throwing in the sort of epilogue "Winter" that didn't resolve the plot threads brought up earlier (except the blindness) was unsatisfying and anticlimactic.

The history section had good pieces, but it also 1) took the story of Lillith from ben Sirach like it was real and not just a satire (this is a pet peeve of mine, and it is unlikely that pagans in the 15th and 16th century would especially know this story, either, so making it a core part of their history is weird) 2) treats the Burning Times as a thing that actually happened, when the "witch burnings" were almost all about Christian Heretics, Jews and Muslims being murdered and 3) calling choosing Eloine to be on the First Cabal Lady Nightshade's greatest achievement is reallly strange because first off, it's picking a representative (as opposed to helping create the Council of Nine) and second, the First Cabal was a disaster!

The mechanical sections were generally ok, describing some rotes, some merits and flaws, some backgrounds and abilities. Nothing especially good, but solid.

The templates and the summary of Verbena (well, pagan, but mostly Verbena) magick in that era was quite good, overall.

So, probably worth picking up as "Traditionbook: Verbena (Sorcerer's Crusade Edition)" but take some things with a grain of salt, and don't be disappointed if things feel a bit flat.



Rating:
[3 of 5 Stars!]
Witches and Pagans
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Order of Reason
Publisher: White Wolf
by Charles S. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 06/04/2019 10:36:26

I wanted so badly to like this book.

I love Sorcerer's Crusade and Mage in general, I love the Technocracy/Order of Reason, and Brian Campbell has been involved in several of my favorite Mage supplements over the years. Unfortunately, this book is the worst book in the line that I've read (Sorcerer's Crusade, and the only one I haven't read yet is Witches and Pagans). In the end, this much needed book had some good ideas (I liked the breakdown of the various guilds, the interstitial fiction, and a few other things) but overall, it was a mess.

The primary problem is that the editor did a terrible, terrible job. The book was riddled with typos. I don't demand perfection, but the density was high and basic words had misspellings. Considering that the book was published in 2001, well after the advent of word processors and spell check, this is inexcusable. To be honest, though, I found the spelling errors to be annoying. What was worse than annoying were the other errors in the book. There were several references to the "nine Conventions" of the Order of Reason or to the "other eight Conventions." This is tough to have, considering that there are eight Conventions (and though the number varies over time, I don't believe there are ever more than eight, and certainly not on the Sorcerer's Crusade era). The book doesn't even manage consistency on material that originates in it: are there 13 or 14 Masters the rule the Order? Several times the number 13 is mentioned (it basically switches part way through the book) but earlier on describes 2 from each of 6 of the Conventions and then 1 from each of the remaining two. Finally, on the editing front, there is some inconsistent formatting: every single Convention gets a paragraph or two about who they are before launching into the guilds. Except, for some reason, the Artificers, who are first in the order!

Aside from the editing leaving much to be desired, the book is very inconsistent with the rest of the line. It feels like it was intended to be a standalone game with its own mechanics loosely based on Mage. But it can't be that, it's a supplement for the Sorcerer's Crusade line, and one of the later ones, so it needs to be consistent with what came before, at least setting-wise, or else it's providing a system update (perhaps to Revised, which had come out, but these rules are very much not Revised). The book likes to hand out "reroll 10s" like it was a Chronicles of Darkness game, as just a small boost with no other consequences. But it's doing so on rolls that it's normally extremely difficult to get to reroll 10s on, like Arete/Enlightenment rolls. The biggest one, though, is that it states, definitively, that Daedaleans with Arete up to three can't use vain Science. This directly contradicts the Artificer's Handbook and the Swashbuckler's Handbook. It also leans heavily on the idea of characters doing magick intuitively, without meaning to do anything at all, which flies in the face of Mage's conceit that magick is an expression of Will. Sorcerer's Crusade is a bit looser about the ST just declaring a character is doing magick without the player saying so, but still, this took things to a rather different degree.

Overall, this book was bad. I wanted to like it so much, and the parts in it that are good are great. But it BADLY needed a better editor, and perhaps a little bit more pre-writing work to make it feel more like it fits with the rest of the line.



Rating:
[2 of 5 Stars!]
Order of Reason
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The Swashbuckler's Handbook
Publisher: White Wolf
by Charles S. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 05/31/2019 22:27:53

I'm not quite sure what I was expecting (maybe a more action oriented book) but what I read wasn't it, and it was great. This book reads more like The Courtier's Handbook and because of that it's SO much more useful than the book I was expecting.

It contains a primer on the royal courts of Europe (and to a lesser extent Africa and Asia), and the people and Mages you might encounter there. Best of all, in the middle, it turned into a de facto High Guild Convention Book (with a dash of Ksirafai Convention Book) talking about subguilds and characters important not just to the High Guild but the entire Order of Reason and the Technocratic Union also.

The mechanical parts (rotes, wonders, abilities, merits and flaws, stunts, weapons etc) added a lot of flavor and make it a lot clearer how to run a character in the high paced world of court intrigue and Three Musketeers (any version) heroics.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
The Swashbuckler's Handbook
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Sorcerers Crusade Companion
Publisher: White Wolf
by Charles S. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 05/28/2019 15:01:24

This is the weakest book in the Sorcerer's Crusade line, in many ways. Much of it is devoted to general knowledge about the Renaissance. Unfortunately, much of this is factually incorrect, long-debunked claims, for instance, a failure to understand that a Life Expectancy at Birth that's low doesn't mean that most people who grow to adulthood don't make it to 40 (factoring out child and infant mortality, the number for aristocrats in England hits about 70 during this time period, which suggests that even peasants can expect to see their late 40s or 50s if they make it to adulthood). There was also a tendency to treat Europe as a coherent whole, rather than a mess of conflicting norms from different groups. Venice and London in 1500 are wildly different places, as is Seville, and Byzantium in 1452 and 1454 were nearly unrecognizable to one another (the Ottoman conquest was 1453).

I can't comment much on how sensitive portrayals of other outsider groups were, but the Jewish craft, the Lions of Zion, is clearly well-meaning, if entirely awkward in construction. Though I am not a fan, particularly of the name (why would 15th-16th century Jewish mystics in Israel have a name that rhymes in English?) they're presented in a way that is harmless enough, and with a cautioning towards the misuse of Kabbalah.

Overall, there are good things in the book, but on balance it comes off as mediocre, which is damning in a line that is otherwise so good.



Rating:
[3 of 5 Stars!]
Sorcerers Crusade Companion
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Artisans Handbook
Publisher: White Wolf
by Charles S. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 05/17/2019 00:19:59

A solid entry in the Sorcerer's Crusade line, in some sense it can act as the Iteration -1 sourcebook. It focuses on the High Artisans, but contains a lot of content for the Craftmasons as well. In general, it's about the wonder-makers of the Renaissance, and more specifically the inventors and craftsmen who focus on less mystical techniques. The running fiction is some of the better work in the line, with a young woman apprenticing with a High Artisan and learning the craft and about the world. Though I would prefer more detail on several things, it appears that much of that went into the future Order of Reason book, and those things that were detailed were done quite well. All in all, a strong addition to the line.



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
Artisans Handbook
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Infernalism: The Path of Screams
Publisher: White Wolf
by Charles S. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 05/13/2019 22:22:56

The book opens with a very strong piece of short fiction, a testament by one of the Fallen in a dungeon about to be executed. They gloat over their crimes and then escape, to go commit new ones. It's well written and tightly set, and quite evocative, setting the tone for the book as a whole quite nicely.

Chapter I includes a general overview of the beliefs of Infernalists and how they relate to the more mainstream beliefs of the time. The creation story is strong, and, as intended, tempting to go along with before you think it through, as such a thing must be to make those who DO go along with it compelling. The chapter does have a few problems, mostly around inconsistencies. Not inconsistencies in the in-world material, but some of the text and the sidebars contradict each other about real world beliefs! For instance, the (very Christian, and if I recall correctly, Catholic and Protestant, not Orthodox Christian) view of Satan/Lucifer is given as belonging to Judaism, Christianity and Islam, whereas a sidebar (correctly) points out that Satan in Judaism doesn't work like that. Similar issues occur with mentions of hell: at first they're attributed to the religions of the Book, even by name, but then a sidebar or later bit of text clarifies that hell is a thing in Christianity and Islam, but not Judaism.

Chapter II starts a problem throughout the book that can be laid at the feet of layout, rather than the author: the chapter titles are wrong! The headers on individual pages are correct, but Chapter II is correctly "The Devil's Own" but listed as "The Order of Reason" right at the beginning. It describes how one becomes an Infernalist and what the Path of Screams consists of, often drawing parallels with the right-handed Path of Thorns occasionally referred to in the core books (and which refers to Ascension). It gives many examples of character archetypes for Infernalists and then some special ones, including Jodilynn Blake, who continues to show up in the modern nights of the game line.

Chapter III is again mislabeled on its title page (it would be really nice if they took the opportunity of PDF publishing to fix that) but is about the Ars Maleficarum. It covers the powers that demons can bestow onto their mortal playthings, merits, flaws, rotes and wonders. It closes with a discussion of various Infernal cults, including the Nephandi who are less all-encompassing in the Dark Fantastick than in the modern World of Darkness

The final chapter covers infernal beings other than Infernalists. Creatures possessed by demons, demons who have been summoned, some as unique individuals and some as archetypes. The appendix continues, listing infernal beings whose power is effectively limited only by the ST's desires, beings that the Infernalist likely never meets, but pays homage to.

Overall, the book is extremely well put-together, describing how Infernalists think and act without making any of it seem attractive or like a good idea, even for a PC. The inaccuracies about real world beliefs seem to be contained to a small corner of Chapter I, and even then, most of them are corrected in other places within that chapter. This book is a must have for any Mage ST, especially any who are looking to run things set in the Renaissance or those looking for a more in-depth approach to handling the Fallen, in a page count that even the two versions of the Book of Madness can't match (given that they have other things to discuss).



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
Infernalism: The Path of Screams
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Crusade Lore
Publisher: White Wolf
by Charles S. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 05/09/2019 04:00:20

This book is something of a mixed bag. The first chapter has virtually no mechanics, but is a mostly-good primer on the world of Renaissance Europe. Unfortunately, the authors fell victim to several popular misconceptions about the era, which brings other aspects of their research into question. (I am primarily thinking of the claim that even to the educated, the world was believed to be flat in the Renaissance, which it was not.)

Chapter 2 is very crunchy, mostly consisting of new abilities and merits that player characters can take. This section is solid, though some merits and flaws seemed to be added to fill space rather than for anything meaningful (for instance, a merit that means you are from an Awakened family and get an additional dot of Occult or Lore costs...2 points, the same as just buying a dot of occult or lore and saying that this was part of your backstory.)

Chapter 3 covers the other night folk, and is an interesting look at the supernatural world through the eyes of Mages of the Renaissance.



Rating:
[3 of 5 Stars!]
Crusade Lore
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Tradition Book: Cult of Ecstasy (1st)
Publisher: White Wolf
by Charles S. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 05/06/2019 01:55:34

A solid book, covering the Cult of Ecstasy as of Mage 2nd Edition. It adds a lot of depth to the sketch of the Tradition that appears in the core book, proving that there's more than just mindless hedonism to them. The rotes included are creative and flavorful, and the factions show a diverse range of philosophies within the Cult.

The biggest complaint I have, and this is more personal taste than anything, is that I prefer when historical figures aren't assigned specific roles, and in this book, a huge slate of figures are claimed by the Cult, and from recent history. This list includes Isidore Duncan, Rasputin, Aleister Crowley and Jim Morrison (and makes a slight joke of "everyone is in the Cult" by mentioning that Keith Richards is NOT).



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
Tradition Book: Cult of Ecstasy (1st)
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Tradition Book: Sons of Ether (1st)
Publisher: White Wolf
by Charles S. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 05/04/2019 20:10:48

This is one of the best put together Mage books. Set up as though a special issue of the Paradigma journal, the in-universe journal used by Etherites to share their work, it's laid out similarly to other Tradition books within that format, but the details are what makes it special. Every bit of text which is in character is directly attributed to a specific character, several of whom exist across the Mage line, though most appear exactly once.

The only disappointing bit is, for all that Matter is spoken of as the central Sphere for the Etherites, none of the rotes in the book are Matter rotes! But this is a minor issue, compared to such great bits of flavor as the tales of Czar Vargo and of Doc Eon, of the brief appearance by Dame Atomika declaring herself an Electrodyne Diva and the discussions of Etherspace, the Gernsback Continuum and more. For how short it is, it's really packed with good, useful things.

A small caveat, as of the time of this writing, the scan available on DriveThruRPG and Storyteller's Vault has an error, skipping pages and with badly scanned pages in the teens. Otherwise, though, it is fine, and the version of Traditions Gathered 1 is complete.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
Tradition Book: Sons of Ether (1st)
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Digital Web
Publisher: White Wolf
by Charles S. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 05/02/2019 16:29:20

This book is far less dated that it appears at first glance. Though the numbers and capabilities of computers have changed drastically, they are also the easiest thing to update. The book is quite imaginative about how Mages would make use of the Internet and includes two stories that can be run, both of which are fairly good and detailed (which is not always true in Mage supplements).

However, the book is far from perfect. It gives only the sketchiest idea of what it looks/feels like to be IN the Digital Web, and a lot of what it says is painfully dated: though changing megabytes to terabytes is easy, changing from assuming most computers are running MS-DOS to the GUIs that are ubiquitous today takes quite a bit more work. Still, it is a snapshot of a moment in time, and it is not difficult to see why there was a need to update it.



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
Digital Web
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Beyond the Barriers: The Book of Worlds
Publisher: White Wolf
by Charles S. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 03/19/2019 03:11:53

Book of Worlds has many things that I disagree with in it, some of which were changed by Infinite Tapestry, some of which I just think go against the themes of Mage that I prefer. Overall, though, it's a solid book, and has a lot to offer in its tour of the Otherworlds.

One thing I wasn't a fan of was the experiment of separating the mechanics from the flavor. Having the entire book written in character was a mixed bag, but worked for what they were trying to do. But not including sidebars with mechanics and relegating them to the appendix will make it a lot harder to find things in it later.



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
Beyond the Barriers: The Book of Worlds
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