I have only one problem with this book and I see many say the same: too preachy about "Evil". We get it, bad guys bad, darkness bad, White Wolf's fundamental misunderstanding of the Jungian concept of the Shadow Bad. But for the love of [insert higher power here] don't write a whole book on the bad guys including rules for playing them (good rules no less) and then go on and on about how you should not play them. You are not the boss of me book!

I've tried to read this book a few times but if I'm honest it's just tedious. I'm running a mage chronicle, I really don't need an eternal essay on the nature of evil. The Nephandi, while not being treated as disposable saturday-morning-cartoon villains, really don't need the (real-world-ish) philosophical depth that this book has and wading through it to get to interesting things I can build a chronicle around is tiresome.

Don't get me wrong, I love the depth of White Wolf products, I absolutely want backstory and reasoning behind what antagonists do, no matter how twisted. But the sort of philosophical depth that this book uses pages on, stuff that doesn't really relate exclusively to the Nephandi, should be a bog post by the author, not take up a huge amount of space in a gaming aid that I need to use as much as a reference document as I do entertainment.

That said the book IS high quality, I don't regret the purchase, but wading through it is work that I really don't want to do.

I am really struggling with this book.

Nephandi are potentially the ultimate antagonists of not only Mage but the WoD as a whole. They have always existed as a sinister promise of unapologetic villains fully conscious of their atrocities because of their fundamental belief that the ultimate power over reality is manifested in the ability to destroy it. Not simply worshippers of demons or the beings of the outer void, but calling upon them to use them as tools in their ultimate assault on the Tellurian's very existence.

Mostly that is what they have not been portrayed as in the past. Rather they often appeared a strange blend of rejected torture porn movie scripts mixed with the edgy esthetics of industrial power noise, or as gibbering servants of demonic powers.

I have always missed something deeper. A metaphysical framework that explains why the Nephandi truly embrace destruction to that degree and why they believe in what they do. This book finally offers some insight into that ... and then it truly misses the mark.

In the past - particularly in Path of Screams and Dead Magic - there was always a strong implication that the metaphysical roots of the Nephandi lie in ancient Mesopotamia where some felt the notion of primordial chaos beckon to them, and while priests were looking for messages from the gods in the stars, they looked for answers in the much vaster void between them.

Now Nephandi metaphysics are suddenly based essentially on the kabbalistic equivalent of black magic. How did that happen? How did they develop that paradigm? In the day and age where Path of Screams is set, I would have settled for a Jewish version of Infernalists seeking power by taking "the left hand path" of a mystic tradition they grew up with, but not as the exemplars of destruction beyond mere evil that they should be. The Nephandi also existed back in those days, but were a largely obscure sect steeped in dark mystery, mostly sneering at the Infernalists for their naivite. By the 21st century they have seemingly all signed on for "evil kabbalism" being the ultimate truth behind the universe's unmaking. We don't get to know how and why that happened because this book does not include a history section which would tell us how that paradigm developed.

Rather it spends a lot of time - and space - to repeatedly explain the psychological mechanisms of abuse and deliver personal commentary of the author that will probably not age very well.

It does - however - provide some very interesting abstractions of the Nephandi paradigm that gave me a lot of food for thought on how to construct the belief system of such an extreme villain for my games, but that requires a lot of reading between the lines. If the whole chapter would have explained it in terms of the Black Diamond or the Primordial Chaos or the Dark Godhead instead of a specific existing mystical tradition, I would have appreciated it so much more.

I liked the new factions and could quickly imagine how someone could be drawn to either and start their descent. Even the old factions were re-written in a way that made them appear somewhat less silly or self-defeating. Many of the rotes and character traits give a useful isight into how Nephandi function "mechanically". I don't have a problem with the character traits being given stats, and I don't see it as an invitation to make Nephandi player characters (nobody in their right mind ever should) but as guideline for the storyteller on how to construct an NPC. Granted, you don't need to know points costs for character creation then and it was unnecessary to include them and thereby start such a controversy in the first place. Just as unnecessary as deciding that the Nephandi are now "evil kabbalists".

I had hoped for more. The book offers much that finally makes the Nephandi more than simply the Mage version of Werewolf's diverse Wyrm servitors. It got close but then tripped over its own feet on the race to the finish line.

Honestly, I found it it to be a great exploration into what I find to be the 'real villains of Mage'. I expands into Nephandic lore, adding good additions of types of Nephandi to plauge the modern era, my favorite example being the Heralds of the Basilisk. While some complaints on the use of an inverted Kabbalah are valid, I see it as another in universe example of Nephandi 'corrupting that which is good', at least that's my opinion. The fact the it presents the Nephandi as the worst humans can offer and adding the Ascension War really makes one think it they are the true antagonists of the WoD metaplot as a whole.

I have a lot of mixed opinions on this book. My largest complaint is it had an entire chapter describing how all Nephandi are bound by a certain type of Jewish mysticism after saying that it wasn't antisemetic. The treatment of system effects on a number of rotes wasn't consistent with the M20 Core book. A lot of it felt like a love letter to playing a Nephandi mixed with lots of notes to not actually do so.

it had a great deal of updating older concepts from the Books of Maddness, which I appreciated, and if some of the elements had been edited out it would have been a much stronger and more useful release. Still, 2/3rds of it is worth reading.

Charles Siegel has a much more in depth review here. I agree with his opinions essentially.

I'll start with the posivite : the new nephandic factions and the npcs are a good inspiration for a game of M:tA.

Sadly, the ggod stuff is drowned by various superflous matter. First, SO MANY CONTENT WARNING. Seriously, he author do not trust its readers. Also, with so many content warning, the "dark" stuff seems almost tame, like a bad horror movie. The author is also quite patronising, using a game supplement to publish an essay on his values and his worldview.
Second, the desciption of the Nephandi esclusively based on somekind of "being a predator is the true evil", without any other conception of evil. This make the Nephandi quite one-dimensional. Also, the author really like its onw bizarro cosmology, binding the ST into some kind of "qiloppoth or nothing" approach to nephandic magic. Third, for a book that repeat that this is not a player book, all the in-game options are very "player-friendly". No real "antagonist" options. Now, I know that this is a stapple of the various WOD books, but the fact that the author do not really want to give ST options to how to use nephandi (because : "don't harm your player, be kind, think of your players sensibility" - see first point), the book give a wreid "player's guide to the Fallen" feels. So, the author did not wanted to write the book, make it unreadable, push its own ideology. Go buy the original Book of Madness, or the Book of Madness Revised or Infernalism : path of scream.

This review is based on the backer copy of Book of the Fallen. As such, it will ignore minor issues likely to be corrected, such as spelling and grammar or incorrect sphere ratings, and will instead focus on broader themes and things sufficiently interwoven that they cannot be changed in any significant way.

It is with a heavy heart that I say that this book is a failure. It is far from Brucato's best writing and though he warned people it would be offensive, the implication was that the offense would be at the actions of the Nephandi, not at the writing's implications. Unfortunately, rather than taking a route wherein the Nephandi are described as antisemitic and incorrect, or that there are many many ways that things can be views, this book took the route that the Nephandic paradigm relies on Jewish mysticism, that that mysticism has objective truth, and, in the light of other books, that this malevolent version of Kabbalah is the only objective truth in Reality. More details on the problem will appear below.

Let's start with the content warning. This is a good thing, though the "we handle such subject matter with maturity and sensitivity" applies certainly only to non-Jews, and not necessarily to all of them, but I can't speak on traditions that I don't know. It also overstates somewhat how graphic the whole thing is. While it does describe the atrocities involved, it's often at a higher level, avoiding truly graphic descriptions, which is good.

This section starts by asserting that this isn't a Player's Guide to the Nephandi. That is wildly incorrect, as this book can hardly be interpreted as anything BUT a player's guide. Many of the things that follow are fundamentally unnecessary unless stories are told from a Nephandic point of view, in which case they are players. For one simple example, non-Nephandic PCs will never once see what a Nephandic Seeking is like, and so describing them is not necessary if this isn't a player's guide.

The rest of the section, though, describes some real-world encounters with evil that Brucato has had, and is easily one of the strongest, and most graphic and difficult to read (due to the intended effects, at least) sections of the book.

This is one of the best chapters of the book. It contextualizes Nephandi as abusers and as ultimately selfish, as opposed to the Traditions, Technocracy or Crafts who, though they have selfish elements, in theory strive towards some common good for some group of people. However, the first sign that worried me about the content was in the Lexicon section. I expected "qlippothic" and "qlippoth" or the like, as those have been attached to the Nephandi from the beginning, but the sheer number of Hebrew terms worried me, with terms like Daath (more commonly da'at in modern transliteration) and the Tree of Knowledge with the ten qlippoth associated with it (rather than just being a term used to refer to the Spheres, marking Nephandic methods as "empty/dead shells"). At best this paints the Nephandi as basically all being Hermetics, but at worst (and it was at least somewhat worse) it paints them as Jewish, and the last thing the world needs is a game book that identifies world-destroying levels of selfishness, greed and evil with Jews.

This is one of the stronger chapters. It is an in-character chapter, which means that errors of the authors can easily be attributed to the speaker, and nothing said is 100% certain, especially as it is coming from the mouth of a Nephandus. So, it's much, much more forgiving of other problems, but oddly, this chapter avoids much of the worst of it. The narrator attempts to sell the Nephandic worldview to the reader, and does a decent job of it, but a careful reader will see the cracks in the arguments, the areas where the speaker is ignorant but pretending knowledge, but it does require that that attention is given. I strongly suspect that this was somehow both the easiest and hardest chapter to write: easiest because it flows, it's a rant, a manifesto, and the reader can believe that this is just a lecture some evil bastard is giving. The hardest because it would really require inhabiting the mind of the speaker to make it flow like that, and this effort is appreciated and impressive

The sidebars point out weaknesses in the arguments, reminding the reader that the Nephandi can't be trusted. The argument starts with "The world is awful" and continues with "We are beyond morality." It also explains the Nephandic view of Descent, as becoming one with the Absolute, either through the annihilation of Reality or through becoming an embodiment of it and the god of their own universe. One fun piece of irony here is that for such a selfish world view, the ending of the path involves the ultimate negation of the self, either actual nonexistence or transformation into something fully unrecognizable as the original being.

The two takeaways here are the Lex Praedatorius, or the Law of Predation, which is the backbone of the Nephandic worldview, and sums up to "kill or be killed" in many ways. The speaker builds it up as this profound truth when the reader should be able to see that it's an empty statement of someone who has given up on humanity, and the laziest of philosophical points. The continued "It sounds good on the surface but doesn't stand up to scrutiny" facet of the Nephandic worldview is great and mimics the fact that they can be tempting and offer power, but it's a poison that hollows out the tempted.

For all the issues I have with Jewish mysticism and beliefs being brought into this book, the Leviathan aspect here doesn't bother me. The Nephandus is speaking in-character, for one thing, and for another, Leviathan is mostly as described: it's a giant sea monster that is promised to be slaughtered and served at the end of time. From there, it departs strongly, but the core is used correctly, even if the Nephandus is putting a particular spin on things, as a Nephandus would.

Unfortunately, we get more "Daath" mentioned in the sidebar about Cauls. We'll get into that more in Chapter Four.

The opening fiction of this chapter is bad. For all the mentions of "avoid cartoon evil" it's downright cartoonish to describe some random people (who we know nothing of their paradigm and scant little about their motivation) butchering others in a way that allows them to put their eyes in a bag but somehow they still see out of them and are grinning after being cut to pieces while still alive. Aside from being gratuitous, it requires such over-the-top effort to even attempt this in the setting that it really comes off as trying too hard. I found myself rolling my eyes more than being horrified.

This chapter continues from Chapter 1, but here, as in the rest of the book, the tone of an objective game book is taken rather than an in-character tone. This is important, as the issues that come up would be bad but less so if they came from a specific character, rather than the authors of the book. It starts with talking about how to the Nephandi, Light is the problem and Darkness was already extant before it was injured by the Light, and then proceeds with some ruminations on the nature of evil and the various sorts of evil in the world. One sidebar is the first (of far too many) mention of Jung in the book, and, for those who are even slightly up to date on psychology, it's well-known that Jungian archetypes are pretty much considered pseudoscientific nonsense in the modern world, taken as seriously by psychologist as the Zodiac is by astronomers. This comes back in Chapter Four (you'll hear problems "come back in Chapter Four" many times in this review) but we don't address it again except to say that this concept of Jung's is not actually particularly coherent, is obsolete, to be generous, and is overused in this book when other, more accurate descriptions of psychology would do the trick.

A side issue, the discussion of Sociopathy, Narcissism, Psychopathy, and the Fallen is ok for establishing how terms are used in the book and acknowledges that their usage isn't perfect. It's an ok sidebar, but it always seems strange when a sidebar is a page and a half long, and that it should have been more smoothly integrated into the text somehow or edited down substantially.

The chapter next dwells on Descent, again, reiterating and expanding on what was in Chapter One. (Honestly, Chapter One is the most useful chapter in the book and could easily be used while ignoring the rest of it and taking it as a viewpoint among the Fallen.) Here is really where the discussion of the qlippoth goes downhill and starts bringing in the Tree of Knowledge in ways that are frankly bizarre and antithetical to the real source material for it, but which is treated as an accurate description of that material by the book, with nary a sidebar in sight to say "This is a Nephandic interpretation of a real-world belief system, and contains many inaccuracies" or the like. Aside from this, which is mostly ignorable, the section is a good expansion of the discussion in Chapter One.

Next, we get a description of the path of Descent, and it dwells a bit more on the qlippoth. Here's the closest to a disclaimer: "Although the modern concept of this reputed Tree of Knowledge comes from heretical applications of medieval Jewish mysticism (as well as from later occult practitioners who claimed the concept without being themselves Jewish)" however, it goes on to say that these things have reality. It does suggest that this is because occultists poured energy into the concepts, but if that were the case, then truly divergent interpretations of whatever is underlying this would have to be included, instead of making Nephandi Evil Hermetics and/or Jews. After this is a bit more discussion, mostly good.

Nephandic "awakening" is discussed, both in the sense of walking into the Cauls and turning barabbus. Interestingly, this book suggests much more strongly than either Book of Madness that widderslaintes, those born with Avatars that had gone through the Cauls in a previous life, are not automatically Nephandi, but must enter the Cauls themselves, and can turn away from the path, though with difficulty. As for barabbi, it gives reasons for members of literally every group in the world of Mage to turn. Next, Nephandic avatars are discussed, with nearly random and unnecessary mention of Daath, and the Fallen interpretation of the Avatar Essences are fine inasmuch as they don't discuss the qlippothic realms (again, more in Chapter Four on these).

The chapter closes with a frank discussion of abuse tactics that's quite strong, and clearly owes much to Bancroft's excellent "Why Does He Do That?"

The opening of this chapter shows that the authors have done their homework, referencing Nick Land's execrable "The Dark Enlightenment" manifesto, and then proceeds with some non-cartoon evil, as it involves completely believable levels of brutality from mercenary companies.

The main thrust of this chapter is Nephandic factions, and so the review will be brief. Most of the factions are quite solid, though some involve interesting changes from the previous manifestations (for one thing, the K'llashaa seem less likely to just die horribly a week after joining than they used to). Jodi Blake makes her only appearance in the book as a famous Infernalist who seems to have turned away from Descent (which might make her an Inverted Oracle? The term Oracle has changed meaning a few times, after all.) Of the classical three faction, the only one that I take real issue with are the Malfeans, who now specifically are tied to the Wyrm, rather than to abstract representations of destruction and decay, which I feel is much stronger. Then again, I am also one of the people who prefer to keep Werewolf cosmology out of Mage and force it to be subject to the same "reality is subjective" rules as other things, which is quite hard to do in many cases.

The new groups are in general quite good, though I'm disappointed in the writeup for the Heralds of Basilisk. For one, here is one of the places where the Fallen start to take on Villain Sue properties, where they seem to be better than everyone else at their specialties (leading me to question how they haven't won yet with that and with millions of unsuspecting people doing their bidding every day. Reality should have ended by now) but also it would be substantially stronger with a more accurate description of both what a "basilisk" is in this context and what Roko's Basilisk, the one referenced, actually is, which is quite different from the "What if a godlike Artificial Intelligence was to come into existence, and it was evil?" description in the sections.

To put it simply, a "basilisk" is any concept that will cause you harm by just being made aware of it ("you look at it and it hurts you"). Roko's Basilisk is an argument popular in certain circles (which has many flaws but that's not the point here) that is a godlike artificial intelligence ever comes into existence, even if it is benevolent and trying to minimize suffering, then it will STILL have an incentive to torture people alive now in extreme ways (essentially creating hell) in order to encourage modern humans to work hard to bring it into existence, so that it can alleviate far more suffering that it causes. This fits better with the Nephandic "existence is pain, nothing we can do can stop it, except ending it all" ethos visible throughout this book (and in several Final Fantasy villains). It's fundamentally an argument that even a benevolent god will not remove all suffering but instead will inflict immense amounts of it.

Aside from the HOBs and a bit with the Malfeans, though, the factions in this section are well thought-out and coherent and will make good antagonists for many games.

And now, we've reached the shitshow.

The lesser problem with this chapter is that there is SO MUCH JUNG. I explained why Jung is not a good basis above, so I won't reiterate it, but there's just a lot of it, starting with the opening quote.

So, onto the cultural stuff that is the true nightmare of this book. It starts with a brief sidebar acknowledging that they used real-world beliefs here, and then acknowledge that you don’t really need this chapter to run a game. So, this chapter is something that could be cut, that the players will never see unless PC Nephandi are permitted, and yet, it wasn’t cut. Honestly, before the section “The Qlippoth: Plumbing the Nightside” it’s mostly a lot of “some mages use dark practices without being Fallen” and “Carl Jung said” sorts of things, but this section is really where I want to focus my energy.

From the beginning, it treats the qlippoth as worlds that are truly believed to exist by large fractions of mages. For one thing, no non-Kabbalist believes much of anything about qlippoth, because non-Kabbalists don’t even know the word in any real way. We also get a bit more of the “everyone knows a little, but the Nephandi understand this is a deeper way than anyone else” suggestions that 1) they have objective reality and 2) the Nephandi are the best.

It’s really hard to focus on any specific errors, bizarre statements or disrespectful treatment of these concepts because the entire chapter is almost nothing but that. It does truly introduce objective reality into Mage: the Qlippoth are real and meaningful, which implies the Sephirot are, which implies that the Kabbalistic paradigm is true. “In Mage terms, the Qlippoth is essential to the Nephandic Path. Even if a Fallen mage does not herself believe in Kabbalah or view her Path through such occult philosophies, the essence of these forbidden shells forms an intrinsic element of her journey from Awakening to Descent.” There is also discussion of Nephandic Seekings, again, something that is fully unnecessary unless stories are being told from the point of view of Nephandi, and as something that is supposedly not a player’s guide to Nephandi, the inclusion of so many such things is suspect. It includes what sorts of things the Nephandus will learn from each of the Qlippoth.

There is a sidebar titled “Metaphysical Canon” which I reproduce here that disputes all of this, but with the quotes above, it’s quite clear that this sidebar has no bite, especially given that a staggering 15 pages or almost 7% of the entire text, is devoted just to this section describing the Qlippoth as the foundation of the Fallen in terms of Jewish mysticism, i.e., the Kabbalah.

> Does this section mean that Mage’s world ultimately follows mystic Jewish monotheism, with all the requisite demons and myths? No. Metaphysics are never a one-size-fits-all proposition, especially not in a game world where subjective reality is the foundation of the game. Although the Qlippoth emanations do exist in a metaphysical sense, at least as far as the Fallen are concerned, they can be viewed through any number of philosophical lenses, most of which — like some divine kaleidoscope, shift and change depending on who’s looking at them and from which perspective. This section explores a small slice of the Qlippoth as Fallen mages see it. The ultimate reality is, as always in Mage, elusive and unique. Every Mage player or Storyteller will view these elements differently. The ultimate reality is yours, not ours, to decide.

The book then spends less than one full page on the qlippothic spheres, pointing out that the main difference between the standard ones and these is intent, and then we’re on to “Daath and the Cauls” and the Qlippothic Domains. It continues to treat Daath (da’at) oddly, and almost wholly in a negative way, which is very much not how it is perceived by actual Kabbalists, but then, the Tree of Knowledge is entirely different than the thing that this book describes as though it could be identified with it.

The book goes on to describe this Tree of Knowledge as consisting of 10 realms, one for each of the qlippoth, connected by tunnels which would correspond to the paths in the Tree of Life. This again cements the Tree as derived from Jewish mysticism as being a real and objective part of Reality. Rather than describe how bad the descriptions of the qlippothic realms are compared to what Jewish mysticism suggest they should be, in the description of Thagirion, this appears as one of the rulers of the Realm (and remember, this is JEWISH mysticism that is being drawn from, in theory): “Sorath, the Sun Demon, “the Adversary of the Lamb” and an embodiment of human wickedness and opposition to the Christ-self”

Finally, we finish Chapter Four with a discussion of the Black Diamond and can move on.

This chapter focuses on game mechanics to handle Nephandic characters (totally not a player’s guide) including merits and flaws, infernal investments (mostly for their cultists), rotes and wonders. While some of them look like they’d be fun (Qlippothic Radiance would lend itself to great flashy climactic scenes where the Nephandi has been hidden for the rest of the story) they do largely feel like they’re balanced for players. After all, they have normal freebie point costs associated with them. This is more jarring because Wonders in this chapter are not given costs (despite the costs being relatively simple to calculate from the mechanics) to discourage player characters from having them.

The Infernal Investments are basically completely unbalanced. In some cases, they are entirely broken. As an example, “Object of Affection” is a 7-point pact, which does make it quite costly. However, it’s also a win button for an unscrupulous (as all of them are) Nephandus with a cult that they can force to commit crimes and make pacts. The person who gets it picks another person, and now that person “loves” them. Though it is mentioned that magick and faith could both break the control, there’s no resistance possible. So, any Nephandus with a decent cult and a cabal after them should just force their cult to bond the mages of that cabal in this way, and problem solved. Though the book does indicate not to do this to PCs (under the “violations of the character without player consent are super bad” discussions) this falls into that category of “powers that break the setting if they’re actually available” even if it never appears in a game. That said, “Regeneration” as a 9-point investment seems overprices for what it is, being considerably weaker than many of the lower level investments.

The next section is on Focus for Nephandi, Paradigm, Practice and Instrument, as well as higher level organizing principles. It falls into the trap of mistaking a rabbinical SATIRE as a rabbinical legend, claiming “In all forms, Lilithianism reveres the First Woman who — according to rabbinical legend — was created equal to Adam, refused to be his inferior, rebelled against God’s dominion” which is an oft repeated error (and indicates a lack of research, as the Alphabet of ben Sirach is not subtle about being a satire, for instance it is full of masturbation puns and fart jokes).

The paradigms themselves are mostly fine, though nothing terribly out of the ordinary and several of them (as well as practices) are just evil versions of things that exist, and I question whether they really need to be separated out. Is Infernal Science that is science plus evil really different enough from Hypertech to deserve a separate discussion? Would it not have been more useful to go through the already existing paradigms and practices and explain, in brief, how they get twisted by Nephandi?

The most interesting bit of this section is the part on hypersigils and egregores, which actually adds something to the game.

The rotes in the next section are badly over-written, to the point where clarity is lost. Each entry should be cut by almost 50%, for example, we have 75% of a page on “Beautify or Deform” which amounts to “Better Body” but evil, and Better Body is well enough understood that it’s been in Mage since 1e. On the other hand, the rotes are flavorful, but much of that flavor would come out better with shorter, more tightly written descriptions.

Finally, we get to evil books and wonders. Though I’ve heard others complain about full pages on books that don’t really exist, that doesn’t bother me. While I do think many of these entries needed editing, it’s more that the prose got a bit purple in this section than due to length. If there had been more editing but then more content, that would have been excellent. In fact, this would be a great place for in-character writing, with “quotes” from the books that could be found, and those can get as purple as desired. After books come the wonders, which aren’t given costs in order to discourage player use, which as I said, left me unimpressed. This section really dragged, and I found myself unable to focus on many of them, but among the wonders are big-ass swords, slave collars, a whip that causes its target to be unable to use a safe word in BDSM (and thus useless outside of sexualized roleplay with a Nephandus, something few groups are likely to engage in) and a few others.

This chapter feels to me like it should have been combined with Chapter Three. It’s got a lot of good things in it, and both of them involve factions and examples. Here, it starts with cults and other Nephandus-led but mostly Sleeper groups, including evil clothing companies, a shoe company that’s a front for online harassment, an evil nightclub, and an organization for corrupt cops, each with a template attached to it.

It moves on to less mundane allies of the Nephandi, such as evil spirits, companions, familiars and a bit on fomori. It covers some basic goetic demons, and honestly gets a bit immature and trivializes them somewhat, especially with Stolas, whose description includes “He’s a demonic owl with a fucking crown, and thus he’s cooler than you will ever be.” The memetic entities section covers Baphomet, the Basilisk (which I discussed above) and “Zagglaaw” who is recognizable to the Creepypasta crowd as an analogue of Zalgo. And then there’s three Paradox spirits (called nightmares) that tend to torment the Fallen. The true heroes of the book.

The most interesting section is the “Fallen Magi” section, and of all the pieces, this is the one that belongs in Chapter 3 the most. Some of them are useful and have clear horror movie inspirations (the Caller), while others (like Garrick Browne) barely hang together as a character concept and definitely needed rewrites (or could have been cobbled together from multiple versions of the character or multiple characters). Jane Daugherty is one of the more interesting Nephandi, being a K’llashaa who manages regular human contact without being caught, and the Reids are quite interesting, and left me wondering if they had any tie to Charles Reid from Technocracy: Progenitors, though the surname is likely random, there aren’t that many name collisions that are coincidental in the World of Darkness.

Aaaaaand, this chapter is the player’s guide. It says it isn’t, but it is, and cements that impression of the book as a whole. It starts out strongly with a description of the cycle of violence and different sorts of abuse, it talks about how children can’t abuse adults (though in the discussion of why no Widderslainte children, it only mentions that but ignores the possibility of children abusing other children).

Finally, instead of at the beginning, a brief recommended reading section happens, specifically on recovery from abuse with 8 references. This sidebar is far too small, and the lack of a more in-depth section for other resources both on portraying and recovering from abuse is a serious flaw in this book. It is also right in a section on ST and Player responsibilities for playing with these themes safely.

And then, the book gives up pretense with a section “Nephandi as Protagonists” though it does protest a bit “We warned you” rather than avoiding making a player’s guide. It has a few hints and tips, a bunch of questions that the players should ask about their characters and then it asks if Nephandi can be redeemed.

The chapter (and the core of the book) ends with Nephandic metaplot options. They’re mostly good options, and fit the M20 model of not picking a metaplot but giving a tool kit. They include a fractured Nephandi model and various models where the Nephandi control another faction. The final part of the section is on Nephandi win scenarios, and I feel that this section needed to cite Ascension several times. After all, the ELE section (extinction level event) feels a lot like “The Earth Will Shake” with an asteroid about to hit Earth, and the section on Those Who Dwell Beyond The Stars is “Hell on Earth” which also ends with the Spitting From the Heart of Hell scenario, leaving only The Hungry God in this book as not having any tie to the final book of the original Mage line.

The book ends on a call to action to stand against the evils of the world. Important words to end on, and well written.

This book could have been far worse, but it could have been much better. Between the bizarre decision to make the universe objectively Kabbalistic, but for a bizarre version of Kabbalah, which leaves quite a bit of an antisemitic stench on the book (after all, the secret evil masters of the world being Kabbalists plays into MANY old antisemitic canards and beliefs that are still active to this day), the cartoonish evil that kept coming up, and the insistence that it isn’t a player’s guide while including things that would never be useful outside of one, the book ended up being mostly a negative for me. The parts that are good are worth keeping but disentangling them from the bad parts is a lot of effort, and unless someone has very specific reasons, I’d recommend skipping this book. If it could be given a proper editing pass, removing most of the gratuitous things mentioned above, and likely cut down to more like 130-140 pages, the book would be very strong and a proper successor to both versions of the Book of Madness and to Infernalism: the Path of Screams but as it stands it is not.

beyond just being a great resource for mage antagonists & setting material, this a book that 100% perfectly sets the mood for what's at stake in a mage chronicle. the nephandi aren't romantic badguys or cool, noble antinomians: they're assholes, plain and simple, and sometimes assholes are the ones who end up awakening, or sometimes the awakening makes people realize they like being assholes. this book lets a storyteller understand what the worst of the worst are like in the world of darkness and how to sensibly portray them as the ruthless jerkoffs that they are. it's a responsible book that gives storyteller appropriate tools & advice on how to incorporate this well-written material into their game. above all, it's clearly a personal work on the part of the authors, and they give the topic the respect & sensitivity it deserves.

well-worth the physical copy price i paid for it, this is a book i'll come back to again and again for my mage games.

Speaking from a GM's point of view, I consider this sourcebook one of the most interesting and helpful books I have read across many genres and game systems. Ι do not even think of it as a strictly MtA sourcebook. It has helped me understand and map out a group of evocative and terrible villains that have my players in thrall; and not even in a Mage game, but in a Pathfinder 2e one.

I love the fact it is not a crunch-book; it actually contains ideas that helped me depict evil believably. And I really appreciated the whole description of the Nephandic Descent; I hardly consider this player material. Unless, of course, the people who claim it is unnecessary for a GM, are all so well-versed and familiar with such concepts from the get-go. Because I wasn't, and I bought this book precisely for this reason.

As for the antisemitic characterisation: I hadn't bothered making this connection before reading about it in the negative reviews. Yes, I would have loved some different take other than the Kabbala, for variety's sake. Βut from reading a game sourcebook to making it a conspiracy theory, it is quite a long stretch.

Overall, I liked the book and recommend it for anyone wanting to add depth and make Nephandi a terrifying picture. It was a good expansion on the Fallen and detailing them beyond shadowy villains. The only thing that I disliked was the seeming lumping together of Nephandi and the older style Infernalists. There seemed to be less of a distinction, with personal descent being akin to the Infernalists of previous additions. Nephandi are terrible people, but the personal descent made the Nephandi seem like less of a faction and more a moniker for terrible people who are mages.

This book is great resource on Mage's the ultimate adversary (or any game line, really) and a great (if completely stomach-churning) glimpse of True Evil(tm). Mechanics are kept to an easy to use and reference utility without being all crunch all the time.

If I have one complaint, and it's a major sticking point, it's that the authors allowed themselves to inject their real world political views into a game about escape-ism. If they could have kept their real world politics out of my happy fun time game (well, not-so-happy-fun-time, considering this book's material topic that is presented here, it's very heavy AF) that'd be great.

Page 96's 3rd paragraph's unwarranted insulting reference to a certain real world US president is and especially bad take.

I read/play mage to escape, not get slapped in the face with a cringe-worthy bad take about real world political opinions.

Had the authors managed to keep their IRL opinions about certain IRL people out of the book, I would have given it another star or two.

Otherwise, a great book damaged by unasked for outside opinions.

Loved it, Crunch books are fine, but I'm all about that lore and RP. This is a wonderful book written from a position of empathy and honesty that may turn many people off, people who should probably be a little more introspective about the reasons about that if you ask me..

So many good ideas, so poorly researched and presented. Lemme preface by saying I am not talking about the in character, biased and unreliable narrator aspects of the book. Those parts are meant to be subjective and be criticized. No, I'll be talking about the objective chapters, the ones for the Storyteller.

Some of these mature concepts were either conpletely misunderstood, misrepresented or just plain Wrong. Roko's Basilisk would have been such a great group of followers if he had taken three minutes to understand what singularity AI meant and implied. Roko's Basilisk is not "Evil AI from the future". It's "AI can save millions of lives, and knows it, and blackmails you into having you invest into making it come sooner to save more lives, by threatening the idea of you and making that suffer an eternity of personalized hell if you don't comply." But what hurts me the most is the complete obliviousness of the inherent message of this book, which despite its authors' claims, is built and works as a player's guide.

This book is full of harmful tropes, and instead of calling them out and using "this is an antagonist book about appropriation of Jewish practices," it comes out as "look at this group of people who have the actual, objective and out of character True Truth. Look at all these words and terminologies and concepts that make them jewish. oh and they're the bad guys out to destroy the world because seceet societies, control from the shadows, greedy and selfish.". Using the tropes would have been fine if they had been deconstructed and presented as problematic, but instead they are glorified as actual Truth, and they're Righr.

I cannot believe I need to say it: this book is antisemitic. Harmfully so. And claiming there were Jewish people in the think tank is fine, and i know it's true, but were they really free to bring these issues? No because Satyr can't take criticism and considered he could do no wrong because he isn't an antisemite, as he is left leaning (and I know he is not an antisemite, sadly here his writing comes out as biased, ignorant, rewarding appropriation...).

Satyr and Bryk should know better and listen to people with actual education and experience on these matters instead of wrapping themselves in a can-do-no-wrong blanket of left-allyship.

This book is an insult to Mage.

I was rooting for you, damn it.

Not for everyone or every game, but very thoughtful review of real evil and what its limits are in Mage, and so in some sense, useful to many.

A clear position on Nephandi and what they are (if only in the Storyteller's mind) seems to me indespensible to a game like Mage, and though I have my own idiosyncratic ideas about them, this book is already usefully reshaping & improving my thoughts.

It is disturbing, and it is very heavy material to bring into a game. Some expected antagonists are in the book, such as barabbi and nasty spirits, but there is plenty of information on more grounded real-world inspired Evil. The book isn't something a Storyteller will open to use in every game, but when it is time to stop pulling punches and challenge players with a truly despicable antagonist, this book provides.

Very good book!

Side note: Yes, the book carries the authors' personal views about the world. No, none of those views are camouflaged by euphamisms or literary tricks. Yes, it will piss off some of the readers. NO...none of it should come as any sort of shock to anyone who has read any other Mage book (or anything from WW/OPP in the last 20 years+). Love it, deal with it, or skip this book.