Customer Reviews

Exalted BoS 1 Wonders of the Lost Age (Books of Sorcery)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Ah, magical artifacts...and when they're technomagical artifacts, all the better. This is a very imaginative collection of items--combat and noncombat--for Exalted Storytellers to tempt their players with, or to equip opponents with. Vehicles (for getting around the enormous distances of Creation), armor and weapons, battlefield equipment, and a great many things to make life easier (or in some cases, much harder). The section on warstriders is particularly tasty.

This book also expands the Exalted backstory, letting us know how magical-technology developed and was used in the goldan age of the Solar Deliberative, and how it has fallen to its current state.

There are only two things keeping this from getting five stars: First, I was hoping for more detailed rules on artifact construction, to help me figure out exactly how many background points an item is worth. Second, I was *really* hoping for a lot more Sorcery spells! As in the 1st edition, the 2nd Edition core rules have only a few spells, and you would think the first Book of Sorcery would rectify that. Nope: this volume has only artifacts.

For what it is, it's great. We'll just have to wait for a later volume to get those spells.

Pros:
This book has lots of artifacts for players and STs. There are enough artifacts listed in this book that most characters of any sort will find at least one thing useful, Pectoral of Resplendent Speeches might be useful for talkers or battlefield commanders, Bracers of Universal Crafting to make crafting easier, mechanized steampunk butlers to help each exalted keep their other artifacts in working order, and the 20+ direct combat related items.
Cons:
"Repairs and maintenance" anything involving these rules just adds an annoying tax to players who want to use artifact armor, vehicles, or weapons. The idea of repairing a recently recovered Noble warstrider can be an interesting quest, having to worry about changing its oil every 10 hours is not so fun.
Flavor and rules for items are meshed together. This makes finding the power and function of an item a chore. A lot of the time for the noncombat items the artifact's mechanic effect is sometimes obscured by artifacts lore.
Summary:
This is a decent item book for Exalted, it gives players a large number of toys to play with that as long as they keep them clean. Figuring out what those toys do might take a while, but most of the artifacts are at least interesting if not useful.

Wonders of the Lost Age is a excellent supplement for Exalted that covers a great many new toys for Exalted players and GMs to play with. The setting and background information is a bit thin, but this is a book that emphasizes the crunch of rules not the fluff of setting so it's not entirely unexpected. There are hordes of new artifacts and items to be found, how to keep them repaired and functional, and some rules on creating them. The creation rules are, unfortunately, rather lacking. Even so, there's a lot to see.

The first section covers vehicles and transportation. Everything from single person flying wings to flying battlecruisers to personal transport devices like cloaks that turn into wings can be found. The next section covers many creative and utilitarian artifacts. The following section is a favorite of many players, being that it contains new weapons and armor, including the awesome battle armor artifacts. Next comes created life and constructs. Finally come the big guns used to make war. Siege weapons, mass combat items, and the infamous Warstriders can be found here.

Many of the items here are more suited for an action, adventure, or combat oriented game, but even an intrigue or social oriented game will find items worth introducing into their games with this books.

This A Toolbox's for Exalted 2Ed
you get warstriders
you get a number of first age weapons
you get first age transport's
you get a full magitehnology
you get artifact
you get personal arms and armor
and more.

P.S Hope this halp

Ok the idea to divide the book in 5 aspects that are the Maidens purviews was an excellent move. The one that came with that idea is a genius, really. I thought something like that and when I saw it done, it was WOOOOOAW.

The idea to have technomagic is great. Final Fantasy inspired no doubt.
Creating some sorcerous craft as to be able to manufacture scientific advanced gadgets also a clean move. That they can be repaired and maintained and have high-level power in exchange of certain rituals, oils, reargents and periodic tune ups is great idea. The warstriders rule.

The idea of been able to have Genetics and mutate life is also a nice idea, yet it lacks many more examples, many more rules and somehow needs more clarification cause somehow I felt it small in comparison to all the combat-related artifacts.

The book has over 100 examples ready to use and also ready to tamper with and even enahcing and mixing em.

A must have in the Exalted collection.
Worth every cent! [or peso]

This book is packed full of incredible devices for any one who enjoys Exalted. The book has a wealth of knolage from the first age as well as the age of sorrows.

The book has a few sections in it that divide the items by uses, that is the only way i can discribe it. There is a giant amount of artifacts that have nothing to do with combat, and then others that are. There is a section on warstriders, basicly single man "death machines" that basicly look like Large Metal Robots.

Most of the items in this volume are very well detailed and all have pictures that show you what they would more that likely look like. I don't like saying that IS what they look like because, well, this is RPing people, things change by a player/GM's perception.

Anyway, enough of my ramblings, This book rocks and has items that range from pens to armor to boots to Royal Class Warstriders. This book is about gear in the world of Exalted.

P.S. It looks like there is going to be about 4 more of these books. My best guess is that one will be for Sorcery, but that is just one book. If you think of anything else, post it here to give me some ideas on the other ones.