Customer Reviews

Mage Tome of the Mysteries

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Tome of the Mysteries is a new sourcebook for Mage the Awakening RPG, geared towards both players and Storytellers. Inside these 188 pages is a vast treasure trove of material dealing with the art of making magic. As with all White Wolf products, these are not just dull narratives about rules and what not, but carefully crafted within the framework of each game with examples to help players along the way.

Chapter one is The Way of Fire - Making Magic. Here players will learn the progression of creating magics and each spell is accompanied by its magical symbol. These begin with the lowest level or the first dot of power as its called in the book. The more dots to a spell, the more powerful. For example, a five dot spell, extremely lethal in scope, is the practice of "Unmaking", a spell which simply causes matter to cease to exist. This is perhaps the most important chapter in the book as it deals with the creation and progression of magic, its causes and effects, and is extremely detailed. I'd highly suggest that this chapter be well read before progressing on to the next chapter.

The next three chapters deal with the way of air, Water, and Earth respectively. Like the first chapter, there are dozens of progressively more difficult spells provided, each dealing with these particular elements although it's not as cut and dried as one may think looking at the chapter titles. The Air chapter features spells which deal with fate, the mind and emotion and includes diverse spells such as love spells and disguising spells. Likewise the Earth chapter has many spells dealing with life and death and features perhaps the most potent arcane arts in the book, at least through the first four chapters until...

...You get to chapter Five and the Way of the void. It is in the final chapters where players will learn of Abyssmal magic. Here mages will draw upon the forces of the Abyss, a practice which requires an extreme amount of will. And even one time usage of Abyssmal can leave the user forever tempted to use it again, a kind of magical addiction.

To say that this book is a welcomed, no required book for Mage the Awakening would be an understatement. You'll probably wonder how you got along without it. The art is up to White Wolf's usual high standards, particularly the outstanding cover by Jason Chan.

Reviewed by Tim Janson

I find Mage The Awakening very complex and sometimes overly so. I like this particular book because it helps clarify some game mechanics and role-playing flavor. It helps codify power levels and add flavor to the way Willworkers can cast magic. It also has a few pages on mage magic and how it interacts with other WoD creatures like werewolves and vampires. As someone who runs a game with both Mages and Vampires, I could read a lot more about that, but it's still a good start.

Let me say that this is invariably the most necessary and useful supplement published for Mage the Awakening. If it is the only book you get beyond the main rule book it will be sufficient. This book provides invaluable information on creating your own spells (chapter 1). An indepth explanation and treatise on the 13 magical practices of Mage (chapter 1), how to describe magic and casting spells in role playing terms (chap. 2), interacting with other supernaturals in the world of darkness (chap 3), magical dueling (chap 3), enchanting spells and magical items (chap 4). Also, rules on abyssal magic and the fabled Archmastery are treated in chapter 5.

All in all this book is beautifully illustrated, well edited and written and has consistenty clear and readable layout. My favorite section is the clear explanation of the 13 practices of magic, something that should definitely have been included in the main Mage rulebook.

The best Mage supplement put out yet.
Get it!

nWoD Mage excels at clarifying rules at the expense of the in depth story of the old game. I won't say that this book completely brings awakenings flavor on par with the old game, but its a step in the right direction.

Other books in the series so far have established the game mechanics, and the Mages themselves, but don't really go into the nity gritty of what magic itself is, how it feels, what it does, etc. This book is essentially filled with options and sugestions on how to make magic more then just dice rolls. A very usefull chapter that I didn't think I would like explains the feel and look of magic, how it interacts with the Imago, and presents a few ideas and theories that should keep players interested. For those storytellers who have a problem being descriptive, its a godsend. Also, the book is filled with rotes tha arn't just more nifty powers, but are sure to set paradigm to a great extent. Theres a whole lot of spells and spell options tha alter other spells, items, an generally just make magic even more customizable with a minimum of more difficult rules. It is also filled with rules calls and rules options: rules calls as in clarification to things that were always a grey area (how powerful can extended spells become, can death magic interfere with vampires gifts, can you make vampire blood, should a mage be able to go toe to toe with a werewolf...) and rules options as in nifty new things you can do if the storyteller allows it. For example, risking huge paradox to cast a spell more powerful then you should be able to, or (my favorite) casting magic useing the abyss.

Overall, this book is easilly the most important Mage book next to the base book. I strongly reccomend it.

It's unfortunate that this book is currently out of print in hardcover format, causing the prices on any copies selling to sky rocket.

But it's only understandable that the prices would be so high. This book proves itself to be highly useful to the ST and Players alike with each chapter and discussion on the use and creation of new spells; how spells are effected by crossover, what they can and can't do, expanded rules for Enchanted Items, Abyssmal Magic and Watchtowers.

This book is simply a must have for the Mage Library if you don't already have one or can manage to find and get a copy.