5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Generally good, with one glaring exception, June 5, 2007
This review is from: Mage Tome of Watchtowers (World of Darkness: Mage) (Hardcover)
The purpose of this book is to expand on the descriptions of the Paths in the Mage: the Awakening rulebook. It gives their histories, expands their character concepts and oblations, and generally explains their outlook on life, their Supernal Realms, and other Mages. The history sections look at the real world and what areas would have been appropriate for the influence of a particular Path, or would have been a real setback for that Path. They are sometimes quite imaginative in how they fit things in, and make use of some intriguing real world examples, such as King Solomon's reputation for binding demons. The Acanthus and Mastigos chapters were the best for me. They really give one a deep feeling for what it can be like to be a Mage on one of these Paths, and they gave a lot of options and ideas for Mages that might depart quite a lot from the standard images of these Paths. The Moros and Obrimos are good and quite useful but not inspiring. In the Moros chapter, they were described as spending a lot of time thinking about how events shape the sympathy between the material world and Stygia, which did not make that much sense and really differentiated them from the other Paths. That said, it did describe how and why Moros Mages want to return to Stygia, whereas Mastigos for instance never want to return to Pandemonium and are extremely wary of its inhabitants. In the Obrimos section, there just wasn't enough information to see how an atheist, or even anyone not obsessively devout, would Awaken on that Path, or how they would follow it. That is somewhat surprising, as at one point it says that even the devout actually have their faith somewhat shaken by Awakening on this Path. Overall, well according to another reviewer each chapter was written by a different author, and they all made false assumptions about how and about what the others would right. It is amusing and doesn't hurt, but it doesn't add much either. On the editing, it is like the editing for every other World of Darkness book: hopeless. There are wrong words, missing words, hanging sentences and basic bad grammar.
Then we come to the Thyrsus chapter. Here the writer just lost the plot. All the other chapters expand on the views and character ranges of their Paths. The Thyrsus here are actually even more one-dimensional than they are in the Mage rulebook. The best way to encapsulate it is to picture the 19 th Century attitude to women: incapable of logic or reason, creatures of impulse without thought. The Realm of the Primal Wild is not one of nature, it is one of predation, and somehow it supposedly turns those who Awaken to its Watchtower into beasts. NOT people that behave like animals. By that, I mean animals do not behave like that in relation to others of their type. This is the human fantasy of bestiality: to be free of all the constructs of human society, the social standards, the ethics, the morality, the capacity for pity, all the things that keep us from hurting and killing other human beings. The Mage presented in this chapter has nothing to do with any type of real-world Shaman that I have heard of. None of the Thyrsus characters presented in the Mage rulebook, the free demo, the two Legacy books, or Chicago act like this, except the Nemean of Boston, who is deliberately letting his Wisdom fall, and the cannibal from the demo. The cannibal is specifically used as an example of a deeply corrupted Mage, but apart from the flesh-eating, in this chapter he's pretty standard.
I almost forgot about the Legacies. That says something in itself, as Legacies are one of my favourite things in Mage. The Mastigos Legacy seems quite noble and good, but way too restrictive of membership. The Moros Legacy is great but seriously Left-Handed. The Acanthus Legacy has attaintments too powerful and too vague, and the Obrimos Legacy is nothing special. The Thyrsus Legacy is only great in sort of summarising just how bad and useless the description of the Thyrsus is.
For serious role-players, this is a great book. More casual types probably won't find much to interest them, there are few merits and no spells, and the Legacies are either too vague or too restricted. The example characters aren't good examples and the wrong types were chosen to be fully statted out. Finally, the Thyrsus chapter is a total write-off. This only gets three stars.
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5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Mage the Awakening's "Big Book of Occult Correspondences", September 17, 2006
This review is from: Mage Tome of Watchtowers (World of Darkness: Mage) (Hardcover)
This is essentially Mage the Awakening's answer to the question of "Where are my Path books?" It goes over the Paths, what their Supernal realms are like, sample sanctums, sample nimbii, their roles (generally) in each Order, and their relations (again, generally) to other Paths.
Some people have a pretty big problem with this book's views on the Paths, that they're too stereotypical, which I agree with to a degree.... which is why I gave this only four stars instead of five. I also dropped the rating down one because the Legacies in the book aren't really that great- the Stormweavers or whatever the name of the Acanthus Legacy is comes to mind.
Overall, though, I'd suggest this book, and if you were to buy supplements for Mage in order, this would be second after Sanctum and Sigil (absoultely essential.)
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4.0 out of 5 stars
A very good Path primer, November 22, 2007
This review is from: Mage Tome of Watchtowers (World of Darkness: Mage) (Hardcover)
Overall, Tome of the Watchtowers is a very good expansion on the basic concept of a Path and how they affect the magic of those who walk it. I was particularly interested in a broader range of examples for what a Nimbus could be. That said, I do agree with other reviewers who say that the material is 'uneven': each of the five sections were, in fact, written by five different people. While there are useful ideas in all five sections, the noticeable variances in terms of how much of what kind of material is present detracts from my enjoyment of the book. Still, I have my copy, and it does contain a wealth of ideas for characters and plots, so I do recommend it as one of the first supplements a new Mage player/Storyteller should pick up beyond the core rulebook.
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