Customer Reviews

Mage Sanctum and Sigil (World of Darkness (White Wolf Hardcover))

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

 

 

This book is indispensible in understanding not only the place where Mages dwell (their sancti) but in understanding their political culture and society. It is written well and clearly and concisely to help you understand these two main topics.

Prologue is the obligatory introductory fiction that describes the book. The book is then divided into 4 chapters. One covers Awakened politics; two covers sanctums and defenses for the places that Mages call home; three discusses cults and various antagonists including the Seers of the Throne and the Banishers. Finally chapter four is for storytellers to help them understand how to introduce Mage politics and sample cabals to help players model theirs.

Overall this book is more a tool and reference book for Mage storytellers, its not ideally suited for players (look at Tome of Mysteries and Tome of the Watchtowers for that). However, it is ideal in helping to craft and fleshout a good story or chronicle that is set in awakened society. It is beautifully illustrated and the rules for helping build sancti are well done.

As the previous reviewer noted, SIGIL AND SANCTUM can be pretty dry. It is a supplement for MAGE: THE AWAKENING and deals with the laws and practices of Awakened society. At times it reads as interesting as the corporis jure of most countries. The main sections are on the rights and duties of cabals to Mages in general, Consilia laws, courtly etiquette, sanctum security, etc. It's hard to imagine getting much use out of this unless it's important to the ST to create an illusion that his/her NPC's have an historical, detailed tradition that the PCs must follow in order to fit in. Otherwise, it seems like overly involved information that either will never come up or could be invented on the fly as need arises. It's about as banal as finding out whether Mages prefer Wheaties or Cheerios for breakfast. Of course, some people will need precisely this kind of book for a specific scenario they have in mind. More power to ya, buddy, but it seems like an awfully small niche. Plus, you could choke on the number of specialized, narrow-use merits introduced. There's a merit for sanctum security, with dots distributed between locks, doors, walls, windows, etc.

The most interesting part of the book is on the structure of Seers of the Throne pylons and Banisher cults. Now this is interesting, but it seemed unrelated to the rest of the theme. Very interesting stuff and very useful as potential antagonists. So even if you don't like the first part of the book, maybe you'll like the second.

Yeah the book is dry... but then, I've come to expect that of any book that Bill Bridges has developed or written.

However, it is useful for better explaining Cabals and Consilium politics.

To me, the best parts are the new merits and expansion or Hallow defenses and descriptions.

The Seers of the Throne and Banisher sections were indeed the most intriguing to read.

While the book is useful. Not everyone may find it beneficial.

This supplement for Mage the Awakening is an excellent resource for understanding the dynamics of Concilium politics, the various roles and makeups of cabals, how Banisher cults work/what they do, and how some of the Seers of the Throne are organized.

It gives quite a few suggestions for bonuses for cabal symbols and also suggests how you can decide what your sigil and name will be.

However, you do have to sort of slog through this book. It's not very easy reading- the whole tone is very intellectual and a bit on the dry side, so you do have to sort of try to pay attention. Despite that, though, I highly recommend this book for either players or storytellers.