The Inside Scoop on Gaming

This is one of the more interesting books that I've seen published for Mage; rather than focusing on the Big Four of Mage (Technocracy, Marauders, Traditions, Nephandi), this book details eight different magickal societies from around the world, ranging from the shamanesque Hawaiian mages to the ex-Technocracy Knights Templar. Most of them are fairly good, with only one or two exceptions based on style. Is it worth buying? I'd say so. On to the breakdown:

The first society detailed is the Bata'a - you'd recognize them more readily as practitioners of voodoo and the like. I can't testify for its accuracy, but I can say that it covers almost every base that you'd want to hit within a game setting - it's got possession by spirits, zombies, the inclusive nature of voodoo, and a rough history of Haiti and points related, to show where the belief system came from in the first place. There's rules for possession by spirits, a fundemental tenet of the Bata'a system of magick, and some of the more important loas are dealt with, including Baron Samedi and Papa Legbah. In a nice crossover with Wraith, the relationship between this Craft and the Restless Dead is addressed in detail, including the ability to create Fetters for Wraiths that have lost theirs. And you can have a zombie as a faithful companion, if you're so inclined. The entire thing is done with respect to the actual religion; this isn't the cartoon version of voodoo that you may have seen in less enlightened days.

The book doesn't give too many details on how the faith/Craft works today, but if you want a fantastic example, check out Jim Crow from Grant Morrison's The Invisibles; while on a spiritual quest, he leaves his soul on a video tape loop for safekeeping. Actually, the entirety of The Invisibles is just prime material for Mage; I highly recommend it. But onto the rest of the chapter.

One of the things that I find interesting about this chapter - and, to some degree, the entire book - is that the Crafts themselves are hobbled by their own xenophobia. To the Bata'a, being Awakened - able to do magick - is something that's given to you by the spirits, rather than something that you stumbled onto by your lonesome. They regard outsiders as les idiots, and while I don't know the exact translation of that phrase, its English counterpart isn't terrifically flattering. But the trick about it is that most of the Crafts are fairly xenophobic and isolationist, limiting their magickal knowledge to a particular location, or a particular religious belief, or a particular sex. That xenophobia results in them having much smaller areas of control that an inclusive Tradition like the Dreamspeakers, which shares resources with the other Traditions and has much more power as a direct result. It's not explicitly stated within the text, mind you, but it's something that I noticed.

The Children of Knowledge are next - leftovers from the Solificati, one of the Traditions that wound up being disbanded during the founding of the original Nine. Essentially, they're alchemists - and, in a neat touch, the Child of Knowledge in the example text is a bartender, forking out alchemical potions to the patrons of the bar. Others are lab rats, or smart-drink bartenders. However, the Solificati themselves aren't that terrifically interesting, especially since the freeform nature of Mage makes alchemical potions more of a hindrance than a necessity. (On the other hand, their alchemical potions also tend to be considered coincidental magick, which is a useful cherry.) They're steeped in the 15th-century pseudoscience of alchemy; for those players who want to mess around with alchemy, the Children of Knowledge will be interesting, but I didn't find them that terrific.

The Hem-Ka Sobk take the cake as the weirdest craft in the whole book; they're Awakened, crocodile-worshipping assassins who destroy those who they feel have violated the law. Drawing their numbers from the homeless of Cairo, and using (forcibly) reformed murderers and rapists as their assassins, the Hem-Ka Sobk are essentially hunters. The people that they're hunting? Apparently people who have been reborn with shards of Sobk, their god. If they're worthy, then they're spared; if not, they're dead. In other words, they're the Euthanatos - except that they've got no rational reason to kill the people that they kill. They're like cultists in Call of Cthulhu; they're religious fanatics who judge and kill people according to criteria that the people themselves don't even know.

And that's it. Mind you that I'm skipping a lot of detail involving the nature of the cult, and the fact that they live in communities that have the same approximate values as a crocodile - I.E eat, mate, survive - but there's no specifications on what exactly makes somebody guilty in their eyes. The book suggests that "Rage, Angst, Humanity and Paradox" will figure into the decision, but Rage and Paradox aren't necessarily indicative of evil. (Angst and Humanity can be used as yardsticks.) If I read the book correctly, then the Hem-Ka Sobk are one-dimensional frothing cultists with some nasty magick rotes at their disposal - and a single dimension is something that almost nobody in the White Wolf universe has. Some more detail on this Craft, or on the exact nature of their judging, or on the relative good or evil of their crusade would be mighty helpful.

The Kopa Loei are probably the best example of the xenophobic elements in the Crafts; they're wizards and shamans from Hawaii - or, as the book spells it, Hawai'i. I'm sure that some enterprising soul will eventually have us all spelling it Aa'y'a'y, or something along those lines; me, I call it Hawaii.

The Kopa Loei have become embittered by the encroachment of the Technocracy onto their home turf, messing up the local paradigm, converting the locals to Christianity, destroying the power of the priest class, kicking small puppies into nearby volcanoes and so on. There's a fairly confusing history of Hawaii included in the text, due partly to the fact that it's difficult to tell which parts are World of Darkness only and which aren't; for example, it's mentioned that at one point, known sorcerors were rounded up, shot, and then fed to sharks. I have no idea whether that's true or not - it doesn't sound like the British style, even in 1886. It could be the Technocracy's style, but it isn't made explicit.

I do know that Hawaii was essentially a shuttlecock between empires, but the book suggests that the entire history of Hawaii over the last two hundred years has been nothing but exploitation and tragedy. Which is a fairly one-dimensional view of it; right now, Hawaii is a part of the world's largest superpower, with enough revenue from tourism than any other Pacific island that I could name and a better standard of living than an independent island, like, say, Haiti. The Craft sounds like it wants to push the clock back to two hundred years ago, when they were the ones who had all the power, instead of the masses. It's no surprise that it sounds like the exact same mistake that the Traditions made.

In any case, enough about the politics of the situation. One of the more unique things about this particular Craft is that they're linked in with almost every part of the land, from the Rokea (weresharks) to the Menehune (local Changelings/fairies) to the land, to the gods and goddesses themselves. There's a lot of detail about the local culture, along with much bashing of Westerners as either clueless or eeeeeevil - enough, okay - and details of how the local mages organize themselves. Ultimately, what I would have liked to see is less xenophobia + blatant hostility and more details on the island itself; it almost seems like it would demand a World of Darness book of its own. (That would be interesting, come to think of it.) While the real-life elements of the Craft are interesting, I just didn't see enough here to justify further interest.

The Sisters of Hippolyta are one of the more...what's the word? Mockable; they sound, at first, like the fantasy women-only societies that you see in certain feminist writings - everybody is loving, everybody is treasured, nothing bad ever happens, and so forth. Fortunately for the chapter, the reality is a bit different. As the book itself says, "If this culture sounds too loving, egalitarian and nurturing to be true, it is." While the Sisters do have strong community ties, those same ties are frequently strangling. If you leave, you're technically dead to the community.

As for the magickal style - well, it's mostly a mixture of hedge magick for those who are unAwakened and true magic for those who have had that particular insight. (It's noteworthy that hedge mages and true mages are mixed into the same group, frequently without either group knowing that there's a difference.) But there really isn't a whole lot to differentiate them from the Verben; they have healing magick based in pagan beliefs and herbalism, they have animal companions, they help out with births and so forth. Their emphasis is on healing, rather than the Verbena's assorted magicks, but besides that and a link or two to the Black Furies, there's no real difference. The culture is interesting, but its closed nature means that most player characters are going to be outcasts from the same. Weird.

The Templars. I've been a fan of the idea of ancient Christian knights surviving into the present day ever since I saw the Illuminati card with an illustration of a man wearing a mixture of modern clothes and ancient knightly robes. It was like realizing that your accountant has companions who look for the Holy Grail in their spare time.

Unfortunately, they're not overwhelmingly interesting. They're one of the Orders in the Order of Reason in Mage: The Sorceror's Crusade, but in this book, they've fallen from their former status, having been betrayed by the Cabal of Pure Thought (New World Order) towards the end of the Rennaissance. Now they're more like a secret society, like the Arcanum, aiming to defend humanity from assorted supernatural threats and bearing a grudge against the New World Order for their ancient betrayal.

But there's no real story hook to it. There's nothing contradictory to them. They're like the Inqusition, but without the Inquisition's undercurrent of darkness. And there are some nice magicks for players to use, like the Endless Ammo Clip, or the Spatial Sheath, which allows you to tote around a sword in a null-space until you need it. But there's just not enough to justify my interest, as far as I'm concerned.

The Wu-Keng. Unfortunately for the Year of the Lotus, the two most interesting Crafts - the Wu-Keng and Wu-Lung - were detailed in this book, rather than in a seperate book of their own. The Wu-Keng are male mages masquerading as women, using occupations like secretaries and nannies to get close to the people that they want to influence. They even bind their feet, keeping a bargain with their patrons that they made a long, long time ago.

Essentially, the Wu-Keng are fascinating additions to, say, Kindred of the East; they've got the appropriate mixture of ruthlessness, tradition, talent and damnation to be the match of - or ally to - any Kuei-jin that they might happen to meet. Its background runs back some three thousand years, intertwining mostly with the Wu-Lung's machinations, so there's ample opportunity to run a historical campaign. And there's a nasty kick behind the secrets of the Wu-Keng involving their patrons that'll come to fruition at the end of the century. That secret adds an extra level to just about everything involving the Wu-Keng, including story hooks for at least one good chronicle/campaign. Darn good stuff.

The Wu-Lung, on the other hand, are Imperial wizards; they're essentially throwbacks from the ancient days when China was run by an Emperor and the heavens dictated their role in the world. But since those days happen to be over, and since tradition and ancestor worship have fallen by the wayside, the Wu Lung find themselves slowly rebuilding themselves in a new image. To boot, there's another crossover with Wraith - this time, with the Dark Kingdom of Jade, since the Wu Lung are quite fond of the idea of a spiritual bureaucracy that the Dark Kingdom also emulates. For sample magicks, the Wu-Lung have a lot of rotes that seemingly come out of Hong Kong action movies, including a spell that allows you to create seven whirling swords to block a path, or another that lets you create an animate jade statue. Interesting stuff - plus a brief list of martial arts moves.

So, is the Book of Crafts worth buying? Inititally, I was going to say yes. I had a lot of interest in running a voudon-themed mage, but the remaining seven Crafts grab my interest only in a peripheral fashion. If you're looking for mages from Hawaii, or the Knights Templar, then you will be satisfied with these books, but the remaining Crafts aren't all that noteworthy. The mages from the Orient are fascinating, but they deserve their own book - and may get it, if Midnight Dragons is ever released.

So: if you're tired of running another generic Dreamspeaker or Verbena, and you want to run a character from a real-world magical tradition, then you could pick it up. Me, personally - I'd just go buy the Book of Mirrors if I had the choice.

Style: 4 (Classy and well done)
Substance: 4 (Meaty)

The Book of Crafts
Author: Aaron Andersen, Phil Brucato, James Estes, Looking Eagle, Deena McKinney, Wade Racine, Andrew Ragland, Derek Pearcy, Kathleen Ryan and Lucien Soulban Category: game Company/Publisher: White Wolf Line: Mage Cost: $18.00 Page count: 140 ISBN: 1-56504-435-5 SKU: WW4011 Capsule Review by Darren MacLennan on 08/16/99. Genre tags: Fantasy Science_fiction Modern_day Horror Gothic Asian/Far_East	This is one of the more interesting books that I've seen published for Mage; rather than focusing on the Big Four of Mage (Technocracy, Marauders, Traditions, Nephandi), this book details eight different magickal societies from around the world, ranging from the shamanesque Hawaiian mages to the ex-Technocracy Knights Templar. Most of them are fairly good, with only one or two exceptions based on style. Is it worth buying? I'd say so. On to the breakdown: The first society detailed is the Bata'a - you'd recognize them more readily as practitioners of voodoo and the like. I can't testify for its accuracy, but I can say that it covers almost every base that you'd want to hit within a game setting - it's got possession by spirits, zombies, the inclusive nature of voodoo, and a rough history of Haiti and points related, to show where the belief system came from in the first place. There's rules for possession by spirits, a fundemental tenet of the Bata'a system of magick, and some of the more important loas are dealt with, including Baron Samedi and Papa Legbah. In a nice crossover with Wraith, the relationship between this Craft and the Restless Dead is addressed in detail, including the ability to create Fetters for Wraiths that have lost theirs. And you can have a zombie as a faithful companion, if you're so inclined. The entire thing is done with respect to the actual religion; this isn't the cartoon version of voodoo that you may have seen in less enlightened days. The book doesn't give too many details on how the faith/Craft works today, but if you want a fantastic example, check out Jim Crow from Grant Morrison's The Invisibles; while on a spiritual quest, he leaves his soul on a video tape loop for safekeeping. Actually, the entirety of The Invisibles is just prime material for Mage; I highly recommend it. But onto the rest of the chapter. One of the things that I find interesting about this chapter - and, to some degree, the entire book - is that the Crafts themselves are hobbled by their own xenophobia. To the Bata'a, being Awakened - able to do magick - is something that's given to you by the spirits, rather than something that you stumbled onto by your lonesome. They regard outsiders as les idiots, and while I don't know the exact translation of that phrase, its English counterpart isn't terrifically flattering. But the trick about it is that most of the Crafts are fairly xenophobic and isolationist, limiting their magickal knowledge to a particular location, or a particular religious belief, or a particular sex. That xenophobia results in them having much smaller areas of control that an inclusive Tradition like the Dreamspeakers, which shares resources with the other Traditions and has much more power as a direct result. It's not explicitly stated within the text, mind you, but it's something that I noticed. The Children of Knowledge are next - leftovers from the Solificati, one of the Traditions that wound up being disbanded during the founding of the original Nine. Essentially, they're alchemists - and, in a neat touch, the Child of Knowledge in the example text is a bartender, forking out alchemical potions to the patrons of the bar. Others are lab rats, or smart-drink bartenders. However, the Solificati themselves aren't that terrifically interesting, especially since the freeform nature of Mage makes alchemical potions more of a hindrance than a necessity. (On the other hand, their alchemical potions also tend to be considered coincidental magick, which is a useful cherry.) They're steeped in the 15th-century pseudoscience of alchemy; for those players who want to mess around with alchemy, the Children of Knowledge will be interesting, but I didn't find them that terrific. The Hem-Ka Sobk take the cake as the weirdest craft in the whole book; they're Awakened, crocodile-worshipping assassins who destroy those who they feel have violated the law. Drawing their numbers from the homeless of Cairo, and using (forcibly) reformed murderers and rapists as their assassins, the Hem-Ka Sobk are essentially hunters. The people that they're hunting? Apparently people who have been reborn with shards of Sobk, their god. If they're worthy, then they're spared; if not, they're dead. In other words, they're the Euthanatos - except that they've got no rational reason to kill the people that they kill. They're like cultists in Call of Cthulhu; they're religious fanatics who judge and kill people according to criteria that the people themselves don't even know. And that's it. Mind you that I'm skipping a lot of detail involving the nature of the cult, and the fact that they live in communities that have the same approximate values as a crocodile - I.E eat, mate, survive - but there's no specifications on what exactly makes somebody guilty in their eyes. The book suggests that "Rage, Angst, Humanity and Paradox" will figure into the decision, but Rage and Paradox aren't necessarily indicative of evil. (Angst and Humanity can be used as yardsticks.) If I read the book correctly, then the Hem-Ka Sobk are one-dimensional frothing cultists with some nasty magick rotes at their disposal - and a single dimension is something that almost nobody in the White Wolf universe has. Some more detail on this Craft, or on the exact nature of their judging, or on the relative good or evil of their crusade would be mighty helpful. The Kopa Loei are probably the best example of the xenophobic elements in the Crafts; they're wizards and shamans from Hawaii - or, as the book spells it, Hawai'i. I'm sure that some enterprising soul will eventually have us all spelling it Aa'y'a'y, or something along those lines; me, I call it Hawaii. The Kopa Loei have become embittered by the encroachment of the Technocracy onto their home turf, messing up the local paradigm, converting the locals to Christianity, destroying the power of the priest class, kicking small puppies into nearby volcanoes and so on. There's a fairly confusing history of Hawaii included in the text, due partly to the fact that it's difficult to tell which parts are World of Darkness only and which aren't; for example, it's mentioned that at one point, known sorcerors were rounded up, shot, and then fed to sharks. I have no idea whether that's true or not - it doesn't sound like the British style, even in 1886. It could be the Technocracy's style, but it isn't made explicit. I do know that Hawaii was essentially a shuttlecock between empires, but the book suggests that the entire history of Hawaii over the last two hundred years has been nothing but exploitation and tragedy. Which is a fairly one-dimensional view of it; right now, Hawaii is a part of the world's largest superpower, with enough revenue from tourism than any other Pacific island that I could name and a better standard of living than an independent island, like, say, Haiti. The Craft sounds like it wants to push the clock back to two hundred years ago, when they were the ones who had all the power, instead of the masses. It's no surprise that it sounds like the exact same mistake that the Traditions made. In any case, enough about the politics of the situation. One of the more unique things about this particular Craft is that they're linked in with almost every part of the land, from the Rokea (weresharks) to the Menehune (local Changelings/fairies) to the land, to the gods and goddesses themselves. There's a lot of detail about the local culture, along with much bashing of Westerners as either clueless or eeeeeevil - enough, okay - and details of how the local mages organize themselves. Ultimately, what I would have liked to see is less xenophobia + blatant hostility and more details on the island itself; it almost seems like it would demand a World of Darness book of its own. (That would be interesting, come to think of it.) While the real-life elements of the Craft are interesting, I just didn't see enough here to justify further interest. The Sisters of Hippolyta are one of the more...what's the word? Mockable; they sound, at first, like the fantasy women-only societies that you see in certain feminist writings - everybody is loving, everybody is treasured, nothing bad ever happens, and so forth. Fortunately for the chapter, the reality is a bit different. As the book itself says, "If this culture sounds too loving, egalitarian and nurturing to be true, it is." While the Sisters do have strong community ties, those same ties are frequently strangling. If you leave, you're technically dead to the community. As for the magickal style - well, it's mostly a mixture of hedge magick for those who are unAwakened and true magic for those who have had that particular insight. (It's noteworthy that hedge mages and true mages are mixed into the same group, frequently without either group knowing that there's a difference.) But there really isn't a whole lot to differentiate them from the Verben; they have healing magick based in pagan beliefs and herbalism, they have animal companions, they help out with births and so forth. Their emphasis is on healing, rather than the Verbena's assorted magicks, but besides that and a link or two to the Black Furies, there's no real difference. The culture is interesting, but its closed nature means that most player characters are going to be outcasts from the same. Weird. The Templars. I've been a fan of the idea of ancient Christian knights surviving into the present day ever since I saw the Illuminati card with an illustration of a man wearing a mixture of modern clothes and ancient knightly robes. It was like realizing that your accountant has companions who look for the Holy Grail in their spare time. Unfortunately, they're not overwhelmingly interesting. They're one of the Orders in the Order of Reason in Mage: The Sorceror's Crusade, but in this book, they've fallen from their former status, having been betrayed by the Cabal of Pure Thought (New World Order) towards the end of the Rennaissance. Now they're more like a secret society, like the Arcanum, aiming to defend humanity from assorted supernatural threats and bearing a grudge against the New World Order for their ancient betrayal. But there's no real story hook to it. There's nothing contradictory to them. They're like the Inqusition, but without the Inquisition's undercurrent of darkness. And there are some nice magicks for players to use, like the Endless Ammo Clip, or the Spatial Sheath, which allows you to tote around a sword in a null-space until you need it. But there's just not enough to justify my interest, as far as I'm concerned. The Wu-Keng. Unfortunately for the Year of the Lotus, the two most interesting Crafts - the Wu-Keng and Wu-Lung - were detailed in this book, rather than in a seperate book of their own. The Wu-Keng are male mages masquerading as women, using occupations like secretaries and nannies to get close to the people that they want to influence. They even bind their feet, keeping a bargain with their patrons that they made a long, long time ago. Essentially, the Wu-Keng are fascinating additions to, say, Kindred of the East; they've got the appropriate mixture of ruthlessness, tradition, talent and damnation to be the match of - or ally to - any Kuei-jin that they might happen to meet. Its background runs back some three thousand years, intertwining mostly with the Wu-Lung's machinations, so there's ample opportunity to run a historical campaign. And there's a nasty kick behind the secrets of the Wu-Keng involving their patrons that'll come to fruition at the end of the century. That secret adds an extra level to just about everything involving the Wu-Keng, including story hooks for at least one good chronicle/campaign. Darn good stuff. The Wu-Lung, on the other hand, are Imperial wizards; they're essentially throwbacks from the ancient days when China was run by an Emperor and the heavens dictated their role in the world. But since those days happen to be over, and since tradition and ancestor worship have fallen by the wayside, the Wu Lung find themselves slowly rebuilding themselves in a new image. To boot, there's another crossover with Wraith - this time, with the Dark Kingdom of Jade, since the Wu Lung are quite fond of the idea of a spiritual bureaucracy that the Dark Kingdom also emulates. For sample magicks, the Wu-Lung have a lot of rotes that seemingly come out of Hong Kong action movies, including a spell that allows you to create seven whirling swords to block a path, or another that lets you create an animate jade statue. Interesting stuff - plus a brief list of martial arts moves. So, is the Book of Crafts worth buying? Inititally, I was going to say yes. I had a lot of interest in running a voudon-themed mage, but the remaining seven Crafts grab my interest only in a peripheral fashion. If you're looking for mages from Hawaii, or the Knights Templar, then you will be satisfied with these books, but the remaining Crafts aren't all that noteworthy. The mages from the Orient are fascinating, but they deserve their own book - and may get it, if Midnight Dragons is ever released. So: if you're tired of running another generic Dreamspeaker or Verbena, and you want to run a character from a real-world magical tradition, then you could pick it up. Me, personally - I'd just go buy the Book of Mirrors if I had the choice. Style: 4 (Classy and well done) Substance: 4 (Meaty)

The Book of Crafts