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After the high quality of V:tM 3rd Edition and Guide to the Camarilla, I really _wanted_ to like this book. Justin Achilli and his fellow writers have done a lot of work to make the Sabbat more convincing, and to some extent they've succeeded, but the final result (IMHO, as always) still suffers from some major flaws.

This book does much the same thing for the Sabbat as Guide to the Camarilla did for that sect. It's light on mechanics, heavy on setting and history, and particularly on justification for what the Sabbat do. Not "these are really the good guys" justification, but "these guys think they're the good guys, and here's why." There are plenty of discrepancies between what the Sabbat say and what they do, but there are plenty of people in the real world who fit that bill too. The problem is when what the Sabbat does conflicts with what the rules say they can do; I'll get back to that later.

The book contains some useful information on the structure of the Sabbat, its history, and its day-to-day existence. It also describes the clans of the Sabbat and offers some level 6-9 Disciplines for elders. Several changes have been made to the Sabbat membership; the Tremere antitribu are no more (bummer if you were playing one), and along with the Blood Brothers and Kiasyd there are two new additions: the Harbingers of Skulls (apparently, Cappadocians who've returned from the Underworld) and the Salubri antitribu, who may have had something to do with the destruction of the sect's Tremere.

This book is very heavy on the violence that is part of Sabbat culture, particularly in their treatment of humans. Many of the Sabbat's rites involve the murder of humans, usually with every effort to terrify them first. Since White Wolf seems to get blamed whenever anybody with the faintest connection to the game goes off the rails, there are a couple of disclaimers ("you are not a vampire, if you feel the urge to do this stuff for real get help") but for no reason I could understand they're buried on pages 170 and 193, in a section written for storytellers rather than players - what use is that advice if it isn't going to be seen by most of the people it's aimed at? (From a PR point of view, this stuff belongs at the _front_ of the book where parents and journalists are going to see it before they read about Sabbat vampires carjacking and making mortals shoot their friends.)

The book also presents the Paths of Enlightenment - alternate morality systems that some Sabbat follow, having abandoned any attempt to remain 'human'. As codes of morality, they make a reasonable amount of sense. As codes of morality practiced among the Sabbat, they don't, and this is the biggest problem I have with the book. Let's look at just how the Sabbat feel about the idea of killing mortals for the hell of it.

Most new members of the Sabbat are still on the Path of Humanity, although with low ratings and not doing much to maintain it. Obviously, murder is not good for your Humanity rating. Of the remainder... the Path of Honorable Accord is "the backbone of the Sabbat", and "killing without reason" is listed as the second worst sin on that Path.Two others (Cathari and Feral Heart) take an equally dim view of arbitrary killing, and the Path of Lilith is only slightly more tolerant of it.

So, of the Paths practised by the Sabbat, no less than four - including the two most common of all - apparently view killing people for the hell of it as _wrong_. Not just slightly wrong, but very badly wrong.

Now, a couple of pages later, in the same section, the Sabbat's ritae - essentially, customs - are described. The Festival of the Dead: "The vampires use whatever means they can come up with to dismember and kill the victim, causing the most suffering..." Another popular sport: "A human is sealed in a labyrinth of some sort... whichever vampire captures and drains the human first, wins." And so on. Unless the Storyteller completely fails to enforce the Path strictures, characters on any of these Paths should have immense difficulty remaining in the sect - and if they do, they should fall into Wassail within a couple of years at the most. This is particularly a problem for the Path of Honorable Accord (the backbone of the sect, remember!) who "always participate in War Parties, ritae, ceremonies and other pack events", according to their description.

On their own, the Paths work reasonably well. On its own, the Sabbat's brutality is understandable. Put together, they just don't make sense.

While the topic material was of a rather extreme nature and won't be to everybody's tastes, the writing style was _usually_ pretty good. It slipped here and there, though; it irritates me when professional writers can't remember the difference between "its" and "it's", and some of the prose was very purple:

"The Bahari excite their bodies and minds to true sensation, and open their consciousness to the entirety of the world. From the dizzying heights of comprehension, at the needlepoint of pain, they learn the true measure of creation, that they may take the formless stuff of the world and cast it in a new image." (p. 141)

All in all, it's not a _bad_ book if you and your group have a stomach for violence, but it suffers badly from the mismatch between what the Paths supposedly allow and what their followers apparently do.

Style: 3 (Average)
Substance: 2 (Sparse)

Guide to the Sabbat
Author: Justin Achilli et al. Category: game Company/Publisher: White Wolf Line: Vampire: the Masquerade Cost: $25.95 US Page count: 224 ISBN: 1-56504-263-8 SKU: WW2303 Capsule Review by Geoffrey Brent on 09/02/99. Genre tags: Modern_day Horror Vampire Gothic	After the high quality of V:tM 3rd Edition and Guide to the Camarilla, I really _wanted_ to like this book. Justin Achilli and his fellow writers have done a lot of work to make the Sabbat more convincing, and to some extent they've succeeded, but the final result (IMHO, as always) still suffers from some major flaws. This book does much the same thing for the Sabbat as Guide to the Camarilla did for that sect. It's light on mechanics, heavy on setting and history, and particularly on justification for what the Sabbat do. Not "these are really the good guys" justification, but "these guys think they're the good guys, and here's why." There are plenty of discrepancies between what the Sabbat say and what they do, but there are plenty of people in the real world who fit that bill too. The problem is when what the Sabbat does conflicts with what the rules say they can do; I'll get back to that later. The book contains some useful information on the structure of the Sabbat, its history, and its day-to-day existence. It also describes the clans of the Sabbat and offers some level 6-9 Disciplines for elders. Several changes have been made to the Sabbat membership; the Tremere antitribu are no more (bummer if you were playing one), and along with the Blood Brothers and Kiasyd there are two new additions: the Harbingers of Skulls (apparently, Cappadocians who've returned from the Underworld) and the Salubri antitribu, who may have had something to do with the destruction of the sect's Tremere. This book is very heavy on the violence that is part of Sabbat culture, particularly in their treatment of humans. Many of the Sabbat's rites involve the murder of humans, usually with every effort to terrify them first. Since White Wolf seems to get blamed whenever anybody with the faintest connection to the game goes off the rails, there are a couple of disclaimers ("you are not a vampire, if you feel the urge to do this stuff for real get help") but for no reason I could understand they're buried on pages 170 and 193, in a section written for storytellers rather than players - what use is that advice if it isn't going to be seen by most of the people it's aimed at? (From a PR point of view, this stuff belongs at the _front_ of the book where parents and journalists are going to see it before they read about Sabbat vampires carjacking and making mortals shoot their friends.) The book also presents the Paths of Enlightenment - alternate morality systems that some Sabbat follow, having abandoned any attempt to remain 'human'. As codes of morality, they make a reasonable amount of sense. As codes of morality practiced among the Sabbat, they don't, and this is the biggest problem I have with the book. Let's look at just how the Sabbat feel about the idea of killing mortals for the hell of it. Most new members of the Sabbat are still on the Path of Humanity, although with low ratings and not doing much to maintain it. Obviously, murder is not good for your Humanity rating. Of the remainder... the Path of Honorable Accord is "the backbone of the Sabbat", and "killing without reason" is listed as the second worst sin on that Path.Two others (Cathari and Feral Heart) take an equally dim view of arbitrary killing, and the Path of Lilith is only slightly more tolerant of it. So, of the Paths practised by the Sabbat, no less than four - including the two most common of all - apparently view killing people for the hell of it as _wrong_. Not just slightly wrong, but very badly wrong. Now, a couple of pages later, in the same section, the Sabbat's ritae - essentially, customs - are described. The Festival of the Dead: "The vampires use whatever means they can come up with to dismember and kill the victim, causing the most suffering..." Another popular sport: "A human is sealed in a labyrinth of some sort... whichever vampire captures and drains the human first, wins." And so on. Unless the Storyteller completely fails to enforce the Path strictures, characters on any of these Paths should have immense difficulty remaining in the sect - and if they do, they should fall into Wassail within a couple of years at the most. This is particularly a problem for the Path of Honorable Accord (the backbone of the sect, remember!) who "always participate in War Parties, ritae, ceremonies and other pack events", according to their description. On their own, the Paths work reasonably well. On its own, the Sabbat's brutality is understandable. Put together, they just don't make sense. While the topic material was of a rather extreme nature and won't be to everybody's tastes, the writing style was _usually_ pretty good. It slipped here and there, though; it irritates me when professional writers can't remember the difference between "its" and "it's", and some of the prose was very purple: "The Bahari excite their bodies and minds to true sensation, and open their consciousness to the entirety of the world. From the dizzying heights of comprehension, at the needlepoint of pain, they learn the true measure of creation, that they may take the formless stuff of the world and cast it in a new image." (p. 141) All in all, it's not a _bad_ book if you and your group have a stomach for violence, but it suffers badly from the mismatch between what the Paths supposedly allow and what their followers apparently do. Style: 3 (Average) Substance: 2 (Sparse)

Guide to the Sabbat