The Inside Scoop on Gaming

Irregardless of your standing on the Mage Revised issue, I've gathered that general consensus on the earliest Tradition books is that, quite frankly, they were bad. Akashic Brothers is the one that stands out in my mind as the most unimpressive of the four earliest (only before...ech...Verbena). One look at the Templates will put the badness in perspective. One of the Templates is a Superhero.

Good lord.

Now, when I got my copy of AB:Revised last night, the first thing I was confronted with was the Template for a Theologian. I was stunned. The stunning continued well into the night.

The Prolouge, "Ashes and Rain" sets the tone for the book better than most opening fiction in WW books (Well, with the exception of Blood Treachery), introducing the two "Narrators" of the book, Smoke Tiger, a rouge Akashic on the trail of another rouge, and Peter, an Akashic disciple (I suppose) who's a student of one of the last Akashic masters "Raging Eagle" or, Nu Ying. The fiction is well written, and evocative, if a bit odd.

Introduction, "Entering the Stream" gives a basic overview of the Philosophy of the Tradition, and the moods and themes that are covered in the book. There is a short index here, and a glossary that I found to be emminantly helpful.

Chapter 1. "Heaven and Earth" The first part of which delves into Akashic history, mostly through the narrators of the book going into meditation upon past lives. The history is vivid, and well done, giving the Brotherhood much-deserved depth, in compairson to the 2nd edition book, where they were largely portrayed as Mono-Asians with no national ties, and little history beyond being from Meru (the original, mountain village where all humanity originated, according to the Akashics), and founding the Shaolin temple. The next part of this chapter focuses on Geopolitics (how do you know it's a WW book? When they use big words!), this portion is short, but, meaty enough to let someone understand exactly how the Akashics fare around the world, and outside of Asia. Then comes an impressive section on Akashic philosophy, while I enjoy using my own resources to create comprehensive paradigms or philosophy for my own Mage games, this section has enough well-thought out, rich information that I may simply add a few things of my own design to it. There are several intresting sidebars here, one on Religion and the Akashic Brotherhood (Which I honestly do hope we see in other upcoming traditionbooks, Religion and the Dreamspeakers, Religion and the Euthanatos...etc...etc...) that covers the mileu from Jains, to Confucians, to even Christians. Other sidebars include looks at the philosophy from various factions, information on Akashic names, and a bit of the "Drahma Sutra." Finally, we reach the write up on the Brotherhood's relations with the other Traditions and Supernaturals. Since I'm not too intrested in Crossovers, the Supernatural part didn't quite catch my eye, but, I did enjoy the paradigm-centric view of the various night creatures, the information on the Brotherhood's view of the other Traditions is intresting, but nothing incredibly groundshaking or amazing. My only real qualm with this chapter is a lack of information on Zen Buddhism (my view of the Brotherhood is strongly influenced by my readings on Zen), but, it's only a small qualm.

Chapter 2. "The Way and the Law" This chapter opens with a take on Akashic hierarchy, organization, culture outside the Brotherhood, and training, then, goes onto detail the factions in the Brotherhood. They are the Shi-Ren, strict Legalists who see obligation as the utmost important truth, the Li-Hai (My personal favorite) Mohists who follow a doctrine of universal love and are incredibly populist, The Kannarga, astetic monks who reject materialism and other such illusions in search of clear purpose and right action, The Jnani, Shamanistic, almost primal Brothers with deep ties to Tibetan rituals and Taoist beliefs, and, finally, the Vajrapani, Warriors who find truth in pure action. The chapter goes on to a sidebar about the Wu Lung, and then, gets into the mechanics of Akashic Magic. There are new rules for Do, a few new abilities, some rotes, and merits and flaws. The most intresting of which are the Do rules, which make Do less of a way to beat ass, and more of a philosophical system.

Chapter 3. "Sages and Warriors" Is much like the final few chapters of the Revised Clanbooks for Vampire, giving two Akashics of note, a sample Cabal, and several Templates, the most intruiging to me are the Reincarnate (A Tulku), The Street Marshall (A Li Hai revolutionary), and The Theologian as mentioned earlier, this is the most outstanding Template in terms of depth.

Finally, in the Epilouge, "After the Rain" we are given the end of the narrator's story, and a nice list of refrences.

So, overall, Style-wise, this book is nice-looking, and well layed out. There is some overly-cartoonish art that detracts from the subject, but most of the images are rather nicely done, if abstract, water colors. So, Style gets a 8.0.

Substance-wise, this is a damn good book. 9.7. Woulda gotten the ten if it'd gone into the Zen side of the Brotherhood, but, still...it's an amazing book.

Tradition Book: Akashic Brotherhod Revised