In a Nutshell:
The Exalted Storyteller’s Companion consists of a Storyteller’s Screen and an 80 page sourcebook. Within the sourcebook is a brief FAQ, notes, Charms and information on the Terrestrial and non-Solar Celestial Exalted, Charms and write-ups on various spirits and detail on the spirit courts, as well as a half dozen artifacts of varying power.
This product sets out to be a toolkit for Storytellers and largely succeeds, although the brevity of some of the sections on Charms for the non-Terrestrial Exalted seemed to hurt the book.
Break it Down:
The Storyteller’s Screen is a four-fold, fairly thick piece of cardboard—I found it thicker than the Fading Suns or Dungeons and Dragons, 3rd edition screens. The art on the “player side” of the screen consists of the “second layer” art on the cover of the core rules, without the powerbow wielding character in the foreground. I found the art decent enough but not to my tastes, and not as evocative as some of the other art in the core rules. It seemed especially lacking in comparison to some of the fantastic pictures in the accompanying sourcebook—apparently, the Limited Edition, which I do not have, explains why that art wasn’t used in the core rules, but whatever the reason, it was a mistake—the art in the sourcebook that accompanies this screen, specifically the full page pieces that are unattributed to any artist, are simply wonderful.
As for the actual “Storyteller” side of the screen, it’s adequate—it includes information on mundane weapon stats, combat order, healing, extra stats, and anima flare, amongst other things. I would’ve liked to see the healing rates section broken down into a chart, rather than in the paragraph form it’s in, and I would’ve preferred to see some of the other combat-related charts on the screen, especially the stats for shield cover and visibility. Still, none of that really ruins the screen, although some people are guaranteed to complain about the lack of shield stats.
Overall, the Screen section of this product rates a 2.5 in style and substance—not exactly what I wanted, but no “show-stoppers” to ruin the product as a whole.
The sourcebook starts off with an FAQ answering several questions about the general metaplot, signature characters, the nature of the game world, and why defense is more powerful than offense in many cases. It’s a short section, but goes a long way toward explaining where the line developer is headed, and I liked seeing it—to be honest, I’d like to see more “behind the scenes” questions answered this way in other lines.
The next section describes Dragon-Blooded society and holidays, what it’s like to grow up as a Dynast, and includes sample Charms for each aspect of the Terrestrial Exalted, as well as examples on how to convert existing Solar Charms to Dragon-Blooded equicalents. The latter section builds upon the guidelines in the core rules, with suggestions for “cascades” that the Storyteller can build himself. Then follows short cultural descriptions for the Lunar, Abyssal and Sidereal Exalted, as well as a scant handful of Charms for each that don’t replicate anything the Solar Exalted have, and which are thus impossible to kludge.
I found these two sections of the book to be a mixed bag—on the one hand, the section on the Dragon-Blooded is excellent, but on the other, I would’ve liked to see rules on some of the other Exalted’s powers, such as the Lunar ability to change shape and the Abyssal ability to drain life from their victims. I especially found the Sidereal Charms to be rather thin—the Wise Choice Charm has no mechanics at all, and struck me as rather vague. I would’ve liked to see more in these sections, but this book is heavily packed with information as it is, and it only stands that something is going to get short shrift. At least the main adversaries of the Solars are further fleshed out—the Dragon-Blooded section is wonderful.
Next follows a section on Spirits, detailing many new Charms, guidelines on how to run the Spirit Courts, and examples of several kinds of spirit. This section is well done, with a few omissions in the Charms that will hopefully see errata as quickly as the core rulebook did. The flavor of the spirits is integrated at every level, even down to the fact that Storm Mothers can’t use their Charms against red-headed women, and how sailors take advantage of that. The excellent feel that permeated every level of Exalted is carried through in this book, and I’m pleased to see it.
Finally, there are half a dozen artifacts, ranging from the simple “magic weapons” type to the world shattering artifact type, with a couple of useful, mid-range ones in between. All of them would make good additions to Exalted games, and all of them are priced out as artifacts. (The Eye of Autochthon is the sole exception to that, and for good reason.)
Overall, the sourcebook gets a 3 for style and a 4 for substance—it’s well-written and informative, but given that it merely builds upon material in the core rulebook, there was nothing that made me really jump up and take a second look.
A final note—as I said earlier, the art in the sourcebook is material that was scrapped from the core rules for some reason. I can’t fathom why this happened, but I have to plead with the line developer or art director to please, please, please, include art in the future by the artist who did the full page chapter-opening art. It’s incredible, and evocative, and I liked it better than a lot of the art in the core—I understand Exalted strives for an anime feel, but there’s no reason other flavors have to be excluded, especially when it’s of such high quality. (With that said, I do see why some of the art was excluded—some of it looked too dark or too generic.)
Overall Score:
Style: 3
Substance: 4
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