The Book of 3 Circles is the newest supplement for White Wolf’s Exalted RPG, providing copious new information on the three circles of sorcery, the history of the magical arts from the First Age to the present, and includes details on the design, maintenance and destruction of magical items, Hearthstones, Manses, and Demesnes. Finally, Bo3C has a single appendix that deals with First Age “relic armor” and mecha called Warstriders.
Details:
Overall, the book is fantastic. It sets out to build on the flavorful mechanics and powers in the core rulebook, and succeeds. The artwork is uniformly good, and strikingly well done in places. The editing is top-notch, with a few rare mistakes that don’t detract from the effort. In addition, the sections devoted to allowing PCs and Storytellers help in designing their own magic items and places of power emphasize feel and “coolness,” rather than miring in hard rules. My only complaint is that details of human hedge-magic are left out—I would’ve liked to see them included. Still, Bo3C a topnotch book.
Chapter 1 kicks off with the history of Sorcery, going all of the way back to the First Age, and including descriptions of several “lineages.” After that, the reader is treated to a section on the indoctrination of Sorcerers, for each form of Exalted (with the exception of the Abyssal,) rules for researching and creating new spells, and several items that aid in the research or creation of spells, including several powerful artifacts belonging to Brigid, the first Sorcerer. The path of magic for Solar Exalted is described in such a way that it doesn’t limit a PC if he failed to buy the Mentor background, which I thought was cleverly prescient of the writers. The “limits” of magic are also discussed—what is magic capable of? What can’t it do?
Chapters 2, 3, and 4 are the meat—spells, spells, and more spells, for all three Circles. The spells are almost universally well thought out and error free—the largest complaint I have is that two spells that I saw were lacking durations. That’s really rather minor stuff. I loved the majority of the spells—they weren’t merely combat spells, but spells that aided the caster in variety of areas—in addition, the spells all maintain the epic, descriptive feel I saw in the core rulebook. There’s incredible work in this section, really.
Chapter 5 describes the methods for creating new Artifacts (well, magical items, since if they’re being created by the player-characters, they’re probably not old enough to be
Artifacts…) In addition, a number of new artifacts are presented. The up side of this chapter is that it’s invaluable—PCs can now create powerful items for themselves, which definitely fits the game’s feel. The only downside for some people will be that the guidelines pretty much are just that—guidelines. Some of the artifacts presented later even violate the guidelines presented in slight ways. This would certainly be a problem, if it weren’t for the fact that this section isn’t filled with a hard set of limits, but recommends working to make items a cool and interesting part of the story. While this chapter functions as a set of rules, it also exists to make sure that the new works and items brought into the campaign “feel” like they should be in Exalted.
Chapter 6 expands on the sections in the rulebook on Manses, Demesnes, and Hearthstones. The new rules are wholly compatible with the old ones, and expand the potential of these places of power greatly. Four new types of Manse are presented, as well as attendant Hearthstones. In addition, new versions of existing types of Hearthstone are presented, at all power levels. Guidelines exist that allow PCs to build, alter, and create their own Manses and Demesnes, and rules are now here for using a single Manse to create multiple, lower power Hearthstones.
Finally, the Appendix includes rules for the mecha-like Warstriders. I liked them, and feel they add something interesting to the game. They do amp up Exalted’s already high power level, but I like that, and Storytellers who don’t can just decide not to use them. The rules are surprisingly simple—kudos to whoever wrote this section.
Reviewer’s Spin:
White-Wolf’s “Aberrant” RPG asked what the PCs would do with the power of a God, and it disappointed me because I didn’t feel that it followed through enough. Exalted doesn’t bother to even ask the question—it just hands the players a ton of might and tells them to get moving. I wanted a book that would kick the Exalted line into high gear, and the Book of 3 Circles does so without ramping up the power level in a spiral of escalation. This book is everything Exalted supplements should be—grand feeling, useful, with as much attention to mechanics as to setting. There were numerous times while reading this book that I just said, “Cool.” This book should be in every Exalted owner’s collection.
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