Castebook Zenith is a 96 page sourcebook by White Wolf for its Exalted RPG. It’s written by Steve Kenson and David Wendt (Ph.D.) and retails for $14.95.
The Zenith are priests of a religion that’s been dead for over a thousand years. The Zenith are the judges and kings of a time long past, reborn into a world where their former foot soldiers have created a massive empire that hunts the Solar Exalted as a matter of course. As such, there is no real religion that the Zenith follow—they seem to be more interested in faith than dogma, righteousness than orthodoxy. The Zenith caste has far more in common with Clint Eastwood’s preacher in “Pale Rider” than they do a Dungeons and Dragons’ cleric. Their faith is strong, but they lack a rigid heirarchy or set of precepts--they're preachers with the holy spirit rather than high priests.
Castebook Zenith is a strong follow-up to the remarkable Castebook Dawn. Focused on the judges and priests of the Solar Exalted, Zenith does a good job of portraying the caste that actually hears the will of the Unconquered Sun, handling the details in such a way that the Zeniths neither overshadow others, nor lose out themselves by being bound into a morality.
Castebook Zenith begins with the standard opening fiction, then leads into a brief introduction, six chapters, and two appendices. The format is exactly like the first in the Castebook series.
The opening fiction, “The War with the Rats,” is well done and gets the point across, describing the actions and effect a Zenith had on a village under supernatural attack. The Introduction describes how the Zenith are warrior-priests, missionaries, and leaders, following it up with a description of the rest of the book and a list of source material. The source material is excellent stuff—the book describes what it thinks a Zenith is, and what follows in the next chapters builds on that definition. For the record, the source material ranges from Hercules and Xena to Chow Yun Fat’s character in “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.”
Chapter One, “Our Souls through Our Eyes,” introduces the book’s narrators and describes their Exaltations. The narrators are Panther, the Zenith signature character in the core rules and an ex-gladiator; Ocean Pearl, the concubine of a pirate and now a pirate herself; Armattan, a nomadic Southern Zenith; Fire Orchid, a member of the Seventh Legion of Lookshy, descending into old age before her Exaltation; and Wind, a student of the Immaculates whose ties to a Dragon-Blood make for some interesting scenes later in the book. I thought, based on her description, that I’d like Ocean Pearl best, but I found her rather bland in comparison to Fire Orchid. Still, any of these characters would make a good starting PC.
I do have two comments about the narrators. One, anyone who doesn’t like first person writing is going to dislike this book, despite the fact that the narration is top notch. The vast majority of the book is first person, 69 out of 96 pages, but we’re spared black on grey diary text in an odd font, and as stated above, the writing is well-done. Come on, kids, this is how WW does splatbooks, chances are you know it by now, and if you buy it anyway just to complain you get no sympathy from me.
Second, I felt the supplement suffered because of the lack of, for want of a better term, a negative role model. One of the most fascinating bits of Castebook Dawn was the character of Lyta, a proud and haughty warrior whose personality bordered on the psychotic. I’m not saying every Castebook should have a “bad guy,” but it would have been nicer to have an example of where the Zenith can go wrong, and because the Zenith lead and judge, there’s a lot of room for missteps. This is, without a doubt, my biggest complaint about Zenith.
Chapter Two, “Obligations of the Caste,” describes the goals and responsibilities set forth by the Unconquered Sun for the Zenith caste. First person testimony is supplemented by sidebars describing concepts like justice, righteous action, law, rebellion, and truth. This is a fairly strong section, given that I doubt other castes are going to have this focus on ideals. It’s descriptive without being pushy or locking a player into a worldview or “alignment,” and demonstrates how each Zenith sees these goals and prioritizes them differently. I really felt the lack of a “negative viewpoint” character like Lyta here, though.
Chapter Three, “The World Awaiting Us,” basically lists some of the different opinions the Zenith possess concerning factions in the Age of Sorrows. It’s very similar to the section in Castebook Dawn, although it’s enlivened by some gems, such as Wind’s letters to a mortal and then a Dragon-Blooded friend. Chapter Four, “Voices Not Our Own,” is told from the other perspective, and the most interesting segments here are the concern the Deathlord Mask of Winters and Wind’s Dragon-Blooded friend. I liked both of these chapters, and they’re as well handled as they were in Dawn.
Chapter Five, “Dreams of the First Age,” is a bit problematic for me. On the one hand, it reveals one of the reasons why the Unconquered Sun turned his back on the Solar Exalted, and that’s a powerful scene. On the other hand, it’s told completely from the point of view of one narrator, much of it is ephemeral, and so with the exception of the last few paragraphs it lacks the “punch” that made Castebook Dawn’s version of this chapter so wonderful. This is a personal preference issue, but I’d much rather see future books use multiple narrators and than an extended vision like this.
Chapter Six begins the “crunchy bits.” “Magic of the Zenith” describes 29 new Charms, 11 new Hearthstones, and 5 new Artifacts. The Charms are rather innovative, introducing (in a player’s book) Charms that require two Abilities as prerequisites. These were first introduced in Time of Tumult, but most players wouldn’t get a chance to see them there, so they're of note when included here. While there is no Martial Arts form in this book, there are a few “drunken fighting” Charms which may satisfy your martial arts jones. There are also several Charms that play off of the PC’s Virtues and Limit Break, adding an interesting new wrinkle to the way Charms can work. However, some of the prerequisites were a bit…odd. I’m still unclear on why two of the drunken fighting techniques require Resistance and Performance. Still, that’s a minor question and certainly not detrimental to one’s enjoyment of the book. As a final note, there is an Essence 7, Ability 7 Charm listed, and they’re appropriate prerequisites for a Charm of that power.
The Hearthstones and Artifacts are interesting, although in a couple of cases they seemed out of place. Specifically, the Flying Silver Dream moonsilver daiklaive is wonderful weapon, but it seems rather ill-fitting in a book focused on the Zeniths. All of the Hearthstones and Artifacts are well-written, and I especially like the Reborn Glacial Rain knife, although I had to once again try and figure out why it was included, since the Solar Exalted most associated with it is the Night Caste.
Appendix One provides each of the narrators with stats, written up as a starting PC, and the narratives in the book provide plenty of plot hooks if you want to use the characters this way. There’s a small mistake on one of the character sheets (Panther’s damage track isn’t blacked in properly, leading him to have far more -0 levels than he should) but once one looks at the Charms on that sheet, it’s easy to pick out. Appendix Two provides brief descriptions of several other Zenith and their activities, ranging from small scale village headmen to the resident of a Shadowland.
The art in the book is top-notch, and Exalted’s illustrations have gotten better with each passing supplement. The editing is also better in this book, with far fewer mistakes than in predecessors. The layout is the same as other Exalted releases and overall, I feel the buyer gets a lot of bang for his buck.
In the final analysis, Zenith is another solid Exalted supplement and a worthy followup to Castebook Dawn. In all honesty, I didn't like it as much as I liked Dawn, but that's got nothing to do with the quality of the book--while there are couple of odd bits throughout the book that might raise a reader’s eyebrow, none of them are detrimental to the book overall. I doubt the average, casual reader will even notice them. Even my complaints about the First Age vision and the lack of a “negative” narrator aren’t harmful to the overall book, just matters of personal preference.
Style: 4
Substance: 3
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