One of the key things that impressed me most about AGONE when I first read the main rulebook was the nature of its magic. Rather than having your traditional spell slinging mages, AGONE’s magic was split into three key areas – Ascendancy; The Magical Arts; and Invoking.
The Grimoire: Vol. 1 covers the first two areas, which players are more likely to use.
Graphics and Layout
As is to be expected from Multism, the layout and graphics of this book are very attractive. The cover is the usual eclectic and sumptuous artwork that is common for AGONE products. The interior art is actually of a better quality that the main rulebook – with considerably more artwork that shows actual elements of the setting in clearer detail.
The use of spacing and layout is up to Multism’s usual high standard, which means that this is an easy to read book. A considerable improvement is the ease with which one can find information as well.
Magic, Dancers and Music
The book is split into four major segments as well as having an appendix and a short story at the beginning – which continues from the short story found at the beginning of
The Grey Papers supplement. The first segment details various elements of magic that are outside of the traditional three disciplines. This includes Remains, Sanctuaries, Luminaries, Esoteric Architecture, The Shard and Artifacts. While this segment is deceptively short – some chapters are only two pages long – there is a wealth of information here. The most valuable would have to be the Sanctuaries and Esoteric Architecture.
The Second “Book” covers Ascendancy in more detail. This is invaluable to anyone who wants to seriously play AGONE – the new spells and general write up of the Cipher-Sorcerer are fantastic and help to clarify quite a bit about how magic is viewed in the Twilight Realms. There is also a new form of dancer magic introduced – Choreography. There are also many new assets and faults for Ascendancy mages – some of which are very useful.
Next are the Magical Arts. This “Book” is almost a mirror-image of the Ascendancy section. Several new spells and arts are revealed – best of all are the secret arts and the ability to combine arts to create new opuses. Again there are some assets and faults that are unique to Concordists that help to develop characters more.
Finally there is an adventure involving the PCs chasing a renegade Dancer. This is a well-written adventure that should provide a couple of sessions worth of entertainment during a campaign.
The Appendix simply lists all the existing spells for Ascendancy and Concordists – this is useful and should help any EG with finding a spells rules with ease.
The Bad
Despite some typos and odd grammatical gaffs, this is a great read. I really can’t find that much to fault with this book. It’s packed with useful information and some nifty new rules and spells. I felt that the first segment was too brief – the chapters on The Shard, Remains and Artifacts felt as though they were lacking anything of actual roleplaying value.
Another problem is simply that the majority of the book is aimed at the EG and not players. This creates the issue of having to decide how much of the book you can allow a player to read without risking them learning something that you, as EG, hoped to keep secret. But this is a common difficulty when trying to release a book for both players and GMs – so I guess that it’s an acceptable fault.
Conclusion
Definitely a must have for the AGONE Eminence Grise. While it isn’t necessary for play, the new rules help to show how magical the setting really is. Also it allows the EG to flesh out the Cipher-Sorcerer and the Square as well. The spells are fantastic – Jornists are no longer helpless as they have a nice range of powerful spells that would even make an Obscurantist shake with fear. (namely “thunder and lightning”)
The Choreography rules are a nice addition – even though they are quite short – and the secret arts are fantastic, especially the ability to combine arts. All in all this book is well worth the purchase.
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