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Warning Shot An old axiom states that the future is for the children. Engel makes their focus on the children of the 27th century, the Children of the Lord, or pejoratively, Angels (the Engel). In this dark future, the Church has taken over in a neo-Dark Ages, making technology heresy, and faith center place once more. It’s a troubling time to survive in, even worse if you are an Engel. Product Notes Sword & Sorcery provides a in-depth look at the Golden Engel and the lands surrounding them. While providing modest material for the d20 system, Order Book: Michaelites gives the reader a decent look around the inner workings of the Michaelite Order, though it may have lost something in the translation from the German, as the book seems dull and lifeless in places. Rating 6 out of 10: 3 for Style. 3 for Substance.

Order Book: Michaelites review... “Still, the Order apparently never runs short of problems of its own, major ones as well as rather insignificant ones. Time and again, its members have to ask themselves whom they should fear more: the Lord of the Flies and his abominable Dreamseed or the bureaucracy of the Angelitic Church and its leaders...” (p. 57, “Of the Burden”) Order Book: Michaelites is a d20 system supplement for Feder & Schwert’s open-game Engel, translated from the German and produced in English by Sword & Sorcery Studios (which is itself a imprint of White Wolf Publishing, Inc.). This book provides needed source material that fills in the gaps from the Engel corebook where the Michaelite Engel are concerned. While this book has new Potestates (Engel powers fueled by hit points) and new weaponry, most of the book is about the Order and its members. Detailing various non-player characters and acting as a gazetteer, Order Book: Michaelites strengthens the role for the Golden Engel with details of the Order’s Himmel and its training of new Engel. Most of the book’s contents focus on using the ternal City—Roma ternal, that is—as the default setting of any chronicle with Michaelite Engel. The book doesn’t stray from the lands held by the Angelitic Church in Italia, or Michael’s Land as the text repeats throughout. The details provide a better look at the daily life of Michael’s Land than found inside the core rulebook, but doesn’t carry as much weight as one might think a demographic look at the land would. The translation of the German text probably removes a lot of feeling and subtle contexts, so in this version, readers get a drab look at the world as slanted by a Michaelite world view. Also included are numerous supporting characters, and intersecting fiction pieces, fill in some of the extra details of the Order and its workings. It’s a solid book in detailing how the Engel are organized inside their Himmels, though without seeing more sourcebooks for Engel (in English at least) it’s hard to say whether the outline is repeated throughout the Order Book series. I enjoyed details on the small number of factions that appear within the Order itself, though would have like more to have come from it–perhaps a prestige class or two, that only the Michaelite Engel could take (and as prestige classes are lacking in Engel overall, this might have been a good selling point to those wanting more from Engel as a game). Overall, Order Book: Michaelites is a nice book that sheds some light on the inner workings of an Engel order, but leaves the audience with more details on the outside of the Order rather than fully expanding on its character. The book provides less in meaty dice mechanics than most d20 supplements, so many may be put off by the work’s dull-at-times tone instead of purchasing a decent order/gazetteer book. Its nice to see support for the game, but hopefully future books will lose less in translation.