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In Short

The big downside here is that the individual parts were each written by a different author, and thus are a mix of quality. Chronicle assumptions, moderate railroading, and more than one deus ex machina are scattered throughout the product, and some of the sequences may clash with the style preferences of a given Storyteller or group..

The Physical Thing

On the downside, the editing for this product was very poorly done. Little more than a spellchecker seems to have been applied, and even by RPG standards a lot of mistakes are present. Additionally, for its $26.99 price tag this product offers a weaker value than many other products currently on the market.

The Ideas

This product does not discuss the Exarchs, it does not directly pit the characters against the Exarchs, and it doesn’t provide more than a few very Chronicle-specific spirits, spells, and artifacts.

Under the Cover

All of the artifacts in this Chronicle require checks to avoid Wisdom loss every time they’re used. This doesn’t make very much sense to me, and seems like an artificial way to reign in their considerable power. Particularly Wise characters may avoid using these artifacts, confining their use to the less Wise (and perhaps most chaotic) characters.

Chapter 1 The Ring 22 pages.

At its core: The Ring is a frame job on the PCs, resulting in political conflict and no small amount of detective work. Summary: A stranger, Gawain, appears on the characters doorstep and invokes the “Right of Hospitality” from Sanctum & Sigil, which requires that the characters give him hospitality. The first part of the adventure generally assumes the characters all live together, and that’s somewhat important since he leaves the Ring out in the open and judges folk based on their hospitality. He’s hiding from minions of the Exarchs who are chasing him, and when they draw near he teleports away. This leaves the PCs with a magic ring and a pair of devious bad guys.

In order to get the Ring away from the characters the bad guys lure the characters to a building that then blows up, with many convenient witnesses and cops there to implicate the characters in the destruction. Can the characters survive the political fallout? If they do, can they fight off the bad guys subsequent attempts to steal the Ring away from them?

The Ring: This artifact allows its owner to detect people who are serving the interests of the Exarchs, directly or indirectly. This can lead to a strong mood of paranoia.

The Good: The powers of the Ring do a good job of creating a paranoid environment. The artifact could serve as an excellent vehicle for an “Us vs. The World” sort of campaign. The actual method of framing the characters is interesting, and the means for revealing the frame up are easy to come by.

The Bad: The scenario assumes the characters live together, are willing to invite a stranger into their home, and that the characters can get themselves out of the political problem. The characters tend to get screwed quite a bit, which might not be quite as much fun for some groups. The scenario feels somewhat forced.

Chapter 2 The Robe 26 pages.

At its core: An investigation heavy adventure with strong elements of the fantastic.

Summary: An old friend, sibling, or love interest of one of the player characters, has disappeared. Either on their own initiative or at the request of a friend they have to track this person down and make sure they’re ok. Unfortunately, this NPC is the reincarnation of an ancient power that seeks out strange artifacts in order to resurrect itself. The NPC constantly pushes the PCs forward from one strange location to the next, and nothing the players do can prevent her from her compulsion to seek out certain mysterious artifacts. The adventure likely concludes either with her (the NPC’s) death or her ascendance as a strange and powerful being.

Along the way two locations of interest are explored. The first, the Body Orchard, involves the characters escaping a magical forest where the trees are made of human bodies and the flowers are human mouths. The second, Withend, involves the characters investigating a strange old English town where years of subtle Exarch control have created an orderly slice of paradise.

The Robe: This artifact hides its owner and those around the owner from the watchful eye of the Exarchs and their servants.

The Good: The Body Orchard is extremely flavorful, and I’ll likely be using it in one of my upcoming games. The artifacts the NPC seeks out are also very flavorful and have a Mage feel to them. All of the NPCs are detailed, interesting, and behave in a believable manner. This is easily one of my favorite scenarios from Reign, second only to The Crown below.

The Bad: The ill-fated NPC drives all of the events of the tale, and to a moderate extent the characters are just along for the ride. While the scenario hints that important choices are there to be made, there are few ways to really change the story. The Body Orchard encounter receives moderate detail, but seems extremely difficult and has a deus ex machina (some outside force resolves the problem) solution in order to allow the PCs to escape should they start to lose.

Chapter 3 The Scepter 26 pages.

At its core: The characters must escape a dream realm filled with their heart’s fondest desires.

Summary: The adventure begins with the players taking a break from their current Mage campaign, where rumors of a strange artifact had recently been dropped, in order to play pre-gens handed out by the Storyteller. In actuality, the characters found the artifact, but it used its magical defenses to knock them and place them in a dream world. As their bodies are unconscious in a salt cave, where the artifact was found, constant thirst is inserted into the dream adventure. That is just one of many clues meant to tip the players off over this multi-session scenario.

The pre-genned characters are meant to represent a more mundane version of the normal PCs, and many aspects of the dream realm represent things they want in real life. Friends, lovers, and other desires garbed in a believable shell of normalacy. As the players and characters start to figure out that something is amiss, various rolls are made gradually to recover powers, influence the dream realm, and ultimately escape. How the characters actually found the Scepter is told through brief flashbacks.

The Scepter: This device contains powerful Counterspells that can unravel the magic of Exarch pawns.

The Good: Once the dream realm is revealed and the characters have become accustomed to it the session becomes an imagination-fest for players who like being very creative with their powers. Reality can be highly mutable in the dream realm, and the climax of the story could involve obliterating hundreds of adversaries with a single roll. Digging into the subconscious of the characters could provide for very immersive roleplay and difficult decisions.

The Bad: First, this is going to be a hard adventure to sell some groups. Most folk aren’t excited about stopping a current campaign to play something else, especially something that seems mundane at first glance, and the advice on lying to and misdirecting the players may not work for many Storytellers. Once the ruse is revealed a significant amount of time is spent recovering magical ability, which may frustrate some players. The Red Herrings (false leads) provided to take the characters off the path to the real solution could result in a lot of frustration for some groups, and that there is only one hidden answer to escape the realm could result in an excessive amount of mundane investigation. The scenario is too specific and slow paced for me to even consider running, but it may work well for certain high trust groups who want a strange mystery to investigate.

That the scenario is character specific for at least the first half may also frustrate some groups, as only one character is likely to be active at a time.

Chapter 4 The Crown 28 pages.

At its core: Through routine investigation of strange local events the characters stumble into an Exarch plot and find themselves the target of a powerful being’s ire.

Summary: While investigating gang activity the characters realize graffiti hides glyphs linking the area to a local power. Curious, the characters are targeted for assassination before they get too far in their investigation. After dealing with the would-be assassin the characters hunt down the puppet-master for this scenario and defeat her.

The Crown: This simple headpiece allows a Mage to control the minds of servants of the Exarchs, a decidedly powerful advantage in this Chronicle.

The Good: For me, this is the best scenario contained in Reign of the Exarchs. It makes no assumptions about the characters, provides a variety of options and excellent suggestions, and doesn’t feel railroady. Rumors for every scene of this scenario are provided, allowing a Storyteller to easily supply characters with information in a fun and flavorful manner. Rules are used in a sensible and appropriate manner, and the scenario thinks of most things the characters will try. This scenario is particularly easy to divorce from the rest of the product for Storytellers who are less interested in the sequence.

The Bad: I can’t come up with anything. This is really well done, I’d be willing to use it as written with no changes.

Chapter 5 The Throne 25 pages.

At its core: This scenario requires that the characters have played through most of the others and that the Storyteller intended to use the entire sequence (and has thus seeded appropriate information and rumors ahead of time.) The scenario focuses on infiltrating a bastion of power and having someone Ascend to the heavens.

Summary: Seemingly normal people start snooping out the characters artifacts and make attempts to acquire them if possible. This leads the characters to a local office building, the headquarters of an Exarch puppet group currently in possession of the Throne. An ancient spirit drives the characters forward in an attempt to fulfill a destiny and have someone Ascend.

The Throne: When combined with the other artifacts of the Dethroned Queen, this device allows a soul to Ascend.

The Good: Infiltrating and, ultimately, breaking into the office building requires a wide variety of skills and every character is sure to have a fun and interesting role to play. Depending on the group makeup and the artifacts in their possession the players may enjoy a certain degree of satisfaction.

The Bad: The mage who becomes the focus of the whole event Ascends spiritually. Their body and mind remain, unable to perform magic. If this is a player character, which is possible, the player may be unsatisfied. The small office building is far from an epic locale for the conclusion of a Chronicle like this. Given how rich and powerful the enemy is, it’s surprising they do not have better security.

My Take

I would only run one of these Chapters as its written, and find some of them to be directly at odds with my playstyle. The biggest problem for me is that Mage: the Awakening is a game of wonder and there weren’t enough fantastical adversaries and events for my taste. I would like to have seen more locations like the Body Orchard and general strangeness than the product presents. Nevertheless, this product may serve many groups splendidly as a complete Chronicle, a pre-written Chapter, or an example of how to run a Mage Chronicle generally.

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