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Exalted has gotten a lot of press regarding its concentration on "epic" fantasy, and nowhere is this concentration more apparent than in The Book of 3 Circles, which deals with sorcery and magical items in Creation. Bo3C turns all of the dials to "maximum" dealing with the grander branch of the Chosen's magic, and is a great supplement to the paltry listing in the core rulebook.
Mechanically, there isn't a lot of difference between Charms and Sorcery - spells could be rewritten as Charms branching off the Circle Sorcery charms and more or less act the same. The true difference is in concept and flavor - charms enhance an already present ability, while Sorcery can theoretically do just about anything that isn't prohibited by the ground rules of Creation itself. Bo3C continually drives this point home with a series of creative and bizarre spells that, offer countless plot hooks in themselves.
Before getting to all of that, we're treated to a brief history of magic in Creation, who tells of the first Exalted sorceress, along with a small sidebar giving the offical Dragon-Blooded version of the myth. This is followed by more background information dealing with typical sorcerers of each of the Exalted detailed at that point (Solar, Lunar, and Dragon-Bloods) and rules for creating new spells. The first chapter concludes with a brief listing of interesting books and artifacts - most of these are not intended as normal PC items, but rather as plot hooks and McGuffins for stories. Two particularly interesting items are The Broken-Winged Crane, a book that has not yet been written that corrupts the reader into becoming an Infernal Exalted, and the Black and White Treatises. The entry for The Broken-Winged Crane contains the first hints of the Infernal Exalted in the line at the time Bo3C was first printed, although regrettably not even suggestions of rules as to what such an Exalt is like. The Treatises, on the other hand, are wide-spread throughout the Realm and elsewhere as primers for sorcery, and reputed to have been written by the aforementioned first sorceress. The Black Treatise contains all the Terrestial spells from the core rulebook, giving a nice in-character reason why every sorceror you might have created before Bo3C has the same set of spells.
The next three chapters detail spells of the titled Three Circles - Terrestrial, Celestial, and Solar. Only Terrestrial magic is somewhat common, and it is the least powerful, yet even it is fairly impressive. The very first spell in the Terrestrial chapter allows the caster to perform a short 15 minute ritual, and then instantly kill any mortal - it has a lesser effect on any kind of magical being including Exalts, but this still shows what the lowest circle is capable of. Many of the other impressive spells are nigh-Biblical in nature, such as turning rivers to blood, creating a manna-analogue, parting oceans, and so forth. The Celestial Circle is still a step up, mind you. It blows Terrestrial stuff out of the water that it's been been parting. One can cause non-sentient beings to age rapidly to adulthood (handy if you happen to be down to your last apple in your rations, eh?), or place something in a timeless stasis, dominate a person's mind, or even create a sort of very minor Exalted out of a mortal.
Finally, we have the Solar Circle. It's very expensive to use Essence-wise, very draining, and even in the First Age, was uncommon. Nowadays, finding a single Solar spell could form the basis for an entire adventure, if not a mini-campaign. In return, it's just this side of absurdly powerful... or, at least, it is in any game that's not Exalted. A curse that causes nature itself in the form of all local non-human life to try to kill you, creating your own personal Brigadoon, making five people combine into one super-being like some kind of demented Voltron... all of these fall within the Solar circle. While the upper-level spells belonging to the other kinds of Exalted can exceed Solar magic in their specialty, they still don't have the overall "POW!" that belongs to the Solars.
For the most part, the spells are original - no D&D fireball clones here - and should give just about anyone wanting to run or play a game of Exalted a good idea of the kind of things that are expected to happen when you have nigh-immortal godlings running around. For this alone, Book of 3 Circles would be a nice addition to an Exalted collection... and we're just halfway through the book. The next half deals with the magical items and goodies available in Creation. Aside from rules dealing with the creation of artifacts, there is a short listing of two or three items for each level of power. These examples don't seem to exactly follow the rules in all cases, but they seem to be about on the right track. The trick of most items coming in five varieties, one for each of the Magical Materials, helps fatten this sparse listing a bit.
There is also a chapter dealing with Manses and Hearthstones. Given the importance of Manses to Exalts, not to mention the too-vague descriptions of manses in the core book, this section is useful enough that I wish they'd included it in the core book, or the Storyteller's Companion at the very least. Still, it's here, and it gives you a good idea of what a typical Manse might be like, and why it is a good idea to cap a Demense with a Manse as soon as you can - uncapped Demenses leak magic, causing mutations and derangements to any local inhabitants. Even so, some Manses only partially cap a Demense, as the locals might find these mutations useful. All of this is good flavor to add when designing Manses of your own. This section is rounded out with a number of Hearthstones, so many that it gives the impression that an Exalt's main source of "magical stuff" might be Hearthstones, instead of artifacts - an idea I did not get at all from the core book, and I wonder if it was intended.
A last, optional appendix details "warstriders", or Exalted's answer to anime mecha. Mechanically, they're just level 3 Artifacts that require a lot of upkeep, both in resources and hearthstones, but they are rarer than this suggests. I'm surprised at the marginal treatment they receive, but I can understand wanting to forstall suggestions that White Wolf is trying to turn Exalted into Mekton Z, or fantasy Mechwarrior. At that, warstriders are treated as nothing more than very big suits of armor that enhance the user's strength enough to use very big melee weapons - if there's an anime they resemble, it's Escaflowne but I had more of a picture of the badass kung-fu mechs from the Xenogears video game. In any case, an Exalted without a warstrider isn't at a huge disadvantage from one with one - warstriders are really designed to be siege weapons or giant-monster slayers, and while a strider offers a lot of protection against smaller foes, it's not very good at HITTING smaller foes.
Now, for the non-crunchy parts of the book: Those who dislike game fiction will be relieved to know that Bo3C has none at all; even the myth of Brigid, the first Exalted sorceress is presented in straightforward terms in prose. The art is serviceable, with some really nice pieces. The one leading in the Celestial Circle is a GREAT example of the kind of devastation a sorcerer can cause, for example. There's also the manga-looking stuff (page six reminds one of Slayers' Lina Inverse getting ready to Dragon Slave, but that's a good thing to be reminded of) and the uninspired; the front art for the Solar chapter just doesn't strike me with the majesty I want my Solar magic to have (page 75 works for that) and I have a love-hate relationship with everything Tracy Yardley does in the book. Some of it is fairly cool, like the Lightning Spider picture on p. 40. Some of it looks like middle of the road fanart from the 'net. I'm telling myself it balances out. Those who care will be happy to know that Ross Campbell gets his pierced body part quota out of the way on page 77, with the picture for Summoning the Greater Minions of the Eyeless Face, and it's a good, descriptive picture at that. The ones who will have a real problem with the art in this book are those who can't stand manga/anime-style art, but these pictures are exclusively of sorcerors getting ready to unleash Cans o' Sorcerous Whupass, so you may find it in your heart to bear it anyway.
My final opinion of The Book of 3 Circles is that it is a very worthy book for the Exalted line, a must-have if you want to make sorcery a major part of your game, and very useful for the artifact and Manse information. If you are wanting to get an Exalted sourcebook without going to the expense of one of the "fatsplats", you cannot go wrong by getting this. Even if you do not have Exalted, you might still enjoy reading through the spells and items and mining them for ideas to translate to your own favorite game. This is matched by visuals that, while not uniformly excellent, are evocative of the subject at hand.
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