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This review has been massively delayed, for which I apologise profusely. I rolled three consecutive botches and Wrinkle erased it from the timeline. Honest.
The Umbra. The spirit world of the World of Darkness has featured in one way or another in almost all of White Wolf’s WoD games. Although there’s some leeway, most WoD “races” are confined to specific areas – Werewolves to the Middle Umbra, Changelings to the Dreaming, Wraiths to the Tempest and Shadowlands and so on. This keeps the game lines happily separate and allows an “otherworld” sourcebook to be sold for each game line. It’s all good.
Mages aren’t limited to any one part of the outer worlds. As well as the areas delineated for their use like the Digital Web, Astral Worlds and Horizon Realms, they can be found poking around the Middle Umbra, maintaining Demesnes in the Dreaming and conducting Euthanatos initiation rites in the Shadowlands. There isn’t anywhere a Mage with enough time and XP can’t get to. So how do you write an Umbra sourcebook for Mage that covers everything in enough detail? The Book of Worlds was the second-edition attempt, concentrating on the three main layers of the Near Umbra and earning a place in the heart of many Mage players despite the lack of depth that the attempt to cram everything in caused. Since its release, much has happened to the World of Darkness as seen in Mage – the Avatar Storm first and foremost. Any new Umbra sourcebook has to cover enough of the vast (and in Mage Revised, mostly ignored until now) spirit worlds to be useful, and has to update those worlds for the post-metaplot WoD.
Infinite Tapestry’s authors have chosen to focus in on those areas of the otherworlds that are unique to Mage, and that have not been covered in other sourcebooks. Digital Web? Shadowlands? Dreaming? Middle Umbra (now called the Spirit Wilds)? All mentioned, and given their place in the overview sections of the book, but only covered in the barest minimum of detail – often a simple reference to the sourcebook devoted to the subject. The page space created is then spent on the Astral world and the Horizon – where Book of Worlds devoted 19 pages to the High Umbra, Infinite Tapestry spends over 90.
The dreaded metaplot gets an update; in the form of a series of countermeasures against the Avatar Storm and the prominent use of an old usually-ignored complication of Umbral travel: Disembodiment. In previous versions of the Mage Umbra, magi who stayed longer than a month risked transforming into a spirit appropriate to the area of the Umbra they were in. “Primal” mages (Dreamspeakers, Verbena and the like) could last up to a year, and those in Horizon Realms only adapted to their realms to a limited extent. Infinite Tapestry brings this concept from the sidelines to a Spirit-questing Mage’s primary worry. The danger limit is now three months, while Primal mages no longer get an automatic stay of Disembodiment, but must merge with a Totem spirit to get the benefit. When they do so, however, they no longer have a limit at all (as far as I can tell, anyway). The big change – and the source of much newsgroup controversy about this book – is that Horizon Realms no longer act as safe havens from Disembodiment. Naturally, all of the Mage populations of the Horizon Realms, planetary realms and so on have all long since passed their return-by date, giving a new edge to those realms which are now literal ghost-towns.
Also altered from previous versions is the concept of the Horizon – where in previous books the barrier between the Near and Deep Umbrae was a relatively simple wall of energy, Infinite Tapestry expands it to be an Umbral layer all it’s own with one “edge” at Earth, another at the Asteroid belt and contents made up of Ether. Where the Horizon Realms were once embedded into the “wall”, they now float through the wisps of Etherspace like something from Treasure Planet.
Enough of my blathering. On with the book report bit
Introduction: The Otherworlds
Is mercifully short and to the point, without even any game fiction. After a
quick rundown of the recent events that have rocked the Umbrae (to make sure
everyone’s on the same page) and some suggested reading, the ways in which
the book is intended to be used are put forward – that this is meant to
be a toolkit and a starting point for a Storyteller using the Umbrae and not
a be-all-and-end-all.
Chapter One: Crossing Over
Is the Beginner’s Guide To Umbral Travel, serving as a combination of
tour guide, explaining how the various layers and levels of the Umbrae fit together,
the spheres needed to access them (summarised in a handy table) and what can
be found inside. Alternate cosmologies, like that used by the Technocracy and
the now-defunct Mercurian Cosmology of the Hermetics, are given a short look
before the chapter moves onto the bit long-term players will be most interested
in – how to get past the Avatar Storm. All of the methods provided (and
there’s a few) are logical and internally consistent with Mage’s
universe. The Order of Hermes gets the most reliable method, (a rote to allow
an Astral projection move to layers other than the high Umbra) but you have
to be an Adept to use it while other methods are possible to Mages with Familiars
or Totems (the latter meaning that the majority of Dreamspeaker characters are
now once again Umbra-capable).
Chapter one rounds out with the detailed treatment of Disembodiment and “Acclimation”, where a Mage that has been in the Umbra too long but not quite turned into a spirit takes a few days to get used to his or her body upon returning. The mechanics are simple – a willpower roll every week after three lunar month’s grace for Disembodiment, and a simple table of time spent in the Umbra versus penalties to physical abilities and Pattern spheres for acclimation – and the Dreamspeakers are given another boost with the note that Totems can stave off the Disembodiment process in their Mages.
So far, so good – this chapter (finally) gives readers what the Mage core book didn’t have room for – it’s clear, it’s reasonably complete (only the very seldom mentioned Paradox Umbra is left out) and the game mechanics even make sense. The importance of the anti-storm methods will be obvious to anyone who’s sat through the last three years of Mage books. This is a major breakthrough in the setting, for sure.
Chapter Two: The Lower Astral Reaches
Covers the lower region of the High Umbra / Astral World, the so-called “Vulgate”.
The Vulgate is the realm of ideas shared between humans – it’s organised
around an infinite river delta, with the splitting waterways representing human
languages. Most of the chapter is taken up with the detailed description of
the Library of Alexandria, now resident in the Vulgate, and its associated spirits.
After the library, a few other features are mentioned – the Tavern of Four Winds (like the Inn from Sandman, with Babylonian Hearth Goddesses as barmaids, Loki as a pool shark and Zeus trying to pick up women) and two realms from the Book of Worlds that have now been all-but destroyed after the Reckoning – the Great Hall and the Inventium.
Chapter Two also introduces the concept of "Boons" – ready-made story goals that may be of use to a Storyteller contemplating taking his players’ characters into the High Umbra. Each spirit and subrealm has a boon associated with it, a sort of “what you can get out of this” listing. It’s certainly a time-saver, and gives the reader any number of story hooks right off the bat. The spirits themselves are all given their ranks by the Mage system (from Book of Madness revised) rather than by the more familiar Werewolf (Incarna/Jaggling/Gaffling) one, and most are given personality types described by zodiac sign – this spirit might be a Capricorn, while another is an Aries, for example.
This chapter really flows right into the next one, so I’ll go on about them both together in a bit.
Chapter Three: The Upper Astral Reaches
Continues the High Umbra information with material on the Spires – the
mountains where gods and elementals dwell – and the Epiphamies, or higher
realms made up of esoteric concepts. After laying out the two ways of getting
up to the epiphamies – climbing a spire or flying – and laying out
the structure of an Umbral court with the gates in and out, the chapter gives
three elemental courts (occidental, oriental and the Gray operating theatre).
After those three is the fully-detailed “court” of the Muses –
the Greek spirits that act as intermediaries between mortals and the Umbra,
and who are especially interested in mages. A handful of other high umbrood
– picked to display the differences between those who have kept their
traditional form, those that have lost it with age and the new spirits made
by the modern world. All spirits have full statistics, boons listed and, where
appropriate, the details needed for taking them as a Totem.
Then it’s on to the Epiphamies. After giving the basics, epiphamic realms are described – the World Stage, the Continuum Orrery, Newtonian Mechanics, Einsteinian Relativity, Motherhood, the Apex of History, the Nihil, the Well of Remembrance, the Well of Souls and the Fortress of Government. In case the reader doesn’t have access to Guide to the Traditions, the Past Life background is reprinted for use with some of these realms. Each epiphamy has a boon, and they’re much larger than earlier ones, reflecting the status of epiphamies as the goal of a story’s worth or more of Umbral questing.
Here’s where Infinite Tapestry starts to turn into a textbook. But in a good way. Chapters Two and Three fit together to form an exhaustive guide to the High Umbra that doesn’t dumb down the concepts they cover for any reason as lame as being a game sourcebook – someone obviously did their research here, on mythology, on philosophy and on psychology. Excellent stuff and long – ever since the first early-nineties glimmers that Mage’s Umbra was not the same as Werewolf’s – overdue.
The two big populations of spirits – the librarians of Alexandria and the Muses – are both potentially of great use to a Storyteller, as they have dominion over things mages are likely to be looking for, as most quests for information will go into the Library at some point. The Muses, in particular, seem designed as story hooks – to the extent that they each have a personality archetype, an avatar essence or a story type (from the storyteller chapter in the core book) that they are associated with.
The highlight of these two chapters, though, has to be the High Umbral Courts – developed into steps on a Mage’s journey of enlightenment, given archetypical roles and symbolism-laden organisations (I especially loved the five gates in / two gates out), they’ve made a Storyteller like me – wary of using the Umbra – impatient to get my characters off earth to meet them. Deeply inspiring, in an all-too-rare way.
Chapter Four: Beyond The Horizon
Covers the Horizon, the Horizon Realms and the planetary realms both inside
and on the far side of the Horizon. After the general details – how to
cross the first Horizon, the changes to magic and paradox that are to be encountered
in Etherspace, how to breath Ether and so on - come the Horizon Realms and Planetary
Realms, described in the order that they might be encountered by a Mage travelling
away from Earth – Victoria Station first, Cerberus and the Shard Realm
of Entropy last, taking in such places as Mus, Autocthonia, the Hollow Worlds,
Balador and the other eight planets. Sidebars give rules for converting disembodied
mages to spirits. The realms here aren’t in as much detail as those earlier
in the book, and the spirits described aren’t given full statistics, but
that’s a necessity of covering so many worlds. I’d have liked to
have seen some of the things further out from the Horizon – the Trinity
Realms and the Cop, especially, but I can live with it as it is. Especially
pleasing was the description of each planet in real world and symbolic terms
as well as their associated realms.
The Reckoning’s wave o destruction ™ casts a large shadow over Chapter Four, understandably given its subject matter. All of these realms have been changed in some way by the Avatar Storm, and the resulting ruined, spirit-haunted shadow worlds are… creepy as all hell, actually. Especially Victoria Station and Autocthonia, which display different ways in which Disembodiment can manifest. It may not be for everyone, but it’s done with style.
Chapter Five: From Beyond All Barriers
Is the chapter focusing on the creatures that come from the Umbrae – not
simple spirits, but those intelligent races that mages have encountered. Each
race is given its own section. First up are the Chulorviah, the parasites from
Blood-Dimmed Tides who are revealed here as being former symbionts of the Watchers
in the Deep. (The deep-Umbral race of cephalapod-alikes who aren’t actually
detailed in this book). The Chulorviah have started to break into our world,
and are possessing people in the process. Weird, and alien.
Next up are Demons, who are explicitly stated as not being Demon: The Fallen Demons, with examples from all power levels ranging from an imp to a dark god-like herald o doom. Demons have been gone into much greater detail elsewhere in Mage, so this bit’s mostly redundant. The first original race are the Hive Dwellers, a bizarre group of Starship-trooper bug-like creatures from a thoroughly unpleasant realm, that the Nephandi have managed to contact while trying to recover from their post-reckoning troubles. This section includes two Nephandic rotes, including a Nephandi anti-Storm method that doesn’t seem to make much mechanical sense to me. Next are Fever Dreams (Acheri from Changeling: The Dreaming), the nightmare-creatures of disease. The final race detailed is the Psychopomps from Manifesto: Transmissions from the Rogue Council, given a bit more background and more coherent current motivations. Fortunately for my self-esteem, there’s no chance of me mistaking them for Demon: The Fallen Demons this time. The Chapter rounds off with a brief discussion on how to summon any of these alien beings, with two examples.
So. Two crossovers, one explicit non-crossover, one original race of nasties never seen in a WoD book before and one lurking metaplot thread. It’s a bit annoying that the Watchers in the Deep aren’t covered but their spawn are – although I suppose it fits with the “focus on Earth” theme of Mage Revised, as the Chulorviah are actively invading while the Watchers don’t come near the Horizon.
Chapter Six: Walking the Worlds
Storyteller chapter alert: Themes for Umbral stories and advice on setting up
a story lead into a series of “reasons for going into the Umbra”,
going beyond the usual plot-hooks to giving ideas on the specific realms that
might be good for a particular story, and how the quest might change the mages
involved. After a few plot devices involving spirits – the possession
plot, the summoning plot and so forth, comes a highly useful few pages. A summary
of the Umbra metaplot for Mage and how it has affected the various worlds, for
purposes of reverse-engineering an Umbra without the Avatar Storm. Most welcome.
The Chapter rounds out with that rarest of things – a sample adventure. I won’t give too many spoilers, but it involves the characters going into the High Umbra to try to rescue a trapped Master, racing some Void Engineers to her realm. It’s short, needs some serious fleshing-out before it’s useable, and the plot twist will be obvious to anyone who’s read Infinite Tapestry or any of the net discussions that have sprung up. Still, if you have players who’re in the dark about how the Umbra has changed, this will give them some first-hand experience.
Appendix: Wonders and Traits
The book rounds off with an appendix of crunchy pieces – a brace of rotes
(including the game-mechanics versions of the anti-Avatar Storm methods and
a starting-level rote to hold of Disembodiment), a few wonders (including the
really disgusting “Ravanna’s Skin”), and some merits and flaws
(including one that makes a Mage lower the Gauntlet around herself, to the point
of causing shallowings by accident).
Summing up.
The benefits of being a Dreamspeaker.
Dreamspeakers have been perceived as getting the shaft in the later iterations
of Mage. How many people want to play a character that can’t use their
main sphere?
Weeeell…
The Totem background now gives all of its old merits and, with the correct totem abilities, defends the Mage from the Avatar Storm and prevents Disembodiment. Nice. The worth of this depend on your fondness for giving Dreamspeakers special benefits in the Umbra compared to mages of other traditions, though for a change the benefits are open to everyone with a certain background, rather than everyone in a particular tradition. There’s bound to be at least some Verbena or Ecstatics that can make use of it (Totem isn’t quite as Tradition-specific as, say, Do is), though Void Engineers are still screwed.
The Library (Where to go for the skinny on…)
Infinite Tapestry covers what it chooses to in exacting detail, and
sends the reader off to the back catalogue for other things. This list just
about covers it – Infinite Tapestry will become more useful the more of
these you have access to.
Spirit Rules – the Storyteller’s Companion
Spirits – Book of Madness
Demons and Infernal Pacts – Book of Madness
The Digital Web – Digital Web 2.0
The Spirit Wilds – Umbra Revised (for Werewolf)
The Shadowlands – Wraith: The Oblivion. Probably Orpheus.
The Dreaming – Changeling: The Dreaming
Infinite Tapestry for those who already own the Book of Worlds.
So. Just how different IS this from the BoW?
I’ve already mentioned the changes in emphasis, and the time spent on
different aspects of the Umbra. Chapter One is the most redundant to a BoW owner,
and Two and Three go over something that Book of Worlds treated in a bare minimum
of pages in exacting detail. The natures of the Horizon and Etherspace have
been completely changed from the earlier book, while only the Demons from Chapter
Five were in BoW.
It’s in the nature of specific realms that the relationship between this book and its predecessor gets confused – Victoria Station, despite being Storm-affected, has a longer and more detailed background in Infinite Tapestry, as does the Hollow World. On the other hand, the Inventium in I.T. launches straight into how the Storm has affected it, almost assuming that the reader has the earlier work.
In the three choices – this, BoW or both, the “best” choice would be both, to fill in the gaps in each book’s coverage. Take the Astral Umbra and Etherspace from here and add to the Spirit Wilds from there. Shake and serve.
If that isn’t an option, the reader has a choice to make – the low-depth but covers almost everything in a whirlwind tour Book of Worlds or the high-depth but leaves realms already described to their own sourcebooks Infinite Tapestry. It really depends on your love for the High Umbra, or lack of same.
Infinite Tapestry for the Metaplotless.
This was always going to be a hard book for the valiantly metaplot-less Mage
storytellers out there to use, so for their enlightenment:
Chapter One will be useable for the tour guide. You’ll have to throw
the middle third (the Avatar Storm section) out and remember that Disembodiment
doesn’t occur inside stable realms, but the mechanics for crossing to
different layers and so forth remain the same.
Chapter Two can be used as is, with the exception of the Inventium and Grand
Hall realms which you’ll have to “put back together”.
Chapter Three can be used as is.
Chapter Four is where it gets tough – you’ll need to come up with
Shade Realms (destroyed or disconnected from the Near Horizon) and re-embody
all the realms’ populations.
Chapter Five can be used as is, though you’ll need an alternate justification
if you plan on using the Hive Dwellers and the Pychopomps (who make Stormwardens
and can control Avatar Shards) will become rather pointless.
Chapter Six is all good, with the exception of the Story, which won’t
hold up without the Avatar Storm.
The Appendix is still useable – remember that the anti-disembodiment rotes
are still good for those not in a Horizon Realm, and the alternate Umbral entry
methods are... well, more fun ways to step sideways. Some of the rotes and wonders,
however, directly affect the Avatar Storm, so are of no use to you.
Final (whew!) Thoughts
The Umbra’s back. And it’s a graveyard. White Wolf have succeeded
in turning the otherworlds into something appropriate for a magical horror game
– for those that run with it, discovering the new ways into the Umbra,
setting off to find the lost Masters and finding that they’re no longer
human is a gigantic plot hook wrapped up and presented to the reader. For the
first time as a Storyteller, I want my characters to go into the Umbra. I’m
fighting to stop myself from railroading them right into the Vulgate. My enthusiasm
has been engaged.
I love this book.
But I can acknowledge that it’s because I fall into the narrow target audience for it. The more you deviate from “has a substantial back catalogue of Mage and uses the revised setting with only a few minor changes”, the more of the book you’ll have to modify, reengineer or throw out altogether. This is true of any Mage supplement, but something about Infinite Tapestry – the way in which it advances one metaplot thread and introduces another – makes it more true here. Know thyself, know thy chronicle and if in doubt fight tooth and claw with your FLGS to open the shrinkwrapping and see if it’s for you. One to be cautious about, here.
It certainly has it's flaws; the sheer amount of Umbral information not included in an Umbra book will make newcomers weep (including, as they were in the Storyteller's Companion, the rules for Spirits), certain realms are not given any background or explanation (Grand Hall, I'm looking at you), the rules for certain fundamental concepts are dribbled in whenever there's room (it took me a bit of a hunt to find the rules for converting mages to spirits, which are in Chapter Four, while the rules for how long it takes to turn into one are in Chapter One). And I still think it should have had the Watchers in Chapter Five.
One thing, though. The book constantly spells it "Epiphamy" (so this review does, too), but my spellchecker insists it should be "Epiphany". Is this an American thing?
Style: Infinite Tapestry continues the recent trend in Mage books – less artwork and smaller fonts making for a higher word count, and a welcome trend it is too. What art is included is dominated by Sheikman and Jones pieces – I’ve picked at Leif Jones in the past, so I will happily say that his rendition of the Avatar Storm and his version of the Mercurian Cosmology map were both very well. The cover, by Lawrence Snelly, is glorious. Style 4
Substance: Here’s where we get complicated. Infinite Tapestry adds a vast amount of detail to the areas of the Umbra it chooses to devote chapters to, while the rest is given only bare coverage. Several of the worlds covered in the book were introduced in the Book of Worlds, and having a copy of that earlier book will add to the value of those sections. At the same time, the metaplot touches almost every part of Infinite Tapestry – while it isn’t useless for a Storyteller who doesn’t use the post-1999 developments in Umbral travel, the realms and worlds described will need somewhere between a moderate and a large amount of work rather than being useable as is.
So, then;
You use the Avatar Storm and own Book of Worlds: Substance 5.
You use the Avatar Storm and don't own Book of Worlds : Substance 4
You don't use the Storm and do own Book of Worlds: Substance 4
You don't use the Storm and don't own Book of Worlds: Substance 3
To an average of 4.
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