Review of Arcane Mysteries of Barsaive

Basically, this book is the sequel to Magic: a manual of mystic secrets, and really contains most of the stuff that should have been in that.It adds more spells, talent knacks, magic items, blood charms and thread items (unique and common) to the Earthdawn setting.

Firstly, I loved the cover.Laubenstien is Earthdawn's true "signature" artist and his incredibly colourful cover immediately caught my eye and, in my opinion, helps set the tone of the whole book(many RPGs live and die by their artwork, and Earthdawn one of them).The interior art is more variable, but despite the presence of the talentless(IMHO) Baxa, pretty good.Combined with nice Earthdawn font and various symbols beneath the text, the illustrations help give the book a nice "magical" feel.

The "Spells" section is good, with a large number of new spells for all four spellcasting classes, which serve to round out and balance the existing spell lists. The Nethermancer spells are partcularly useful, as Nethermancers are given a couple of good low-level ranged attack spells, something they were missing before.A lis of the spells in this and Magic: a manual of mystic secrets is given, as is a complete spell list for Shamen(whom they bizarrely insist on calling Shamans).

The talent knacks given are numerous and useful, adding new variations to existing talents, but there are still far too few, and too many center around the same few talents.

Which brings onto the final, and my favourite section, Magical Items. Firstly we have "Common items", which adds to the items from the original Earthdawn book and the Earthdawn Companion.These are basically magical and very useful twists on various everyday items, from the large mug that refills itself with cold, pure water once a day, to light quartz in the hilts of weapons, to tools that repair mistakes made with them.This sections is brilliant as it adds a great deal to Earthdawn's magical atmosphere, and shows how ingrained magic is into the society of Barsaive, which is one of the things that distinguishes Earthdawn from the majority of swords n' magic(I hestate to say sorcery) RPGs.
More of the ever amusingly dangerous blood charms are added, all very useful, but at a great risk and price(in blood). These also contribute to the atmosphere and originality of Earthdawn, being, as they are, almost "magical cyberware".
More common(ie buy-able) thread items appear, and are certainly more intresting (though without the brilliant weapon illustrations) than those in the Earthdawn Companion.More unique thread items appear also, many of which are good and original, a couple of which are dull and slightly cliched.
Finally there are four "Grimoires", which are of some use, but more important as they remind one that they need not be simple spellbooks and give GMs some idea of how to generate their own.

Overall, then, this is the missing second half of Magic: a manual of mystic secrets, and I wish the two books had been published togther, saving everyone time and money. It is very useful and even essential if your campaign features alot of use of magic ect., but I would(and did) get Magic: a manual of mystic secrets first, as this contains alot of references to it.Definetly one of the best "more magic"-type books I have read, and it has a great cover!

Style: 5 (Excellent!)
Substance: 4 (Meaty)