Rating: 
Summary: Experienced roleplayers only.
Review: I am so glad ths book has been written, it is way over due. The figures in the book are _very_ necessary. It saves the story teller so much time (not to mention errors) in determining the stats and the character of some of the powerful kindred controllers. I wish White Wolf do something similar to the Dark Ages.
Rating:
Summary: A must have if you seriously wish to play a serious game
Review: I am so glad ths book has been written, it is way over due. The figures in the book are _very_ necessary. It saves the story teller so much time (not to mention errors) in determining the stats and the character of some of the powerful kindred controllers. I wish White Wolf do something similar to the Dark Ages.
Rating: 
Summary: Good, yet perhaps unnecessary
Review: I found the information in this book very useful, however I don't think that it was necessary to give this much detail on some major powers in the world of the Vampires and taking that power from the individual Storytellers.
Rating: 
Summary: Great for Storytellers
Review: The way that Vampire: The Masquerade works gives a storyteller a lot of freedom to create. But sometimes it is good to have the help of a few pre-created characters too, especially lower gen ones. A very helpful section of this book gives guidelines for designing low-gen characters which I wished I'd had sooner. The book is divided into three sections: Sabbat, Camarilla, and Independent important/powerful figures. But it could really use an index so you can find clans or roles more easily. I'm intergrating into our game this summer in fact.
Rating:
Summary: Great for Storytellers
Review: The way that Vampire: The Masquerade works gives a storyteller a lot of freedom to create. But sometimes it is good to have the help of a few pre-created characters too, especially lower gen ones. A very helpful section of this book gives guidelines for designing low-gen characters which I wished I'd had sooner. The book is divided into three sections: Sabbat, Camarilla, and Independent important/powerful figures. But it could really use an index so you can find clans or roles more easily. I'm intergrating into our game this summer in fact.
Rating:
Summary: Experienced roleplayers only.
Review: This book contains detailed backgrounds and portraits of some of the most powerful cainites around. While some of the vampires such as caine and the regent along with the inner council aren't here (for obvious reasons) it is still very uselful for playing politics and when your players start killing everything they see just have a justicar roll on in and whoop his arse. If they can take the justicar then just spruce him up a bit so he can "compete". The information in this book is not meant for players and they should probably not read it if you plan on incorporating any of these power forces into a chronicle.
Rating:
Summary: For wise use only!
Review: This book is great. There are detailed backgrounds as well asstats on some of the most powerful characters in the world. All ofSeraphs and Justicars, some cardinals, archons, and everyone in between. Although a lot of well known kindred are not included, I feel this is just a deliberate decision made by White Wolf so that they can make a few more dollars off of us. The only problem with this book is not the publisher's flaw. Good STs should control the evil fighter with a level 6 in potence, celerity, and protean. Dumb power players can get too cocky and destroy ancient kindred that should be nearly invincible in almost any chronicle. Most of these characters are just manipulators for the average player. For all of these characters, there still should be a "AND ANYTHING ELSE THE STORYTELLER DESIRES" clause so that a 14th gen gangrel can't sneak a 5th gen Seraph because he has a level 2 Obfuscate and the Seraph only has a 1 Auspex.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful for shining some light onto the World Of Darkness!
Review: This is a WONDERFUL book for storytellers who need powerful NPC's or antagonists! When combined with the [nearly impossible to find] "Who's Who Among Vampires: Children of the Inquisition," you can get information about the REAL power in Kindred society.(This is a bad book for players to have, though.)
Rating:
Summary: INVALUABLE Source Material for Storytellers!
Review: This is a WONDERFUL book for storytellers who need powerful NPC's or antagonists! When combined with the [nearly impossible to find] "Who's Who Among Vampires: Children of the Inquisition," you can get information about the REAL power in Kindred society. (This is a bad book for players to have, though.)
Rating:
Summary: Very valuable resource
Review: This is a wonderful gallery of important storyteller run characters, with full stats and background histories that give a good feel for the characters' personality and outlook. There are exquisite portraits of each character by artist Christopher Shy (which earned this book another whole star from me.) The book still does maintain mystery about powerful figures like Caine (of course) or the Regent of the Sabbat (no more information about her or her predecessor either, apparently) but they have some really well detailed Sabbat cardinals as well as the current crop of Camarilla justicars and their archons. Some of these are characters who have been mentioned in past source books but never detailed. (The Gangrel Xaviar, for example, or Cardinal Strathcona.) There is also an independents section with examples of the Inconnu monitors for various cities. They assume that you can fiddle with these as needed and provide a basic formula for calculating the typical level of abilities for ancient vampires so that storytellers can make their own. My main nit to pick with this book is the fact that the selection of the characters listed seems arbitrary. Some are favorites culled existing source books and fleshed out or updated here. Others seem to have been made up just for this book, perhaps because there are future plans for them in or because they would seem to make interesting story hooks or because they are examples of a bloodline or character type. There seems to be a disproportionate number of Assamites- even a Methusalah whose stats are supposed to be mere suggestions of what it can do. (I guess they have plans....) Omissions are curious, too. Theo Bell is here, for example, (he's an archon) but Jan Pieterzoon is not. There are Setites but not Hesha. Or how about this- three of the four figures on the cover are Anatole, Lucita and Beckett. Their stats are NOT GIVEN in the book (? ) but those for Lucita's friend Fatima are given (she's an Assamite, right?) And these are just examples. So go figure. But don't worry. You'll find lots of uses for what's here.
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