Tradition Book: Order of Hermes

Rating:
Summary: One of the Best Tradition Books so far
Review: As an ST, I've found the Hollow One Tradition the most difficult to explain to players. This book however eases that problem. I found this Tradition book to be very informative. The Rotes included are very useful and mostly subtle. This book has given me a newfound appreciation for the Hollow One Tradition.

More than a Tradion of Goth-Mages, the Hollow Ones are about survival. Their main means of survival is to remain as unnoticed as possible.

I highly recommend this book as a necessity for a well rounded Mage game.

Rating:
Summary: Guide to the Goth-Mages
Review: This book brings together all the ideas surrounding the Hollow Ones and tries to expand them beyond the 'Goth-Mage' stereotype. The book has plenty of information on history, philosophies, and rotes for the group.

The book is a good resource for players and storytellers who want more information beyond the material provided in 'Outcasts: A Guide to Pariahs'. The information is useful and is presented in a clear fashion. The cover art is great and the new spells are useful. The only things I didn't like about the book are the templates. Most of them are based off of sci-fi characters.

Despite it's efforts to show that the Hollow Ones are more than Goth-Mages, the group still comes out looking more Goth than anything else.

Rating:
Summary: One of the best Tradition Books I've read
Review: This is definitely one of the best tradition books, if not one of the best Mage: the Ascension source books, that I've ever read. While many of the rotes and almost all of the templates are lacking, the background and depth this book gives the Hollow Ones more than makes up for it.

My main gripe with the rotes provided is that some of the spheres listed for them are woefully inaccurate. As for the templates, most of them(all but two, I believe) completely violate the basic character creation rules for Mage, in that they have spheres higher than their arete.

The rest of the content, however, is amazing. It gives you an excellent feel for who the Hollow Ones are, providing so much more depth than the listing in the Mage core book gives. It takes them from being two dimensional goth kid stereotypes to being a full, three dimensional group with real motivations and desires. A definite must have.