Horizon: The Stronghold of Hope (Mage - The Ascension)

Rating:
Summary: Level 6+ Sphere Powers
Review: Are the only reason I can think of anyone buying this Book. The Book describes extremely powerful Mages, (In a 2nd Ed format), and uses of spheres levels 6 and 7. These powers are kind of silly, (Forces 6 can used to destroy Planets), and then the book goes on to suggest ideas for Archmage campaigns. Ancient Vampires are listed as foes for a Cabal of Archmages, among a few others. There is another book - "Masters of the Art", or somesuch which has better material, but doesn't have the brief description of the Horizon Realm detailed in this book. Or the Level Six Sphere Powers.

Rating:
Summary: A good book, but not terribly useful
Review: I initially purchased this book as an aid to an umbra-based Mage game I was running. The book gave me a few ideas, but ultimately I found it was less useful than most of the other Mage books I own.

The book is, as its title suggests, all about the history, geography, society, and politics of the Horizon Realm. It also contains a good deal of information regarding "recent" events. This information is a story unto itself and unfortunately dominates a good portion of the content. This is not to mention all the hanging questions it leaves regarding the realm itself and the Mage universe in general. My curiosity was piqued in that regard, but still I found little that I was interested in working into my games.

Horizon's entire history is detailed here. It's an interesting read, but of dubious value. The biographical information on the archmages was admittedly well-written and interesting (if a little predictable), but I personally never use someone else's characters so it was also of little use to me. This goes double for the story they slipped in between the informative bits. On the other hand, the information about the secret societies of Horizon Realm was just enough to spark ideas for entire chronicles. The geographic information was very thorough as well, including maps and detailed descriptions. Again, not something I would bother using but useful for some Storytellers.

Overall, this is just a typical setting book with a cool underlying story. Storytellers who like to know where every little thing is located and who every one of the big players is will probably find this book very helpful. Those who prefer to create the majority of their games from scratch, like myself, might not have much use for about half the content. A better resource for such people might be The Book of Worlds. Still, Horizon is, if nothing else, a fun read.

Rating:
Summary: A good book, but not terribly useful
Review: I initially purchased this book as an aid to an umbra-based Mage game I was running. The book gave me a few ideas, but ultimately I found it was less useful than most of the other Mage books I own.

The book is, as its title suggests, all about the history, geography, society, and politics of the Horizon Realm. It also contains a good deal of information regarding "recent" events. This information is a story unto itself and unfortunately dominates a good portion of the content. This is not to mention all the hanging questions it leaves regarding the realm itself and the Mage universe in general. My curiosity was piqued in that regard, but still I found little that I was interested in working into my games.

Horizon's entire history is detailed here. It's an interesting read, but of dubious value. The biographical information on the archmages was admittedly well-written and interesting (if a little predictable), but I personally never use someone else's characters so it was also of little use to me. This goes double for the story they slipped in between the informative bits. On the other hand, the information about the secret societies of Horizon Realm was just enough to spark ideas for entire chronicles. The geographic information was very thorough as well, including maps and detailed descriptions. Again, not something I would bother using but useful for some Storytellers.

Overall, this is just a typical setting book with a cool underlying story. Storytellers who like to know where every little thing is located and who every one of the big players is will probably find this book very helpful. Those who prefer to create the majority of their games from scratch, like myself, might not have much use for about half the content. A better resource for such people might be The Book of Worlds. Still, Horizon is, if nothing else, a fun read.