Rage Across the Heavens

Rating:
Summary: Garou join the events of the Year of the Reckoning
Review: And as the Ravnos Methusalah awoke, hungry, a mysterious red orb appeared in the skies of the Umbra, a portent of something...but of what?

Rage Across the Heavens hooks the Garou into the storyline, with a mysterious Red Star appearing in the skies of the Umbra. Is it the Orb of the Wyrm? Are the prophecies coming true?

This sourcebook details those prophecies, rules for Garou Astrology, details on the Incarna of the planets, and more. It is especially useful on details of the Aetherial Realm's denizens and powers.

Rating:
Summary: A very good book, despite the meta-plot.
Review: This book is the main way the people at White-Wolf decided to bring the Werewolf line into their so-called meta-plot, and as far as I can tell it leads into Werewolf Revised. Now I could care less about the meta-plot. As far as I can tell it is simply an excuse to rewrite their books so you have to go out and by new versions to keep up with the "story." I would be so much happier if the good people at White-Wolf would keep their grubby little hands out of our stories and stop devoting so much time and content to their silly plot. Isn't it our role as storytellers and players to come up with our own plots? A game developer's role is to give us an excellent and detailed background from which we can pull ideas and come up with our own stories.

Having said my peace on that, I must say that most of this book is excellent. Remember the Astrological aspects from the 1st edition Player's Guide? Well, this book reintroduces them but on an entirely new level.

It only makes sense that the Garou would look to the heavens to find answers to the universe. They are so tied into the moon and its phases, it stands to reason that they might also look to the stars. And most early human cultures did.

This book is about astrology from the Garou point of view. While it clearly relies on ideas from ancient human astrology, it does a good job modifying it to fit the werewolves. It devotes a lot of space to the zodiac as a whole, the separate aspects of the zodiac, and how these effect the Garou. All excellent material whether you are simply looking to add a new dimension to the Garou religion or you are actually going to take your players among the stars themselves (personally, I prefer the former). There is also a decent amount of space devoted to prophecies and using them in your game.

I know there are some people out there who like pure information without new rules and some who don't think a book is very fulfilling unless it has new stuff for character creation and/or storyteller use. I would definitely say that in this book there is a good balance as far as pure information and new rules, so everyone should be happy. All in all I thought this book was very good and well worth the money. I might have given it five stars were it not for the space they devoted to advancing their meta-plot.

Rating:
Summary: A very good book, despite the meta-plot.
Review: This book is the main way the people at White-Wolf decided to bring the Werewolf line into their so-called meta-plot, and as far as I can tell it leads into Werewolf Revised. Now I could care less about the meta-plot. As far as I can tell it is simply an excuse to rewrite their books so you have to go out and by new versions to keep up with the "story." I would be so much happier if the good people at White-Wolf would keep their grubby little hands out of our stories and stop devoting so much time and content to their silly plot. Isn't it our role as storytellers and players to come up with our own plots? A game developer's role is to give us an excellent and detailed background from which we can pull ideas and come up with our own stories.

Having said my peace on that, I must say that most of this book is excellent. Remember the Astrological aspects from the 1st edition Player's Guide? Well, this book reintroduces them but on an entirely new level.

It only makes sense that the Garou would look to the heavens to find answers to the universe. They are so tied into the moon and its phases, it stands to reason that they might also look to the stars. And most early human cultures did.

This book is about astrology from the Garou point of view. While it clearly relies on ideas from ancient human astrology, it does a good job modifying it to fit the werewolves. It devotes a lot of space to the zodiac as a whole, the separate aspects of the zodiac, and how these effect the Garou. All excellent material whether you are simply looking to add a new dimension to the Garou religion or you are actually going to take your players among the stars themselves (personally, I prefer the former). There is also a decent amount of space devoted to prophecies and using them in your game.

I know there are some people out there who like pure information without new rules and some who don't think a book is very fulfilling unless it has new stuff for character creation and/or storyteller use. I would definitely say that in this book there is a good balance as far as pure information and new rules, so everyone should be happy. All in all I thought this book was very good and well worth the money. I might have given it five stars were it not for the space they devoted to advancing their meta-plot.