Tradition Book: Euthanatos

Rating:
Summary: Blown Away!
Review: I am totally blown away by this Tradition Book. This book gets to the nit and gritty of the Euthanatos. It has the details on how one can join some of the more selective factions and hints on the big Order of Hermes House Janissary plot.

The rotes included are quite useful and the stroy threaded through the book leaves the reader wanting more. The improved version of Iron Avatar is much more interesting than the one included in 'Laws of the Ascension Companion'.

This is one of the best Tradition Books released thus far.This book is an absolute MUST for Storytellers and players alike.

Rating:
Summary: The Story Of The Death Mages
Review: Tradition Book Euthanatos Revised had a lot to live up to. Afterall, the original Tradition book was one of the best in the series. The Revised book had a balance of story and game mechanics which was great. The story itself was really interesting and showed what the everyday Death Mage has to deal with both externally and internally. The pull of the Death Taint was always present and every Euthanatos should do their best to balance it out. Rather than a replacement for the orginal Tradition Book, I found that this book actually built on the earlier edition. The mage accused of heresy in the first book made an appearance and the rotes were not just transported in from the earlier edition.

So how useful was this book? For those of you who have the earlier edition, this book will serve to flesh out the rest of the tradition. Euthanatos factions outside of India were given a lot of attention. Groups in Greece, Africa, Europe, and South America were elaborated on to show that the Euthanatos is a tradition with many methods, but is common in terms of philosophy. This book helps, but is not necessary if you have the old book. Players who just have the main Mage sourcebook will find the book extremely helpful. The paradigm and philosophies were well explained in the book. Their role as the keepers of the Wheel and the dispensers of the Good Death was explained as responsibilities, not rights.

Tradition Book Euthanatos Revised is an excellent book that is useful for storytellers and players who want to learn more about this often misunderstood Tradition.

Rating:
Summary: Another Smash Hit
Review: White Wolf has managed to do it again! Notorious in the past for really lackluster treatment of the World of Darkness setting outside of Europe and north America, the Euthanatos book has completed a transformation that started with "Dragons of the East" and the "Akashic Brotherhood Tradition Book."

The new Euthanatos book is excellent; it's treatment of history and factions in the Death-Mages is incrementally better than it's predacessor. I enjoyed the greater detail given to the functional groups within the Euthanatoi-- the Golden Chalice, Wheel Keepers, and Albirerans.

Also, slightly more thought is put into the european and greek branches than previously, and there's brand-new material on the resurgence of the african euthanatotics of Great Zimbabwe, and details on the Aided, the celtic Euthanatoi.

The author of Revised Euthanatos also makes insightful, needful comments about what it really means to be a Thanatotic, and the distinction between playing an easy, gleeful killer, and the real challenge of playing a character who accepts, or at least tries to accept, death itself.

Mention is made of Euthanatos' dealings with wraiths, there's info on how Euthanatoi are adapting to the unpopular Avatar Storm, info on the new, ominious big movement in the Tradition (READ CLOSE, because it's in the fiction) and several pages of exciting new rotes and so forth, for those of you who're metaplot or mechanics junkies.

For those of you who buy Game Books because what you really want to read Mage novels, the Euthanatos book also should be very satisfying. The fiction is good, even if it is a perrenial idiocy to ruin good game books with excessive fiction. As usual, real game information is as usual being blurred into the fiction.

Despite this, and the awful turns in development Mage has taken since Brucato, there *have* been a few books worth buying in the line, and this is definitely one of them.