Initiates of the Art

Rating:
Summary: Not essential, but may be helpful
Review: This was a really basic book about running apprentice magi chronicles. Most of the concepts can be derived through common sense and everything you would expect to find in the book was discussed. The book was focused on Tradition and Orphan magi as opposed to Technocrats. Technocrat players and storytellers wouldn't find many useful bits of info here. Refer to the Guide to the Technocracy instead.

The book talked about general initiations, basic spells, balancing a mundane life with magick, and information on how to make an apprentice mage. I enjoyed the small sections on the Marauders and the Nephandi and how an apprentice could be dragged into their coils. The two versions of the Book of Madness may be better references for storytellers who want to use them in chronicles.

Is this book necessary for PCs and STs? I would have to say it is not. The Mage Revised Core book should be sufficient for apprentice game information. There is nothing new here. It may be a nice guide book to assist novice storytellers with chronicles and can serve as a reminder for concepts in the main book. This was not a bad book, but it wasn't a good book either. Get it if you feel you need more information on how to make an apprentice mage or run an apprentice mage game. If you are familiar with the World of Darkness and have ran a few games before you will not need this book.


Rating:
Summary: A medium-sized book where a single chapter would do.
Review: Who wanted this book? This is such a light-weight book -- mostly in-character stuff that fails to give much of an overview of how Awakenings and apprenticeship works for more than the specific examples given -- that I have to wonder if this was taken from some longer work for space reasons and then expanded to justify it being published on its own.

The book is 90 percent in-character talk about apprenticing and lots of obvious points (didja know it's hard to balance the demands of apprenticeship and the previous, mundane life? It's TRUE!) with 10 percent useful new information.

Having said that, this is done perfectly servicably, but this should be picked up only if you've already grabbed all the really good Mage books.