Sons of Ether (Mage)

Rating:
Summary: Excellent integration of pulp and retrotech themes into Mage
Review: Sons of Ether is one of the most playful of White Wolf's supplements for Mage: The Ascension. It takes up the retrotech motif that inspired games such as Space 1889 and the steampunk literary movement and interprets it in terms of magic. Numerous clever passages allude to science fiction and pulp classics, with pastiches of Frankenstein's monster, Robur the Conqueror, and Doc Savage turning out to be mages--a clever tribute to the famous "sense of wonder." The opening, a chapter from a supposed pulp novel about the heroic "Doc Eon," is brilliant. As with all White Wolf games, the ratio of story to game mechanics is too high, but in this case I find it easy to forgive them; I've reread this supplement several times for sheer pleasure

Rating:
Summary: Good background info but could have used more game info
Review: This is a very fun book to read. The whole book is written as a special issue of 'Paradigma', the Etherites' journal of progressive sciences. Most of the book is about the history and practices of the Sons of Ether. In this regard, the book succeeds greatly. The Etherites appear to be a mix of Victorian scientists mixed in with sci-fi pulp heroes from the earlier parts of the 20th century. A few noteworthy Etherites are displayed at the end of the book, including the narrator from 'Book of the Worlds'. When it comes to useable game mechanics, there really wasn't enough. Only a handful of rotes and devices were discussed.