Roll of Glorious Divinity I

    You are the weakest link.

   Among the outstanding Books of Sorcery series that brought us the White Treatise, First Age Glories of Wonders of the Lost Age and the advanced manse and artefact rules (very useful) of Oadenol's Codex this book stands out. Unlike in it's successor II the Charms for the gods and elementals are very bland compared to the Charms for ghosts in volume II which have Virtue minimums and are grouped into cascades. Unfortunately rather than having a proper set of individual powers demons use the same Charms as gods do. It makes for very uninteresting reading. As with much in Exalted it creates more potential in the mind of the player than it actually expresses itself. The idea of Spirit Charms being expressions of the spirit's nature and personality is excellent but they don't realise this idea in an interesting way. The definition of the ghosts' Charms in volume II is far better, as with Yu-Shan the atmosphere of this book is very bland. I think it would be better if they drew directly on mythological ideas or created characters and traits similar to them, the gods in Exalted both in this book and in Yu-Shan lack an elemental power that's present in mythology and other, more basic forms of fantasy. I was looking at a book of fantasy art one day and although it was primitive had a certain fundamental power that Exalted lacks and I think would be better if it had. Players not particularly committed are better off looking at Exalted Charms and creating their own gods' powers from original ideas or using the Glorious Divinity vol.II for inspiration.

Scroll of Kings

    World at War

   This book provides an unusual combination of an in depth and comprehensive guide to all major civilisations in Creation. Each chapter is a description of one of the directions of Creation finishing with the Realm with details on all aspects of how the cultures in that direction fight, what problems they face and examples of their military units. They also include to predominant directional military gods and detailed rules for the complications of fighting in each direction. Unfortunately they don't really go to town on naval warfare, I was expecting something different since it's such an unusual arena of conflict and rules for fighting with vehicles are included in Wonders of the Lost Age rather than in this book. This is an important point since there's a long list of conventional vehicles in the back of Scroll of Kings as well as an armoury of new equipment including artillery.
   Covering the entirety of Creation (including the supernatural creatures that live within it such as the Lintha and Black Fleet Spectre Commandos ("Deeeaaathhhhh") who are catapulted into battle) keep this book interesting and you can base the army of any ally of foe you're likely to meet on what is in here. Smaller, more esoteric cultures are covered in the Compass of Terrestrial Directions series.

Scroll of the Monk

    Guide to Exalted Martial Arts

   This is one of my favourite books from the Exalted series. It starts off with a description of the 'Martial Arts World,' the subculture of martial arts practitioners and how it differs from other fighting arts. There's also a treatise on the three different levels of martial arts styles, how the Exalted and other supernaturals relate to them, and how mortals can learn supernatural martial arts through Essence enlightenment from esoteric practices, dangerous artefacts, or most intriguing for my character the supernatural drug Celestial Cocaine.
   The main part of the book is a description of a plethora of styles, one chapter on Terrestrial martial arts, one of Celestial and one on Sidereal. The Terrestrial styles although unusual have an air of insubstantiability about them. I personally think they should be the opposite, very direct and solid. The Celestial Martial arts are great, especially Silver Voiced Nightingale Style, created by a Lunar with a very unmartial Spirit Shape who learned to use her voice as a weapon; the deadly Mantis Style, esoteric Righteous Devil Style that solely uses flame weapons and the Abyssal Laughing Wounds Style (which partly inspired my Denied And Forsaken Widow Style.)
   The Sidereal Styles go beyond conventional notions of Martial Arts. The first, Border of Kaleidoscopic Logic Style that starts the chapter isn't representative of all Sidereal Styles, the write ups are very long and it starts at Essence 6 Charms going all the way up to Martial Arts and Essence 8. The Charms of this style are quite disturbing to read, it attacks people's perception of identity rather than attacking them physically. The other styles are somewhat more ordinary but are still exotic. This chapter is doubly important since not only are Sidereals unable (according to Dreams of the First Age) to develop Sidereal Charms with an Essence above five, it provides a valuable guide to people who want to develop high Essence Charms.
   At the end is an appendix of new martial arts weapons and artefacts versions, including ones for weapons in the main rule book. I'd definitely recommend this as a book for storytellers as it can open you eyes to an important an exciting aspect of Exalted that you may not have considered before. It also gives storytellers and players plenty of reference for developing their own martial arts styles.

You're off the Fucking Chain

    Wonders of the Lost Age

   This book is for people who want Exalted gone mad. It's a category by category description of all the greatest things from the First Age. Some of the other Exalted supplements (ironically the ones about the actual Exalted) I found disappointing but not this. In it are finally a comprehensive description of the cryptically mentioned Warstriders and a short but brilliant chapter (starting with my favourite Exalted comic strip ever) about First Age Essence weapon such as the fabulously named Implosion Bows. Add a bucket full of megalomania for an 'All Form The Head' type game and you have the ammunition to go completely bezerk. Although that's just my ego running away with me, it does have a huge amount of the quirky exotica that makes Exalted so interesting. Including descriptions of the Eight Gifts of Celestial Grace including a full write up of the Five Metal Shrike (on the cover of the Compass of Terrestrial Directions: The South.) A great book that an Exalted fan could read purely for entertainment.

Exalted Second Edition

    A major difference between Exalted and other fantasy works is it's created completely apart from any Tolkienian influence. Many other fantasy writers try to create a setting using mainly their own imagination and they all seem the same. Exalted is a rare creation of a fantasy universe that has genuine scope as well as bringing a new set of influences that make it unique. It's a rare example of truly innovative fantasy.

High Essence Charms

    I thought that Dreams of the First Age would have a comprehensive collection of genuine high Essence Charms for all Exalted, including maybe Abyssals. The scale of Charms with Essence 9 and 10 allow the Exalted to strive against the Primordials. These are the Charms they used in their defeat, the powers that led to their defeat and enforced the oaths they took that banished them Elsewhere and imprisoned them in Malfeas (Eclipse Caste.) This is the potential for greatness an Exaltation holds.
   Guide to the Camarilla has an encyclopaedic section on all of the major Disciplines and the Camarilla ones at levels 6 to 10. This is what they should do with Exalted when making a book about the First Age. Also they should have given it more history so you could set a game during any period of the First Age. From it's herioc beginnings around the War of the Primordials when the Solars are fighting to free humanity; to the true High First Age when they made Creation the awesome wonder that it was and everyone remembers the Age for; to the twilight of the First Age when the Exalted's long developed powers are at their greatest but their corruption throws a dark shadow over the world and although their magic and technology have reached a height never seen before they have become evil, scheming despots about to tear apart the world they once created. This is why the Sidereals took the drastic step of assassinating every one of the Solars and imprisoning their Essences for all time. I like the booklet that gives you a guide to Meru, it gives you a feel of the contemporary setting, but the First Age has such distinct parts it really should have covered all of them.
   I've been thinking too about the scale of history of Exalted. Although it shouldn't be overdone because the scale it's at gives it a level of immediacy and more gravity to individual actions, earth history and the Primordials give me other ideas. There's a major opportunity to use the stories of H. P. Lovecraft, especially Call of Cthulhu as an inspiration in Exalted. Earth history goes back aeons. I don't think that the history of Exalted should go back thousands of millions of years, but there's such a strong link between the elder races from Call of Cthulhu and other stories, and the Primordials that the writers really should have looked into. The Primordial Age sounds so much like an age of earth when being of vast power ruled or fought with eachother. I think it's something that should have been gone into in greater depth creating a truly primordial and arcane past.

Dreams of the First Age

    I bought this book to find out about High Essence Charms for Celestial Exalted largely so I had some idea of scale for spells since I decided that the Essence and Occult requirements for sorcery should be much higher. Unfortunately they rarely go into Essence 7 territory, a few Lunar ones go up to 8 and they don't go any higher. There aren't any Charms for Essence 9 and 10. Warning, there aren't any Sidereal Charms in this book. And since it sticks strictly to the First Age there are no Abyssal Charms either. The lists they do have are rather short, not like the long lists they have in other source books. I would have probably written a chapter about each Exalted. This is annoying because at Celestial Circle Sorcery having Essence 7 and Solar Circle Sorcery having Essence 9 it gives very little detail for the scope of their spells which I was looking forward to. The cloth map is nice but I thought Creation would be vast compared to what it is now. What's left is just an island in the sea of the Wyld under the control of the Terrestrial who were never meant to be in control, rather than the vast empire ruled over by the Solars. As is unfortunately the case with Exalted they say how it should be a game of epic scale with legendary heroes but they don't take the breaks off and go completely bonkers which you need to do to write about such all powerful personages. The book does have a list of luminaries like Salina herself and the soon to be infamous Anjei Marama. It only gives an idea of like at the peak of the First Age however rather than describing it from start to finish. It's a nice idea in itself with more of a feeling for the moment, it even comes with it's own guidebook for Meru, but doesn't describe the epic was against the Primordials or how the Realm became so degenerate that the Sidereals thought the Solars had to be stopped and their final downfall.
   Basically the designers need to think bigger and act completely without restraint to describe the Celestial Exalted at the height of their powers which I imagine to be the end of the First Age when they're at their most powerful but also their worst. Scroll of the Monk regularly goes up to Essence 7 and in one style has several Essence 8 Charms, but the designers' decision to not do any high Essence Sidereal Charms because it would cause damage to the Tapestry of Creation limiting them to sorcery and martial arts is very bad. Lunars, Solars and Abyssals each have their supernatural speciality and have ordinary Charms so why shouldn't the Sidereals. Once again I'm very disappointed by the fact that I haven't seen an Essence 9 or 10 Charm that would help me with perspective for Celestial/Solar Circle Sorcery and my project, Dark Messiah Style. I guess I'm going to have to get creative...