Arms of the chosen is a source book of magic items for the third edition of exalted, focusing on the new 'Evocation' mechanic, where by which by wielding a legendary item ( or forging a legend with an item) the wielder can unlock unique abilities. In comparison to second edition books it is closer to ' Wonders of the lost age' rather than 'Odenel's codex' There is some general 'fluff' on magic materials and artifact creation, some errata and some guidance on creating evocations for your artifacts in campaigns, but that is approximately 8 pages out of 173, most of the book is taken up by example arms and armour. Looking at story surrounding the item and evocations that come off it. There is also a chapter on 'Miscellaneous' magic, which is a bit of a mixed bag, some hearthstones, some new items, and the return of some classics, like the dragon tear tiara, the golden viper and the implosion bow. Finally, their is a chapter on warstriders, with information on their general function an some named legendary warstriders and their evocation trees, there are a some fun homages to Escaflowne and Evangelion in this section. Both the art and the fiction are good, the chapter stories each focus around the theme of the chapter, so the intro chapter is about crafting, the weapons chapter features a legendary blade, they are very flavorful and with the art add greatly to the feel of the book. Aside from the miscellaneous chapter, which as the name suggests is a mixed bag, the items in this book are intended to be important parts of a characters story. To evoke, if you pardon the pun, the feeling of wielding Glamdring or Stormbringer rather than 'just a Daiklave' it's not about the power per say, since the XP spend on evocations could have been spent on other charms, but about making the item part of the legend. Thier where only a few minor niggles; most of which stem from when this book was released, with only the Solars as playable exalts. So the terms solar and exalt are used largely interchangeably in the charm descriptions, while there is some clearly 'solar only' evocations their is no clear commentary on modifiying the charm trees for non solars, even though the notes on magical material resonance in the charm description imply some of them could be used by a non-solar exalt. Over all I liked this book, there is plenty to inspire character and inspire plot.
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