Wonderful addition to the Mage the Awakening setting with a lot of information about the pentacle, the world within the Chronicles of Darkness and how it relates to Mages and a large New York setting.

Awesome book! The history of the Awakened was incredible to read about - so many incredible stories and ideas. The Awakened around the world had some great concepts that I want to use in my own game. Definitely worth the wait!

There is so much mage fuel in this book! I would STRONGLY recommend it to mage storytellers. ToP critically examines mage culture and gives tools to explore magic through the lens of people throughout the world, not just in North America / Europe.

Tables to randomly give mage characters Character Traits; Aspirations; and Obsessions that drive their interactions.

1. Language: The writers are consciously opening a door to make Mage the Awakening a more inclusive and culturally conscious community. It is telling that the second page has a panel on Appropriation and Cultural Concerns. New lexicon's to address game concepts like mana and column/cabal/coven add depth and relatability to the setting. The writers make it clear that the implied diversity of magical traditions referred to in the Mage core books needs to be made explicit.

2. History: The first chapter provides a history of the magical world focusing on cultures throughout the world far better than any of my social studies classes. It highlights the diversity of practices and organizations throughout history and how the consolidation into core rule books the Diamond Orders was not a universal not instantaneous development. Many of the big takeaways from the 1st edition Factions books are established into canon in the timeline lending validity to ALL of the first edition faction sourcebooks being accurate in 2e, at the Storyteller’s discretion. Crucially this section also begins the process of Naming the “Nameless Orders” that had never been highlighted by ANY first edition book.

3. Worldwide: Further exploring the world in Chapters Two, Tome of the Pentacle lays out cities from around the world and gives mysteries and traditions from around the world that enable a game to be set in those locations. No longer will the many international fans of the gameline be stuck running games in Boston! There is a section for region and a separate section that reveals cities Awakened populations have been gathering. These aren’t just places where magic happens; these are HUBS! The cities given include: Accra Ghana; Alexandria Egypt; Baghdad Iraq; Banff Canada; Berlin Germany; Bloemfontein South Africa; Brazzaville Republic of the Congo; Budapest Hungary; Buenos Aires Argentina; Burlington Vermont USA; Cap-Haitien Haiti; Cotonou Benin; Dili Timor-Leste; Dwarka India; Florence Italy; Haifa Israel; Harbin China; Hilo Hawaii; Karachi Pakistan; Krakow Poland; Kunming China; Kyzylorda Oblysy Kazakhstan; Male Maldives; Maracaibo Venezuela; Merida Mexico; Monaco; Monteverde Costa Rica; Narok County Kenya; Nassau The Bahamas; Ndola Zambia; Okinawa Japan; Paramaribo Suriname; Prague Czechia; Qazvin Iran; Quito Ecuador; Reykjavik Iceland; San Juan Puerto Rico; São Paulo, Brazil; Seattle USA; Singapore; St. John New Brunswick Canada; Tamuning Guam; Toowoomba Australia; Ulaanbaatar Mongolia; Ushuaia Argentina; Vimy France; Yakutsk Russia; and Zanzibar Tanzania

4. Outerworlds: This book brings in Astral Realms lore and visits extra dimensional spaces

5. Magical Laws: Chapter Three updates the Laws part of Sanctum and Sigil to 2e. There is discussion of how many Awakened outside of the Diamond orders still embrace the gold laws but may have VERY different Silver and Bronze laws

1. New York City After dedicating most of the book to diversity and inclusion, Tome of the Pentacle then gives all of Chapter 5 to one city that never sleeps. ToP does focus on the original Lenapehoking who lived in the area before being pushed westward and on the diverse communities of the city. It fleshes out the city in a way that it does not do for the other hubs giving NYC named NPCs and as many pages as all the other mage cities combined. While many of the concepts and characters could be modified to be used in other locations I would have preferred to see a chapter dedicated to any other city on the list instead. The resources in this chapter would make it easy for a novice storyteller to start a game there. This chapter pushes starting storytellers into starting in NYC. If you want to know about NYC mage societies I suggest you go watch Occultist Anonymous instead of reading this chapter anyways.

My overall take away: 9.5/10. Buy it. Show Paradox that we love this gameline. Mage the Awakening provides a lens to critically examine the world, including itself.

An incredible book for all Mage storytellers! The chapters about the Orders past, about the "awakened nations" (and their Mysteries to solve!) around the world are awesome and very, very useful for any storyteller. It's full of plot hooks. In fact, I can imagine an entire chronicle around the world, where PCs are the Order ambassadors and try to find allies against the Seers, learn of the complex history of the Orders, or discover the many magical weird things found in this book.