- Paperback: 144 pages
- Publisher: White Wolf Publishing; 2nd Revised edition edition (Mar 1999)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 1565041372
- ISBN-13: 978-1565041370
- Product Dimensions: 27.4 x 21.6 x 1.5 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,456,585 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
Format:Paperback
Despite the misleading title, this book covers much more. Five chapters dealing in turn with the Nephandi, Paradox, Marauders, Demons and Demon Cults and Umbrood.
Useful, especially accompanying Beyond the Barriers: the Book of Worlds, filling out in more detail some of those things covered in that book. It is somewhat limited in it's scope however, mostly being too short to really give those topics justice. But what you have is undoubtedly of quality. Moreover it covers the ethically gray areas like demons responsibly, without revelling in them or glorifying them.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
4 reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Madness and Evil etc.
2 April 2001
Format:Paperback
This is THE most useful Mage sourcebook there is. Get it at the same time you pick up 2nd edition Mage and you'll be away. It explains (in fact theorises about) the nature of paradox, spirits, marauders, nephandi and so on, and gives handy hints on how to flesh them out into plausible adversaries rather than monsters to magick to death. It is excellently written and well thought out, typically Phil Brucato (who is by the way the most worthwhile member of White Wolf by a mile) and will improve your chronicle. Trust me (as Jodi Blake might say)
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Know Chaos within - give birth to lots of screwed up stars!
27 Sep 2000
Format:Paperback
Like the Technocracy, the main Mage rules do little to explain why the Fallen Ones or the Mad Ones are supposed to be feared and hunted by the Archmages or even the majority of ranking mages in Traditional or Technocratic circles. Aside from the Nephandi having evil powers and the Marauders being almost completely immune to the limiting effects of Paradox, they simply functioned as human-sized dragons in Mage, good for destroying large chunks of real estate or frightening small children.
With this book, we now have information about running and playing these kinds of characters that turns them into actual characters, rather than scary set-pieces. You didn't just sell your soul to a Hermetic mage gone bad, you sold it to Jodi Blake, with a distinctive style all her own. And so on.
I recommend this book as a starting place for any storyteller (or, heaven forbid, a player) who wants to include one or more of these folks in a Mage game.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
A good book desperately in need of a 2nd edition
10 Jun 1999
Format:Paperback
The Book of Madness was out of print for a while, but White Wolf did a new print run of it in early '99. The book doesn't need a reprint, it needs a revision. I'll get to that.
The Book of Madness is all about the mages' strangest, wildest adversaries: The Nephandi and the Marauders, the two other forces in the Ascension War besides the Traditions and the Technocracy, along with a bunch of spirits, the demons of the Astral Umbra, Paradox spirits, and a chapter on the Umbrood in general, plus a small selections of Mythic beasts. All of it is fairly good, but none of it, except possibly the section on Paradox, was long enough for my taste. Much of the material on here was intergrated into the second edition of Mage, like the rules for Umbrood, more details about the Nephandi and Marauders, and some of the clarifications of Paradox. The lack of quantity of the material and its outdatedness are the book's two main flaws, but they're enough. Personally, I think they either need to revise and expand the Book of Madness, or, preferably, there needs to be a volume detailing both the Nephandi and the Marauders in more detail, giving some history of the two sects, and then a separate book of Umbrood, Astral demons, and Paradox spirits. But I'm just blue-skying here. This is one of those books that is all storyteller resources and nothing players would benefit from, and while not essential for running a campaign, it would definitely help if you wished to include any of the forces described within.
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