No long ago White Wolf released Imperial Myteries, a long awaited supplement for the Mage: The Awakening roleplaying-game. The book is dealing with archmages, they place in the world, they powers and their limits. As player characters they could rival the gods themselves !

  Becoming an archmage involves a second awakening, called Threshold Seeking. The character creates his own path to the Supernal, learn extremely powerful (and dangerous) Imperial Spells and face world-shaking powers like gods, strong spirits and Exarchs and even stranger things as enemies and allies.The archmages final goal is Ascension, to permanently transcend the Fallen World.

  In this 98-page book you get details on the way reaching archmage status, and the powers gained in the process, including 6-9 dots in Arcana dots. We also receive details on the Threshold, the trials you should face to become an archmage yourself as well as the unique challenges you may overcome.

  And there is even more ! The world seems entirely different to archmages, as they are not bound by the same rules as their lesser brethren. They may even change the world with mere thoughts! There are few thing limit them, but the Pax Arcanum, a set of rules even they must keep, and the Paradox, or they could risk even the world. They get involved in the Ascension War, to shape the world. There are few powers rival them : gods, unimaginable supernatural beings and other archmages. Players may even reach Ascension in the end to reward their hard work.

  Additionally the book contains a subsystem called Imperium to play Archmages in the world, not only dealing with the effects of Ascension War but they can even decide the meaning of the world. In this game even normal mages are just figures in a bigger game.

  Talking about the outlook, not counting the surprisingly awful cover art (we seen much better from the publisher) the other arts are mostly ok. However I have to note that there are many pictures are recycled from previous books.

  Overall this book is adding a lots to the setting, and also setting the mark for the most powerful possible player characters, right next to the old gods. I think Mage: The Awakening fans should definitely take a look at Imperial Mysteries.

If you would like to purchase the book, it’s availabe on DriveThruRPG both as pdf file and as soft-cover book, here.

Zoltán “Cain” Mészáros