Pyramid Pick
War in the Heavens: Hegemony
Published by Holistic Design Inc.
Written by Bill Bridges
128 pages; $20.00
War in the Heavens: Hegemony is the second in a planned trilogy of books detailing major alien factions of the Fading Suns universe. Consisting of two sections, a sourcebook and a lengthy adventure, Hegemony is an excellent addition to the Fading Suns line. Indeed, it's one of the best Fading Suns books to date. The combination of evocative writing, fascinating ideas, and usability marks it as one of the best roleplaying supplements I've read in a long time. Hegemony provides both players and GMs with oodles of information about the alien Vau species - their society, culture, and goals - while deftly avoiding a common problem in factional sourcebooks of this kind: "setting escalation." That is, Hegemony shows the importance and uniqueness of the Vau to the Fading Suns setting without making them the most important element of that setting. It's a tightrope that many supplements fail to walk, and it's a credit to the author that he managed it in this volume.
Physically, the book is up to the high standards of previous Fading Suns books. Hegemony has an attractive cover showing a suitably mysterious Vau mandarin, as well as excellent interior art. John Bridge's moody art doesn't appear as much as I'd like, but it's supplemented by some first rate work by Mitch Byrd, whose work on White Wolf's Hunter line hasn't always appealed to me. The layout of the book and choice . . .
This article originally appeared in the second volume of Pyramid. See the current Pyramid website for more information.
Article publication date: April 27, 2001
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