Mage: The Awakening's "Astral Realms" Releases

The long awaited Mage: The Awakening supplement was released yesterday by White Wolf—it details the not-quite-real-in-the-conventional-sense realms of Oneiros, Temenos and the Anima Mundi, is filled with Astral baddies and good guys, and a bunch of other relevant stuff.

Though it's hard to be relevant when it comes to the spirit world. I always tended to avoid it in my World of Darkness games, if only because every time we tried the GM would give us maddeningly cryptic clues and phrases by the bucketload (damn you Chameleon totem!) and we'd be chased by malevolent spirits of stillborn dinosaurs (damn you Mokolé pack member!).

Of course, times have changed since then, and this supplement should add some well-needed trippiness to anyone's Mage: the Awakening campaign—I find that even the most seemingly inert game can become revitalized by a trip to a different plane, no matter what the game might be (even considering my bitterness around the situation above it did make for some sessions as amusing as they were infuriating). Plus, one of the biggest complaints I've heard about Mage is the lack of material and explanation on this particular aspect of it, so this ought to help clarify things. Just never ask a Chameleon for advice.