Sidereals by Bryan Armor, Rebecca Borgstrom, Geoffrey C. Grabowski, 1588466698, Lowest Book Price Finder

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The Betrayers Story

In the first age, it was the Dragon-blooded who were the public face of the Usurption and the betrayal of the Solar Exalted.
But they were spurred on by The Sidereals.

This is their story.

Or rather, this is their world view and their history. Their ongoing story is, of course, up to you. And this book provides all you need to tell that story.

The Sidereals themselves are powerhouses in he extreme. It is well known (from all the other Exalted books that have mentioned Sidereals) that their primary source of power comes from being able to see the future and manipulate things using that knowledge. But what is surprising about this book is quite how much power they have other than that.
How this power is used, though, is of course up to you.

Sidereal society is split into different Factions, with each Faction's ideology and aims being different from the others. None of the factions are presented as being the de facto baddies, each of them always acting from what they see as the right thing to do. The fact that their actions often conflict is a credit to the books authors for being able to present such moral and ethical issues in two different ways without one side being seen as 'right'.

This isn't to say that the whole game is about moral issues though, of course not. It wouldn't be an Exalted game if it didn't contain lots of 'cool' powers enabling you to prod some serious buttock.
Several (yes, more than one) Martial Arts styles are presented in this book for your perusal and the more powerful Sidereals have access to them all. Believe me, you do NOT want to meet one of them on a dark night ...

This book is very typical of White Wolf's products. It contains rules that allow you to create good fighting characters and go off and save the world if you want, but it is all wrapped up in moral dilemmas and ethical issues. In fact, this games themes have more in common with Vampire rather than any of the other Exalted games.
And as such, is the perfect introduction (assuming you know the rules form the main Exlated book) to the world of Exalted for new players more used to the World Of Darkness.

Highly recommended.

Very interesting and a lot of fun, but not quite essential

The Sidereals were the reason for the Dragon-blooded betraying and huntingdown the Solars. The Sidereals have stayed in the background for the past1000 years; manipulating events and watching the stars. The Siderealshelped keep the Great Hunt going and helped the Dragon-blooded maintainpower.
And now you get to play as one of them. Aren't you lucky?
As usual, the first few chapters of a new Exalted book details theirspecific part of the Age Of Sorrows and information about their societyand culture.
But there is a slight twist this time as the Sidereals'part of the Age Of Sorrows' is Heaven itself. So what we actually get isa lot of information about Heaven and the gods and goddesses who livethere, and the Sidereals role within. And whilst this information isinteresting and, as ever, meticulously thought out, it's not quiteessential.
As with the Dragon-blooded book, all the information in this book is onlyof any real interest to Sidereals themselves. Whereas the Lunar andAbyssal books themselves contain information that could be utilised in anycampaign for any Exalted, only he most unusual of circumstances willrender any of the information in this book useful to any other type ofExalted than Sidereal.
But if you want to be able to play another typeof Exalted, or even are a big enough fan of the Age Of Sorrows to want toread all the available information, then you've probably decided to buythis book already. If not, then I'd advise getting it only if you aredetermined that you or some of your players want to play Sidereals, andthere is more than enough information in the main Exalted book for you tomake that decision.

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