The Silver Record I expected was basically an excerpt of the whole, being only the most basic of the culture, tales that clearly demonstrate what the Garou believe to be good and what they believe to be bad, tales of creation, of development, and of defining the Garou. I was looking for something akin to the tales and parables that permeate all religions. I was looking for something more mythic and legendary, on par with Norse and Greek mythology. I love the glyph dictionary, and many of the stories are wonderful (my favorite being the amusing 'Evil Comes to the Mocking Trees') but while most of them are good tales, they are not the defining tales of the Silver Record in some ways. It's a great tool in my old game of figuring out which background glyph means what in many of the tales. The other parts of the book, when combined with the glyph dictionary, allow one to puzzle out the meaning of almost any glyph, provided some sort of context. It's done simply, clearly, and is very easy to understand. The glyph chapter is very well done as well. Each tale either feels like an old poem or song or has the clear presence of a narrator, which is good for a work like this, as the Garou Nation is a nation of storytelling. The writing itself is one the whole quite good, and carries that essential storytelling feel. I think that this would have been the perfect place to introduce 'primitive Garou art' of one sort or another. Sure it allows for more text and focuses on the stories themselves, but it loses the strength that some nice illustrations can provide, like they did in the Vampire: the Masquerade 'chapbooks.' Legends of the Garou, for example, did quite nicely with some appropriate artwork.

There is nothing flashy, other than the glyphs in the background and dictionary. While the Silver Record is a great book and really useful (especially if you want to make lots of glyphs as handouts to players), it was not everything I'd hoped for it to be. Unfortunately, I was somewhat disappointed. I loved the Book of Nod and Revelations of the Dark Mother for Vampire: the Masquerade and I was hoping that this would be in the same tradition. When I heard that the Silver Record was coming out, and better yet, it was coming out with a glyph dictionary in the back, I was ecstatic. Alright, maybe I'm weird, but I have always loved trying to translate the glyphs scattered about in various Werewolf: the Apocalypse books and I've always loved reading the great myths and legends of the Garou, like the tales in the Wendigo Tribebook.

Werewolf the apocalypse glyphs