It's a nice little starter for a high fantasy game using Storyteller system. If a tabletop game with JRPG flavor is your thing, this is an excellent taster before the full game release.

If what you're expecting from this ashcan is urban horror you're familiar with, you can easily find that. If you want something new you won't be disappointed either. It's a cursed reality that surrounds us all but a more hopeful one at that. How much hope is there is ultimately up to you and your players, however.

As such, Curseborne shapes to be something sufficiently familiar but with many more new avenues for exploration. No straitjacket of metaplot and no dead ends, a fresh start Storypath fans deserve.

This ashcan is not free of mechanical shortcomings that you should be aware of: Curse Dice explanation isn't perfect (held = in pool, bled = spent on something; you start with 1CD at Entanglement 1 but your limit at E1 is 5 curse dice; you must substitute regular dice with CD for all skill checks) and there are some other minor warts but it's absolutely playable, early preview of a great game in the making.

Having read through it, it's an evocative love letter to spy media of all sorts with a variable (low to mid) crunch mechanics that seem to support the genre well. Prose is a little bit on the indulgent side; Onyx Path regulars should be used to it but even grumps like myself found the writing entertaining enough and at times even downright useful.

If you're looking for a campy spy game, you can't go wrong with this one. But even if you want to play thing straight, there's enough meat to support your serious operations inside.

It's a solid game from this publisher with two buts that make if 4-star instead of 5.

First one has to do with the fact that even if it's very much a fully usable game, I was left thinking that Book Two is where the fun is at. So it leaves you wanting more but in this weird mixture of excited anticipation with a shade of disappointment.

The other thing is art which, like in many OPP books in my opinion, is fairly uneven. The majority of pieces are great but some simply stick out as less rendered. This doesn't affect the game but is - to me - noticeable.

It's a great introduction to a pretty unique world Onyx Path folks are building. Evocative and mysterious, even if you're not a Storypath fan, it can be easily picked up for the idea nuggets within alone.