This is effectively an official part of the Deviant line, produced by the lead developer of the line using the same development cycle that Points Path uses for official products. And the resulting quality shows: as I write this, the product is still in the “Advanced Release” stage, where it has been released in order to collect errata; and even now, before errata has been collected and applied, the book is polished.

The book has six chapters, the first five of which go through different parts of the character sheet, giving advice on everything and additional options where reasonable:

The first chapter deals with those character elements that don't have much crunch to them, like Origin and Clade, the metaphysics of a Broken Soul, Aspirations and Anchors, and Acclimation. But the bulk of the chapter deals with Touchstones: how Deviants express their connection to a Touchstone, how Faltering works, Reversals (where a Loyalty Touchstone switches to a Conviction Touchstone and vice versa), advice on choosing Touchstones, and ideas for unusual types of Touchstones.

The next three chapters tackle various high-crunch character options. In each case, it starts by giving advice on how to make your own, then provides extensive lists of new options. Chapter Two covers Adaptations, Forms, and Merits (and under Forms, gives us Advanced Form versions of the Forms found in the core book); Chapter Three tackles Variations, and massively expands the options available; and Chapter Four covers Scars and Standard Deviations.

Chapter Five helps the player pull this all together. The sheer number of options in Deviant can be overwhelming, and this chapter sells to address that.

Chapter Six deals with character development, from where to start the character's story, through above on how to do Guardian and Nemesis arcs, to how to handle Blowouts.

The final chapter deals with the Cohort: how to manage a team of Deviants. it features a system called Static to facilitate interactions between members of the Cohort, and a section on Techniques that deals with using Variations in creative ways. I'm not sure why Techniques are in this chapter instead of the Variations chapter; but I'm not going to worry about it too much.

The book then ends with three Appendices: New Conditions, a Variation Quick Reference summarizing the new Variations, and a Scar Quick Reference summarizing the new Standard Deviations and Scars.

Overall, this is a must have for Deviant; and in my ideal world, everything in this book would have been incorporated directly into the core book.

So incredibly high quality both in construction and in content. 210 pages and it still feels like so much more due to just how much value is packed into those pages. Probably the best players guide for any of the splats.

At 210 pages it is quite, you might not be able to use everything in this book but a group will be able to get use out of something, the amount of variations, scars, storytelling advice, new systems is quite staggering. I recommend buying this book as soon as you are able to.

The sheer degree of... Passion, here, i suppose, is almost incredible. It really does feel like the second half of the core book, between the guidance on customization, the absolute pile of fun new little power drops- And the sheer number of ways, fgenuine new ways for those powers to interact with eachother is genuinely astounding. Deviant may not be tonally the best for every possible idea, but if you have something you wanna put into Deviant, between this, Clades and the Corebook you could have at least a framework for just about anything.

I still can't believe that one of the Developers for Deviant was so determined to make more Deviant content that he wrote this book almost entirely by himself.

When you read this book, it is clear from beginning to end that this book is a labor of love. As someone who has made STV products, I can tell that an absurd amount of time and effort was put into this. This level of quality and polish in mechanics, writing, and art are on par with an official suppliment from Onyx Path Publishing, possibly even surpassing it.

You have done a fantastic service to the fanbase of Deviant, and I can't wait to explore the new options presented in this book.

this just might be the best STV book I ever bought , the illustrations are beautiful, the game writing is written by a experienced game professional who was lead dev of the gameline. what's not to love?