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.
|