Mummy: The Curse wasn't my first Chronicles of Darkness game, but it was the one that finally made me a Chronicles of Darkness fan.

Second Edition is a dense, tightly written book that distills the most evocative aspects of first edition and adds support for new styles of play. As someone who loves first edition, every decision that was made for second edition improved the game without sacrificing any of the awesome parts of 1E.

The Chronicles of Darkness Second Edition scratches a particular itch for me, better than any other game trying to do the same thing.

Specifically, it strikes a balance between rules that model the world and rules abstractions that make for easy play. It's a game where your characters investigate horrors and the dark secrets of their world and put themselves in mortal, social, and mental peril.

Conditions — especially supplemented by Condition Cards — are easy to use and reinforce the core gameplay loop by providing suggestions on how to make your characters behave and rewards them for contributing dramatic tension.

The front half of the book is tightly designed with no wasted space. This can make it feel anemic, but everything you need to play the game is there. This also makes it a great supplement for other games in the Chronicles of Darkness system by adding subsystems that aren't found in those books, such as Equipment Building, Investigations, and Chases.

The second half of the book is the God-Machine Chronicle, a collection of adventure hooks tied to the eponymous God-Machine, and provides a selection of ready-made antagonists and NPCs along with a framework to build custom chronicles.

The writing is evocative and spooky. "The Hangry Wolf" chapter fiction makes my skin crawl in the best way.

I heartily recommend this book to anybody looking for a rules-medium game of dramatic horror and/or anybody who's already got one of the other Chronicles of Darkness books and wants some more toys to play with.

This game remains my favorite supers role-playing game. Not because of the license or art or anything superficial. The Cortex Heroic system is solidly designed and simple to create virtually any super-powered character (in one expansion, Howard the Duck gets an official write-up).

Even if you've moved on and already purchased Cortex Prime, using MHR as a guidepost for creating a new edition of Cortex Heroic is a great idea.

The sheer number of character datafiles make it easy to figure out how to make your own characters. Reskinning Spider-Man, Captain Marvel, Captain America, Hawkeye, Monica Rambeau, Super Skrull, Venom, Rogue, or even Squirrel Girl to fit a character concept can be done in a flash.

I've been looking forward to this book for a long time. In short, it gave me everything that I wanted and more.

Essentially the book is a huge list of potential antagonists and hooks. Some are classics that have been expanded on, like the new Gifts developed by the Pure Tribes (though still obtainable by Forsaken characters). Some are wholly new monstrosities that should add new dimensions to any Forsaken game, like the Void Reivers and Geryo.

As the largest Night Horrors book, Shunned makes use of its wordcount and is packed with new stuff. In typical Onyx Path fashion, there's something for everybody in here. I'd call it a "must-have" for any Werewolf Storyteller.