The first thing you come across is the introduction, a collection of short stories describing the setting in brief detail. All of the stories are combined forming an almost complete story.
Book One: Orientation has three chapters and is, you guessed it all about the setting, rules, and the character creation process
Chapter One: Entering the Secret World details the various aspects of the setting. Here is where you will find history, definitions, and a brief list of what you will need to play.
Chapter Two: Protagonist Creation explains everything you need to know about creating your character. Character creation can be a nine step process if all of the optional material is used. Characters can be created four different ways, first is point buy followed by card draws, next is dice rolls, and last is freeform (which is only recommended for experienced roleplayers). The first step is choosing your Race or Gentes as it is called here. Following that come Concept creation, Ethos choice, Persona choice, Aspects (Stats), Aptitudes and Skills, Distinctions, Preternaturae and Magick, and last the Final details. Also included are brief descriptions of the three undead races you can play, Ghuls, Revenants, and Vampires. Following all this are sections on Destiny points, Backlash points and experience. Choosing your race will be a tough decision as there are around 40 different races including sub-races to choose from. To get all the information on a race you will have to turn to different chapters, but that is not that hard since they did a good job of putting them in there own sections. Concept creation is a simple process for some but the author included a list of 20 questions to help you out. Choosing your Ethos (which defines the role of your character) is an optional step in the creation process. Here you will find 19 different ethoses’s to choose from, ranging from the gloryseeker to the prophet. Following Ethos is Persona choice (your characters personality) which is also optional step. Next comes Aspects (Stats) are broken down into three categories; Mental, Physical, and Spiritual. Each category breaks down into three individual stats. Under mental the stats are Instincts, Intellect, and Perception. The physical stats are Dexterity, Resilience, and Strength and the Spiritual stats are Inspiration, Presence, and Spirit. The next step is Aptitudes and Skills. Aptitudes are a category of skills while skills are the individual skills in that category. Distinctions are next and are broken up into two different sections, Benefits and Drawbacks Distinctions are a way to add a little more to your character. They range from biographies to servants. The section and magick and supernatural abilities are rather small but that is because the majority of the abilities are located in the other chapters. The last three sections are about Destiny points, Backlash points, and Experience. Destiny points are points that the character has that allow him to change effects and outcomes of certain events. Backlash points are the exact opposite of destiny points; they are given to the character for going against his nature and can be used by NPCs to affect outcomes against the characters. Last is experience points. There are two charts here one is for determining levels and the second is for determining how much it will cost to raise a stat or skill,etc. Raping it all up is an example of character creation.
Chapter Three: Basic guidelines, is where you will find all you need to know about the game mechanics. In this chapter you will find out about combat, hit points, skill checks, and healing. The basics are you roll a number of dice or draw a number of cards equal to your stat. You get one success for each die or card equal to or grater than a difficulty number. Base difficulty number is nine with modifiers for various situations. This is the way all actions are decided. These rules are a little confusing at first but once you read them a few times you will get them.
Book Two: The unliving is broken up into three chapters and concentrates on the three undead races.
Chapter Four is all about the Ghuls. This chapter goes into detail about the four sub-races (Bhuta, Faitor, Grotesquery and Vetala) - there is one more (the Mindless Ones) but they not for use as characters. Their life, histories, and specialized magick that the they practice are also present. All of the material about the ghuls from chapter two is reprinted here for easy reference.
Chapter Five is all about the Revenants. This chapter goes into detail about the two different types of revenants (warm blooded and cold blooded), their life, history, and specialized magick. All of the material about the revenants from chapter two is reprinted here for easy reference.
Chapter Six is all about Vampires. This chapter goes into detail about the three types of vampire (genitors, scions and dhampirs) also going into further detail by breaking them down into twelve different bloodlines as well as their life, histories, and specialized magick. All of the material about the vampires from chapter two is reprinted here for easy reference.
Book Three: Dark Immortality is broken down into four chapters as well with three chapters detailing the rest of the races for you to choose from. The fourth chapter is about the ordinary and the mystical places of the world.
Chapter Seven: Dead Souls is about souls that have not passed on to the afterlife. There are four types of dead souls introduced here, The Earthbound, Phantoms, Shades and Ankou. The Earthbound are ghosts that hang around the living to relieve the boredom of being dead. Phantoms are souls that have become prisoners of their own nightmarish realities. Shades are a type of ghost that are more solid and inhabit the underworld. Ankou are the classic Grim Reapers that come to collect your soul when you die. All of the dead souls have their own magic called Phantasmata, which is given a brief description in this chapter.
Chapter Eight: Reanimates are creatures of magic and technology. There are three types of reanimates; they are Fleshfreaks, Deathmechs, and Golems. Fleshfreaks are the classic Frankenstein, bodies of mismatched pieces brought back to life through magical and alchimal processes. Deathmechs are undead cyborgs that came back to the living through the use of technological and chemical means. And last are the Golems which are a lot like their fantasy counterparts in that they are purely magical creations.
Chapter Nine: The other Everlasting give the ten or so other gentes to choose from. The races are Angels, Daevas (ex-mortals given godlike powers), Dragons (the most powerful of the everlasting and not recommended for characters), Elves, Faeries (not of the nice magical fantasy type, these are mean and cruel), Gargoyles (a race of creatures that eat the sins of mortals), Manitou (animal spirits the posses mortals), Osirians (a race of people that are constantly reborn into new bodies and keep all their memories), The Possessed (mortals possessed by entities from the dreamworlds), and Questers (mortals that gain immortality from drinking from the Holy Grail). Each race has a description, vital statistics, what gives them backlash points, and what hurts and can kill them permanently.
Chapter Ten: Mysterious Worlds give details on the various realities that exist within or just outside of our own. There is enough information presented here to use them without to much trouble. Since this book is geared towards the unliving the places presented here are mostly for them (the underworld, hell and things of that sort).
Book Four: Beyond the Basics is where you will find extra information for running the game, it is also where you will find the section on magick.
Chapter Eleven: Advanced guidelines is where you will find all the information fro those situations that will arise when you least expect it. Some of the things you will find are rules for fire damage, radiation damage, what protection armor will give you. This is also where the section on magick is located. Magick is simple to use but a little confusing at first. Basically you have points of Animus (which is the energy that powers supernatural and magical powers) and by spending these points you cast the spell. The part that may give you problems is you have to figure out that cost for each and every spell you cast. The way to do this is to figure out what kind of spell it is, if it affects you, if it affects your enemies, if it affects neutral people (bystanders), once you get this down it will be simple to do. The best part of the magic system is that you can make your spell do anything you want if you can pay the cost.
Chapter Twelve: Storytelling gives advice for running a game, adventure creation and types of themes for your campaign. This chapter is useful because it helps you get and understanding of the system and the world setting.
Chapter Thirteen: Legendmaking deals with really getting into the game. In this chapter you will find guidelines for using make believe ceremonies to help bring a sense of realism to the game. I didn’t find this chapter very useful but some people might.
Finishing out the book are some adventures that can be used by the guide to introduce the players to the system and setting. There is also the standard character sheet for your use.
Now that I got that out of the way there were some things I didn’t like about this book. First I thought there was just too much reprinted material throughout the book. Another problem I had with this book is it fell apart on me while reading it. The coloring on the front of the book came off on my hands and the book started to separate from the spine. While normally not a problem that I have with soft cover books this happened after using the book for two weeks, so you might want to watch how you handle it. Now for the things I liked first there were not that many typos that caught my eye which is not bad for a book of this size. The art was good and served to help define the book as being for the unliving. Another thing is it has a good index which makes it easy to find the things you are looking for. And the final thing is that there are so many ways to play the game, from dice to cards that it has something for everybody, and having such an easy system to use there is no limit to the amount of possibilities for fun roleplaying.
I wanted to add that I spoke with Chipp Dobbs President, Visionary Entertainment Studios about the problems with the binding and according to him it is a slight problem with the first printing of the book.
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