This book gives you a lot of bang for your buck. It offers a wealth of material for anyone interested in playing a Gangrel in V5, be it an old-school pagan mystic, a Viking, a Mariner, a Knight of Avalon, a corporate raider, a Sabbat warrior and more. It's packed with useful resources - lore sheets, predator types, Discipline powers, story hooks and tools for nomadic and wilderness stories, and an extensive bestiary of mundane animals, vampires and stranger creatures. There's also a very well-written narrative section considering the various aspects of the clan in the modern nights.

If you came to Masquerade through V5, you'll find a far broader range of inspiration for Gangrel characters than the core book gives you. If you're familiar with the previous editions, you'll find numerous old friends, but recast for the new edition, alongside some new creations. Either way, it's a first-rate resource at a generously low price.

This is an impressive work with numerous strengths

• Player characters in Call of Cthulhu are called Investigators, and the story is written with that firmly in mind. This is an investigative story, rich with clues, suspects and witnesses to interview. The handouts run to 96 pages, which gives some indication of how much material the Investigators and Keeper have to work with.
• Rather like an Agatha Christie story, the plot is really quite simple if you know what's going on, but it can seem bafflingly complex when you're on the outside looking in, which means the Investigators are challenged without the Keeper getting overloaded.
• The wealth of background detail included makes it entirely self-contained - it contains everything you need apart from the rulebooks. A lot of research has clearly gone into it.
• There's a diverse range of interesting characters to interact with, and a few morally ambiguous choices to contend with - plenty of opportunity for character-driven and character-focussed play
• It lends itself equally well to either traditional or the newer Pulp style of play. Certainly one of the central elements of the plot would fit comfortably in the pulp milieu, but there are no shortage of opportunities for dark psychological horror as well.
• It's very well written, clear and with an immersive narrative flow

This is very nice. It's a short book with a simple theme - how to create a character which a given clan would want to Embrace, who you could imagine fitting into a clan, without creating a character that matches the usual stereotype of that clan. And it does that very successfully. The bulk of the book is a set of characters who demonstrate how that idea can work for different clans. They would make a useful reference for a Storyteller looking to add an interesting NPC or two. They'd also make a great inspiration for players looking to create something a little different. Well worth a look!

This is a superb product which is simultaneously wholly consistent with existing Mummy lore and a refreshingly original new take on it, quite different from the Amenti of Egypt. The Bog Mummies are given a distinct culture, purpose, magic, and factions. The layout is standard for a World of Darkness sourcebook, with chapters on the Bog Mummies' history, character creation rules, magic, and chronicle advice, including some handy rules for crossover chronicles - meaning that Storytellers primarily running other WoD games will find it a useful source of allies or antagonists. It's very well-written, in an accessible style that will feel familiar to anyone who's read a lot of "official" World of Darkness products. Visually, it's very pretty indeed, with a lot of photograpic art that reminded me of a MET book. (There's also a nice-looking custom character sheet).

By the very nature of the Bog Mummies, the setting is very specific to northern Europe, so it's less useful for chronicles set elsewhere (save perhaps as inspiration). It's not a stand-alone product, but although Mummy is the best "main rulebook" for it, any WoD rulebook should serve.

This is a lovely little gem of a book and a real bargain for European Storytellers looking for something new to spice up their chronicles.

If you're a Storyteller planning a chronicle in 19th century America - or even colonial era America - you should seriously consider this book.

It follows a familiar structure, with chapters on history and geography, a Cainite Rogues' Gallery, and a short but well-designed chronicle which allows plenty of flexibility in the story and many opportunities to explore the setting. There's also a short chapter with some useful advice on character creation in this era. One innovation is that the NPC write-ups in the main book don't include stats, which instead are listed in a separate booklet of character sheets. That's useful for players who want to read about a character without knowing their capabilities. The power level of the NPCs is well judged, challenging but not overwhelming for a PC group. I found them an interesting and diverse bunch with a lot of story potential. The writing throughout is very nice - clear and with a good flow.

Visually, the book is an utter delight. The graphic design is superb, the artwork is wonderful, and there are maps and setting illustrations gallore, along with a custom character sheet from Mr. Gone. The visual richness comes at a cost in that the main book is a very large file, but a reduced size version is included for those with low-spec computers.

There's also a V5 update for those players who love the setting but may prefer the new system, including some fine Loresheets that will probably add value even if you're using the V20 rules.

The combination of visual and narrative elements make it very easy to immerse yourself in this world. It's a rich and well-crafted setting which is a pleasure to read.

The Gates of Damascus breaks new ground for the Dark Ages setting, both historically and geographically.It explores medieval Syria, with two domains, Raqqa and Amman explored in detail. Unlike the essentially Eurocentric perspective of many Dark Ages supplements, it's not written in the manner of a "visitor's guide" but rather with Syria, and characters hailing from Syria, as its focus. While it can't comrehensively explore the multilayered history and culture of so ancient and turbulent a reason, it very effectively conveys a sense of how complex they are, and gives the reader the starting points to look for more information. The book also explores the genesis of the Ikhwan, better known to long-term Masquerade and Dark Ages players as the Web of Knives. For Storytellers looking to set all or part of their chronicles in Syria it contains everything needed "out of the box" - maps, a diverse range of NPCs, political, historical and cultural information. Highly recommended for anyone with an interest in Syria or in the history and politics of the Assamite clan.

If you plan to run a DA20 campaign set in England, this book is the best resource available. It's not only one of the finest books in the Storyteller's Vault but a stand-out among all the Dark Ages vampire sourcebooks I've read.

Five domains are described in detail - London, Winchester, Ely, Chester, and Carlisle. Each follows a standard pattern, with a theme, mood, advice on how to use the domain, a section on history and geography, and details of the Cainites in the domain, with individual histories and statistics and comprehensive "coterie" charts describing their various relationships. Some are familiar figures from classic White Wolf books, but even when we know the character, we usually learn something new about him or her. The domains are very different, from mighty London to occulted Ely to the incestuous aristocratic backstabbing of Winchester to remote Carlisle. You'll probably find something here to accomodate your preferred style of game, whatever it is.

At the back of the book are shorter but stil useful sections covering Thetford, Lancaster, Southampton, and Dover.

There have been historical "area" books dealing with England in the past - which I'm not knocking, I like and greatly enjoyed them, and much of their material is referenced here - but any Storyteller using them would need to do a lot of work. They only mention a few Cainites, seldom with stats, and usually have minimal descriptions of the cities and areas that they deal with. This book has comprehensive, fully statted treatments of all the Cainites in the domains described, explorations of their coteries and relationships with each other, and some absolutely excellent maps of the overall domains and individual cities - detailed enough to be useful, simple enough not to burden the viewer with extraneous information. In fact, you could say that about the entire book. It gives Storytellers absolutely everything that they need to run a game, without wasting space on anything they don't, or could find out for themselves by spending five minutes on Wikipedia. I get the sense that it was written by a Storyteller who was constantly asking himself what other Storytellers would find useful. The writing style is crisp, clear and engaging, and there are generally very nice, full-colour portraits which actually look like the characters they portray, not always a given in RPG supplements. The NPCs themselves run the complete range from peasant to royalty, from warrior to priest, from Methuselah to neonate.

Given the very considerable volume of information in the book, some pdf bookmarks would have been a useful addition, to help with navigation, but that's my only criticism. It's an excellent book and I wish there were a PoD option for it. I'd love to have a physical copy

The genius of this module is that while it follows the KISS principle impeccably, it offers great scope for customization and extension.

A novice Storyteller need only deal with a limited range of variables – a single adversary with a simple goal, based in an isolated location. Defeating the adversary requires the skills of a diverse but familiar range of character types who are well-represented by the pre-generated PCs. No possible scenario will ever cope with every combination of characters that a player group will come up with, but The Hunger Within does a fine job offering a role to many of the likelier concepts.

The setting is sufficiently well detailed that it might become the home base of the PC group, with history, demographics, economics and notable watering-holes all covered - and interestingly so. (I particularly enjoyed the historical background). It feels like a real and specific place, not an “everywheresville”. But with a little work, it could easily be transplanted to America’s eastern seaboard or Eastern Europe and the scenario would still work perfectly.

The scenario would also work well in other contemporary or near-contemporary horror/fantasy settings. It has a somewhat Cthulu-esque feel in any case, and a new Keeper looking for a start for his PC group may well find it ideal. It wouldn’t take a vast effort to use it in a Dresden Files or Buffy game either, either.

So, it’s flexible, adaptable and offers a “conventional” PC group lots for its different members to do. But it doesn’t have to stay simple; the background is rife for potential hooks for expansion, with the town’s past, the villain’s past, and the nature of the entity he’s associated with all ideal for exploration.

I also found it very atmospheric. Though it's contemporary, in my mind's eye, I pictured it in black and white, with lots of sinister fog, like a supernatural version of a Basil Rathbone Sherlock Holmes.

The writing style is clear and crisp, easy to follow and with a high “useful RPG stuff” to word count ratio.

Overall, it’s a model of how to write an introductory scenario. Excellent value and well worth a look.

A thoroughly impressive piece of work, this supplement will be useful to anyone interested in playing - or using as NPCs - Time Lords from any era of the show's history. Although, in fairness, it's far, far more useful for classic era games where the Time Lords are still around, that canonical new series era games where the Doctor is the last of the Time Lords.

There's an extensive history section that does an excellent job of showing how Time Lord society evolved through its various TV appearances, a "Life on Gallifrey" chapter that gives Time Lord players all they need to create a background for their characters, a comprehensive guide to creating and using your own TARDIS, accompanied by supplementary rules on time travel and temporal phenomena (including Vortex Manipulators and Zygma beams), write-ups on the renegade Time Lords we've met over the years - the Monk, the War Chief, the Master, Drax, the Rani, and Romana - and a "GM's section" that reveals the secrets that aspiring Time Lord's don't get to learn during their time at the Academy. This section is slightly misnamed; the kind of dedicated Whovians who are the game's target audience know perfectly well that Chancellor Goth was secretly working for the Master, et cetera. As a means of keeping sensitive information out of the hands of players, it's of questionable value. What it does do, very usefully, is provide a clear dividing line between what the players know and what their characters do. This is a book that feels bigger on the inside than it is on the outside; it has a huge amount of useful material crammed into it, but it's all laid out in a very coherent manner and presented in a clear, readable style, with some very nice little flourishes (finally, we learn why the Doctor doesn't seem to use the same controls for the same functions all the time, for example).

Cubicle 7 has pretty high standards for its Dr Who game anyway, but this is the best product they've created for it to date, by a comfortable margin.

I'll start with a disclaimer: I contributed a small amount of additional material to this book.

Children of the Revolution follows the format of the Kindred Most Wanted - a collection of vampire character profiles, each with a complete set of stats. The characters featured are highly diverse, crossing a spectrum of clans, ages, backgrounds and power levels. Whatever type of chronicle you're playing, you'll probably be able to find at least one character here who you could use in your game, and inspiration for many more. The characters are interesting, engaging, and festooned with potential plot hooks.

The book is full colour throughout. The text has a parchment-like background with a patterned dark-red border, and each character has a full-page introductory portrait. Not all the art will be to everyone's taste, but the styles are as varied as the characters being illustrated, so most people are likely to find at least one piece that they love. Overall, the visual presentation is stunning.

The book follows the V20 default of a second-edition-plus setting - most of the metaplot elements have been left out, but some third edition material, like the existence of the Harbingers of Skulls, is included. Again, this offers maximum flexibility for using the material in your chronicle. You don't even need V20 to use this book - it would work perfectly well with the third or even second edition rules - but it showcases V20's potential to reboot Masquerade in new and better form.

A great product with high production values. Like V20 itself, it's classic Masquerade produced by people with 20 years more experience that the original creators of the game, and that shows.

I bought Masquerade 2nd edition back in '92 and collected the entire Masquerade and DA line in the years since. To me, this book is basically that 2nd edition, redone with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight and the background material in 13 years of sourcebooks to draw on, with sidebar 3rd edition metaplot elements to use or discard as you please. It has beautiful production values, some stunning colour art, and some long-overdue rules tweaks, but it also reminded me of why I got hooked on that 2nd edition rulebook back in '92. It's a wonderful celebration of Masquerade's history, but it's not just a piece of nostalgia, it's a terrific game.