Summary of my review. Get Mythic Emulator 2e.

The Good.
Professional layout and original artwork.
Character creation was usefull if you can't create one all on your own.
*The the Jyhad rating.

The not-so-good.
*Artwork is uninspiring but ok.

*Character creation. I have to modify every single table for character creation not just to fit my preferences but to make more sense. Example: you have just as good a chance to create a Salubri (a clan that is ultra rare and should be treated with a plot hook all on its own) as any other clan. This whole table alone i had to completely redo. And then a random generator for hairstyle and texture which I feel is completely unnecessary but maybe someone will like it.

*Price. This is a big one and the most important. Mythic Emulator 2e is the same price as this product and clearly what this product is based on. Mythic Emulator also has 47 meaning tables vs the 32 (29 of which are dedicated to random character creation tables) in this product. Additionally, this product is 65 pages vs 230 pages in ME2. This difference is even more evident when so many pages of this product are devoted to 'filler' artwork and 3 pages dedicated to 'consent in gaming' -- pages that are reproduced in virtually every other product in the v5 lineup including the book you need to play to begin with. If you include the pages in the beginning devoted to a story i would say about 50% of this product is actually dedicated to using this adopted system.

Eternal Struggle This is just the Fate Chart in ME2e Jyhad Rating This is just the Chaos factor in ME2e

I would do one of two things here. Either reduce the price to say 3$ maybe pay what you want OR use this in conjunction with ME2e, remove everything and simply keep the random character creation rules referring to the emulator giving suggestions on how to use it with VtM.

I'm a big solo player with few options and play a lot, especially Vampire, so i was dissapointed by the fact that all i did was purchase Mythic Emulater light for the same price

although not completely disappointed by this conversion of the original system it is not the direction I would have gone. like the original the rules are still convoluted confusing and not at all elegant (yin and yang/psychic and shadow) which was our complaint about the original. to recap this is a conversion of the old book and not an original and refers to the main source book for V5 quite a lot, actually too much. another staple problem that carried over to this book was the amount of aggravated damage that everything in kindred of the East was known for. it seems like just about everything does aggravated damage again. this book should have just been a standalone and not been a continuation or conversion of the original so that you aren't flipping in between books constantly. The layout is good and the art is okay. they are made slightly more playable this time. overall this is a half decent attempt at including the hungry ghosts in V5. We just feel like instead of a conversion they should have been completely rewritten from scratch.

a huge improvement over the original Sabbat book released for V5

This was a leap of faith purchase because I'm such a fan of the True Hand Tal'mahe'Ra and like other products in storyteller's vault covering the subject, I was dissapointed. Lackluster, brief and utterly disappointing synopsis of the sect and the True Hand bloodline was made a Lore Sheet as were other less well known bloodlines. Some of the Loresheets were interesting but not worth this. Sorry.

I will start with, this book is well written and contains a lot of original content. If you are new to v5 and especially to VtM then I highly recommend this book. It's concise and to the point. It has plenty of crunch and gives players another alternitive to the the same old sects, ie Camarilla, Anarchs, Sabbat etc. The book gives clear direction and methodolgy to play this sect. If you want to play a game where you are steeped deep in intrigue and a spy thriller with noir flair and want to be completely different type of play style, you would appreciate this book. Its akin to Mission Impossible or play something along the lines of Jason Bourne and John Wick with inspiration derived from things like Red Sparrow, Hanna, Wanted, Hotel Artemis, Atomic Blonde and Mission Impossible. If you want to play vampires that are highly skilled,layerd with a behined the curtian style troupe, then this is for you.

If you have played the Tal'mahe'Ra before or a fan of the the original True Black Hand, you have a surprise. This is not it. The writers took huge liberties, embelished most of it or just plain made things up. I enjoyed the changes made in the ultra modernization of the sect as of now without giving away too much, they went a different direction and that in itself is good. However, how they did it we are not a fan of. I genuinely liked the bloodlines introduced but not their role in the sect nor am I fan of their take on the True Brujah [powers]. The new leadership scale is almost cringy. The new leadership roles and the characters involved are just bad in our opinion. This book is not an continuation or even a very good extrapolation of the Tal'mahe'Ra v20 so don't expect that. This is something totally new and one interpretation of events following the 'destruction' of Enoch and following the events of the Beckoning. The Paths of Enlightenment are virtually gone with very little mention within the sect, which is unfortunate and also implausable but an ST can get around this short of doing a complete write-up of there own to include them (Path of the Hive for example) and so without including these, this book took a hard dive. Although the writers did give the True hand a pointed direction and hammer in the idea of a very focused sect completely driven by the Aralu, it omits some fundemental constructs and ideas from the original previously written v20 version including but not limited to: the Revenants although mentioned, are not covered at all; lack of any Paths of Enlightenment, the Bahari, the Idran or any of the other Cult cells that actually made up the Tal'mahe'Ra as a whole.

Presentation. The virtually stock photos included are lack luster with no creativity or originality. The font is thematic and ok but the black background with white print sometimes used, is almost always a bad idea. The book is short, mostly because it omits so much from the original and ends abruptly to be honest.

I can not in good concience recommend this book IF you are a staunch die hard fan of the True Black Hand. If you are new to the world of darkness games or maybe never played previous versions of VtM using the Tal'mahe'Ra then I would actually recommend this book.

My takeaway is this: i like the ideas introduced and would actually introduce many elements of this version of the Hand in my own Chronicles but mostly, i would make significant changes to adhere to the continuity of previous versions of the sect. This is a reasonably good attempt and interpretation of the True Hand post-Beckoning and the destruction of Enoch. The big question: would i buy this book again knowing what i know now? No. But that is my take and again, someone playing this sect for the first time may actually really enjoy it more than myself.