If You Didn’t Want To Play a Thin-Blood Before: You Do Now!

Utterly transformative to the experience of playing a Thin-Blood: Blood Alchemy Remastered is a must-have for anybody who love playing the Duskborn, or who has been waiting for an excuse to run them. The only reason this shouldn't be how Thin-Blood Alchemy works in the base game is because all of those lowly Full-Blooded vampires might get jealous of how awesome the Duskborn are!

Firstly: Presentation. It feels odd to highlight since most titles are only ever "alright" to "matches the core game" in how they're presented, but this one is delightfully designed with random notes and stains that make it feel like you just got it out of the lab of a particularly neurotic and prolific master chemist. It does a great job at setting the tone of the rest of the book!

Every Distillation Method feels truly unique, as each one has effects on formulas unique to itself! While some scenes in the standard game can feel a bit stale if enough people have an use the same power: A trio of Thin-Bloods who all have the same exact Formulas will feel incredibly unique! Using the same Formulae, one could enchance the passions and abilities of their human vessel, and a final one has a potent anti-Vampire molotov cocktail ready to immolate an uppity full-blood.

I have to stop myself there, because you have 30 powers with 3 different effects apiece dependent on Method to start-off with in addition to another 12 specialized powers unique to certain Methods. That means that if you never bothered to touch another Distillation method: You'd still have a total of 42 powers per Method that are utterly unique to that Method of Alchemy. If you only liked half those powers, you'd still have access to more abilities than the average Full-Blooded vampire will be able to access in an entire game.

Additionally, there's some real fun clarifications and support we don't get in the base game. Ingredients are plainly stated: and Cheap or Quality alternatives are offered to encourage you to take risks by getting away with a riskier but more covenient recipe, or to go the extra mile for a more potent power. Additionally if you're into a touch of randomness: every power comes with a list of Complications that encourage you to chase those higher-quality ingredients for enchanced results.

Finally, while this is still easily amongst my favorite homebrews for all of VtM5, there are a few things that hold it back. It's still 110% worth your purchase since this review would be five times as long if I listed ever single power I loved and enjoyed!

A few Typos and Errors that are usually pretty easy to catch and correct. Sometimes terminology is mixed-up such as a formulae giving you the black veins of a "blood bond" (when it should be "Diablerie"), or misses a core mechanic of Thin-Bloods - preventing them from Frenzying despite TBs being immune to frenzies, or taking Superficial damage from sunlight despite the fact that they already do that. None of these make any given power unusable, and often are easy to fix on the spot from some pretty basic logic.

The Complications feel like missed potential. If you rolled a 1 on a Rouse check to activate a formula, you roll a D10 and take the results which modify the formulae. These can have some really fun and zany effects I'd love to see come into play more often, but are hard to access - for better and for worse - due to the randomness of bringing them into play. These usually fall into the broad categories of

• "Outright Fail/Waste". You already successfully activated the power, and gained Hunger from a failed rouse check. A further 20-40% chance for it to fail at the last second just doesn't feel good.
• "Side-Effect". These are usually fun and goofy, like being able to speak new languages but you have bad breath. They should automatically apply when using Cheap Ingredients.
• "Dependent on Method". This either means it does nothing for the other methods used, or has a unique Side-Effect (see above) or Enchancement (see below). They should apply if you use different qualities of ingredients, or if you want to push their effect further by using more ingredients/rouse checks.
• "Enchanced". These can be a real game-changer, or offer unique properties and results. They should automatically apply when using Quality Ingredients.

There's already a 'Cocktail Madness' table that seems like it'd work perfectly to complicate Formula, without keeping some of the more fun effects out of players' hands.

Gives you everything you need to start V5 in ye olden days. It's not a lore-drop or how to play and live in older periods of time. But this PDF answers the most pressing mechanical issues that come up with older play periods in a simple and clear fashion.

I love this book! Cant wait for the next one, you have a loyal fan!

This book is a great resource for Vampire: The Masquerade. It’s a detailed timeline of the Kindred’s history, covering key events and moments from different eras. It’s full of ideas and historical details that can inspire campaigns. For the storytellers: it adds historical depth to their games - For players: easy way to explore the VTM lore. The layout is clear, and it’s easy to find exactly what you’re looking for. The price ofc makes it a great pick.

The most mature version of Mage in my view and where they tidied up the mechanics quite a lot. There were setting changes that caused something of an edition war at the time with moves to bring the Mage setting more 'down to earth’. I liked this myself as it gave the game a more existential feel and put the game more in line with other WoD titles. The writing and presentation was more grounded too - and made the game, ultimately, a lot more accessible to new players especially.

However, the game made an editing error for leaving out a lot of material about the Technocracy. The Guide to Technocracy was one of the last supplements for 2nd edition so the argument was that fans could get their fill from that. However, the Antagonist section left out any reference to Technocracy agents also - in favour of detailing vampires, werewolves, et al. It felt incomplete. The supplements that followed, however, were fantastic.

Excellent, truly a labor of love! Every character is so rich and engaging; it’s truly marvelous. I heartily recommend it for new and experienced Storytellers alike: just share the Player's Guide with your coterie, and countless adventures will naturally unfold.

May I hazard a guess that Lyle is the author's favorite? :D

Ich würde sagen, wer die by Night Bücher kennt, weiiß was ihn hier erwartet. und zum inhalt möchte ich hier auch garnicht so viel spoilern:) Aber es ist eine wunderschöne und inspirirende Quelle die zudem auch noch fantastisch aussieht.

Wenn man plant tiefer in die WoD einzutauchen ist man hier ganau richtig. Zudem finde ich es extrem beeindruckend ein solches Werk in eigenarbeit zu erstellen. darum mal auch hier DANKE!

thank you pple! the book is amazing, really. 5stars totally deserved, can't wait to read part two!!

It's an impressive amount of content and a lot are a deep dive in the lore and an alternative to modern evolution of the Sabbat. In itself, you could roll with all this content and forget about the Camarilla and the Anarch! It is at that level.

In fact, it makes me loose interest in any other factions outside the Sabbat, and it feels like there should have been more content related to these "others"

It is so much content that I'm a bit at loss, it is really hard to read it properly without putting up hours and hours of reading.

I believe that the cost of it is worth it considering the amount of content.
The content is strong and is coherent and I wish that it would be considered as official by WoD.

The only downsides:

-The book could have been "books" which would have made more sense and would have been easier to follow and read

-The book presentation, the grammar and how things are worded out sometimes make me think that it should have been readproof and revised much more before being published

Though, congrats to the creators, it's quite a good job but you should think about splitting all of it into shorter books.

I love it. This book exceeded my expectations and the art is great.

This advertises itself as being for World of Darkness, when it's actually for Chronicles of Darkness.
While I'm sure it's an awesome scenario, it isn't what I expected or intended to buy. I'd rather not contribute to its star rating, since I can't rate it fairly, but I have to assign stars to review. So my 3 star rating is not based on any flaw in the product itself, but only on the borderline false advertising that caused me to buy it.

A Decent Approach to What it Does

There's not a ton to write home about. For the price of entry, you're getting a good amount of content with thin rules for playing as an Abomination in your Vampire or Werewolf chronicle, but some fun and very inspired statblocks for dropping into any modern WoD game.

This is a decent product, with some nice thought put into it. There's a few issues, however. The first two powers in the Warden Moon's Gift list (which deals with righteous judgement) seem not so well thought out.

The first power, Scales of Guilt, simply puts the Guilty Condition on someone. It can apprently be anyone, for any reason - whoever it is put on feels guilty. It's just random and odd. It may have been conceived to work in concert with the level three fetish in the book, which grants an attack bonus against those with the Guilty Condition. If so (and I genuinely don't know), then it's a very "Dungeons and Dragons" attitude: give someone Guilty, then wade in to attack.

The second power, Presides in Honor, simply adds a dot to the uratha's Willpower total per point of Honor. This seems way overpowered. It follows the same logic as the Rahu Gift, Warrior's Hide, which adds to Health. But Health on a one-for-one basis is far less useful as a resource than Willpower. It needs a rethink; either halve Honor, rounded up, per dot, or some other system entirely.

Finally, the level four rite, Call the Spirit Court, is a nice idea, but summons one spirit (no power level provided) per level of Harmony. I can guess that you can already see the problem: the closer the uratha is to the Man (i.e. Harmony 10), the more spirits he can summon. This makes no sense. Werewolf's 'virtue' mechanic works differently to the other game lines. Simple fix again I suppose; just invert Harmony, but this kind of thing is annoying.

Everything else in the book works well and is interesting.

having these available helps planning and developing my vault material and i love that its here

i love having all these resources available for the clasic WoD vibe i aim for in my own vault material