While it's getting better than some of the other V20 books out there, it's still got a long way to go. It's still on the dry side, and still suffers from just too little, too late and half-witted attempts at Social Justice. But, there are some interesting things in there. They could have used a lot more words and expansion, but it is what it is.

All in all, a solidly "ok" product. Not phenomenal, but certaily not "meh". Worth the price, I think.

I'm honestly not sure why this product got anything higher than a 3 Star review. The material is very dry and uninformative pretty much across the board. The topics are very brief, not really adding anything to the game, except for using a lot of words to effectively say nothing. It feels like it was really rushed, and really that is about it.

I honestly can not think of a single things I'd use from this book. Even the section talking about some diffrent concepts for the changes the had considered for the V20 line itself don't actually go into any actual depth. While the book does cover everything in it's description, it does NOT do so in a fashoin that allows it to be useful at the table, and just leaves the reader wondering, why even bother?

First off, let me say I do not regret buying/kickstarting this product. I do think that it could have been done better, but a lot of my complaints are subjective in nature, and revolve around things I felt have been changed simply because a given author didn't like them rather than because they needed to change or improve.

Namely the change to the Salubri, outright swappoing around a few Discipline's powers, and a lack of strong emphasis on the setting in favor of trying to make things more politically correct and inclusive. There is a strong lopsided modern political presentation on most of the material that really detracts from the product. The more you read it, the more it seems that the book isn't really based on any of the previous material and feels more like an alternate take on things to try and establish a WoD Lite home game sort of theme.

In trying to make the game universal, it pushed makeing things very generic. I also feel like part of the unofficial goal (really for the 20th Ed line as a whole), was to try to incoporate some of the mechanics themes from the nWoD/CoD system, which just, (and again subjective opinion), just doesn't work. Or it might be more appropriate to say was not what I was looking for in an original WoD line.

The best thing I can compair this, (as well as many other 20th Ed books) to is a movie "re-imagining" that while it might make things a tiny bit more relevant to modern tastes or to grab new blood, it largly misses the point and spirit of the original and ultimately just feels "ok, but not great".

I'm really not a fan of the color art, again, feeling like it just detracts from the overall product and feel, and while I like some of the art, other art I really don't care for. It also sort of feels like a lot of visuals are overused or nearly repeated, and combining a lot of the asthetics with the overall vague nature of far too much material leaves me wonder just what exactly I'm suppossed to do with the game. I mean, I have plenty of the older products to lean on for inspiration and ideas, but viewing the system from just this product, I could see folks after reading though asking, "Ok, so now what?"

In the end, and again while I don't outright regret the purchase, I think I'm happier with my old products, and if I had to sum this one up in a short phrase, it would have to be something along the lines of "Change for the sake of change".

I'd say, hands down the best of the V20 line so far, and I honestly can not wait until Lore of the Bloodlines, (which I wanted even more) to finally come out.

A consistent complaint I've had about the V20 line was that it didn't feel like Vampire the Masquerade as much as someone's rewriting the game to get their home campaign ideas, (some of which are just bad) into canon, or something along those lines, even if it meant removing things from past editions. The V20 lines has also lost that defining spark that made me fall in love with Vampire the Masquerade, and in truth tends to make reading those books somewhat dull, (Ghouls, Black Hand, I'm looking at you). While this is all still somewhat true here, it's very clearly to a lesser extent all around.

Instead, Lore reminds me a lot of both versions of the old Clan Books, except all in one place. When I first started off reading it, chapter by chapter, I actually told someone "It felt like reading an old VtM book, once again", and I meant it. After I'd gotten into it more and more, I started havign some doubts, some are just better than others, though to be fair, this has always been the case, and some degree of personal bias may also come into play, making it difficult to tell if which I honestly liked or not, but I didn't walk away disliking the take or "reimagining" they had gone with this time.

I've never been a fan of the Assamites or Tremere, and still really am not, but both are very good chapters here, and I really like the idea that most of the Tremere chapter is taken from the out of game stance of "yah, we know it doesn't make sense but it's a Clan, they did survive, and here they are" and the unreliable narrator works perfectly.

Each chapter is filled with options, ideas, mechanics, and the like, though it's NOT restricted to just that Clan, which is a big plus.

Unlike the V20 main book, this one has time to go into some more detail rather than just present options, and they use that space well. I highly recommend this book, and if anything else in the V20 line is closer to this than the direction they have been going, I'm more excited. Especially if Lore of the Bloodlines is even close to this.

I found the book kind of dull, actually. It's not terrible, but it's not great either, and not at all requred to use or even play the source material. It borrows heavily from Fatal Addiction, while also adding a bithereand there to the mix, some of it good and some not so much. It also seemed the writers where not too clear on the differences between Ghouls and Revenants, or just didn't differentiat between them enough in the text.

I was not a fan of Ghoul weaknesses, and in particular the fact that a few of them actually just translate into some Clans getting a new FREE power when they make a Ghoul, which is intended to be a weakness for the Ghoul if you choose to play one. However, as most of them either easily identify the Ghoul as a Ghoul of a certain Clan, it also really defeats a lot of the point for Ghouls.

I also found it very questionable that the book enforces that 99% of vampires are jerks, mistreating their Ghouls, if not purposefully abusing them in various ways, (physical, mental, social, sexual, body horror other), just because, which sort of reminds me of the old school mentality that all Clans are monoliths of thier stereotype. I'm sorry, that's dumb.

I don't want to come off as sounding like it was all bad, which it wasn't, and there are a lot of good little bits in there. I wish that there was a lot more development on Cleavers, Animal Ghouls, and some more Ghoul groups. Mention of Thin-Bloods would have also been appropriate and cool. And I really liked the idea that, in the Camarilla, a Ghoul could potentially hold a better position of authority than some vampires.

Except for the chapter headers and a few other choice pieces, I didn't care for the art.

Please go back to Black and White. Color, but color art especially really breaks the mood for Vampire. Color is not an upgrade in this case.

Merits and Flaws seemed very odd to me, but didn't like the idea that unless you buy a 3 Point Merit, your Domiter doesn't like or care about you.

All in all, 2 Stars seemed to low. 2.5, if it where an option seems about right, but I went with 3.

The two things that really stood out to me here where the writing, which seemed all over the place, unfocused, and to leave out a great deal of important information, and the general hodge-podge nature.

Many of the subjects just didn't seem worthy of being on the "Top 10 Most Wanted", and there is a great deal of over-the-top munchkinism from the earliest books. Like with most V20 books, it goes out of it's way to ignore or undo some of the great things from Revised era, though this one has no issue imagining that their own version is better.

I had issues trying to read through most of the NPCs, as they just seemed to jump around a lot and also often just seemed way too out there, not really grounded in being believable, even within a fantastical setting. A lot of words that say very little, but that's a trend I'm seeing a lot more as V20 continues.

The material on the Alastors, campaign and story ideas, etc. . . is pretty good, and probably the best sections of the book, but not too terribly much beyond what prior books on the subject, (generally with much less space), offered. Other things are touched on, but not nearly enough. For example, the Josians. A group we don't really know nearly enough to care about, but clearly it was someone's baby and should be important, and also get some mentions in other books.

All in all, not terrible, but not great either. It felt more like a Vampire the Masquerade book than some other V20 ones have, but still seems to be missing that spark that made the other editions, INCLUDING REVISED, amazing. If you have the extra cash, possibly pick it up, but I wouldn't recommend going out of your way.

The writing in this book felt very stale, and it's another one of the V20 line that just didn't feel like Vampire the Masquerade to me, but rather like a combination of someone's personal campaign ideas and a semi generic supplement. I would say really only about 1/4 of the book is really about the Tal'Mahe'Ra, with pretty large portions essentially being Bloodline (Clan?) Book Baali, material on Lilith cults that really just don't seem to fit much, and then a large, but still no too fleshed out section on the other game lines in the Tal'Mahe'Ra.

In the end it really comes off as a huge hodge-podge of material that doesn't really seem to fit together or mean to really even go together. It also goes out of its way to remove all of the great things from Revised, while at the same time making the reader even LESS clear on what the heck the Sect is or actually does, or why we should care. One of the big selling points for me early on was the idea about infiltration rules and ideas, which I either missed, or turns out it just wasn't there, as I really don't remember that in the book.

Somewhere around page 50 to 60, the book just becomes a very dull read. It may be my bias, as I'm not a fan of the Baali, (particularly the "oh poor me" Moloch Baali camp) or the cult of Lilith (at least as the major players they just seemed to become out of nowhere here). But, again, possibly my personal bias, it really felt like the authors just took the aspects that they really liked and amped them up, just very artificially and unbelievably. As in the goes seemed to be "lets make sure we fit this in" rather then "lets make sure it actually makes sense and works".

In the end, while I'm not regretful for the purchase, I also can not, in good faith recommend it either.

The book and material itself is great, and honestly, I think I prefer it t the 20th Anniversary edition over all. The main issue is that this scan is poorly done. Pease redo this for quality, and also add in some bookmarks please. Still, it's a great product and worth the price. It's just in comparison to other White Wolf/Onyx Path products I've gotten via DriveThru, the digital aspects are on the poorer side.