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Chronicles of Darkness
Deviant: The Renegades
Remade
You woke up…different. Someone changed you; on a slab, an operating table, an altar. By luck or by fate, you escaped. Now you’re hunted by the ones who made you, and they hold all the cards but one: they don’t know that a fire burns within you because of what they did. They don’t know that you’re hunting them.
Broken
The Divergence stripped you of your humanity, cracked open your soul. Its wounds will never heal. You are Broken — not like a toy lying in a limp pile on the floor but like a glass bottle, all sharp edges and jagged, cutting shards. Anyone who comes close to you bleeds — your enemies, but also your few friends.
Renegades
Though alienated from humanity, you are not alone. Other Deviants have suffered as you have suffered. They hate the conspiracies that made you as much as you do. Together, you will stand against them. Together, you will make them pay!
This book contains:
- The complete guide to playing a Deviant in the Chronicles of Darkness — from psychics to cyborgs, from freaks of nature to abominations of science.
- Customizable powers and drawbacks to accommodate a breathtakingly diverse range of character concepts.
- Rules for portraying the many faceless conspiracies that make up the Web of Pain.
- Four example settings across the world, from Ankara to Delaware, each with its own unique conspiracies entangled in the Web of Pain.
You woke up…different. Someone changed you; on a slab, an operating table, an altar. By luck or by fate, you escaped. Now you’re hunted by the ones who made you, and they hold all the cards but one: they don’t know that a fire burns within you because of what they did. They don’t know that you’re hunting them.
Broken
The Divergence stripped you of your humanity, cracked open your soul. Its wounds will never heal. You are Broken — not like a toy lying in a limp pile on the floor but like a glass bottle, all sharp edges and jagged, cutting shards. Anyone who comes close to you bleeds — your enemies, but also your few friends.
Renegades
Though alienated from humanity, you are not alone. Other Deviants have suffered as you have suffered. They hate the conspiracies that made you as much as you do. Together, you will stand against them. Together, you will make them pay!
This book contains:
- The complete guide to playing a Deviant in the Chronicles of Darkness — from psychics to cyborgs, from freaks of nature to abominations of science.
- Customizable powers and drawbacks to accommodate a breathtakingly diverse range of character concepts.
- Rules for portraying the many faceless conspiracies that make up the Web of Pain.
- Four example settings across the world, from Ankara to Delaware, each with its own unique conspiracies entangled in the Web of Pain.
- GenresRole Playing GamesHorror
328 pages, Hardcover
First published September 1, 2021
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8 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
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October 7, 2022There's a strong idea here, but this is a misfire.
Do we need some background here? Back a long time ago, White Wolf made their name with games whose basic structure was: you play monsters torn between something monstrous within you and the right thing to do, while at the same time facing some external threat from the gothic-punk modern world. (It was the 90s, there were a lot of leather and metal studs, mistakes were made.) So there was Vampire, Mage, Werewolf, Changeling, and Wraith. I think the big money was in Vampire and that's also where their big metaplot was, so between wrapping up that story and maybe some financial issues in the company, bing, bang, boom, White Wolf merged with some other companies, some of their lines were rebooted without great success, someone published some anniversary editions, and some other company licensed the rights to some of their stuff.
All of which is to say: there's a lot of interesting things going on in the RPG community--I just bought a bunch of solo journaling games from the Bundle of Holding that I'm excited to get into--but those interesting things aren't really happening in the White Wolf shadow, which seems mostly interested in retreading the old IP or new IP in the same format.
Which brings us to the atrociously-named Deviant, which is basically best viewed through a dark superhero lens: you play someone who was made _other_ at the hands of some conspiracy (maybe a government agency forced you to mutate or a corporation shoved you full of cybernetic enhancements or a cult fused you with some alien energy). So now, you have superpowers, but also are cut off from your old human identity, and the question you have to answer is what will your identity be now: consumed by vengeance against the conspiracy that made you? Or finding something worth protecting in your new life?
That to me is a strong concept, with a lot of flexibility and a lot of emotional subtext, which I will make text here: given the trauma that made you, can you learn to love who you are? Man, what a great solo journaling game that would make, especially given the themes of isolation that run through the game.
Instead, what this game presents is basically the same structure they've had since '91 with Vampire: even though you are a loner who might have a very different origin and obsession than others, you band together in an adventuring party to fight back, and here's a load of mechanics for measuring your Scars and powers. (This game is very reminiscent of the great Aberrant superhero game, where you played superpowered people with serious flaws that set you apart from humanity.) It's just... well, this could be a good game, but I don't see the market for it and until you internalize the rules, it feels like all of this would push you out of the story.
I don't want to say "what this game should have been," because they made the game they wanted to make and the fact that it doesn't resonate with me isn't a fault, it's just a mismatch; I'm mostly just missing the game that I think I would have liked under all of this stuff. (But that said, in a game about isolation and freaks, how do you end up with the traditional D&D party structure? At least with Werewolf there was a built-in idea about packs.)
Do we need some background here? Back a long time ago, White Wolf made their name with games whose basic structure was: you play monsters torn between something monstrous within you and the right thing to do, while at the same time facing some external threat from the gothic-punk modern world. (It was the 90s, there were a lot of leather and metal studs, mistakes were made.) So there was Vampire, Mage, Werewolf, Changeling, and Wraith. I think the big money was in Vampire and that's also where their big metaplot was, so between wrapping up that story and maybe some financial issues in the company, bing, bang, boom, White Wolf merged with some other companies, some of their lines were rebooted without great success, someone published some anniversary editions, and some other company licensed the rights to some of their stuff.
All of which is to say: there's a lot of interesting things going on in the RPG community--I just bought a bunch of solo journaling games from the Bundle of Holding that I'm excited to get into--but those interesting things aren't really happening in the White Wolf shadow, which seems mostly interested in retreading the old IP or new IP in the same format.
Which brings us to the atrociously-named Deviant, which is basically best viewed through a dark superhero lens: you play someone who was made _other_ at the hands of some conspiracy (maybe a government agency forced you to mutate or a corporation shoved you full of cybernetic enhancements or a cult fused you with some alien energy). So now, you have superpowers, but also are cut off from your old human identity, and the question you have to answer is what will your identity be now: consumed by vengeance against the conspiracy that made you? Or finding something worth protecting in your new life?
That to me is a strong concept, with a lot of flexibility and a lot of emotional subtext, which I will make text here: given the trauma that made you, can you learn to love who you are? Man, what a great solo journaling game that would make, especially given the themes of isolation that run through the game.
Instead, what this game presents is basically the same structure they've had since '91 with Vampire: even though you are a loner who might have a very different origin and obsession than others, you band together in an adventuring party to fight back, and here's a load of mechanics for measuring your Scars and powers. (This game is very reminiscent of the great Aberrant superhero game, where you played superpowered people with serious flaws that set you apart from humanity.) It's just... well, this could be a good game, but I don't see the market for it and until you internalize the rules, it feels like all of this would push you out of the story.
I don't want to say "what this game should have been," because they made the game they wanted to make and the fact that it doesn't resonate with me isn't a fault, it's just a mismatch; I'm mostly just missing the game that I think I would have liked under all of this stuff. (But that said, in a game about isolation and freaks, how do you end up with the traditional D&D party structure? At least with Werewolf there was a built-in idea about packs.)
November 11, 2024
A completely different take on storytelling in the Chronicles of Darkness setting. At first glance, it seems to be taking a different perspective of the God-Machine and how it can manifest in the world but it quickly reveals itself to be a competent storytelling system for telling relatively quick stories with mechanics to support a conspiracy of the week style narrative. The anchors help players form motives and constantly push them to not be idle. However, I'm going to have to play it to make a more accurate assessment whether the rules support this.
March 5, 2022
A really cool concept, with a lot of room for future materials as it is a lot more sci fi then a lot of World of Darkness books. The idea of you surviving an experiment that made you something different lead to a lot of role playing room and can be added to a wide variety of settings to also a very newbie friendly as you don't really need a lot of background info to play.
January 7, 2023
Among the best of the Chronicles of Darkness series. Full review: https://refereeingandreflection.wordp...
July 5, 2024
I’m not really a fan of this new game for the Chronicles of Darkness. Despite loving the CoD in general, this game is just not a good fit IMO. It’s too broad and lacking in detail. It’s more of a generic dark superheroes toolbox than a CoD. To a large degree it reminds of me of the 1st edition NWoD in terms of its lack of focus.
Still, it’s a good system with an interesting concept - just not for CoD. It’s doing more of its own thing. Whole this isn’t what I’m interested in with regards to the CoD, it might be for someone else’s group.
Edit: So after a second reading of this book, I still stand by my original review. Again, I think this is a decent game, but just not for Chronicles of Darkness.
Still, it’s a good system with an interesting concept - just not for CoD. It’s doing more of its own thing. Whole this isn’t what I’m interested in with regards to the CoD, it might be for someone else’s group.
Edit: So after a second reading of this book, I still stand by my original review. Again, I think this is a decent game, but just not for Chronicles of Darkness.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews