Having spent more time with the book, I just wanted to throw out that two of the new game tools included with this book - rules for Ties and rules for Horror checks - are really well done and thought out, and I can't wait to try them out in play.
Ties are the personal bonds to external things that mean the most to a character. You get 5 permanent Ties and 1 temporary Tie (reflecting current goals) to start with, and the temporary Tie may change once during the course of the adventure. You can put more than one permanent Tie into a single thing, thus have for example 3 Ties to your whole family, 1 Tie to your wife, and 1 Tie to your job. The more Ties in a single thing, the stronger the bond. 1 Tie is strong, 3 Ties you would die for that person, and 5 Ties indicate an extremely obsessive level of connection. Ties can sometimes overlap in some instances, so a Tie to your wife might be considered 4 Ties (3 Family + 1 wife). Ties can give you a one time bonus d10 to roll on a single d20 roll. They are also tied into the madness disorders obsession and sociopathy (a condition of no ties).
Horror checks are divided into three types - Panic, Fear and Madness, with a Shock points system for Horror checks that fail miserably. Shock points penalize future Horror checks further, and can have long term as well as short term effects. You buy off Shock points at the end of the game session, and if you have accumulated enough that you can't get rid of them all, you need to buy them off by picking up mental disorders.
And I love the fact that drowning yourself in a bottle of Dewars lets you shake off the effects of Shock points, if only for a little while
