Player's Handbook

Not much meaty crunchy content in this sourcebook, mostly fluff; and even then not much flavour either.

Humans, half-elves, half-orcs, and the new illumians are the focus this book on “Destiny” races. There's really not much on destiny though. While trying to cover human civilisation and its variety is a difficult task, I would've expected some attempt at detailing how different cultures evolve, not what appears to be a generic look at western civilisation. At least it managed to avoid real world stereotypes.

The Illumians are basically enhanced humans with a focus on knowledge and intrigue. It's not my cup of tea. The floating halo of sigils feel gimmicky and comical to me.

Very little was added for half-orcs and half-elves - just simple commentary with the same broad abstraction applied the discussion humans - only shorter.

Other races touched upon include aasimars,
tieflings, dopplegangers, half-ogres, and mongrelfolk. But these are not much more than a monster manual entry.

The spells, prestige classes, and feats are ok, with a few interesting ones. There's a distinct lack of items though. And one new city deity which, together with its associated prestige class, I found be utterly ridiculous. It feels really silly and unrealistic.

In the last chapter, Campaigns of Destiny, you'd expect an exploration of the fluff and commentary made on the races in the first section. But that's not what you'd get. You get the general assumption that humans dominate most cities and it just discusses cities and cityfolk. And even then, in a very basic manner that mostly refers to the DMG.

It would have been so much better to devote some chapters on how to build a human kingdom or culture - not just a generic city - after all, this is a “Races” book, not a “city” book.

Which is my recommendation for this book: don't bother with it unless you want illumians, or a bit of additional resources for urban adventures. It doesn't really offer anything that makes these the races of destiny.