I. Create a new page template. Name it for example, SPECIALS

II. Copy and paste the below into that SPECIALS page template
<mvt:if expr="l.settings:product_count EQ 0">
<mvt:exit />
</mvt:if>
<table border=0 cellpadding=2 cellspacing=0 width=500>
<tr><td colspan="3" align="center">
<br>
<h2>Specials</h2>
</td></tr>
<tr>
<mvt:foreach iterator="product" array="products">

<td align="center" valign="top">
<mvt:if expr="NOT ISNULL l.settings:product:thumbnail">
<a href="&mvt:global:sessionurl;Screen=PROD&Product_Code=&mvta:product:code;&Store_Code=&mvta:global:Store_Code;">
<img src="&mvte:product:thumbnail;" border=0></a>
<mvt:else>
&nbsp;
</mvt:if>
<br>
<mvt:item name="fonts" param="body_font">
<a href="&mvt:global:sessionurl;Screen=PROD&Product_Code=&mvta:product:code;&Store_Code=&mvta:global:Store_Code;">
<u>&mvt:product:name;</u></a><br>
&mvt:product:formatted_price;<br>
</mvt:item>
</td>

<mvt:if expr = "(pos1 MOD 3 ) EQ 0">
</tr><tr><td colspan=3><HR width="100%" color=#cccccc SIZE=1></td></tr>
<tr>
</mvt:if>

</mvt:foreach>
</tr>
</table>
Note: If your store is CSSUI change the beginning of the foreach loop to
<mvt:foreach iterator="product" array="category_listing:products">
Also change the first line to
<mvt:if expr="l.settings:category_product_count EQ 0">

III. Click on Items at the top and assign the following to this new page:
store, inventory, category, body, colors, product_list, fonts, buttons, toolkit

IV. Let's say you want to put this specials category on the storefront. You would insert the following lines at the location you want the specials to display.
<mvt:item name="toolkit" param="sassign|Category_Code|ZZZ" />
<mvt:item name="toolkit" param="sassign|Screen|CTGY" />
<mvt:item name="toolkit" param="render|SPECIALS" />
<mvt:item name="toolkit" param="sassign|Screen|SFNT" />
The first line assigns ZZZ to the Category_Code variable. The second line assigns CTGY to the Screen variable. The third line renders the contents of your SPECIALS page template. The fourth line assigns the Screen variable back to SFNT since we put this on the storefront. If you use this technique on other pages, eg PROD, then you would change the fourth line's assignment accordingly.

V. Now create a new category under admin > store > categories. Call it whatever you want, but Specials is a good name. Note in the paragraph above we used ZZZ as the code for the Category_Code assignment. This can be anything but for the purpose of this example, our new category code is ZZZ. Hence, we are calling the ZZZ category in the paragraph above. Once we create the category, we can assign our specials products to it. Whatever products we assign to this category will now be displayed in the specials insert that we place on the storefront screen. The specials category will also display in your category tree and when someone clicks that link, it will show a normal category (ctgy) page layout, not the customized layout you are using for the SPECIALS page template insert. There are techniques for hiding categories from the tree if you don't want to display a link in the tree.