| A Farmer
works hard. He’s plowing his lord’s
field. But other worries are on his mind.
His only daughter has vanished. And he knows
the reason. He fears the truth. Below the
lord’s manor, there lives one of the
nightly bloodsuckers. Although the word vampyr
is not yet in usage, he knows such creatures
exist, but he knows he can do nothing. One
day, he reasons, humans will make a stand
against those horrible creatures… but
not yet.
Vampire the Masquerade was the first and
most successful RPG (or Storytelling Game,
as they call them) White Wolf put in the market.
By 1998, it was already in its second edition,
but the creative minds of the small Atlanta
publishing firm devised a new idea. What if
every game line they published would get its
own “alternate setting”? It was
like a “what if?” or “elseworld”
concept, and the first one was, again, Vampire,
and its setting was probably the best.
Vampire: the Dark Ages takes the (second
edition, non-revised) Storyteller System and
takes our beloved 13 clans into the 1100s
and 1200s, yes, Dark Ages is a misnomer.
For those not in the know, in White Wolf’s
“World of Darkness” setting (a
world not unlike our own, but a lot darker),
vampires are divided in families, called “Clans”.
Every clan present in Vampire: the Masquerade
appears here, save for the Giovanni, who didn’t
exist yet. In their place we meet the Cappadocian,
the Clan that was destroyed to give the birth
to the “necromancers”. Also, “Dark
Ages” occurs before the dreaded “burning
times” of the Inquisition, so, vampires
are not as shy as in the present, and haven’t
even devised a “masquerade” yet.
In “Dark Ages”, you can portray
a vampire at the time they were lords over
the humans, and when they just didn’t
care. This maintains White Wolf’s trend
of editing games where you play powerful supernaturals
in a world filled with moral grays, and not
“blacks” or “whites”.
Let’s cut through it and review the
book, section by section.
Chapter One: Introduction pretty much does
what its title implies. A very superficial
glimpse on the world and setting, and on the
game. It starts with a very interesting piece
of fiction, in the form of a letter from a
friar to his superior, who happens to be a
little bit more than a regular bishop…
We are told a little bit about everything,
and there’s a very handy and useful
Lexicon of vampire terms.
Chapter Two: Setting gives us a much deeper
look into the dark ages and the society of
vampires, their six Traditions and the sects
at that time. Some of them have survived to
our times, like the Inconnu and the Manus
Nigrum (a.k.a. The Black Hand). We learn that,
at this time, vampires refer to themselves
as Cainites (as do the Sabbat —the second
most powerful sect in the present— in
our days) and not as Kindred.
Chapter Three: Clans shows us the state of
each Clan in the dark ages, from the dreaded
Assamite assassins to the Ventrue patricians,
and we are introduced to the mysterious and
now-extinct Cappadocian clan. Then, there’s
a deeper look on each one and their current
practices, and a short word on the clanless
Caitiff (vampires of very low standing in
Cainite society).
Chapter Four: Character contains the rules
on how to build your alter-ego in the Vampire
world, and most traits. It’s pretty
thorough, and it details the backgrounds (things
and people from your past that can be useful
in the future), and the non-Discipline powers,
among other interesting info.
Chapter Five: Disciplines covers the wide
range of vampiric powers (called Disciplines
by the leeches) and their multiple uses. Of
course, not all the available Disciplines
are covered here, but the most common and
those indigenous to the major clans. Yes,
most White Wolf products have the drawback
of requiring you to buy every last sourcebook
and supplement to be able to get all the info
you need, together. A healthy rule for this
is to use your own imagination and buy only
the stuff that really appeals to you, not
the whole catalogue.
Chapter Six: Rules, is, as comes pretty obvious,
the rule section of our corebook. It’s
rather short, but it covers the general aspects
of the original Storyteller System. Every
White Wolf RPG uses the Storyteller System
(there are three versions, but all of them
are very similar), which uses D10s and every
trait is counted in dots, much like a film
review. It’s one of the easiest and
most intuitive systems I have ever known,
and it’s designed to ease roleplaying
and storytelling (GM’ing) instead of
blocking it with countless tables and critical
die rolls.
Chapter Seven: Systems takes on where “Rules”
left off. You learn about combat, experience,
and other “hack and slash” favourites,
and other useful things to run your game.
There’s a comic-like, very appealing
example of the rules in action.
Chapter Eight: Storytelling is the “GM”
section of our corebook, it details mostly
how to tell a story, how to run a game and
all that jazz. I never get tired of reading
these sections, because each and every one
of them can add something to your knowledge
on running games, and so you can improve your
“skill” at it.
Chapter Nine: Antagonists informs us about
the many threats the dark ages vampire faces,
night to night. Werewolves, human hunters,
Demons, Faeries and a long list of bizarre
extravaganza. We know them from the other
Storyteller Games…
Finally, the Appendix contains the list of
Merits and Flaws, a mechanical way to improve
and deepen your character, plus a list of
dark ages equipment and costs, not in gold
but in “resources dots needed”.
So, all in all this is it, one of the best
corebooks, in my humble opinion, White Wolf
has ever published. Apparently, they’ll
edit a Revised edition for this one, which
will bear the name of Dark Ages: Vampire.
For now, this is just a project. I don’t
know how soon this will hit the shelves of
the bookstores, but it’s guaranteed
to take the setting a little more into the
1200s and bring a fresh look on the line.
Let’s see what they bring us. I must
say one last thing. I have said before that
I didn’t like it that one ‘must’
buy the sourcebooks. What I didn’t say,
is that most Dark Ages supplements are a very
interesting read and very elegant and well
done.
That said, I leave you to keep on surfing
the web and look for other interesting RPG
info.
Reviewed by Matías Timm |
