The Inside Scoop on Gaming

The Assamites are a clan of vampires whose members regularly assassinate and diablerise (cannibalise and steal the power of) Kindred of other lines. When first presented in the original Vampire Player’s Guide in 1991, they were given no clear reason for this. The first Clanbook Assamite gave them the raison d’être of viewing all other vampires as their enemies in a holy war, while the new book instead has their founder unwillingly accepting the role of police and judge to the other clans.

The Assamites were the Vampire clan most changed by the original Clanbooks, so it is surprising that Clayton Oliver’s new book should alter them as radically as Graeme Davis’s original did.

While Davis drew from the clan’s real world inspiration, the Assassins, Oliver makes them a footnote in Assamite history, more firmly tying their roots to the general Vampire cosmology, something Davis set them up in opposition to, and giving them a role in the larger Kindred society rather than setting them permanently apart from it.

The in-character method of revealing this secret history is that, due to events in the ongoing Vampire canon plotline, an extremist of monstrous power has seized control of the line’s fortress, Alamut, and has outraged more moderate Assamites enough to cause the Schism, in which these moderates have left and joined the larger Vampire societies, the Camarilla and Sabbat. As a result, Assamites are now far more playable in a mainstream Camarilla game. The Sabbat Antitribu (“anti-tribe”, those who have left the body of their clan to join a rival vampire sect) also have a more interesting role in a game than being the sect’s stealthy killers. The extremist’s Loyalists fit the concept of the clan presented in Davis’s book, and Oliver adds the Dispossessed, giving a name to the outcasts and deserters that were the only Assamite player characters I have previously seen. The extremist in question, and its main opponent, both appear in Children Of The Night.

The revisionist Assamites incorporate previous ideas rather than ignoring. The original concept of each typical clan member being an assassin trained seven years as a near-human servant “ghoul” and seven years as a vampire has been sidelined to a marginal group within the line, complete with rules to reflect how much more skilled such a character should be than the typical starting Vampire character. The killers who believe all other clans must be destroyed are now a group within the extremist’s followers (the pages of their beliefs were cut, and made available at white-wolf.com). So Assamite characters created with previous versions in mind are still valid, while the clan as a whole can now contain more varied groups.

Reflecting this are the additional rules for Assamite warriors, sorcerers and viziers, the three “castes” that make up the clan. Sorcerers, for example, have their own forms of magic. The new character templates also vary wildly, from a Camarilla-friendly socialite to a kidnapper, without including a stereotypical assassin. As is traditional, there is at least one character I can’t imagine seeing as a player character (here, the Tactical Coordinator, who orders around packs of Sabbat during city invasions without getting his own hands dirty) but the others spark enough ideas to me that they strike me as an interesting group. There are a few rules questions with the character sheets (the Contract Lawyer could use more Willpower, and most notably the Cleaner appears to be Camarilla but follows the Path of Caine rather than the default morality Humanity) but nothing major.

With the necessity of advancing the clan from the recent developments, increasing their playability and including magic and other additional rules as well as the templates, the Loyalists’ version of Vampire history has been squeezed out as well as other fixtures of the Clanbook series. There is no short story introduction, and no sample coterie (group of vampires working together) among the noted characters. I am curious as to whether such a coterie would have been Schismatic, Loyalist, Antitribu or Dispossessed. An example Schismatic group existing in a Camarilla city would have been useful.

In style, it matches the standard for modern White Wolf books. There are no massive typos and most of the art is fine. The frontispiece on page 78 with what appear to be ninjas is somewhat jarring, and some of Leif Jones’s character sketches are more caricature than some of his recent work, but Christopher Shy’s digital portraits of significant clan members continue to improve.

In all, I feel that Clanbook Assamite Revised makes its subjects a more diverse and hence more playable group, and since playability is the goal of these sourcebooks I recommend it.

Clanbook Assamite Revised Craig Oxbrow
Item type: RPG Product Name: Clanbook Assamite Revised Author: Clayton Oliver Company/Publisher: White Wolf Line: Vampire: The Masquerade SKU: WW2359 Cost: $14.95 US Page count: 104 ISBN: 1-56504-256-5 Ratings: Style 3 (Average) Substance 4 (Meaty) Review type: Capsule Review	The Assamites are a clan of vampires whose members regularly assassinate and diablerise (cannibalise and steal the power of) Kindred of other lines. When first presented in the original Vampire Player’s Guide in 1991, they were given no clear reason for this. The first Clanbook Assamite gave them the raison d’être of viewing all other vampires as their enemies in a holy war, while the new book instead has their founder unwillingly accepting the role of police and judge to the other clans. The Assamites were the Vampire clan most changed by the original Clanbooks, so it is surprising that Clayton Oliver’s new book should alter them as radically as Graeme Davis’s original did. While Davis drew from the clan’s real world inspiration, the Assassins, Oliver makes them a footnote in Assamite history, more firmly tying their roots to the general Vampire cosmology, something Davis set them up in opposition to, and giving them a role in the larger Kindred society rather than setting them permanently apart from it. The in-character method of revealing this secret history is that, due to events in the ongoing Vampire canon plotline, an extremist of monstrous power has seized control of the line’s fortress, Alamut, and has outraged more moderate Assamites enough to cause the Schism, in which these moderates have left and joined the larger Vampire societies, the Camarilla and Sabbat. As a result, Assamites are now far more playable in a mainstream Camarilla game. The Sabbat Antitribu (“anti-tribe”, those who have left the body of their clan to join a rival vampire sect) also have a more interesting role in a game than being the sect’s stealthy killers. The extremist’s Loyalists fit the concept of the clan presented in Davis’s book, and Oliver adds the Dispossessed, giving a name to the outcasts and deserters that were the only Assamite player characters I have previously seen. The extremist in question, and its main opponent, both appear in Children Of The Night. The revisionist Assamites incorporate previous ideas rather than ignoring. The original concept of each typical clan member being an assassin trained seven years as a near-human servant “ghoul” and seven years as a vampire has been sidelined to a marginal group within the line, complete with rules to reflect how much more skilled such a character should be than the typical starting Vampire character. The killers who believe all other clans must be destroyed are now a group within the extremist’s followers (the pages of their beliefs were cut, and made available at white-wolf.com). So Assamite characters created with previous versions in mind are still valid, while the clan as a whole can now contain more varied groups. Reflecting this are the additional rules for Assamite warriors, sorcerers and viziers, the three “castes” that make up the clan. Sorcerers, for example, have their own forms of magic. The new character templates also vary wildly, from a Camarilla-friendly socialite to a kidnapper, without including a stereotypical assassin. As is traditional, there is at least one character I can’t imagine seeing as a player character (here, the Tactical Coordinator, who orders around packs of Sabbat during city invasions without getting his own hands dirty) but the others spark enough ideas to me that they strike me as an interesting group. There are a few rules questions with the character sheets (the Contract Lawyer could use more Willpower, and most notably the Cleaner appears to be Camarilla but follows the Path of Caine rather than the default morality Humanity) but nothing major. With the necessity of advancing the clan from the recent developments, increasing their playability and including magic and other additional rules as well as the templates, the Loyalists’ version of Vampire history has been squeezed out as well as other fixtures of the Clanbook series. There is no short story introduction, and no sample coterie (group of vampires working together) among the noted characters. I am curious as to whether such a coterie would have been Schismatic, Loyalist, Antitribu or Dispossessed. An example Schismatic group existing in a Camarilla city would have been useful. In style, it matches the standard for modern White Wolf books. There are no massive typos and most of the art is fine. The frontispiece on page 78 with what appear to be ninjas is somewhat jarring, and some of Leif Jones’s character sketches are more caricature than some of his recent work, but Christopher Shy’s digital portraits of significant clan members continue to improve. In all, I feel that Clanbook Assamite Revised makes its subjects a more diverse and hence more playable group, and since playability is the goal of these sourcebooks I recommend it.