Cairo By Night

A City Sourcebook for Vampire: The Masquerade

Belongs to the World of Darkness and Year of the Scarab series

Expectations

”Ancients in an ancient city”, the back cover sums up below a glowing logo. Ancient conspiracies, a myriad of secrets, a complete setting… Much is promised, and I’m having mixed feelings. I mean, the supposedly, well, dusty and literally dry setting is garnished with a storybook-Arabian colorful dancing cover, the typography in the logo is really quite awful (and colorful) and the author is someone I’ve never heard of. More promisingly, it’s developed by Justin Achilli, whom I hold in high regard.

Cairo is the only really big city I’ve personally been to, childhood trips with parents notwithstanding. I’ve been thinking of running games set there, and I was really looking forward to see how it was portrayed in my much-beloved Vampire setting.

There’s one clear flaw with the book: you’ll want a good, picture-filled travel guide to Cairo to back it up, as the bibliography suggests. Also, Chaosium’s 1995 Cairo sourcebook for Call of Cthulhu 1920s is a great addition. It features plenty of street-level stuff, including maps and descriptions of many of the buildings this Vampire book glances over.

While the book does deliver on many fronts, it really fails to bring across the looks and the night-to-night general feel of the city. It’s nothing a few good pictures of the streetlife wouldn’t’ve fixed - but there are none. You get a feel for the city’s ambience and undertones, but the in-your-face aspects of Cairo are missing. The really colorful (and technically fine) cover doesn’t remind me of Cairo or Egypt at all, except maybe in a travel poster. The logo doesn’t help matters. Since these are some of the most obvious aspects you can look at to get a feel for the setting, I feel it’s a considerable flaw.

As to where I’m standing - I dig Cairo and Egypt (and have personally been there), I absolutely love Vampire: The Masquerade, but I don’t like the World of Darkness. My Vampire games tend to take place in this world, not the WOD. However, I am reviewing this book as a WOD product, to be used with other, off-the-shelf WOD products.

On quotes

The chapters are opened by photo-manipulated artwork of people. It’s all right, but does little to alleviate the problem of a ”faceless” Cairo. You’re looking straight into the deepest shadows and shrouded havens of vampires, entirely bypassing the readily apparent aspects of the city.

Every chapter begins with a quote. Their insightfulness may be questioned, but they do give something of a scholarly feel to the book. They’re never too long.

I’m repeating the book’s opening words below. I like the quote, but the narrative of a sort after it is one big cliché and undoes much of the mood evoked by the previous passage.

”How shall I go in peace and without sorrow? Nay, not without a wound in the spirit shall I leave this city; long were the days of pain I have spent within its walls, and long were the nights of aloneness, and who can depart from his pain and his aloneness without regret?” - Kahlil Gibran, ”The Prophet”

Older than time itself, Cairo sits as a gleaming gem amid the Egyptian sands. But is its glitter a beacon of hope or the harbinger of something more terrible?

Introduction: The Pulse of the Millennia

This first chapter lays out the basics and prepares the reader for the rest of the book. Unlike some other introduction chapters, this is useful and well done. It explains Cairo’s basic role and it’s current situation, there’s a quick run-down of the book’s contents, and the major themes and moods are explained. I would appreciate a longer exploration of the themes and moods, but it’s sufficient. The first theme in Cairo By Night is the fulfillment of prophecy, the second is identity. Potentially good stuff, and fine modelling clay for any worthy gamemaster, even if identity is a path probably explored by most of us. The chosen mood of vampiric Cairo is ”unresolved conflict and subtle, unspoken tension”. Compared to the themes, this is rather barebones material, something very basic for Vampire stories. It’s not bad by any means, but it’s always neat to read about something you haven’t thought of before. As can be seen later, the book also builds on these concepts, which beefs them up considerably, going beyond mere words.

Cairo is basically a Camarilla city, but not in a nice and regimented manner. There are significant populations of Assamites, Lasombra and Followers of Set , which does make the city rather exotic to a European or American vampire. Indeed, a Sabbat member could feel more at home than a Camarilla cousin.

Cairo is governed by a Caitiff prince, Mukhtar Bey, who holds domain over the huge city in a pleasing manner, never seeking conflict. His style has held him in power for over six centuries. The city is chopped up in khittas, areas of family dominance. You can’t just waltz into a khitta - you have to be of the family’s blood to move in. This means that Cairo is very much a city of clans, divided along blood lineages. It isn’t quite that simple, though, because khittas aren’t just clan business - they’re family business. If you can claim inheritance to a khitta, you’re granted immediate domain in it. If you can’t go into a khitta, the prince will still probably welcome you, but you’re restricted to operating outside of the khittas.

The prince isn’t a supreme commander, either. He governs an asssembly of advisors and representatives, called the Consultative Council. This makes it a very much democratic system. However, the khittas are legislative entities of their own, governing themselves as long as they’re not annoying the prince. The politics can get hairy very quickly.

The chapter then explains the basics of the mortal society, transportation, festivals and so on - the basic stuff you absolutely need to get a grasp on a city. It’s all right, but nothing spectacular. Bundled with some local color, say in a travel guide, it will do. The comes with a good resource guide, including books, music and movies. There’s a subway (metro) map, which is a nice touch. Introduction also sports a list of local words - all good, atmospheric stuff. If you use even a couple of these in a game, immersion will probably increase by a degree. Recommended.

Chapter One: Sins of the Fathers

A history of Cairo

The history chapter is overwhelming. This is good and bad, and quite understandable. Egypt’s history is very long indeed, packed with major events, and bypassing that in any way would undermine the point of playing a game set in vampiric Cairo. After all, this is a game about ancients, and the place has a history folder quite unlike anything you’ve seen before.

Then again, this is a gaming book, not a scholarly text. What sort of approach would be best? I wouldn’t’ve gone the way the author did. It’s well-written, but not engaging material. The positively breathtaking scope flattens it all into a series of coups and invasions, inserting the odd vampire here and there. The overarcing theme is Set’s struggles, and this is great material: I have never felt as familiar with the Setites as I do now. Maybe the focus should’ve been shifted closer to Cairo, away from Egypt’s general history.

As it is, there’s too much. The history section is a respectable 28 pages long, for one thing - almost one fifth of this 156-page book. I can’t get a grip on it, and no sort of general picture of what has been forms in my head. I feel I should be taking notes and drawing graphs to make sense of it all. But this does serve a purpose, if you’re willing to work with the material a little. The modern-day Cairo can benefit from the detailed history, even if you don’t know what you’re going to do with it once you’re through reading it. After all, the many khittas and ancients haunting the city can trace their lineages back over millennia, and the propecies need some meat. Once you know what you need, you can go back to the history section and look for stuff you could insert into your stories.

The history does go over Cairo’s many phases and does a nice job of explaining the Setites’ history. There’s so much material that a quick sum-up of these two ”stories”, separate from the grand history retelling, would’ve been useful.

The history isn’t really dry, but the focus is somewhat off, and the reader feels distanced from the proceedings. What can be blamed in the chapter is the failure to detail the past few hundred years in an increasingly detailed fashion. The pace does slow once you get to the 1800s, but an even tighter recounting of the past century would’ve been useful. A good travelguide would help here, too, so it isn’t too much of a handicap.

On interior art

The history section features the first actual interior artwork in the book. I would like to see more of it, since it’s of consistently high quality. No goof-ups here, although I’m still left craving for shots of Cairo streets and cityscapes. On the whole, one of the better illustrated books in my shelf.

Chapter two: Blood and Sand

Geography and the undead

I’m not going into details of the geography chapter. In many ways it’s the most useful part of the book, and really well done. The areas are different from each other and there is plenty of detail to go around. Of particular note are the numerous mosques and the high levels of ambient True Faith in many areas - Cairo is a very dangerous place for an ignorant vampire to be in. As it is, the Nosferatu have a habit of touring newcomers and laying down the basics of surviving the highly religious kine.

Maps are clear, but there are frustrating problems with cross-referencing the text and the maps. Not everything can be found.

Some highlights, in addition to the mosques, are the Nile isles, the cities of the dead (graveyards), Coptic Cairo (a medieval, fortified, Christian neighborhood) and the Ezbekiyya gardens. I really liked the references to Napoleon and the descriptions of the main thoroughways. There are so many Elysiums to check out that a tourist vampire troupe won’t see half of them.

In many areas, vampires are in the heart of the society. In Cairo, it somehow works. Usually I can’t stand the undead pulling all the strings, but Cairo’s relationship between vampires and humans is less hostile - though there is a Masquearade, and the vampires are monsters and very, very secret. It’s, well, exotic to a Western vampire (and player), and rightly so.

Considering Cairo’s history and the gigantic (up to 200 bloodsuckers) vampiric population, it may come as no surprise that yes, there are sleeping Methuselahs. And to much surprise, I didn’t flinch once when reading about them. If there is a home all sleeping Methuselahs should find, it’s in (well, under, as it tends to be) Cairo. There’s some very high-level stuff going on - ancient seals, sleeping madmen - that a long-running Vampire campaign set in Cairo isn’t likely to even touch all of them. But as the back cover states, there’s also plenty of low-level stuff to explore and exploit. Story hook -wise this is a good book.

Chapter three: Brothers in Arms

Pyramids of power

Misleading title aside, this chapter is all about communities - secret societies, clubs and such structures. I’m giving short explanations on the most interesting ones to give you an idea if there’s something you’d like to have in your stories. There are sixteen groups detailed, in all.

Warning! This chapter includes plenty of spoilers, although I’ve tried to steer clear of the significant ones.

The Ashirra encompass all of the city’s Islamic undead, about 80-100 strong at any given night. The Ashirra is the largest (and loosest) of the undead sects within Cairo.

The Hajj are a sort of elite club within the Ashirra - the city’s Nosferatu Muslims. The Hajj are the ”keepers” of Islam. They guard holy sites and mortal followers of Islam. The Hajj believe their disfigurement to be a mark from God. As such, they choose not to hide it from their mortal protegees. This causes friction with the prince, but the Hajj may do as the please within their own khitta.

The Alnilam are all of the city’s non-Muslim Nosferatu - religious outcasts and refugees. They are seriously overshadowed by their devoted, privileged Hajj ”cousins”. Their leader is thinking about starting to incorporate all sorts of undead refugees and outcasts under her protection.

The Akhiya Futuwa (”Brotherhood of the Young”) is a large, active group. It’s made of Caitiff, the clanless, of whom there’s a large percentage in Cairo - thanks to the prince being a Caitiff and welcoming all. The Akhiya Futuwa have managed to gain exclusive feeding rights to one Nile island, which is unheard of in most vampiric domains. While the Caitiff do not have a khitta of their own, the prince’s favor has bought them a place alongside the Clan-vampires. Needless to say, Caitiffs flock to Cairo when they hear of these circumstances.

The Consultative Council was formed in 1920 by the prince, to act as administrators of his domain. The Council is in many ways like a Western Primogen. It’s made up of the leaders of the khittas, and the speaker for the Caitiff. In most conflicts, the Councilors of the khittas in question settle the matter on their own. The prince is only brought in when there appears no satisfying resolution. There are eight Councilors.

The Inconnu may not be a faction in Cairo, but the elder vampires must be keeping their eye on the city. Several ambitious Sabbat packs have come to Cairo to look for a hiding Methuselah to feast upon, but all of them have met gruesome fates. Several less obvious inquirers have also disappeared. The popular understanding is that the Inconnu has a representative in Cairo, and he or she really doesn’t want any company.

The Sabbat definitely have a foothold in Cairo, since the Lasombra have a khitta of their own, Banu al-Lam’a. The prince does not welcome Sabbat as a sect, but any descendants of the Lasombra king Sharif are truly welcome. This does extend to any individuals the descendants choose to vouch for, too. With Sabbat vampires moving into and out of Cairo inhindered, they don’t much scream for mayhem and warfare, either. The situation benefits all associated.

The Arcanum is present, of course. The mortal occultists have more exploring to do than they could ever hope to achieve in a lifetime. A murder mystery surrounds their past leader in Cairo - one in which the society itself appears a prime suspect.

The Brotherhood of St. Nicodemus the Blind is a group of truth-seeking mortals. They have a nasty habit of driving themselves blind when they embark on the path to the unseen world. They have a keen interest in the blind leader of the clanless vampires, Waulkeen. Originally extremist Christians.

The Cult of Isis are the mortal descendants of Isis, a sorceress from Pharaonic times. They have opposed Set for all time. They are sheltering the mortal remnants of the Children of Osiris vampiric bloodline - which forms a potentially huge threat to the Masquerade. The Cult is now hiding, hoping to escape the notice of vindictive undead.

Servitors of the Sleeping God are a loose collection of mortal cults, each furthering a single Setites’ goal of pleasing their sleeping, but supposedly aware, Methuselah. They range from clubgoers to businessmen, and form an interesting secret society element to the Cairene mortal society.

Chapter four: Dead Among the Dead

The Damned of Cairo

At fifty-two pages, this chapter makes up one third of the whole book. It details a gallery of Cairo’s vampires, divided by khitta. There are thirty-four bloodsuckers in all, and I’d dare say that any gamemaster will find more than he needs among them. Of course, this is only a small sampling of Cairo’s vampires. While some gamemasters might expect a city sourcebook to at least mention all of the city’s undead inhabitants, I appreciate the room left to the individual gamemaster to tinker with. Cairo is a huge city, after all, and nobody knows exactly how many vampires there are in any given moment - around two hundred - and much less who they are.

The vampires are well-written and none stand out as unimaginative - or particularly brilliant, for that matter. There is a problem with the descriptions, though. While they do a good job of explaining when and where they were Embraced and what they’re after now, there is regrettably little in the way of explaining their lives before the Embrace (exceptions aside), and how they’re feeling about it all, supposing they aren’t extreme cases.

Special mention has to go to the character illustrations. They’re apparently all by the same artist, and he or she has done an outstanding job. Every piece looks like the character described in the text, and every one would work as a game prop. Not one character goes without an illustration.

I would’ve preferred less vampires with more solid (refined, distilled) content, but this selection is not bad in any way, and almost every one of them just begs for a story centering on his plans. ”Good stuff”, in all.

Chapter five: Umm El-Dunya

Storytelling Cairo

Unsruprisingly, this chapter begins with a discussion of what a Vampire gamemaster could do with Cairo. There are three basic choices: take characters or plots from it and inject into your own game, make your characters visit Cairo, or set a campaign in Cairo. All of these get good guidelines, presenting the gamemaster with the benefits and potential hazards of each approach. For instance, a short-term trip to Cairo would allow the gamemaster to shuffle the cards back home while the characters are away, and would juice up everyone’s creativity by giving a totally new backdrop and cast for a while. On the other hand, Cairo is a dangerous place and demanding for the gamemaster to prepare, since you’re dealing with a whole new culture.

There is plenty of stuff on vampires and religion. This is excellent material. It does not devolve into mechanics discussion, although there are some provided, since the city is absolutely coated with True Faith. Indeed, all vampiric residents have a continuous uneasy feeling - to newcomers, it can be overwhelming for a while. Trying to enter the wrong areas (say, a particularly holy mosque) may result in concrete pain and suffering, not to mention mortal fear.

True Faith aside, more attention is given to how vampires practice Islam. Most of Cairo’s vampires are religious and practice their faith to the best of their ability. The creative, lazy and hazardous workarounds to the several problems (like traveling to Mecca, a sea of True Faith) of a vampire muslim are discussed, painting an exotic, humane and very interesting picture of the undead Cairenes.

After a calendar discussion (Cairo uses three), the gamemaster gets a list of the most notable Ambient Faith sites in the city - areas where vampires better not tread. There are lots more, but the sampling serves as an example. This could also be used as the sightseeing tour the Hajj (the deeply religious nosferatu) take any newcoming vampires to.

The chapter closes with ”The Cairo Chronicle”, an overarching storyline which explains the most significant vampiric developments of late and what the future may hold - campaign material for the gamemaster, in other words. The story begins with the Tremere of Cairo, centered in the Egyptian Museum, who are studying an exciting new archeological find. There’s a recounting of events leading to the Setites’ newfound (as of 1999) freedom to move around in Egypt and the demise of the Children of Osiris. Assamites are up to a major task whose significance may never dawn on other kindred. Setites get almost five pages, covering their different courts and plots. The material ranges quite nicely from the street level to the Things That Should Not Be Named. It appears that the author means the setting to be based on what the Setites are up to, but there’s no reason why they couldn’t be left in the background if the gamemaster so wishes.

Appendix: Shadows in Dust

The Hidden Host

This chapter details six very powerful, ancient forces. Most of the time, they’re just observing things and laying low in the shadows (some, sleeping). However, a minor effort on their part would be felt by many, and any direct action they choose to take will not be missed by any. The writeups are quite good, although longer descriptions could have helped, as with the ”regular” cast, detailed earlier. There are no stats. Each major power gets a portrait, one of which is an evocative mess, unusable in a game.

Conclusions

Cairo By Night is a good sourcebook. It does what it sets out to do, and admirably in places. There are some inconcistencies - the sketchy history and lack of everyday description come to mind - but that is expected in a work this large. It does need some extra material to get a Cairo campaign going, like a good, illustrated travelguide. There’s room for all sorts of stories and characters. The city is presented in a good situation, story-wise: there’s lots of stuff to be solved, but none that should crash the gates of your campaign the next evening.