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A Sourcebook for Vampire: the Requiem
Review by Dan Anderson
VII is a sourcebook of Evil Chewy Goodness™ for Storytellers to torture their players with. It expands upon the group of vampires introduced in the main sourcebook, known only as ‘VII.’ (Pronounced “Seven”)
From the Vampire core rules: “One “covenant” among the world of the undead has no name. Although this faction comprises vampires, those beings seem to hate all Kindred who are not part of their mysterious order, and literally attempt to destroy them on sight.”
i.e. “bad guys.”
Their splat page is intentionally left vague to give Storytellers a blank slate villain to screw with annoying meta-gaming players. Just enough info is given to give the impression of a group of deadly, assassin “boogeymen” who are shrouded in mystery and rumor.
Now here is the really spiffy thing about the VII sourcebook. In prior years, White Wolf had the meta-plot from hell policy, where their sourcebooks would essentially say “This is what your campaign world is supposed to look like. Oh, and we just killed off your favorite clan. Suck it, bitches!” Starting with the End of the World series of books for the old World of Darkness, they started a policy of going easy on the prescriptive metaplot crap, and instead creating toolbox like sourcebooks to help Storytellers come up with their own ideas.
VII, rather than giving you the “one true” presentation of the VII, gives you three wholly different interpretations of VII, each written by a different author.
Now as this is a sourcebook full of GM secrets, if you just happen to be a player who is in a Vampire chronicle, there may be all sorts of super secret stuff in this review that will ruin the mystery for you. So stop now, and read the review for Dogs in the Vineyard or a Dungeon Crawl Classic or something.
SPOILERS AHOY! . . . . . . . It’s Gwyneth Paltrow’s head in that box! Don’t open it Brad, NOOOOOOOOOO!!!
First Impressions
Hardcover book, the usual blood red color so you know that it’s part of the Vampire line, front cover features some vampire who is dressed like he wants people to think he is a pirate captain. No glaring typographical errors and the artwork is all high quality.
Opening Fiction
Like all White Wolf books, this starts out with a piece of fiction to set the mood and set up an air of mystery. Honestly, I usually end up reading these after I’ve read everything else in a book, but the story seems to be of the usual high standard of quality for White Wolf. One thing that irritates me though, is their use of an old-timey font where the ‘u’s look like ‘v’s and the ‘s’s look like ‘f’s. So it reads like, “When Pierce faid “fpeak,” people fpoke.” It is a serious mood killer, when you’re imagining a deadly creature of the night talking with a comically thick lisp. But this is forgivable.
Introduction
The introduction starts out with a “How to Use this Book” section, which I think is one of the most underrated things that you can have in a sourcebook. It then goes into a summary of the three sections of book, and then talks about theme and mood.
After that, we get a paragraph from the author of each section, where they explain their thoughts behind the part they wrote. This is very cool, like a DVD commentary for an RPG book. It then goes into a rather redundant section, where it devotes a whole paragraph to just about every skill in the game, explaining how that skill can be used to find out more about VII. (Just in case you still were not sure what Larceny and Academics do.)
Then it talks about how each of the Covenants views VII, in the form of a quote from a member of each group. I kind of wish they would have given some third person text just spelling it out for me, but ah well.
It then goes into a rather cool explanation of the significance of the number seven in history and mysticism, providing a bucket load of cool factoids to weave into your chronicle.
Chapter 1: Princes of the Fallen City
This is the first of the three versions of VII. What impressed me the most about these chapters is the sheer length and wealth of cool stuff in each chapter. Each of these chapters was like a source book unto themselves.
This chapter presents VII as a line of royalty from the city of Gomorrah. (You know the city in the Bible that got blown up along with Sodom, because of those cities love of anal.) There is murder, intrigue, ghouls, prophecies, deals with demons and other craziness.
Basically these guys were trying to avenge their father for his betrayal by a ghoul, and then their descendants made a pact with a demon who turned them all into vampires, and they think if they destroy all the other vampires in the world, a prophecy will be fulfilled, and they’ll all live happily ever after. And the name VII comes from their symbol, which means something in the dead language of Gomorrah, but gets misinterpreted for a Roman numeral seven.
This is a pretty solid story that reminds me of the stories from the Old World of Darkness about Caine and his descendants. Heavily steeped in biblical references, and left with the reader asking “So how much of this is supposed to be true and how much is just allegory?”
We then are presented with a splat page for these new vampires called the Akhud. This is written up just like the splat pages in the core book, and even gives advice for character building. The rules are fairly good for this clan, and work well for a super secretive group of Assassin vampires. They also have the coolest Vampire weakness I’ve ever seen; they can not knowingly betray one of their own. If they know that it would bring harm to another Akhud, they are just unable to do it. Vampires made with the three laws of robotics, sweet! While being cool on its own, it also makes for a good story hook fiat. The reason that mysterious vampire hired the PCs to kill his sire? He literally can not do it himself.
Which brings us to the new Discipline for the Akhud, Praestantia; this is the power of being really lucky. The first thing that it does is while active, it gives bonuses to a lot of different physical rolls, sort of like the new Celerity. The second thing it does, is when a character using Praestantia were going to fail a physical action, the character can just choose to take no action instead of suffering the consequences for failure.
So for instance, you were from rooftop to rooftop, and you failed the roll, you could just choose to stop at the edge of the roof, and not go 'splut!' on the ground. Now here is the part that annoys me about this power. Most of the time, the only characters who are going to have this power, are NPCs. And when they use this power, it just looks like the character is standing there and doing nothing. So in a fight against an Akhud, a lot of this guy’s actions are going to be, “stands there with a dumb look on his face.” So the PCs who are fighting him and don’t realize that he is using his mystic power to conserve bullets or something, are just going to think that this guy is a really hesitant schmuck, who spends about half his time in a fight standing around with his thumb up his ass. Not what you want to go for when presenting a deadly über-assassin.
Next we get Ahranite sorcery, which gives a number of spiffy rituals which must be cast over a cauldron of blood. (Yummy!) These all pretty much contribute to the Akhad’s goal of being sneaky. Highlights include a ritual that forces a vampire into torpor, and then when the vampire awakes he flies into frenzy when he next meets a Vampire, a ritual that lets you wear somebody’s skin, and a ritual that makes you blow up like the Predator when someone kills you.
We then get a big section explaining how the group operates, its motives, views of the world, and generally how to use them in a game. We also learn about factionalism within the group. This is entertaining, because no one in the group can betray anyone else, so the different factions just have to ride it out together while secretly wishing they could kill the others. Hilarious.
We also learn how the VII are responsible for training mortal witch hunters which they arm and then sic on vampires. All in all, solid stuff for running these antagonists.
Chapter Two: The Betrayed
I’ll be honest with you. I just couldn’t get into these guys. They are probably the least original group of Vampires ever, and basically add nothing to the game. (Except for a lot of redundant rules for using them of course!)
These guys are basically the descendants of some Ghoul who was a king in Russia and ate the heart of his Vampire master who was going to betray him and became a sort-of Vampire in the process. Then he made each of his seven children into pseudo-Vampires, and now they hide in the shadows and seek revenge on the actual Vampires for some not particularly clear reason. Here is a blurb from the section on theme and mood:
“…The Betrayed embody wrath and fanaticism. Their quest for vengeance is based on a philosophy of hypocrisy: their hatred has made them into the very monsters they despise.”
Okay, so how is that not basically every group in every World of Darkness game ever made?
Ooh and here’s one of my favorite parts. Since they’re from Russia, and since they’re trying to reclaim their throne, their nickname is the ‘Anastasias.’ (I dare you to say that without rolling your eyes.)
So basically these guys just sit in their castle in Russia acting all angsty and plotting the overthrow of the real-Vampires. (“I’ll get you, Brock Samson!”)
I seriously couldn’t imagine these guys talking without a thick Transylvanian accent and going “Blah!” at the end of every sentence.
Oh and then the rules for these guys. Basically we get a whole new template and set of rules for them, because they aren’t really Vampires. But they basically are vampires in every way. There is even a whole paragraph just rattling off the old Vampire powers we all know and love. Basically the only thing different about these guys from regular Vampires, is that other Vampires won’t automatically notice that they’re Vampiric, and it is impossible to coerce information out of them that they do not want to give. That’s it! We need a whole new template for that?
And then there are seven different groups of these guys each with their own splat page. It seems like serious overkill to have this many rules for these guys, if they’re going to just be used for antagonists, but I get the impression that they’re supposed to be used as PCs or something. I don’t know, these guys just take the whole idea of the mysterious group VII, and then they take a huge dump all over it. Chapter Three: The Sleepers
This is the Chapter that makes the whole book worth it. The VII in this Chapter are a group of brainwashed sleeper agents, who do not realize that they are a part of VII. Sort of like Mel Gibson in Conspiracy Theory.
These are guys are genuinely sinister and creepy. Their back story involves a group of evil pseudo-scientists experimenting with mind-control and psychic powers. The group is then killed by a Vampire named Mr. Morning who then embraces one of their Psychic prodigies, and uses him to create Vampire sleeper agents who seek out and kill those vampires who are deemed ‘sinful’ in the eyes of Mr. Morning. In a Frankenstein like twist, the VII then kill Mr. Morning, leaving VII as an automated group of sleeper agents that exists as an end unto itself.
This lends itself well to a “Soylent Green is people!” style of chronicle.
We then get a thorough write up of the powers and rules for using the Sleepers, and how they indoctrinate others. We also get the Sleeper discipline of Psychogenics. Featuring the most unnerving power ever, “Psychic Surgery” which allows a Sleeper to perform brain surgery on potential brainwashees, without having to cut them open; their hands just pass through the flesh. (Yeech!)
We then get a well-written section on how to incorporate this version of VII into a campaign, and even it gives hints on how to make the PCs unknowingly be the Sleeper agents. (Cause come on, you know you already thinking about it.)
Final Thoughts:
Overall I’m very impressed by the toolbox approach to design, and the multiple possibilities for VII. I still am a little annoyed by the Betrayers, but fortunately there only one of several options for a chronicle.
For style I give this book a 5, just for the originality of the multiple “Who shot JR?” interpretations of the VII. This is a trend I’d like to see more of in gaming supplements. And also for just plain good writing.
For Substance, I give it a 4, mostly because the Betrayed kind of dragged things down a bit, but overall good useful information for a storyteller.
