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The Good: The short fiction for the modern day was a very enjoyable read, and provided me with a variety of story ideas. For those unfamiliar with Vampire: The Masquerade, the Malkavian Curse is an interesting story device and mechanic.
The Bad: The historical narrative can be a little difficult to follow at times, and may not be of great use to many games. Some familiarity with Requiem for Rome helps with the history.
The Physical Thing
This 128 page glossy full color softcover showcases impressive production values for its $19.99 price tag. The artwork is wonderful, and closely connected to the text. Paper stock, formatting, editing, and similar features are all top notch. A lot of games pass my review table, and I have to stay that I’m really surprised that so much physical quality could be included for the price.Under the Cover
The goal of the product is to provide a collection of short stories, side notes, and scribbled ideas from a variety of vampiric authors in order to pull the player into the setting while giving them a sense of what it means to be a Ventrue. In support of this, new mechanics are also provided to give players a few more Ventrue focused options and to reintroduce an old favorite from Vampire: The Masquerade: Malkavians. Since the chapters are so distinct, I’m covering each one independently.Chapter 1 A History of the Ventrue - 30 pages.
This chapter seeks to develop a sketchy history for the Ventrue from after the fall of Rome up to the present day. Rather than try to summarize it, which I don’t think is possible given the unique way it’s presented, let me highlight some of the things it does very well. It does an excellent job of providing a feel for why the Ventrue have certain traditions. Naming schemes are given emphasis, and so is lineage. Clan mythology involving historical events receives a good deal of attention, providing interested players and Storytellers with a wealth of ancient tales to draw from while playing. Aspects of past nobility, such as being fat, are discussed so the reader has more of an appreciation for how generational differences can determine a Ventrue’s perception of power and importance.
What this chapter does not do is clearly set out a factual history of the Ventrue. There is no big timeline or chronology of important events. The stories progress in order through time, but that’s as far as it goes. These are stories, tales told from another’s perspective, and while the back cover advertises the “true, secret history” I think what the book really provides is inspirational stories for players and Storytellers to craft their own fragmented bits of history during play. As long as you’re approaching the product from that perspective, from the perspective of someone who wants a game aid to provide inspiration for play and not explicit setting information, then I think you’ll enjoy it.
Chapter 2 The Culture of Lords - 63 pages.
While I enjoyed the first chapter, I felt like it was a little too mixed up at times. I think this makes it a fine game aid, but just reading it straight through wasn’t quite as much fun. That is not true in the slightest way with The Culture of Lords. I’ve read a lot of gaming fiction, but this blew me away. It was a very enjoyable read. It made me think about Ventrue of different Covenants and what ties the Ventrue share. It made me want to play some of the characters or run a game with them as major NPCs. This is a wonderful piece.
Chapter 2 seeks to deal with the here and now by providing a variety of short stories, often in the form of a journal or letter, focused around a particular Ventrue vampire. Each story emphasizes something a little different, and together they build up a good mythology for the Ventrue. Rather than just praising it as a whole, let me share a few of my favorites with you.
My favorite is The Dominatrix and the Academy. The idea is that an older vampire, who is a master of Domination (the Discipline). She began an academy for those that wanted to learn the power better. They become her slaves and she abuses the hell out of them until they learn how to stop her. Training continues to progress from there until she eventually molds them into masters of the discipline, the very best even able to force her to do as they wish. Or so they believe, there are more than a few hints that long term memory alteration and conditioning is occurring as well. It’s a fantastic idea, a fun read, and definitely something I’d like to include in a vampire game.
My other favorite is the Witch of the Weeds. Like another great tale (King Rat), the narrator has been dispatched to learn more about a Ventrue living on the fringe of society. In this case the woman seems to be a cautious Crone who maintains dominion over, well, possibly everything out side of the city. The most memorable parts of the short tale focus on how the character goes about gaining an audience with her, and the special gift (tomatoes grown with blood that vampires can eat) that she gives him as he leaves. Her speech and mannerisms are of particular importance to anyone trying to get down how widely different Ventrue might behave.
What does this chapter leave me with? It leaves me with a smile, because it was entertaining. It leaves me with a lot of good ideas for NPCs and organizations for my games. Finally, it leaves me with a sense for how lots of different Ventrue can still show off their lordly roots whether they’re in a board room or on the fringes of civilization.
Appendix Lords and the Game - 26 pages.
Fans of Vampire: The Masquerade will remember the wonderfully insane Malkavians. For those unfamiliar, Malkavians were one of the vampire Clans that didn’t make the cut for Requiem. Their big thing was being crazy, making other folk crazy, and gaining some insight through their madness. They’re brought back in mostly the same form, though being Malkavian means suffering from a vampiric curse that enhances the character’s madness / susceptibility to madness while providing access to a new Discipline – Dementation.
Dementation provides a host of abilities, from prophecy to the permanent infliction of madness, and while not all of them are equally useful it’s certainly a very flavorful Discipline. Fans of the old Malkavians will find this cursed group to be very similar, and the mechanics are very reminiscent of what Masquerade was striving for. For everyone else, Malkavians are presented as an excellent option for any game. They could be especially interesting as a simple plague on the undead population. An entire Chronicle could easily be based around dealing with the spread of madness among the vampire aristocracy.
Other mechanical additions are also included. Merits, Flaws, Derangements, Devotions, and a new Bloodline provide more mechanical options for Ventrue characters. However, most of these are very specific abilities that are unlikely to appeal to everyone. Some players may pick one or two in order to have a unique ability to throw out when needed, but any reader coming here just for new powers and abilities is likely to be disappointed. These abilities do a good job of supplementing the rest of the product mechanically, but they’re a small portion of the product as a whole.
My Take
This is an excellent product for any vampire fan who enjoys taking in the setting through short fiction. If you just want powers or a clearly laid out history, however, this product probably won’t work well for you. It’s a charmingly different way to do a supplement, and for the cost it’s tough to beat.Help support RPGnet by purchasing this item through DriveThruRPG.
