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In Short

The Good: All of the basics get covered here. Plenty of background discussion on fighting vampires aids both the Storyteller and players with coming up with believable hunter character responses when encountering these dangerous undead. The system for using vampires without Requiem appears to be simple and quite functional, cutting out an entire other rules system for those that don't want to bother with tracking blood points and such.

The Bad: Some of the discussion just doesn't deliver. Few exceptional tools or ideas can be found here, and I suspect that the vast majority of folk who are already familiar with the vampires of the World of Darkness will find little use for this supplement.

The Physical Thing

Under the Cover

With a discussion of various vampire considerations out of the way the book turns to the role normal people play in fighting against the undead. Each entry includes a few story hooks and then moves on to the group's typical response to vampire encounters. Each of the Hunter: The Vigil Compacts receives attention as do each of the Conspiracies. While the Compacts are a little more basic in presentation, the Conspiracies tend to have a more organized response to the undead menace. VALKYRIE, for example, has no fewer than three sub-organizations each with its own agenda towards vampires.

Three new Compacts and one new Conspiracy are also introduced. The Barrett Commission exists among government and corporate insiders to attempt to counter the influence of the supernatural throughout the highest levels of power. Campaign staff get together in the early hours to kill a vampire seeking to influence the election while a junior Congresswoman's aide puts in a few extra hours to document and upload the various strange communications his boss receives.

The MaiDen's Blood Sisterhood exists solely to clear out vampire nests from college campuses. The young women serving are actively recruited, and those that survive their college years often continue to support the group after. Meanwhile, Night Watch is the ultimate community watch of the World of Darkness. These street warriors band together to very actively bring the fight to those that prey on whole communities.

The new Conspiracy, The Cainite Heresy, is a little odd. The group seems to be based around actively and aggressively exposing the entities of the World of Darkness for what they really are. Despite the large amount of material provided for this group, I had a hard time really getting a bead on what sets them apart from other Conspiracies. Other than a few gimmicks their goals and nature don't seem any different than other hunters, and I have a hard time feeling like including this Conspiracy would be worthwhile for my Hunter game.

Of the new additions I find the Barrett Commission to be the best. It seems like it should be a large scale Conspiracy more than a Compact to me, but nevertheless the notion that there's actually someone fighting back at the highest levels of power is a refreshing addition to the setting. Unfortunately, the other groups are just too vanilla to really get me excited. I need more interesting ideas if I'm going to add another organization to my game, especially considering that the ones in the core book are pretty darn neat.

With generally average new organizations comes lackluster mechanical support as well. Let's talk about Tactics first. I think Tactics can be a really cool part of a Hunter chronicle, and that they can make a whole lot of sense. A group tactic to keep something on fire? Yes, please! However, it may be inevitable that as writers are forced to create more and more Tactics the quality of those Tactics decreases.

Some of the new Tactics are pretty cool. Helter Skelter keeps a vampire on the ropes through supporting characters using flashlights and distracting tools while one character beats the hell out of the undead fiend. This is an especially nice Tactic where many members of the group just aren't very good at personal combat. Another Tactic, Cauterize, exists to deal with supernatural regeneration and I think it also is a nice addition.

I can't say the same for Lobby. On it's face I like the idea of this social Tactic because the act of raising community awareness of a supernatural threat does seem like it would really hurt the supernatural entity. However, I object to the need for a Tactic to do this at all. As with the Arson Tactic, also included here, I'm concerned that actions already perfectly well handled within the system are being put into Tactics to artificially create more “character options” while taking away something the characters should already be able to do within the current system. Gaining a +1 social bonus for a week or denying a vampire a useful Ally should be things a moderately competent Storyteller could already include through the use of Social rolls. Similarly, the Larceny Skill should be able to cover arson without the need for a purchased Tactic. These are artificial ways to create more mechanical content where it already existed and where, in this reviewers opinion, doing so actually takes away options from the characters as many Storytellers will now view these options are requiring an XP expenditure.

The other new options, a few Merits and a whole bunch of super powers, are a mixed bag. If anything I find some of the powers to be just too good, such as Prima Dictum which has a high cost but if successful can completely decimate a vampire through extreme physical and resistance penalties. That said, there is a lot of material here and both Storytellers and players will find plenty of options to add to their game. The new Conspiracy adds Rites of Denial to the mix of character options, a form of blood magic that is taught by the Sources (a group that brings memories of Hunter: The Reckoning to mind). The abilities are mostly focused on vampires and offer a mix of different magical powers with a general focus on making the character a little more badass. Moving faster, hitting harder, and mentally stealing secrets are all possible and together make the character much more dangerous.

The remainder of the chapter is actually very nice, offering a way to represent vampires without using Requiem while also presenting a variety of vampire variants. The Storyteller is not at all locked down to how White Wolf has previously defined vampires, and a game focusing on disembodied vampires that eat dreams is entirely possible. Common vampire powers are all included and easily upgraded, and a simple system for ghouls is also included. This is the gem of the book for Storytellers who want to run Hunter games while avoiding the established material in the rest of the World of Darkness.

Night Stalkers wraps up with a very Storyteller specific section dedicated to game ideas and support. A lot of attention is paid to vampire archetypes, and while they could be useful as a basic idea base I find them to be a bit too generic at this late date for vampire fiction. Vampires have been done to death already (hah!) and I don't see a lot of use in page long descriptions of vampire archetypes. I would much rather have found lots and lots of shorter hooks or ideas that made vampires a little more interesting again. General scene ideas could be helpful for the Storyteller pressed for time and ideas, though once again the basic idea of having a chase scene isn't terribly exciting even when lots of vampire imagery and ideas are attached.

The last bit of material concerns Philadelphia by Night, adding a variety of detailed NPCs for the characters to encounter along with a bundle of plot hooks. It's at least useful to the Storyteller in that the NPCs could be dropped into another chronicle and showcase how vampires may be built within this alternate system. Of course, the setting itself certainly isn't bad and a group could have a fine time fighting the war against these blood sucking fiends.

My Take

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