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In Short
Gangrel offers insight into the most feral of all the Clans, primarily through a large number of short stories. The material is often entertaining, but a clear picture of what make the Gangrel unique does not always emerge. While there is some mechanical support, it's only a tiny fraction of the overall book and those considering picking up Gangrel should be expecting flavorful short fiction more than anything else.The Good: Many of the short stories are quite enjoyable.
The Bad: I don't have as strong of a picture of what the Gangrel can be as I did for the Ventrue after reading Ventrue.
The Physical Thing
This 128 page full color softcover showcases wonderful production values for its $19.99 price tag. Solid editing, writing, and presentation all make the book a treat to read. The artwork and use of realistic text artifacts are wonderful and come together to convey a strong sense of mood to the book.Under the Cover
Gangrel provides a variety of different short stories and text fragments that are meant to inspire the reader. This information is partially integrated with the other Clan books, with certain reoccuring characters being found here and there. That said, there's no need for any other product and the books definitely avoid any controlling meta story. This is simply a nice resource to inspire Storytellers and players alike, with a few additional mechanical options included at the end.Generally speaking, I don't like RPG fiction. It tends to be uninteresting to me, and I find a lot of it to be adequately written at best. As with Ventrue, though, I really enjoyed reading through what was included in Gangrel. One of the lengthier stories involved Count Dracula, a 7'7” pierced body builder vampire with an attitude who managed to be quite memorable and may very well appear in one of my later Chronicles. In fact, memorable is a word that applies to many of the stories in these books. It's strange, because I don't find the stories to be particularly amazing or anything but they still stick with me.
I do have one gripe, and that is that I don't feel like this book conveys the same sense of the Gangrel that the Ventrue book did of that Clan. I admit, though, that that is a very subjective evaluation and it may just be in the eye of the beholder. I certainly think this is a fun book, but I have a hard time putting my finger on the parts of some of the stories that really bring forth what it means to be Gangrel. This isn't true of every tale, so let me tell you about a few!
As with the other Clan books, Gangrel provides short stories and story fragments. My favorite, which is also the longest, is an integrated story told from two perspectives that involves the wily Felix and powerful Count Dracula (not quite the same guy from legend). What I like about the story is that it does a good job of showing what a small vampire session could be like, complete with interesting bits of backstory and enough interaction between the two characters to make me wonder about what sorts of qualities vampires respect in their friends. The tale follows Felix as he is captured and later escapes, with the help of Count Dracula, and is generally a nice piece of short fiction.
Cerynitis the Hind is another favorite section, focusing in on a strange vampire religious ceremony. I like it because it really plays up the savagery of the Gangrel, showcases a vampire society existing in the wilderness, and also sports a wonderfully creepy feel. Not only is it entertaining, but the whole section is great inspiration for adding a similar group of vampires to an existing game.
While the majority of the product is inspirational short fiction, some game mechanics are also included. For new Bloodlines, the Mabry gain Vigor at the cost of a penalty when isolated, a Bloodline meant to reflect small vampire families that work by setting up traps to bring their prey to them. The Hounds of Actaeon hunt humans as humans hunt animals, receiving a penalty to hunger frenzy in return for access to Obfuscate. While the Bloodline has a neat little blurb, I can't say that it's the most exciting Bloodline I've run across.
The last few pages contain new Merits, Devotions, subsystem tweaks, and example characters. My favorite addition is easily a Merit that enables Animalism to work on plants (though it now has a penalty to work on animals). It's a simple addition, and it's a nice way to realize a unique character power without worrying about balance concerns of a whole new Discipline. The additions are flavorful and do a good job of aiding in supporting Gangrel characters in play.
My Take
Gangrel offers a lot of inspiring material primarily in the form of short stories and artwork. It's an enjoyable read, and just the thing to get a Storyteller excited about running a game. While I find Ventrue to be a little better on the whole, I acknowledge that that may be entirely a matter of taste and heartily recommend this title if you enjoyed any of the other Clan books.Help support RPGnet by purchasing this item through DriveThruRPG.
