| WW 2010 |
The second in the Diablerie series (and hopefully the last). This is yet another dungeon crawl in which an interesting Methuselah of great and unique power is introduced, in which the players are led to this Methuselah, where they track down her resting place, pass the trials and travails therein, and kill her. At least they hope to. This one looks like it would have a decent chance of killing most anyone foolish enough to try.
The most useful information is provided on Justicars and possible Chronicles featuring them and their Archons. Madame Guil, the Toreador Justicar, is detailed along with her own retinue.
There is also a translation of a Malkavian prophecy about Gehenna in the back. The Highlander influences show nicely here.
Saw "Bloody Hearts" in the game shop, and picked it up, primarily to worry my players.
What do you get?
A bunch of NPCs - a wigged-out Justicar & her Archons, and another coterie; mainly derived from continental European backgrounds; the history of a Methuselah, a typical T$R issue high-level dungeon crawl, and a synopsis of a new book of vampiric lore & prohpecy, Das Buch der Grabkrieg.
On the map, West Glamorgan has been inserted in the numbered list of counties *after* the numbers were put on the map. Thus Birmingham is in West Midlands, not West Glamorgan (& so forth).
What don't you get
Anything of much use for a political campaign; anything special about to the setting - the only reason for choosing the UK was as a location at the fringes of the Roman Empire : Sudan, Jordan, Tartary, Denmark all would have been just as plausible, and would necessitate changing only the map of the country with the "X marks the Methuselah", and about 1/4 page of text.
It's not a UK-based supplement in any sense of the word; but this does have the advantage that it avoids laying forth the usual misconceptions that USAns have of this country.
Diablerie : what is it and when do you get those funky black spots in your aura?
The lexicon - and other parts of the rules - suggests that it's simply the feeding off another vampire (not necessarily to the extent of draining all the blood, let alone the avatar of the subject).
Which would mean that any vampire that indulges in "vampire sex" (the sharing of the blood), or has a blood bond, would be included in the wider definition. Feeding mainly from other vampires would certainly be included in the strict definition (this set-up may well happen as Belinda may well start letting her own blood to feed Samuel, whose Ventrue limitation is not to feed directly from his prey, but to drink blood from a cup, or plasma bag or similar vessel, and to act as a converter for Lt Bannerworth, whose Ventrue limitation is to feed only from women : meanwhile Rupert, one of Crowley's line - or "little gang of sodomites and charlatans", as Dee dismisses them - is soon to be initiated into the delights of feeding from other vampires when he is drained and buggered by Crowley, then let to drink his fill of Crowley's potent blood).
It's going to change the nature of the black-splodges stigma if virtually *everyone* has some smuts on their aura.
This Story supplement is yet another "Let's go find the Methuselah", but it has much more imagination behind it than the first, and the 'victim' is much more difficult to reach. Unfortunately, once it's reached . . . No, I won't say it.
There is a nice section on Justicars, what they do, how they do it, what Archons are for, and the sorts of punishments they come up with, as well as the Toreadot Justicar (Madame Guillotine never sleeps). Also ideas on running a Justicar chronicle.
The next chapter details the 'target', and like the first target, this one would be more interesting as an added NPC than a meal. The history is much more . . . checkered. Unlike Mictantecle, this one has reasons for doing everything that was done.
The next two parts are the Story proper and the penetration into the Methuselah's resting place. Quite nasty stuff here, truly nasty stuff. Still, while it's rougher than Awakening, it's still not as rough as it could be.
Lastly, there is an Appendix which is a Tremere's translation of a Malkavian's ravings delivered by a voice about the Jyhad, and what the Antediluvians will do come Gehenna.
Overall, as long as you ignore the story, it's a great supplement. I think White Wolf could do better than to publish stories on Diablerie, when it's expected that the PCs will be doing it. Sigh . . .