OFFICIAL VEKN GANGREL ANTRIBU NEWSLETTER VOLUME 4 NUMBER 1 JANUARY 2001 IN THIS ISSUE ... ... FICTION: Into the Abyss VARIANT: VAMPIRES IN THE PARLOUR FICTION: Into the Abyss You have to be tough-minded in my line of work, but I have to admit I've been having the heeby-jeebies a bit recently. The wastes of Aranoc were bad enough, but it was the Khejistan jungle, I think, all that rain and vegetation and the constant sniping from the natives. Plus I think i caught something nasty - sleeping out there you understood how the smorgasbord must feel. At least here it is warm and dry, or should be - though I still feel so cold, and so hungry. And now for the last seal! I look around at my little Undead Army, check over their gear one last time, and then raising Hellplague over my head I smite the seal, and then I turn, and RUN towards the great pentacle in the centre of this Sanctuary. My GOD it is HUGE!!!! Fuck o fuck I mean "I smite you back down to hell, Demon!" Its face splits into a horrible fangy grin and in a female voice it replies "Not even Death can Save you from Me". I strike it with Hellplague and feel its life flowing into me - it responds with a jet of agonising flame. And then there is what seems like an hour of hacking and slashing, pausing occasionally to drink, dimly aware of my legions of minions fighting bravely, mechanically and going down like flies. My armour is in tatters and at the end only myself and Clot the Blood Golem are on our feet. But Diablo is weakening, I can feel it .. its life is flowing into me, and it begins to beg, with little piteous sobs, allowing what is left of Magenta to come to the surface. I don't relent, of course. Right at the end it puts on her face and I cut it in half. The skin subsides like a burst baloon and a searing white spirit rips out of it and dissipates. I would like to pretend that there were two, at least to myself, but the truth is that it ate her all up, as far as I can tell. Wordlessly Clot and I shake hands, before I delve in the mess for its Soulstone, They tell me that smashing this will be the end of it. I wonder. They've been wrong about everything else so far. In any case, I'm out of here now. I'm going back to my little Northern island and I'm going to buy a house on the Southern coast of that island where the light is pearly-pure. Maybe I shall write a book, or take up star- gazing - start a family or two, perhaps. I DO wish I wasn't so cold and hungry though. Hmmm, mouth hurts too - maybe a visit to the dentist first of all. I can hardly hear all the congratulations when I finally resurface, my ears are buzzing so. And for some reason that old catch of Nietzsche keeps running through my head .. how exactly does it go again ... He who fights with monsters must beware of becoming one himself. When you gaze too long into the Abyss, the Abyss also gazes into you. VARIANT: VAMPIRES IN THE PARLOUR Although I spent most of the holidays playing Diablo II [finished it with the Necromancer!] we did our fair share of playing vampires and eating and drinking too much plus participating fully in the various family dramas which are the whole point of Christmas, I increasingly feel. I also came up with a parlour-game variant of VTES which isn't I think essentially a new idea [can't remember who had it first, unfortunately], though I think my spin on it has SOME original merit in the following sense: it uses the non-Euclidean Coordinate geometry of Vampires AND happy families in the design of the deck and crypt. Anyway it's very simple - two or more players use ONE deck. The deck needs about n x 90 library cards where n is the number of players and a crypt comprising one copy each [or more, if you are sanguine about contesting] of vampires of a pair of clans that share two disciplines - so Brujah/Toreador and Malkavian/Tremere are good choices. Happy-Familyfy the library on 4-5 disciplines. For two-player leave out bleed-bounce cards; probably leave out library/crypt-peeking cards since these become significantly more powerful in this variant. Clan hosers SHOULD go in. Leave out ante cards and maybe stuff that deals with contesting. The great thing about this variant is that the game really does reduce to a pure test of playing skill leavened by a LITTLE luck, and it also creates a fairly high level of play - no clunky episodes of cardless stodge such as sometimes disfigure the otherwise-excellent sealed format. Also crappy cards can actually be quite useful in this form - clan hosers are only one example. Well I like it anyway, but I have to admit Sarah doesn't. ***************************** And that's it for the first issue of 2001. See you all in February!