OFFICIAL VEKN GANGREL ANTITRIBU NEWSLETTER VOLUME 8 NUMBER 3 MARCH 2005 In this Kindred Most Wanted Issue ... ******** FICTION: The Institute [part 2 of The Horror in the Ice, another Call of Cthulhu adventure from the increasingly-nervous inhabitants of Legbiter Hall] EDITORIAL: The Kindred Most Wanted DECKS: Enkidu's Herd by Smiling Tom, and !Gangrel Anarchs by Evil Inside ******** FICTION: The Institute [part 2 of The Horror in the Ice, another Call of Cthulhu adventure from the increasingly-nervous inhabitants of Legbiter Hall] "Awake! For Morning in the Bowl of Night Hath flung the Stone that puts the Stars to Flight! And lo! The hunter of the East has caught The Sultan's turret in a Noose of Light!" The speaker flung the sheet which had been draped across the window to one side, and bright Arctic sunlight flooded into the room. Karlotta Mikhaelevna Dangerfeld groaned, sat up in bed and began groping around with her feet for her felt boots. "Very poetical! I wish the Hunter of the East would throw a noose around you, you disturber of the hard-working proletarian's peace!" Eliska Mrazkova folded her arms and smiled, looking out over the snowy landscape which descended gently to the frozen sea. Bright silvery aircraft were taxiing and taking off on the aerodrome below the Institute. Karlotta finished dressing, and joined her friend at the window. "So are you going to see her today?" "The Utiuk woman? Yes, that's the plan. How about you?" "Calculating conic sections for the Mirror people and the Rocket guys, I expect, with as much trying to catch the eye of the New and Dishy Commissar as is consistent with Fulfilling the Norms of the Five-Year Plan." "Clearly there is not a moment to lose, then! Forward, Comrade, to Fried Herring, Dishy Commissars and Socialism!" Everyone in the Institute had Communal duties to perform and that morning those of the two young women involved preparing breakfast. Much frying of fish later, they kissed each other and went their separate ways. Karlotta's took her down to the main exit where she showed her pass to the security guard, and then out into the snow. The Utiuk camp lay a couple of miles to the East, past the aerodrome. Aircraft were droning overhead, silvery monoplane I-1's with red stars on their wings, and the strange new biplanes which had arrived the previous week amidst great secrecy. Two groups of the latter were practising aerial fighting, with much exciting zooming and diving and chattering of blank-loaded machine guns. Karlotta got quite absorbed in watching the show, and almost collided with a new section of wire which had not been there the previous week. She saw that she would have to make something of a detour to get round it, and began to walk quicker. Behind the wire were several new huts where groups of men in flying suits were smoking and talking to each other as they watched the aircraft overhead. Some turned to look at her as she strode through the snow, and in a lull in the cacophony of aero-engines she caught snatches of their conversation. Germans! What on earth were they doing here? Another sound behind her made her turn. A large armoured half track was coming up behind her, painted white with undulating blue vertical stripes to mimic the shadows of trees in a wintry forest. Its offset twin maxim turrets rotated synchronously like the mandibles of some gigantic beetle. She stood to one side to let it pass, but the vehicle drew up beside her and stopped, belching a blue haze of diesel fumes. A door in the side opened, and out jumped the dishy new Commissar. "You there! What are you doing here?" "I'm on my way to the Utiuk camp, in accordance with the instructions of the Committee for the Preservation of National Culture at the Institute for Applied Geography, Comrade Commissar. Here is my pass." The young man looked at the pass carefully, and handed it back. "You should not take this route, Comrade Dangerfeld. The aerodrome is restricted. Come, we will drive you the rest of the way." Inside the armoured car was surprisingly roomy, and one could look over the driver's shoulder out of his viewing slit. Karlotta did not feel she could initiate conversation, and the young commissar did not do so either, not that talking would have been easy over the roar of the Austin-Putilov's engine. At the camp she got down, and the car trundled off, spraying snow from its tracks. Karlotta shouldered her satchel and made her way towards the Utiuk settlement. The camp was a huddle of little leather tents surrounding a larger structure, which comprised four huge tusks from an extinct pachyderm, their bases driven into the permafrost and their points converging over the smoke-hole. The spaces between the tusks were filled by neatly-laid dry stones and covered by a leather roof. Moss and lichen plugged the gaps, and a leather door-flap gave ingress to the interior. Several savage dogs approached but Karlotta had a way with such beasts, and soon they were licking her hand, sniffing at her heels and jumping around happily as they escorted her up to the lodge. The flap opened as she approached and a cloud of steam escaped. Eerily suspended amidst the steam, an expressionless brown face blinked at her out of the gloom, and she bowed. The face drew to one side, and in she went. Inside the brown face turned out to be attached to a shapeless fur-clad body of indeterminate gender, which sat in the corner stirring a pot and completely ignoring her. Karlotta bowed to the other, definitely female, occupant of the lodge and uttered a phrase in an ancient language: "Moistly desirabigle to been smelking at you, Significantly Person!" The figure smiled and replied in Russian: "Hullo, Comrade Karlotta. Your Hyperborean is coming along quite nicely, I see. Did you wish to continue our interview where we left off last week?" "Yes please, Comrade Sorceress. You were telling me about the Magic Mountain?" "Well now, I am not so sure what Magic means. Occasional mountain is perhaps a better phrase." "An iceberg, then?" "No, it is a right and proper mountain when it is there, the biggest on Earth. When it is not there, who can say what it is? Perhaps it turns into radiowaves or light or something. In any case, it does not impinge upon men and bears when it is not there. In ancient times it abided for many years in Hyperborea, in the province of Mu Thulan. There it had another name, Mount Voormithadreth. The wizard Eibon had a tower on its slopes. Eibon worshipped Great Tsathoggua and was persecuted by the priests of the Elk-God for it. He had to flee to Cykranosh, and after that the mountain became restless again. Sometime during the encroachment of the ice the mountain went missing, and neither man nor bear knows when it will return, if ever." "Mu Thulan is now Greenland, am I not right? Here, I have a map of it." The sorceress looked at the atlas which Karlotta opened in front of her, and nodded. "Yes, though in Hyperborean times the island was bigger, because the ice was not there to weigh it down." "Interesting. Let me show you another map." Karlotta took her seminar notes out of the satchel and opened them at a page showing a sketch-map of the area around the institute. An irregular semi circle had been drawn over this map in green crayon. "I took these notes at a seminar given by one of the geologists on the team. The map shows the position of some ancient sandstones deposited over newer rocks, just big boulders really, so possibly explicable in terms of some weird glaciation events. The odd thing is that these rocks are geologically identical to those around another weird circular formation in Greenland." The Sorceress's eyes grew wide, and she sucked the joint of her left thumb whilst measuring the circumference of the circle with the little finger of her right hand. "This Greenlandish circle, is it about two hunting grounds across? I mean, erm, about 210 kilometres in your reckoning." "218." "Please show me the other map again - thankyou - is the Greenlandish circle here?" Karlotta nodded. "So the old bastard was right." "I'm sorry?" "O, I was just thinking about something my, erm, husband said to me recently. Look here, Comrade Karlotta, I think your geologist has discovered another place where the mountain has been. It sheds stones, you see, because it is very steep and high. The stones are dangerous, and I shouldn't like to have to be near any of them for long. Now if you will please forgive me, I'm afraid that I may be a tiny bit pregnant and I'd be ever so obliged if we could continue this interview at another time." Karlotta saw that she would have to go, and did so as quickly as was consistent with politeness. Friendly dogs followed her for a bit of the way but as she approached the aerodrome again [remembering the young commissar's strictures and taking a wider circuit], the dogs seemed to grow uneasy and one by one they slunk away. The bright day had become dull and a freezing fog blanketed the land, but Karlotta was not worried because she had a compass and was following a track that led in the right direction. Ahead of her she could see figures, and she quickened her pace, calling out a greeting. No reply, and no wonder! A group of three comical snowmen stood in a ring, two of them with sticks for arms and the third with a battered top hat and talons made of twigs. Very Dickensian, thought Karlotta with a smile, I wonder who made these? A scarf around the neck of the behatted snowman caught her eye, and walking closer she saw the label, Eulenstuhl und Sohn, Kammergasse. So, the German lads are allowed out of their cage from time to time then. A heavy object struck Karlotta in the back, and she staggered. Cold mushy ice smashed into her face, and she cried out, and tried to run. A snowman loomed up in front of her, a horrible toothy grin on its face, and lashed at her with its wooden arms. Karlotta dodged and fled, shrieking. Looking back she saw the three snowmen lolloping after her. She knew that she was bleeding, and that her compass was gone. Blindly she fled, through madness towards death. At last, with all her strength gone, she turned to face her pursuers. As they approached she began to sing: "Frosty the Snowman, Was alive as he could be, And the Children say he could laugh and play, Just the same as you and me." She closed her eyes, and so did not see Nanooka come bounding out of the forest behind her. Some time later Nanooka was loping through the forest in a different direction, a bundle of bloody rags clamped firmly in her jaws. Suddenly her pace slowed and she sniffed the air cautiously. Her ears vectored, picking up a soft hissing noise and a faint contented sigh, interspersed with the throbbing of a diesel engine. A quarter of a mile away, Ilya Nabskev buttoned up his flies and surveyed the new yellowish slush around him contendedly. "Ah! That were a good one, and no mistake!" "Ilya! Get back in the car, NOW!!!" "Now now, comrade Commissar, what's all this Thermidor - omigod - Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!!!!!! Lemein, lemein ogodogodishatmyself ....." Three metres away, the gigantic bear looked up at the car and let go of its bundle, which twitched, moaned and revealed itself to be Karlotta. And then, before the Maxim guns could train but still infuriatingly slowly, the great beast turned and was gone. TO BE CONTINUED ....... ********* EDITORIAL: The Kindred Most Wanted This month we feel a bit like Bridget Jones, home alone with only a bottle of Chardonnay and, erm a Bridget Jones novel for company, when the knuckles shyly rapping on the door turn out to be attached to the devilishly-handsome but previously-unattainable LSJ. As we take the proferred ribbon-wrapped box from his hands we notice the prominent picture of our Brother Enkidu aka Pokiest Vampire in History of Game winking at us from its upper surface. Opening it with trembling talons we ooh and ahh at Bay and Howl, Leathery Hide and Follow the Alpha. Little inarticulate squeaks is all we can manage over Forced March, and our Chardonnay-befuddled brain positively REELS as we contemplate the possibilities surrounding Mitru with Talons of the Dead undodgeably agging you with first strike. Any remaining doubts that so far as the Design is concerned WE are the Kindred Most Wanted is removed by practical experience of the !Gangrel starter, which we play in our weekly pub game where, to coin a Christian Herro phrase, it does not totally suck [Legbiter !Gangrel starter 1/5 VP, Anklebiter home-made and rather good !Brujah deck 4/5]. Marvellous stuff, Design Team, and well worth the wait. And for proof that the new set has stimulated people's grey cells in respect of the clan, we suggest you pass smoothly on to the deck section below, while we ourselves nip upstairs to change into some slightly less voluminous knickers. ********* DECKS: Enkidu's Herd by Smiling Tom, and !Gangrel Anarchs by Evil Inside I know I've had one editorial already but I can't help commenting on the change, VERY much for the better, which has come over the Decks section of this Newsletter. Previously this was mainly my own decks but nowanights I just have to type "Gangrel antitribu deck" into Google and limit the search to the past month to unearth OODLES of decent !gangrel decks. Here are two that caught my eye this month, with comments in the words of their creators. Deck Name: Enkidu`s herd Created By: tom Description: Crypt: (12 cards, Min: 20, Max: 44, Avg: 7,91) ---------------------------------------------- 5 Enkidu for ANI CEL OBF POT PRO 11 Gangrel Antitribu 1 Bobby Lemon pro ANI 4 Gangrel 1 Celeste Lamontagne for ANI PRO 5 Gangrel Antitribu 1 Lord Ashton for pro ANI 5 Gangrel 1 Janey Pickman for ANI PRO 6 Gangrel Antitribu 1 Sophia Watson obf pro ANI FOR 6 Gangrel 2 Doyle Fincher aus for obf ANI PRO 7 Gangrel Antitribu Library: (90 cards) ------------------- Master (12 cards) 4 Blood Doll 1 Fame 2 Guardian Angel // I think this are vital, to avoid swarm targetting due to the red list condition 1 Heidelberg Castle, Germany 1 Path of Lilith, The 1 Perfectionist 1 Rack, The 1 Talons of the Dead Action (1 cards) 1 Army of Rats Action Modifier (4 cards) 4 Freak Drive Reaction (14 cards) 6 Cats` Guidance 8 Forced Awakening Combat (43 cards) 4 Body Flare 2 Claws of the Dead 8 Earth Meld 4 Flesh of Marble 5 Pack Alpha 8 Psyche! 2 Quick Meld 4 Skin of Steel 6 Taste of Vitae Retainer (9 cards) 1 Owl Companion 8 Raptor Event (3 cards) 1 Dragonbound 1 Nightmares upon Nightmares 1 Thirst Combo (4 cards) 4 Swallowed by the Night Deck by: evil_inside !Gangrel Anarchs Description: Many Group 3/4 Gangrel Antitribu have a combination of Celerity and Animalism, and/or Fortitude + Protean. So I figured I can make a pretty decent Anarch deck within the clan. Thoughts/suggestions much appreciated. Thanks! Crypt: 12 Vampires ------------------------------------- 2x Mitru the Hunter 8 ani CEL for OBF PRO Gangrel-Antitribu:4 1x Janey Pickman 6 ANI for PRO Gangrel-Antitribu:4 1x Harry Reese 6 cel FOR obf PRO Gangrel-Antitribu:3 1x Maria Stone 5 cel FOR obf pro Gangrel-Antitribu:3 1x Celeste Lamontagne 5 ANI for PRO Gangrel-Antitribu:4 1x Scarlet Carson O'Toole 4 CEL pro Gangrel-Antitribu:3 1x Gustavo Morales 4 ani cel for Gangrel:3 1x Jezebelle 4 ani for pro Gangrel:4 1x Jeffrey Mullins 4 cel OBF Gangrel-Antitribu:4 1x Bothwell 3 ani for Gangrel:3 1x Jesus Alcala 2 cel Gangrel-Antitribu:3 Reaction - 18 6x Forced Awakening 4x Mole, The 4x Sonar 4x Cat's Guidance Allies / Retainers - 4 3x Raven Spy 1x Owl Companion Action - 6 4x Bum's Rush 2x Army of Rats Equipment - 6 5x Desert Eagle 1x Learjet Master - 18 6x Galaric's Legacy 1x Seattle Committee 1x Hospital Food 4x Blood Doll 1x Gangrel Conspiracy 1x Dreams of the Sphinx 2x Anarch Revolt 1x Powerbase: Los Angeles 1x Anarch free Press Combo - 4 4x Swallowed by the Night Combat - 34 8x Diversion 6x Groundfighting 4x Leathery Hide 4x Concealed Weapon 4x Claws of the Dead 4x Taste of Vitae 2x Form of Mist 2x Blur ******* And that's it for March! April's issue, thanks in large part to Norman Brown and the long-suffering denizens of Legbiter Hall's CoC group, is almost done, so see you then, and soon! Address for correspondence: Chopsalotapepl"at"yahoo"dot"co"dot"ukspamtrap