V:EKN Clan Gangrel Antitribu Newsletter, May 1998
Gangrel Anti Newsletter Vol 1 number 3 May 1st 1998
In this Fang-filled Bumper Issue .....
IN THE SPRING A YOUNG VAMPIREıS THOUGHTS TURN LIGHTLY TO CANNIBALISM .....
fabby fiction about a typical World-of-Darkness Night on the Downs.
THE LEAST SUCCESSFUL COMPETITION IN PUBLISHING HISTORY. SNIFF. C'mon guys
'n' gals, what about a little creative thought, huh? Half the compo
solved, and the other half extended for a month.
NEWS AND RUMOURS ...... A rumour about The Black Hand, an expansion for
VTES/Jyhad.
A DEADLY DECK O' DOOM ....... Legbiterıs prophetic vision of Tournaments
To Come, and what you can do about it .....
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IN THE SPRING A YOUNG VAMPIREıS THOUGHTS TURN LIGHTLY TO CANNIBALISM .....
"Scuse me Sir and Madam, can I ask what youıre doing in this carpark at
this time of night?"
"O shit! O Gerry! O No!"
"Would you mind stepping out of the car for a moment, Sir and Madam?"
Rustling of hastily-donned clothes, muttered comments .... "This is YOUR
fault ..... my husband will kill me .....". Ah well, this will all look
less serious in a few seconds ...... you gotta think globally, know what I
mean? ³In Spring time, in Spring time, the only pretty ring time - when
birds do sing, o ring a ding a ding ... sweet lovers love, the Spring."
And so do I. More food, more animals to play with, and less mud to brush
off one's clothes in the morning. Terrific. Course, the downside is
shorter nights and more lupines. Here comes one now .....
"Hey there, death-breath."
"Hey, Rends! Gimmee five, or, er, however many ya got, Hairy Buddy!"
"I'll go snacks with ya on the car."
I saw it first, but no point in arguing with the Dancer. Heıs bigger than me.
"Now?"
I strike the windscreen and bounce off. Shit,
never take your eyes off the food. Oww, that dustbin was full of broken
glass. I dunno, what about respect for the law, eh? Still, I have to admit
itıs funny, sitting here picking bits of glass outa my bum and watching my
hairy mate trying to catch the car. Ole! Toro, toro! Wow, can they do
that? Oops, clearly not, straight over the edge .... ooo,
thatıs gotta hurt.
"Care for a bite?"
"O Rends, you KNOW I don't like my food cooked. Yech. Dıye have to slurp
like that? Uh-oh, time we weren't here ......."
..........
We're skipping through the ruins of an Iron-Age fort. This is the unlife
.... the night-wind in my hair, the grass at my feet, the stars overhead
and a hygienically-challenged serial killer at my side ........
"This is all YOUR fault Rends. Mummy was right ..... NEVER hang around
with a bloke whose eyebrows join in the middle."
"Hey, I said Iım sorry. Look, how about mixing my business with your
Pleasure .... the Treehuggers .... their camp is just down there."
Indeed it is, a series of tree-houses and tunnels right in the path of
the, erm, controversial Gibbet Hill Bypass [subcontractors Pentex, Inc,
Damborough and Provincetown]. Down we go, into the deep cutting under the
beech hanger. They'll be keeping a watch.... this isn't the first time
that Pentex goons have roughed up the camp. So we gotta be Vewy, Vewy
Quiet. Uh-oh. Trust Rends to step in the
mantrap placed there specially by his Pentex mates.
"C'mon, ya hairy bugger, just bite the fucking leg off, you can grow
another ......"
Sure hope he isn't gonna frenzy on me .. think I might just slip over here
in case he does ..... o shit, here come the hippies, lots of them. Wow,
that big guy has calmed Rends with his flute, and they're prising him out
of the trap ..... maybe I can grab a snack in the confusion. Ahah,
perfect, a little one.
"Hullo little girl, what is your name? Is that your pet whale? What is his
name? May I touch him?"
She hands me the battered blow-up whale.
"Orky. But heıs not a pet. Heıs real." It's inches from my hand and
somehow I know this is a bad idea, but I can't stop myself .......
"OMIGOD ....... AIEEEEEE!!!!!!"
As in a dream I watch my hands burst into flame, shrivelling and wasting
... I see myself trying to scrape the wretched whale off me, it seems to
take an age, and all the time there is this terrible screaming coming from
somewhere really close by. I do wish it would stop. The little girl is
watching solemnly. As the whale falls she calmly picks it up. I sink into
the chalky earth and she seems to grow, following me with eyes that are
clear and pitiless. And then it is dark again, and o so cool. Bliss. I
begin to wriggle downwards, and soon hit a rabbit warren. O well, at least
I'll eat tonight .. though with my luck I'll probably meet a Cute L'il
Bunny with True Faith. Sigh ...... the dance goes on ......
********************************************
THE LEAST SUCCESSFUL COMPETITION IN PUBLISHING HISTORY. SNIFF.
NOBODY accepted my challenge to create the Mercy for the Weak or Betrayer
decks. Chickens. Alright, the compo goes on for another month, with the
same FABBY prize of a totally AMAZING but illegal deck. This isn't one of
my cruel Legbitery jokes by the way - it really IS a deck, and it uses
home-made but Wizards-approved cards. NOBODY in your play-group has
ANYTHING like this, so it might even win you a game or two at first.
Just to show it can be done, here is the core of the Mercy for the Weak
deck. It is classically a Brujah kill-the-Ventrue affair, but can be
adapted for other clans using takeover effects and clan impersonation. Its
main point is to have everyone so busy with hunting that they get total
hand-jam and are unable to intercept your many fine, fine actions. You do
this by getting into combat with the main threats and whacking them, then
when they try to hunt you play multiple hunt-related reactions and
XTC-laced blood. With any luck they will end up fighting each other just
to cycle cards. The Mercy is in there to help Triole's Revenge kill the
big Ventrues.
Akram, other big Brujah [preferably with auspex, reasonable voting power],
weenie Setites, weenie Rag-heads with QUI, cheap sabbat vamp.
The Classic Combat cards [Bum's Rush, IG, Flash, Blur, Sideslip, Pushing
the Limit, Death of My Conscience, Taste of Vitae].
Barrens
Camarilla Threat
XTC-laced Blood
Foul Blood
Tainted Vitae
Immaculate Vitae
Strained Vitae supply
Triole's Revenge
Intercept
Mercy for the Weak.
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NEWS AND RUMOURS
[clip a rumor about a V:tES expansion that was completely untrue.]
[Edited by Robert Goudie]
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A DEADLY DECK O' DOOM
Since a Gangrel/Gangrel-anti Fame deck is now the official on-line world
champion [see Newsletter volume 1 number 1, or mail me privately at
james.mcclellan@port.ac.uk, for Legbiter's ingenious reconstruction of
said deck from discards] there is bound to be an explosion of wannabees
building similar decks. So here are Legbiter's top two tips for the coming
Gangrel anti-gangrel Fame deck explosion:
1. Join 'em.
The basic strategy of a Gangrel Fame deck is for a Famous vampire to take
several actions that put him/her in torpor. In principle, Gangrel antis
should be BETTER at this than Gangrels. This is because we got the same
core disciplines so we can use the combos talked about in Newsletter 1,
PLUS we can use Sunrise service [not available to the scumbucket Cammies].
Additionally, Pieter is a low-priced member of our clan able to use
Rutorıs hand, which is the other neat Go To Torpor card.
So, this deck would be several copies of Pieter as most expensive vamp,
little guys [mainly Gangrel antis] with for and/or pro to make up the
numbers, and the actions in it would be Force of Will, Movement of the
Slow Body, Sunrise Service, Rapid Healing, Laptop Computer, Rutorıs hand,
Restoration, Raven Spy, Owl Companion, Shadow Court Satyr. Action modifers
would be Day Operation, Daring the Dawn [day op is better, really], Earth
Control. Combat cards would be Burst of Sunlight, Form of Mist and Earth
Meld. Masters would be Park Hunting Ground, Twisted Forest, Fame, Minion
Tap, Blood Doll, fortitude, protean, thaumaturgy. Reaction cards you might
not need .... a few WWEFs just for comfort, perhaps, and/or some Delaying
tactics. In a Return-to-Innocence heavy environment you might consider
leaving out the bleed cards and using a Protected Resources plus a few
more non-unique allies [Black Spiral Buddies] and maybe a vote or two ...
it doesnıt matter if these fail, the point is to day-op them so's you go
to torpor. Kindred restructure would be interesting .... your prey might
very well vote to have you off his/her back, even if it DID mean you got a
VP.
2. Beat 'em.
A vote-and-biff deck can take this anti-Gangrel affair down, not to
mention most other strategies. AND it is more robust, and youıll make
fewer enemies playing it. But do remember boys and girls, have ways to get
the blood back off your vamps, have an anti-Return to Innocence strategy
[Protected Resources is good for biff-and-vote] and put Fame in there too
.... you need to at least contest it, and you may get a chance to use it.
However, the most effective versions of such decks donıt include
anti-Gangrel vamps, so Iıll leave this to my esteemed Brujah-Brujah anti
and Nosferatu anti colleagues.
*************************************************
Alright, thatıs it for this month. Have a great one, and see y'all on June
the 1st, when I'll try to emulate Tony Van-the-Ventrueıs inspired
cheap-but-effective deck for beginners, and weıll have a look at Jyhad
variants that borrow rules from the technically-excellent but
profoundly-uncool Netrunner and Battletech CCGs.
May the Great and Threefold Wyrm Illuminate your Path into Darkness,
Legbiter, Scandalmonger of Clan Gangrel antitribu.