V:EKN Clan Gangrel Antitribu Newsletter, November 1998 VEKN Official Gangrel Antitribu Newsletter Vol 1 number 9 November 98 [Halloween Special!] ************************************************************ IN THIS ISSUE ..... HALLOWEEN AND THE LIVING DEAD A bit of Legbitery speculation about the Meaning of our Great Festival. ULTRAVIOLET More plugs for a Brit-vamp TV series. FICTION; THE ALCHEMIST'S EXPERIMENT An adaptation of a true [?] story about Han-dynasty Taoist Alchemy, from Joseph Needham's Science and Civilisation in Ancient China volume 5 [part 33], Cambridge University Press, mid 1970s. Legbiter's Halloweenies .... a Setite/Giovanni deck which DOESN'T suck. A follow-up to last month's piece about the Ambrosius/Talbot's chainsaw combo. [Michael, Son of Legbiter: "Daddy, if the deck doesn't suck, what DOES it do?"] *********************************************************** HALLOWEEN AND THE LIVING DEAD Once again the great Celtic festival of summer's end is upon us and the Kine are all busy propitiating/dressing up as ourselves and their various other nightmares. But why tonight? All that stuff about All Saint's day is so much tosh, obviously ... the festival is quite clearly pre-christian ...... but i must admit i personally do not know why it is tonight. The best guess i can make is that this is the beginning of what would be the Time of Dying for pre- industrial Northern-hemisphere humankind .... cold weather, short/bad commons, disease would begin to strike about now and so there would be sense in sucking up to those powers BEFOREHAND. Does anyone know a better theory? ********************************************************** ULTRAVIOLET This excellent series finished last Tuesday-but-one, the 21st October. I taped all 6 episodes. If it ever comes near your TV, WATCH IT!!!!!! If it never does, come round to my place and watch the lot, and we can play a few games of Jyhad, too! *********************************************************** FICTION; THE ALCHEMIST'S EXPERIMENT "The Tao that can be Written is Not the Eternal Tao The Name that can be Named is Not the Eternal Name ....." A voice is chanting the Taoist scripture, and then around the corner of the forest track we see them coming ..... in the lead is a middle-aged man, and behind him trot three apprentices, one of whom is holding a parasol over the older man's head. To little effect, it seems .... all four are soaking wet ..... o no, all FIVE ... there is a white dog with them, too. They stop under a pine- tree, and the older man looks up and down the track to be sure they are unobserved. Then he reaches into his robe and produces a pill-bottle. He holds it up to the dim light, uncorks it and shakes three glittering gold lozenges into his hand. "Master! Is that ..... ?" "Yes my boy, this is the nine-times-purified elixir of eternal life, upon which we have been working these five long years. All that Red earth, all the silvery metal that flows like a river, all those many strange ingredients that with so much cost and labour have been conformulated are here, in these little pills." "So it is ready! At last!" "Alas, we cannot be sure of that. Remember that the conjunction of the Lead and Quicksilver had to take place under an Inauspicious Moon, because the city was beset by the Northern barbarians. Recall that the Arsenic was of poor quality, because all the good stuff was bought by senior palace officials mere weeks before the apotheosis of the Late Son of Heaven. And don't forget the night the workshop was broken into and the seals of the alembics were tampered with .... who knows what might have been introduced to it while we slept? No, we will have to test the elixir to be certain of its efficacy. Here, Poo-Chi! Good Boy!" The little white dog comes running up, its tail wagging expectantly. It sniffs suspiciously at the lozenges. Yeck! What does the old bugger SEE in this stuff? O well, maybe i'll get a biscuit afterwards ...... crunch, munch ..... Suddenly the dog spins around like a top. It gives a slight moan, falls over on its back and begins shaking convulsively. Blood gushes from its eyes, ears, mouth, nostrils, genitals and anus .... it claws at its skin as if trying to remove it, and then, mercifully, is still. Utter, horrified silence. The Alchemist stands, stroking his wispy beard. "It is as I feared. The elixir cannot have been perfectly formulated, because the pills did not bring the dog to the path of eternal life ... instead, sudden and painful death was its reward. What, my apprentices, should we do now?" More silence. The Alchemist looks at each of them quizzically, then smiles broadly. "Boys, boys! Have you learned NOTHING during your time with me? Don't you know that a seeming death is a well-documented stage on the road to eternal life? And in any case, even if the pills bring death, wouldn't that be better than the shame of going back to the city, and being pointed out in the street as the deluded fools who wasted a fortune on the nine-times-purified elixir of not- very-much-to-write-home-about? I am going to take the pills." To the apprentices' horror, their master palms three of the golden lozenges, pops them in his mouth, crunches them up and swallows them, chewing with an expression of contentment. For a moment or so they all stand, expectantly. Then the master's head goes forward, as if he is looking at something on the ground. A great long strand of saliva comes out of the corner of his mouth, followed by a gurgling and inarticulate cry. He falls to his knees, scrabbling at his stomach, desperately striving to vomit, but nothing comes except more saliva .... the apprentices rush to his aid, but as they touch him he seems to explode ..... blood, piss, shit and saliva fly in all directions. The corpse twitches once, and is still. The rain dances on it, carelessly. The three boys sit in silence for an indeterminate time. Then, as the light fades, the keenest apprentice stands up and staggers over to his master's corpse. He turns it over ... the face is a mask of blood. The pill-bottle is broken, and the apprentice picks up three of the pills from the mud. Then he turns to the others, and speaks in a shaking voice. "Our master was a man who perfectly understood the way of the Tao. If the elixir of eternal life could not be made by him, then it could be made by no man. So, i will take the pills, and follow wherever he may have gone." ......... Some minutes later, the other boys, grey with shock and weak with vomiting and weeping, get to their feet and totter down the road. Night is falling and the beasts of the wood will deal with the bodies ..... indeed, scarcely are they round the corner than a grey wolf trots out of the bracken and sniffs at the corpse of the dog ..... and then backs away, its hackles raised. But not far enough. With a horrible liquid rapidity the corpse of the dog seems to FLOW at the predator. The wolf gives a squeak as the dog's hugely-distended mouth fastens on its flank ... tries to struggle away, howling pitiably, dragging the horrible thing with it ..... and then SLAM! SLAM! Two more shapes latch onto it, with the same unnatural rapidity .... a few moments of struggle and then the wolf is still, its corpse subsiding like a burst balloon as the three shapes rise, grinning at one another with wide and toothy smiles. They move away into the forest, seeming to drift over the ground rather than walk ..... And among the deep shade of the trees, from where we have watched the whole scene, we too turn and grin at one another with wide and toothy smiles. How very, very well spent were those few quintals of vitae which we were able to slip into the potion! Come brothers and sisters, let us introduce our new friends to the Eternal Way, the True and Nameless Way which leads into Darkness ..... *********************************************************** Legbiter's Halloweenies .... a Setite/GioVanni deck which DOESN'T suck. This is a deck I've been playing with over a period of some months, and it is now at a stage where it can do quite well in social play against good players. In a previous incarnation it was good enough that when David Tatu [runner-up in Atlanta last year, and all-round Good Chap] was my prey, he felt it necessary to help his grand-predator [Lunar Moon] to oust me ... but I've tweaked it some more since then [mainly to improve its pool gain], and now it wins, regularly. The combination of insane chainsaw-wielding violence, HORDES of weenie minions, Deathless Allies and corruption is a difficult one for people to deal with but it kinda appeals to me, for some odd reason .. remarkable, doncha think, for such a sweet mild-mannered chap as m'self? Here is the deck: CRYPT [12 vampires] 4 GIOVANNI [i LOVE these guys. If ONLY the Giovanni girlies could've fitted in to this deck]. Cristofero Giovanni 3 pot nec Mario Giovanni 3 pot nec 2 x Rudolpho Giovanni 3 NEC 8 SETITES [and these. Sigh. My two favourite clans, and my favourite combo]. Dedefra 5 obf nec SER +1 hand damage against Camarilla Vampires [Lady Legbiter in a bad mood] 2 x Hadrian Garrick 4 pre obf +1 hand damage Khalil Anvari 3 pre ser 2 x Lalitha 2 ser 2 x Nepata 4 obf pre ser [a former Bride of Legbiter in a time-for-a-li'l- recreation mood ... sigh .. scene fades to reverie of white lacy lingerie and unbridled passion .....] [Average 2.83, High draw 17, low draw 10]. LIBRARY [90 cards] 20 MASTER CARDS [22%] No particular comment, except for Giant's Blood .... an unusual card for a weeny deck, you might think, and so in a way it is. But, of course, the idea is to play it BEFORE the heavy-hitter does, thus really pissing him/her off. No real skin off your nose, if s/he plays it first. Also, it's probable that one of these cards [SC, GB or one of the THGs] would have to be a Barrens, if you wanted to play this deck in a tourney. 4 x Blood Doll Giant's Blood Heidelburg Castle, Germany [o alright, ONE other comment ...use this to move the chainsaw around, and to rescue minions from the Talbot's Chainsaw trap [no blood, and can't hunt]. DO NOT cheat by trying to move the chainsaw to/from Ambrosius using this card. He is NOT a vampire.] KRCG News Radio Morgue Hunting Ground 5 x Obfuscate Opium Den Succubus Club [Sigh, OK, ONE more. Michael Beer told me to put this in. i am not sure why. But Michael is DEFINITELY a better player than me, so he is probably right.] 2 x Temple Hunting Ground 3 x Tribute to the Master MINION CARDS 32 ACTIONS [36%] No Comment, except to point out that Corruption will ONLY work in an No-Card-Limits environment. As a play-for-fun kinda guy i usually find myself in SPIRITUAL agreement with the Card-Limits people. But this deck demonstrates why, nevertheless, i personally am adamantly of the No-Card-Limits camp. 18 x Corruption 10 x The Embrace Form of Corruption Lure of the Serpent [War ghoul, Succubus, Muddles and somebody else acquiring/ playing Ambrosius are BAAAD for this deck]. 3 x Temptation [Two of these i swapped off Pierre Rebstock for the new [Urza's Saga] versions of Timetwister and City of Brass. Silly ol' Pierre, huh? He even threw in a Vampiric Embrace .... hehehehe]. 18 ACTION MODIFIERS [20%] A heavy intercept deck can piss off most people, but not this deck. Also, the unexpected stealth-bleed for two of Kherebutu is GREAT fun. 4 x Cloak the Gathering 3 x Forgotten Labyrinth 3 x Lost in Crowds 5 x Spectral Divination [with the KRCG and Rudolpho, this is enough for +2 Intercept, but you won't get many of these. Keep them for the important blocks!] 3 x Spying Mission 7 ALLIES [8%] Allies and Equipment benefit IMMENSELY from the mantra: "Allies and Equipment Suck". Keep it up, News-Group Comrades! It's true that simple- minded ally/equipment strategies suggested in the VTES literature ARE easy to spot and easy to counter, and it's also true that a deck BASED SOLELY on either is likely to fail. It DOESN'T follow that allies and equipment in GENERAL suck. 5 x Ambrosius the Ferryman, Wraith 2 x Kherebutu (Bane Mummy) 6 COMBAT CARDS [7%] ALWAYS have SOME combat is article I of the Legbiter Code. When i am feeling romantic this extends to, Combat is Good In and Of Itself. But, alas, that is not really true ..... [debate to be continued on the News Group, ad infinitum]. 4 x Fake Out 2 x Lucky Blow 6 EQUIPMENT [7%] 6 x Talbot's Chainsaw [This is the ONLY thing in the current Newsletter that has anything to do with the Gangrel antitribu - for why, see the last issue. Hey, I''m feeling guilty, alright? So I'm TRYING to construct a Gangrel-anti combatty sorta deck for the next Portsmouth tournament. Happy now????]. Clearly this is a rare-heavy deck so it's unlikely to achieve wide circulation. But i think it does make the point that apparently-sucky clans and cards CAN be made to work in unexpectedly-powerful ways in a No-Card-Limits environment. A deck that brings out little itty-bitty Setites and Giovanni and plays a few Corruptions lulls people into a false sense of security .... then WHAM! Embrace! Embrace! 4-5 Corruptions a turn! WHAM! Ambrosius plus Talbot's Chainsaw! All of a sudden things are looking BAAAAD ........ ***************************************************** K, now i gotta go and do some serious, ie completely fun Real-Life jyhad-ing with my friends Garry and Andrew, Lady Legbiter and childe Michael .... not to mention deliver the Moon's Halloween present ... a truckload of Classic rage cards, since you ask. Next month i MAY tell you what i think of New Rage, now that the vampire extension [which was my true reason for supporting new rage] is safely in the blood-bag. Or maybe not .. it all depends on how crabby i feel, and how November's Rage II card-set pans out. Seeya'all, and have a good month! Legbiter, Prince of Portsmouth, JUST ahead of Steve Wright, Rob Treasure, Barney Baker and Michael Beer in overall Portsmouth tournament points, Sealed-Deck and Sabbat Sealed-Deck Champion of Portsmouth, Snogger of Beautiful Girlies, Slayer of Fish, Fanner of the Rules-Fight Flame, Complacently Slow-Minded Minion of Chaos and Entropy, and Insufferably-Smug Bastard of the Western World now that there WILL be an expansion for Jyhad in '99.