The structure of the book is surprising, in that the prose is heavily footnoted. Told from a vampiric scholar’s point of view, the research for the book is both entertaining and curious. One can almost feel Aristotle’s frustration as he cross-references words from crumbling parchments. One can also hear the voices of the ancients, as they live again through prophetic parables and historic prose. The footnotes are written in character and contain curious references to other characters in the game. This adds to the potential for the book to be used as a prop or a mood-setting item.
So in my opinion “Dark Ages: Tremere” is a brilliant book full of surprises with only a handful of boring pages. A great way to approach the Tremere. Absolutely recommendable, maybe the best of the Dark Ages Clan Novels.
What would you do if you woke up one day and discovered that everything you thought was silly superstition and nonsense was real and you were the only thing standing between evil and the rest of Humanity?
Thea Ghandour, the unlikely pot-smoking heroine who continuously laments her lack of a sex-life, and a less-than-intrepid and equally unlikely band of fellow Hunters have been trying to answer that question since they found each other. Heralds of the Storm opens on one of their self-imposed missions, just outside the lair of a vampire, one of “the greatest predators ever to walk the earth.”
With any group of stories, you will find yourself trying to draw parallels from one story to the next. Dark Ages is no exception. The flow of the stories is appropriate, as they are heavily permeated with French names and settings. The stories interact with each other so well, that some of them, such as “The Burden” written by Edward Carmien, appear to continue into the next.
“The Revenge of the Kine” would also be an adequate name for Dark Ages: Inquisitor, where ordinary mortals are called by God himself to serve their fellow man in the vocation of the secret Holy Inquisition. Hold onto your souls kids, we’re entering a medieval world tormented by the get of Satan — from demons to heretics to blood drinking witches, and we are all that stands between man, and his corruption by evil incarnate. We are the men in black. And white. And red. And the rest.
It was a good theory anyway. The horrors perpetrated in the name of God were little better than the Get of Satan is capable of. Torture, murder and mob violence are the staples of the Inquisition, which at its most extreme will stop at nothing to root out the minions of the Adversary. How could a good Christian stand by and let Satan’s minions run freely around God’s Earth? All sin may be absolved, and what is the odd transgression when you are in the practice of saving souls? What choice do you have when the legions of Hell are here, now and stealing the souls of Innocents? Trust in God, and in his Forgiveness.
The Thousand Hells is a supplement for White Wolf’s World of Darkness Kindred of the East (KOTE) role playing game of horror set in modern East Asia. KOTE is a companion to the more familiar Vampire: the Masquerade (VtM) line of games and products. This supplement provides details of the many hells that exist within the mythology underpinning the KOTE setting and includes some details on what it is like to visit or be condemned to some of those hells, denizens that might be found there, methods of entrapping players in adventures in which their characters must visit hell and a variety of additional ideas, including new powers and abilities for vampires and their inevitable assailants. As the name suggests, the supplement is not sufficient to play the game in itself and players will need the KOTE book in order to play, as well as the usual variety of stationery and polyhedral dice.
It seems such a long time ago now, 1992, that so many of us were so naïve we thought vampires could be dissuaded from eating us by garlic or that they would recoil from their appearance (or lack of it) in a mirror. Worse, we believed in our ignorance that vampires were pretty much all of a piece. Since then, we have been educated to understand that there are endless machinations among the numerous tribes and clans of the vampire world that is kept secret from we mere humans – the kine on which the powerful but shadowy kindred feed.
Kraig tells us about his work on Orpheus, Time of Judgement and other World of Darkness books. He also talks horror gaming and some of his upcoming fiction projects.
Bruce talks to about writing the last of the Mage: the Ascension novels, developing the Mind’s Eye Theatre line of LARP products and lots of other dark and dreary projects.
Heather Grove tells us a bit about her work on various World of Darkness RPGs from White Wolf Publishing and offers up a bit of advice for folks looking to get into the industry.
French countrysides, medieval haunts and political intrigue colour the stories published in Dark Tyrants, A Vampire: The Dark Ages Anthology. Edited by Justin Achilli and Robert Hatch, the Dark Tyrants anthology sets out to create dark intrigue in an old world setting.