The First Estate
It’s a lot of money, isn’t it? More than you’ve ever had, I think. And it’s all yours if only you won’t tell.
Part manorial lords, part men in black, the Invictus safeguard the Masquerade. Vampiric secrecy is the absolute highest of all concerns. In order to protect it, the Invictus must rule their Kindred, and in exchange for the burden of protection, they are owed the fealty of those they graciously watch over.
<Click here for the Invictus draft.>
(If you share this, please use a link to this blog instead of reposting the text. I sometimes make revisions to the documents.)
Vampire Office Update
July’s been a bit of a blur. I’ve temporarily moved back to DC, which involved a rather spectacular screwup in which an airline lost my work computer and all of my clothes. Fortunately, they got them back, but it was an irritating few days.
I’ve been spending a lot of time getting Onyx’s schedule and development stuff in order. For several months now, I’ve been serving as the company’s Development Producer, making sure everybody knows what everybody else is working on, keeping the internal schedule and corkboard up to date, and getting books to editors. Right now, of course, we have to get all our ducks in a row for Gen Con.
Writing on Blood and Smoke is nearly done, with only a few thousand words left in the book. As you may remember, we had some serious writer illness and had to redistribute the wordcount. The other writers are just about finishing up. I saw the Daeva spread yesterday, and it looked fantastic. Tempters and muses, the Serpents are going to be a great clan to play.
We’re also working on two final city writeups, for Beijing and Athens. I’ve sent several of the other cities to natives and expats for review.
Mike Chaney has been starting to line up the art team for the book, and I’m very happy with some of the names I’m hearing. We’ll have more on that once I’ve finished the art notes and he’s had a chance to get contracts signed.
My task right now is developing the ghoul and mortal appendix. This is pretty cool stuff: it gives you a lot of hooks to use ghouls or mortals as player characters in your game, and special Merits that distinguish them in a Vampire chronicle. I think my favorite Merits the author did for this section are the ones that give a ghoul benefits for having a regnant of a particular clan.
In other news, the Strix Chronicle Anthology is just about headed for CCP approvals, with a nice cover designed by Mike. The book features stories by Eddy Webb (v20, WoD MMO), Greg Stolze (the Chicago saga), Joshua Alan Doetsch (Strangeness in the Proportion), and many other familiar Vampire contributors.
I’ve also been preparing here and there for the 2014 Vampire schedule, which we should be announcing soon. I’m giving some thought to whether and how we can apply open development techniques to books that are less modular than the core.
Finally, I’ve been scavenging around for new vampire media, as I usually do when I’m this deep inside the game. Often, this turns into “I’m bored, might as well just play Bloodlines again.” I could reread the Joe Pitt books, which are personal favorites. Suggestions? How was Byzantium?
Comments
16 responses to “Preview: The First Estate (plus other news)”
I’ve recently found Charlee Jacob as a fantastic author of vampire (and other supernatural) books. I was so surprised to find she wasn’t referenced in any of the Vampire (or other splats) for book resources. The vampires themselves are pretty different but the mood, atmosphere and themes overlap so well.
And while apparently he’s known for being more of a shlocky kind of horror writer, I believe Richard Laymon has written some of the better vampire books in the past 30 years or so.
You know, that reminds me of a question I once had which I couldn’t seem to find an answer for. How do you determine a ghoul’s clan? Or, rather, how do you determine the “regnant’s clan”, which is the important bit for ghoul mechanics? Is it the clan of the vampire who originally turned the person into a ghoul? If you lose access to vitae and become human again, only to eventually return to ghouldom, do you use your new benefactor’s clan? Or do you look at your vitae intake, determine which clan it mostly comes from, and go with that?
You can determine the ghouls “clan” by looking at the following in order:
– The ghoul’s first vampire
– The ghoul’s oldest blood bond
…with the bond superseding the first vampire.
Thanks!
“Byzantium” was slow to start, but picked up toward the middle. It is flawed, but it’s as good a “grown-up” vampire film as you’ll find. Despite the leads having appearance greater than 2, and the overt sexual nature of vampires in general, these were not sexy vampires.
Ok, Rose, I suspect something here is amiss. Bolding “Bloodlines” and “Byzantium”? Mmm… maybe, maybe you’re telling us something…
You guys are in for a real treat with the ghoul/mortal section. I’ve never wanted to play a ghoul so much as when I read the early draft of those merits.
Byzantium was good, if inevitably slight compared to Interview With The Vampire.
And, once again, the Invictus are one of my preferred covenants. Compared to the other write-ups, they seem to have gone through the fewest changes thematically.
We sharpened a few things, but I don’t consider it much of a change. I was a little surprised by a person on the forums saying that they’re the most fundamentally changed covenant.
From what I’ve seen, on the forums and the other previews, it seems that the less books a person has read, particularly the covenant books, the more changes they think have been made. My impression has been that very little has actually been changed, it’s just been re-written to be clearer and more concise.
Do ghouls use the Integrity rules? If so, do a ghoul have to roll every time he sees his regnant uses a supernatural power?
I’m guessing most Ghouls have gotten over the existence of vampires by now.
Oh! I LOVE Bloodlines! I should really play it again. It’s a Vampire: The Masquerade PC game that is SO amazing that if you haven’t played it…well…just play it!
Welcome back to DC. It’s pretty warm here at the moment.
In terms of vampire novels, did you ever read Brust’s Agyar?
damn shame that B&S is not slated till fall, but looking forward to a polished result 🙂