Card game values vampire

Camarilla Prince of Seattle. Camarilla Primogen. Bear Paw. Black Cat. Brujah Frenzy. Brujah Justicar. Camille Devereux. Camarilla Prince of Boston. Cassandra , Magus Prime. Charnas the Imp. Unique demon with 1 life. Chester DuBois. Colin Flynn. Consanguineous Boon. Courtland Leighton. Curse of Nitocris. Dancin' Dana. Delilah Easton.

Demetrius Slater. Camarilla Ventrue Justicar. Didi Meyers. Don Cruez , the Idealist. Camarilla Brujah Justicar. Dorian Strack. Dre , Leader of the Cold Dawn. John Casey. Ebanezer Roush. Eliott Sinclair , Virtuoso Thespian. Emerson Bridges. Camarilla Prince of Washington, D. Felicia Mostrom. The Fifth Tradition : Hospitality. The First Tradition : The Masquerade. The Fourth Tradition : The Accounting. Gangrel Justicar. Ghoul Retainer. Gideon Fontaine. Gilbert Duane. Camarilla Prince of Miami.

Gitane St. Giuliano Vincenzi. Grendel the Worm-Eaten. Gunther , Beast Lord. Hasina Kesi. Heather Florent , The Opportunist. Hector Sosa. Helena Casimir. Igo - The Hungry. Jackie Therman. Jazz Wentworth. Jing Wei. Simmons , Esq. Justine , Elder of Dallas. Kallista , Master Sculptor. Kine Dominance. Renamed to " Dominate Kine " in later editions. A diagram of the genealogy of the Assamites. In the World of Darkness, most vampires in the game refer to themselves and their race as "Kindred" although some vampires, specifically members of the Sabbat faction, refer to themselves as "Cainites" as the curse that transforms them into vampires is said to have originated from the blood of Caine.

The term " Kine ", an archaic term for cattle , refers to humans. Characters within the Vampire setting are members of one of the vampiric clans or minor bloodlines and usually belong to factions associated with these or that reflect a general ideological stance the characters happen to share. For example, a vampire of the Brujah bloodline might identify as a member of the Camarilla, Sabbat or Anarchs sects but very few Tremere vampires would be found among the Sabbat and even more rarely among the Anarchs.

Some clans and most of the minor bloodlines declare themselves independent from any sects. A vampire who rejects all associations with any sect and clan is known as "Autarkis".

Laibon, called Kindred of the Ebony Kingdom by Western Kindred, are not so much a sect as a cultural group bound together loosely by a powerful spiritual bond to the land and the people of Africa.

The Kindred of the East , while sharing some superficial similarity to the western Kindred, are actually an entirely different variety of supernatural being. Each Clan can trace its origins to one of 13 elder vampires known as an Antediluvian , for they survived God 's biblical flood. Through the back story of the game, Antediluvians started a war among themselves, called the Jyhad , and use their clansmen to fight this war for them. Bloodlines, on the other hand, either cannot trace their lineage to an Antediluvian founder or are too little in number to be considered a major player in the Jyhad.

Some Bloodlines are considered to be off-shoots of existing clans. All Bloodlines are treated as exceptionally rare in the game, leaving most of the interactions and story lines centered around the Clans. Each Clan and Bloodline has a unique set of powers called Disciplines, and their own set of weaknesses, also unique to that particular branch of vampire. Vampire: The Masquerade offers the players the opportunity to play in a politically structured world in which sects large factions rule over all of vampire society.

While many factions and sub-sects exist in the game, the main focus is the conflict between the Camarilla, the Sabbat and the Anarchs. The primary sect is the Camarilla see camarilla , sometimes called " the Ivory Tower ". They originated in the first attempt for control over the entire vampire population. Through their use of the Six Traditions, Camarilla Kindred survive the night, hiding their existence from humans. The second most populous sect is the Sabbat.

The Sabbat, sometimes called "the Sword of Caine", is the archenemy of the Camarilla; their goal is rule over humanity, which they see as their birthright.

The third major sect is the Anarchs , who oppose the rule of the Elders and wish to manage their own lives. Other minor sects include The Black Hand and the Inconnu. Tread lightly. The real power, as you would expect from a Vampire game, is about schemes and conspiracies. These cards often tell the player to show it to whomever they wish, asking them to contribute resources from their own blood pool to whatever that scheme is.

For example, a Malkavian opponent using conspiracies plays these cards face down. In a two player game, you can do this with a wicked smile, not offering the opportunity to read the card to the other player, but asking them if they want to contribute just the same.

There is one thing that puts the breaks on the game, slowing the action from a murderous fever pitch to a dead stop — terms. One the second page of the 20 page manual is a glossary of terms.

While most of it is straightforward, there are some nuances with keywords that might change the way you play. What if they have the Prince of the City title? Can they get another one? There were a few moments where things were undefined, but house rules tend to fix that easily enough. Every time somebody drops a scheme or conspiracy into the mix, everyone grabs for the rulebook to understand the implications.

Routine play will solve this, but it makes the game challenging for new or casual players. That said, this is a game that is easy to play, but has a depth you might not see up front. A second or third playthrough might start to reveal synergies of when to use specific strategies, or better still, when to involve players in conspiracies to drive a wedge between the other clans. The second issue we ran into had to do with vagrants.

Vagrants can be tapped and used as meat to absorb damage headed towards your bitey compadres. When combat maxes out at just a few points of damage, reducing it by one can be a huge thing. Perhaps additional playthroughs will clarify the best way to defeat it, but currently they feel a bit overpowered.

My favorite thing about Vampire: The Masquerade — Rivals is that the clans feel completely different from one another, and well within their pen-and-paper archetypes. The Brujah focus heavily on physical combat, whereas the Malkavian are all about secret schemes within plans and conspiracies. Each clan has an apparent focus, at least in the pre-built decks, and being able to expand on that in new and exciting ways is enticing.

Backstabbing, power shifting, deception, and death are the trademarks of any good Vampire game, and Vampire: The Masquerade - Rivals delivers all of those in spades.