City of the Damned: New Orleans (Vampire: the Requiem) [Hardcover]

Ari Marmell (Author), C.A. Suleiman (Author)

Book Description

Series: World of Darkness (White Wolf Hardcover) | Publication Date: May 30, 2005

The Sultry Night Beckons

New Orleans lives on borrowed time. Steeped in the customs and traditions of the Old World and ruled with an iron fist by a pious Prince, the Kindred of the city keep the sanctity of the Traditions at court and sate their desires amid the neon glare of Bourbon Street. From the stately manors of the Garden District to the seedy lanes of the French Quarter, New Orleans seethes with pent-up desire and whispered promises of power, revolution and revenge.

Join the Danse Macabre

City of the Damned: New Orleans presents the Big Easy in all its baroque glory, detailing the city's history, the laws and customs of its aristocratic court, and the intrigues of the vampires both prominent and petty. A wealth of characters, plot hooks and Storytelling tips make this an invaluable resource for any Vampire: The Requiem chronicle. Hardcover.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 144 pages
• Publisher: White Wolf Publishing (May 30, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 158846248X
• ISBN-13: 978-1588462480
• Product Dimensions: 11.2 x 8.6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #426,656 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

On March 22, 1974, Ari Marmell was hatched out of an egg laid by a rooster on the night of the full moon. Due a mix-up, he wound up in the infant ward at a hospital in New York, where he was claimed as a (relatively) normal human and taken home. He and his family fled New York barely a year later, either because his father received a job offer in Houston, or because they were chased by angry mobs with pitchforks; reports are unclear.

For the next 27 years, Ari lived in Houston. His father told him bedtime stories when he was in preschool and kindergarten, stories without which he might never have become a writer. He received his first roleplaying game--the red Dungeons & Dragons boxed set--at age 9, and the AD&D Players Handbook followed less than a year later. He spent very little time on class work or studies for the next, oh, 13 years, instead spending his efforts on far more important things like fighting orcs, riding dragons, and rescuing extremely beautiful princesses.

Ari went to college at the University of Houston. He began in the Psychology program, but quickly changed his major to Creative Writing. It was in the first week of class that he met his wife-to-be, who goes by the name of George. (No, it's not short for Georgia, Georgette, Georgiana, or anything else that could possibly make sense.) It was also in college that he wrote his first novel, one that he is now determined will never see the light of day, and charitably calls a "learning experience."

In short, Ari graduated in late '96, married George in March of 1997, honeymooned in New Orleans, worked several jobs he hated for the next several years, and quit the last of them in 2000 due to ongoing health issues. During this time, he wrote four more novels, two of which are actually pretty decent. It was also during this time that he managed to break into the roleplaying industry, having attracted the attention of Justin Achilli (developer of Vampire: The Masquerade) with a project submission inspired by his trip to New Orleans.

He and George moved to Austin in mid-2001 so George could attend graduate school while Ari continued to work as a freelance writer. They live there today, along with a large orange cat named Leloo and a smaller gray cat named Pippin who seems unable to grasp the notion that strings, ribbons, and plastic bags do not make up a viable part of the food chain. His first published novel, Gehenna: The Final Night, appeared on shelves in January of 2004.

Today, Ari is shifting his focus from freelancing to more fiction and novel-writing. His second novel, Agents of Artifice, was released by Wizards of the Coast in February of '09. His third novel, The Conqueror's Shadow, was released by Spectra in February 2010. (This was his first published non-tie-in novel.)

Ari's forthcoming novels include The Warlord's Legacy (Spectra, early 2011), the Goblin Corps (Pyr Books mid- to late 2011), and Household Gods (Pyr Books, 2012). You can learn more about him, and keep up with his news and release schedule, at www.mouseferatu.com.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Whats wrong with people?, September 18, 2006

By 

Thomas Grnvoll "Rpg Afficionado Extraordinaire" (Harstad, Troms Norway) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: City of the Damned: New Orleans (Vampire: the Requiem) (Hardcover)

City of the Damned: New Orleans is a city sourcebook for Vampire: the Requiem, detailing vampiric politics in the Big Easy.

This is not a popular book, and I don't understand why. I've seen reviews where people have complained about missing stats for Storyteller Characters (even though the developers have stated that the abbreviated stats are intentional), spelling errors and minor inconsitencies in flavour text, and based on that they have given the book poor ratings.

Isn't the content more important than insignificant flaws like this?

And City of the Damned offers solid content.
It presents New Orleans as an exciting, deeply political city, with complex layers of intrigue that are nonetheless easy to understand and modular enough that the ST can include those parts of it he/she likes while happily ignoring the rest or letting it play out in the background.

The three-way political struggle between Vidal, Savoy and Cimitere is just as complicated as the ST wants to make it, and there are sub-layers and smaller factions that can be involved if a more complex political atmospere is required to tell the stories the ST wants to tell.

The book starts with one chapter detailing New Orleans history in deeper detail than the Appendix in teh core book does, and this chapter is littered with plot-hooks and story-seeds; enough to fuel several chronicles.
Theres also a chapter about the city geography, which is somewhat lacking, as it requires a certain level of pre-famniliarity with New Orleans; nothing that can't be dug up easily enough on the internet or in the library though.
There are three chapters devoted to the major Storyteller Characters in New Orleans: One for Elders, one for Ancillae and one for Neonates. This chapter gives stats, as well as deeper studies of the characters motivations and goals and some nice plot hooks that are easy to flesh out into stories.
Then theres a chapter on Storytelling that focuses on helping Storytellers evoce the specific themes and moods most suited for New Orleans, as well as fleshing out the Storyteling hints provided in the core book and how they relate to New Orleans specificaly.

Lastly, there is a pre-made story titled The Dead Travel Fast, which is designed to introduce the players to the three main movers and shakers of the Crescent City, Vidal, Savoy and Cimitere. This story is short and a little cheesy, but it gets the job done and finishes off with enough unanswered questions that it serves perfectly as an opener for a chronicle.

All in all, I liked the book very much, and give it 4 out of 5. It doesn't quite reach to the greatest heights, but it's definately a very good city book, and if used correctly it can serve as teh basis for tons of interesting roleplaying.

5.0 out of 5 stars Great theme and mood for a Vampire setting, July 2, 2007

By 

J. Burgos "I <3 Books & Comics" (West Hollywood, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: City of the Damned: New Orleans (Vampire: the Requiem) (Hardcover)

City of the Damned: New Orleans is the quintessential setting for Vampire the Requiem, a setting book for the New World of Darkness game. It is not essential to play either WoD or Vampire, but it does present a fully developed and fleshed out setting for both games.

The opening fiction is entitled "The Coming Storm,". Written as though it were being spoken to a Kindred, it does a great job of establishing the mood for a city populated by vampires, their politics and their struggles.
The introduction gives an overview of the book, as well as explaining to readers discrepancies found between this book, the V:tR demo, and the overview of New Orleans in the V:tR rulebook.

"A Look Back at the Big Easy" is the first chapter of the book, and details the history of the Kindred in New Orleans. From the Choctaw vampire who first preyed on the mortals of the region (and who goes from being an elder vampire preying on the Choctaw to the Elder of the Choctaw Indians with no explanation later in the book) to the modern nights when Prince Vidal rules, there's a lot of detail here. It sets the social scene for the Kindred detailed later in the book, and provides several good adventure hooks for Storytellers to build upon.

The second chapter, "Points of Entry," details modern New Orleans, covering its layout, points of interest, as well as detailing transportation and culture in the city. As in the last chapter, there are a few references to real-world things which readers will need knowledge of New Orleans from outside the book to understand. I really think this chapter is worth of praise for its (admittedly brief) description of the area around New Orleans--a lot of authors seem to forget that there are cities, towns, and other things within driving distance of New Orleans, and it was nice to see them remembered here.

Some of the Kindred culture of New Orleans is covered here as well, with how the Prince handles crime and how the Lancea Sanctum of the area do things differently from their brethren.

The third, fourth, and fifth chapters of the book are devoted to New Orleans' elders, ancillae, and neonates respectively. There's a lot of detail regarding their plots, interactions, and personalities, and aside from few minor quibbles (such as a racist American Kindred who seems to have a lot of respect and no problems following a foreign-born prince) the writing is good. Presented are sample NPC's that can be further detailed by individual storytellers.

Chapter six of the book, entitled "Storytelling," in which tailoring of the setting is presented. Overall this chapter covers how to expand upon the setting and add depth to make individual chronicles more flavor.

The final chapter of the book is a story to run your characters through. As it turns out, the opening fiction of the book was an introduction to the adventure, namely this one, and after reading it to your players/adapting it for a pre-game session this chapter continues the story.

This book offers a lot of nice material that a Storyteller can use in his or her chronicle, but for them to do so they're going to have to do a lot of work on their own. For those expecting to have a setting handed to them without adding to it on their own may be disappointed. This book is a toolkit, dont expect to have a setting handed to you without YOU doing some work. Many of the new World of Darkness books are toolkits, they offer suggestions, ideas, story seeds and inspiration, NOT a monolithic book that TELLS YOU how to play. Overall this book is excellent if you plan on doing YOUR own work and developing the content therein to satisfy your chronicle and your players.

2 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A dull city, March 8, 2007

By 

M. Froisland (Oslo, Norway) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: City of the Damned: New Orleans (Vampire: the Requiem) (Hardcover)

I'm not very impressed by this book or it's content. After reading it I did not want to either play or story tell in this city. It contain what most of the city books from White Wolf does: History, Place Description, NPC and a Story. None of them was very good.

The only nice thing I'm going to say is that it did not copy to much of the content in the Vampire: Requiem book, it supplemented it.