Customer Reviews

Clanbook: Nosferatu, Revised Edition (Vampire: The Masquerade)

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The new Nosferatu Clanbook takes a new and novel approach by not presenting Nosferatu as being the be-all and end-all clan of Vampires. Taking a slightly more realistic look at the clan, it better illustrates their strengths and weaknesses then many of the books which have preceded it. While I personally find much of the charm in the book is to be found "between the lines", this may grate on some readers who would prefer outright statements of fact rather then having to deduce information by what is said and what is not. The information on Nosferatu living spaces (sewers throughout the ages) and social structure was much needed, though admittedly dry. On the whole, the clanbook is a valuable commodity to a storyteller or role-players, but is likely to be of little interest to those simply looking for new disciplines and methods to make yet another combat monster.

It have MUCH more information than the first second edition clanbook, but it lacks the organic feel of the original. The new templates are great and the merit/flaws are really cool; however, some of the multiple perspective writing is a bit befuddling. All in all this is a good supplement for the white wolf line, but it's not perfect.

It starts out well, giving the story of their antediluvian's embrace from a new perspective, some ties to the Book of Nod, and an interesting first person pov of a nos neonate's embrace. (here comes the big but) BUT, the next third of the book talks about little other than nosferatu angst and the history of sewers as we know them. I honestly lost count of how many times I had to coerce myself to continue reading. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy almost everything White Wolf produces for their World of Darkness line (specifically for Vampire the Masquerade), but this book, imho, fell short of what they were reaching for. I did take notice that Justin Achilli did not put his name in the cast or credits (a note for WW fans, Achilli gets his name in almost all of the current Vampire releases) did he not want to get any blame for this piece? The redeeming part of the book (again imho) were the new nosferatu merits and flaws as well as the new nos templates, but as Achilli has been quoted as saying (in Children of the Night) "And I hate them [Merits and Flaws]". So I don't think even the vaunted head developer of Vampire the Masquerade wanted his name on the book.

A ton of information on the Nosferatu. Great stuff for Players and Storytellers alike.

First, you have to understand that I liked the old Clanbook Nosferatu so much, I gave a copy to a gaming friend as a gift. Like the original, this is still a very good book. It contains lots of material necessary for working with Nosferatu characters in VAMPIRE THE MASQUERADE along with much useful new material. Not all changes were improvements, however.

One thing that's missing is the way the art and layout of the original book captured the experience of visiting the Nosferatus' subterranean world. This book seems to have all new artwork and it is definitely top of the line but now the visual theme seems to emphasize more the grotesque horror of the Nos themselves rather than their environment. The humor seems to be mostly gone, too, and efforts to replace it just don't measure up. The new fiction, seems to be the same story as in the original but from the victim's point of view- which softens its impact somewhat.

In place of that, there's a lot of text spent on giving the points of view of different political factions within the clan. Unfortunately, parts of this are so long-winded that I got bored and skipped what turned out to be the important part. Editing problems aside, the new details in this book about Nos society- the work on the autarkis Nos, for example- are generally good. Merits and Flaws are included as in the original version- really helpful, I think, in custom tailoring your Nos character's deformities.

Missing is something that I would really expect in an update of this series: better intergration of material about the Sabbat. But here in the Nos opinions of other clans they are still just lumped together as "Sabbat". Also, all the character templates (all or mostly new) seem to be for characters with Humanity rather than Paths of Enlightenment.

That said, a definite improvement here is the new "Famous Nosferatu" section. This selection of important clan members does a much better job of integrating with existing material- here VAMPIRE: THE DARK AGES and the CLAN NOVEL series- than the old one. Also now included are MINDS EYE THEATER stats.