Customer Reviews

Mythologies (Vampire The Requiem - World Of Darkness - WOD)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I just got this in the mail from amazon and Im impressed. This book has guidelines on how to tailor the origin myths of vampires in your setting. YOu can be as detailed or as vague as you want. There are rules for bloodgods, roman cults, and vampires as curses. The best part is the chapter on breath stealing, a great mechanic and very thematic of old vampire legends from the East. Basically its rules and guidelines for vampires who reach certain blood potency to steal the breath (or life force) of their victims. I certainly like it!

This is a great supplement for settings where exploring the origins of vampires is a key elelment of the game. It certainly adds depth and mood to any game but the best part is that it lets YOU the storyteller decide where vampires come from.

One of the best things about Mythologies is the fact that it's purely a background book. It provides a number of origin stories for vampires in the Vampire: The Requiem setting. None of the origins are exclusive of one another, ambitious storytellers can easily make all of the origin myths part of their chronicle. Each of the origin stories includes sample organizations surrounding that story.

Mythologies also includes modern myths or urban legends about vampires such as dream drinking, breath stealing, and drugs that make the damned feel human, if only for a brief time. Stats and rules are kept to a minimum, players and storytellers looking for new vampiric disciplines or rituals would be better served by many of the other books in the Requiem line.

The third and final chapter of Mythologies focuses on threats to Vampires both mundane and supernatural. Whispered legends of ghouls bent on destroying vampires, frenzy-inducing plagues allow storytellers to inject an even healthier dose of paranoia into their chronicle.

Mythologies is exactly as my title describes it - a fantastic idea mine for storytellers or enterprising players who wish to start their own rumours into their chronicle. This book is simply to help storytellers and players alike expand the scope of their chronicles by taking advantage of the mysteries of the vampiric condition and the open origin story in the Requiem setting.

The core book of Vampire the Requiem kept the origin of the Kindred totally open, not even giving one story of their beginnings. This book fills in the past of the Kindred with various optional stories- that the Kindred are the descendants of traitorous blood gods, that they come from people who were too afraid to die, that they were meant to be the faithful servants of gods of light and fire but betrayed them and earned their curse..... All in all, very fascinating reading.

My only real problem with this book was the Antagonists section. Because I skipped the above section and went straight to the Antagonists section, I initially considered this supplement a waste of money. Honestly, the only thing I liked in that section was the Frenzy Plague, and I had a downright hatred of Smiling Jack or whatever his name is. It's this section that brings the whole book down for me, and that which caused the Four Star rating.

So, in short- Most of the sections, 5 out of 5.
The Antagonists section, 2 out of 5.