Blood & Smoke: The Strix Chronicles

It's out in PDF now, and a print+PDF version shall arrive shortly. Apparently I'm a bit out of touch with what's going on in the World of Darkness, not without cause....they've moved entirely to a PDF+POD based rleease format through Onebookshelf, and are also dabbling in licensing and Kickstarters, so if you're not a hardcore fan it can be a bit hard to follow. Still, I've always had a fondness for Vampire, and it's various incarnations, even if I could never quite fit in with the core audience. Here's the text from the release page:

The new Chronicle Core book for Vampire: The Requiem.

Tonight, you become one of the Kindred, the beautiful and the damned who hide behind our ordinary world. Driven by a hunger like fire, you will struggle to maintain your humanity while immersed in a vicious society of monsters.

But the sharks you swim with aren’t the only ones out there. Your Kindred are the smart, sexy vampires of pop culture, but you are haunted by the Strix -- the grisly, demon-possessed corpses of folklore. They slaughtered the Night-Senate of Rome, drowned the tombs of the Princes of Alexandria, and warred with the Plague Lords of Transylvania.

Tonight, they’re loose on the streets of your city. Time for the sinners to become the saints, and the hunters to become the prey.

Blood and Smoke: The Strix Chronicle contains:

• A complete guide to playing a vampire in the World of Darkness. No other rulebooks are required, and the rules are fully compatible with The God-Machine Chronicle.
• Reimagined clans, covenants, and supernatural powers to create your perfect monster... and her friends and foes.
• A first-ever look at vampire domains around the world, from Tokyo to Berlin.
• Twenty unique Strix, as well as complete rules for building your own.

Color me intrigued.....it sounds like an entirely new setting, if not a reboot. I like this concept of "new shiny vampires" vs. old world nasty vampires.

Decisions, Decisions. Plus, A Break Week! Also, Classic Monsters

My next entry in the "Watchers" series will happen next week, probably...it's been a busy week for me so I haven't had time unfortunately to devote to my next entry. But it shall resume soon, I promise!

I've had a rather limited budget lately due to an enormous number of post-baby medical bills I've been paying off, car issues, the shopping event of One Million Diapers plus all the accoutrements that accompany having a wife and child. The short version is that this left me with one choice for myself out of three possible, tantalizing choices, which included: Dungeon Crawl Classics (the gold foil edition plus modules), ringing in at around $80-90 before discounts; Dragon's Dogma, a console RPG which sounds rather interesting (but costing $60 right now)....or option #3, the one I didn't expect but went for: a new copy of the World of Darkness rulebook and Hunter: the Vigil core rules. Dunno why I decided on that, but I think it had to do with the fact that poor 'ol DCC is rather pricey for yet another fantasy retroclone/pseudo-retroclone that as interested as I am in it I know I'll never play (but hell, I'm still picking it up later in June, my copy is on reserve), and I have no time for Dragon's Dogma right now when my backlog include Fallout: New Vegas, Mass Effect 3 and Skyrim. Seriously. By the time I get around to trying Dragon's Dogma it will be a $20 special, I'm sure.

Anyway, I once got a chance to read Hunter: The Vigil and really liked the premise, much improved over the old Hunter: The Reckoning. Maybe I'll get a chance to run this one. Plus, it would be a chance to enjoy some modern supernatural/horror gaming again, which I really miss.

But you know, I do have one good old fantasy game book freshly added to my collection: Classic Monsters the Manual for Castles & Crusades has at last arrived. This one was one of the "freebies" (paid out of my meager return on online book sales) but well worth it. It's lots of classic monsters, but anyone who (like me) really loved the old 1st edition Fiend Folio and who also likes C&C will love this book. It's probably one of the best overall products Troll Lord has put out since...well, the Castle Keeper's Guide, I suppose. It also dramatically boosts the monster count for C&C, cleans up and presents converted stats and backgrounds for about 200 monsters, most all of which are derived from the OGL versions of those classic fiends that were converted by way of Tome of Horrors, and in that sense it is delectable old school comfort food. Just having the Hooked Horror, Adherer, Huecuva, Flumph and more under one roof, poised and ready to strike in my C&C games, is worth it.

Actual Monsters Inside May Vary; No guarantee of actual chimera or drow chick promised*

Anyway, apologies this week, my blog's been a lot of meandering thoughts, chatty nonsense and discussion of computer gaming habits and buying tendencies. More real game content soon!

*between the 4th Crusade (green cover) Monsters & Treasures and Classic Monsters, I am surprised we haven't got an official entry on drow somewhere in C&C as an official 8th race option, since they seem to spend a lot of time fighting monsters.