OFFICIAL VEKN BLOOD BROTHERS NEWSLETTER VOL 1 ISSUE 2 MAY 2002 "Is evil something you are? Or something you do?" - Morrissey -------------------------------------------------- Contents i. INTRODUCTION ii. FICTION iii. BLOOD BROTHERS IN VTES iv. FOCUS ON SANGUINOUS v. LIFE SUPPORT iv. DECK BUILDING -------------------------------------------------- i. INTRODUCTION It has been a while since our last communication. We have been hard at work, for the master has needed us. Little has changed since last we spoke, but we have a little story for you. It's a bit long this week, and it's mostly about our master. We hope you will love him as we do. Or skip that part and get straight to the bashing. Either way. -------------------------------------------------- ii. FICTION The Fragment, part ii: A Modern Major-General ... Karoly, sitting quietly at his old-fashioned roll-top desk, sighed. He reached down, opened the second drawer from the bottom, pulled out a small glass jar. Gaunt fingers, made to seem thinner and more frail by long, slightly-curled fingernails, twisted the cap from the jar. It was upturned, its contents spilled out onto the desktop, a dark grey ash. He ran his fingers through it, closed his eyes, tilted his head back slightly, and thought. He thought about the other Kindred of the city. To his face, they always called him "Your Grace," "Sir", "Mr. Karoly." But there was a subtext there. A whisper of their true feelings, inaudible to most. He could hear their thoughts. There wasn't really anything special in that. Many of the Kindred had that particular gift, some of them stronger than he. What made him special was the message that their thoughts conveyed. They wanted to ridicule him. Call him a relic, a worn-out horse-faced bag of ash and bones. They recoiled at the sight of him, the last remnants of flesh barely draped on a rotted-out frame. Even in his darkened chambers, they could not stand to look at him. But they dared not speak such things. They were scared. Like only a few others, Karoly inspired a hellish fear. Many were the Kindred he'd run out of his town simply by reaching a skeletal finger toward them. He did not control the town, but he controlled many of those who did. He liked it that way. But what he loved even more than the fear was the foolish few who stood up to him, who tried to wrench power from his clenched fists. He had put those ones to good use. He laughed as he thought about them. And a soft rustle disturbed his musings. He quickly herded the pile of ash back into its jar, noticing that it was almost the same colour as his hand. The jar was replaced back into the drawer, and the ancient Tzimisce stood to face his favourite servant. Kanari Halal was the almost whimsical name he had given it. The words were in the language of his own homeland, a place he hadn't visited in almost a thousand years. It meant "Dead Canary", or "canary of Death", depending on the dialect. Kanari had 3 arms, one and a half torsos, and two faces set on opposite sides of a peculiarly misshapen head. One face was that of a young girl. Karoly had caught her hunting nightcrawlers under the moonlight, almost 5 centuries ago, in a park in Budapest. She had a strong spirit, and her will controlled most of the shuffling movements of the ghoul. The other face was a man with a broad nose and a high forehead. He had been the Ventrue Prince of the city when the Sabbat had washed through. It had taken only an hour to break his spirit, to have him begging for Final Death, blood tears running down his cheeks. Karoly had taken a liking to his pitiful groveling and attached him, body and soul, to the young girl he had come to adore. And he had infected the amalgamation with his own disease, so that he could watch the sickness wrack them as it wracked him. When the ghoul died, and die it would, then would its master go off into the darkness, never to return. But in the meantime, he had business to attend to. It nodded its grotesque head towards Karoly, and motioned towards the doorway. It never spoke, anymore. It probably couldn't; all of its teeth long since rotted out. It communicated in gestures and hisses which its master had learned to interpret. "Yes," screeched Karoly, "show the boy in." The boy was Sal. He was about 6 feet tall, muscular, with a shaven head. A slightly disturbing symbol has been carved in blood just above his ear. He wore a plain leather jacket and heavy grey slacks with a hole in the knee. Sal was holding a ripped piece of parchment, and he sniffled a little before throwing it on Karoly's desk. It rattled around, knocked over a jar of ink before coming to rest. "You should be more careful with that," came the high, harsh voice again. "That is a small piece of the True Book. We had thought it lost to the Ventrue some years ago, but they left it behind. Really, an ingenious hiding place, right in plain sight, but, at long last, you have found it for me... Tell your brothers and sister that we are one step closer. At long last, one step closer." Sal sniffled again and looked over at the hunched ghoul near the door. "Your pet's shedding again," he said, nonchalantly, before sauntering out of the room. Karoly followed Sal's gaze, to see an arm lying at Kanari's feet, rotted off at the shoulder. One step closer, he thought. One step closer. ... -------------------------------------------------- iii. BLOOD BROTHERS IN VTES Torrance Circle Brothers Flex Muscles in Baltimore Eek... it really has been a while since I wrote a newsletter. The Meddling of Semsmith storyline tournament has long since ended, with the Lasombra narrowly winning over the Ravnos. According to Yoritomo Jiriki's results (73 out of 76 tournaments), the Blood Brothers led all Bloodlines with 3 wins (Ahrimanes coming second with 2 wins, and the Salubri (!!!) getting 1 win. All the BB wins were for Torrance Circle, which is a bit surprising, as many heralded Chicago as the better circle, with smaller vampires. It may be that Chicago's lack of fortitude was its downfall. We have yet to see exactly what these results will bring about, but we can be proud of our showing. Unfortunately, I did not play Blood Brothers, but instead gathered one of the wins for clan Lasombra. See, my Tzimisce master owed a boon to Gratiano, and... okay, okay, so I freaked out and picked a clan I thought I could win with. Sue me. But that's really old news. The big questions now are the new expansions, Camarilla Edition and The Anarchs. What is in store for the Blood Brothers? Well, the most likely answer is not much. We are extremely unlikely to see any new vampires in Camarilla Edition, although we might get some new pot/for vamps. Blood Brothers like to play alone, though, so it might be hard to work any such vampires into a deck. There may, however, be new potence and/or fortitude discipline cards to whet our teeth on, and I anxiously await those. The Anarchs might give us a slightly better chance. I'd put odds at 50/50 on whether or not we get any new vampires in the set. Anarchs are primarily Camarilla or Independent, and we are strictly Sabbat, but maybe they'll feel bad and throw us a bone. We might, for example, get a new Chicago Circle vampire, or maybe we'll get a new circle with just 3 vampires in it. Who knows, but just don't hold your breath. -------------------------------------------------- iv. FOCUS ON SANGUINOUS Bats of a feather feed together Unwholesome Bond Action, Sanguinous +1 stealth action. [san]: This vampire gains X+1 blood, where X is the number of ready, untapped Blood Brothers of the same circle as the acting vampire. [SAN]: Add 1 blood from the blood bank to each Blood Brother in your uncontrolled region of the same circle as the acting vampire. Altogether, not a bad card. Not bad at all. Let's look at each level independently: At inferior, this is basically a restoration. Assuming you have one other untapped Brother (of the same Circle), you gain 2 blood. (In general, the +1 makes up for the acting vampire being tapped... it's possible to gain a blood for the acting vampire as well, but that involves strangeness like using Rutor's Hand to untap in the middle of an action.) Usually, you'll gain anywhere from 2 to 5 blood from this card, just for having inferior Sanguinous. It can easily replace Restoration in your decks, but heck, you have Taste of Vitae for filling up, so you don't need the inferior level too badly. Inferior alone would probably allow for 2 or 3 copies in a deck. At superior, it's a whole other ballgame. Basically, it's a Recruiting Party that's common instead of rare. And Recruiting Party is a great card. You also have the added bonus that more Blood Brothers in play is always a great thing, for various Sanguine reasons. The biggest problem is having enough Blood Brothers in your uncontrolled region. Sure, it's nice in any case, but what if you really want to abuse the card? Here are a few options... One person suggested playing with a couple Nosferatu and using Kindred Intelligence. That's a nice thought, and funny as hell, but it waters down your crypt. You can have more uncontrolled vamps, but fewer vamps that gain blood from Unwholesome Bond. Another choice is, of course, Effective Management. It uses up master slots, which could be more useful as skill cards (need that superior fortitude), Haven Uncovered, Depravity, Fame, etc... But it's always something to consider. You can also use Info Highway and simply pay 1 to see 1 every turn while using 2 transfers and some Unwholesome Bonds to keep things moving. This is probably the slowest way to go about things, but the Info Highways are good in themselves. No one likes to see a new Torrance Circle vamp every turn. And last, but not necessarily least, is Clotho's Gift. That's right, Clotho's Gift. It's common (albeit C1), the line we're interested in requires only obf, and it costs only 1 blood. Perfect, you say? Well, there is the problem of actually getting obfuscate in our deck, but lo and behold, one Blood Brother has obf. And look at that... it's our pal Mark. The best Blood Brother in existence (and I challenge any of you to argue with that ;) ). Mark can play an outferior Clotho's Gift, then Freak Drive and play superior Unwholesome Bond. It may not be the most ironclad combo out there, but hey, it's gotta be lots of fun, right? -------------------------------------------------- v. LIFE SUPPORT Putting the blood in Blood Brothers After just one issue, I have nearly run out of Potence/Fortitude cards to talk about. Basically, they're just not that interesting. Potence is all "I hit you hard", and Fortitude is all "you don't hit me very hard." Hopefully the Camarilla expansion will give us something more to talk about, but as it is, I am reduced to reviewing the oft-maligned power-rare Freak Drive, and its place in a combat deck. Freak Drive Action Modifier, Fortitude 1 blood [for] Only usable immediately after this vampire performs an action that is not blocked. Untap this vampire. [FOR] As above, but usable even if the action is blocked. Okay, everybody and their brother uses this card in Ventrue decks. You'd be insane not to. Ventrue can vote big and bleed big, so Freaking will let them do both. Lots of people use Freak in action-heavy decks. But combat decks can't afford to be action heavy, so what is Freak Drive's place in such a deck. And the answer, for most combat decks, is nowhere (and only a couple combat clans have fortitude anyway). But the Blood Brothers have largish vampires, and so they need to get everything out of their vamps that they can. And with Walk of Caine, Coagulated Entity, and Unwholesome Bond, there are a lot of actions they can take. Also, since entering combat is not a defined action type, they can Ambush, Bum's Rush, and Coagulated Entity all in the same turn. So, adding 2 to 5 Freak Drives in a Brothers deck can only help you out, even at a 1 blood cost. And it just might leave you untapped and able to use those Gestalts you've been saving. Of course, there's the increasingly pressing question of where to get more copies of an R1 from Jyhad/V:TES, but hopefully we'll see a reprint in Camarilla Edition. For the sake of the newbies, I hope it's uncommon, although the bastard in me is happy with my 6 copies and doesn't want anyone else to have any. -------------------------------------------------- vi. DECK BUILDING What to do other than fight? Okay, I know I promised a new combo to confuse and amaze you (cf. February's newsletter, which I'm sure no one still remembers), but since I promised it "next month", I don't feel so bad about skipping it. Anyway, the combo is not all the great, and pretty much parallels the Baron/Soul Gem combo (minus the Soul Gem). I'm still working on that deck, so I'll let you guys in on the secret when I'm finished. In the meantime, I decided to try and do something with the Blood Brothers other than fight, as I was inspired by the Prince of Chicago's recent deck, in which he somehow forgot to add rushes to his rush deck. He bloated enough to survive despite my Setites burning 4 of his minions, and ended up being the last person ousted (still no VP's, but he didn't build the deck to be a non-rush deck, it just ended up that way.) Those of you in the US will remember the big "Elvis stamp" vote, wherein people voted over whether to release a stamp with a picture of the young, vibrant Elvis or the old, bloated Elvis. I think the young Elvis won, but this deck is dedicated to that other Elvis, who was discovered dead on his toilet with his huge King of Rock 'n' Roll ass hanging out. Deck Name: Old Elvis Created By: Chris Berger Description: Brothers Bloat deck with Walk of Elvis/Caine for offense. A splash of potence/fortitude for combat defense and intmidation. Crypt: (13 cards, Min: 24, Max: 24, Avg: 6.00) ---------------------------------------------- 4 Mark for obf pot SAN 6, Blood Brother, Bishop 3 Truman dom FOR pot SAN 6, Blood Brother 2 Karl FOR POT pre san 6, Blood Brother 2 Jack cel for pot san 6, Blood Brother 2 Ilse for POT pro SAN 6, Blood Brother Library: (90 cards) ------------------- Master (16 cards) 4 Dominate 2 Obfuscate 3 Tribute to the Master 2 Information Highway 3 Contingency Planning 2 Sudden Reversal Action (18 cards) 8 Clotho's Gift 10 Unwholesome Bond Action Modifier (18 cards) 5 Daring the Dawn 5 Freak Drive 6 Walk of Caine 2 Foreshadowing Destruction Reaction (18 cards) 9 Deflection 2 Gestalt 2 Delaying Tactics 5 Wake with Evening's Freshness Combat (20 cards) 6 Torn Signpost 5 Rolling with the Punches 4 Superior Mettle 3 Hidden Strength 2 Resilience This deck's nemesis is a high-intercept deck that's too stupid to fear your Brotherly combat might. Most Tzimisce players are over-confident in their combat ability and will not hesitate to block you, even if they don't know this deck. In those cases, you're best off just ditching the Gifts and Bonds and looking for your Daring the Dawn and bleed modifiers. Even that probably won't help you too much. The other thing this deck hates is heavy bounce. If you're going up against heavy bounce, don't play the Walks unless you have a Contigency Planning, or if you just wanna Walk for 1. But you won't be too scared of heavy bounce unless your predator is a vote deck, as you should be able to bloat/bounce enough to usually not get ousted until your bleeds for one can take out your prey. Anyway, the deck is currently untested (but not for long... heh, heh, heh), but if someone tries it out, let me know how things go.