V:EKN Clan Brujah Newsletter, May 1998



Vol 1, Issue 2. 



Legal shite:  All contents copyright 1998 Alexander Austin.  All 

rights reserved.  Reproduction of some or all of the following is 

permitted for personal use, review purposes, or to reply to this post; 

all other reproduction of the writing contained herein is forbidden 

without the permission of the author.  Pretty much all of the 

technical terms I use herein are copyright White Wolf or Wizards of 

the Coast, and are used with WotC’s permission.  This document will 

also be found on the web at 

http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Cafe/2147/jyhad.html, once I add it 

there. 



Table of Contents: 

  

      1. Ranting (General comments on inducting new players into Jyhad) 

      2. Background (Vignette: Furious Rage) 

      3. Commentary (Commentary on the Brujah Disciplines) 

      4. Consideration (A value judgement of the 15 Brujah from the basic set) 

      5. Final words



1.  Neonates, and the problems of initiation. 



 It’s hard to get new players into Jyhad/V:tES.  You can talk 

to your friends who play card games, but many of them will have played 

Jyhad before, either under card limits or by trying to understand the 

awful complexities of the first rulebook, and will not be interested 

because of those experiences.  You can talk to the people you know who 

play vampire, but many of them prefer the role-playing and 

storytelling aspects of the tabletop or Live-action games to the 

sterile battlefield of card gaming.  And then even if you do get 

people to play, you have no reassurance that they’ll stay and play 

another game, much less like it. 



You can get people hooked, of course, often CCG players from 

other games who appreciate the careful balance and design qualities of 

Jyhad and roleplayers who like the mood and atmosphere of the game. 

These are the people who you can hang on to, and bring into your 

regular playgroup.  But what about the other people, the ones who 

don’t have the same level of interest? I try and keep them interested 

by taking care of the annoying details, like deck tuning and construction for them.  I organize 

events to play cards and let them come and go as they please.  It 

works, in its own way; I have two players who are rather interested in 

the game and three who are somewhat, and all of them come to all of my 

events, even if some stay less time than others. You can only try to 

convert those who are only casually interested.  And hope that they 

see the light, as it were, of the game we love.



2.  Furious Rage 



 Rage is the essence of our clan, the purity of what we are. 

We are fury, dreamers denied the realization of their dreams, and 

idealists continually betrayed by the perversities of those around us. 

We can see in our mind’s eye, a vision of perfection so unequaled by 

reality that whenever someone acts in a way that causes reality to 

slip further away from that dream of perfection we possessed, we are 

consumed by anger and outrage at their thoughtlessness and stupidity. 

After all, only a fool could not realize that their actions moved the 

world one step closer towards being hell on earth. 

 It is because there are so many things wrong that we are so 

angry, and are so easily angered.  Sometimes, however, we can find 

certain things or individuals to be responsible for a great deal of 

wrongs in the world. 

 And that is why I killed the prince.  Not because of any 

devotion to your "Anarch cause", not out of a desire for personal 

vengeance or because he was the great-grandchilde of some elder my 

sire crossed 600 years ago in some rural village in europe.  No, I 

took his unlife because I recognized that his tyrannical rule of the 

kindred and kine of this city was stifling emotion, passion, and free 

expression.  I slew him because I saw you and your kind hypocritically 

mouthing the words of anarchy and freedom while secretly aspiring to 

become like him. 

 Go now, childer.  Go and fight over the princedom.  Do your 

worst to each other. 

 But at the least, be honest in your venality and greed, or I 

will strike you down like I struck down that buffoon of a prince you 

all feared, loathed and groveled before and called “master” when you 

thought your comrades were not looking.  If you truly sink to his 

level, then you too will become more of a cause of the problems in 

this world than a solution. 

 And I assure you, childer, I will be waiting. 

 - Grigori, Brujah Elder, speaking to a group of younger 

members of his clan. 



3. Commentary on the Brujah Disciplines. 



Celerity:  Celerity is a discipline which is not incredibly useful on 

it’s own.  While it allows for control of range and continuation of 

combat, as well as the avoidance of damage and one’s opponent’s 

strikes, it is not a powerful tool for achieving any goal except in 

conjunction with other combat cards, like equipment or 

damage-increasing or modifying strikes.  Its bleed capacities are 

minimal, its stealth even more so.  As such, Celerity’s utility to the 

brujah lies in three successively less effective areas: 1) Supporting 

Potence through adding combat control and additional strikes; 2) 

Supporting equipment based combat through adding combat control and 

additional strikes; and 3) Controlling combat as to avoid being 

damaged by other methuselahs minions. 



Potence:  Potence is good for combat, pure and simple.  Extra damage 

on strikes, be they hand strikes or with melee weapons, at close or 

long range.  Whatever the focus of a use of potence, make sure that 

it’s focused and has the control elements to make sure that its focus 

pays off (i.e., maneuvers for short or long ranged decks, and presses 

for second-round or later decks). 



Presence:  Of all the Brujah disciplines, presence is the most 

playable on it’s own, either as a bleed or vote disipline.  Of the 

two, vote is easier to pull off: majesties, bewitching orations, voter 

captivation, awe and the like are all one needs.  Presence bleed often 

needs manuevers to ensure that once combat has begun, it will end 

quickly, and as such can rely more on celerity.  In either case, 

combat avoidance is generally the best policy unless presence is being 

used as a second-tier discipline strategy. 



4.  Consideration of the Brujah of the Basic Set. 



From lowest capacity to highest: 



Angel: 2 Cap Celerity.  Very solid small vampire.  Useful if Celerity 

is a main focus of a deck.  Less useful it Celerity in combination 

with another discipline is the key. 



Lupo:  2 Cap Potence.  Same evaluation as Angel, except useful if 

Potence is a deck focus. 



Dre: 3 Cap Potence Celerity.  One of the best weenies for 

Potence/Celerity combat.  Useful but not wonderful if only used for 

one of his two disciplines. 



Uma Hatch: 3 Cap Celerity Presence.  Not generally useful except in 

runaway combat bleed or vote.  Approximately equal utility to Brujah 

and Toreador decks. 



Hector Sosa: 4 Cap POTENCE Presence.  Only really useful if Potence is 

a main point of the deck, or if Potence and Presence work well 

together for some reason. 



Yuri the Talon: 4 Cap Potence Presence Celerity.  Clan poster boy. 

Average utility for most clan deck concepts, but is not necessary in 

general; use only if a smaller vampire is not superior. 



Black Cat: 5 Cap CELERITY Potence Presence, -1 pool on all equip 

costs.    Good for an equipment or Celerity-heavy deck.  Not great for 

straight potence/celerity combat. 



Bianca: 6 Cap CELERITY Potence Presence, +1 hand damage.  Good for 

Celerity/Potence, or any other celerity-based brujah combat deck. 



Rake: 6 Cap PRESENCE Potence Celerity Auspex, Prince of Atlanta.  Good 

for vote heavy decks, presence decks, or toreador crossovers.  A must 

for most pure presence titled-vote decks. 



Anvil: 6 Cap POTENCE CELERITY Presence Dominate Thaumaturgy, Primogen. 

Extremely useful in almost all Brujah decks, due to his atypical 

number of disciplines and powers at his size.  Practically makes the 

older primogen of the clan useless. 



Tura Vaughn: 8 Cap PRESENCE POTENCE CELERITY Dominate, Primogen. 

Useful in decks that use all the clan disciplines at superior.  Not 

generally useful otherwise, as she is too large in capacity and thus 

expensive to bring out. 



Miranda Sanova: 8 Cap PRESENCE CELERITY Potence Auspex Obfuscate, 

Primogen.  Useful in Presence/Celerity decks, especially Toreador 

crossovers or decks that use obfuscate as well.  Not generally useful 

otherwise for the same reasons as Tura. 



Crusher: 9 Cap PRESENCE POTENCE CELERITY Fortitude, Primogen, +1 hand 

damage, may burn a blood to strike as a dodge in combat.  Too 

expensive to really be effective in most combat decks, and too 

specialized to work in much else. 



Appolonius: 10 Cap PRESENCE CELERITY Potence Fortitude, Primogen, +1 

bleed, optional press each combat.  Appolonius is the only Brujah in 

the basic set with extra bleed, but his discipline combination (no 

superior potence) and size without a title make him effectively 

worthless to most decks.  Smaller vampires are more efficient. 



Don Cruez: 10 Cap PRESENCE POTENCE CELERITY Dominate Protean 

Animalism, Brujah Justicar, pay 1 blood for an optional maneuver once 

per combat.  Too expensive to be effective in a vote deck.  Its 

generally better to use the Justicar card, if available, and smaller 

vampires. 



5.  All of the evaluations of vampires in this issue are based on my 

experience as a player, and on getting the most out of one’s vampires. 

This is not to say that the vampires cannot be useful, but rather to 

say that those which are not recommended have shown themselves to be 

too expensive for the benefit derived from playing with them. 



 If anyone has a deck which uses any of the Brujah of 8 

Capacity or over from the above list effectively, I want to know. 



Mail me at malevolence@rocketmail.com with any such decks. 



Alexander Austin, Brujah Clan Chronicler. 



Diogenes + Alec Austin + Goth Code 3.1A: GoBu3CS3Au2 

TPMJt9 PSaPr B7/22Bk!"1@ cDbr-p7 V6s M3 ZPuoGoCl 

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RdXL LusOR7 + "A heretic is a man who sees with his own eyes." 

 -Gotthold Jessing