Words by Ben Peal, Product Director, Black Chantry Productions:
Hey, everyone!
Many thanks again to the organizers of the 2023 European Championship in Barcelona! Hugh Angseesing and I gave a presentation at the event, with Hugh covering the business aspects of Black Chantry and Vampire: The Eternal Struggle, and myself covering the releases we have planned for the next year. I’m happy to share the information I presented here.
Ravnos, Salubri, and Tzimisce
By now you’ve certainly seen some of the previews of the upcoming cards for the Ravnos, Salubri, and Tzimisce pre-constructed decks. Much like the Ministry and Banu Haqim, we’ll see changes in these clans that reflect how they’re represented in Fifth Edition Vampire: The Masquerade.
Ravnos
Having been ravaged by the events of Gehenna and the Week of Nightmares, the Ravnos are much reduced in number and higher in generation. Expect themes of tempting fate, taking risks, nightmares, and being on the run. The Ravnos in-clan disciplines are now Animalism, Obfuscate, and Presence, and the vampires in this deck have joined the ranks of the Anarchs. Chimerstry effects are represented with Obfuscate-Presence combo-discipline cards and a card that requires both Presence and Ravnos.
Salubri
Once played for fools by their clan founder Saulot, his death gives them the opportunity to pursue their own destiny. While rumored to be only seven in number, this rumor may have been spread by the Salubri themselves to hide their true numbers. The Salubri in this deck are unaligned Independent vampires and their in-clan disciplines are now Auspex, Dominate, and Fortitude. Obeah and Valeren effects are represented with cards that require either Dominate and Salubri or Fortitude and Salubri. We do intend to feature the Salubri aligned with the Sabbat in a future release.
Tzimisce
With domains and holdings torn asunder by Gehenna and The Beckoning, the Tzimisce seek to reclaim and rebuild. Bitter grudges against their elders and a desire to redefine themselves lead many Tzimisce to the modern ways of the Anarchs. The Tzimisce in this deck are aligned with the Anarch sect and their in-clan disciplines are now Animalism, Dominate, and Protean. Vicissitude effects are represented with cards that require either Dominate and Protean or Protean and Tzimisce. Sabbat Tzimisce exist in rough equal numbers as Anarch Tzimisce and you can expect to see them when we cover the Sabbat sect.
Hecata and Lasombra
We’re working on the print proofs for the above mentioned decks right now and they’ll be printed soon! While that’s going on, we’re also playtesting the next two preconstructed decks: the Lasombra and the Hecata. I highly recommend reading the Fifth Edition Vampire: The Masquerade books “Chicago by Night”, ”Cults of the Blood Gods”, “Players Guide”, or the wikis at Paradoxwikis.com and whitewolf.fandom.com to see how those clans are currently represented in the World of Darkness, as well as their new discipline Oblivion. Here’s what it will mean for VTES:
Oblivion
In Vampire: The Masquerade Fifth Edition, the cosmologies of the Abyss and the Shadowlands have been merged into one, called Oblivion. The disciplines of Obtenebration and Necromancy are likewise merged into a new discipline, also called Oblivion. The Lasombra tend towards using the entropic power of Oblivion while the Hecata tend to prefer the necromantic ritual applications of it. Development of Obtenebration and Necromancy as individual disciplines comes to an end, though existing cards for those disciplines of course remain tournament legal. Oblivion in V:TES will have its own new discipline icon.
Hecata
The Hecata is a new clan comprised of all of the Necromancy-using clans resulting from an event called the Family Reunion. The event resulted from the heavy toll taken on clan Giovanni by the Second Inquisition, the imminent end of the Promise of 1528 with the Camarilla, warfare between the Giovanni and the Harbingers of Skulls, and the maelstrom of wraiths unleashed by the death or disappearance of Augustus Giovanni. The Giovanni, Harbingers, Samedi, Nagaraja, and even the few remaining Cappadocians and Lamiae came together to end their hostilities towards each other and founded a new clan called the Hecata.
For VTES, the Hecata are treated as an entirely new clan of the Independent sect and with the in-clan disciplines of Auspex, Fortitude, and Oblivion. Their pre-constructed deck will be designed and built accordingly. When we release this deck, we will also make available on Drivethrucards.com a handful of cards that will enable some amount of compatibility with the original Necromancy-using clans and the new Oblivion and Hecata cards.
Lasombra
The Second Inquisition and the Gehenna War resulted in instability and unease among the Lasombra clan. The Amici Noctis sent diplomatic missions to the Anarchs and the Camarilla, and found some amount of security and safety among the latter. Roughly half of the Lasombra left the Sabbat to join the Camarilla, who were keen to bolster their ranks after the departure of the Gangrel and Brujah. For the new Lasombra pre-constructed deck, the vampires will all be Camarilla, with in-clan disciplines of Dominate, Oblivion, and Potence. Sabbat Lasombra will be included in the Sabbat-themed pre-constructed decks that follow this release.
We will also be releasing New Blood decks for the Ravnos, Salubri, Tzimisce, Hecata, and Lasombra. The Hecata and Lasombra pre-constructed decks as well as the aforementioned New Blood decks are presently scheduled for a Spring 2024 release.
30th Anniversary Deck
This summer we will be celebrating the 30th anniversary of Vampire: The Eternal Struggle! We’ll be releasing a 30th Anniversary deck much like the 25th Anniversary deck, with a pre-constructed deck and additional cards, including new Justicars! We’ll have more information about that in 2024.
The Sabbat
Following the 30th Anniversary deck, we’ll finally be covering the long-awaited Sabbat. I strongly recommend reading the Fifth Edition Sabbat book to get an understanding of how the Sabbat are currently being handled in Vampire: The Masquerade. The main thing – the core principle – is that the Sabbat largely discard any clan affiliation and instead adopt a Path-aligned ideology. So instead of having clan-themed pre-constructed decks for the Sabbat, we’ll have four Path-themed decks: Path of Caine, Path of Cathari, Path of Death and the Soul, and Path of Power and the Inner Voice. The crypt cards will be of non-antitribu clans, but with the Sabbat sect and an indicator of the vampire’s Path. There will be Sabbat-specific and Path-specific cards, as well. I’m sure you all have a lot of questions about the Sabbat, and we’ll have more answers for you sometime next year.
After the release of the Sabbat pre-constructed decks, I think we’ll be generally done with pre-constructed decks as the primary format for new cards. We’ve given you a steady diet of those over the past several years and we plan for future releases to be in fixed-bundle formats akin to Fall of London.
Two-Player Variant
Running concurrently with the playtest of the Hecata and Lasombra decks is a playtest of a two-player variant of VTES. It presently uses new crypt cards and a heavily curated selection of existing library cards. This variant is meant both as an alternate way to play VTES but also as a tool for giving demos of the rules and gameplay of VTES to new players. The selection of cards will be fully tournament-legal in normal games of V:TES, but the two-player gameplay is meant to use only the cards selected for this format. We don’t yet have a release date for it, but expect it sometime in 2024.
Upcoming Errata
Over the past two years, we’ve explored and tested several ideas for changes to some cards and the master phase for reasons of competitive balance. The Vampire: Elder Kindred Network National Coordinators and playtesters have our gratitude for going through these tests and for their feedback. We’ve made some final decisions for errata to Ashur Tablets and Emerald Legionnaire, but these decisions were made too close to the 2023 European Championship and 2023 South American Championship to implement them out of concern for disrupting the metagame too soon before major events. We’ll make the official announcement for the start of the 2024 tournament season and updated versions of the cards will be available on Drivethrucards.com.
2024 is looking to be a very busy year for us. Many thanks again to the playtesters, the event organizers, and to all of you as players! I look forward to celebrating the 30th anniversary of VTES with all of you next year!
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