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Review by: Charles Phipps
Rating: 10/10
A book for exploring what it means to be a vampire.
The Blood: The Players Guide to the Requiem is probably the best vampire book released in years. Indeed, off the top of my head, I can think of no book that's better in either the OWOD or NWOD. It is the quintessential guide for undeath and my only regret is that the work wasn't longer. If you are looking for anything other than glowing praise, than this review may not be for you. Suffice to say, in short, you should buy this book. Buy this book as soon as you can.
One warning, though, for those whose tastes differ from my own. The Blood is nearly crunch-less. The only way that the book could have less rules information would be to make the entire thing into in-character fiction. It's a fluff book that focuses on almost exclusively the psychology of being Kindred. There are no new Bloodlines, Disciplines, Merits, Flaws, or Thaumaturgy rituals. The only new rules system information is an optional system for humanity and some suggestions on how to handle torpor. This may turn you off the book.
Now that’s out of the way, onto the discussion of what the Blood is really about. Specifically, it is the book that discusses the night to night horrors of being undead. This is a book for Players as much as Storytellers. What is it really like to have your first Frenzy? What does vitae REALLY taste like? Do you ever wonder if other Kindred go around randomly abusing Dominate as much as my players' characters seem to do? All those answers are the basis of The Blood.
The Opening Fiction is a portrayal of an neonate and ancilla's night to night existence. It's a surprisingly effective mood piece because we get a sense of how mind numbingly tedious life as one of the Damned can be. It's an excellent mood setter to help one appreciate how natural that a Kindred's life can become jaded and filled with ennui. Indeed, it provides a reason why some vampires (read PCs) might seek out danger as much as they do. There has to be more to life than the blood. Doesn't there? The title of the book should indicate that the answer that most Kindred find is....no, there really isn't. However, you can deny it for a time.
Chapter One: Kindred Characters is built around the principle of establishing the rationale behind most of a player character's stats. It talks about justifying initial expenditures at character creation, the origins for high blood potency, choosing Virtues and Vice, running the idea of Vices as representative of the Beast while the Virtue is a representation of the man, and issues like how a character's age at Embrace might affect their mind set.
What's noteworthy about this chapter is that it talks a great deal about establishing what a character wants from the Kindred world and unlife. Any player that's worried about not being diverse enough from other characters in his party will find a host of ideas that will allow him to expand on his initial concept. Storytellers could also benefit from the simple advice presented in this chapter that if he allows players to buy Merits then they should be allowed to be used by characters. Taking them away randomly should not be done but only for the benefit of a much larger story.
Chapter Two: The Blood talks all about the nature of Kindred vitae and its properties. This is the real meat of the chapter for me and covers what I think every vampire should have a reference book for. It talks about the following topics at length: Feeding, Spending Vitae, Waking Up, Counterfeiting Life, Physical Augmentation, Healing Wounds, Activating Disciplines, Blood Addiction, Diablerie, The Vinculum, Blood Ties, Blood Sympathy, Feeding, The Kiss, Blood Supplies, Ghouls, Territories, The Predator's Taint, The Masquerade, Progeny, the types of damage that Kindred take, Torpor, the types of Frenzy, and a discussion of Kindred Humanity degeneration.
All of the "crunch" information about these topics is in the main book of Vampire: The Requiem. What this book is provide a testament on what all these activities feel like and mean to most vampires. It's a guide for helping make things like Feeding and creating a Ghoul to be interesting character actions. Ironically, my biggest problem with the Ghouls book was satisfied here as it gave the missing article on why player characters feel the need to create blood slaves. All of this information can be exploited by a Storyteller in order to make one's nightly unlife into a fascinating and adventurous experience. We also get the answer that most Neonates and Ancilla are Humanity 5 while most Elders are Humanity 4. Given I'd had most vampires at Humanity 6 and Humanity 5 in my games, that changes a great deal of how I run games.
Chapter Three: Kindred Psychology is the chapter that summarizes what all the effects of the Blood chapter have on most Neonates, Ancilla, and Elders. Unsurprisingly, my longstanding campaign rule that most Kindred either commit suicide or get themselves killed out of stupidity before they reach their tenth year is made canon here. Life as one of the Damned is a nightmarishly difficult one and its amusing to see that most vampires lives are described in the same manner as a player character. Like it or not, all of them get wrapped up in schemes and adventures that weed down their numbers.
This chapter takes a good long look at the nature of the various disciplines, and how the power of a vampire can warp a character's minds. There's a thousand or more little character bits about how young vampires can be warped and dehumanized by even benign seeming disciplines. Really, how DOES one think the average person would react when they can use Majesty to become the sexiest person in the room? All the time no less? The book says 'quite badly.'
The Epilogue Fiction is a nice little coda that follows our point of view character into his status as an elder. He's broken up with most of his old friends, become immersed in the affairs of the Ordo Dracul, and justified his inhuman treatment of the Kine with scholarly detachment. We see the usual justifications of an elder for the naked self interest and pathetic defense against one's own monster that they really are. Tragically, this proves to be a love story as well. I say tragically because we understand what it means when he and his lover create a blood bond between themselves. They will, eventually, learn to hate one another.
The Blood is a necessary book and one that should have been printed for the old Masquerade line. At heart, it's a work that helps make the daily unlife an adventure to itself. For me, I think one of the main problems of the last line was that it started taking war ghouls, gargoyles, and Sabbat to keep things interesting. We moved away from Chicago by Night style politics and became focused on Antedeluvians out to kill us all. This book is a major step towards rectifying this problem.
I give this supplement ten drops of blood out of ten.
