OFFICIAL VEKN LASOMBRA NEWSLETTER -- JANUARY 2004 by sleeveboy Welcome to the official Newsletter of the Clan of Night. I'm excited to have the opportunity to write my own clan newsletter, as I've got ideas and stories aplenty to share with my fellow players. I'll admit first-off that the Lasombra aren't my favorite clan in VTES. In the RPG I think they're the cat's meow – I'm a huge fan of the Lasombra Clan Trilogy by Bruce Baugh, and the signature Lasombra characters are inventive and intriguing. But back in the days of the first Sabbat expansion I found the Lasombra crypt too large and unwieldy. But then came Bloodlines, which gave the clan a fresh influx of allies in the Kiasyd. The clan received even more solid vampires in the CE-era expansions, and before I knew it I was looking at a much more interesting base of vampires to build decks around. So here I am, writing this Newsletter. Hope you enjoy it. FICTION Buffalo, NY – 12:48 am Henri Lavenant's face was covered in chicken wing sauce. Sitting in a darkened corner of Cole's at his own booth chain-smoking a pack of Gitanes, he was unremarkable save for the splotches of red sauce all over his face. He was a sloppy eater both in life and in death, and vampires found his habit of eating mortal food especially revolting. He never shared that view. The process of eating food, as a vampire, was amusing to him. His undead organs could no longer process the food, of course, and he had to force blood through them just to move the chewed bits through his body (only to puke them up several hours later). But he still tried to appreciate the taste. Over hundreds of years, his senses had grown dull to all but the taste of blood, but he could still perceive the tingle of the "suicide" chicken wings as they traveled down his gullet. He was waiting for his contact in the Hand. This evening's agenda: hijack a fleet of cars operated by Camarilla ghouls set to arrive across the Peace Bridge. Several important Camarilla functionaries were rumored to be in transit, one of them Lladislas, former prince of Buffalo. Should be an easy job; the Camarilla were running scared between the borders ever since the fall of the Eastern Seaboard cities during the last war. Many of them had become easy targets for nomad Sabbat with a taste for violence (and diablerie). Lavenant had orders from up on high to grab Lladislas before any other licks could have their way with him, stake him, and bring him for questioning (what kind of questioning, he wasn't sure -- he was hearing strange news reports these days, talk of ancient blood rising and young packs disappearing in New York, but didn't know what to make of it). And to an extent he didn't care -- Lavenant, who for centuries had traded in the business of secrets, cared only for the struggle insofar as it would benefit him. And the Black Hand, of course, a grand old organization to which he owed his life yet never wholly embraced him, like a distant, demanding father. A pale young woman in a plaid shirt and jeans walked in. Lavenant recognized her. It was Katherine Stoddard, a Camarilla turncoat and Hand operative. He saw a beefy man in a ball cap, six and a half feet tall, maybe a foot taller than Stoddard walk up to her and say something, smiling. She turned to him, said something, and stared him down balefully. At once he stumbled back and turned on his heels, terrified. As he leaned against the window, Katherine had arrived at Lavenant's table. "He likes you, I think." "Shut up," spat Stoddard. Her black hair was tied back neatly, revealing intense blue eyes. "The car is ready. We only have a few hours. Get yourself cleaned up and we'll go." "Of course, cherie." He wiped the sauce from his face. He had barely gotten out of the booth before Stoddard had turned on her heels and started for the door. "I got us a ride," said Stoddard, gesturing to the beige dinged-up Impala parked outside Cole's. "We can make it to the bridge inside of an hour if we hurry. Our Canada scouts tell us the targets should cross the bridge around then. I figure we've got twenty, maybe thirty minutes to do the job before we need to reach shelter." "Anywhere you have in mind?" "Warehouse in Tonawanda. A local pack keeps it up." Stoddard climbed into the driver's seat, and Lavenant stepped into the back. He began to light another cigarette. "And put that damn thing out. You're already undead, for chrissakes." Lavenant smiled and quietly acquiesced. This was a feisty young lick, he thought. Quite to his liking. A moment later the tires squealed, and they were en route. -- Forty-five minutes of tiresome discussion followed. Lavenant was a talker, a loud and obnoxious one. The kind you'd wince at every time he opened his mouth. He had opinions on everything: the current Sabbat leadership, American mortal politics, his favorite physical qualities in a woman. At several points Stoddard wished she were headed for Niagara Falls so she could drive off the edge and be done with him. Eventually the Peace Bridge came into view. Two men in suits, obviously Camarilla ghouls, stood several hundred yards past the bridge. "I see your friends from the Camarilla have prepared for our arrival, yes?" said Lavenant. Each carried a shotgun lazily at his soldier. Stoddard winced. She hated being reminded of her prior history in the Camarilla -- her fat, doddering sire, the dull social events, the hypocrisy. "Shall we stop here?" she said flatly. "Yes. I'll walk ahead and distract the one on the right. I'll leave the other one to you." They stopped a hundred feet or so in front of the ghouls. Lavenant stepped out, shut his eyes, and cloaked himself in nearby shadow. Slowly he walked to the ghoul on the right, who was beginning to doze off. When he was a few feet in front of him, Lavenant dropped the shadows, giving the ghoul a start. "Hello! I am hoping I'm not waking you!" Lavenant said in a florid French accent. "Listen, I come across the bridge here with my wife and I lose power in my battery. Could you give me a jump maybe?" The ghoul was wary. "Look, sir, I'm on duty. There's a border station up the road near the bridge if you need any help." "Listen, it will just take a minute, eh?" By now Lavenant was within a foot of the man, his beefy six-foot frame making the ghoul uneasy. "You bring the car around, and give me a quick jump. It's nothing at all, and then I'll be gone. You come over and help me push the car, yes?" "Look, buddy. I told you. I'm on duty. Get lost." Lavenant smiled crookedly. "OK, if you feel that way it's not a problem. Why the shotguns? Terrorists around here, yes?" "Something like that. Like I said, I can't help you. Get out of here." "No hard feelings, alright?" Lavenant brusquely slapped the ghoul on the back. He staggered, looking agitated, and snapped back to semi-attention. As he walked away, he felt pangs in his gut -- the chicken wings were backing up on him. Even though he was undead and bodily functions meant little to him, he still found the mechanisms of the human body fascinating. Burping, farting, ejaculating, barfing were things most Cainites never missed, but he still derived much humor from them. He found these bodily functions of such interest that he spent many years studying how the shakari of the Hand effortlessly manipulated their blood, and the blood of others, into potent toxins. Often the best weapon, he knew, was the one you never saw coming. The ghoul began to cough. Blood crept from his lips. He retched, this time spitting blood in a torrent from his mouth. His tears began to shed blood, and his face grew bright red. Using an ancient technique he learned from Hand assassins, Lavenant had collapsed the ghoul's arteries and capillaries with a single touch. The shotgun dropped to the floor. Just as Lavenant lunged for it, Stoddard seized the distraction, firing four slugs from her Glock into the second ghoul. Lavenant finished the other with a single shot. Stoddard smirked at his handiwork. "Disgusting." Without a word, Lavenant took the body behind a nearby bush and puked. VAMPIRE OF THE MONTH Henri Lavenant 7 cap, pot qui DOM OBT Sabbat: Black Hand. You have +1 hand size while Henri is in combat. As this month's fiction suggests, Henri's a real piece of work. He reminds me a lot of the main character of Joseph Conrad's "The Secret Agent", a piggish oaf of a man who defies all our modern preconceptions of how a secret agent should look and act. Henri may be a fat slob, but he's a real workhorse who can fit in a large number of your decks. First impressions: he has Quietus? As a regular poster at thepathofblood.com, this immediately got me excited. Crossover possibilities danced in my head the moment I saw him listed in one of the BH spoilers (Jalal and Thetmes? Yazid & Henri powerbleed?). Unfortunately, his lack of OBF and CEL make him too expensive at 7 cap to consider him seriously in any Assamite deck. That doesn't mean you can't use his Quietus to good effect, though. If you're running combat, throw in some Thin Bloods to burn away your opponent's blood before thwacking them with some beefy Potence strikes. Or sprinkle some Deed the Heart's Desire to thwart potential blockers in conjunction with Seduction. If you're doing straight bleed, try combining Dominion, Tenebrous Form, Thin Blood and Oubliette to burn obscene amounts of blood without even striking! And then, when your Dominions have run your prey's vamps dry, swoop in with a Foul Blood on the mandatory hunt action. So ultimately you're not going to pack any significant number of Quietus cards in a deck with Henri, but a few "spice" cards can be useful. And then there's his obvious advantages. DOM and OBT make him an excellent bleeder, and at 7 he's another solid candidate for Cardinal Benediction. Funny, isn't it – where the Lasombra once lacked even one 7-cap vampire, they now have three from which to choose (counting Julia Prima). While Julia might be a stronger bleeder overall due to her aus and optional +1 bleed, Henri's Black Hand status makes him perfect for this newsletter's Deck of the Month (more on that later). As for his special ability? It's kind of a wash – if you're playing combat it's great, and if you're jammed up on stealth it can be a nice bonus, but it's mostly cornercase. This discussion segues well into the next section, in which I will discuss a powerful new card that opens a new area of strategy for Lasombra. LIBRARY CARD(s) OF THE MONTH: Dominion and Tenebrous Form Two very interesting cards, each made even more so when paired together. At first blush Tenebrous Form is just another stealth card for Obtenebration, not as good as Shadow Play but with an amusing side effect at superior. It's expensive, just like most Obten stealth, but no bother once you've got your Path out. But then there's Dominion – a card that turns any Black Hand member into Giotto Verducci, but without the nasty drawback. Note that Dominion's effect is very different from Sabbat Priest, Camarilla Exemplary, Archon, and Donal O'Connor's special ability – unlike the latter cards, which require the opposing vampire to burn a blood when making a block attempt – Dominion requires the opposing vampire to burn a blood to attempt to block. That means an empty vampire cannot attempt to block a vampire with Dominion. What can you do with a fleet of Dominions? Bleed your prey and play Tenebrous Form at superior, forcing them to burn 2 blood to attempt to block. And then, as the icing on the cake, play an Oubliette to burn one more blood. If you're smart, you'll prompt your prey to burn the blood at each step, before playing additional stealth, for maximum effect. And if you don't feel like going to combat, just play a Shadow Play on top of them and have them burn their blood for nothing. You have several options at this point. You could build a mean bruise and bleed deck, forcing your prey's vampires down to zero blood and play a Burning Wrath at just the right moment. Or you could try to mix some Dominions into a Shadow Twin deck. Or, as I will do this month, you could use them as the basis for a nasty little powerbleed deck that makes good use of all the new toys from Black Hand. DECK OF THE MONTH Deck Name: Black Hand Powerbleed Created By: sleeveboy Description: Influence out Gratiano or Henri first, then Govern up the rest. Place your Dominions on your Black Hand guys, and bleed like a pig. Deep Cover Agent helps you bleed responsibly. Very strong in the endgame, and in Sabbat-heavy environments. Crypt: (12 cards, Min: 13, Max: 30, Avg: 5.42) ---------------------------------------------- 3 Banjoko obt pot DOM 5, Lasombra:3 3 Henri Lavenant pot qui DOM OBT 7, Lasombra:3 2 Gratiano DOM obf OBT pot 8, Lasombra:2, Priscus 1 Ramiro dom obt vic 4, Lasombra:2 1 Ignacio dom obt pot 4, Lasombra:2 1 Hester Reed obt pot 3, Lasombra:3 1 Aaron Duggan obt 2, Lasombra:2 Library: (80 cards) ------------------- Master (15 cards) 1 Admonitions, The 2 Blood Doll 2 Capitalist 1 Dominate 4 Dominion 1 Dreams of the Sphinx 1 Obtenebration 2 Path of Night, The 1 Political Hunting Ground Action (12 cards) 4 Blooding 2 Deep Cover Agent 6 Govern the Unaligned Action Modifier (36 cards) 4 Bonding 2 Change of Target 2 Command of the Beast 6 Conditioning 2 Council of Seraphim 2 Foreshadowing Destruction 6 Seduction 4 Shadow Play 8 Tenebrous Form Political Action (1 cards) 1 Watchtower: Greatest Fall Reaction (8 cards) 4 Deflection 4 Wake with Evening's Freshness Combat (8 cards) 8 Oubliette This deck was last saved at 1:17:14 AM on 1/14/2004 My goal with this deck was to make competitive use of the new Black Hand stuff, to see if cards like Deep Cover Agent and Council of Seraphim were useful. Council of Seraphim is pretty useful when you've got Banjoko out, and you can safely throw in some Seraphs if you want to get more mileage out of them. The jury's still out on Deep Cover Agent; the information is great, but it's hard for a deck like this to defend it. But if you put it on one of your prey's weenies, you can probably get some reliable use out of it. -- Well, that's it for this month. Next month we'll examine Banjoko, in my opinion one of the three best vampires in the Black Hand set, and feature an excellent pot/pro deck that makes great use of BH vampires, toys, and tech. Until then...morte ascendo. -Eric Manch sleeveboy@hotmail.com