Official VEKN Malkavian Newsletter January of 2003 Happy New January's! We're going to start off this brand- new month with a newsletter based on everyone's most loved/hated/feared/crunchy bleeders, the Malkavians!* *Malkavians are not necessarily the most loved, hated, feared bleeders and only go crunch when imortally grappled. Contents: 1.1 The Adventures of Waldo 1.2 Thoughts and Musing and Things That Go Crunch 2.1 What's New This Month? 2.2 The End ---------------------------------------------------------- 1.1 The Adventures of Waldo ---------------------------------------------------------- Waldo sat at the table with his friends, the playing cards scattered about its surface. "Got any nines?" Waldo asked, looking at the stuffed rabbit sitting to his left. The kitchen sink fell off the chair to his right. "Sink, not again! How many times do I have to precariously balance you on top of the bucket on top of the books on top of the sandwhich on top of the chair on top of the floor which is really the roof of good ole' Jack, our under-door neighbor?" After re-precariously balancing Sink back into place again Waldo sat down and asked Bunny "Where was I?" Bunny shrugged and fell off the chair. "Oh you stupid rabbit! I'll kill you!" With a lunatic's strength Waldo leapt upon Bunny and shredded her thin cotten skin with his fangs and tore all the way down to the stuffing inside. "Oh Bunny!" Waldo wailed. "What have I done?" Suddenly there was a harsh knock at the door. "The body!" Waldo gasped, looking down at the shredded cotten rabbit. "I have to hide the body!" He scooped up the remains of cotten and fabric and cradled them in his arms before darting his eyes back and forth looking for a good Secret Place. The knock came again, harsher. "Under the couch, quickly!" Sink whispered. "Good idea, no one would look under there." Dashing across the small apartment Waldo made a wild dive for the couch. As he landed he began to quickly stuff the stuffing under the couch. Secret Place. He had just finished and had enough time to stand as his front door was smashed down. Dust and splinters were all that was left. The next thing he knew, he was surrounded by Ugly People. "Where is it?" the one with the beret demanded. "Where? What?" Waldo asked. Rough hands grabbed him. "You know about which I speak." Waldo slowly turned his head over to the table. He looked at Sink and slowly nodded while winking. "Oh, that! ... IT'S NOT UNDER THE COUCH!" The one with the beret nodded to his two friends with the strong arms. They causually tossed Waldo across the room and into the bookshelf. The ugliest of the two hooked his claw-like fingers on the couch's arm and threw the whole thing out the window, cushions and all. They all looked at what had been hidden beneath, in the Secret Place. There, amongst candy wrappers and pennies was the dead body of Bunny, Silly Bob, and Sir Someone. "It's not there!" The One With The Beret hollared. He and his goons turned swiftly, full of anger, toward the wrecked bookshelf, but Waldo was nowhere to be found. Sink fell off his bucket and onto the floor with a loud clangor. The One With The Beret and his Ugly Goons turned and opened fire with large guns in the direction of the sound, destroying everything within sight. As the smoke cleared, the group looked around, but the Malkavian was no where in sight. "Where's Waldo?" one of them asked dumbly. ------------------------------------------------------------ ---------------------------------------------- 1.2 Thoughts and Musings and Things That Go Crunch ------------------------------------------------------------ ---------------------------------------------- Hello, and welcome to my first ever Clan Newsletter. I would have to say that a good 83.365001% of the decks I have made have been Malkavian decks. I tend to shun the traditional Sneaky-Bleedy archtype and always try to embrace odd combinations. So, for the most part, I don't tend to win. Okay, now that we have the introduction out of the way, on to the Things That Go Crunch. Stepping on dry pasta goes crunch. Brazil in a fight with Koko goes crunch. Dancin' Dana dancing on cockroaches go crunch. Ozmo eating cockroaches goes crunch. Crunchy things that go crunch go crunch, crunch, crunch! Crunch is a funny word. The more you say crunch, the funny it gets. crunch-crunch-crunch-crunch-crunch-crunch-crunch-crunch- crunch-crunch-crunch-crunch-crunch! ------------------------------------------------------------ -- 2.1 What's New This Month? ------------------------------------------------------------ -- There hasn't been a Malkavian newsletter for quite a while (since June of 2002), and a lot has changed. The biggest being that the Camarilla Malkavians have become even more demented - as in the RPG - and have added Dementation as a main clan discipline! For those of you who still like to Dominate, fear not! for many of the new Malkavians have Dominate as well as Dementation. After opening my first Camarilla Malkavian starter I was sort of disappointed. The majority of my crypt didn't have Dementation. Zoe and Watenda were fine (as they were small and used the Obfuscate/Auspex route), but Damaskenos (aus, celerity, potence, DOM) and Ohanna (dom) didn't seem especially useful seeing as there are no Dominate In short, the starter seemed to be a generic bleeding deck with large amounts of Obfuscate for stealth and Eyes of Chaos/Confusion for bleeding modifiers (at least they could have included more Kindred Spirits). The combat was lacking; only two Read Intentions for defense and two Disguised Weapons (for the two Flamethrowers) as offense; a few Behind You cards could have helped, or at least some of the stealth cards could have been Swallowed by the Night. This starter wasn't completely disappointing; it included Blessings of Chaos and four each of Telepathic Counter and Telepathic Misdirection (some of my most super-favorite cards). And, as sort of an acknowledgement of the lack of Dementation in the crypt, two Dementation skill cards were included to make sure some of the reprinted Malkavians could get in on the fun. I would have liked to have seen at least one copy of the fun Demenation cards available such as: Lunatic Eruption, Coma, and Mind of a Child. Instead I got Haunting and Total Insanity. (Note: a big thumbs up for the Derange action card that was included! I just love Derange, mwa ha ha ha ha!) The deck didn't do so badly when I tested it out. I got together three other people and we each played a different clan's starter. Nosferatu, Brujah, Ventrue and Malkavian. Basically, I went on a bleeding frenzy and took down my Prey and Grand-Prey before my Predator - the Brujah - ousted me, ending the game as a 2 VP tie. ------------------------- 2.2 The End ------------------------- Sorry but this month doesn't have a spiffy deck to show off, but, if you have any submissions for future newsletters (card analysis, deck examples, strategies, etc.) drop me an email. Feel free to reply to this forum as well. Please note that Lasombra aren't generally a nice group, and they don't appreciate potted plants dropped on them (especially ferns and gardenias). So make sure you drop a potted plant on the next Lasombra you see (preferably a fern or gardenia). -t!MmY, the mad inker Timmy@e-garfield.com