Imprimis: Fiction (Elk Grove Dawn, Part 1) Secundus: KublaCon Tourney-Losing Deck Tertius: Offclan Disciplines Imprimis ~--begin--~ 1. The shattering water. When I opened my eyes, I couldn't see anything. And I hurt all over. Slowly, I raised a hand to my face. There was something covering it. It felt like fabric. I pulled, and it came off easily. It was dark, and there were trees all around me, looming straight up into the sky. The trees looked like bars of shadow against the stars, making the sky look like a white tiger. I wondered where that thought came from, and what a tiger was. I was very hungry. I stumbled around in the forest for some time; moving was a little difficult, because of the way the weight hangs on my body. Some of the forest animals came up to me and shared their food. The deer in particular were very kind, I remember. I was very careful not to eat too much, because I didn't want them to starve. After I watched a badger go into his burrow, I realized I could make a burrow for myself, too, and I spent some time digging one up. By the time I was done I was very tired and sleepy, and my clothes were dirty. For some reason clean clothes were important. I made a mental note to clean them tomorrow. I don't know what my name is, or how I got here. I can remember language, how to speak and write and read it, but sometimes words come up that don't tie to anything I remember. Like tiger. Maybe writing things down will help. When I went through my pockets, I found a notebook and a pen. I'll write things in there. My pants pocket also had a scrap of dirty paper in it, and I'm going to keep it safe in the notebook. The handwriting is different from mine, and it reads 'Your name is Adam Hart.' It's good to have a name. ~---end--~ More next month. Unless voxpop demands excision. Lots of self-discovery in store for young Adam. Secundus This deck was the leader going into the finals of Blood Siege: Oakland, with 6.5 VP. Next place down had 4.5 VP. As discussed elsewhere in the group, poor play resulted in a fast ouster from the finals. Deck Name: Invisible Hand Created by: Gomi no Sensei Description: Nosfie toolbox politics -- bloat, bleed, vote! Crypt: (12 cards) [Min: 8, Max: 34, Avg: 5.83] 2 Dimple (obf, Nosferatu, 2) 2 KoKo (pot, Nosferatu, 2) 2 Murat (OBF POT ser, Nosferatu, 7, Prince) 2 Nikolaus Vermeulen (ani for obf POT, Nosferatu, 7, Prince) 2 Selma the Repugnant (ani for OBF POT, Nosferatu, 8, Prince) 2 Sheldon (ANI AUS for OBF POT, Nosferatu, 9, Justicar) Library: (80 cards) Master (12 cards) 1 Direct Intervention 1 Dreams of the Sphinx 2 Information Highway 6 Minion Tap 2 Tomb of Rameses III Minion (68 cards) 1 Ancient Influence 3 Bloodhunt 2 Bribes 3 Cloak the Gathering 6 Computer Hacking 1 Consanguineous Boon 3 Conservative Agitation 1 Cryptic Rider 1 Death of My Conscience, The 3 Faceless Night 6 Fifth Tradition: Hospitality, The 2 First Tradition: The Masquerade, The 3 Forgotten Labyrinth 5 Fourth Tradition: The Accounting, The 4 Freak Drive 2 Kindred Restructure 3 Kine Resources Contested 2 Lost in Crowds 2 Parity Shift 5 Pushing the Limit 6 Second Tradition: Domain, The 4 Skin of Steel Notes on Construction My original aim here was to make an effective Nos vote deck. Along the way, the plain usefulness of 2nd Tradition to block, plus 4th and 5th Traditions, morphed things into the toolbox direction. Once I noticed how many of the Nos Princes (and the Justicar) have Fortitude, all pretence of focus was abandoned in favor of total toolboxitude. Notes on Play The deck needs cycling. The Tombs weren't as useful as the Highways. The deck has a LOT of bloat, and would benefit from a little less. Two Fourth Traditions, one Fifth, and one Tap will be cut. As a result of the bloat, the Parity Shifts were rarely playable. The Bloodhunts were never useful (I'd thought to use them to cut deals with combat decks) and will be pared to 1 or pitched entirely. Off the cuff edit: Replace both Tombs with Highways. (0) Cut two Fourth Traditions, one Fifth Tradtion, and one Minion Tap (-4) Cut two Bloodhunts (-2) Cut one Parity Shift (-1) Add two Barrens (+2) Add one Death of my Conscience (+1) Add two Freak Drives (+2) Replace two Computer Hackings with Tasha Morgan, J.S. Simmons (0) Add one Kindred Intelligence (+1) Add one Succubus Club (+1) Total: 80 cards, as before. Tertius Note that the Nosferatu clan has a wide enough selection of vampires that off-clan combos are quite feasible (see Fortitude use in section Secundus, above). Fortitude: Nikolaus Vermeulen, 7, ani for obf POT, Prince Chester duBois, 7, ANI for obf POT, Primogen Selma the Repugnant, 8, ani for OBF POT, Prince Sheldon, Lord of the Clog, 9, ANI AUS for OBF POT, Justicar Marty Lechtansi, 9, ani DOM for OBF POT, Primogen, pay 1 blood for a press Lucretia, Cess Queen, 10, ANI aus cel for OBF pot, Primogen, +1 stealth This is a biggish but very fine selection for a vote deck; every one is able to play the Hot New Card du jour, National Guard Support, for instance. Three of the six can play all the meritorious Prince/Justicar cards. And Fortitude/Obfuscate just begs for Freak Drive backed up by stealth, making up for the relatively low number of minions. Auspex: Regilio, Seeker of Akhenaten, 3, aus obf Sebastian Marley, 7, ANI aus obf pot, +1 strength Amadeo, 8, ani aus OBF POT pre, Primogen, built-in Feeding Razor Sheldon, Lord of the Clog, 9, ANI AUS for OBF POT, Justicar Lucretia, Cess Queen, 10, ANI aus cel for OBF pot, Primogen, +1 stealth Harrod, 11, ANI aus CEL OBF POT pre, Inner Circle Again, a largeish selection. Auspex obviously leads to thoughts of intercept, but there are other things to do with Auspex, such as Precognizant Mobility or Revelations. Night Moves/Scrying of Secrets might be a useful tactic. This isn't as good a combo as Fortitude, because two of the three 'new' combos (aus/obf, aus/ani, and aus/pot) are available as in-clan disciplines with other clans. This leaves us with only aus/pot to play with, which leads to the Tricky and Unrewarding Land of Intercept Combat. Note: Both Sheldon and Lucretia share ANI Aus for OBF Pot, so if anyone wants to make a pentadisciplinary deck, have at! See you next month, gomi -- una ola de carne en la playa una mancha de sangre en la cara tu padre tuvo ocho hijos y los ocho crecieron torcidos