by L. Scott Johnson
This variant provides a few modifications designed to stir up crypt selection by lessening the ability to depend on any one vampire. Hopefully, this simulates the World of Darkness a little more in that you can't always build a vampire to your specifications--this isn't Frankenstein's lab, you know.
The vampires available for you to influence (your crypt and uncontrolled region) are acquired from a common "world" of vampires. Each Methuselah drafts a vampire from the world in turn.
Construct libraries according to the usual rules.
Crypts are constructed by draft, which occurs after players have determined the seating order.
Every Methuselah "presents" (shows face up) a set of ten vampires. The vampires he or she presents must all be distinct, although they may duplicate vampires that one or more of the other Methuselahs present. All of these vampires are placed face up in the draft pool.
Each Methuselah builds a crypt of six vampires through six rounds of drafting, as explained below. The remaining vampires (four per Methuselah) are shuffled into a common pile, called the reserves, and are available later in the game.
Round 1: Starting with the Methuselah who will play first and going clockwise, each Methuselah selects one vampire from the draft pool and places it face down in front of that player. This forms the bottom of his or her crypt.
Round 2: Repeat the process, this time starting with the Methuselah who will play last and going counterclockwise. The second-round draft pick is placed face down on top of the existing crypt.
Rounds 3 - 6: Repeat the process, alternating draft order just as in the first two rounds.
After the draft, shuffle together the remaining undrafted vampires to form the reserves.
Golden Rule of Card Ownership--Whoever drafts a vampire is considered to "own" the vampire for the duration of the game. Actual ownership doesn't change, of course.
Starting again with the Methuselah who will play first and going clockwise, each Methuselah chooses whether to begin with four vampires in his or her uncontrolled region (as normal), or just one vampire. Each Methuselah who chooses to start with only one vampire gets 4 additional pool to start, and gets an additional four transfers during his or her first influence phase.
The initial vampire or vampires are drawn from the top of the crypt, as normal.
Recruiting at Large: When a Methuselah has no vampires left in his or her crypt, treat the reserves as that crypt instead. Any effect that would target the Methuselah's crypt now targets the reserves.
The Blood is Always Redder...: During the influence phase, the acting Methuselah can elect to remove all the vampires remaining in his or her crypt (but not the reserves) from the game. That Methuselah may then treat the reserves as the crypt, as specified in "Recruiting at Large" above.
The acting Methuselah can pay 1 pool to shuffle the reserves during his or her influence phase. This can be done as many times as the Methuselah wishes, at a cost of 1 pool per shuffle. (This is only really useful if you have some means of looking at the cards in the reserves, but that's your call.)
Inspirational Recruiting: When a Methuselah gets a victory point--normally by ousting his or her prey--the top vampire of the reserves automatically moves to that Methuselah's uncontrolled region (unless he or she is ousted at the same time).
At that time (and after gaining pool from ousting her prey), the Methuselah may move up to 4 blood from his or her pool to the new vampire. Doing so does not count as "transfers." That vampire remains in the uncontrolled region even if this amount equals or exceeds its capacity. It can only move to the active area at the end of its would-be controller's influence phase, as normal. Normal transfers can also be made to this new vampire during the influence phase.
Typically, the first vampires drafted will be the ones that each player doesn't want to see anyone else get, not necessarily those a given Methuselah can actually use. Since the first vampires drafted end up on the bottom of each crypt, it will take some time for them to show up--if ever, since the player could remove that crypt from the game.