Cairo by Night

Rating:
Summary: Best City Book Ever
Review: This is perhaps the greatest setting book White Wolf has made for Vampire: the Masquerade. Suleiman managed to do a wonderful job weaving together major themes, landmarks and Arabic words (as well as cultural sources like the books of Naguib Mahfouz and al-Jeel and Shaabi music) to give an outsider an understanding of what Cairo is like. The history section is also well done, exploring every aspect of Egypt's history from pre-dynastic times to the Romans to the Arab invastion and the Crusades to the Mamelukes to the British and ultimately Egypt's independance. All of this is very well researched but also does a wonderful job placing vampiric politics in the shadows behind mortal history. The conflicts of the Setites, Children of Osiris, Assamites, Ashirra and European Clans are all secretive and far-reaching but don't directly affect mortal history. Anyway, whats really nice is that the information is detailed enough that with but a couple changes you can run the material in this book in any time period.

The book then goes on to detail the vampiric divisions of Cairo, elysiums, historical landmarks and so forth. Lots of maps and so forth. It then examines the different clans in Cairo, based on where they hold power, as well as various vampiric factions such as the Ashirra, the Hajj (Islamic Nosferatu), Sabbat, Inconnu and Disciples of Anubis (bunch of Gangrel practicing Egyptian magics). Mortal organizations like the Arcanum, the Cult of Isis, the Ikwhan al-Safa (Muslim witch hunters), Setite cults and the Akritai (Orthodox Chirstian version of the Society of Leopold). It also features a new Thaumaturgy path developed by the Setites, and a couple Akhu rituals. Most of the characters are pretty interesting, though a couple (like ibn Khaldun and Kahina) are based off real life historical personalities. Not sure why White Wolf would go back to doing that.

The last chapter gives an overview of major themes in Cairo that STs can use. Things like basic beliefs of Islam, the Ashirra sect (Muslim vampires described in more detail in Veil of Night and other books), Mosques and Churches with True Faith, the Setite Courts of Egypt and some metaplot stuff. Lots of Mummy crossover potential, with the old feud between Sutekh and Osiris, plus some other cool secret stuff. Really a great and useful book for running any games in the Middle East.