Transylvania Chronicles: The Dragon Ascendant

Rating:
Summary: This is the way the world will end...ALMOST....
Review: This is the fourth and last installment in the epic TRANSYLVANIA CHRONICLES series of VAMPIRE: THE MASQUERADE supplements. The chronicle started in the Dark Ages and crossed over into modern era VtM in the third installment. Like other Dark Ages material, this series has been instumental in adding depth to VtM by giving the vampires a history. Like past installments in this series, this book contains helpful advice about running a century-spanning chronicle and playing elders (how vampires age, summarizing down time etc.) It has some advice for running this installment as a stand alone and how to get the stories back on track if the characters go in the wrong direction. It includes detailed rosters of major story characters. In short, it seems to be a really well designed module.

It takes the chronicle to the brink of Gehenna. It gives you front row seats at major events- the fate of the the Tremere antitribu, for example. A really good possible use for this book is integrating individual parts of it into other campaigns as a way of letting characters be witnesses to history independent of the larger TRANSYLVANIA CHRONICLES plot.

The problem is that it also reveals certain things about the Jyhad- the goals and machinations of specific Antediluvians, for example. There are big surprises here about just who the "great diabolical master of the Jyhad" is.

And that's why I'm only giving it three stars. This book reveals too darn much and makes decisions that I don't want made for me. Alternate possibilites for "what's really happening" don't seem to be offered. It's important to keep in mind that overthrowing established assumptions in an interactive role-playing game world isn't just a "surprise plot twist". It can play havoc with the direction of longstanding campaigns- previously thought in good faith to be well and faithfully grounded in offical materials. There specifically has to be enough ambiguity for storytellers to make their own personal decisions about "what it all means" without feeling that they are running divergent chronicles. (The assurance that "divergent chronicles are OK" is NOT the same.) The stuff revealed here trashes that utterly.

Rating:
Summary: This is the way the world will end...ALMOST....
Review: This is the fourth and last installment in the epic TRANSYLVANIA CHRONICLES series of VAMPIRE: THE MASQUERADE supplements. The chronicle started in the Dark Ages and crossed over into modern era VtM in the third installment. Like other Dark Ages material, this series has been instumental in adding depth to VtM by giving the vampires a history. Like past installments in this series, this book contains helpful advice about running a century-spanning chronicle and playing elders (how vampires age, summarizing down time etc.) It has some advice for running this installment as a stand alone and how to get the stories back on track if the characters go in the wrong direction. It includes detailed rosters of major story characters. In short, it seems to be a really well designed module.

It takes the chronicle to the brink of Gehenna. It gives you front row seats at major events- the fate of the the Tremere antitribu, for example. A really good possible use for this book is integrating individual parts of it into other campaigns as a way of letting characters be witnesses to history independent of the larger TRANSYLVANIA CHRONICLES plot.

The problem is that it also reveals certain things about the Jyhad- the goals and machinations of specific Antediluvians, for example. There are big surprises here about just who the "great diabolical master of the Jyhad" is.

And that's why I'm only giving it three stars. This book reveals too darn much and makes decisions that I don't want made for me. Alternate possibilites for "what's really happening" don't seem to be offered. It's important to keep in mind that overthrowing established assumptions in an interactive role-playing game world isn't just a "surprise plot twist". It can play havoc with the direction of longstanding campaigns- previously thought in good faith to be well and faithfully grounded in offical materials. There specifically has to be enough ambiguity for storytellers to make their own personal decisions about "what it all means" without feeling that they are running divergent chronicles. (The assurance that "divergent chronicles are OK" is NOT the same.) The stuff revealed here trashes that utterly.