Vampire Book of Nod

I have been playing Vampire the Masquerade for about 6 years now, ever since I met my fiancé and I love it. For those of you unfamiliar with Vampire the Masquerade I will tell you a little about it.

@~~)~~~~ Vampire The Masquerade ~~~(~~@

Vampire the Masquerade is a role-playing game, (RPG), which was published by White Wolf publishing. They do not make it in this format anymore. Now there is a core rules book for all ...
...you are playing for example Vampire the Masquerade or Dungeons and Dragons. You record all this information on a "Character Sheet".

To play you will need a group of 3+ people. One will be the "Story-Teller", "Dungeon Master" or "Games Master" depending on what system you are playing. The story-teller is the person who has written the story and who relays this to the characters/players.
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I have been playing Vampire the Masquerade for about 6 years now, ever since I met my fiancé and I love it. For those of you unfamiliar with Vampire the Masquerade I will tell you a little about it.

@~~)~~~~ Vampire The Masquerade ~~~(~~@

Vampire the Masquerade is a role-playing game, (RPG), which was published by White Wolf publishing. They do not make it in this format anymore. Now there is a core rules book for all the "world of darkness" games and additional books for the separate RPGs such as Vampire, (now called Vampire: The Requiem), Werewolf and Mage.

The old format was a core rules book for each of the games plus lots of sourcebooks, (extra books full of information to help you enrich your games).

You can get the "quickstart" rules, (a condensed version of the rules so you can't start playing without forking out for the books), at:
http://www.white-wolf.com/Games/Pages/VampireRevQuickStart/html/v3qs_p2.html and the character sheets at:
http://download.white-wolf.com/download/download.php?file_id=228.

@~~)~~~~ Role-Playing ~~~(~~@

For those of you who are not familiar with Role-Playing:

Role-Playing games allow you, the player, to take on the persona of a character in a story. You create this character within the guidelines of the rules of whatever system you are playing for example Vampire the Masquerade or Dungeons and Dragons. You record all this information on a "Character Sheet".

To play you will need a group of 3+ people. One will be the "Story-Teller", "Dungeon Master" or "Games Master" depending on what system you are playing. The story-teller is the person who has written the story and who relays this to the characters/players.

The players make all the decisions for the characters. They are told the scenario by the story-teller and then they decide what their characters would do. For example if you were playing a blood thirsty lunatic and someone mugged you, you would most probably kill them, however if you were playing a tortured vampire with a soul you would try to get away without harming the mugger.

in most RPGs your character will go up levels after earning experience points and these will allow you to improve your character and they reflect the knowledge you gain and the strength you gain as you experience new things.

@~~)~~~~ The Book of Nod ~~~(~~@

This is the sourcebook I am actually reviewing. It is one of my favourites, (the other being "Revelations of a Dark Mother"). It is meant as an aid for Vampire the Masquerade storytellers so that they can create interesting non-player characters and authentic history for their campaigns. There are no rules inside this book, it is more or less the "Holy" book of vampire kind.

The Book of Nod tells the story of the first vampire, Cain son of Adam and the birth of the first of the Clan leaders. (Clans in Vampire are a bit like races. Each clan has it's own ideals and features). It opens with a foreword by a fictional vampire, Aristotle deLaurent, who fears for his un-life after writing these sacred secrets down.

I won't tell you too much of the story as it will spoil it if you choose to read it. I will how ever point out that this draws from the old testament and rumoured "lost" chapters of it as well and it may offend Christians deeply. This is not intentional, it is a work of fiction but no doubt some people who hold deep Christian and even Jewish beliefs may be upset by this book.

As I have previously stated this is a work of fiction. After the introduction is written as fact, it needs to be but it is not the "Bible" of a cult or an actual religious text. If anyone believes this book is true they clearly had mental health issues to begin with.

The cover of The Book of Nod is black with silver embossing on the front and back covers and the spine. The front displays the title and a circular symbol made of skulls. The back contains the blurb and the ISBN, (1-56504-078-3).

The book is a little larger than A5 and the copy I have is a paper back. I am fairly sure you can get hardbacks too. The book has 134 pages and is beautifully illustrated throughout.

There is a Lexicon in the back of the book to tell you the meanings of some of the words used within that the reader may not be familiar with.

As a sourcebook I have found this incredibly useful. My campaigns have been more rounded and full of myth and legend and religious significance. I have not let my players read this as I feed them a little information at a time to build up their characters' knowledge of their history and origins.

If you play Vampire the Masquerade this will be of interest to you, it is reasonably interesting as a story in it's own right but it will not be useful if you do not play.

@~~)~~~~ Price and Availability ~~~~(~~@

I got my copy of this book for a little over £4.00 about 3 years ago from a little RPG shop in Weston-Super-Mare. I have looked online and found the following places stock it and the prices they sell for.

Amazon has them from £21.25 going right up to £49.00 for the paperbacks. (I had no idea it was worth so much)!
www.gameskeeper.demon.co.uk have it in stock for £5.50.
 

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