1 day, a handful of weeks ago, I received a message from the incomparable Camdon Wright. Camdon asked me if I would be interested in searching at Thousand Year Old Vampire, a single player “journaling” RPG by Tim Hutchings, Kickstarted in November of 2018.
When I began reading by means of the PDF, I was seized with a cold and compelling believed. My greatest regret is that I can not generally playtest the games I am reviewing. This believed clouded my brain, burrowing deep into my consciousness, and brought on me to concentrate on a singular aspiration—I could play this game!
This is when I realized that I was doomed. Camdon had turned me into a vampire.
Content material Warnings
I’m not preparing on spending also a great deal time on the potentially problematic elements of the concerns in this game, but I did want to problem a warning up front. The game intentionally asks you some challenging concerns, and puts you in poor circumstances exactly where your vampire is probably to do terrible items.
Simply because the prompts ask you pointed concerns to establish your abilities, sources, and contacts, when they reference these products that you have generated, you have to resolve concerns by means of the lens of the abilities and sources you have. This generally signifies that when all you have is a hammer, every single mortal appears like a nail.
Even though I’m not preparing on creating the alternatives also detailed, the game does funnel you towards the consequences of immortality and losing touch with humanity, so it might touch on some challenges like the cheapening of human life, resolving threats by means of violence, and other events in the vampire’s history.
How Does it Perform?
The game asks you a quantity of concerns to establish your character, such as the generation of abilities, sources, memories, mortals, and immortals in the story.
You can only have 5 total memories, with 3 experiences below every memory. Your experiences are basically the answers to the concerns that you produce from the prompts. At some point, you start off to shed memories. You can start off a journal to save memories, but the journal is a physical object that you can shed, and these memories, as soon as saved, are not actually “part” of you any longer.
A variety of prompts will ask you to commit sources or verify off abilities to resolve a predicament. That signifies that if you only have a particular talent to resolve anything, you need to have to answer the prompt in a manner that incorporates that talent.
You roll d10 and subtract d6 from this, and this tells you how numerous prompts to jump ahead. The additional forward in the prompts that you move, the closer you get to a query that basically draws an finish to the story of your vampire.
Inspiration
How did I come up with my beginning point? If you know me, if you give me infinite solutions, I will commit infinite time attempting to narrow down my solutions. To break this loop, I looked up an occasion precisely a thousand years from the date I was producing my vampire.
The occasion I identified in 1019 was Yaroslav I becoming the Grand Prince of Kiev with the support of the Novgorodians and Varangian mercenaries. This distinct occasion jumped out at me for a single reason—Godbrand, the Viking vampire from the Castlevania animated series on Netflix (voiced by Peter Stormare) was a single of my favored characters in the series. Viking vampire it is!
Our Vampire
We’re going to wrap items up by summarizing the vampire I produced from the initial prompts in the game. As I answered concerns, right here is what created:
Expertise
- Killing with heavy weapons
- Enduring hardships on the road
- Understanding what organization partners to trust
Sources
- My loyal troops
- My hoard of gold
- The goodwill of other Varangian mercenaries
Mortals
- Ranssi—the broker that identified our band and created us wealthy as mercenaries
- Anichka—the lady I have fallen in adore with in Kiev, that my buddies worry has created me soft
- Konstantin—the Novgorodian soldier that causes difficulty and hates my guys as outsiders
Immortal
- The Black Wolf—a supernaturally significant wolf that savaged me in the woods, and left me for dead. It is aspect of the neighborhood legends that all of us assumed was but a story to scare kids.
Marks
- My fangs are generally present
Memory #1
- Knowledge #1I am Jorgrimr, son of Julfir, come to Kiev to support the Good Prince safe his throne, for the guarantee of gold.
Memory #two
Memory #three
- Knowledge #1Just after the city is secured, Konstantin’s troops threaten us, but Ranssi calms absolutely everyone with his words.
Memory #four
Memory #five
- Knowledge #1I travel into the wilderness to duel with Konstantin, to rid myself of him. As an alternative, a large black wolf savages me, and I inherit its fangs.
Future Installments I am currently worried that the prompts are going to tear my heart out as I deal with my bonds to my fellow mercenaries and Anichka.
In this initial short article, I wanted to concentrate on just the creation of my vampire. I am currently worried that the prompts are going to tear my heart out as I deal with my bonds to my fellow mercenaries and Anichka. I’m currently hoping the persons closest to me finish up just . . . drifting away, rather than facing what I have turn out to be, and what that signifies for them. Tragedy appropriate from the start off!
Journaling Games
Even though we’re speaking about journaling games, have you ever played a single prior to? Which a single? Did you really feel like sharing that journal, or was it anything that felt deeply individual when you completed? Has playing a journaling game every single offered you tips for other games that you could be playing or operating?
As generally, we would adore to hear about this in the comments beneath. I’ll be searching for your responses. From the shadows. Hungrily. Are my teeth expanding?
Camdon!
This post is brought to you by our amazing patron Craig, supporting us due to the fact December 2017! Thanks for assisting us retain the stew fires going!