C.T. Phipps's Blog, page 14

Ten Tips to running the Cult of Fenris in W5

W5 Chronicle Tips

1. Ten Tips to running the Cult of Fenris in W5

    One of the most controversial decisions of Werewolf: The Apocalypse Fifth Edition was the fall of the Get of Fenris to hauglosk and becoming the Cult of Fenris. In simple terms, this means they went from being playable PC faction to being a non-player antagonist faction. This was upsetting to many people due to the fact that they were a very popular tribe and "Viking werewolves" was never going to not be a common choice of PC.

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Announcement - White Wolf fiction returning to print

Hey folks,

    As a longtime World of Darkness fan and writer for Crossroad Press, I am pleased to make an exciting announcement! Basically, in 2019, Crossroad Press and White Wolf/Paradox Interactive made a deal to re-release the Clan Novels, Dark Age Clan Novels, and Grail Covenant Trilogy as an experiment to see if there was a viable market for the tie-in fiction today. There certainly was and the books were re-released in paperback and ebook form across various platforms like Amazon as well a...

Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodstained Love review

    BLOODSTAINED LOVE is the latest supplement for VAMPIRE: THE MASQUERADE and I have to say that it is a supplement I was looking forward to a lot. I admit not entirely for beneficent reasons because my reaction to the premise, "a book about roleplaying love" was basically, "Okay, this will either be awesome or a car crash and I'm there for it either way." It's horrible but I'm being honest here and you can't tell me some of you weren't thinking the exact same thing. I'm a big fan of storytelli...

Renfield (2023) review

    RENFIELD (2023) is an action horror comedy starring Nicholas Cage, Nicholas Hoult, and Awkwafina. Bluntly, whether you enjoy this movie will probably be decided purely on whether the prospect of Nicholas Cage as Dracula intrigues you. If you like the prospect of Nicholas Cage as the Prince of Darkness, know that he could have played the role in a subdued as well as dignified fashion. Nicholas Cage did not do this. Instead, he went the full Cage and everything enjoyable about this movie can d...

Vampire: The Masquerade: Swansong review

    VAMPIRE: THE MASQUERADE: SWANSONG is a very difficult game to review and is basically a heart monitor when it comes to quality. There's parts that are magnificent with incredibly good writing, world-building, and character interactions. Finding these parts of the game requires you to read large chunks of the in-game codex and use of a guide since there's no indication you should be looking for these parts. Plus, there's parts of the game that are just outright broken and deeply frustrating i...

Tiamat's Wrath (Expanse #8) review

 
    TIAMAT'S WRAITH is the latest volume of the Expanse. The Expanse struck science fiction like a breath of fresh air and is basically serving as Game of Throne's slightly less successful brother in bringing genre fiction to the mainstream. It's a high concept series about wealth, power, politics, and an alien molecule that defies the laws of physics. Honestly, you can tell how much I like the Expanse in the fact that I'd still be happy to read the series if they ditched all of the alien techn...

Lasombra (Clan Novel #6) review

Clan Novels Reviews

1. Toreador
2. Tzimisce
3. Gangrel
4. Setite
5. Ventrue
6. Lasombra

    LASOMBRA is the sixth novel in the Clan Novel series that began with TOREADOR and will continue until it reaches thirteen volumes with a bonus anthology. It is the trademark series of Vampire: The Masquerade and was written roughly between the end of 2nd Edition and the beginning of its Revised. Gehenna, the apocalypse of vampires, is nigh with a war being fought between both the Camarilla (evil vampires) ...

Ten Recommended Vampire Novels

There was a time when vampirism was considered overdone, passe, and trash literature that was just popular because of its transgressive overtones that nevertheless allowed a bunch of a mostly female fandom to enjoy it without crossing too many taboos. That time was 1897 where Bram Stoker was already jumping on a very popular literary trend that most people had forgotten had been going on for decades by that point. Varney the Vampire for example was published a good fifty years (!!) ea...

Five Recommended Indie Novels for 2023

I made a point to read about three hundred books this year and while I cheated somewhat in my list, counting comics, I have to say that I enjoyed most of the works I read and managed to get my TBR pile underneath 230 books. Which is impressive because it started at about 300 and I was determined to read them all but kept adding. Yes, it is a vicious cycle, addiction to reading. Soon I’ll be begging on corners for Joe Abercrombie and possibly going to those vicious dens where they give out...

Ventrue (Clan Novel #5) by Gherbod Fleming

Clan Novels Reviews

1. Toreador
2. Tzimisce
3. Gangrel
4. Setite
5. Ventrue

    CLAN NOVEL: VENTRUE by Gherbod Fleming is the fifth novel of the Vampire: The Masquerade Clan Novel series. It is a series published in 1999 and told a thirteen novel story about the conflict between Sabbat (bad vampires) invading the cities belonging to the Camarilla (less bad vampires). A magical artifact called the Eye of Hazmiel was serving as a wild card during it and each new book's protagonist was a glimpse i...