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Vampire: The Masquerade Clanbooks
Clanbook: Lasombra Revised
Born of Darkness
The Final Nights have twisted the nobility of the Keepers clan, turning them into the aristocrats of that diabolical sect. Their legacy of shadows eclipses the light thrown by their packs ritual fires. But are the Lasombra truly the esteemed leaders of the Sword of Caine or do they simply abuse it to serve their own ends?
The Lords of the Sabbat
As the next entry in the revised lineup of clanbooks, Lasombra takes one of the classic Vampire sourcebooks and brings it into a modern context. All-new information accompanies revised material, inviting you to add as much depth to your character as you like. The sheer volume of information contained in the new clanbooks (each with 32 more pages than the first-edition books) permits Storytellers to round out their chronicles.
The Final Nights have twisted the nobility of the Keepers clan, turning them into the aristocrats of that diabolical sect. Their legacy of shadows eclipses the light thrown by their packs ritual fires. But are the Lasombra truly the esteemed leaders of the Sword of Caine or do they simply abuse it to serve their own ends?
The Lords of the Sabbat
As the next entry in the revised lineup of clanbooks, Lasombra takes one of the classic Vampire sourcebooks and brings it into a modern context. All-new information accompanies revised material, inviting you to add as much depth to your character as you like. The sheer volume of information contained in the new clanbooks (each with 32 more pages than the first-edition books) permits Storytellers to round out their chronicles.
104 pages, Paperback
First published December 26, 2001
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
August 29, 2018
Shadow tentacles throwing cars is the truest expression of Vampire: the Masquerade.
As I mentioned in my review of the Guide to the Sabbat, the Sabbat were originally the the sinister vampires in the shadows, monsters who were hostile to both sides of the Camarilla-Anarch struggle. But that didn't last very long and all of a sudden they needed a rationale for why they killed people all the time and had weird powers and had to be put into niches. The Ventrue were already the Clan of lords, so the Lasombra took the position of the power behind the throne. The vizier, if you will. And as we all know, the vizier is always evil.
The Lasombra are defined by being the first Clan to destroy their founder, throw off the reign of the ancients, and adopt the mantle of responsibility for themselves, and most Lasombra traditions come from a place of self reliance. They make their potential childer's lives a living hell before the Embrace because they want to make sure that they can stand up to the cutthroat nature of vampire existence. They solve their disputes through the Courts of Blood, where disputants must represent themselves and, often, pursue the sentence themselves as well--if they are granted right of diablerie over the other party in the case, the Courts of Blood have better things to do than to haul in miscreants. If the winner can't seize the power of the Blood themselves, then they obviously never deserved it in the first place. And of course, Gratiano killed [Lasombra] and and took his soul, freeing the Clan from his chains.
Maybe. There's a sidebar that Lasombra history is hard to track because Dominate puts a lot of holes in it, and through the Vampire line, the date for Gratiano's supposed diablere is never definitely pinned down. It ranges from "early 12th century" to "early 15th century," though my favorite account is in the Lasombra Trilogy, where the protagonists go to South America and ask Gratiano and he says it took place in 1420, 22 years before Lugoj diablerized [Tzimisce] in 1413. 1420. 1413. 22 years. Before. Hmm.
One part of Clanbook: Lasombra Revised I really liked was the discussion of Obtenebration. There's a group of Lasombra who thinks that there's a materialistic explanation for it, but a very small one. When confronted by a tangible darkness that muffles sound, extinguishes light, moves independently, and can throw cars and strangle people to death--to say nothing of the ability of elders to step through shadow or drag people screaming into the shadows to the Abyss that lies beyond them--most Lasombra rapidly come to adopt a mystical view of their Clan heritage.
Another part wasn't Lasombra-specific, but it was a point about how vampires may live forever but don't actually have that much time. Vampires get an average of nine hours of darkness throughout the year, and that's if they rise as soon as possible and go to bed at dawn. For vampires with a lower Humanity who sleep later, they don't even get that much. Then they have to hunt, and Sabbat vampires have to perform the ritae, taking more time, so that the average vampire maybe only has 3-4 hours a night to themselves to accomplish their goals. A thousand years of night, sure. But as much time in those nights as a human lifetime.
But the problem I have with the book is that nothing else really stuck with me other than those two point. There's a comment about how Lasombra are seafarers, perhaps due to some predilection of their Antediluvian, but nothing is really done to develop this. I lament the loss of Lasombra as black angels punishing sinners, which was a huge focus of their characterization in the Dark Ages line and here is portrayed as having mostly vanished from the Clan with the death of Cardinal Monçada. And one of the most interesting parts of Obtenebration to me, Abyss Mysticism, which is greatly expanded on elsewhere, here only gets a page. There's good point that there are vampires in Asia because the Cathayans can't be everywhere at once, seemingly an effort to push back against the position that Cainites are here, 鬼人 are here, and never the twain shall live together, but it seems out of place in a book about the Lasombra. There's nothing that's bad, necessarily, but there's not much new outside of the info that was already in the Guide to the Sabbat. I already knew that Lasombra were manipulative and put their Embrace candidates to the test. Tell me more about those Lasombra pirates.
And it doesn't. Oh well.
As I mentioned in my review of the Guide to the Sabbat, the Sabbat were originally the the sinister vampires in the shadows, monsters who were hostile to both sides of the Camarilla-Anarch struggle. But that didn't last very long and all of a sudden they needed a rationale for why they killed people all the time and had weird powers and had to be put into niches. The Ventrue were already the Clan of lords, so the Lasombra took the position of the power behind the throne. The vizier, if you will. And as we all know, the vizier is always evil.
The Lasombra are defined by being the first Clan to destroy their founder, throw off the reign of the ancients, and adopt the mantle of responsibility for themselves, and most Lasombra traditions come from a place of self reliance. They make their potential childer's lives a living hell before the Embrace because they want to make sure that they can stand up to the cutthroat nature of vampire existence. They solve their disputes through the Courts of Blood, where disputants must represent themselves and, often, pursue the sentence themselves as well--if they are granted right of diablerie over the other party in the case, the Courts of Blood have better things to do than to haul in miscreants. If the winner can't seize the power of the Blood themselves, then they obviously never deserved it in the first place. And of course, Gratiano killed [Lasombra] and and took his soul, freeing the Clan from his chains.
Maybe. There's a sidebar that Lasombra history is hard to track because Dominate puts a lot of holes in it, and through the Vampire line, the date for Gratiano's supposed diablere is never definitely pinned down. It ranges from "early 12th century" to "early 15th century," though my favorite account is in the Lasombra Trilogy, where the protagonists go to South America and ask Gratiano and he says it took place in 1420, 22 years before Lugoj diablerized [Tzimisce] in 1413. 1420. 1413. 22 years. Before. Hmm.
One part of Clanbook: Lasombra Revised I really liked was the discussion of Obtenebration. There's a group of Lasombra who thinks that there's a materialistic explanation for it, but a very small one. When confronted by a tangible darkness that muffles sound, extinguishes light, moves independently, and can throw cars and strangle people to death--to say nothing of the ability of elders to step through shadow or drag people screaming into the shadows to the Abyss that lies beyond them--most Lasombra rapidly come to adopt a mystical view of their Clan heritage.
Another part wasn't Lasombra-specific, but it was a point about how vampires may live forever but don't actually have that much time. Vampires get an average of nine hours of darkness throughout the year, and that's if they rise as soon as possible and go to bed at dawn. For vampires with a lower Humanity who sleep later, they don't even get that much. Then they have to hunt, and Sabbat vampires have to perform the ritae, taking more time, so that the average vampire maybe only has 3-4 hours a night to themselves to accomplish their goals. A thousand years of night, sure. But as much time in those nights as a human lifetime.
But the problem I have with the book is that nothing else really stuck with me other than those two point. There's a comment about how Lasombra are seafarers, perhaps due to some predilection of their Antediluvian, but nothing is really done to develop this. I lament the loss of Lasombra as black angels punishing sinners, which was a huge focus of their characterization in the Dark Ages line and here is portrayed as having mostly vanished from the Clan with the death of Cardinal Monçada. And one of the most interesting parts of Obtenebration to me, Abyss Mysticism, which is greatly expanded on elsewhere, here only gets a page. There's good point that there are vampires in Asia because the Cathayans can't be everywhere at once, seemingly an effort to push back against the position that Cainites are here, 鬼人 are here, and never the twain shall live together, but it seems out of place in a book about the Lasombra. There's nothing that's bad, necessarily, but there's not much new outside of the info that was already in the Guide to the Sabbat. I already knew that Lasombra were manipulative and put their Embrace candidates to the test. Tell me more about those Lasombra pirates.
And it doesn't. Oh well.
March 18, 2021
Laaasommbrrraaaaa... I don't know what it is, but I have always been fascinated and drawn to the Clan of Shadows. Whether it's their mystique, their confidence, their darkly handsome beauty, their affinity for the sea, or their sheer edginess, I don't know.
But this book lived up to my hopes - on par with Clanbook Setite. The History of the Clan section was excellent - I've always been impressed by the level of historical and cultural research that goes into VtM lore, and this was no different; how many people today know anything about Çatalhöyük or the Sea Peoples? Whilst arguably of immense importance to human history, most have never heard of them. Yet here they're an intrinsic part of clan history - and it's totally fitting! Firstly, the inclusion of the IRL black obsidian mother-goddess of Çatalhöyük flanked by leopards was super impressive and frankly I am now convinced that she was a 4th gen Lasombra methuselah, perhaps one of His first childer? Secondly, the Sea Peoples would totally have had Lasombra involvement, of course, but what I realised this means is that the Lasombra were intrinsically tied to the Late Bronze Age Collapse, and the resultant Dark Age that followed... damn how appropriate! The author clearly did his research!
I liked how much of the book was told from the perspective of Andrew Emory and his sire, Demba, charting the course of his miserable life, brutal embrace, and despicable rise through the ranks of the Sabbat. It provided a character-driven narrative anchor to enliven these books (which can at times be very dry reads - especially the mechanics sections).
However, there was a surprising lack of discussion about the Lasombra involvement and infiltration of the Catholic church, which I had always associated them with. I would have liked a lot more focus and discussion of that, of their reasoning and methods and theological justification (especially with regards to the Cainite Heresy). That would have been very interesting. We could also have done with more discussion of Lasombra in Rome, as I always imagined them as one of the central clans of the Empire, alongside Ventrue and Malkavian, but Rome was little mentioned.
One thing that fascinates about Lasombra is how the clan seems to simultaneously revere and despise their despicable founder at the same time... especially that passage "Who was Lasombra in life? Perhaps he was himself a man of power. I suspect, however, that he was a pathetic failure, Embraced for some trivial reason, who flourished unexpectedly. Someone who had lived with real success would surely not be so obsessed with the matter forever after. Gratiano was perhaps what Lasombra wished he had been". What a paragraph. What a notion. I'm convinced. This was probably the standout moment of the whole book.
Ahhhh the Clan of Shadowsss... how I love and fear thee.
But this book lived up to my hopes - on par with Clanbook Setite. The History of the Clan section was excellent - I've always been impressed by the level of historical and cultural research that goes into VtM lore, and this was no different; how many people today know anything about Çatalhöyük or the Sea Peoples? Whilst arguably of immense importance to human history, most have never heard of them. Yet here they're an intrinsic part of clan history - and it's totally fitting! Firstly, the inclusion of the IRL black obsidian mother-goddess of Çatalhöyük flanked by leopards was super impressive and frankly I am now convinced that she was a 4th gen Lasombra methuselah, perhaps one of His first childer? Secondly, the Sea Peoples would totally have had Lasombra involvement, of course, but what I realised this means is that the Lasombra were intrinsically tied to the Late Bronze Age Collapse, and the resultant Dark Age that followed... damn how appropriate! The author clearly did his research!
I liked how much of the book was told from the perspective of Andrew Emory and his sire, Demba, charting the course of his miserable life, brutal embrace, and despicable rise through the ranks of the Sabbat. It provided a character-driven narrative anchor to enliven these books (which can at times be very dry reads - especially the mechanics sections).
However, there was a surprising lack of discussion about the Lasombra involvement and infiltration of the Catholic church, which I had always associated them with. I would have liked a lot more focus and discussion of that, of their reasoning and methods and theological justification (especially with regards to the Cainite Heresy). That would have been very interesting. We could also have done with more discussion of Lasombra in Rome, as I always imagined them as one of the central clans of the Empire, alongside Ventrue and Malkavian, but Rome was little mentioned.
One thing that fascinates about Lasombra is how the clan seems to simultaneously revere and despise their despicable founder at the same time... especially that passage "Who was Lasombra in life? Perhaps he was himself a man of power. I suspect, however, that he was a pathetic failure, Embraced for some trivial reason, who flourished unexpectedly. Someone who had lived with real success would surely not be so obsessed with the matter forever after. Gratiano was perhaps what Lasombra wished he had been". What a paragraph. What a notion. I'm convinced. This was probably the standout moment of the whole book.
Ahhhh the Clan of Shadowsss... how I love and fear thee.
August 18, 2019
Great and useful information about the clan's background, disciplines etc.
Useful samples of characters with their character sheets included too!
I loved it! It's a big upgrade for my character in the game, for sure!
Useful samples of characters with their character sheets included too!
I loved it! It's a big upgrade for my character in the game, for sure!
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews