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Road of Heaven
Chosen or Cursed?
God cursed Caine, but also laid His mark upon our Dark Father. We Cainites bear that mark even now. Many undead ignore our responsibility to the Almighty, but some of us do God's work here on Earth, night after night, until He sees fit to release us. We are agents of divine justice, mercy and retribution. We are the Faithful.
Devils or Angels?
In the third of the Road Books for Dark Ages: Vampire, we examine the Crusaders, priests, monks and penitents of the clans of Caine. Road of Heaven contains the history and secrets of the Faithful, along with information on their role in the War of Princes. God works in mysterious ways, indeed.
Road of Heaven includes:
The history, beliefs, current practices of the Faithful
Story hooks and character templates suitable for all Dark Ages: Vampire characters
New Merits and Flaws, Discipline techniques and advice for playing Faithful vampires
God cursed Caine, but also laid His mark upon our Dark Father. We Cainites bear that mark even now. Many undead ignore our responsibility to the Almighty, but some of us do God's work here on Earth, night after night, until He sees fit to release us. We are agents of divine justice, mercy and retribution. We are the Faithful.
Devils or Angels?
In the third of the Road Books for Dark Ages: Vampire, we examine the Crusaders, priests, monks and penitents of the clans of Caine. Road of Heaven contains the history and secrets of the Faithful, along with information on their role in the War of Princes. God works in mysterious ways, indeed.
Road of Heaven includes:
The history, beliefs, current practices of the Faithful
Story hooks and character templates suitable for all Dark Ages: Vampire characters
New Merits and Flaws, Discipline techniques and advice for playing Faithful vampires
96 pages, Paperback
First published May 12, 2003
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About the author
C.A. Suleiman
31 books9 followersColin A. Suleiman is a writer, game designer, and musician who has worked primarily in dark fantasy and horror for role-playing games and fiction.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
April 21, 2014
Technically the majority of vampires that are portrayed in a religious context are Christian; after all if they weren't why would the mere sight or touch of crucifixes have any effect on them? I think the most famous examples would be Anne Rice's Satan worshippers who considered themselves devout Christians, but she never went into detail as much as this book did.
This must be one of the first, if not maybe the first, book that actively deals with the topic of being a devout Christian and a vampire, which is especially interesting since in the context of the Vampire Dark Ages game line vampirism is definitely a curse by God and the vampires are the "descendents" of Caine, the first murderer in Abrahamitic legends.
The book gave an interesting introduction via the way of a short story with an unnamed "Crusader" and his Muslim host, which might both be vampires. Both also function as an intro to the basic gospel texts of these vampires and the book gives some first insights into the tenets and philosophies of the four main paths of this faith. However the story ended unsatisfying to me.
The gospel texts looked interesting and I can see how they can work as the basics of a faith. There has definitely been put some thoughts and effort into this.
As the cover, which is kind of stereotypical but fitting, suggested already that this borrows from Christian faith, mostly Catholicism. They truly put some effort into this relatively small book, even down to the congregations and as to why all three abrahamitic and other faiths are found on the Road of Heaven (it basically predates Judaism), but I think the whole concept here doesn't really fit with the limited number of vampire generations of this game line (the process of vampire creating vampire creating vampire etc. can only go on for at most 15 times since then the blood of the first vampire is so thin that the resulting 15th generation vampire is barely a vampire at all). But for vampires in general this is a pretty good idea and they take the nature of vampirism into account: I like how the system of the roads works (congregations, priests etc.), the short entry towards the other main roads and the high and low vampire clans (e.g. the horrifying looking Nosferatu often became especially devout) and their holy sites are interesting. Actually the new information on character creation, society of the Faithful (as these vampires call themselves), the paths of the Road and disciplines are really interesting and thought provoking. Also they created some nice powers. I liked those merits and flaws. The archetypes and concepts they showed were nice, however while these paragons of the Faithful were ok, I think they were a bit too nice for a horror game line.
And for all the good things this book has, maybe that is its biggest problem: It makes you hunger for more
But still. For all its flaws, I think the book makes up for them with its merits. The artwork is ok, the book easily structured, it's easy to read, the text easily understandable, the book is consistent within itself and the game systems easy to use and it has good ideas for flashing out your vampire society.
This must be one of the first, if not maybe the first, book that actively deals with the topic of being a devout Christian and a vampire, which is especially interesting since in the context of the Vampire Dark Ages game line vampirism is definitely a curse by God and the vampires are the "descendents" of Caine, the first murderer in Abrahamitic legends.
The book gave an interesting introduction via the way of a short story with an unnamed "Crusader" and his Muslim host, which might both be vampires. Both also function as an intro to the basic gospel texts of these vampires and the book gives some first insights into the tenets and philosophies of the four main paths of this faith. However the story ended unsatisfying to me.
The gospel texts looked interesting and I can see how they can work as the basics of a faith. There has definitely been put some thoughts and effort into this.
As the cover, which is kind of stereotypical but fitting, suggested already that this borrows from Christian faith, mostly Catholicism. They truly put some effort into this relatively small book, even down to the congregations and as to why all three abrahamitic and other faiths are found on the Road of Heaven (it basically predates Judaism), but I think the whole concept here doesn't really fit with the limited number of vampire generations of this game line (the process of vampire creating vampire creating vampire etc. can only go on for at most 15 times since then the blood of the first vampire is so thin that the resulting 15th generation vampire is barely a vampire at all). But for vampires in general this is a pretty good idea and they take the nature of vampirism into account: I like how the system of the roads works (congregations, priests etc.), the short entry towards the other main roads and the high and low vampire clans (e.g. the horrifying looking Nosferatu often became especially devout) and their holy sites are interesting. Actually the new information on character creation, society of the Faithful (as these vampires call themselves), the paths of the Road and disciplines are really interesting and thought provoking. Also they created some nice powers. I liked those merits and flaws. The archetypes and concepts they showed were nice, however while these paragons of the Faithful were ok, I think they were a bit too nice for a horror game line.
And for all the good things this book has, maybe that is its biggest problem: It makes you hunger for more
But still. For all its flaws, I think the book makes up for them with its merits. The artwork is ok, the book easily structured, it's easy to read, the text easily understandable, the book is consistent within itself and the game systems easy to use and it has good ideas for flashing out your vampire society.
Displaying 1 of 1 review