Gehenna

I got the Gehenna book for Vampire on Wednesday, and have since devoured it. Given that it was an act of sheer madness to end the World of Darkness, I was somewhat eager to find out how they did it. There are no spoilers below.

Gehenna is a 244-page black and white hardback from White Wolf. It cost me £17.99. The book has six chapters and two appendices.

Chapter one briefly outlines the events leading to Gehenna, the secret status of the Antediluvians, and such things. It discusses some of the powers involved in Gehenna, and discusses how they might react to the events in the book. However, this chapter does not answer any questions in a definitive manner - it provides possibilities and the most likely reactions to each. This is probably a good approach, firstly because it puts the power in the hands of the Storyteller, and secondly because no set of answers could ever satisfy everyone.

Chapter 2 through 5 present not one but four different visions of Gehenna. These each deal with different types of storytelling, from the personal to the epic, and cover different themes found in the game. They also take different approaches to the vampiric myth, playing on biblical origins, the Lilith cycle, the Antedluvians, and the Masquerade. Of the four stories, my favourite is definately the first, which is also the least explosive in nature.

These stories avoid a key failing that I've seen in WW prepublished adventures in the past, in that they put the PCs squarely in the centre of the frame. With the exception of the last story, the actions of the PCs are the most important events in the scenario. In the last chapter, the Antediluvians take centre stage, and the action consists largely of one event following another, each of greater power than the last, and none in a manner that PCs can really influence, merely observe. I didn't like the last scenario for this reason. The others were fine. It should be pointed out that these visions of Gehenna are essentially mutually exclusive. You could combine elements from one with the events of another, but the amount of work needed to do so would be considerable (less so for combining the last two, but still extensive).

It should also be pointed out that the four scenarios between them cover groups of almost any power level. From the rawest thin-blooded neonate to the oldest and most powerful elder, one of these stories should be appropriate. Alas, the Storyteller's preferred Gehenna might not match the power of his group...

Chapter 6 discusses storytelling the end of the world, and has a lot of interesting things to say. It speaks about personalising the story, not holding back, not being especially bound by "fairness", and putting the PCs at centre stage. This was all useful material, which might have been helpful when I ran my own version of Gehenna some time ago. Or perhaps not, since I think that campaign was probably too far gone by then.

Appendix 1 provides sample characters for the adventures in the book. These are mostly well-known vampires, such as Sascha Vykos, Hesha and Dr. Netchurch. Appendix 2 discusses Caine, and the viability of actually using him in a Gehenna story. Perhaps oddly, only one of the four stories features Caine in any significant way, and the appendix seems to advise against doing so.

Two things leapt out at me from this book. Firstly, it is a very fitting end to the Vampire line. In some ways, I wish I had been running a Vampire game for the past year, to allow me to use it. I wouldn't use this book for a one-off game, and probably won't now get the chance to use it as written at all (I imagine that a book of adventures like this will lose its value quite quickly after publication, given how important it is to the metaplot). However, I did like the sense of finality that came from closing the covers on this book after finishing it.

The other thing that surprised me is how rules-light this book is. I guess I've become used to d20 adventures again, where you get a bunch of encounter areas, coupled with stats. The adventures in this book are almost entirely missing stats for enemies. The Antediluvians are never properly statted out, and Caine isn't even touched. This is intentional, to allow the Storyteller to tailor challenges to his PCs, but it still came as rather a surprise, and perhaps a disappointment.

I'm also gutted that it seems we'll never find out what two words Xavier said to the Camarilla Inner Circle when the Gangrel seceeded. Alas.