In our first Vampire: The Requiem game, one player found that his character didn’t feel like a vampire, which apparently meant being able to beat up random gangsters and using the promise of alcohol to “seduce” high school girls. (We were kind of creeped out by the second one as well in our pre-Twilight innocence.) The disappointment drove him to Savage Worlds.

Do we think that the rules in Blood and Smoke: The Strix Chronicle will help to avoid such a tragedy in the future? Listen to find out.

Before True Blood, Twilight, Underworld and Vampire Diaries (but a little after Dracula), there was Vampire: The Masquerade. It was a time when email was exotic and we didn’t really have a name yet for those kids that wished for more mall-friendly goth music. Years later, we got Vampire: The Requiem, a game that was lighter on mythology and tighter on rules.  Now, in the post-Twilight era, Onyx Path Publishing, who Lyal insists on calling “Onyx Publishing”, gives us Blood and Smoke: The Strix Chronicle.

In Part 1, we focus on the setting. What clans are in it? Who are the Strix? Can you play Edward? All these questions and more will be answered.