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Vampire: the Masquerade
Vampire Gehenna (2004) *OP
The End of the World...
The prophecies of Gehenna were true. The world teeters on the brink of an undead apocalypse, the night when the progenitors of the vampire race rise to consume their childer amid a rain of blood and fire. As the fated Armageddon for the Kindred arises, what can they do?
FOR THE DAMNED
Drawing the Vampire Line to a close, GEHENNA brings about the conclusion of Vampire's World of Darkness. Featuring a sliding scale which Storytellers can custom-tailer the events of The End to their own chronicles, this book places the final accounting for the curse of Cain in the hands of the players' characters. Part of the Time of Judgement series. Hardcover.
The prophecies of Gehenna were true. The world teeters on the brink of an undead apocalypse, the night when the progenitors of the vampire race rise to consume their childer amid a rain of blood and fire. As the fated Armageddon for the Kindred arises, what can they do?
FOR THE DAMNED
Drawing the Vampire Line to a close, GEHENNA brings about the conclusion of Vampire's World of Darkness. Featuring a sliding scale which Storytellers can custom-tailer the events of The End to their own chronicles, this book places the final accounting for the curse of Cain in the hands of the players' characters. Part of the Time of Judgement series. Hardcover.
See also: Vampire: Gehenna, The Final Night (ISBN 1588468550).
244 pages, Hardcover
First published January 14, 2004
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
October 31, 2018
And the Antediluvians will make for themselvesFor years, White Wolf kept talking about Gehenna, the end of the world. In books like Time of Thin Blood and Nights of Prophecy, they ramped up the millennarianism, and then in 2003 they announced that it was all coming to an end. They were pulling the trigger and bringing the World of Darkness to a close. They ran a ticker on their website with news items that gradually escalated in severity, starting with long-dead man being seen at a party in London and ending with everyone at the American Antarctic Research Station and Palmer station vanishing, with the final transmission being simply, "The blood gods are here."
an Empire of Blood
They will rule with iron talons
They will wrench the hearts of all still alive
And the full sum of the earth's living will come
and live in the Last City, called Gehenna.
-The Book of Nod
Gehenna the book consists of four scenarios that escalate in apocalyptic fervor and effect on the world. Each is a separate version of Gehenna, allowing the storyteller to craft their own artisanal Gehenna scenario and all bound around by the Withering, a phenomenon where vampire blood gradually loses potency. The Generations of vampires all around the world rise, their vitae weakens, and the only way to regain their former power is to diablerize other vampires. This has the expected consequences.
Wormwood
This one always confused me when I read it back in the day, but being older and wiser, I now understand--this is the LARPers' Gehenna. A small group of vampires, trapped in a confined space, occasionally presented with moral dilemmas? That's perfect for a LARP.
In this scenario, Gehenna doesn't affect mortals at all. The Withering kills all vampires over the course of 40 days, except for a handful of the Chosen, who are drawn to a ruined church in a run-down area of [insert city here]. There, the PCs meet the Gargoyle Ferox and his disciple Alia the dhampir, and they have to resist temptation, deal with the other Chosen among them, demonstrate their moral fortitude and devotion to their humanity, and at the end of 40 days, the penitent are returned to mortality and the wicked are burned to ash. Simple and absolutely consistent with a storytelling game of personal horror. Of course, it means all the prophecies in the Book of Nod were completely wrong and so I find it completely unsatisfying, but like I said, LARPers' Gehenna.
Fair is Foul
What if...Lilith wanted revenge?
Lilith and Caine gather in the characters' city and throw down, and the PCs get dragged into it. Maybe they meet Lyla, the dhampir girl who is Lilith's disciple and avatar. Maybe they run into the Antediluvians loyal to Lilith, who never embraced any childer--except Ilyes, who Embraced Troile and has regretted it ever since--and get sucked into her schemes. Maybe they work for her and help her nightmare monsters invade the subconscious of the city, or work against her and fight off squid beasts from the deep. And in the end, Caine and Lilith gather and fight, and Abel shows up and tells Caine that he forgives him. Maybe Caine accepts and dies, or he refuses and fights. Either way, the players watch a battle between blood gods and then Gehenna ends.
It's good to include Bahari mythology, I guess, but not how I expected the world to end.
Nightshade
The PCs travel to New York to fight [Tzimisce] along with several other vampires and the whole thing is caught live on camera. Initial attempts to contain the Masquerade breach fail as other vampires come forward, and the Masquerade finally falls for good. Jan Pieterzoon leaves the Camarilla in disgust on learning that the Antediluvians are real, the Book of Nod is real, and he's been lied to all his life, and founds a new organization called the Nephtali which is an official government non-profit. Then as the world gradually gets more and more chaotic, with anti-vampire riots, vampires taking over smaller countries, and the blood gods awakening, the PCs witness Gehenna.
They travel to the Carpathians and witness [Tzimisce] fighting Kupala after [Tzimisce] takes over Tremere's body, travel into the ruined city of Kaymakli seeking an ancient ritual, perform that ritual and unveil the Second City in the deserts of Egypt with its statues of 23 Antediluvians, watch the Followers of Set try to awaken their god and be destroyed by him, travel to Australia and find the child that has the soul of Saulot in it, and gather before the Black Throne in the Last City where the Antediluvians are judged by G-d and Saulot the white lamb intercedes for the vampires. The Antediluvians die, the worthy vampires become mortal, and Gehenna ends.
This is definitely the most detailed scenario, with the most metaplot tie-ins, though Saulot as clone is kind of odd. Still, it's my favorite because the PCs get to travel the world and be proactive.
The Crucible of God
The Masquerade breaks due to the PCs, and they survive. The Withering begins and the Camarilla sets up camps to create new vampires just for diablerie, and the mortal governments create a new inquisition. Then the Setites try to awaken Set, and when it fails, they commit mass suicide to follow him to the underworld, and the deaths of all those vampires cause the Ancients to rise and they cast down the kingdoms of men. The world becomes a patchwork of vampire fiefdoms and feuding Antediluvians.
There's a lot of individual scenarios here that can be used in different orders. At one point, Lasombra blots out the sun, but it lasts three weeks and then ends. Malkav disperses itself into the Cobweb connecting all Malkavians, turning any Malkavian into an infectious vector of madness. Tzimisce awakens in New York and the city is nuked. Nosferatu awakens ancient monsters and rampages across the globe. The PCs are contacted by the Shaper, an Antediluvian who never Embraced, to help her diablerize another Antediluvian and ascend to blood godhood, but on the eve of her ascension she is eaten by Gangrel, who has melded with the entire planet. Tremere tries to perform a ritual on all of humanity but is possessed by Tzimisce during the ritual, who infects the entire planet with Vicissitude.
In the end, it all comes down to Saulot and faith, and hoping that the white lamb of Caine can withstand G-d's judgement, though it's an exciting ride along the way.
Gehenna is a good book and a nice end to the world of Vampire, but none of the scenarios are really satisfying to me. Caine only shows up to fight Lilith, for example, and while we all know that Caine is a cab driver in L.A., I would have liked more of a place for him in Gehenna after all the mythology built around him. While I like "The Crucible of God" as a game setting, since post-apocalyptic vampire kingdoms is always my jam, I don't really like it as Gehenna. "Nightshade" is the best to my mind, since it follows from the existing metaplot, but even there, clone Saulot kind of spoils it. How come Saulot is always such a good guy in these scenarios, after his face-heel turn in Transylvania Chronicles IV? Who knows. And I could do "Wormwood" as a LARP scenario, but not as a tabletop one.
I'm not sure what would have made Gehenna great rather than good, but I know it didn't have it.
June 28, 2021
i keep coming back to owod vampire because at its peak it really hits a tone that nobody else even tries for. it's messy and complex but occasionally it all fits together to make something that simply doesn't exist in other systems. parts of this book absolutely exemplify this. gehenna is the end of the world, and the variety of given scenarios shows how personal or impersonal that can be. it's so integral to the setting that the end of days is soon that this really had to be great to meet the expectations, and it mostly hits that.
there are four scenarios, two of which are absolutely fantastic and two which don't really hit the same level. the lilith scenario is a bit uninteresting and draws in characters who didn't exist prior to this book, and comes across as a half hearted bit of everything from the other scenario. it really feels like they went "well we need to have another scenario" and someone obsessed with wicca put their hand up. it's a little boring but only by comparison to the others. the "vampire superhero antediluvian hunters" scenario also suffers by basically being a half assed version of the final one, but with a lot more unjustified railroading.
the first and last scenarios are what make this shine. the first is essentially a reckoning of your entire history and an attempt at a sincere redemption with god. not many tabletop games attempt to have a metaphysical reckoning as the ending of their line, but they felt confident enough to take the swing. it's hard to get across specifically why it hits so hard but it's such a genuinely perfect end to a series about personal horror, to come to terms with what you've done and try to repent and be a better person.
the last scenario is essentially taking every "this guy is super powerful" story device and using them all at once. it's an absolute fucking mess of obscene, world ending things happening over and over and over. the prologue says essentially "this scenario is deeply unfair to your characters, but it's the end of the world", and goes as hard as it can from minute 1 til the end. for people who like to argue on internet forums about who the most powerful *whatever* is, this is like crack.
it's a great read, good enough that i tracked down a physical copy to read. i'll probably never actually PLAY a game of owod, but the themes and ideas are things that i'll add to whatever i do end up playing or making. manages to mostly transcend its origins as just a tabletop game and become genuinely fantastic just as a piece of writing. great book
there are four scenarios, two of which are absolutely fantastic and two which don't really hit the same level. the lilith scenario is a bit uninteresting and draws in characters who didn't exist prior to this book, and comes across as a half hearted bit of everything from the other scenario. it really feels like they went "well we need to have another scenario" and someone obsessed with wicca put their hand up. it's a little boring but only by comparison to the others. the "vampire superhero antediluvian hunters" scenario also suffers by basically being a half assed version of the final one, but with a lot more unjustified railroading.
the first and last scenarios are what make this shine. the first is essentially a reckoning of your entire history and an attempt at a sincere redemption with god. not many tabletop games attempt to have a metaphysical reckoning as the ending of their line, but they felt confident enough to take the swing. it's hard to get across specifically why it hits so hard but it's such a genuinely perfect end to a series about personal horror, to come to terms with what you've done and try to repent and be a better person.
the last scenario is essentially taking every "this guy is super powerful" story device and using them all at once. it's an absolute fucking mess of obscene, world ending things happening over and over and over. the prologue says essentially "this scenario is deeply unfair to your characters, but it's the end of the world", and goes as hard as it can from minute 1 til the end. for people who like to argue on internet forums about who the most powerful *whatever* is, this is like crack.
it's a great read, good enough that i tracked down a physical copy to read. i'll probably never actually PLAY a game of owod, but the themes and ideas are things that i'll add to whatever i do end up playing or making. manages to mostly transcend its origins as just a tabletop game and become genuinely fantastic just as a piece of writing. great book
October 28, 2019
Better than expected. Some of the scenarios presented in this book would actually make a decent bookend to a long-running game (or the game-line itself).
Others lack the scope I would expect from the end to a millennia-spanning saga of Biblical proportions.
Others lack the scope I would expect from the end to a millennia-spanning saga of Biblical proportions.
August 16, 2018
This book is superb, I couldn't put it down. I just wish they continued this story further.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews