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Vampire: The Masquerade Clanbooks
Clanbook Ravnos
Gypsies, vagabonds and charlatans, the cunning vampires of Clan Ravnos roam the night as they indulge in the most dangerous of games — lying to the liars, tricking the tricksters, and gleefully receiving curses from the Damned. From Bel Air to Bombay, from Shanghai to Sarajevo, these nomadic vampires wander where their citybound Kindred fear to tread. Now learn of the Ravnos' secret arts, and the centuries of hate that can lie behind a jester's smile.
Clanbook: Ravnos includes:
* The history of the clan, from Mohenjo Daro to Birkenau.
* Information on Ravnos around the world, and the bitter schism between Gypsy and giorgio.
* New Merits, Flaws and Chimerstry powers.
Clanbook: Ravnos includes:
* The history of the clan, from Mohenjo Daro to Birkenau.
* Information on Ravnos around the world, and the bitter schism between Gypsy and giorgio.
* New Merits, Flaws and Chimerstry powers.
72 pages, Paperback
First published December 1, 1997
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December 31, 2018
For this reason, certain liberties have been taken in the presentation of these enigmatic people, including the continuation of some of these misconceptions.
Translation: We wanted to use some stereotypes.
If you do that, at least admit it!
When reading this, right from the start, I asked myself whether they copy Jan Yoor’s books ever since I read that the fictitious narrator first met gypsies as a child in Belgium. As I progressed I was like "Yep, someone copied Jan Yoors. Just made it darker. " And come on, they had to copy the picture of that Jewish boy with his raised hands?
Shortly afterwards I predicted that I would either find this totally annoying, or laugh my ass off at the ridiculousness of it all. Not only was I convinced (after reading this stuff about uncorrupted Romani language) that this is heavily based on Jan Yoors, but all this talk about Ravnos being persecuted (chapter 2 is literally called "the persecuted") even though the narrator himself stated that most of what he knows are lies.
And when we got to the origins of the Ravnos it was getting more and more hilarious: now we have Egyptian werewolves with the gypsies and that stranger is Caine.
Not only did these "Romani" willingly accept a stranger into their midst who admits to be a murderer and to be Caine (and the first one openly) but now their blood even has power. And if this is Caine (the 1st generation vampire) and he embraced Ravnos, wouldn't that mean that Ravnos belongs to the second generation and therefore we have a canon break here?
No idea what is more idiotic, the fact that they state that the power to create illusions was taught by a gypsy girl who only had the power of clairvoyance or the stupid story of Ennoia's betrayal where Ennoia apparently did not even consider said girl's powers and so of course her betrayal would fail. Why she betrayed Ravnos? According to the book because she is a child of Lillith and so not accustomed to follow any man. That is stupid.
Actually this book seems to be kind of confused when it comes to it’s magic: Is the book saying the rom are doing the curse or is it the undead Ravnos? Because if the latter it should make up its mind as to whether Ravnos have magic of that kind or not.
When this came to the Nazi era this really showed how bad this is. Imagine: they write about war and genocide and it clashes so much with history and their own established rules that it is just hilarious what you read here. Whoever wrote that either did not care or had no idea about those times and this world's own rules, e.g. the death squads did not ignore gypsies at first, the entire German army did not hunt gypsies (or anyone for that matter) and concentration camp inmates would make very bad food sources for vampires.
At about half of the book this had gotten so ridiculous that they now (apart from copying Yoors again) claimed that what the Ravnos do is only stealing to the gaje and not the Rom. They claim Rom consider something stealing only when it is done out of greed (the examples come from Yoors' book) and Ravnos like them only value their freedom, to exist how they always have and value no possession, property or status in government and business. Bullshit and no wonder that in the revised version the authors stated that this is just an excuse of these Ravnos for their shitty behavior. Speaking of excuses: the "justifications" given for the criminal nature of the phralmulo Ravnos (who are really racist against the georgio[non-romani] Ravnos) sounds like the stereotype of a racist black American gangster trying to defend his own criminality. And I mean it; that is exactly how it sounds.
As a matter of fact reading about this gypsy seer Ravnos and how she, unlike georgio, has a compulsion to flaunt gaje rules reminds me of the racist theories regarding pure and mixed gypsies. In fact the entire book is like that.
I think that this book is either deliberately written this way because the author knew this is bullshit and just went with it, possibly to have a laugh, or actually believed that this is how “Romani” vampires would look like.
Translation: We wanted to use some stereotypes.
If you do that, at least admit it!
When reading this, right from the start, I asked myself whether they copy Jan Yoor’s books ever since I read that the fictitious narrator first met gypsies as a child in Belgium. As I progressed I was like "Yep, someone copied Jan Yoors. Just made it darker. " And come on, they had to copy the picture of that Jewish boy with his raised hands?
Shortly afterwards I predicted that I would either find this totally annoying, or laugh my ass off at the ridiculousness of it all. Not only was I convinced (after reading this stuff about uncorrupted Romani language) that this is heavily based on Jan Yoors, but all this talk about Ravnos being persecuted (chapter 2 is literally called "the persecuted") even though the narrator himself stated that most of what he knows are lies.
And when we got to the origins of the Ravnos it was getting more and more hilarious: now we have Egyptian werewolves with the gypsies and that stranger is Caine.
Not only did these "Romani" willingly accept a stranger into their midst who admits to be a murderer and to be Caine (and the first one openly) but now their blood even has power. And if this is Caine (the 1st generation vampire) and he embraced Ravnos, wouldn't that mean that Ravnos belongs to the second generation and therefore we have a canon break here?
No idea what is more idiotic, the fact that they state that the power to create illusions was taught by a gypsy girl who only had the power of clairvoyance or the stupid story of Ennoia's betrayal where Ennoia apparently did not even consider said girl's powers and so of course her betrayal would fail. Why she betrayed Ravnos? According to the book because she is a child of Lillith and so not accustomed to follow any man. That is stupid.
Actually this book seems to be kind of confused when it comes to it’s magic: Is the book saying the rom are doing the curse or is it the undead Ravnos? Because if the latter it should make up its mind as to whether Ravnos have magic of that kind or not.
When this came to the Nazi era this really showed how bad this is. Imagine: they write about war and genocide and it clashes so much with history and their own established rules that it is just hilarious what you read here. Whoever wrote that either did not care or had no idea about those times and this world's own rules, e.g. the death squads did not ignore gypsies at first, the entire German army did not hunt gypsies (or anyone for that matter) and concentration camp inmates would make very bad food sources for vampires.
At about half of the book this had gotten so ridiculous that they now (apart from copying Yoors again) claimed that what the Ravnos do is only stealing to the gaje and not the Rom. They claim Rom consider something stealing only when it is done out of greed (the examples come from Yoors' book) and Ravnos like them only value their freedom, to exist how they always have and value no possession, property or status in government and business. Bullshit and no wonder that in the revised version the authors stated that this is just an excuse of these Ravnos for their shitty behavior. Speaking of excuses: the "justifications" given for the criminal nature of the phralmulo Ravnos (who are really racist against the georgio[non-romani] Ravnos) sounds like the stereotype of a racist black American gangster trying to defend his own criminality. And I mean it; that is exactly how it sounds.
As a matter of fact reading about this gypsy seer Ravnos and how she, unlike georgio, has a compulsion to flaunt gaje rules reminds me of the racist theories regarding pure and mixed gypsies. In fact the entire book is like that.
I think that this book is either deliberately written this way because the author knew this is bullshit and just went with it, possibly to have a laugh, or actually believed that this is how “Romani” vampires would look like.
Displaying 1 of 1 review