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Vampire: the Masquerade
Lair of the Hidden: Time of Judgment: An Inconnu Chronicle for Vampire: The Masquerade
High in the Romanian Mountains...
Hidden from time and prying mortal eyes, Hunedoara Castle lurks amid the mists of the Carpathians. Home to a cabal of scheming Inconnu, the castle is the site of hideous rites. Who do these terrible rituals empower? Or, worse, who might they protect?
... A Vampiric Conspiracy Broods
Secrets revealed -- Lair of the Hidden is a setting sourcebook and chronicle that examines the plans of a forgotten cult of Inconnu. It covers the cults aims and goals, as well as presenting a terrifying haven of powerful elders for players characters to explore -- should they dare.
Lair of the Hidden includes:
* A horror tale that winds through the catacombs of a Carpathian castle.
* Information on the elusive Inconnu
* A chance to support of befoul the plans of elder Kindred that involve the coming of Gehenna
Hidden from time and prying mortal eyes, Hunedoara Castle lurks amid the mists of the Carpathians. Home to a cabal of scheming Inconnu, the castle is the site of hideous rites. Who do these terrible rituals empower? Or, worse, who might they protect?
... A Vampiric Conspiracy Broods
Secrets revealed -- Lair of the Hidden is a setting sourcebook and chronicle that examines the plans of a forgotten cult of Inconnu. It covers the cults aims and goals, as well as presenting a terrifying haven of powerful elders for players characters to explore -- should they dare.
Lair of the Hidden includes:
* A horror tale that winds through the catacombs of a Carpathian castle.
* Information on the elusive Inconnu
* A chance to support of befoul the plans of elder Kindred that involve the coming of Gehenna
152 pages, Paperback
First published August 11, 2003
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June 19, 2018
This definitely had the potential to be one of those two-star Vampire books I've been reviewing a lot lately, and if you had asked me about it soon after I bought it, that's probably what I would have rated it as. I was so excited to be getting a book about the Inconnu that I didn't look too hard at it, and when I read it and found that it was just a particular group of vampires all holed up in a castle in Romania with an explanatory intro about how they called themselves the Inconnu, but they weren't the whole Inconnu or even the same as the other vampires who called themselves Inconnu...well.
Lair of the Hidden is actually better than I gave it credit for, though, because it's a scenario book and not an informational supplement. It's about that group of twelve vampires stuck in Hunedoara Castle, who gathered there to study Golconda and later made a deal with a demon centuries ago to protect them from the Tremere and now can't leave. And most importantly, it's about how the player characters arrive at that castle and upset the delicate balance that have kept the twelve in balance for the last few centuries.
Ever year, the twelve gather to renew their pact with the demon to keep the castle hidden, sacrificing another innocent. This requires them to all agree. If they all agreed to break the pact, they could simply leave, but centuries trapped in the same building means they no longer trust each other enough to do so. There are too many old slights and no one will be the first to apologize unless the PCs manage to find a way to convince the twelve to put aside their stubborn pride and seek an actual resolution. Though maybe they will fail, the twelve's tenuous peace will break down and they'll start killing each other, and that will break the pact as well as the original signatories are no longer there to renew it. All the survivors of the slaughter will be dragged to hell by the demon.
There's a whole chapter dedicated to finding ways to get the PCs to Hunedoara, how they can get into the castle if they just stumble onto and what happens when they find it, and another chapter laying out the personalities of the twelve and all of their quirks and trigger points. What is it that each one wanted out of the pact? Who do they hate, and who do they still deign to spend time with? What do they do with their trapped existence, stuck in a single castle as the years turn into centuries?
There are a few oddities. The twelve mostly fit into a narrow age and Generation range, with almost all of them being around two thousand years old and 6th Generation. Even one of the sire-childe pairs, Danika Ruthven and her childe Anastazi, are both 6th Gen, with no mention of diablerie in the childe's backstory. Several of the elders have a note that their statistics are deliberately underpowered, which makes sense from a détente perspective, but it seems odd that Eshmunamash, who is 1500 years older than many others of the twelve, has a similar power level. Admittedly, this isn't going to matter in most games, since the twelve will far overpower any group of PCs.
Lair of the Hidden is only useful for one kind of game, but it could be a really fun game. For extra amusement, run it after a full run-through of the Transylvania Chronicles and watch the players try to reconcile that version of Saulot with the version in Lair of the Hidden. Assuming the PCs ever realize who he is. There's plenty else to occupy their attention.
Lair of the Hidden is actually better than I gave it credit for, though, because it's a scenario book and not an informational supplement. It's about that group of twelve vampires stuck in Hunedoara Castle, who gathered there to study Golconda and later made a deal with a demon centuries ago to protect them from the Tremere and now can't leave. And most importantly, it's about how the player characters arrive at that castle and upset the delicate balance that have kept the twelve in balance for the last few centuries.
Ever year, the twelve gather to renew their pact with the demon to keep the castle hidden, sacrificing another innocent. This requires them to all agree. If they all agreed to break the pact, they could simply leave, but centuries trapped in the same building means they no longer trust each other enough to do so. There are too many old slights and no one will be the first to apologize unless the PCs manage to find a way to convince the twelve to put aside their stubborn pride and seek an actual resolution. Though maybe they will fail, the twelve's tenuous peace will break down and they'll start killing each other, and that will break the pact as well as the original signatories are no longer there to renew it. All the survivors of the slaughter will be dragged to hell by the demon.
There's a whole chapter dedicated to finding ways to get the PCs to Hunedoara, how they can get into the castle if they just stumble onto and what happens when they find it, and another chapter laying out the personalities of the twelve and all of their quirks and trigger points. What is it that each one wanted out of the pact? Who do they hate, and who do they still deign to spend time with? What do they do with their trapped existence, stuck in a single castle as the years turn into centuries?
There are a few oddities. The twelve mostly fit into a narrow age and Generation range, with almost all of them being around two thousand years old and 6th Generation. Even one of the sire-childe pairs, Danika Ruthven and her childe Anastazi, are both 6th Gen, with no mention of diablerie in the childe's backstory. Several of the elders have a note that their statistics are deliberately underpowered, which makes sense from a détente perspective, but it seems odd that Eshmunamash, who is 1500 years older than many others of the twelve, has a similar power level. Admittedly, this isn't going to matter in most games, since the twelve will far overpower any group of PCs.
Lair of the Hidden is only useful for one kind of game, but it could be a really fun game. For extra amusement, run it after a full run-through of the Transylvania Chronicles and watch the players try to reconcile that version of Saulot with the version in Lair of the Hidden. Assuming the PCs ever realize who he is. There's plenty else to occupy their attention.
Displaying 1 of 1 review