Art by Samuel Araya for Vampire: The Eternal Struggle Fifth Edition.

Greetings fellow Methuselahs,

MAJOR TOURNAMENTS IN MARCH: GRAND PRIX IN SPAIN AND GERMANY

Two major events coming up - learn more details through the VEKN European Grand Prix page or the official European Grand Prix Facebook page.

• Grand Prix Spain in Cordoba on March 7 - Head organizer: Daniel Carretero Ferres

• Grand Prix Germany in Darmstadt on March 21 - Head organizer: Rudolf Scholz

Gonzalo in the middle.

GONZALO DEL RÍO WINS SOUTH AMERICAN CUP SANTIAGO 2020!

15 players showed up at Kaiju Sekai in Santiago, Chile, on February 22 to battle for victory in the second South American Cup tournament. Organizer Gonzalo Del Río tells Santiago was very happy to welcome two Brazilian players for this event, and that he hopes for more international players to visit in the future.



Top 5 after the three preliminary rounds:
Fernando Cesar, 9 VP, 2 GW
Benjamín Rojas, 6 VP, 1 GW
Breno Toledo, 5 VP, 1 GW
Gonzalo Del Río, 5 VP, 1 GW
Hugo Dey, 4.5 VP, 1 GW



Congratulations Gonzalo Del Río who took all 5 VP in the final with Week of Nightmares and almost 20 vampires in play, gaining 2 VP in the first turn with the Week in game, and the other 2 VP in the next turn. That’s winning in style!

Tournament winning deck: "Ravnos Cáncer"

Crypt (12 cards)
1x Ghivran Dalaal, The Dead God 5 ani aus chi FOR Ravnos:2
1x Andrei Puxon 5 ani cel chi for Ravnos:2
1x Anka, Priestess of Thorns 4 ani chi pro Ravnos:2
1x Khalil Ravana 5 ani for pre CHI Ravnos:2
1x Lazar Dobrescu 3 for Ravnos:2
1x Salbatore Bokkengro 4 for pro CHI Ravnos:2
1x Sasha Miklos 2 chi Ravnos:2
1x Sennuwy, The Promoter 4 ani chi for Ravnos:2
1x Spleen, Georgio Gutterpunk 2 ani chi Ravnos:2
1x Tsigane 3 aus chi Ravnos:2
1x Vedel Esbreno 3 chi for Ravnos:2
1x Zip 2 ani Ravnos:3

Library: 78 cards
Master (15 cards)
1x Life Boon
1x Archon Investigation
2x Not to Be
2x Pentex(TM) Subversion
1x Powerbase: Montreal
5x Ravnos Carnival
2x Week of Nightmares
1x Dreams of the Sphinx

Action (33 cards)
21x Embrace, The
12x Mozambique Allure

Action Modifier (9 cards)
4x Change of Target
1x Cryptic Rider
4x Daring the Dawn

Action Modifier/Reaction (10 cards)
10x Eldest Are Kholo, The

Political Action (9 cards)
9x Consanguineous Boon

Equipment (1 cards)
1x Shilmulo Tarot

Reaction (1 cards)
1x Delaying Tactics

Thanks to players, organizers and sponsors. The next South American Cup 2020 tournament is in Rio de Janeiro - more info on that on vtesrio.blogspot.com

Marshall in the middle.

MARSHALL HOGUE WINS NORTH AMERICAN CUP HAMILTON 2020!

On February 23, 16 Methuselahs gathered at the Mancala Monk Board Game Café in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, to determine who was most powermad that day. It was the fourth installment of the North American Cup 2019-2020.


Finalists' ranking before the final:
1. Kelly Schultz
2. Marshall Hogue
3. Jay Kristoff
4. Tim Fowler
5. Karl Schaefer



Congratulations Marshall Hogue, who got 3 VP in the final, Kelly Schultz got 2.

Tournament winning deck: “Marshall's Crazy Toolbox”

Crypt
1x Lutz von Hohenzollern
1x Unmada
2x Santaleous
1x Bloody Mary
1x Lord Fianna
1x Apolonia Czarnecki
1x Osric Vladislav
1x Morel
1x Gem Ghastly
1x Arthur Denholm
1x Bela

Library
Master
7x Grooming the Protégé
2x Perfectionist
2x Pentex Subversion
2x Wash
2x Effective Management
2x Asylum Hunting Ground
1x The Coven
1x PowerBase Montreal
1x Giants Blood
1x Monastery of Shadows
1x Dreams of the Sphinx

Action
18x Kindred Spirits

Action Modifier
6x Eyes of Chaos
5x Swallowed by the Night
5x Into Thin Air
5x Lost In Crowds
2x Confusion
2x Cloak the Gathering
1x Faceless Night
1x Elder Impersonation

Reaction
4x Eyes of Argus
4x Wrong and Crosswise
4x Telepathic Misdirection
2x Confusion of the Eye
2x On the Qui Vive
2x My Enemy's Enemy

Combat
5x No Trace

Thanks to players, organizers and sponsors. The next North American Cup 2020 tournament is in Boston - more info on that on www.vekn.net/north-american-cup-2019-2020

CARD CHANGES AND CLARIFICATIONS IN VTES LEGACY CARD SINGLES

A message from VEKN and Black Chantry Rules Director Vincent Ripoll:

Hello! With the reprint of the Assamite cards on Drivethrucards.com, we had a unique opportunity to dust off plenty of cool cards that had not been reprinted for many years. Most of them had their card texts updated to make them clearer and in line with our latest releases with no functional changes; however some cards have slightly changed. Here is the list:

Al-Ashrad, Amr of Alamut → Al-Ashrad can now burn locations requiring any clan (not only Camarilla clans).
With the recent shift of allegiance of many clans, remembering the sect to which clans are tied becomes harder and harder, and we would rather have players being able to play the game without referring to an appendix. It is the reason why Al-Ashrad's ability to burn locations is no longer restricted to locations requiring clans of a given sect, but only locations requiring a clan. Those are easy to spot since they have a clan symbol in their attribute bar.

Qadir ul-Ghani → The clan he changes to must be another clan than the clan to which he currently belongs.
Qadir could previously "change" his clan to clan he already belonged to. Considering that it is not really a change and all the rulings related to permanent change of clan vs. temporary change of clan, we decided to make it more logical.

Ur-Shulgi, The Shepherd → The Tajdid that is retrieved from the library is now revealed.
This is the continuation of the change we have made on cards that search the library for a specific type of card: cards need to be revealed to avoid mistakes or cheating.

Zahir, Hand of the Silsila → The contract that is retrieved from the library is now revealed.
For the same reason as above, the contract is now revealed.

Haqim's Law: Judgment → Can be used by anarchs.
The card's official card text had changed with the release of the RTR 11/05/2018. Anarch has been since then a sect on its own, and all the cards that required an Independent vampire and that could be used by an anarch have been updated to allow the Anarchs to also use them.

Some cards have changed to reflect some rule changes, for instance:

Condemn the Sins of the Father
+1 stealth action.
[qui] (D) Choose a clan. Lock all younger vampires of the chosen clan.
[QUI] As above, and each of those vampires burns 1 blood.

Poison the Well of Life
+1 stealth action.
[qui] (D) Burn a hunting ground.
[QUI] (D) Burn all hunting grounds controlled by other Methuselahs.

The first prints of Condemn the Sins of the Father and Poison the Well of Life occurred before the Keepers of Tradition rule change about targeting multiple Methuselahs. At that time, if only one player controlled all the targets, then the action was directed. Otherwise, it was undirected. With the rule change, the action is now directed to all the controllers of the targets and no longer undirected (unless you are yourself the only target). The reprint was a perfect occasion to update the card texts so they match the latest rules.

That's all folks!

ARTIST IN FOCUS: SAMUEL ARAYA

This time we have the great pleasure to talk to Samuel Araya, the Paraguay-born VTES artist of such player favorite cards as The Unnamed, Arishat and Old Neddacka. Most famed for his monstrous motifs, he will be illustrating several crypt portraits in Vampire: The Eternal Struggle Fifth Edition – you can see a preview of one of them above. It´s a Camarilla set, so maybe you can guess the clan?

Hi Sam! How are you doing today?
- Alo! Things are great, we just returned from a vacation with my girlfriend in Orlando. Went to see Galaxy's Edge, which was amazing, despite not getting into "Rise of the Resistance", ended up getting Kylo Ren's lightsaber out of spite, which is appropriate. We rode a roller coaster called "Rock it" on Universal Studios, which starts with you being carried 17 floors above the ground in a 90 degree angle. I have a mild fear of heights so I'm still wondering what possessed me to jump on board, as the G-force was telling me that it was a mistake to do so. I looked like a paraplegic Tyrannosaurus with my arms against my chest, flailing lifeless as I experienced the ride. Other than that, I'm resuming work and making sure our cats are getting the love their deserve.

What is your background as an artist? Are you educated or self-taught?
- I started as self taught, using photography because I thought I would never be good enough to learn to draw and paint. I used to believe that was a talent that you either got it or not, which is a lie. Turns out that to work with photo collages you really need to understand the principles behind drawing and painting, so I learnt most of it from books, as internet tutorials and the internet didn't exist back then. In 2010 I won a scholarship to take online classes at, the now defunct, Art Department, and I had the chance to learn from the best, which still feels a bit surreal. It changed my life.


What kind of assignments do you like the most?
- Monsters! I do love monsters and horror! Give me the Nosferatu, the Tzimisce, Baali, Harbinger of Skulls! Hell, I take Nictuku if you have! I do prefer loose descriptions or just to read the whole chapter or book I'm going to illustrate. I hate to be a "hired hand", I want to put as much of my personal interpretation and symbology into my art. For VTES I gotta admit I do love the crypt cards, since Christopher Shy was one the main reasons I became an artist, and also I have an interest in academic portrait painting.

What artistic techniques do you prefer?
- I do love mixed media, digital gives me the freedom to play around with all the elements of a painting and produce the best version I can. Lately I been starting with a very loose acrylic sketch on paper and building on top of that. Sometimes I'll take a photograph and paint on top of that. It's very organic, but fun and flexible process.
   I gotta say that the most important part and the part that never varies is trying to get a strong concept and composition from the start. After working the thumbnails to a satisfactory result, all bets are off.

So, you work with models and photos. Tell us more about that!
- Yeah, most of the models are friends or vintage photos free of copyright. I have a few things to say on these topics, for the vintage photos, so much in the modern art world it's about appropriation and some of it frankly disgusts me. I decided my take on appropriation would be the unsung, anonymous photographers of old. For example, I have a gargantuan collection of vintage nudes which raises quite a few eyebrows, but it's all about these strangers that exposed themselves and are now forgotten. Some days I like to think this is modern necromancy, raising the dead and reconstructing things are now just vague memories. I almost never use a face as it is, most of the time I cut and paste features to create people that never existed and I think there is something quite magical about that.
   As for photos of my friends or models, I just recently downgraded my professional camera to something more casual. Instead of obsessing about crystal clear detail, I want my photos to have less information, so I can fill in the blanks, and in my case, it makes the work more interesting, more characterful. I been toying around with shooting reference with a really shitty phone camera in the future, but let's see how it goes.
   I try not to be clinical about the photos, as all gaps and problems are meant to filled with painting. The end result may be neither a photograph nor a painting, but if it looks good, who cares?


You have made lots of work for VTES and others – what are you most proud of?
- It is quite difficult to say. I like to move forward and spend as little time on what I have already done as I can. Certainly, my series of illustrations for "The King in Yellow” are a high point, also I'm very proud of a project I can't announce yet, but it's about illustrating Lovecraft. For VTES, I love what I did in the last expansion, my best cards to date. And finally, I just love everything I have done for Tor.com, as these pieces are a very special, not only because I got total freedom to work the images I had in my mind, but also because the fiction was just the perfect fit.

What other work do you do these days? Anything special you want to promote?
- I have a Patreon where you can get screensavers and peek at my latest pieces before anyone else does, check it at www.patreon.com/ArayaArt. Also, you can buy prints of my work at www.etsy.com/shop/SamuelAraya. Thank you so much for the opportunity to share this, and all my best regards to the worldwide VTES community!

We thank Samuel for this interview. You can see more of his art at www.samarayaart.com, and check out his Instagram and Facebook. If you like artist interviews, these are our previous ones:
- Carmen Cornet
- Riccardo Fabiani
- Noora Hirvonen
- Ken Meyer Jr
- Heather Kreiter
- Mark Kelly
- Javier Santos

BLACK CHANTRY SUMMARY: FEBRUARY 2020

• The extensive VTES Fifth Edition spoiler season is ongoing! So far thirteen pieces of art have been previewed, all collected at the Blackchantry.com product page. More will follow, plus actual cards and details about the box contents. If you want to know more about Fifth Edition, please read Ben Peal's product update in the January newsletter.

• VTES is now available in the French language! The translated First Blood intro decks and Sabbat-themed precons were first sold at the International Games Festival in Cannes on February 21, but are now available in stores in France and other places.• The first official VTES playmats are now in production! With Mark Kellys excellent Parity Shift artwork, these beauties are made by Ultra Pro in the United States and should already be for sale in North America, but will appear in Europe in March.

• All the promised 115 Assamite VTES Legacy Card Singles are finally up on Drivethrucards.com. It took some effort with those last technical difficulties, but now Ur-Shulgi, Qadir ul-Ghani and the rest are available for purchase, all in updated templating and layout.

• Black Chantry supported the Flyos Games Kickstarter campaign for Vampire: The Masquerade - Chapters with the promo card Gabriel Tremblay. The card is exclusive in this special printing, but will be available in other versions at a later date. The campaign has ended with over 6.000 backers, but you can always late-pledge. Check it out if you´re into co-op adventure!

• Spanish language precons, both First Blood and the four 2019 Sabbat ones, are now available for print-on-demand at Drivethrucards.com.

• Currently 18 Black Chantry products are available through Drivethrucards.com and other stores:
- Lost Kindred bundle
- Keepers of Tradition Reprint Bundle 1
- Keepers of Tradition Reprint Bundle 2
- Heirs of the Blood Reprint Bundle 1
- Heirs of the Blood Reprint Bundle 2
- Den of Fiends Preconstructed Deck
- Libertine Ball Preconstructed Deck
- Pact with Nephandi Preconstructed Deck
- Parliament of Shadows Preconstructed Deck
- Anthology I bundle
- VTES Card Creator (Drivethrucards only)
- 25th Anniversary
- First Blood: Malkavian
- First Blood: Nosferatu
- First Blood: Toreador
- First Blood: Tremere
- First Blood: Ventrue
- VTES Legacy Card Singles (Drivethrucards only)

Do you have opinions or questions for Black Chantry? Start a topic on the VEKN forum, or contact the company by e-mail, Facebook or Twitter.

VAMPIRE: THE MASQUERADE NOW ON FANTASY GROUNDS

Of all the wonderful things White Wolf and Paradox Interactive have done this past month, we like to give attention to that the Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition Ruleset now are available on the virtual desktop tool Fantasy Grounds. Great in these times when many want to play tabletop RPGs but it´s often hard to gather players on a physical location. 

CALENDAR

Upcoming events:
March 1: Pataleta en el Eliseo - Oviedo, Spain
March 1: Orleans Classique - Saint Jean de la Ruelle, France
March 1: Torneo Mega XP: First Blood 2020 - Mexico City, Mexico
March 1: Instantaneous Transformation - Fortaleza, Brazil
March 7: GP Ibérico - Córdoba, Spain
March 7: Coupe de Paris - Paris, France
March 7: Anarch Revolt - Florence, South Carolina, United States
March 7: Vtes Rush - Alagoas, Brazil
March 8: Life is a Samedi - Palma de Mallorca, Spain
March 8: Tappa Cittadina Bologna 2020 - Bologna, Italy
March 8: Revolutionary Council - Fortaleza, Brazil
March 14: Granada by Night Mar 2020 - Granada, Spain
March 14: Road to EC: Field Training - Joensuu, Finland
March 14: Praxis Seizure Lyon - Décines-Charpieu, France
March 14: Birthday Blood Party - Szczecin, Poland
March 14: Festivo Stockholm 2020 - Stockholm, Sweden
March 15: Bloody March (en Badia) - Badía del Vallés, Spain
March 15: VTES Malaga 03-2020 - Malaga, Spain
March 21: Taberna VTES - Thinblood - Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
March 21: German Grand-Prix - Darmstadt, Germany
March 21: Tainted Spring - Pamplona, Spain
March 21: Delírios de um anormal - Juiz de Fora, Brazil
March 22: Undead & Bleeding - Darmstadt, Germany
March 28: Kamel Comedy Club - Vitrolles, France
March 28: Lublin: Bloody Ruby - Lublin, Poland
March 28: Powerbase: Sevilla - Sevilla, Spain
March 29: 2º Torneo VTES GTS Mallorca - Palma de Mallorca, Spain

For more information on upcoming events see the V:EKN Event Calendar.

CONTACT V:EKN

You can contact the V:EKN Inner Circle members using contact forms at V:EKN.net. Also follow the V:EKN Facebook group, the official V:TES Facebook page Vampire: The Eternal Struggle and the official V:EKN Twitter account @VEKN_VTES

“Don't surround yourself with yourself.”