Submission: Clan Lore

Name: Clan Lore
Cardtype: Action
Cost: None
Capacity: Not applicable
Clan: None
Discipline: Chimerstry or Visceratika
+1 stealth Choose a clan.
[chi] If successful this vampire unlocks and changes to the chosen clan until your next unlock phase.
[vis] Search your crypt and put a vampire of the chosen clan into your uncontrolled region.
[VIS] Attach. While this vampire is acting or attempting to block, vampires of the chosen clan have -1 intercept and stealth.

Flavor text: "How knowledgeable are you on ancient Assryian funerary constructs?" - Beckett

Art Notes: The museum of Natural History https://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/v__/images/5/51/Museum_Of_Natural_History.png/revision/latest?cb=20160706083641&path-prefix=vtmb

Yes, this is from the Bloodlines video game.

World of Darkness reference: Deception is second nature for Ravnos and it is common tactic for Ravnos to disguise themselves as another clan, especially when visiting a city that is not friendly to Ravnos. Thematically the Week of Nightmares alone made this very common. Thankfully, Chemistry is helpful in aiding a disguise with Ignis Fatuus, Fata Morgana, Apparation and Permanency. All from VTM: The Player's Guide page 130. In addition, Visceratika are very good at blending in and knowing the details of location. Using Skin of the Chameleon, Whispers of the Chamber, Scry the Hearthstone, and Voices of the Castle describe the abilities listed on this card. These are from Vampire Storytellers Handbook page 91 and Guide to the Camarilla page 115-116. The theme of the card is based around Kindred Lore and detailed knowledge about specific clans, thus Clan Lore.

How does this card address a compelling game need?: So this card does many things. First it improves Ravnos combo potential by increasing the number of cards they can play. This would be extremely fun to explore, but maybe not practical. Second, it means that Ravnos can disguise themselves as Tremere for the Gargoyle slave mechanic. Both clans overlap on Fortitude and occasionally cross on Animalism, Potence and Auspex. In pinch Ravnos would also be able to turn themselves into a Gargoyle. The Visceratika basic text allows a Gargoyle to put a Master for their slaves into play in case they were unlucky with their crypt draw. Slaves are unable to take directed actions with out their Master and this card provides a way to pull a Master for the slaves into their crypt. The superior text for Visceratika is permanent intercept and stealth but with a limiting factor that it only effects a chosen clan.

Created by: Justin Lacey

Update: July 5th 2017
Here is text from the last update

Some significant changes. So the crypt manipulation was great for Gargoyles but I noticed that it was just as good for Ravnos. If you only want to run out clan cards then Mata Hari is the way to go. Worse case scenario Ravnos can use it to put Mata Hari into their uncontrolled region which is really what I wanted for most times in play testing. Considering the entire point is to play out of clan cards then the more relevant text is to fetch cards from other clans which meant that the Superior text needed to change. The Superior Chimerstry is very powerful and I removed the unlock text as it was unnecessary.

Clan Lore

+1 stealth Choose a clan.
Search your crypt and you may put a vampire of the chosen clan into your uncontrolled region.
as
as and if successful you may search your library or ash heap for a card requiring the chosen clan, add it to your hand (discard down and shuffle your library).
"How knowledgeable are you on ancient Assryian funerary constructs?" - Beckett

jblacey wrote:

Discipline: Chimerstry or Visceratika
+1 stealth Choose a clan.
[chi] If successful this vampire unlocks and changes to the chosen clan until your next unlock phase.
...


How does this card address a compelling game need?: So this card does many things. First it greatly improves Ravnos combo potential greatly increasing their number of cards they can play. This would be a great deal of fun to explore. Second, it means that Ravnos can disguise themselves as Tremere for the Gargoyle slave mechanic. Both clans overlap on Fortitude and occasionally cross on Animalism, Potence and Auspex. In pinch Ravnos would also be able to turn themselves into a Gargoyle.

I share Ankha's confusion over the Visceratika slave mention.

On the Chimerstry level, I'm not really feeling it. A lot of terrible decks start with the words "Well, first I play Clan Impersonation and then...", and they're almost all terrible because they become very vulnerable to bad card flow. If there really were all these awesome opportunities for Ravnos to exploit, Clan Impersonation already lets them do it permanently, so they can keep recruiting all those Political Allies or whatever. (And CI has the benefit of working in your master phase.) Yes, this has a built-in unlock, but I'm not really seeing it.

Using it to help out Gargoyles as a master seems particularly awkward, as if you're without it for a turn (or it gets DI-ed or whatever), you can't do useful things with your Gargoyles - and you've made your crypt that bit more precarious into the bargain.

.

Now, what I do like is having some more deception elements for the Ravnos, that sounds like a lot of fun. But I think it would be much more useful if it actually did something to capitalise on hoodwinking a particularly clan or sect or whatever - giving you a bleed bonus against them, preventing them from voting against you, bonus stealth, getting them to aid you in some way, or whatever. And that would seem like a good opportunity for a whole Chimerstry card, with a superior.

Okay... cleaned up. The disadvantage I was referring to is that if no masters for the slaves are drawn in their crypt that Gargoyles are unable to take directed actions. The basic text allows Gargoyles to put a vampire from the master clan into their crypt.

Sorry for the confusion, in the original text the action was a D action which required a specific clan to already be in play. I forgot to remove that text when I changed other part of the text.

To jamesatzephr,

Yes, the Chimerstry text is a little underwhelming, I agree. Do you think it should be permanent with unlock? Basically, a better version of Clan impersonation for Chimerstry?

The basic text for Visceratika is way more important than the superior text.

How about this?

Name: Clan Lore
Cardtype: Action
Cost: None
Capacity: Not applicable
Clan: None
Discipline: Chimerstry or Visceratika
+1 stealth Choose a clan.
[vis] Search your crypt and put a vampire of the chosen clan into your uncontrolled region.
[chi] Attach. If successful this vampire unlocks and changes to the chosen clan.
[CHI] as [chi] and +1 bleed when bleeding a Methuselah that controls a vampire of the chosen clan.

Flavor text: "How knowledgeable are you on ancient Assryian funerary constructs?" - Beckett

You make a solid point. We could make it much stronger.