Crypt card submission: Maatkare

Name: Maatkare
Cardtype: Vampire
Clan: Follower of Set
Level: Basic
Group: 5
Capacity: 10
Discipline: for OBF PRE PRO SER
Independent. D actions targeting Maatkare cost an additional pool. If Maatkare is blocked, the controller of the blocking minion burns 1 pool (before combat begins, if any). +1 bleed.

Art notes: Extremely beautiful Egyptian woman (noted to having been so beautiful as to being capable of stopping the heart of a strong man) outside with desert at the background, its night with full moon.

World of Darkness reference: Libellus Sanguinis III: Wolves at the Door (page 96). 4th generation, progeny of Set. Beloved of the moon. Set's concubine.

How does this card address a compelling game need?: Setites could use another 10 cap as there is only one in group 5 so far. Can fit in well with the various other obf/pre/pro, or for/pre/pro vampires in group 4-5, also has same discplines as Zubeida so could potentially enable interesting decks with those two. Her specials are also strong enough to make her useful in just standard setite decks that only use in-clan discplines.

Created by: Kari Mäkinen

could we have inherent votes, that's what seems to be lacking with the Setites

Klaital wrote:

Name: Maatkare
Cardtype: Vampire
Clan: Follower of Set
Level: Basic
Group: 5
Capacity: 10
Discipline: for OBF PRE PRO SER
Independent. D actions targeting Maatkare cost an additional pool. If Maatkare is blocked, the controller of the blocking minion burns 1 pool (before combat begins, if any). +1 bleed.

Feels a bit at war with itself, making the vampire feel quite costly.

With OBF, PRE, PRO and +1 bleed, you're probably not getting blocked that much or don't want to get blocked that much anyway. With only minor Fortitude, if you are blocked, you can't Freak Drive (inferior) to take another action, and Snake Drive requires a successful action too. So, what are you doing? Bleeding, freaking, then untapping and getting blocked doing something else? Why not just take an action that damages them for more than that? Your combat abilities aren't anything special, and relying on getting blocked is awkward - and you're slightly less likely to get rushed with your other specail. Or do you want to get blocked, then Form of Mist? Maybe it means you can play slightly less stealth in your deck, but you probably still need some for your other vamps. Either way, it seems to make it difficult to feel I'm getting my money's worth with the vampire.

As a 10 cap, you're usually looking for around 12 or so notional design points. 9 disciplines, are the rest worth three? And given the slightly awkward un-synergy, I'd probably want it to feel worth more anyhow.

blackday wrote:

could we have inherent votes, that's what seems to be lacking with the Setites

This does have the downside of preventing anarchy, and being a titled Independent vampire isn't especially great. (You're not really getting Parity Shift or Eternal Vigilance out of it.) But a vote-related special might well be nice.

Give her a "burn a blood for 3 votes once each referendum" and superior fortitude and its done. Maybe shed need to be 11 cap, but hey, why not? Hard to block, she could vote, and do the combo every setites has almost oulled off : heart of darkness and force of will bleeds, possibly dawn op.

I gave her only inferior fortitude so it wouldn't be too easy to abuse her special with multiacting, but more like make it an additional incentive for people to try to block her, because if they don't, she will possibly freak drive and do something else too! However you can still do it with either form of mist, or just the toreador way of change of target, majesty, or earth meld, perhaps with venenations added to the mix? She can also get homunculus and enkil cog to good effect.

There are currently four of the seven progeny of Set printed as cards, all of them are 10 caps, and none of them has votes (except merged Kemintiri), so I followed that trend with Maatkare also. Obviously she has no defensive discplines (well pool defense anyway, she is very good in surviving combat with for/PRE/PRO), so you probably want to play fairly aggressively with her, and her built-in aching beauty (and +1 bleed) help in that.

There are many different ways you could play with her which is good, you can either just go the normal setite way of heavy obf and not pay much attention to her burn pool if blocked special, or you can do shennanigans taking advantage of it with form of mist, earth meld/majesty, venenation, true love's face, mask of thousand faces, etc, or you could do out of turn action tricks with homunculus and enkil cog.