Card submissions for library card to indy discplines

Here are some cards I thought out to the discplines of the various independent clans that I think could help those discplines and the clans that have them by either strengthening weak themes within them, or giving them something new.

Name: Familiar Face
Cardtype: Action Modifier/Reaction
Cost: None
Discipline: Obfuscate
Clan: None
Give a blocking minion -1 intercept, only usable by a ready untapped vampire other than the acting minion.
Reduce a bleed against you by 2. Only one Familiar Face at superior can be played each action.

Flavor text: "Always good to see that they are still hiring from the shallow end of the gene pool in these agencies." -Tansu Bekir, Assamite.

Art notes: An archetypical 'company man' in black suit with shades and holding a gun who is clearly looking for someone gets distracted by another similarly dressed person who is talking to him and pointing to a direction and drawing the mans attention that way, while at the same time in the background a woman holding a suit case gives a nervous glance towards the gunman while using the distraction to slip past. The reflection of the man giving the distraction visible in a puddle or another reflective surface shows him looking very different.

World of Darkness reference: This is another take on the various uses of the Mask of Thousand Faces obfuscate power.

How does this card address a compelling game need?: This gives obfuscate some defense at least, that Setites in particular could use, as well as a negotiation tool by being able to influence other peoples actions also.

Created by: Kari Mäkinen

Name: Coils of the Serpent
Cardtype: Combat
Cost: None
Discipline: Serpentis
Clan: None
Press.
Only usable before range is determined. This vampire gains +1 strength for the remainder of combat, once this round, this vampire can burn a blood to get a press, only usable to continue combat. A vampire can play only one Coils of the Serpent at superior each round.

Flavor text: None

Art notes: A setite vampire whos arms have transformed to strong tentacles squeezes them tightly around an opponent, much like a constrictor snake.

World of Darkness reference: This is another, more playable iteration of the same power as Grasp of the Python.

How does this card address a compelling game need?: Serpentis combat could use some help to be at least somewhat viable without requiring out of clan discplines (like typhonic beast does), they already have skin of the adder which is a good start, and this card should go well together with that to form somewhat reasonable combat module, while still not as strong as typhonic beast for those vampires that can play it.

Created by: Kari Mäkinen

Name: Blurred Speed
Cardtype: Action Modifier
Cost: None
Discipline: Celerity
Clan: None
Minions without celerity get -1 intercept during this action.
Only usable after a succesful action (after resolving the action), this vampire burns 1 blood to untap. A vampire can play only one Blurred Speed at superior each turn.

Flavor text: None

Art notes: A woman, moving so fast that she is basically just a blurred shape, running past a gunman guarding a door, into a room where some people are working some kind of shady business, grabbing a folder from the table, and running back out, before any of them can react.

World of Darkness reference: Celerity does not really have any specific powers, but this card is effectively using high levels of celerity to do things very very fast (or at basic just moving too fast for people to catch the vampire).

How does this card address a compelling game need?: Celerity is the one discpline that would be first one I would think when talking of multi acting, as well its all about being unbelievably fast. This card gives them multi acting option, although probably the weakest one in the game (requiring superior discpline, succesful action, costing a blood, and being only usable once per turn).

Created by: Kari Mäkinen

Name: Secrets of the Dead.
Cardtype: Action
Cost: 1 blood
Discipline: Necromancy
Clan: None
+1 Stealth Action.
Remove up to 2 minion cards from your ash heap from the game to search your library for another copy of each removed card and move them to your hand, discard down to your hand size and shuffle your library afterwards.
Remove 5 cards in your ash heap from the game to gain 2 pool.

Flavor text: "Whoever said 'dead men tell no tales' couldn't have been more wrong." -Isabel Giovanni

Art notes: A vampire is standing front of the tombstone at a graveyard out at night, talking with a ghostly apparition hovering over the grave.

World of Darkness reference: This one was inspired by the cards whispers from the dead and summon soul, so another take on the same power those are from.

How does this card address a compelling game need?: While the Giovanni might not find overly much use to this, due to them having govern the unaligned and sudario refraction already, it should help the other necromancy clans, samedi and harbingers with some recursion and pool gain. I am not sure if it should cost a blood or not, but gave it blood cost to be safe, it can always be removed if it would seem too weak with it in playtesting.

Created by: Kari Mäkinen

Klaital wrote:

Give a blocking minion -1 intercept, only usable by a ready untapped vampire other than the acting minion.

Weenie Obfuscate might consider this a strong card, given that it's easily cyclable. Negative intercept can be played when stealth couldn't be.

[LSJ 20010723]

LSJ wrote:

> 2/ Say A bleeds, B tries to block. A plays a stealth card, B has no
> intercept. Can A plays inf. Call of the Hungry Dead even though the 'loss of
> intercept' is not needed?

Yes.

Therefore, it's potentially much easier to cycle than most stealth cards. Most other such cards have a blood cost, a restricted timing window, or can only be played by the acting minion anyhow.

Klaital wrote:

How does this card address a compelling game need?: This gives obfuscate some defense at least, that Setites in particular could use, as well as a negotiation tool by being able to influence other peoples actions also.

I'm slightly wary of adding such things to Obfuscate. But it would potentially help a whole raft of vampires - Nosferatu and !Nos, Assamites, Setites, City !Gangrel etc. I would be concerned that they'd need an untapped vampire and there's often not much those decks would want an untapped vampire for, other than this. So you might well need a Wake and this, which might make it relatively expensive.

Klaital wrote:

Name: Blurred Speed
Cardtype: Action Modifier
Cost: None
Discipline: Celerity
Clan: None
Minions without celerity get -1 intercept during this action.
Only usable after a succesful action (after resolving the action), this vampire burns 1 blood to untap. A vampire can play only one Blurred Speed at superior each turn.

I'd be interested in giving Celerity some zazz back, but I'd be slightly concerned about the possibly of this making Toreador AAA type decks more awesome, certainly somewhat more rapid. Mostly, they get to choose between bleeds or votes, plus Alexandra's untap, though now they can get both.

I would also be slightly concerned that we end up a step further down the path where decks have the ability to multi-act or are not viable.

I started mulling an idea somewhat along the lines of:

My idea being that you get to the good stuff sooner so your actions are better, but without necessarily wasting stuff (which you usually get by throwing it in the ash heap, cycling with The Barrens, Fragment etc.).

I need to delete at least a dozen words from that ability, but you see the sort of thing I'm suggesting.

Well since it can only give -intercept to a blocking minion, it does require someone to actually attempt to block before it can be played, and its only -1 int to one minion which is lot weaker than +1 stealth. But certainly could restrict the inferior effect to being only usable once per action also if it is deemed too strong otherwise.

I like blurred speed. Couod be too strong @ big though

Actually, you can still be attempting to block and still have less intercept than needed. It would still be able to be cycled at [obf] even if the blocking minion has less-than-the-needed intercept.

Juggernaut1981 wrote:

Actually, you can still be attempting to block and still have less intercept than needed. It would still be able to be cycled at [obf] even if the blocking minion has less-than-the-needed intercept.

Yes I know that, I meant that if nobody attempts to block you in the first place (which is fairly common if your playing obf weenie and they have no serious intercept), then you still wouldn't be able to cycle them, except as reaction on other peoples actions, but yeah, obf weenies generally don't leave their guys untapped much.