submission: Keeper of the Faith tzimisce

hi all

it s my first try... so don t hesitate to tell me what s wrong and possible improvement.

Name: Keeper of faith

Cardtype: vampire, tzimisce

Capacity: 7



group : 5

Independent. Everytime a D action is attempted by another methuselah minion on unique master or equipment in play you control, the keeper of faith untaps and must attempt to block, if the block is not successful, she loses one blood. Once per combat, if the range is close, she can spend a blood to get one press only usable to continue combat. -1 stealth.

Art notes: always described as a monk or a cloaked character who did not have a real face (no eyes, nor nose nor mouth nor ears) but random tentacles.

World of Darkness reference:
character described in constantinople by night. The character was sired by the drakon. Very little is said about her (the keeper is always described as she) in the constantinople book except that she was in charge to give information to the dragon about events in constantinople and that she was in duty for the library of the forgotten. She is also quoted to have wittness the arson of the alexandrian library and to have tried in vain to save as much as she could from it.

Reasons for capacity, discipline and so on and how does this card address a compelling game need?:
first : the librarian aspect :
the keeper of faith was always described as only concerned for knowledge purposes and protecting the dragon interest. She was however not involved in politics (so consequently no vote) and not so much either in kindred society. So with her special ability, she would be able to defend a powerbase montreal for instance or fragment of nod but nor an army of rats (normal, rats eat books, so why defend them).
It s one of the reason too i gave her AUS as it is a clan discipline, and as it suited both the aspect of supervisor rôle given by the dragon to his childe.
After to reflect her strong dedication to protecting knowledge and to limit the power to be able to untap at every d action against unique master and equipment that her controller has, i put also 2 side effect to her special ability which limits her power as a wall :
- it s mandatory that she tries to block such action
- she burns one blood on such block if unsuccessful
so even with a rack, keeper of faith 's predator may or even his prey may have interest to take action at her controller masters or/and equipment either in order to force the keeper to block and so to get taped. I considered it as quite a strong disavantage as it limits for instance interaction with other players. For instance, if i control a powerbase montreal and a keeper of faith, my potential friends at the table will not try to borrow it from me or it will cost them at least some obscufate to get it without getting into fight.
on the other side, about deck building, its controller may have interest to put no unique master card suche as powerbase montreal or paths of metamorphosis in order to just use her as a midcap wall with AUS and VIC.
Fortitude is linked also to her librarian aspect. As she is said to have tried to save as much document from the arson in alexandria as possible, she must then have had a way to survive.
On game level, fortitude allows her too to limit somehow the impact of fight. As she risks losing blood from not blocking, it s important she has a way to keep her blood and to limit her blood loss in fight, specially as she might be blocked quite easily. As a librarian, she is supposed to stay mostly in her library, freak drive strategy and combination would be quite costful for her.

second : the octopus aspect
the keeper has always been described much or less close with an octopus face.
As an octopus face, i thought it important too that she could use grapple cards so i put her basic potence and basic serpentis (the later can be explained too by her time in Egypt in alexandria) and i allowed her to be able to use a press for one blood if she was at close to emphasize the grapple aspect.
To reflect her monstrous aspect (and that she did not care to alter her own apparence with vicissitude to meet social human standard) i put her -1 stealth. It goes well with the fact that she gets attention any time she is moving around.
On game level :
his disciplines (potence and serpentis) allows some build in relation with such minion as group 4 buipe kuila for the intercept/typhon beast side.
with some habringer of skull and ventrue anti tribu for auspex and fortitude
with most of osebos for auspex and potence
its interaction are limited with tzimisce due to her lack of animalism. I voluntary dropped it from her as i had difficulties to imagine her speaking or communicating with animals to defend her library. It would have allow her to make deep song but i did not feel like it was her purpose...
same carrion crows or army of rats : i would hardly imagine her summoning them in her library.
I wondered about necromancy to reinforce her links toward habringer and as a pawn of the dragon to check the former cappadoccian city of byzar, it would have been logical to her to try to developp some knowledge to avoid wraiths wreckages.
I wondered too about giving her a basic +1 intercept but i would have then to increase her capacity by 2 which would be 9 then, which seemed to me too much even if maybe more logical due to her family links to the dragon.
at the moment i followed the clans guidelines so she got 7 cap for disciplines (2 x sup + 3 x inf )+ 0.5 for her limited grapple abilty + 0.5 for her limited untap - 1 for her malus for stealth.

Created by: thomas langaret

Generally I like it but, in my opinion you're trying to hard to put every aspect of vampire background into mechanics. As a result you're missing one of the Golden Rules of good card design -> the Simpler, the Better. Half of it is not needed. Apart from AUS and VIC all other disciplines probably won't be used (maybe fortitude would find its uses) and are not vital from background point of view. Press for blood is weak, why not to give her a free press or just remove this special.
I would make it like this:

Name: Keeper of faith

Cardtype: vampire, tzimisce

Capacity: 7

Disciplines: AUS VIC FOR

group : 5

Independent. Everytime a D action is attempted on unique master or equipment in play you control, the keeper of faith untaps and attempts to block. If the block is not successful, she burns one blood. -1 stealth.

alek wrote:

Name: Keeper of faith
Cardtype: vampire, tzimisce
Capacity: 7
Disciplines: AUS VIC FOR
group : 5

Independent. Everytime a D action is attempted on unique master or equipment in play you control, the keeper of faith untaps and attempts to block. If the block is not successful, she burns one blood. -1 stealth.

I like this a lot more than the original. -1 stealth is quite harsh, even for a blockmonster, as things like Sport Bikes, Mr Winthrop, Bowls of Convergence etc. are much more easily acquired if you can equip them yourself, and now you're at zero stealth. (You can Heidelberg, but that's more effort.) And since it obviously impacts on other things like bleeding, it's relatively harsh. I might be tempted to squeeze another discipline in there, like maybe inferior Serpentis from the original design - the special is potentially good, but I think -1 stealth is really quite a drawback on a vampire like that.

The special itself potentially fuels some interesting decks defending, say, Smiling Jack, which could be quite interesting. The equipment thing is interesting too but, as above, getting equipment out onto the Keeper itself would be more annoying - though obviously his controller's other minions could have them. Assuming Tzimisce, though, are there many equipment strategies that they'd employ that would make it worthwhile? Unsure.

alek, you re right, as i began to play the roleplaying game before the card game, it s true that i try to put maybe too much things in one card : s
your version is much more clear and readable than mine...

however, i m still concern about the grapple stuff...i added below however the image i found of the keeper of faith in the world of darkness wiki (it was originally from the constantinople by night book).
she really looked like kind of octopus and it would be nice to allow her grapple some way...

about the -1 stealth, it s kind of a big disavantage as you noticed, her controller will need auspex cards, master (krcg radio and so on) or equip to give her intercept; contrary to most tzimisce, she does not have animalism and cannot make such combo as pack alpha + raven spy. (it is also one of the reason i wondered to give her animalism cause i did not wanted to make her too strong)
but also as she has VIC at superior level, people will have to think about to block her or not, as she potentially could make aggravated at close (chyroptean) and at long (dragon breath).

so i would suggest this version:

Name: Keeper of faith
Cardtype: vampire, tzimisce
Capacity: 8
Disciplines: AUS VIC FOR ser pot
group : 5

Independent. Everytime a D action is attempted on unique master or equipment in play you control, the keeper of faith untaps and attempts to block. If the block is not successful, she burns one blood. -1 stealth.

it s almost the same than alek version +1 capacity and with serpentis and potence which would allow grapple...
i looked at group 4 5 and 6, it keeps her close to buipe kuila decks and many vampire have potence and vicissitude or fortitude and vicissitude (ex: aisata swanou the akunanse)

grrrmmpphhh i tried to post the image, but it does not work...
you can find it by typing keeper of faith wiki world of darkness in google...

snegiem wrote:

Name: Keeper of faith
Cardtype: vampire, tzimisce
Capacity: 8
Disciplines: AUS VIC FOR ser pot
group : 5

Independent. Everytime a D action is attempted on unique master or equipment in play you control, the keeper of faith untaps and attempts to block. If the block is not successful, she burns one blood. -1 stealth.

Do a naive 'design points' check on it. 8 capacity, so should have roughly 9 design points. 8 used up by disciplines.

I think -1 stealth is fairly harsh on a large, expensive vampire. It wouldn't be so bad if it was on a weenie. I'd be thinking about -1 design points. Is that special worth two design points, with that burn a blood drawback? It's only against masters and equipment, even if you build your deck around it. Block fails or other "block is not successful" type effects aren't that hard to get hold of - plenty of decks include Elder Impersonation, Call of the Hungry Dead, Kiss of Ra, True Love's Face. Or just a barrel load of stealth. You could even use cards Day Operation/Daring the Dawn.

I'd at least get rid of the 'burn a blood' drawback.