VtM - WhiteWolf: Genealogy

VtM - Review: Guide to the Sabbat
up well. Mildly supernatural, they serve mainly to bind the Sabbat together and give it a religious
purpose, the Jyhad. Beautiful role-playing devices, the ritae deepen the Sabbat and give it some degree of
emotional power.
Following that, after a few more great derangements, is a chapter on using the Sabbat in the chronicle.
How do you use the ritae? How do you get the brutality of the Sabbat across? How do you run a political
Sabbat game? How the hell does the Sabbat keep functioning from night to night? All these questions are
answered rather well in one of the better Storytelling sections in White Wolf books.
The last chapter takes a look at how a Sabbat city is built and how it runs. Populations, positions, webs of
intrigue and favors; all things that were complately ignored in the older Sabbat books are looked at in
detail here. How does the Sabbat keep from breaking its own Masquerade? Who actually rules a Sabbat
city? What do Bishops do? Along with the previous chapter, this section makes the Sabbat come alive
and leap headlong into a chronicle. This is something else that was lacking in the older material.
Rounding out the book is the Appendix with NPCs and other information, like the use of ghouls in the
Sabbat. More secrets are revealed in the revenants section, and they are dealt with better than before (like
nearly everything else in the books). NPCs are reasonable, although I've never been a big fan of them
myself. One problem is that there were no stats for vhozd or szlactha. While rare in the extreme, both
would have been extremely useful in a Sabbat game. I for one find the pictures of the vohzd in various
books rather chilling.
Overall, I have to say that that the Guide to the Sabbat is a superb book from White Wolf. On par with
the best publications they have put out. It managed to turn a farce into a nightmare worthy of being in the
World of Darkness.
I know that this review is long, and I apologize for it's long-windedness, but I barely even touched upon
the wonders of this book. Perhaps that will sway people when thinking about picking the Guide up.
My advice on the matter? Buy it now.
Turning the Sabbat from a group of Satanic fratboys into a sect of zealots fighting a holy war, the Guide
is an absolute must for any Vampire game. It's fine presentation and incredibly meaty content show that
the "new direction" for the game line continues full speed.
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