VtM - WhiteWolf: Genealogy

VtM - Review: Clanbook: Salubri
Chapter Two: A Winter's Tale.
The format. The outsider recording for posterity may have seemed nice at the concept stage but it makes
the whole of the book terribly jumbled, and almost unsuable as a source of information. The (in
character) writer makes his bias very clear from the outset, and often disregards or minimizes any
information that fails to cast Saulot as Christ and his childer as Saints.
This chapter, unlike all other clanbooks, busies itself not with the clan's history but with the distinction
between Warrior and Healer. Simply put: Warriors are Paladins, Healers are pacifist Clerics from D&D.
There are also a third group, mainly a short-term political one called the Watchers (read: Inconnu) who
are trying to decide what the clan should do now. There is little discussion as to how one decides to be
Warrior or Healer. From the little historical texts one would assume that it would be dependant on the
soul of the individual (ie. one is 'called' to be a Warrior or Healer) but the actual meat (what there is)
seems to indicate that it is only a matter of whatever your Sire was.
Chapter Three: Miscellanea et Demonica
This is by far the most poorly formatted chapter I have seen in a clanbook to date. It begins with a
pointless discussion of the importance of the third eye, in which the author (C.Summers not Symeon) just
waffles back and forth. Next comes, logically (!) outside relations - wherein we learnt hat despite having
seperate entries for the Warriors and the Healers, they virtually agree on everything. We also learn that
the Salubri really ARE the carebears of the WoD - they like everyone but the 'black hat' groups: Setites
and Baali, and more maddeningly, they seem to be liked by everyone (which begs the question - if
everyone liked them why did everyone help the Tremere to wipe them out).
Next on this meandering path comes some short essays on how they dealt with mortals (like saints), the
loneliness (actually a good essay, but one that looks like old fashioned Rein*Hagen Vampire angsting
amidst this flotsam), ghouls, etc.
The chapter ends with a short blurb about the Lamb himself (which seems more conerned about eye/hair
colour then anything approaching a psychological analysis) and two pages about the Baali... and it's
almost exactly word for word a summation of the Dark Ages Companion. Baali bad, evil, must kill.
Holy, Christ-like Lamb, Saulot, goes on bloody rampages, killing whole religions (Gnosticism) and
people in his blind hatred for these EEEVVVIIILLL creatures. Oh, but he never frenzies, since that
would be wrong.
Chapter Four: Powers of the Righteous
This is the chapter of the half-hearted and the twinkish. First the twinks - it seems Warriors either must
buy a 7point merit (and get funky magic powers which would have been much better written up as multidiscipline
powers), or they get a free 5point flaw (which renders them next to useless and they never
grow a third eye - wow, that's a long term drawback).
http://vampirerpg.free.fr/Books/2822.php3 (5 of 9) [6/1/2002 12:20:20 AM]