Noticias – ObakeMerchant

Homunculus Helper (handy bookmark for VTES searches)

Escrito por Obake Máximo en 13/01/2023. Publicado en Novedades.

While this is page is not a deck-builder site (of which there are some excellent ones, like VDB), when we put the files together, we took care to add some relevant information into each product (in this case, card) to make searches easy. How do searches work: For starters, you can easily look for a particular card entering its title in the search engine (upper right side, next to the magnifier icon) and pressing enter. For this to work, the search string must have at least three characters. For instance, a search for «.44» yields this. To avoid false positives you can further limit your search...

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What’s in a Sect

Escrito por Obake Máximo en 01/05/2024. Publicado en Novedades.

While belonging to a Clan (or bloodline) is part who what a Vampire IS, and it can’t be changed (well, there are exceptions, as we already have seen). A Sect is an organization that you chose to BELONG to. Of course, the circumstances of your Embrace (sort vampiric birth), like who is your Sire, which city, and when it happened has lots to do with it, it is not something that is in your blood and you need a super duper arcane magic ritual to switch. THE CAMARILLA When the game was first published, this was the default sect. It didn’t even say so in the cards, because… of course you are Camarilla....

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Homunculus II: Search Harder

Escrito por Obake Máximo en 14/03/2024. Publicado en Novedades.

For searches by Clan, Sect or Type, go to: Homunculus Helper Basic V5 Disciplines (11) ANIMALISM – alphabetical or set order AUSPEX – alphabetical or set order BLOOD SORCERY (also THAUMATURGY) – alphabetical or set order CELERITY – alphabetical or set order DOMINATE – alphabetical or set order FORTITUDE – alphabetical or set order OBFUSCATE – alphabetical or set order OBLIVION ***coming soon POTENCE – alphabetical or set order PRESENCE – alphabetical or set order PROTEAN – alphabetical or set order Legacy Disciplines...

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On Disciplines (or lack thereof)

Escrito por Obake Máximo en 12/03/2024. Publicado en Novedades.

What are disciplines? In essence, disciplines are blood-powered “superpowers” a vampire can have in the World of Darkness. Some of these disciplines are more common to many vampires of a particular clan, even the younger ones, while others require centuries of experience to learn by a few vampires outside that clan. Here, you can search our stock of VTES cards, filtered by Discipline In VTES game terms, icons on crypt cards determine which powers that particular vampire has access to. Also, these icons come in two flavors: basic, with the icon inside a square, and superior, with the same icon...

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Antitribu no more

Escrito por Obake Máximo en 05/03/2024. Publicado en Novedades.

Antitribu were a concept introduced to VTES in one of the earlier sets, the fifth and final one by WOTC. Until that point there were only vampires from the 7 clans of the Camarilla (8 if you count the Caitiff), plus the four Independents (and, back then, Camarilla was the default sect, with the Independents specifically spelled as “non-Camarilla”. With the release of THE SABBAT in 1996, this changed, and the titular sect was explicitly indicated in all the crypt cards in the set. Besides the 2 clans who were specifically aligned with the Sabbat (Lasombra and Tzimisce), we got the antitribu...

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Bloodlines: Harbingers of Skulls

Escrito por Obake Máximo en 19/02/2024. Publicado en Novedades.

What is a Bloodline? A bloodline is a small “family” of Vampires, usually an off-shot of one of the main 13 Clans, with some common characteristics, history and/or outlook. Sometimes it is more complicated than that! HARBINGERS OF SKULLS When a Bloodline is not an off-shot? When they are the main tree of the “family”. The Harbingers are what’s left of the Capadocians, one of the original 13 Clans, which was “usurped” by one amongst them, Augustus Giovanni, who killed the clan Founder, all but hunted his progeny to extinction, taking his place as the head of the new clan Giovanni. As things usually...

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Bloodlines: Ahrimane

Escrito por Obake Máximo en 05/02/2024. Publicado en Novedades.

What is a Bloodline? A bloodline is a small “family” of Vampires, usually an off-shot of one of the main 13 Clans, with some common characteristics, history and/or outlook. Sometimes it is more complicated than that! AHRIMANE The Ahrimane Bloodline is usually considered an off-shot of the Gangrel antitribu. It is, and it isn’t… not exactly. Over kindred history there have been two branches of this bloodline. The original Ahrimanes were born (and, apparently, were extinct) during the Dark Ages, in Scandinavia. However, the branch related to VTES is the more modern branch, born again through...

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The Book of Nod – «for Dummies» edition

Escrito por Obake Máximo en 05/02/2024. Publicado en Novedades.

Working with all these cards to prep and upload an usable database for the VTES store has made me reminisce about the rich World of Darkness (WoD, from now on) milieu. You see, I never was into RPG games, but at the time, working at a game store had me fascinated about this series of huge games under the collective WoD umbrella, of which Vampire the Masquerade (VtM) was, by far, the most popular and best selling. The WoD is our world, only darker. Its history, is ours, but even bloodier, with all kinds of supernatural beings plotting and maneuvering at the very fringes of the collective vision...

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An alternate Gold Edition

Escrito por Obake Máximo en 11/05/2023. Publicado en Novedades.

Once upon a time, when Wizards of the Coast was publishing L5R, Shokansuru (not Daigotsu) was going to be the main bad in the original plotline for Gold Edition/The Four Winds Era. Howevever WotC dropped the game, plans changed and this storyline was dropped. Who was Shokansuru in this version of the story? We had first meet him during Fire and Shadow (Hidden Emperor era). It seems like Feydn Rafiq (an assassin from the Ivory Kingdoms, in the Honor Bound set) came to Rokugan looking for him. From context, Shokansuru should be the «chanting ruhmal» mentioned in the card, and he is shown summoning...

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The sad -and somewhat stupid- story of Hatsue and Yozo

Escrito por Obake Máximo en 06/03/2023. Publicado en Novedades.

It has been almost 20 years, so I apologize if some details are fuzzy, or I get some of them wrong. This went down during 2004, at Gen Con Barcelona. I think this was the last event to carry the Gen Con brand in Spain. Barcelona, along with Madrid, was one of the oldest hubs of OP activity for L5R, with a very active community, and an experienced team to TO’s. The official Spanish distributor at the time was Millennium and they got a storyline tournament for us to run. It was a huge thing for us! By now, I really don’t remember if this was a single day thing, or a 2 or more day event, with qualifiers...

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Scorpion Clan Coup

Escrito por Obake Máximo en 20/12/2022. Publicado en Novedades.

Check our SCC stock here. THE END AND THE BEGINNING!! With Scorpion Clan Coup we arrive at the end of the Clan War era of the game, the original story arc; and also to the beginning, as it was a prequel set in the past. In this set we get the Scorpion Clan before it was forced to go into hiding after their coup against throne, and the Akodo family before it was disbanded because of the failure of their Lord to protect the Emperor. Also we get cards of younger (with the Inexperienced trait) versions of the heroes and villains, as well as information of the event that led to the fall of the Hantei...

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A Lost Hero from the Four Winds Era?

Escrito por Obake Máximo en 13/11/2022. Publicado en Novedades.

This big guy was an unused piece by Heather Bruton. The only name we had was Matsu Guy, and a production number: #25449515. Now it seems we can recover a forgotten hero from the Four Winds Era, and give him back his name, back from the claws of the Lying Darkness! The game is afoot. As mentioned, this character never got a Personality card, AFAIK, but he did show up in at least a couple other cards: Lion Warcats (AOF, follower) and Now Face Me (FOU, action). And the follower has a quote by a Matsu Kikuno, who was never mentioned again (in the card game, at least. Maybe he showed at some...

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