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https://vtm.paradoxwikis.com/Oblivion• The playtesting of the next two preconstructed decks has begun! It is clans Lasombra and Hecata, who both share the common discipline of Oblivion, brand new for VTES. Read more about it at the Vampire: The Masquerade wiki.
• The first round of playtesting of the next two preconstructed decks is ongoing! It is clans Lasombra and Hecata, who both share the common discipline of Oblivion, brand new for VTES. Read more about it at the Vampire: The Masquerade wiki.
• The first round of playtesting of the preconstructed decks for Lasombra and Hecata has concluded and reports are now studied. While playtesters wait for the next round they have been asked to test something huge and very different – more about that later!
• While the second round of playtest of the Hecata and Lasombra preconstructed decks is prepared, the playtesters are trying out the first draft of a two-player variant of VTES. This is very exciting, for it is one of the most sought-after things according to Black Chantry customer service.
Vampire: The Eternal Struggle Product Roadmap 2023-2024
Words by Ben Peal, Product Director, Black Chantry Productions:
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Hecata and Lasombra
We’re working on the print proofs for the above mentioned decks right now and they’ll be printed soon! While that’s going on, we’re also playtesting the next two preconstructed decks: the Lasombra and the Hecata. I highly recommend reading the Fifth Edition Vampire: The Masquerade books “Chicago by Night”, ”Cults of the Blood Gods”, “Players Guide”, or the wikis at Paradoxwikis.com and whitewolf.fandom.com to see how those clans are currently represented in the World of Darkness, as well as their new discipline Oblivion. Here’s what it will mean for VTES:
Oblivion
In Vampire: The Masquerade Fifth Edition, the cosmologies of the Abyss and the Shadowlands have been merged into one, called Oblivion. The disciplines of Obtenebration and Necromancy are likewise merged into a new discipline, also called Oblivion. The Lasombra tend towards using the entropic power of Oblivion while the Hecata tend to prefer the necromantic ritual applications of it. Development of Obtenebration and Necromancy as individual disciplines comes to an end, though existing cards for those disciplines of course remain tournament legal. Oblivion in V:TES will have its own new discipline icon.
Hecata
The Hecata is a new clan comprised of all of the Necromancy-using clans resulting from an event called the Family Reunion. The event resulted from the heavy toll taken on clan Giovanni by the Second Inquisition, the imminent end of the Promise of 1528 with the Camarilla, warfare between the Giovanni and the Harbingers of Skulls, and the maelstrom of wraiths unleashed by the death or disappearance of Augustus Giovanni. The Giovanni, Harbingers, Samedi, Nagaraja, and even the few remaining Cappadocians and Lamiae came together to end their hostilities towards each other and founded a new clan called the Hecata.
For VTES, the Hecata are treated as an entirely new clan of the Independent sect and with the in-clan disciplines of Auspex, Fortitude, and Oblivion. Their pre-constructed deck will be designed and built accordingly. When we release this deck, we will also make available on Drivethrucards.com a handful of cards that will enable some amount of compatibility with the original Necromancy-using clans and the new Oblivion and Hecata cards.
Lasombra
The Second Inquisition and the Gehenna War resulted in instability and unease among the Lasombra clan. The Amici Noctis sent diplomatic missions to the Anarchs and the Camarilla, and found some amount of security and safety among the latter. Roughly half of the Lasombra left the Sabbat to join the Camarilla, who were keen to bolster their ranks after the departure of the Gangrel and Brujah. For the new Lasombra pre-constructed deck, the vampires will all be Camarilla, with in-clan disciplines of Dominate, Oblivion, and Potence. Sabbat Lasombra will be included in the Sabbat-themed pre-constructed decks that follow this release.
We will also be releasing New Blood decks for the Ravnos, Salubri, Tzimisce, Hecata, and Lasombra. The Hecata and Lasombra pre-constructed decks as well as the aforementioned New Blood decks are presently scheduled for a Spring 2024 release.
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• While the second round of playtest of the Hecata and Lasombra preconstructed decks is prepared, the playtesters are trying out the first draft of a two-player variant of VTES. This is very exciting, for it is one of the most sought-after things according to Black Chantry customer service.
• The second round of playtest of the Hecata and Lasombra preconstructed decks is now ongoing and will end January 31.
• The second rounds of playtest of both the Hecata/Lasombra, the Ravnos/Salubri/Tzimisce New Blood and the 30th Anniversary preconstructed decks ended on January 31, and playtest coordinator Norman Brown compiled a 131 pages long report of the results that are now being digested by the design team. Big thanks to him and all the playtesters!
• The design team is still digesting the report of the second round of playtesting of the Hecata/Lasombra decks, the Hecata/Lasombra/Ravnos/Salubri/Tzimisce New Blood decks and the 30th Anniversary preconstructed deck. We´ll probably need another round of testing of at least one of these three sets.
The Hecata, Lasombra and 30th Anniversary are all in the last steps of design and playtesting
• The (probably) last round of playtesting of the next products was concluded: the 30th Anniversary box, preconstructed decks for Hecata and Lasombra, New Blood packs for Hecata and Lasombra. Playtest coordinator Norman Brown compiled a 211 pages long report for the design team to sink their teeth into – thanks to all of you that wrote long and detailed about your test games and opinions, you ROCK!
• The Lasombra and Hecata preconstructed decks are in late pre-production stages, as are New Blood packs for Hecata, Lasombra, Ravnos, Salubri and Tzimisce.
The Lasombra Fifth Edition preconstruced deck will appear this autumn, and after that the Hecata preconstructed deck [...]
The preview art above by Raquel Cornejo is from the Lasombra precon. Welcome to the game Raquel!
• The Lasombra preconstructed deck will hopefully (knock on wood!) be out in October, for a premiere at the Spiel game fair in Essen, Germany.
• If everything works out, The Hecata preconstructed deck, which shares the new discipline Oblivion with the Lasombra, will hit stores sometime in November or December.
NEXT UP PRODUCT:
- Fifth Edition Lasombra preconstructed deck (October 2024 release, more info coming soon!)
Next up among products is the long-awaited Fifth Edition Lasombra preconstructed deck, available in the beginning of October. The art above is from the crypt card Aintzane Arriaga from that deck. We once again welcome back Francisco Tébar as an illustrator - great work again!.
The Lasombra deck features the discipline Oblivion. This is how it is described in the Fifth Edition Vampire: The Masquerade Players Guide:
"Few Kindred outside Clan Lasombra and the Hecata know the Discipline of Oblivion, and as far as the Camarilla is concerned, this is a good thing. While the Lasombra favor the Discipline’s raw power, the more necromantically inclined Hecata explore its ritual uses. With this power, vampires wield the very stuff of shadows and unlife as weapons. Some call the power’s source the Abyss, while other practitioners refer to it as the Labyrinth. The one certainty is Oblivion channels the darkest arts, from where the dead go to die.
The masters of Oblivion call upon it to wreathe themselves in night, enslave spectres, or throttle victims with their own shadow. Each time they use it, wielders run the risk of losing their soul and Humanity to something darker than death and twice as hungry."
More previews are coming - follow Black Chantry Productions in social media.
• Next up is the Lasombra preconstructed deck, hopefully making a sneak premiere on October 3 at the Spiel game fair in Essen, Germany, and in stores soon after that. There new Lasombra will have the new discipline Oblivion instead of the old Obtenebration. The deck will have a political theme.
• After that, later in Q4, its time for a Hecata preconstructed deck, also with Oblivion. These cards needed a fourth round of playtesting, ongoing right now, until the end of August.