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V20 Dark Ages Companion $14.99
Average Rating:4.7 / 5
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V20 Dark Ages Companion
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V20 Dark Ages Companion
Publisher: Onyx Path Publishing
by Justin T. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 07/22/2017 13:47:22

I was hoping for more Salubri content, which would make me rate this book as a 3 or 4 star. However, the book in its entirety is excellent, so in fairness I must give it 5 stars.

I am opening a discussion if I am able regarding the matter of Xmas in July containing this product only two months after the initial PDF release and only 10 days after the finalized version and print version were released.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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V20 Dark Ages Companion
Publisher: Onyx Path Publishing
by stephane B. B. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 07/12/2017 16:01:17

So, this book is everything i've been wanting from a Dark Ages Companion.

It goes into a lot of details about the setting, the cities it talks about, introduces a lot of flavor and insight into the Unlife of the kindreds of these eras.

I also loved the Apocryphas of Clan. I've always had a bit of a problem to "fluff" my storytelling and this books gives a lot of content for it.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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V20 Dark Ages Companion
Publisher: Onyx Path Publishing
by BRANDON S. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 07/12/2017 04:37:37

Something that I've always found intimidating about the Dark Ages setting is the idea of doing the setting proper justice. While I enjoy history and geography, I am not a history buff, and so there is the ever-present worry of things degenerating into "Merry Olde England, D&D with vampires". As such, I find books like this to be excellent primers and GM tools, and this one in particular does its job very well.

This book is an excellent world building resource, along with an interesting read in general. It offers a wide variety of locations and insight into each, including areas which, to the best of my knowledge, the World of Darkness has never touched on before.

If you're looking to run a globe-trotting game, a game of international/interdomain politics, or simply want greater insight into what different areas of the setting are like so as to mix things up, this companion should prove to be a very useful purchase.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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V20 Dark Ages Companion
Publisher: Onyx Path Publishing
by John M. S. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 06/21/2017 02:45:36

I got the PDF as soon as it was available and will be purchasing the print copy once the errata is included. I would categorise this book as a useful supplement, but not a necessary one. I particularly liked the elements to do with Domain Building, including expanded backgrounds and the streamling of combat (which always felt overly dice heavy). The clan apocrypha, particularly the nosferatu apocrypha, was very interesting. I wrote a full review on the following site https://itsmorethanjustgaming.com/2017/05/24/v20-vampire-the-dark-ages-companion-review/

If you don't have time to read my conclusion is as already stated. Useful, but in no way necessary to a game. If you enjoy Dark Ages setting and you have the cash, it is a worthy addition



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
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V20 Dark Ages Companion
Publisher: Onyx Path Publishing
by Mathieu D. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 05/25/2017 01:55:13

Bon supplément, chacun des domaines décrits possèdent une âme certaine et peuvent être jouable presque immédiatement (en particulier les "petits "domaines de Bath et Bjarkarey). Mention spéciale à Mogadiscio et à Bath. Pour les deux derniers chapitres, ce n'est pas vraiment quelque chose que j'attends dans un supplément, même si j'en comprends l'intérêt, alors je ne saurais les juger. Le seul bémol, c'est peut-être que le livre donne l'impression d'avoir été plus gros, et que les coupes faites rendant certaines infos un peu absconses. Mangalore mériterait d'être plus déveoppé, car au contraire de Rome et Constantinople, c'est la première fois que la ville est décrite.

Quant aux apocryphes, certains sont vraiment bien (Ventrue, Ramanga, voire Cappadocien), d'autres plus... anecdotiques. Globalement toutefois, très bon supplément !



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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V20 Dark Ages Companion
Publisher: Onyx Path Publishing
by P. B. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 05/23/2017 12:18:41

The one thing I found wanting from V20 Dark Ages was world building, and this book offers a good deal of that, as well as some wonderful additions to stories begun in the previous interations of Vampire in the Dark Medieval era. Know that I give this five stars, but I'm rounding up from, like, a four-and-a-half stars rating? I'd knock off a little for some of the art (there's one piece in particular that looks straight up lifted out of Poser), and I think that the Clan Apocrypha bits are a tad hit-and-miss. However, there is WAAAY more to love than hate here!

We receive not only updates to domains like Constantinople and Rome, but we get a look at places well outside of Europe such as Mogadishu and Mangalore ('Mangaluru' in the old form here) in Africa and India, respectively. The domain descriptions fall short of a full 'by Night' book coverage, but they are far more than we'd see in a brief blurb within a core rule book. You mileage may vary on how well each finds the right balance – I found that nearly ALL of the informaion on the domain of Bjarkarey strained credulity, for example – but you shall find plenty here to help you flesh out your version of the Dark Medieval era.

Beyond the domains themselves, though, there are tools for making your chronicle better, and this starts in the Introduction that reminds you that all of this information is here for YOU to do with as YOU please. Mix-and-match elements? Yeah, that's cool. Ignore stuff you don't like? Oh sure, no harm in that. All throughout I found myself alternately thinking 'Oh that's good!' and 'Huh uh, bullocks to that!' The book is wonderful for this, from the 'fluff' to the 'crunch' in it.

Is this book vital for the game? No. Is it a great addition? Oh yes.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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V20 Dark Ages Companion
Publisher: Onyx Path Publishing
by Karl E. L. H. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 05/20/2017 11:45:23

Onyx Path yet again comes with another good entry to the V20 Dark Ages line. This type of book in the terms of it's location focus is not really my thing. However i have to say this book did do a lot of needed things, as it for one helped build a lot of regions that have been written either sloppily or not given a proper write up at all. India finally got a proper write up and we revisit Africa once more to see the Laibon. That i could also see Bjarkøy get it's own setting write up in the world of darkness amuses me as a Norwegian to no end.

Now where the book really hits it's stride is in the Apocrypha sections at the end of the chapters along with the domain building chapter. It is here that we can finally see more cultural systematic add ons to various clans and bloodlines. The Ramanga get a very interesting expansion of their true nature, their strange variant discipline Aizia and how it differs from Obtenebration. We finally get some updated insight into the role of House Tremere before it became Clan Tremere, and a nice set of war related rituals. There are introduced several new paths to the various Roads that the Cainites of the Dark Medieval World traverse, and even a new bloodline in the Nephilim. Combo disciplines, blood sorcery and other such things are also found in addition to lore bits about the various clans covered here. I also loved that with the Ramanga they once again are stepping away from making the Cainite myth confirmed as there are vampires who have come into being independently from the clans and bloodlines of the world.

The domain building system was a very much needed element in the dark ages and to be honest the vampre lisence as a whole. Considering that Vampires are all about empire building in the long term, this system helps with such things as city creation projects. Which i have personal experience with when it comes to running Dark Ages, some pcs want to create their own cities and there is nothing wrong with that if it fits the scope of the game. So having a proper system to help build cities and smaller holdings along with storyhook ideas reflected mechanically are all very welcome additions to the game.

I also did appreciate the various non vampire supernatural creatures that are introduced in the book. Like the Fossegrim for example, as it not only helps with generating antagonists but it also helps expand the supernatural world as a whole. As we all know players of world of darkness games, can sometimes become too jaded and prepared for everything. So it is nice having the abillity to throw them an unknown curveball here and there.

Now my big criticism of this game that keeps it from 5 stars, has to be that i miss more of the system and clan additions. I would have loved to see the Telyavellic Tremere get a proper Dark Ages V20 write up, as they have been perhaps next to only the Lhiannan as the most prolific of all the Dark Ages bloodlines in the past. More system additions to various Clans that only got lore and vice versa would have been nice. And more new bloodlines to help cover the regions that do not share the very euro centric culture of main stream vampire society or expansions to some of the new dark ages bloodlines beyond the Ramanga. Maybe even a new discipline or two beyond the Sadhana updates.

However beyond that criticism i think this is a very good and worthwhile book and i will certainly poach ideas from it, as i do from many media sources. As the great man Jim Cornette once said: "stealing from one place is plagiarism, stealing from many is research".



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
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