Vampire: The Masquerade Rulebook

Summary
From the White Wolf catalog:


 * A Storytelling Game of Personal Horror


 * "No one holds command over me. No man. No God. No Prince. What is a claim of age for ones who are immortal? What is a claim of power for ones who defy death? Call your damnable hunt. We shall see who I drag screaming to Hell with me."


 * &mdash; Günter Dörn, Das Ungeheuer Darin

Introduction
The beginning of the book is a letter written by V.T. to W.H explaining the nature of vampires from their strengths to their weaknesses. Though not specifically said it is implied that the author of the letter is Vlad Tepes (Count Dracula) speaking to William Harker.

Chapter One
This is the introduction to the World of Darkness through the eyes of the Vampire characters. It talks about Storytelling, role playing, the Storyteller and aids. It touches on different kinds of role playing by a brief paragraph about Live Action (LARP). The chapter concludes with another overview of Vampires as depicted in the game itself.

Between Chatper One and Chapter Two is an exerpt from the famed Book of Nod.

Chapter Two
The Chapter covers the basic rules to playing the game. It is broken up into subsections that deal with Actions, Dice Rolling, and Game Terms. There is a example character sheet in this section.

Chapter Two
The chapter deals with the generation of a character and steps to take when creating one.

Memorable Quotes
"Now, reader, I have told my dream to thee;  See if you canst interpret it to me  Or to thyself, or neighbor.  But take heed  Of misinterpreting; for that, instead  Of doing good, will but thyself abuse  By misinterpreting evil issues."

- John Bunyan, Pilgrim's Progress

My blood is running dry,  My skin is, my skin is growing thin  For everytime you find yourself  You lose a little bit of me, from within. It's just a raging cycle,  why can't we bring it all to the end of the line  From inside this existence,  time is not on my side.

- Indigo Girls, Land of Canaan

Therefore with the same necessity with which the stone falls to earth; the hungry wolf buries its fangs in the flesh of its prey, without the possibility of the knowledge that it itself is the destroyed as well as the destroyer.

- Schopenheuer

The Stage but echoes back the public voice,  The drama's laws the drama's patrons give  For we that live to please, must please to live.

- Samuel Clemens

Childhood is the kingdom where nobody dies. Nobody that matters, that is.

- Edna St.Vincent Millay, Childhood is the Kingdom where Nobody dies.

Life has confided so many stories to me, I shall have to retell them to people who cannot read the book of life itself.

- Elly Hillesum, An Interrupted Life

He don't give a hoot of warning  Wrapped in a black cat cloak. He don't go in the light of morning. He's split, the time the cock'rel crows.

- The Rolling Stones, Midnight Rambler

The dynamic principle of fantsy is play.

- C.G. Jung

But first, on earth as Vampire sent,  Thy corpse shall from its tomb be rent;  Then ghastly haunt thy native place,  And suck the blood of all thy race.

- Lord Byron

I forget how to move  When my mouth is this dry  And my eyes are bursting hearts  In a bloodstained sky  Oh it was sweet and wild.

- The Cure, Homesick

...with the absolute heart of the poem of life butchered out of their own bodies good to eat a thousand years.

- Allen Ginsberg, Howl

Devil and the deep blue sea behind me  Vanish in the air you'll never find me  I will turn your face to alabaster  Then you will find your servant is your master.

- The Police, Wrapped Around Your Finger

Mythology is a rendition of forms, through which the formless form of forms can be known.

- Joseph Campell

Time is the moving image of reality.

- Plato

And the game never ends when your whole world depends  On the turn of a friendly card.

- The Alan Parsons Project, Turn of a Friendly Card

Oftentimes, to win us to our harm,  The instruments of darkness tell us truths;  Win us with honest trifles, to betrays's  In deepest consequence.

- William Shakespeare, Macbeth

Strong as I am  There's something about this thing that scares me. Strong as I am  Ther's something about this thing that dares me.

- The Prime Movers, Strong As I Am

Confusion will be my epitaph,   As I cross the cracked and broken path,   If we make it we can all sit back and laugh,   But I fear tomorrow I’ll by crying.

 -          King Crimson, Epitaph



So slide over here   And give me a moment. Your moves are so raw   I’ve go to let you know   You’re one of my kind.

 -          INXS, I Need You Tonight



The inquiry of truth, which is the love making, or wooing of it, the knowledge of truth, which is the presence of it, and the belief in truth, which is the enjoying of it, is the sovereign good of human nature.

 -          Francis Bacon, Of Truth

Characters
Shelzza- This vampire is shown in depections at the bottom of the pages and follows important points in her unlife. Speculation is that she is of Toreador or Ventrue descent. Shelzza is only in this edition of the Vampire: The Masquerade and is abandoned in subsequent volumes.