One thing that's missing is the way the art and layout of the original book captured the experience of visiting the Nosferatus' subterranean world. This book seems to have all new artwork and it is definitely top of the line but now the visual theme seems to emphasize more the grotesque horror of the Nos themselves rather than their environment. The humor seems to be mostly gone, too, and efforts to replace it just don't measure up. The new fiction, seems to be the same story as in the original but from the victim's point of view- which softens its impact somewhat.

In place of that, there's a lot of text spent on giving the points of view of different political factions within the clan. Unfortunately, parts of this are so long-winded that I got bored and skipped what turned out to be the important part. Editing problems aside, the new details in this book about Nos society- the work on the autarkis Nos, for example- are generally good. Merits and Flaws are included as in the original version- really helpful, I think, in custom tailoring your Nos character's deformities.

Missing is something that I would really expect in an update of this series: better intergration of material about the Sabbat. But here in the Nos opinions of other clans they are still just lumped together as "Sabbat". Also, all the character templates (all or mostly new) seem to be for characters with Humanity rather than Paths of Enlightenment.

That said, a definite improvement here is the new "Famous Nosferatu" section. This selection of important clan members does a much better job of integrating with existing material- here VAMPIRE: THE DARK AGES and the CLAN NOVEL series- than the old one. Also now included are MINDS EYE THEATER stats.


by far the best history of a clan   April 17, 1999
I wish the Gangrel clanbook was as inspiring as this oppus. This clanbook provides a coherent history explaing why the nosferatu are cursed as they are as well as many tips on playing a sewer rat. In my opinion the best clanbook of them all.