The Games We Play: Customizing Your CCG's

When I was regularly playing Vampire: The Eternal Struggle, I found an interesting site that provided instructions for creating customized cards for the game. I thought this was a unique idea and went for a ride with it. I was able to create cards based on some of my past and present character in the various Vampire: The Masquerade games I've played... including the Camarilla LARP games. Here are a few of the cards I've designed based off my personal characters:

Anthony G. Keel- This was one of my LARP PC's. He was a part of a large and somewhat infamous Ventrue family known as the Keel's. His backstory was that he used to be a member of the Giovanni family and was taken by his sire before he received the proxy kiss.

Erika Kekman- Those people that know me know that my favorite vampire clan are the Tzimisce. Erika was an NPC I developed for a game with my ex-wife and some friends. As I recall, she quickly became a thorn in the side of all the PC's.

Simon Archard- Probably one of my favorite character's from Vampire: The Masquerade. I have used him as an NPC in several of my tabletop games, and I'm currently working to develop him into a LARP character for the next Mind's Eye Society chronicle. There is a long story behind Simon, and I've recently decided to try and write his story for possible publication.

Alexander Bennette- This is another of my NPC's from the same game that I used Erika in. You can see, from their respective titles, that I played Chicago as a contested city. Considering that one of the PC's was Alexander's childe, this provided a great deal of drama for the game.

Khalid- Another of my NPC's from the Chicago-based game. He became more of a key player in the political scene that I had originally intended. This was primarily due to Alexander's childe bonding with Khalid. A young Toreador bonding with a Nosferatu. If you know the clans, you'll understand the strangeness.

Hiroko "Blade" Takano- For the Cam/Anarch side of things, "Blade" was probably my favorite LARP character in the Camarilla organization. I designed him as a weapons dealer, and with a couple of friends, we created the Takano family that spanned across the United States and even crossed venues. There were several Takano in the Cam/Anarch venue, but there were also numbers in Sabbat, Werewolf and even 1 Changeling. In time, I hope to again develop this Japanese family for use in the Mind's Eye Society.

Dakota Black- This was my first actual LARP character. He originally was a Tremere, but was soon adopted into the Brujah clan to help save him from the Tremere. Playing Dakota was the best times I had before the 4.0 chronicle for the Camarilla organization. I traveled up and down the Willamette Valley to play this character. That was back when such inter-Domain gameplay was promoted. Now, there is very little reason... outside of getting together with friends in other cities... to travel for other games. This is one of the several reasons why I'm considering dropping LARP from my list of social obligations. We'll see.

Azima- A counterpoint to Erika in my Chicago game. I'll be honest, I don't remember much about her character, but I do remember that the concept for her was based off of an old Dark Ages character I played.



If you're interested in creating your own Vampire: The Eternal Struggle cards, this site is a great resource... even though it's out of date:



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