\*record scratch\* \*freeze frame\* Yup, that’s me. Karl Schrekt. You’re probably wondering how I ended up in this situation.

Well, it all started when they said Princes of Darkness wasn’t difficult enough…

A New Bookmark

So here are the true underdogs of the World of Darkness: Hunters without the backing of the Church. Some of them might look familiar to you, if you’ve played the mod before. Others are new to the scene. What unites them is their difficult starting position. Most of these are Counts with only a single province to their name. Most of these don’t even have True Faith! So get ready for an uphill battle.

Our contestants are:

• Bayezid and Basil Gantenbein, the infamous “Ghoulbros” of Calomena’s Forsaken. Their economy is as atrocious as ever, and they received a new intro event letting you choose which of the two brothers to start as.
• Ma Yi Yuan of the Shih, an Asian order of Hunters who use Chi for supernatural feats.
• Demetrios Chomatenos of the Akritai, an Eastern Orthodox order who can mend the schism with their Catholic brethren.
• Ishaq ibn Jamil of the Ikhwan al-Safa, Muslim Hunters who can unleash the power of the Black Stone inside the Kaaba if they take Mecca from the Vampires.
• Nachmanides of the Judges, a Jewish order of Hunters who can rediscover the esoteric magics of Theurgy.
• Emerik of the Warriors of Dazbog, Slavic Pagan Hunters fighting a losing battle against the Tzimisce.
• Qorjin of Qorjin’s Baghatur, Mongol Hunters who uniquely have friendly relations with Werewolves.
• Karl Schrekt. He’s Karl Schrekt.

Not pictured in this bookmark screen is Jeanne Roullet, a new one-county Hunter of the Shadow Inquisition, sitting in the powder keg that is supernatural France. She’s seen some things.

And if Karl Schrekt is your favorite childe, fear not. If you don’t start the game as him, he will quietly disappear from the map, so he can show up later during his event chain.

Miracles

To level the playing field against the creatures of the night, pious characters get access to some new toys. The Beatific trait now has an experience track, representing True Faith above 5 dots. 

Which isn’t to say these powers are easy to come by. You can reach level 2 by healing others or having your Court Chaplain convert county faiths, but beyond that, you gain experience mostly by hunting Demons and sending them back to Hell. Check the changelog for the full list of details.

You can also gain experience through an expedition to the Astral Reaches. Speaking of…

Umbra expeditions

The Umbra is ever-shifting, and its rules are ever-changing. If you have explorers stationed in any of its realms, they might report back to you with the interesting discoveries they make. Then, you can go get them via the Slay-the-Spire minigame from the last update.

What kind of discoveries? Well…

You will have to find out for yourself.

Infiltration missions

Are you excited for landless play? We are too. It’s still a ways off, but that won’t stop us in our tireless quest to add Hot Tabletop Gameplay to this map-painting game. So here’s something new for your Coterie to do.

Theft.

Ah yes, Ocean’s Eleven. Truly the most archetypical of tabletop plots. Walk into someone else’s court like you own the place, rob them blind, and leave, with your victim being none the wiser. While you’re there, maybe enjoy some of the amenities.

You can gain some sweet rewards by exploring your enemies’ havens and gossiping with their courtiers. But the more you linger, the more you will attract attention. How much do you want to push your luck?

New graphics

For the Toreador among you, this update adds a number of improved character shaders. Here’s prettyboy Bezariel modeling the new Light Form, Shadow Form, and Umbra travel graphics.

Pictured here: One stressed and one chill Ondine.

But that’s not all. We delved too greedily and too deep, and unearthed some Advanced Shader Jank that lets us set clothing colors via script.

What does that mean? Well, a few things. For one, you can now set a dresscode for all the members of your house if you’re the House Head. We look forward to the neon pink monstrosities our community will come up with.

In addition to this, almost every house on the map will have some default colors set.

We like the new opportunities for visual storytelling this adds to the mod. For example, the Tvarivich Twins are united in purpose, but the Fiefs of the Black Cross are divided between white-black-gold Hardestadt and purple-gold Antasia.

There are SO many styles to discover. Like, so many.

So what are you waiting for? The denizens of the night need to see your drip.