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VtM - Review: Clanbook: Salubri
OFFICIAL "I LOVE IT WHEN WW BACKS UP SOMETHING I'M DOING ALREADY" MOMENT:
The strange and curious friendship of the Tzimisce and Salubri--pre-and-post Tremere.
OFFICIAL SCREAMWORTHY ADDITION: You know that "Baali creation myth"? The one about how
the three founders of the bloodline were Embraced by being tossed into a sacrificial well, and there was
an Antediluvian with flesh-twisting abilities, and it was said he came "from where the sky had begun to
lighten with the anticipation of dawn"? And everybody thought it just HAD to be Tzimisce, because,
well, Vicissitude and the East and all that?
Spoiler: Clanbook Salubri officially fingers Saulot with the deed in Appendix 2.
Review by Derek Guder for rpg.net (14 Jun 1999)
Style: 3 (Average)
Substance: 3 (Average)
With the Vampire: the Dark Ages line, White Wolf has managed to keep up a rather high standard of
quality throughout its products, even the Clanbooks, surprisingly, which were a raging sore upon the face
of Vampire: the Masquerade. Clanbook: Cappadocian and Clanbook: Baali were both truly superb and
exemplary works. The Libellus Sanguinus series of Clanbooks of the modern clans revised for the
medieval world (which were packaged in a much nicer three-in-one deal) were also great, always better
than their modern-day counterparts.
Clanbook: Salubri, the latest Clanbook for Vampire: the Dark Ages followed hard acts to top. The
previous books (Clanbook: Baali especially) were amazingly well done. I held out hope, though, because
I had heard that Cynthia Summers had done good work before and I always have confidence in Richard
Dansky. Sadly, the book did not deliver. While not bad, neither was is good when compared to other
Vampire: the Dark Ages Clanbooks or even the better modern-day ones. It was more an unsatisfying
workhorse than an tantalizing and untamed stallion, like Clanbooks Baali and Cappadocian were.
The cover is simply retched. I have nothing against John Bolton as an artist, but the blue-skinned, lipstick
wearing, battle-axe toting, orc-wannabe is not material for the cover of Clanbook: Salubri. It just
does not work.
The fiction is serviceable and good enough, but not much more. No real spark.
Chapter Two: the Triumvirate is where the meat begins. Narrated by Simon (who is, if memory serves,
the Toreador scholar living on an island in the Mediterranean mentioned in the Libellus Sanguinus II), it
has a nice tone to it. Sadly, it is horribly laid out, with bits of history here and culture there and a
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