Gehenna

White Wolf had a winner here, the whole World of Darkness platform, those that go bump into the night are given new origins, divided into two factions Camarilla and Sabbath, these factions are made up of 13 clans (Ventrue, Toreador, Nosferatu and etcetera for the Camarilla, For the Sabbath we have Salubri, Lasombra, Tsimiczse and etcetera) each, so 26 clans in all, oh wait these were just the Vampires, the king of the undead, excludes the werewolfs, ghosts and mummies, they had so many(for me) stories to tell, so much lore and then just like the story, the whole company just vanished...........

A beautiful world to traipse around, not just your ordinary run of the mill vampires, we had vampires that dabble with magic(blood of course), techno savvy Vampires, Political ones, just like their prey the human race, each has their own legends, and so we talk about Gehenna, according to World of Darkness lore, this was the time the Antideluvians or the third generation(vampire strength, wisdom and etcetera decrease as the generations go by, so the antideluvians were the most powerful of these vampires except for Caine, the progenitor)would rise and feed off their progeny signaling the end, while a lot has been said and read, ordinary vampires(mostly newly embraced ones belong to the ninth or tenth generation, therefore too diluted or weak), no one has ever seen these third gen monsters, even the most long lived from both sides, as time goes by, the stories became legends, then myths until finally, they were just stories, the novel starts with Beckett (a Gangrel, or those akin to werewolves but only by attitude and some hairiness{??}), finally found all the necessary components to free a compatriot from his age old prison, thus the story goes.......we see the paranoia, dementia and finally the sheer brutality of a vampire unmasked, the story was as linear as possible, although the cast were the more known characters Theo Bell, Lucita, Beckett, Victoria and more........for a casual reader with no prior knowledge about this world, this novel would be truly confusing, to us who truly embraced the whole Darkness thing it was a story come true............except as we near the end of the tale.........things became like the Vampires themselves, unpredictable and unknowable..........

I have read this twice, the first time was in my 20+, this second reading was in my 40+ and still the end.........just confused me, was it all true or just like vampires themselves, simply my imagination gone wrong................

Maybe a third reading would be the charm, well I need to wait another two decades...........