Hey, Storytellers, let me whisper a li'l bit of advice in your ear, here.

Players, we're not talking to you. Please feel free to have a beer.

Anyway, check it out: I know that a lot of you feel that the Time of Judgment has been sprung on you with little warning. I'm hoping to show you that it ain't like that.

Vampire has two ramp-up titles that can lead your troupes into the ToJ. I'm not trying to shill books, here, so bear with me -- I'm trying to show you how our schedule works.

The first title, Lair of the Hidden, is in stores right now or on its way to your friendly local as we speak. It deals a bit with Inconnu -- not _the_ Inconnu, but _some_ Inconnu. If you've been into Vampire since back in the day, you might remember Hunedoara Castle from the first edition of A World of Darkness. The vampires in that castle had made a deal with a demon in exchange for keeping their castle secret from the rest of the world. Well, the deal has come due and the demon wants his payment -- and who should happen along but the players' characters? The key here is that the players can make or break the pact with their interactions with the vampires at Hunedoara. A "special surprise guest!" makes an appearance at the end of the chronicle, and when he judges the Inconnu -- based upon how the players' characters convinced them to act -- he may find that they've been found wanting or they've measured up. If they've been found wanting, Gehenna looms all the closer. If they've measured up, thank to the characters, Gehenna has been postponed a little bit longer.

(Note: According to what we're publishing, Gehenna won't be averted entirely, obviously. As ever, you don't have to use what we print as the story arc for your own chronicle, but we are building the conclusion of the World of Darkness to be official, as you know if you've been following the press releases and GenCon announcement buzz.)

Okay, so Gehenna either comes more quickly or slows down a bit. Somewhere in that timetable, a cabal of vampires and mages figure out -- theoretically -- how to circumvent the curse of Caine.
This isn't just "poof, you're not a vampire anymore," this is HOLY SHIT, THESE GUYS FIGURED OUT HOW TO UNDO THE WILL OF GOD.
Should mages and vampires be playing with power like this? Of course not, and what they manage to do may be the key to redemption for vampires the world over, or it might be the final stroke of hubris on the part of mages and Kindred that draws the ire of the Almighty. This is all covered in The Red Sign, a book that can bridge your chronicle directly into the approaching Gehenna, offer ways for Kindred to escape it, or even prepare the undead for their (at this point inevitable) meeting with their Maker. The Red Sign is due in November, which gives you a good three months after Lair of the Hidden to pace your Gehenna chronicle.

Finally comes the big book of Biblical judgment. I won't belabor this because you guys know what it's about, but I will tell you a few of the details about it. First, it's written on a sliding scale. That is, whatever form of Gehenna you want, you can have. Although we have a "preferred" scenario and conclusion to the World of Darkness, we're not forcing you to commit to what we think is cool. If you want, you can vampires firing rocket launchers into the mouths of the Antediluvians, or you can have another Biblical Flood wipe the curse of Caine and all its sufferers from the face of the world. Mortals can know or not know; they can participate wittingly, unwittingly or not at all. It's all in your hands. Obviously, that book is due in January, two months after The Red Sign, which steps up the pace a bit, but ultimately culminates in the world's moment of truth.

The upshot is that you can do what you want. You can end the world, or you can allow your chronicle to continue. You can use all of the Time of Judgment material available for Vampire or none of it. You can run the chronicles in any order at all -- if you decide you want to run them. It's your story. We're just giving you some setting.

Regards,
Justin