Eddy Webb

This was V:tM COYA nearly a decade before Vampire Prelude existed, and I can't help but wonder if Prelude took cues from this April Fool's book. I will say that having a COYA book in pdf format is a revelation for me - you can bookmark all the choice branches and can skip directly to the correct section.

The book is short and simple (and the text is huge). There's plenty of the urban Gothic emo flavor we know and love from V:tM. You've given the choice of 'playing' three clans of vampire: Malk, Gangrel, and Toreador. The text is in the standard second-person perspective and you only have 2 branches to choose from at a time. Some paths were bog-standard fare like you're killed out of nowhere by another vampire that hates your sire while others were so laugh-out-loud bizarre I couldn't help but love it, like Diablo Verde, murderous Gangrel luchador. I will say that a lot of paths were super-similar to each other, and there were some choices, like how you celebrate your anniversary which have absolutely no bearing on what happens.

Overall, though, its a good light read when you want something a bit different. Be warned, though - there's really no 'good' ending. Which wouldn't surprise anyone that has ever played a game of VtM. Well, that's not strictly true. The last section, 51, has you shedding the curse of vampirism and returning to a mortal life, to your estactic joy. However, there's not a single path in the book that will take you to that ending. Which I absolutely love. I don't know if its a callback to Inside UFO 54-40 or not, but either way, its such a great little 'fuck you' and captures the apocalyptic "there is no way out" of the original WoD chronicle that I have to rate it highly on that alone.

For those that want a list of all possible endings:
18 - Malk - Spend eternity fruitlessly in a basement library
21 - Malk - Murdered out of nowhere by another vampire in an alley
35 - Gangrel - DEATH BY VAMPIRE LUCHADOR
37 - Toreador - Live to successfully join the Sabbat
39 - Malk - Death by staking/starvation
40 - Toreador - Diablerized by a Sabbat vampire
41 - Gangrel - Tentacled to death by Sabbat Tzimisce fleshcrafter
45 - Toreador - Live to join the Sabbat under dubious circumstances
48 - Toreador - Deferred death - your sire will kill you in 10 years
49 - Toreador - Live, but essentially owned by another Toreador, Victoria
50 - Toreador - A Malk vampire kills you as revenge against your sire
51 - ??? - Kissed by an angel and returned to mortal form, except its actually impossible to get this ending.
… (altro)