What do you think?
Rate this book
Vampire: the Masquerade
The Book of Nod
Legends of the Undead
The first vampires remember their first nights, but do not speak of them. Others have heard tales, but know better than to believe them. The wise speak of The Book of Nod, but none have seen this fabled book of ancient lore.
These are their tales...
Their stories begin with the Chronicle of Caine and the earliest nights of the vampire. The Chronicles of Shadows reveals Caine's hidden teachings. Finally, the Chronicle of Secrets unveils the deepest mysteries of the Damned, including the coming of dread Gehenna.
This limited Hardcover edition has the same ISBN number of the regular version. It was included exclusively in the Collector's Edition of the video game Vampire: The Masquerade - Redemption, and not available for sale.
Despite claiming that it contained exclusive content, both versions have the same page count, and the sole visible differences between them are the hardcover (engraved rather than embossed), the silver page edges and a black ribbon marker.
The first vampires remember their first nights, but do not speak of them. Others have heard tales, but know better than to believe them. The wise speak of The Book of Nod, but none have seen this fabled book of ancient lore.
These are their tales...
Their stories begin with the Chronicle of Caine and the earliest nights of the vampire. The Chronicles of Shadows reveals Caine's hidden teachings. Finally, the Chronicle of Secrets unveils the deepest mysteries of the Damned, including the coming of dread Gehenna.
This limited Hardcover edition has the same ISBN number of the regular version. It was included exclusively in the Collector's Edition of the video game Vampire: The Masquerade - Redemption, and not available for sale.
Despite claiming that it contained exclusive content, both versions have the same page count, and the sole visible differences between them are the hardcover (engraved rather than embossed), the silver page edges and a black ribbon marker.
134 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1993
17 people are currently reading
546 people want to read
About the author
Sam Chupp
45books30followersSam Chupp is a rare native Atlantan. He began his writing career as an employee of White Wolf, and has since gone on to write for many other gaming companies. His latest work is "Encryptopedia," a systemless sourcebook for fantasy espionage.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 50 reviews
Read
June 6, 2016I heart, heart, heart apocryphal game writing. In-universe metafiction has always appealed to me, even the oft maligned flash fiction at the head of RPG chapters. The Book of Nod is a great example, whether you are using it as a prop or for your own enjoyment. It's graphic storytelling that isn't a comic book, & how often can you say that? --MK
October 27, 2016
In the beginning there was only CaineOne of the reasons I prefer Vampire: the Masquerade to is the mythology. Millenarianism is pretty passé now, and I bet for a lot of people the word would make them think of another damn thinkpiece about how Millenials are ruining everything their parents built--though come to think of it, that's actually pretty apropos for Cainite history--but it was in the air in the 90s, whether religious or . The Book of Nod, with its tales of ancient past drawing directly from Biblical myth and its warnings of Gehenna, drew on that zeitgeist in exactly the way necessary to reach directly into my brain and poke the parts that wanted his RPGs to be infused with profound meaning, before I had even heard the words "trenchcoats and katanas."
Caine who sacrificed his brother out of love
Caine who was cast out
Caine who was cursed forever with immortality
Caine who was cursed with the lust for blood,
It is Caine from whom we all come,
Our Sire's Sire.
-The Book of Nod
This is the first totally fluff book I ever bought for any RPG, and the only totally fluff book I've actually gotten some use out of. The longest-running Vampire character I played was a Noddist who quoted extensively from the Chronicle of Secrets, and I've had Noddist characters in a couple of the games I've run. I even worked in a few of the signs of Gehenna into the longer game I ran while I was at university, not because it had any greater meaning for the game's plot, but just to provide the illusion of a wider world.
At its worst, the Jyhad and the manipulations of the Methuselahs made Vampire players feel like nothing they did mattered, and that they had entered into a power structure where they would always be at the bottom of the totem pole and it was completely impossible to ever advance. But at its best, it provided a sense of mystery to Vampire games. Beyond the nightly politics and the struggle for survival, there was a worry that something else was out there. That the blood gods slept beneath the earth, and one day they would rise and cast down the cities of men. The survivors would gather in the last city, called Gehenna, and the children of Caine would reign over an empire of blood.
See, I can't even talk about it without my writing style changing.
Though I totally bought into the Caine mythology when I was younger, the best part about the The Book of Nod is that it's all conjecture. The intro explains that Aristotle de Laurent assembled the translation from fragments all around the world, including some that he only saw for moments or in part, and has translated them into English himself. He believes the Caine and Abel source for vampires, but his adopted childe Beckett interprets the myth as a tale of conflict between a tribe of herders, the "Tribe of Abel," and a tribe of agriculturalists, the "Tribe of Caine." And this is perfectly reasonable. There's no one the PCs are likely to talk to who remembers Caine or the First or Second Cities.
Even in the course of the mythology there is plenty of place for GM interpretation. Who was Lillith? Who was the Crone? Is the Second Generation really destroyed? Did any members of the Third Generation get written out of the histories? Revelations of the Dark Mother and The Erciyes Fragments take some of these concepts and run with them, adding extra ambiguity to the real source of the Curse of Cain.
Some of the poetry is kind of silly, as can be expected when game designers write a book that's supposed to be a mythic chronicle. There are moments I really like, though. Most of those are in the Chronicle of Secrets, the third section about the coming of Gehenna, which have a wonderfully apocalyptic tone:
And you will know these last timesBut there are bits scattered throughout that are great. Like the proverb "Let not the priest, poet, or peasant see you feed. Not one of them will leave it be."
by the Time of Thin Blood,
which will mark vampires that
cannot Beget,
you will know them by the Clanless,
who will come to rule
you will know them by the Wild Ones,
who will hunt us even in the strongest city
you will know them by the awakening
of some of the eldest,
the Crone will awaken and consume all
you will know these times, for a black
hand will rise up and choke all those
who oppose it
and those who eat heart's blood will
flourish
and the Kindred will crowd each to
his own, and vitae will be as rare as
diamonds
I loved it enough that I bought the collector's edition of Vampire: the Masquerade: Redemption at least partially because it came with a hardcover copy of the Book of Nod with a ribbon bookmark and silver page edging. The game was not nearly as good as I was hoping it would be, but I still have that book. If you want to read it yourself, without the illustrations (though with 90s goth web formatting! Red text on black ho!), it's available .
July 2, 2008
Interesting book, and I like how from cover to end it is written in a way that seems like a non-fiction book.
December 12, 2017
This book is fascinating. Exploring VTM lore all over again, now as a grown adult, has been an absolutely marvelous experience so far. This piece specifically is one of those I cherish most. Beautifully dark twists and turns it makes to most known biblical myths are very subtle, they help you get exactly the right vibe. My favorite parts are the poetic ones, beautifully written and intense. Most illustrations are also filled with emotion and truly captivate your attention, make you want to study them. In later parts of the book the style of narrative feels like it's a non-fictional read, even though it's very obvious that it is. I feel like this helps the reader to consume information easily and also intrigues to learn more. On the last part... loved the plot twist, but not the character. I'm also pretty sure she's not there for me to like her, so it's okay. Overall it is a must read for all VTM fans or people who are just getting into it. I would argue the book could've been a little larger, but to be honest this is just enough to get you satisfied.
"...for as long as you walk this earth,
you and your children will cling to Darkness
You will drink only blood
You will eat only ashes
You will be always as you were at death,
Never dying, living on.
You will walk forever in Darkness,
all you touch will crumble into nothing,
until the last days."
"...for as long as you walk this earth,
you and your children will cling to Darkness
You will drink only blood
You will eat only ashes
You will be always as you were at death,
Never dying, living on.
You will walk forever in Darkness,
all you touch will crumble into nothing,
until the last days."
August 25, 2019
Another awesome book from the VTM collection!
Amazing artwork, useful info about the whole lore of VTM, well done and beautifully constructed!
Of course, "Revelations of the Dark Mother" is better than this one, but OK. Mehehe...
Amazing artwork, useful info about the whole lore of VTM, well done and beautifully constructed!
Of course, "Revelations of the Dark Mother" is better than this one, but OK. Mehehe...
August 13, 2018
Fun trip down VTM lane. Basically the Kindred bible.
January 2, 2021
This is a collection of fictional white wolf vampire lore meant to supplement game play in the popular, beloved 1990 variant of Vampire known as the masquerade. I came by this book due to one of my gaming groups. It had been leant to one friend to another and apparently it was now my turn. I protested as I pictured the hundreds if not thousands of books already sitting at home crying out for me to read. However, my protests were in vain and somehow I came to carry the elder 90s tomb home. Took me a long time to try to read it, but I will say I was pleasantly surprised. The majority of the book is very poetic, sprinkled with reinterpretations of often religious myths to form the back bone of this fictional lore. It’s actually a fairly quick read with a lot of good WOD story and character ideas. I don’t know that I’d recommend it for non gaming groups, but if your playing vampire or really any WOD game it’s a good read. I rate books on the category they fell into. It meets the purpose it was written for and has an artistic glamour that I found delightful, thus the fairly high rating. Really makes me wish they’d rerelease all of the 90’s vamp and other WOD books as a lot of these are just not available anymore and they make such wonderful, macabre story sparks.
January 9, 2022
This I an interesting read! I recommend this extra lore if you plan on making a vampire the masquerade character. It gives you more lore to go by. I really like how they included pictures, the art for this book is really good. It's done in a comic book style for some of it.
June 20, 2024
One of my favourite gaming books. So much so, I made an audiobook version:
June 22, 2020
As people with the (mis)fortune to know me irl definitely know and people who follow me on social media may know, I've been obsessed with Vampire: the Masquerade this past twelvemonth. As a tabletop setting dating back to 1991, VtM has many rulebooks, novels, comics, and storyteller books available. Enough to get lost in, really. As part of my 2020 GoodReads challenge, I decided to read a selection going along the vague timeline of Vampire and centering on my favorite recurring character, Cuthbert Beckett.
The Book of Nod is the setting's take on the genesis of vampires. In VtM's world, the curse God bestowed upon Caine led to the creation of vampires, with Caine as the first blood drinker. Never heard that one before, am I right? I was confused and amused too. The Book of Nod details how this came about, various laws and advice Caine doled out when he ruled the First City, Enoch, obliquely references how Enoch fell, and the Flood. There are then Proverbs and sayings attributed to various vampire founders, and prophecies concerning the end of vampires as a race.
To add even more interest, The Book of Nod is presented as a primary historical source. Just like in history class, we have footnotes, introductions, and referenced scholastic quibbles over what such-and-such means or the truth of a certain line. The Book is a compilation of fragments painstakingly tracked down and unearthed. Historians and archeologists called the Mnemosyne (or Memory-Seekers) went to great trouble to get this all together, and it was just as fun to read their Indiana Jones-like adventures as it was to read the pseudo-Genesis. The head of the Mnemosyne is Aristotle de Laurent and he's the main writer, but he references his childe Beckett plenty.
Honestly, I didn't think I'd like The Book of Nod as much as I did. I'm Catholic, an amateur historian, and a product of Catholic high school. A lot of media that plays with Christianity annoys me because the writers didn't take the time to really get the culture and history they're parodying. There were some missteps. Chupp calls the Talmud a "Midrashim." which struck me as incorrect? I'm no expert, but the Talmud should at least be considered THE midrash, right? Or just...call it the Talmud. There was a confusing bit about how Caine and Abel were actually separate groups of people who went to war. I was sure this was leading into the accepted Catholic Genesis-is-a-metaphor theory, but then Sun and Moon gods literally cursed/blessed people, so I was confused why/how/where this was different than the Abrahamic God telling Caine to piss off. I guess because there were two gods? Where was the evidence of that?
Overall, however, The Book of Nod was quite a fun bit of world-building. As a reader, writer, and gamer, I delighted. If you're looking for a little extra oomph for your Vampire: the Masquerade experience, it's definitely worth picking up a copy.
The Book of Nod is the setting's take on the genesis of vampires. In VtM's world, the curse God bestowed upon Caine led to the creation of vampires, with Caine as the first blood drinker. Never heard that one before, am I right? I was confused and amused too. The Book of Nod details how this came about, various laws and advice Caine doled out when he ruled the First City, Enoch, obliquely references how Enoch fell, and the Flood. There are then Proverbs and sayings attributed to various vampire founders, and prophecies concerning the end of vampires as a race.
To add even more interest, The Book of Nod is presented as a primary historical source. Just like in history class, we have footnotes, introductions, and referenced scholastic quibbles over what such-and-such means or the truth of a certain line. The Book is a compilation of fragments painstakingly tracked down and unearthed. Historians and archeologists called the Mnemosyne (or Memory-Seekers) went to great trouble to get this all together, and it was just as fun to read their Indiana Jones-like adventures as it was to read the pseudo-Genesis. The head of the Mnemosyne is Aristotle de Laurent and he's the main writer, but he references his childe Beckett plenty.
Honestly, I didn't think I'd like The Book of Nod as much as I did. I'm Catholic, an amateur historian, and a product of Catholic high school. A lot of media that plays with Christianity annoys me because the writers didn't take the time to really get the culture and history they're parodying. There were some missteps. Chupp calls the Talmud a "Midrashim." which struck me as incorrect? I'm no expert, but the Talmud should at least be considered THE midrash, right? Or just...call it the Talmud. There was a confusing bit about how Caine and Abel were actually separate groups of people who went to war. I was sure this was leading into the accepted Catholic Genesis-is-a-metaphor theory, but then Sun and Moon gods literally cursed/blessed people, so I was confused why/how/where this was different than the Abrahamic God telling Caine to piss off. I guess because there were two gods? Where was the evidence of that?
Overall, however, The Book of Nod was quite a fun bit of world-building. As a reader, writer, and gamer, I delighted. If you're looking for a little extra oomph for your Vampire: the Masquerade experience, it's definitely worth picking up a copy.
June 11, 2019
So this book was everything it said it was going to be, a dramatic larp prop. It told the story of the Kindred in epic flowery prose and was filled with sketchy black and shite illustrations. I appreciated some parts of it a lot. Like the Toreador and Malkavian speech to their clans were awesome. I can see how this material would be used in game as a source and I'm happy it is available. I found parts of it so cheesy it was hard to digest, but it's part of the charm of World of Darkness at times.
December 15, 2022
Nosferat’s Words
You are the children of Shadow
You are the sons and daughters
of Darkness
Seek the darkest place
Make it your own
Feed on the wicked, feed on the
sinful,
Feed on the ugly souls
For such is our diet, such is our
Father’s wish, our pre-ordained
meal.
My childer, look not at your
visage to curse me,
for I know the beauty that lies
within,
and no greater beauty will there
ever be.
You are the children of Shadow
You are the sons and daughters
of Darkness
Seek the darkest place
Make it your own
Feed on the wicked, feed on the
sinful,
Feed on the ugly souls
For such is our diet, such is our
Father’s wish, our pre-ordained
meal.
My childer, look not at your
visage to curse me,
for I know the beauty that lies
within,
and no greater beauty will there
ever be.
April 11, 2019
Basically a 'how-it-came-to-be' nigh-on bible for the VtM fans... A must for those, an interesting read for any vamp-themed pop-culture afficionado. Otherwise - if you're not into VtM/VtR/WoD or the bloody universe of TV series and books that is - just an OK piece to flip through... and attempt to forget ;)
October 13, 2019
The beginning of vampires, it's a fascinating read and so well told. This book is a great origin story and linked to Caine and Lilith. I love all things witch and vampire and as a punishment for his actions Caine was banished to forever walk in darkness. I don't want to give too much away but I recommend it to those vampire fans 😁
October 29, 2017
I was inspired to dig this out again after watching Taliesin Jaffe's Vampire The Masquerade campaign on Geek and Sundry. Have wonderful memories of playing the game and this was a lovely artefact from those times.
January 8, 2019
I read this when I was in jr. high, but I decided to pick it back up. I usually LARP with some friends and we've been talking about getting back into Masquerade lately. Thought I'd reread this one. It's pretty cool and a nice addition to the gaming experience.
January 26, 2022
Demasiado genial para ser tan solo un pequeño recurso literario que da fundamentos a un RPG. Parte de una famosa ambigüedad real de la biblia y se encarga de justificar ésta de manera sublime, ligandola al origen y naturaleza de los vampiros.
April 16, 2022
3 GR stars
An interesting collection of stories, written in-setting for the Vampire: The Masquerade RPG. Sometimes clunky and overwrought, sometimes engaging and immersive, it still sheds an interesting light to the most important myths and legends of the Old World of Darkness.
An interesting collection of stories, written in-setting for the Vampire: The Masquerade RPG. Sometimes clunky and overwrought, sometimes engaging and immersive, it still sheds an interesting light to the most important myths and legends of the Old World of Darkness.
May 10, 2022
Um conteúdo para fãs, quase um colecionável, mas nunca adicionou nada concreto ao jogo em si. Ainda mais por se tratar de um mundo muito distante da ideia (e nível de poder) inicial o do jogo original.
February 17, 2024
Libro muy cortito pero que de verdad vale la pena, es un libro muy bueno, me gusta como esta escrito, como algo prohibido y lleno de maldiciones por parte del cielo, que además está escrito como si todo fuera un gran poema.
August 9, 2018
Didn't even realize it was a part of game lore when I read it. Really enjoyed it as a teen. Love the nonfiction / biographical style of writing.
August 10, 2019
This was an amazing book. It was a little hard to understand at times, but really good none the less.
January 29, 2020
Although this was good. Having black text written on black pages isn’t the best thing for reading.
September 16, 2021
Amazing. All hail the Dark Father!
July 13, 2022
I really enjoy world of darkness lore...it scratches a particular Itch 💀
July 16, 2023
Interesante libro sobre Lore de Vampiro la Mascarada/Mundo de tinieblas. Aún si solo lo recomendaría para muy fans o masters que le quieran dar un toque místico a sus crónicas.
February 28, 2024
Love me a game with a deep lore and of all the TTRPGs I 've played VtM is by far the most atmospheric.
July 9, 2024
superou minhas expectativas e por isso vou deixar 5 estrelas
February 17, 2025
Mi libro de historia favorito.
April 14, 2022
The perfect book for an aspiring wannabe vampire, which I was in 1996 during my sophomore year in high school - the same year debuted on TV. I discovered this book at Hot Topic (back when you couldn’t find anything and everything on the internet) and was certain I had discovered the secret bible behind Kindred. A secret it wasn’t. The Bible for Kindred it was. The Book of Nod slipped mysteriously from my collection decades ago, so I cannot give it a fair “adult� review. Nevertheless, I remember the artwork and poetic prose, which were inspirational to my young mind.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 50 reviews
Can't find what you're looking for?
Get help and learn more about the design.