Collecting classic World of Darkness, part 11: And the rest

There are two remaining WoD games to cover, Mummy: The Resurrection and Demon: The Fallen.

Mummy: The Resurrection

Mummy wasn’t originally a standalone game, but a somewhat odd sourcebook published for Vampire in 1995. (The cover has logos for both VtM and the WoD in general, but it has the green marble cover of VtM.) A second edition under the WoD label was published in 1996.  They’re both easy to get cheap, because they’re not really all that popular.  I don’t particularly recommend them except for historical interest–White Wolf got much better in later years with a) game design and b) foreign cultures (not perfect, but better).

2001 was White Wolf’s Egyptian/Middle Eastern-themed “Year of the Scarab”.  They had various theme years where several games would get tie-in sourcebooks and sometimes a new game was released–Kindred of the East came out of Year of the Lotus, Hunter out of the Year of Reckoning (not Year of the Hunter, which was several years earlier), and so forth.  In addition to Mummy, they released:

• VtM: Cairo By Night
• WtA: Rage Across Egypt
• MtA: Lost Paths: Ahl-i-Batin and Taftani
• HtR: Holy War
• VtDA: Veil of Night

The year climaxed with the release of MtR, which reworked Mummy into a better system and setting.

There were only two MtR rulebooks released: the core rulebook and the Players  Guide.  Each one can be picked up for around $15 or less–for $30 you could have a complete collection from Amazon right now.  That’s why I list the other tie-ins; although not strictly MtR, the first two editions of Mummy are more part of this game line than any other.

The only tie-in product I’m aware of is a fiction trilogy, also titled “Year of the Scarab”.

Demon: The Fallen

2002 was White Wolf’s “Year of the Damned” (including WoD: Mafia, which seems to be stretching the theme a bit, but it was a looser theme than some of the others).  The new game was Demon: The Fallen, the second-to-last core game for the cWoD and the last traditional, open-ended one.

DtF is a good game, a sought-after game, and a late release; as a result, it has the highest average per-book price for the pre-V20 releases.  With patience, the core book can be found for under $10 on eBay, but it runs at least $30 on Amazon.  Most of the paperback sourcebooks (City of Angels, Damned and Deceived, Storytellers Companion (plus ST screen), Fear to Tread and Saviors and Destroyers) are less expensive, and can be found for $10 or less without much trouble.  The in-character supplement, Days of Fire, runs about $20.

On the other hand, the hardcover sourcebooks and one key paperback (Players Guide and Houses of the Fallen in hardcover, and Earthbound in paperback) are often expensive and harder to find.  You can get lucky and find them for $20 or less on eBay, but if you look on Amazon, you’re looking at $25 for the PG and twice that for the others. (The cheapest Earthbound on Amazon right now is $200, but it can certainly be found for less that that.) Apart from the fact that non-corebook hardcovers cost more and thus were probably ordered and purchased in lower quantities, they’re much more essential to running the game than the paperbacks (excepting the STs Companion).  The Players Guide has the usual added information and chargen options, HotF is essentially all the splatbooks in one volume, and Earthbound has much more detailed information on one of the big enemies than the corebook does.

There are two tie-in items I know of; a fiction trilogy and a mousepad.  The mousepad runs about $15-20.

Well, that’s it for the cWoD core games!  Next up are the generic WoD line, then Mind’s Eye Theatre.  Until next time, the Woggle-Bug says, “Why can’t he be both, like the late Earl Warren?”