Coteries, Journeys and Golconda (Patreon)

When you start up the game after the new update, you will notice a new alert at the top of your screen.

What’s this? Well, this might sound crazy, but before Vampire: the Masquerade became the setting for the hottest CK3 mod, it existed as a tabletop RPG. And something the mod has been missing so far is the ability to team up with your mates and go on adventures and have a grand old time.

So now you can team up with your mates and go on adventures and have a grand old time.

What are these adventures, you ask?

Journeys

Let’s take Inquisitors as an example.

Hunting Vampires used to be done as a Scheme. Now, Schemes are alright, but they’re also inflexible. They lack granularity, and it’s impossible to get rid of their RNG elements. So now, it’s a new type of interaction, called a Journey.

Journeys usually have two phases. What you see here is the Planning Phase. Unlike Schemes, a Journey will progress at a constant rate every month. This rate is based on various factors, depending on the Journey. Usually they’re quite straightforward, but of course, hunting an Elder Vampire is anything but straightforward.

Once the Planning Phase is done, you get the option to start the Travel Phase. That’s right! If you want to dunk on Camilla, you have to physically travel to Rome to do so.

If this is an inconvenient time, you can also postpone the Journey and travel at a later date.

Once you’re on the hunt, you can decide to take your Coterie with you. This is where they come in handy. During a Journey, skills are shared between Coterie members. So if a Coterie member is a better fighter than you, skill checks will use their Prowess, not yours.

Some interactions that used to be Schemes have been converted to Journeys in this way. So if you want to wake Gilgamesh from torpor, you can now take the whole gang on a road trip with you.

But wait! There’s more.

Hunt in your Capital

It hurts me every time I watch some Vampire gameplay on Youtube and see how much clicking one has to do just in order to get a snack.

Right click yourself, Find Mortals, confirm. Click each character to confirm resonance, pin the good ones, confirm. Right click, start hunt scheme, confirm. Wait for the scheme to end. Drink. Right click another pinned character, start hunt scheme, confirm. Repeat.

Bull. Shit.

Here’s how it works in the new update. The “Find Mortals” interaction was removed entirely. Instead, there’s a shiny new button in the sidebar.

This is where you can see an overview of all the available Journeys.

“Hunt in your Capital” is like the Hunt scheme and the Find Mortals interaction, merged into one. It gives you all the options you are familiar with from before. What’s new is what happens after your hunt is completed:

This is what the event looks like for Camilla. He’s skilled in Auspex, so he can immediately see everyone’s resonance. He’s also a Ventrue, and he can see at a glance whether these mortals fit his feeding restrictions.

See that checkbox? It lets you automate the Journey. Just set it and forget it. Let your character focus on Sexy Vampire Stuff instead of micromanagement.

But wait! There’s more.

Learn new Abilities

We sometimes get asked how one can learn new Disciplines. The mod used to have the option to get mentored by friends or lovers, but that was quite obscure. Now there are Journeys for it.

The Travel Phase will let you physically travel to a mentor. If you take your Coterie with you, they will learn the ability as well.

But wait! There’s more.

Golconda

Diablerie used to be the only way for a Vampire to grow in power and get access to those juicy elder perks. There was no meaningful alternative for humanitarian Vampires, until now.

That is not to say it’s an easy road to take. Many problems in CK3 can be easily solved by killing or stealing. Can you resist these temptations while you slowly accumulate the necessary insights into your Beast?

But wait! There’s more.

Reveal yourself to the Vatican

All the Journeys mentioned so far have been about roleplay, camaraderie, or quality of life.

This one goes out to all the min-maxers out there.

Don’t listen to the red text. Do it. Go down in the history books.

Because if you survive, you have a chance to vindicate yourself.

If you do survive, that is.