Jyhad
2021-10-21

Jyhad

Another find in the attic, the cards say 1994. I vaguely remember that I bought them in the period after Interview with a Vampire.

At the back of the Starter Deck box is written in red:

From the creators of Magic: The Gathering™ comes an entirely new Deckmaster collectable trading card game based on White Wolf's popular storytelling game Vampire: The Masquerade™. Intended for mature players, Jyhad™ pits rival vampires against each other in a struggle for control over the sinister World of Darkness™. You are an ancient Methuselah using political manipulation and force to dominate other vampires and drain your opponents' blood pool. The game is designed for two or more players: each player needs a deck to play. The complete set contains over four hundred cards and features full-color illustrations by the genre's most prominent artists. Join the Jyhad where blood is your weakness — and your ultimate weapon!

Since at that time I wasn't surrounded by gamers, I bought four or five starter decks and some extension "bags" and tried to initiate friends to the game. It never really caught on, and Magic was stronger anyway. I played Magic only once or twice, I felt it was too technical and that you could rename the cards and change the illustrations and still play the same. It was not inspiring. But Jyhad was. Maybe it's because it described a totally different parallel world, maybe because it was based on the storytelling Masquerade.

We're so skilled at populating the worlds of darkness.