A Mysterious Box

On Sunday afternoon, FedEx delivered a box to my front steps. The box is approximately a 20 inch cube and weighs roughly 45 pounds. It is addressed to my ex-girlfriend, who broke up with me nearly two years ago. We were together for 18 years and parted on good terms, but I now know that she was already living with another guy at the time she left me. They are getting married in three months. I haven't talked to her since March, when she finally came over to pick up two carloads of her stuff. I helped her load her vehicle, and we had a pleasant conversation, and she came back over the next day for the second carload. She still has at least one or two more carloads of stuff here. I left her a voicemail, an email, and a text message regarding the mystery box, but haven't heard back from her.

So I looked at the shipping label again, and the box came from Flyos, a board game publisher based in Montreal. By coincidence, my ex worked for Asmodee for six years, and her department head lived and worked in Montreal. Also, my birthday is in two days. Is this box a birthday present for me? Or is it possible that my ex just accidentally had it shipped to an address she hasn't lived at for the last two years? It's a mystery.

Nobody within driving distance is shipping you a 45 pound box.

Sounds like an all in Kickstarter that funded back when you were together and just got fulfilled .

I'd bet money it's Vampire: Chapters. A narrative campaign board game from Flyos that captures elements of the White Wolf RPG.

That gotta be an expensive purchase no matter what, like an "all in" of Cthulhu Wars or something. So even if you keep it, surely she will do some accounting and wonder about it, right? Probably best to just text her a pic of the box and ask if she wants it.

The suspense is tangible though

charlest wrote: I'd bet money it's Vampire: Chapters. A narrative campaign board game from Flyos that captures elements of the White Wolf RPG.

Charlie is right. The KS began shipping earlier this month, and the box is square & big.

You guys are probably right. She emailed me back and told me that it was a kickstarter that she backed in 2020 as a present to me, while we were still together, and apparently it is just now shipping. It probably is Vampire: Chapters, because she knew that I was a big fan of vampires in general and World of Darkness specifically. For Christmas in 2004, she got me Vampire: Bloodlines, a pc rpg game in the same setting. And my only published board game was Vampire: Dark Influences, in 2006, also set in the World of Darkness. Judging by the weight of the box, she must have gone for the highest tier of that kickstarter.

Anyway, I'm not going to open it until my birthday on Thursday, because it is probably the only birthday present that I will be receiving this year. My parents are deceased, my sister and her husband are paying off bills for his cancer treatment, and I am not currently in a relationship. My date last night cancelled at the last minute because she wasn't feeling well, and now I am coming down with a mild summer cold. Otherwise, my life is going pretty well right now.

Well now I gotta send you something.

Jackwraith wrote:

Damn, I was gonna post that (or River Tam in that cryo chamber) but I've never been able to post pics on this forum.

Now I gotta see what the hell kinda RPG kickstarter has that much stuff. Does it come with functional weapons or something?

Oh shit, now I wanna do a riff off "Cash n' Guns" but mixed with a twist on hidden role Werewolf and it has nerf anti-vamp weapons (stake, cross, holy water, etc).

Stay tuned, it will be a $250 "All in" kickstarter next week, sorry Phantom Division, you just got sidelined

I just received this game. Hope to get it to the table soon. It is a beast of a box for sure. Lot of little books in it.

Hope to hear your thoughts on it.

Happy birthday!

It was indeed Vampire: Chapters, with all the extras. My ex told me that this is the most expensive gift she has ever gotten anybody. It's a bittersweet thing, to receive such a thoughtful gift from someone who no longer loves me, due to delays created by significant supply chain issues.

I finally hauled this game down to the basement gaming table and unboxed it while listening to suitably gothic music. My ex requested photos, which is a very reasonable request from someone who bought me such a fancy gift. In hindsight, I should have done an unboxing video, except that I hate watching unboxing videos. So I will post a link to my Flickr album for Vampire: Chapters photos:

flic.kr/s/aHBqjALgpK

So what have we got here? The overall game weighs at least as much as two full copy paper boxes, maybe 50 pounds. The main game box is 21" square and 8" tall. There are both unpainted gray plastic miniatures and full color cardboard standees, and a thick set of double-sided map tiles. There is a thick storybook and a relatively thin rule book, plus a small library shelf of "chapter" booklets, each one of which is a crucial scene in the overall story campaign. The standees are all numbered, so certain chapters likely call for certain numbered standees plus one of the map tiles.

There are a bunch of red and black ten-sided dice with white anhk symbols on some of the sides, probably representing successes. There are sheets of cardboard tokens and a bag of red tranlucent plastic cubes that probably track blook usage by the vampire characters. The character cards have indents for those blood cubes and maybe also some cardboard tokens. There are also several small decks of cards (FFG style). The quality of the color art on everything is pretty good (by board game standards, not necessarily museum level art), especially on the map tiles, aside from somewhat discrete hex markings on some of the map tiles. These map tiles and standees would also be readily usable in a cyberpunk-type rpg.

There are four smaller clan boxes, each 13"x9"x1.5". Each one contains another player character sheet, a mini, several standees, more cards, a two-sided map tile, and two more chapter booklets. The expansion clans are Banu Haqim (assassin vampires), Hekata (necromancer vampires), Lasombra (shadow-manipulating vampires), and the Ministry (sneaky seductive vampires, formerly known as the Followers of Set in older versions of the World of Darkness.

There is also a box marked Exclusive Miniatures. It contains a bunch more unpainted gray minis, plus a promo card for Vampire; the Eternal Struggle, the excellent CCG by Richard Garfield that I have been playing since it was first published as Jyhad in 1994.