We are proud to present the campaign for the making of The Vampire, the Elf and the Cthulhu (VEC): a game by Luca Ricci in which you will bring to life a true fantasy-horror novel. Players represent writers trying to complete a novel together. Each writer competes with the others to include in the story his favorite plots, settings, and characters. But attention! this game is not a storytelling game, is a fast game where few rules create many different strategies and game options. We call it a "light game made for gamers".

The game will be produced in an Italian and an English version. Other languages may be available if the respective stretch-goals are unlocked (see below).

The project will be run simultaneously on two crowdfunding platforms: Giochistarter and Kickstarter. To determine the total amount funded, and the activated stretch-goals, one must take into account the totals from all three sites. This total sum is calculated automatically on Giochistarter: on this page, at the top left corner, you will be able to see the number of participants and the totals reached for all three platforms together. 

B. - The novel is almost ready, missing only the final.
J. - Right, it could take place in front of the gates of the Black Land.
H. - Black Land, John? We are in New England!
J. - You are killing the epic poetry Howard, Black Land and an horde of orcs. 
B. - I got it! We can set the Novel in Transilvania, it's a classic! And a lot of garlic, everywhere.
H. - We already choose the United States.
B. - Romania or nothing! J. - Middl ...
DLIN DLON!!
E. - I'm Poe, I solve problems! 

All backers will receive the exclusive card Edgar Allan Poe. This card will never be available after this campaign. Don't miss it!!! 

This card is kept on the Idea Area and available to players like other cards, but it can only activated, not gathered. When a player actives the card, Discussion action starts: the player must propose a new card to substitute a Novel card. All players can join the decision assigning their strength to change it or not. 

If we will fund VEC project, we will extract 10 winners from campaign participants (only between backers with a reward). The winners will receive a free game between: Bomarzo, Foreign King, Gladiatori, Odin's Ravens, Exoplanets, Progress. You can find more info on these games www.giochix.it. All games include English contents.

Enjoy it!

Recensioni minute review (Italian, English subtitles available):

A Print & Play version of VEC is now available! It's a beta version and any comments, criticisms, or suggestion would really be appreciated! We are looking for errors or typos in the rulebook, but also for suggestions for gameplay improvement and development. Thank you for your help! :-) For this purpose you can email to:.

You can freely dowload the English rulebook and the cards to print.

VEC is available on Tabletopia, the biggest online boardgame platform. Play VEC there!!!

• Because VEC is a light game created for gamers. Quick and easy to learn and play, but so incredibly deep.  
• Because VEC is an innovative game with many engaging mechanics. 
• Because it has not one, but three fantastic settings! 
• Because here you can purchase VEC at an extraordinary price. 
• Because thanks to its pocket format it's easy to take and play everywhere. 
• Because thanks to its short duration and huge replayability, you'll be able to play it many, many times. 
• Because your collaboration can help us make the game better and more interesting! 
• Because with the Fidelity Program, each purchase made on giochistarter allows you to gain/increase a permanent discount linked to your account. 
• Because here you can participate in the "Faster Click" contest and win a The Foreign King board game, if you are the fastest participant to join the campaign

J.- Night, almost total darkness. Only rarely was the pale glow of the moon able to find enough space between the thick clouds to cast some light on the landscape. But he had no need of the moon to locate his target, his eyes were able to see in the darkness better than anyone else. He moved slowly, yet there was no need to worry about making any noise, as his movements were effortless, almost ethereal. Never in his eternal life had he been sensed by his prey. Only a few more steps, and he would be in range of his target. His prey stood there, unaware and helpless in the face of his attack. The attack would be a quick and decisive shot to the neck, without any comprehension by the prey as to what was happening. No worries, no tension, the cold calm that he always exhibited, made him perfect for this task. Suddenly the beating of wings, a night bird, alerted the defenseless creature. But by then it was too late to avoid the sailing arrow ...

H. - Why doesn’t he use his tentacles to destroy it?

B.- Which vampire has tentacles or shoots arrows?

J.- From time immemorial, orcs have been killed by elves with bow and arrows.

B.- You have turned the helpless girl, alone in the dark night, into a putrid orc?! Who can drink the slimy, filthy, black blood of an orc?

J.- No one will drink the blood of anyone, Bram!

H.- Yes, I agree with John, Cthulhu never drinks anything!

B.- What is this Cthulhu, Howard?

H.- The protagonist of our story, isn’t it?

In The Vampire, the Elf and the Cthulhu players must acquire cards through a simple auction system. Cards represent the writer ideas (protagonists, characters, events, places, items, encounters). Cards have special powers and players activate them to interact with other players (move cards, turn cards, refill energy, etc). Aim of the game is move specific cards to a special zone of the table game area, called NOVEL area. Cards must be placed there in the right sequence and type/color: each player has a different objective with a different sequence and colors, so as the result will be identical/similar to player objective, victory points will be scored.

Card powers can be conbined resulting in a huge number of play combinations creating many possible strategies.

VEC is a turn-based game; every turn, each player has 2 actions, represented by the two action tokens. They can spend them to activate the cards they have acquired, or to acquire/activate new cards.

 
Each turn there are new available cards on the table that each writer-player can acquire. Cards signify an original idea to include in the novel, and come in six different colors, representing: a main character (red), a secondary character (blue), a place (green), an event (purple), an object (yellow), and an encounter (grey).

Cards are acquired through a bidding mechanic, not unlike an auction. Players place one of their action tokens on the cards they want to take, and if they desire, can add some ink tokens, which represent the effort and the will of the player to write a wellcrafted page on that subject. Another player can bid more tokens and steal the idea, forcing the first player to move to another card. At the end of the turn, the cards containing a player’s action token are acquired and added to his "display". The display is set in front of each player.

The players can now use the powers of the cards they have activated. Every card has a power.

The power of each card has a variable strength. This strength is determined by how many cards of the same type are in that player's display (there are three types: Vampire, Elf and Cthulhu) - multiplied by the number of cards with the same genre (Adventure, Romance, War, Tragedy, Comedy).

The player can add ink tokens from his reserve to improve the result. Once a card is used, it is flipped face down (inactive) and is not available.

The card powers are:

• RETRIEVE INK from the general reserve. The number of ink tokens that can be acquired depends on the strength of the power.
• RESEARCH: draw a card from any deck of your choice. You can draw several cards depending on the strength of the power, and then pick the best one.
• REACTIVATE: flip a number of face-down cards faceup, depending on the strength of this power
• COMPARE: the player challenges another to compare one of his ideas to one of his own. Two cards of the same kind are compared and the strongest one wins. In this case, ink tokens are added in secret and then revealed simultaneously. The winner gets to deactivate a number of cards in the opponent's display.
• INSERT a page in the novel. A player can propose one of his cards (ideas) to insert into the final draft of the novel. Opponents can disagree and propose an alternative card of the same kind (main character, secondary character, event, place, object...). The two are compared and the strongest one wins. The winning player can then place the card in the area of the table dedicated to approved ideas. He can also add one of his property tokens to this card, as a reminder that it is his idea. Property tokens are limited and very expensive to acquire, but they multiply the points gained by a card at the end of the game.

The game ends when 4 cards have been inserted into the novel. The players then reveal their objective cards and calculate their victory points: the writer who will have been the most faithful to his original idea will win the game.

Each objective card presents some colored bands:

A player reviews his objective card as to what colors it contains, and the order of those colors. For each color that matches one of the colors in the novel, the player gets points. He gets more points if the matching novel card also contains the player’s token. Finally, if the color on the objective card is in the same position as it is in the novel, he gains additional points.

54 Novel cards:

• 9 Protagonists
• 9 Characters
• 9 Places
• 9 Events
• 9 Objects
• 9 Encounters

12 Objective cards

4 Aid cards

8 Quill's Pen markers (2 wooden pawns per player color)

16 Personal Ink tokens (4 wooden discs per player color)

24 Ink tokens (wooden black cubes)

Rulebook

There are two special SGs and some traditional SG: the first is related to the Giochix Twitter followers and the second one is linked to the Giochistarter participant’s Country and to languages included into the game. Traditional SGs are related to sum collected by the project.


TWITTER SG. If we will reach 1000 followers on our Twitter account all campaign participants will receive a new exclusive Event card. Spread the news and tell to your gamer friends to join us!

COUNTRY SG. The Vampire, the Elf and the Cthulhu is a language-independent game. All participants will receive the multi-language version, which includes the Italian and English rulebooks.
The rulebook will also be translated into all of the languages represented by the Giochistarter users that participate in the project, and that collectively raise a minimum sum of 1000 euro. In this case the rulebook will be made available online. If the group of users raise 2000 euro, the rulebook will be printed and added to their copy of the game. For example, if 100 Spanish users take part in this campaign for a total sum of 1500 euro, the rulebook will be translated to Spanish and put online on the giochix.it website. If these 100 users are joined by 50 Mexican users (who speak Spanish) and the new total exceeds 2000 euro, the Spanish version of the rulebook will be printed and added to the game box.

TRADITIONAL SGs. We also planned some traditional stretch-goals, and will add some others during the campaign:

Because we have been producing games since 2007 and we have sold over 140.000 copies!

Because we have realized 34 board games, including Bomarzo, The Foreign King, Historia, CO2, Romolo o Remo, De Vulgari Eloquentia and, for the Italian market, Race for the Galaxy, Tiny Epic Kingdoms e Dice Town.

Because we have had many international partners: Rio Grande Games (US),  Stronghold Games (US), Zman Games (US), Eagle Games (US), Elfinwerks (US), Gamenyl Games (US), Arcana (US), MYBG Co. (CN), Heidelberger Spieleverlag (DE); Lookout Games (DE), Juegamos Games (ES), Black Book Editions (FR), Gigamic (FR), Matagot (FR), Artipia Games (GR), Arclight (JP), BardCentrum Gier (PL), Lacerta (PL), NSKN Games (RO) and Hobby World (RU).

Because taking part in our campaigns you will have guarantees on different things:

• Delivery time: so far we have respected the set times in 14 out of 15campaigns. The only case in which we have experienced a delay of three months was on an "indirect" game, not directly published by us. We are anyway seeking to improve our rates and delivery times, especially for the most remote destinations in the world. 
• Payment: with PayPal you are insured! Paypal protects your transactions and should any problem arise, it refunds the sum you paid.
• If you change your mind: within 15 days from the order you can cancel it simply by sending us an email. You will be immediately paid back!
• Information: in your profile, in the "orders" section, you can follow your order and have all the information you require. You can also verify and track your shipment, if the service is offered by the chosen shipping method.

Shipping to Italy costs 3.46 euro. For USA, Canada, EU countries and other other world Countries shipping cost will be shown after clicking "Proceed to checkout” button on the cart. Shop shipping cost depends by order size and it's shown on Shipping cost page

Some example for Postal mail service: UK, France, Spaign, Germany, The Netherlands, US/Canada, Japan: 4.99 euro. Some example for Courier service: UK, France, Spaign, The Netherlands: 13.72 euro; Germany: 9.35 euro; US/Canada: 15.78 euro.

It’s possible pick-up your copy at our pickup point in Rome or at Spiele Essen Fair (Germany) and Lucca Comics & Games Fair (Italy).

Games will be shipped approximately from November 2016. 

Note: We strongly suggest to specify a telephone number in your profile. This helps a lot the game delivery. We will use the address specified in your GS account profile at the shipping date: this means you can change it as you wish whitin the date of shipment.

Production. A distinction must be made between games printed directly by Giochix or printed by another publisher, that we can be call "indirect".

In the first case we have direct control over the printing procedures and we can intervene quickly in case of problems, solving and adjusting if necessary. In the second case we can only interact with the publisher that prints the game without having the opportunity to act on the production process.

This means that when the games are printed by us, the shipping date that we indicated in the draft is fairly safe. Obviously in this case there may be delays, and this should be taken into account, but we are confident of being able to respect the times given.

In the second case, for "indirect" games, the shipment date is only indicative. Unfortunately it can happen that deliveries suffer a delay and this must be considered before making a purchase. Of course we will inform you immediately if something were to happen.

-> The Vampire, the Elf and the Cthulhu is printed by Giochix. So it is a "direct" game.

Components. Game specifications and components are to be considered indicative and can be changed during final production.

Project pages. Sometime there can be some little variances between the pages of this project in the different languages. In that case, refer to the project’s English page.

Fairs. It can happen that game shipment is scheduled in a time frame adjacent to a big Fair, like Essen Fair in Germany or Lucca Comics and Games in Italy. Is important to know that we will show/sell the game in these fairs independently of campaign participant shipment status. These Fairs are too important and unfortunately it is not possible to avoid them without destroying the game’s chances to be a success.

Shipments. Depending on the game, we ship by Postal service, insured Postal service or by Courier (UPS/GLS/SDA/Bartolini).

We reserve the right to separate the contents of an order in different shipments or to merge the contents of different orders in the same shipment to improve shipment delivery speed and logistics management. If that happens, there will not be any additional cost for the customer (nor right to any refund).

Shipments made by Courier or by insured Postal service can be tracked and are insured. Shipments made by Postal service (not insured) can not be traced and, although it rarely does, it can happen that they delay or are lost. We recommend to those who want to avoid any problem to use the insured option or an alternative method, if available. If the game gets lost without any fault, we will reship it only if you took insurance option or Courier service.

Shipments insurance doesn't cover any external damage to the box.

Please note that we will not reship any game without first having found out what happened to first shipment. This is really easy and fast for the courier option, but can require 1-4 weeks with Postal service.

If the game will not be delivered because of your mistake (wrong address, recipient repeatedly absent, not picking up the package after the passage of the courier, etc.), you will have to pay an additional shipping cost to re-send you the game. This cost will also include the return costs of the game. Otherwise, if we made an error, we will send it again to you at our expense.

If you live out of the European Community, customs taxes could be added. This usually doesn't happen for board games. Check your Country legislation to be sure about that, ad this aspect is not our responsibility.

Please note that Postal service can be really slow in some rare cases. If you want a fast delivery or simply to avoid the risk of a long wait use an alternative method.

We will no longer accept complaints related to this campaign after 12 months from the date of shipment of games.

Money Back Guarantee. If you are not happy with this game you can return it for a full pledge refund. You have to ship back games at your cost to Rome, Italy. Returned games must arrive here within 90 days from first shipping date. Game must arrive still in cello or in perfect condition (make very good package to avoid any damage!) without any missing piece. Refund will not include shipping charges paid and will be made by Paypal.