A review by nmcannon
Beckett's Jyhad Diary by Steffie de Vaan, Joshua Alan Doetsch, Matthew Dawkins, Malcolm Sheppard, Monica Valentinelli, Neall Raemonn Price, Matthew McFarland, Renee Knipe, Myranda Sarro, Alan Alexander

adventurous challenging dark funny slow-paced

3.0

 Here it is: the motherload for Beckett fans everywhere. When I started my journey through White Wolf Publishing, I was equal parts excited and intimidated by this massive tome. On the other side, I’m happy it happened and a little glad it’s over. 

Launched as Kickstarter campaign back in June 2016, Beckett’s Jyhad Diary is an adventure supplement for Vampire: the Masquerade – Corebook, 20th Anniversary Edition. It updates the meta-plot to 2005. Each chapter begins with an epistolary novella chronicling Beckett’s latest adventure, and afterwards the book provides possible scenarios for Storytellers to run. With a whopping thirty chapters, no Kindred is left behind—if you have a favorite legacy character, they’re here. Discounting the Arctic poles, no continent is left behind, as Beckett globe-trots with an ease untouched by 2000s gas prices. This man gets around—in more ways than one. I have a friend who calls the diary “Beckett’s Little Black Book” and they’re not kidding. I’m delighted. 

If you’ve read or played anything else from White Wolf, you know what the major drawbacks are going to be: lots of racism, sinophobia, xenophobia, and Islamophobia. I mean, read the title. Shockingly less misogyny in this one, but that’s probably thanks to the female writers. Some chapters were a slog to get through, like the one set in the USA’s Southern States. Take care of yourself while reading. 

My other complaint is down to organization. The overarching plot of the Diary (nominally) is Beckett’s quest for The Book of the Grave-War. The first six chapters follow this thread clearly, as Beckett is yanked around by Elders and rumor. But then it just…drops. Two or three chapters will follow a separate arc, like “Beckett goes to LA” or “Sabbat drama” or “returning Hazimel’s contact lens,” but not much lines up nicely. As someone interested in playing through the Diary with a traveling Noddist coterie, it’s going to take a lot of creativity and effort to link these stories together. I tried by continent, artifact, or chronology, and the results were unsatisfying each time. 

In addition, the authors make some plain fumbles that could happen to anyone trying to write White Wolf lore, because the lore is sooooo loosey-goosey. For example, “The Anarch Freefall” chapter tries to be ambiguous enough to take place before or after the Vampire: the Masquerade - Bloodlines video game, but that leaves the reader at loose ends as to why Jeremy MacNeil, Salvador Garcia, and the New Promise Mandarinate are still kicking. “A Brief History of Beckett” is an honest mess. It raises more questions than it answers, and the provided plot hooks ignore those questions. Somehow Emma Blake fakes her death again. I’m expected to believe Beckett did nothing while a Giovanni tortured her soul for twenty-five years, and the Diary fails to explain why the Giovanni stopped. Beckett writes an online article conflating Kindred with Freud’s psycho-sexual stages, when that theory’s been disproven six ways to Sunday by now. Beckett did something for the Inner Council, and they framed him as betraying Aristotle? Hello??? Why bring these events up if they’re not story hooks? 

The discontinuity’s effect on Beckett’s character isn’t complimentary: he comes off scatter-brained, cold, and disorganized. Sure, there’s an element of seizing opportunities as presented, or, in Hesha’s case, dropping everything to rescue a beloved from the Fire Court. But it stretched my understanding of the character that Beckett left off trying to find/save/protect Carna to visit Russia on a whim, or attend an art gallery opening. Like. Dude. Are you trying to find your ex-girlfriend or not. 

The lack of continuity can partly be chalked up to the fact that the Diary isn’t a series of novellas, but a collection of player hooks for a tabletop rpg. Storytellers are encouraged multiple times to take what they want and leave the rest. Major plot points lack resolution. There’s a hazy, dream-like quality to the writing at points, and Beckett is continuously kidnapped, drugged, and invaded mentally, physically, and spiritually. There’s nothing too graphic on page, but, uh, some encounters could be interpreted as rape. But the point of Beckett’s incapacitation is so the Storyteller can decide what really happened. Players can decide how the World of Darkness shakes out. 

And there’s just so much to shake. Beckett touches many an unlife and many a plot. The White Wolf wiki was beside me as I read, because Beckett will drop a buzzword without preamble and send me on thirty-minute rabbit hole research chase. It was a lot of fun, to discover so much, and I was excited about potential fanfic or chronicle ideas much more than I was frustrated. Beckett’s interactions with the Nod Squad are heart-wrenching, hilarious, and adorable in turn. Queer elements become queer canon, as Beckett becomes the Bride of Dracula and is named Hazimel’s consort and falls for Serenna the White and slices through centuries long sexual tension with Sascha Vykos. And more! Which I won’t name here because it’s a long list, haha. Rest assured that #BisexualBeckett is canon. 

I have ideas upon ideas, and I’ve finished Beckett’s diary. Despite some major drawbacks, it’s a buzzing, fascinating read. I heartily recommend it to Vampire: the Masquerade fans after they have some video games, books, and/or chronicles under their belt. You know, after you’ve had that initial bite, and you’re ready to slowly nibble a bloody feast. 
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