Kindred: The Embraced (1996)

Vampire the Masquerade is something that's known to weird kids and tabletop players. It's a pen and paper game that was spawned from White Wolf's "World of Darkness" series. From its storylines came many novels, graphic novels, two video games, and even a television series.

Kindred: The Embraced followed the trials and tribulations of Ventrue Julian Luna, Prince of San Francisco. But see, right there is where you can get tripped up pretty easily -- just because he's a Prince doesn't mean he's royalty. This was one of the trickier parts of the first episode, and potentially an obstacle for the whole series if it had continued past the seven episodes originally aired. VtM has several clans that all fall into three main groups: Camarilla, Sabbat, and non-aligned. Thankfully, the show stuck to mainly Camarilla clans to keep things a little more simple, but they did alter a few other aspects (like letting vampires who had recently fed walk in the sunlight).

Daedalus looks to sink a little fang.

Though kind of cheesy and with hokey make-up (looking at you, Nosferatu), the show honestly had some real promise. Mark Funkel, the actor who played Julian, was a sympathetic character as we go through the loss of his maker with him, the romance with a human reporter and the desire to protect his niece, both before and after she becomes a vampire. The show was also populated with other fun characters, like Cash, the sullen and withdrawn leader of the Gangrel and who was also Julian's enforcer, and the arrogant and Frustrating Eddie Fiori, leader of the obnoxious Brujah clan.

Sascha and Cash, the star-crossed lovers; a necessity for any show.

Overall, the show is best compared to a mafia movie, which isn't a bad comparison for the game in itself. The clans aren't necessarily families, but blood is thicker than water and if you slight someone's maker, you're bound to end up on the wrong side of a stake. I would have loved to see this show flower a little more, especially if it ended up including my favorite children of Malkav, but there's a strong possibility that that could have gone very fishmalk as well.