The Camarilla

A Letter to the Camarilla Membership. No, not that Camarilla, the other Camarilla… or Maybe it's that Other Camarilla We're Thinking of.

Because I know it's an issue of concern for many of you, I wanted to provide some explanation of the official Cheddar Team position and concerns with the Board of Directors vs. White Wolf, in their attempts to manage the official Camarilla fan club.

Let me start by saying that we love the idea of the Camarilla almost as much as we love the art of cheesemaking. The concept of a large, living, live-action chronicle that takes place all over the world is, in our minds, very similar to the art of blending warm milk curd, salt, and other all-natural ingredients to create a fine sharp cheddar, and the bringing together of these two wonderful elements is something we've always wanted to see happen. I've been involved with cheesemaking from the beginning. I, in fact, invented cheese. Back in 1911, upon the release of the secret formula for the mysterious beverage known as "Milk", Cheddar Team Co-Founder Jon Zimmerman and I invented the automated process by which this "Milk" becomes cheese. We traveled to a small Pennsylvania farm and spoke with a local farmer named Rein Hagen in an attempt to somehow blend this revolutionary milk processing idea with pretending to be a Vampire and wearing black clothing on the weekends.

Many years followed, and several visionary individuals sacrificed several other less visionary individuals to dark gods in sparse basements with tinfoil covering the windows in an effort to gain infernal favor for our dark plan. Overall, I would call these efforts successful. Those efforts have had an unfortunate side-effect though, and the frequent ritual sacrifice not only kept our membership numbers dangerously low, but it distracted us from our Cheesemaking roots. Given the sheer fun and playful glee that ritual sacrifice inspires, such a thing is perfectly understandable.

Several of the points brought up by other allegedly important factions in this debate (The BoD, White Wolf) have indeed been interesting, but for the most part they've been minor issues of wording or silly debates over who's 'in charge'. As members of Cheddar Team we are aware that there are larger issues, issues that while seemingly minor to the less informed, actually involve the vital importance of Cheese as it pertains to our organization.

Since the very first introduction of Cheese into the Camarilla, both White Wolf and the Board of Directors placed great importance on the application and administration of said Cheese. White Wolf has maintained the "Official Fanclub" stamp, granting them the ability to render Cheese as "Official", thus making it seemingly superior in quality to the unofficial cheese that other organizations possess. In return, the Board of Directors has compiled and maintained the world's largest list of official Cheese usage, and kept that information carefully guarded, lest it fall in to the wrong hands. Over the years the two factions have vied for leverage to obtain what the other had, the Official Cheese license of White Wolf and the Cheese list of the Board of Directors. White Wolf has repeatedly stated that it only wants to be nice to the Cheese list, to hold it and keep it warm and safe on the cold winter nights, but the Board of Directors has feared that if they had the list, White Wolf would misuse it, sending tacky non-cheese related emails to it's members and generally annoying everyone.

There's also been some sort of issue with money, although in the end no one really cares about the money. Everyone's in it for the Cheese, and no one knows this better than Cheddar Team. We at Cheddar Team have been watching the distribution of Cheese within this organization for quite some time. We've heard the complaints of the members and noted the missed obligations on the part of the organization in the dissemination of Cheese to the members. It is with these notes in mind that Cheddar Team is prepared to move forward.

The final key issue is that of intellectual property. Cheddar Team would not be the center of the universe that it is if we just gave away our special blend orange food product and fictional vampirism. We do, however, want the members of this fine organization to enjoy the benefits of the Cheese, after all, that's what it's all about. Under license from Cheddar Team, you are allowed to use the Cheese, but this license in no way conveys ownership. The very fact that so many of the elected or appointed heads of the this organization employ so much Cheese, and at times even assert ownership of the Cheese itself, is unreasonable, both in assumption and position.

For something like the last 20 minuets or so, I have been trying to finish typing out this document which outlines Cheddar Team's relationship with the Board of Directors and White Wolf. At several key points, I have just decided to make things up, but on other issues, I've gone with the dangerous, unpleasant facts. For those people not engaged in careers that involve a lot of typing or making thing up, let me give you and example of that this is like. Imagine that you're at a car dealership and that you're typing something, but that it's also 1:13 in the afternoon, and you haven't gone to lunch yet. Can you think of the horror? I mean, imagine, I'm actually getting a little hungry here, and yet, because of my love of Cheddar Team, and of each and every one of you personally, I keep typing.

Now imagine that it's a couple of minuets later, and that you can see that there's this whole other paragraph that you need to parody. And, to top it all off, you're still hungry. At some point you have to wonder if Mike Tinney's letter isn't so damned long just to spite you, and drive you to starvation. Not very professional of him, is it? Can you really trust someone who would do something like that?

I believe that the individuals who have managed the Cheese around here are decent people. They've done a decent job and distributed the Cheese in the way that they think is best for the club. But I also believe that the Cheese needs of the club are not being met, and that perhaps the Cheese usage in the Camarilla has exceeded all rational expectations. Oh, sure, there's a lot that Cheddar Team could have done to help before now, but we're lazy, and if you'll recall, BattleBots premiered a couple of years ago, and we couldn't have missed any of that. And there was one time where we were going to help, but there was an Iron Chef marathon on, so we watched that instead. And then, of course, there was that other time where all of us were already sitting, and no one was already up to bring us Coke from the fridge… that was the worst.

This last issue, with all of us being on the couch, is particularly disturbing to me. I mean, how long can such insanity go on? Using my cell phone, I first called the pizza place and had some pizza and soda sent over, and then I called the BoD. I informed them that the esteemed members of Cheddar Team were having a bit of a difficulty and that if they, in return for all the kindness we'd showed them over the years, with all the Cheese and all that, could come over and run to the fridge for us. Astoundingly, they declined. Some tried to provide pathetic excuses, such as, "Don't you live several thousand miles away.. get your own damned soda!" and, "Who the hell gave you my number anyway?" Clearly, something had to change.

Therefore, effective immediately, Cheddar Team will directly seize control of both The Camarilla Fan Club and White Wolf Publishing, Inc. Both groups are in violation of Cheese usage laws and we will be administering them as we see fit while we continue to look for volunteers to help us get things from the other room and stuff like that. We want everyone to know that your sanctioned chronicle characters are in serious jeopardy. If you want your cross-venue White Howler Lasombra abomination, you'd better start with the suck-up, and you'd better start now. No piece of Cheese will be overlooked. You want your Cheese monkey combat character, you'd best recognize where that Cheese comes from baby, and you'd best start bringin' the respect before we throw down on yo' ass. That's right, All Your Cheese Are Belong To Us.

Fans and Members of Cheddar Team (people who've bought our shirts and stuff) can look forward to preferential treatment. I mean, what's the point of belonging to a faction if you can't get preferential treatment, right? If you are listed on the Cheddar Team website (http://www.blackspiral.com/cheddar/) as a member of Cheddar Team, you can consider your Cheese approved. This might be a good time to lay down some IC smack upon those lesser beings without the foresight to be our friends. For those of you who have shirts or who want to suck up by telling us what cool people we are, you may send us some email pleading for our divine Cheddar mercy. If you include a picture of you in your Cheddar Team shirt, that'll go a long way towards you making the cut (good lookin' ladies are welcome to send pictures in less than the shirt, they'll receive even more preferential treatment).

One thing you will not receive is an ongoing debate on the ownership of the Cheese. It's mine, I'm taking it and I'm going home and there's nothing you can do to stop me. Neener, neener, neener.

Very Sincerely Yours,
Erik Olsen
Co-Founder and Storyteller
Cheddar Team