Chimerical Realm

  New Year, New Character   Day 18   Vampire: The Dark Ages  The first proper "sequel" to Vampire: The Masquerade, Vampire: The Dark Ages sends the players back a thousand years to when vampires ruled the night as lords and masters, before the internecine war known as the Anarch Revolt and before humans rose against them in the form of the Inquisition. Rather than skulking about in alley ways and cheap bars, vampires in Dark Ages  exist more or less openly. Their battles are fought just as fiercely, but with fang and sword rather than false promises and gossip. It is an age of war and adventure.  To be honest, I've never been a huge fan Dark Ages. I've played, and run, a few Chronicles for this game, and they've been enjoyable. I guess it's just not what I wanted when the game first came out. The few hints we had of this time in the original book made it seem...quieter. Smaller. A time of ignorance, isolation, and overwhelming personal ties. An e...

"A plan is just a list of things that don't happen." Parker The Way of the Gun Before I begin this mammoth undertaking, I want to spend a few moments collecting my thoughts and figuring out exactly how I intend to do the "Great World of Darkness Chronicle." It's easy to get lost with something like this, and having some rough guidelines will hopefully help keep things clear for everyone. Obviously, these are just my current thoughts, and they will naturally evolve as I get a better grasp of what it is that I hope to accomplish with the Chronicle. If I start straying too far from this, I'll stop to make clear what I'm changing and why. So, in no particular order, here's where I'm currently at.

In the middle of the 14th Century, the Long Night came to an end. The Black Death struck Europe, and utterly depopulated it. Best guess is that 45-50% of the population died between 1346-1351, but this is an average. Some communities were spared, while others were completely wiped out. The mortals had absolutely no understanding of what was happening, or why. The undead had even less. One night, everything was normal, and their eternal existence continued as before. The next, half their mortals were dead. They had pushed their own population to the breaking point, and could not respond to the catastrophe that was happening around them. Elders seized territory and surviving herd to support themselves and their favorites. Others were cast out to fend for themselves. Mortals began looking for scapegoats, and as the undead should have remembered from the Cultics, once mortals begin looking in the shadows, their time grows short. More childer were cast out to reduce the risk of exposu...

So, what does a world of darkness and stasis, ruled over for eternity by self-proclaimed Elders, actually mean in a game? Well, it means Ignorance, Monotony, and Obedience. Unlike a modern game, where the "truth" of Kindred existence is more or less understood, and a certain degree of toleration and independence is expected, the Long Night character is a prisoner. Not just of the Beast, and not just of geography (though travel is so perilous that few ever leave their home, and even fewer ever return), but of their own perspective and world view. It is this prison, and the tension it generates, that is the heart of a Long Night game. First up is Ignorance. A neonate in the Long Night knows nothing . They know only what their sires deign to tell them. And since they only know what their  sires told them, their knowledge is, at best, limited. Even if they choose to be honest with their childe, the knowledge they impart is most likely completely and laughably wrong. A childe ...

Before we can understand vampire society in the Long Night, we must look at how it came to be. Vampires are static, unchanging creatures, locked in place forever at the moment of their death. But even such things can be forced to change by the sweep of history, and the need for survival. In the earliest days of history, vampires ruled over the mortals as gods. Some proclaimed their divinity, and came to rule directly over the burgeoning cities that were coming into existence. Those of the most powerful blood could claim to be gods themselves, while the weaker were forced to admit they had limitations, and were merely the children of the gods or emanations.  At the time, few mortals cared for such distinctions, and gladly dedicated their lives to these mesmerizing creatures who could bend metal, catch arrows, command beast and man, and whose blood offered life itself. Inevitably, such creatures were unsatisfied with just one city or one tribe, and sought to expand their dominion...

There's something about the published historical setting for Vampire  that doesn't sit right with me. It's been bothering me for a while, but it really came home to me when I was working on my T ransylvania Chronicles series. The Dark Ages, as presented, just didn't work the way I wanted them too. Part of this is comparing what  I thought the Dark Ages were like to what Dark Ages  ultimately presented itself as. I've been a fan of Vampire  for a very long time, and when I read the few brief snippets of information presented to me, an image of the world formed itself. An isolated, benighted existence, defined by a claustrophobic entrapment in the few placed that the undead could feel safe, and lorded over by tyrannical elders whose sovereignty went unquestioned.  A world that would terrify even  the most tyrannical Camarilla Prince or violent Sabbat Ductus. I do understand why the altered this. Above all else, a game needs to be playable  and fun...

Here is the list of all my posts for my series on the  Transylvania Chronicles . The experiment didn't really pan out the way I wanted, but it was still an enjoyable and enlightening read. Hopefully other Storytellers will find these posts to be of some interest If you're a player who might play these, please note that each of these posts is full of spoilers. They were written from the point of view of a potential storyteller, so please do not read these if you are planning to play. For everyone else, here they are. Get it here I started off with the read through of Transylvania by Night. This is still an excellent resource, if perhaps overly ambitious. I wish they had focused more on a smaller area, such as Transylvania itself. Instead, the book seeks to cover the entirety of Eastern Europe, with mixed results. I'd still recommend it for anyone interested in running a Dark Ages chronicle, no matter where you wish to set it. Introduction . Chapters...