Help me create a World of Darkness post-apocalyptic setting

[Brock Samson]

So, this is inspired some thoughts/dreams I had this morning when waking up. I've never done any GMing, but have given it thought, and I LOVE post-apocalyptic settings.

First off, I'm thinking that the setting will be somewhere around 2040 or so, long enough for an apocalypse to really set in (including the complete breakdown of infrastructure), but not so long that people don't remember what it was like beforehand. At this point in time people are already beginning to start rebuilding some infrastructures.

Here's what I'm thinking "ACTUALLY" happened during the apocalypse. From 2000-2009 there were all the typical portents of DOOOOOOMMMMM!!! and destruction, yadda yadda yadda, then in 2010 it actually happens. Only nothing quite like what people were expecting.

Btw, I'm most familiar with Vampire (oWoD), Kuei Jin (oWoD), and Mage (nWoD) and Changeling (nWoD). And all in all, I prefer the fluff and mechanics of the Old. Yeah, sue me.

Vampire-wise: So, in 2010 the most widely believed rumors by people state that Caine never rose, the Antediluvians did however. Some of them wanted to rule the planet, some of them wanted to (believe it or not) save it from the others. Their warring was monumental and in the end it's widely believe not a one of them survived, most torn apart by hordes of less kindred being sent after them. Vampires around the world who had achieved Golconda suddenly changed into true mortals. Diablerizing went wild and rampant, the Masquerade obviously completely shattered. Nowadays some towns consider the Sabbat the true heroes of the Apocalypse, rising up and tearing down the elder vampires (not many humans left alive to call them evil). The Camarilla completely disorganized and locked with in-fighting, they dispersed. In the 30 years since most of the Sabbat no longer exists, and those that do take more of a "hero" role in what small towns and cities there are, reclaiming some form of humanity when people started thinking of them as heroes.

Wow, I know this is disorganized, hey it came from a dream and I'm trying to fill in the gaps.

The average mortal population was only mostly decimated. Not a lot of nukes actually went off when all hell broke loose, mostly because in the middle of all the craziness all of the electronics on the planet (and sadly even in the space stations and satellites orbiting the Earth) suddenly went dead. No one's sure why, though people think (dun dun dun) "a wizard did it". I'm not sure if I want electronics to stay non-functional, for them to only recently have started working again, or for that to have just knocked out all that were in existence when it happened, completely frying them, but letting people continue to create new ones that aren't fried and do work. Thoughts?

Still, due to all the monsters of the Earth going crazy, guns still working, starvation through infrastructure breakdown, rioting and looting, it was pretty frikkin' dismal for a while. Life is starting to look up more as the years go by though.

Breakdown: So, now there are much fewer vampires throughout the world, with so many being killed. Guess what? The Embrace no longer works! So new vampires don't seem to be created anymore. The ones that are left somehow don't seem to be as affected by Rotshriek or Frenzy anymore (-2 diff for all checks). Here's a biggie, during the day Vampires aren't comatose anymore, but most are fully awake and aware during the daylight, but can't stand the light of day for long. I'm thinking that they can stand direct sunlight for 10 minutes/point of Stamina collectively throughout one day. After that they start taking some amount of Lethal damage until they're eventually put into Torpor. Even stranger some would say, those still in existence have started AGING, albeit slowly, and the players would eventually figure out that the Higher the generation of the vampire, the more quickly their body ages, until at 15th generation you'd age like a human. When vampires throughout the world left found this out, along with being able to stand some of the sunlight and being awake during the day, many of them believed their souls had been returned to them/fixed. It also means those vampires who are terrified of death are even more prone to diablerie because it will prolong their life possibly indefinitely.

The Wall between the mortal world and the other worlds (Umbra/Shadowlands/etc...) seems to be all but completely closed off. It's virtually impossible to cross over into another realm (except through actually dying). So I'm thinking there are literally no ghosts/spirits in this world, or only the few that were currently manifest in the mortal world actually still exist on the plane. Any vampire/mage/shapeshift powers that allow you to affect ghosts/spirits are completely worthless now, and you can't cross over into another realm.

Mages in general have lost tons of power, teleportation no longer exists, astral projection, no spirit powers, no time-manipulation powers. They're not completely de-powered though, but since the world knows about them Paradox and Backlash are even more venomous in their effects, culling a lot of the more blatant mages left alive.

For the Kuei-Jin, because the Wall became inconquerable, the Yama Kings aren't able to affect the mortal world anymore, and of the Kuei-Jin still alive they don't have to fear the Yama Kings power anymore. Again, no new Kuei-Jin are being created though.

Shapeshifters can still procreate, but again no spirit-powers, and a lot of their gifts no longer work. Because of the Change that happened to Vampires most Werewolves no long sense the taint of the Wyrm in them anymore.

Ok, enough rambling, please comment and help me out. I don't really know much of the story for the other games in the Old World (Changeling, Mummy, etc..), but the main theme of the world is that mortals aren't prey as much anymore, are trying to rebuild a semblence of the world that was, most new Creatures aren't being created anymore (though of course it's possible that they sometimes still are, just not frequently). No one can leave their body through any method anymore as they're just shut off from all but the mortal world.

Feel free to critique certain things, or add more awesome ideas. Please help, I actually really like the idea of this setting.

[GoatToucher]

The mage changes seem somewhat arbitrary. Is there a cosmological reason for the loss of the teleportation or time travel (the rest works with the world set up) powers or is it just you trying to keep the powers out of the setting?

Also, fewer people being more familiar with the supernatural would mean -less- paradox, not more. Paradox is caused by the collective unconscious of mankind insisting that what the mage is doing CANNOT BE DONE. Since most people know that all the supernatural jazz is real, mages should be able to get away with a lot more.

Also, the Sabbat turning into heroes rings false to me. Fewer vampires, fewer humans, and less humanity seems like it would result in sabbat warlords keeping herd villages to support themselves and their troops, rather than them suddenly "seeing the light" and regaining humanity because some humans see them as saviors. They still come in the night to feast on your blood, so it seems like the most common mortal reaction to vampires would still be fear. Shifters would have fought the elders too, as well as spiritual Things That Should Not Be. Are they viewed as heroes as well?

The lack of contact with the spirit would would be crippling to shifters. Shapeshifting is itself a spirit power. To follow your (fairly interesting) sealing off of the spirit realm to its logical conclusion, shifters should be completely powerless: no shifting, no fetishes, no gifts. Just a bunch of people (and animals) with a tribal mindset and a lot of experience with melee combat (an likely a lot of surrogate claw weapons).

These are just the things that jump out. If I am piddling in your Cheerios, I apologize, that is not my intention.

[Brock Samson]

In my own personal view teleportation and time travel are all only possible through accessing a different portion of the spirit world, hence they're no longer possible. In fact no powers/disciplines at all can affect someone at a distance greater than sight because of the same thing, so no Astral Projection, no Summon, no telepathy beyond sight.

And my bad, you're right about mages not having to worry much about Paradox anymore. Still, I want them depowered because I don't want demi-gods in my setting. Part of it could just be that most of them were killed in the fighting that took place bringing down the Antediluvians and the other big bad baddies. Of those left any that the players might want to be would simply not be very powerful, but could gain power, though not quite as easily as before.

Another friend of mine seemed super-adamant that the Sabbat could "NEVER" change like that. I'm thinking that just very very few survived, of those that survived some of the younger ones especially changed the way they viewed humans after realizing that there are only so many left, and in a post-apocalyptic setting there's certainly no guarantee that humanity will even survive at all, which means there's no guarantee they will survive. Due to this if nothing else they now want to "preserve and protect" the humans that are left, and killing a human for feeding purposes is automatically met with death. That could be a dictate laid down for all vampires from the most powerful (and thus oldest/most scared of running out of food). This could also lead itself to some nice "people farms" stories of some vampires keeping people like actual cattle, fun adventures from the PCs to run there. But mostly they decided to stop killing people, and they're being looked on as heroes, regardless of how they feel they support that stereotype in public. So of course there's still going to be pissed-off ex-Camarilla who hate the Sabbat even MORE.

While I don't know a whole lot about shifters, I suppose most would lose al their fetishes and gifts. However for "whatever reason" they're still able to make the physical transmutation. And the fact that they can still procreate to create more shifters is very intriguing to those in the know.

The Wall is not COMPLETELY sealed off everywhere throughout the world, but it mostly is, so for most PC purposes they assume it is. This would allow occasional odd occurances for even this world to happen, and partially-justify why not all powers are just gone-gone.

Thoughts?