Yora
2020-12-11, 10:43 AM
Strange things are happening in these strange times, and I actually find myself really wanting to run a campaign of Vampire: the Masquerade. I think I was a little bit too young for it when it came out, and later I was too cool for what I had filed it away as that angsty emo-drama game with ruffled shirts and sunglasses. I played a good bit of Redemption way back in the day and seen some parts of Bloodlines, and in those Vampire doesn't actually look that bad, and over the years you just pick up bits and pieces of knowledge, which does seem quite intriguing. Some weeks back I've been thinking about what an updated, contemporary alternative to the Gothic-Punk style from the 90s could look like, and the thought to give it a look and sound of Neo-Noir like in Drive, Hotline Miami, and John Wick really makes me want to make this happen. Garish LED lights, suits with dark shirts, fancy cars, synthwave music, and people full of intense violent rage hidden under a calm and collected appearance. More stoic than melodramatic on the outside, but under the surface with the same intense emotions. The characters display calmness, but it's also a drained and exhausted one. I really think this can be a great alternative aesthetic that is still very close to the original concept. From what I've seen of Bloodlines 2, they seem to go with that color and lighting style as well. Hotline Miami and John Wick are very hard over to the fast action side, which from everything that I understand really isn't what the system is meant for and capable of. But I think "Drive, but with vampires" seems like a great concept.
Having grown up and lived in Hamburg and Lübeck most of my life, it's the obvious for a location. It's a metropolitan region with 5 million people, a long history I am decently familiar with, a major harbor, airport, and highway hub, and the gateway between northern and central Europe. I got an inspiration from a major tunnel construction project that is currently in the works, that will create a direct road between Hamburg and Copenhagen, and from there over another recently build giant bridge on to Stockholm. The new tunnel will cut the drive between Hamburg and Copenhagen almost in half to only 3 hours, which makes it possible for vampires to make the journey in a single trip even during the very short nights in summer. (Helpful map (http://spriggans-den.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/NEP_region.png))
Hamburg is under the control of a relatively young Ventrue prince after most of the city's elder were killed in a massive firebombing attack in World War 2. With modern transportation and huge post-war housing construction, it merged together with numerous smaller cities into one huge metro region that makes up the prince's entire domain of 50 vampires. By far the largest of these cities is Lübeck, where 14 of the domain's vampires live, including all its Toreador. It also lies directly on the new road, which puts it smack where the territories of the princes of Hamburg and Copenhagen meet.
Copenhagen is a considerably smaller domain mostly inhabited by Toreador, which immediately absorbed the smaller neighbouring city Malmö when they were connected by a bridge between Denmark and Sweden. The prince of Hamburg rightly fears that the Toreador of Copenhagen will try to win the Toreador of Lübeck to come over to their side. Excluding anarchs in both cities, the price of Hamburg currently has 32 vampires under his rule wile the prince of Copenhagen has only 18. But if the Toreador in Lübeck switch sides, it will change to 24 against 26 in favor of the Danes. And once the new tunnel is build and open, if the Toreador in Lübeck decide to rebel, they could get reinforcements from Copenhagen in just 2 hours, making retaking the city for the Ventrue prince impossible.
Because of his young age, the prince of Hamburg would likely be deposed by older primogen of his city if that happens. At the same time the prince of Copenhagen has reached an age where it's really hard to keep up with the changing time and she has to prove to her own people that she is still in full control by expanding her territory and influence.
In this situation, the prince of Hamburg declares that all seven clans in his city have permission to create one new fledgeling. The calculation is that he can rely on the Nosferatu and Tremere, and maybe the Malkavians to back him, so he'll get three or four new pawns while the Toreador get only one. That still works in his favor. But the players will have no obligation to fight for him when he calls, and they won't know about this brewing conflict when their characters are made. One of them picking the Toreaor fledgeling is entirely possible. (And since it's Toreador, I think even quite likely with 3 or 4 players.)
The campaign starts in 2010 when the first plans for the new tunnels are being made and an upcoming conflict between the princes starts to loom. My idea is to have some simple adventure in which the PCs get to know Hamburg and many of the important NPCs, and settle in to their new lives. Eventually time skips forward to 2020 when all plans to stop a building permit in German courts have failed, and it becomes clear that it can't be stop. In that part of the campaign, the prince or primogen start sending the PCs on assignments to Copenhagen, where they will meet the locals and get a first chance to notice that they are used as pawns in some kind of hidden conflict between the elders of the two cities. When that has played out, time advances again to 2030 when the tunnel is completed and the secret war turns into open fighting.
I think that's a really cool setup, but it's not actual playable content yet.
One thing I noticed about Vampire is that the lore of the setting seems to directly contradict the premise of the game. As I understand it, it's meant to be a game about the suffering and struggle of looking forward to live forever, but seeing everything you know and care for die and disappear. And as you lose everything that connected you to the word around you, you lose what is left of your humanity and turn into murderous monster that will likely try to kill and destroy whatever still matters to your. Great and intriguing idea, but it becomes completely pointless when everyone knows for certain that the Vampocalypse is going to happen within the next couple of months and everyone get eaten by ancient über-vampires anyway.
After looking around for information and opinions on that matter for a good while, I think I've decided what the truth about Gehenna will be in my campaign. In this world, it will be another revolution of the generations. The antediluvians killed their progenitors, created their own empire, and then disappeared. And then the methuselah that replaced them eventually also eventually grew weary of the world and went into hiding to sleep away the ages to avoid becoming a beast as they continued to age and get alienated. The older generations of the elders now also have reached that point. They all became vampires during the middle ages, and while many of them managed to adapt well to the 18th and 19th century, most of them feel that they are no longer able to keep up with the constant changes to the world around them. During the 21st century, most 6th and 7th generation elders will follow the methuselah and disappear from vampire society, while others lose their grasp on power and will be challenged by younger vampires intending to replace them. That's the real meaning of Gehenna, and why it is inevitable. The disappearance and toppling of elders will leave behind a power vacuum in which the younger generations will fight for dominance, and the stubborn elders who will refuse to give up their positions yet will unleash any ancient horrors they have keep hidden away for centuries. For many, many vampires these will be the Final Nights. Both for many elders as well as countless ancilla and neonates who will get swept up in the fighting. With the Anarchs being of the opinion that the Camarilla and its rules and institutions really only exist to secure the positions of the elders and keep the younger generations in their place, this might very well be the end of the Camarilla or even the Masquerade as well. And the Sabbat wanting to see the world go down in an orgy of blood won't make things better either. The Flood really only destroyed Enoch, and the uprising against the antediluvians only resulted in the destruction of Carthage. In the same way, Gehenna will not wipe out all kindred or destroy the entire world. But in the meantime, there will be a century as horrible and terrifying as the Thirty Years War with seemingly endless fighting and horror for vampires. But nobody in the campaign knows that. Many still deny that Gehenna will actually happen, while others believe it will be the apocalyptic carnage awaited by the Sabbat. But everyone knows that something big is coming and will be get really ugly.
For some random bits and pieces at the end, I've been thinking about how to actually evoke the theme of vampires seeing everything die and change around them as they slowly lose all their connections to the world they knew. Having campaign span several centuries probably isn't actually workable for a first time campaign of indeterminate length, and I certainly don't want to try it out. But I think playing material that covers about a year and then jumping forward by a decade could be a good balance.
Another thing that seems kind of necessary is to do what almost all other GM advice always says not to, and directly go after their stuff. Kill their ghouls they gathered, burn down the houses that hold all their treasures, and steal their cool cars they literally saved years for. Players will hate it, say it's unfair, and think it's awful. Which it is, and which is the point. It shouldn't come as a surprise for completely unprepared players, but I think when it's made clear in the pitch for the campaign, it probably should work. Being a vampire is supposed to be a curse. Not a fun romp being immortal sexy superheroes.
The rules say that the main instinct and motivation for vampires is to feed on blood. But I think that should actually be their second compulsion. To make the inevitable defeat against the beast even more dreadful, I think the primary overwhelming drive for vampires should be the need to survive. I don't know what kind of philosophy the creators were thinking about when they came up with the ideas in the 90s, but I think when you fear to become a wild monsters that will kill and destroy the few things in the world that still matter to you, death is an obvious and clean solution. I think it's totally fine for vampires wishing they were dead for the good of everyone around them, but to make the curse truly cruel, they should be absolutely unable to take that option. I feel it should be stressed to players that the unbreakable need to survive at any cost is permanently controling the unlife of their characters.
Finally, having looked up some half-remembered information on ruins and remnants of the war in Hamburg and Lübeck, I think I really want to use fire as a prominent horror motive. All vampires fear fire anyway, but for the surviving elders who miraculously survived their entire world being incinerated around them, it should be much worse than that. (The week long firebombing of Hamburg was named Operation Gomorra, which fits neatly into the biblical mythology of vampires.) I also got an idea for a group of vampire hunters who hunt primarily with flamethrowers. With no regards to collateral damage. (Just have to make sure not to accidentally wipe all the PCs with no chance to escape.)
What's your thoughts on these idea? Any suggestions where I could take this to come up with adventure material to confront the PCs with?
Having grown up and lived in Hamburg and Lübeck most of my life, it's the obvious for a location. It's a metropolitan region with 5 million people, a long history I am decently familiar with, a major harbor, airport, and highway hub, and the gateway between northern and central Europe. I got an inspiration from a major tunnel construction project that is currently in the works, that will create a direct road between Hamburg and Copenhagen, and from there over another recently build giant bridge on to Stockholm. The new tunnel will cut the drive between Hamburg and Copenhagen almost in half to only 3 hours, which makes it possible for vampires to make the journey in a single trip even during the very short nights in summer. (Helpful map (http://spriggans-den.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/NEP_region.png))
Hamburg is under the control of a relatively young Ventrue prince after most of the city's elder were killed in a massive firebombing attack in World War 2. With modern transportation and huge post-war housing construction, it merged together with numerous smaller cities into one huge metro region that makes up the prince's entire domain of 50 vampires. By far the largest of these cities is Lübeck, where 14 of the domain's vampires live, including all its Toreador. It also lies directly on the new road, which puts it smack where the territories of the princes of Hamburg and Copenhagen meet.
Copenhagen is a considerably smaller domain mostly inhabited by Toreador, which immediately absorbed the smaller neighbouring city Malmö when they were connected by a bridge between Denmark and Sweden. The prince of Hamburg rightly fears that the Toreador of Copenhagen will try to win the Toreador of Lübeck to come over to their side. Excluding anarchs in both cities, the price of Hamburg currently has 32 vampires under his rule wile the prince of Copenhagen has only 18. But if the Toreador in Lübeck switch sides, it will change to 24 against 26 in favor of the Danes. And once the new tunnel is build and open, if the Toreador in Lübeck decide to rebel, they could get reinforcements from Copenhagen in just 2 hours, making retaking the city for the Ventrue prince impossible.
Because of his young age, the prince of Hamburg would likely be deposed by older primogen of his city if that happens. At the same time the prince of Copenhagen has reached an age where it's really hard to keep up with the changing time and she has to prove to her own people that she is still in full control by expanding her territory and influence.
In this situation, the prince of Hamburg declares that all seven clans in his city have permission to create one new fledgeling. The calculation is that he can rely on the Nosferatu and Tremere, and maybe the Malkavians to back him, so he'll get three or four new pawns while the Toreador get only one. That still works in his favor. But the players will have no obligation to fight for him when he calls, and they won't know about this brewing conflict when their characters are made. One of them picking the Toreaor fledgeling is entirely possible. (And since it's Toreador, I think even quite likely with 3 or 4 players.)
The campaign starts in 2010 when the first plans for the new tunnels are being made and an upcoming conflict between the princes starts to loom. My idea is to have some simple adventure in which the PCs get to know Hamburg and many of the important NPCs, and settle in to their new lives. Eventually time skips forward to 2020 when all plans to stop a building permit in German courts have failed, and it becomes clear that it can't be stop. In that part of the campaign, the prince or primogen start sending the PCs on assignments to Copenhagen, where they will meet the locals and get a first chance to notice that they are used as pawns in some kind of hidden conflict between the elders of the two cities. When that has played out, time advances again to 2030 when the tunnel is completed and the secret war turns into open fighting.
I think that's a really cool setup, but it's not actual playable content yet.
One thing I noticed about Vampire is that the lore of the setting seems to directly contradict the premise of the game. As I understand it, it's meant to be a game about the suffering and struggle of looking forward to live forever, but seeing everything you know and care for die and disappear. And as you lose everything that connected you to the word around you, you lose what is left of your humanity and turn into murderous monster that will likely try to kill and destroy whatever still matters to your. Great and intriguing idea, but it becomes completely pointless when everyone knows for certain that the Vampocalypse is going to happen within the next couple of months and everyone get eaten by ancient über-vampires anyway.
After looking around for information and opinions on that matter for a good while, I think I've decided what the truth about Gehenna will be in my campaign. In this world, it will be another revolution of the generations. The antediluvians killed their progenitors, created their own empire, and then disappeared. And then the methuselah that replaced them eventually also eventually grew weary of the world and went into hiding to sleep away the ages to avoid becoming a beast as they continued to age and get alienated. The older generations of the elders now also have reached that point. They all became vampires during the middle ages, and while many of them managed to adapt well to the 18th and 19th century, most of them feel that they are no longer able to keep up with the constant changes to the world around them. During the 21st century, most 6th and 7th generation elders will follow the methuselah and disappear from vampire society, while others lose their grasp on power and will be challenged by younger vampires intending to replace them. That's the real meaning of Gehenna, and why it is inevitable. The disappearance and toppling of elders will leave behind a power vacuum in which the younger generations will fight for dominance, and the stubborn elders who will refuse to give up their positions yet will unleash any ancient horrors they have keep hidden away for centuries. For many, many vampires these will be the Final Nights. Both for many elders as well as countless ancilla and neonates who will get swept up in the fighting. With the Anarchs being of the opinion that the Camarilla and its rules and institutions really only exist to secure the positions of the elders and keep the younger generations in their place, this might very well be the end of the Camarilla or even the Masquerade as well. And the Sabbat wanting to see the world go down in an orgy of blood won't make things better either. The Flood really only destroyed Enoch, and the uprising against the antediluvians only resulted in the destruction of Carthage. In the same way, Gehenna will not wipe out all kindred or destroy the entire world. But in the meantime, there will be a century as horrible and terrifying as the Thirty Years War with seemingly endless fighting and horror for vampires. But nobody in the campaign knows that. Many still deny that Gehenna will actually happen, while others believe it will be the apocalyptic carnage awaited by the Sabbat. But everyone knows that something big is coming and will be get really ugly.
For some random bits and pieces at the end, I've been thinking about how to actually evoke the theme of vampires seeing everything die and change around them as they slowly lose all their connections to the world they knew. Having campaign span several centuries probably isn't actually workable for a first time campaign of indeterminate length, and I certainly don't want to try it out. But I think playing material that covers about a year and then jumping forward by a decade could be a good balance.
Another thing that seems kind of necessary is to do what almost all other GM advice always says not to, and directly go after their stuff. Kill their ghouls they gathered, burn down the houses that hold all their treasures, and steal their cool cars they literally saved years for. Players will hate it, say it's unfair, and think it's awful. Which it is, and which is the point. It shouldn't come as a surprise for completely unprepared players, but I think when it's made clear in the pitch for the campaign, it probably should work. Being a vampire is supposed to be a curse. Not a fun romp being immortal sexy superheroes.
The rules say that the main instinct and motivation for vampires is to feed on blood. But I think that should actually be their second compulsion. To make the inevitable defeat against the beast even more dreadful, I think the primary overwhelming drive for vampires should be the need to survive. I don't know what kind of philosophy the creators were thinking about when they came up with the ideas in the 90s, but I think when you fear to become a wild monsters that will kill and destroy the few things in the world that still matter to you, death is an obvious and clean solution. I think it's totally fine for vampires wishing they were dead for the good of everyone around them, but to make the curse truly cruel, they should be absolutely unable to take that option. I feel it should be stressed to players that the unbreakable need to survive at any cost is permanently controling the unlife of their characters.
Finally, having looked up some half-remembered information on ruins and remnants of the war in Hamburg and Lübeck, I think I really want to use fire as a prominent horror motive. All vampires fear fire anyway, but for the surviving elders who miraculously survived their entire world being incinerated around them, it should be much worse than that. (The week long firebombing of Hamburg was named Operation Gomorra, which fits neatly into the biblical mythology of vampires.) I also got an idea for a group of vampire hunters who hunt primarily with flamethrowers. With no regards to collateral damage. (Just have to make sure not to accidentally wipe all the PCs with no chance to escape.)
What's your thoughts on these idea? Any suggestions where I could take this to come up with adventure material to confront the PCs with?