[oWoD] VtM: slight setting changes

[Caliphbubba]

Hello playgrounders,

I'm preparing to run a [oWoD] Vampire the Masquerade game and want to update the setting to being close the current time. To do this certain events leading up to Gehenna need to be altered, edited, or altogether left out.

I've addressed some of the events under the spoiler

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The chronicle is setting the World of Darkness version of Fort Wayne, Indiana. In the WoD, the Fort is a much bigger City than in real life. It’s approximately 3 times the size in population and has expanded to gobble up many of the surrounding smaller communities. The geography is similar but not identical in all respects.

The current year is 2009. It is in the early autumn of that year.

Many of the “Gehenna” type events that occurred in the official WoD have happened, but maybe not in the same way.

One of the big one’s for the Sabbat is the destruction of the Tremere Antitribu. They are dead and gone. Instead of being blasted to pillars of ash, however, they were systematically hunted and killed/diablirized by the Salubri Antitribu. This almost caused a Fourth Sabbat Civil War as many of the Tzimisce and factions of the Sabbat inquisition supported the Salubri in their bid to wipe the Tremere Antitribu out, while the Lasombra and members of the loyalist faction supported their erstwhile Warlock allies. The Black Hand remained silent on the matter in public, but it is widely believe that they lent covert support to the Anti-Warlock elements in place. So over a period of 10 years the Sabbat’s masters of Thaumaturgy were one by one exposed as infernalists, killed in rites of Monomacy, or bushwacked. There may be a few stragglers, but all in all, the purge is complete and the Salubri have come into their own.

The Siege of Atlanta has happened. The inscrutable creature known as Sascha Vykos presides over the region in a much more active role than it has taken since the Anarch Revolt. Much of the Eastern Seaboard is in Sabbat hands. The Great Lakes region, with exception of Detroit, is still firmly in the hands of the Camarilla. Fort Wayne was the bulwark on which the “Hammer” of the Sabbat broke upon trying to meet the Anvil resting in Atlanta. Many of the Kindred here are quite personally powerful and old. The rumors of the scattered survivors of the Last Crusade into Fort Wayne say that the most puissant pack that participated in the War Party was single handedly defeated in combat by the reigning Camarilla Prince of the City, Cornelius Washington.

The Week of Madness happened. There are very few Independent Ravnos left in the world. By most accounts the Clan survives in the greatest numbers within the Sabbat. The Sword of Caine uses the destruction of main Clan Ravanos as proof that the Ancients have awoken. Many of the surviving Ravanos Antitribu have become some of the most stalwart Sabbat in the aftermath. The Camarilla discounts the stories as propaganda.

The Tremere’s Blood Curse on the main Clan Assamites has NOT been broken. The independent assassins are still operating under the curse, and their most potent elder has not awoken. There was no purge of Muslim Assamites. The 9/11 attacks is believed to have been an Assamite plot to try and force the Camarilla to lift the Blood Curse. It failed and in response much of the Assamite’s traditional homelands are suffering from elevated levels of mortal unrest in the form of civil war, invasion, and piracy.

The Gangrel have very recently “officially” left the Camarilla en mass. The cause of the exodus isn’t widely known. What is known is that there is a marked increase in very potent, very old “Country” Gangrel showing up in the ranks of the Sabbat. Many Bishops and Archbishops consider the Beasts to be prime candidates for recruitment.

This game is going to be focusing on a Pack of Sabbat inflitrating and subverting a Camarilla City in the Great Lakes region of the United States. The City has already rebuffed a traditional Crusade and War Party, so the elders of the sect are taking a different tact. They are sending in a motley pack (the PC's) of a-typcial Sabbat to attempt to destablize the region from the inside.

My question is this: Are there any significant events that I have forgotten that may need attention? and if so, what are they?

[comicshorse]

Not sure of the dates but around the end times there was:

Spoiler

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The fall of LA to the Kue-Jin invaders as part of the their Great Leap Outwards which has also lead to kue-jin spies and infiltrators popping up all over the world.
The re-taking of New York by the Camarilla
The defection of the old and powerful Prince of Milan to the Camarila and his slaughter of the Sabbat of his city
The return of Mithras to England
The death of Baba Yaga which also shows the Niktuku are once again active in the world
The return of Tszimisce
Tremere's strange changes (which fits rather nicley with the slaughter of the Tremere Antitribu by the Salubri)

[raitalin]

One thing I recently realized is that an iPhone is basically at least one dot in backgrounds. There are devices detailed in the Mage and Hunter books that are meant to be super-state of the art and are in almost every way inferior to your average smartphone.

Maybe it's not exactly what you're looking for, but you can expect common GPS, ever-present recording equipment and instant access to nigh-infinite information to change the game.

[Caliphbubba]

@comicshorse: good points all. I had thought about some of them, but didn't know how important they would be to the story because of the local it is set in. I'll for sure consider these and decide how/what happened with them.

@raitalin: not exactly what I was looking for, but I thank you for the input. and you are right of course in your points. for sure requires more thought.

I'll probably post later on how I decide to handle the points comichorse brought up.

[Kurald Galain]

Maybe it's not exactly what you're looking for, but you can expect common GPS, ever-present recording equipment and instant access to nigh-infinite information to change the game.

That is precisely what happens in one of the scenarios in the Gehenna book. The ubiquity of cameras makes the Masquerade untenable. When the secret is out, Kindred and humans attempt to live openly together for awhile. When this predictably fails, it leads to an all-out war between them.

[Slade]

That is precisely what happens in one of the scenarios in the Gehenna book. The ubiquity of cameras makes the Masquerade untenable. When the secret is out, Kindred and humans attempt to live openly together for awhile. When this predictably fails, it leads to an all-out war between them.

And this is what leads the Tremere to use the path of technomancy to gain far and above way more status among the clans. Or I should say, that is what happened to the Tremere in my games.

Thanks to Avatar, the Camarilla Spin Machine ((c) & tm) has near carte blanche authority to discredit cell phone vids ("Why is it every time we get one of these "vampires" on film its all grainy footage? We have 12.1 megapixel cameras for 50 bucks now!) and the Tremere can "Hollywood hack" any computer in the world at any time, making the ShreckNET work double time keeping up.

The Masquerade is as important as ever, but between the Tremere and Nossys, no one will ever hear about it, except as trashy vamp-romance novels for neglected underage teenagers or a bad excuse for awesome action movies.

As for the big changes, I could go either way on it.

One thing I recently realized is that an iPhone is basically at least one dot in backgrounds. There are devices detailed in the Mage and Hunter books that are meant to be super-state of the art and are in almost every way inferior to your average smartphone.

Maybe it's not exactly what you're looking for, but you can expect common GPS, ever-present recording equipment and instant access to nigh-infinite information to change the game.

True enough; I called a standard pay-as-you go tracphone resources 1, and a smartphone resources 2, and a jail broken smart phone arsenal 1. It makes the most sense. Also, they are not wonders since they don't get reception in the Umbra.