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Old 07-26-2016, 02:47 AM   #1
davidtmoore
 
Join Date: Dec 2009
Default [WOD] [Banestorm] Yrth of Darkness: Yttaria by Night

Okay, thought exercise that may develop into a campaign.

The premise is fairly straightforward: the Earth of the Banestorm setting is the Earth of World of Darkness (original, not reboot), and the Banestorm brought much of our world's weirdness to Yrth with it.

I've got some ideas, but I wanted to shake the forumbrain first.

So some initial thoughts:

Yttaria by Night

- Vampirism was unknown on Yrth before the Banestorm; any new nonhuman bloodlines are ultimately descended from original Clans and bloodlines.

- Elves are horrified by vampirism (they see it as disrupting the cycle of nature implicit in the Eternal) and destroy vampires with fire and love; any surviving elven vampires live in human communities.

- Dwarves are basically cool with vampirism (they see it as becoming something like the Eternal yourself, and at any rate avoiding sunlight is no biggy); there are probably a couple of dwarven bloodlines (at least one, I would say, descended from Toreador, emphasising craftsmanship).

- Orcs love vampirism; it makes you a super-strong immortal! More warlike Clans (like the Brujah and Gangrel) have tried Embracing Orcs a soldiers in the past, and it's usually backfired, leading to a smattering of minor Orcish bloodlines. Orcish vampires handle the difficulties of life in the Wastes by blood-bonding tribal leaders and getting them to help protect them from the sun and collect blood tithes.

- Goblins love them some magical power. They have strongly bought into the Tremere (which is now a majority-Goblin Clan) and may have spawned one or two new bloodlines.

- It's unlikely that many low-generation vampires have been brought across, and there's no real way to make more; assume 5th Gen is the cap (except for campaign secrets).

- As such, the distinction between Clan and Bloodline has more or less vanished. Very old vampires born on Earth still maintain the distinction, but for most the two terms are indistinguishable; the only important factor is political and supernatural power.

- The main period of immigration (1050-1200 CE) was pre-Camarilla/Sabbat split; assume the model of Megalan/Caithnesser/Cardien Cainite society was the pseudo-feudal society of Vampire: The Dark Ages. The Sabbat would have turned up, along with the Giovanni, in Araterre in the 15th century.

So what's happened? How did vampire society evolve and develop on Yrth since then?
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Old 07-26-2016, 06:09 AM   #2
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Default Re: [WOD] [Banestorm] Yrth of Darkness: Yttaria by Night

In the first high-activity period, the Tremere are extremely new, depend on their fortress-chantries to survive, and are still hiding among (and using) the living hermetic mages of House Tremere, which hasn't fully twigged to the fact that its leaders are undead monsters yet. Cut off from all the resources they need to survive, surrounded by enemies and none of them elders yet, I would not expect a single Tremere to survive the initial landing. Heck, never underestimate the possibility of the Tremere being blamed for the Banestorm. The Ventrue take a beating because unity, discipline and cohesion have been their strategy to success, and the transition disrupts them. Neither are hurt as badly as the Tzimisce though, who must sleep in native earth that is now a worldline away. A generous GM may allow them to "retune" themselves to Yrth after a torpor in its soil, but mostly, they descend into mewling incapacity within a few days of transition. The possibility of an orc (or a dwarf?) being embraced by a Tzimisce early and instinctively interests me, but these will have no sire capable of instructing them...and recent transportee also will have the problem of no native earth available, at least potentially, so intitally those embraces would be likely to fail as well...

Thus, the clans in the best position to assume power are Toreador and Lasombra. You could choose to correlate Toreador with the Christian lands and Lasombra with the Islamic, but I would find mixing and exceptions interesting. Salubri and Cappadocians survive at least as far as the second major banestorm period. Ventrue and Tzimisce would fall far indeed. I would expect the Tzimisce to succeed well among Dwarves, actually - always in their native earth, the ability to adopt the powers to their own cultural ends without elder Tzimisce from Earth pushing them around, applying a tradition of craftsmanship to Vicissitude...

The slap in the face of the second banestorm would be - holy crap, the Warlocks won back on the First Earth. Assume a Tremere at least gets a message and a Gate token back before being extinguished. The Tremere become off-field enemies...they would be able to recruit Goblins as you suggest, but...here's a mana-rich world that knows about them and hates them. They will be bogeymen reaching through Gates to trade automatic firearms in exchange for concealed lab space. Giovanni would be more Devil Kindred cut off from their family and (presumably) their spiriti who murdered their sire and need to be wiped out, I wouldn't expect them to last.

I would expect the Sabbat to fizzle; the old Ytarrian Lasombra are powerful, they are autonomous, the Castle of Shadows is a distant memory. There is nothing to rebel against, and your Tzimisce allies didn't make the trip intact. Settle down and take your place at Court. But the Camarilla - an quasiegalitarian arrangement in which Ventrue lead, Toreador prosper and even freaks like the Tremere are tolerated and have a place - that will find many takers. It may be distorted in the telling, but - I imagine Ventrue tired of playing second fiddle leading the "lesser" clans in an attempt to found something like the Camarilla out from under the Toreador kings and Lasombra maliks - Tredroy? Caithness maybe?

Not sure where the Assamites fit. especially if the old Unbound meet the new Bound during the second banestorm.
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Old 07-26-2016, 07:27 AM   #3
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Default Re: [WOD] [Banestorm] Yrth of Darkness: Yttaria by Night

The Tzimisce definitely hammered in the first week. I can see opportunistic vampires tracking them down and diablerising or killing them as soon as they've twigged what's happened, and maybe staking them and taking their bodies to use in experiments or to create new bloodlines.

I think you're underestimating the Ventrue - surely their discipline and cohesion are precisely why they'd cope well with the crisis?

Who are the major enemies of the Tremere at this point? Isn't it the Tzimisce?

Agreed on Lasombra and Toreader as natural leaders, at least in Megalos/Caithness/Cardiel. I could imagine Toreador getting involved in politics and Lasombra in the church, following their Earth preferences.

Salubri and Cappadocians should definitely survive to modern day; the smaller second Banestorm wouldn't bring in enough enemies to significantly threaten them.

A Tredroy-centred, Cardiel-based anti-establishment faction satisfyingly echoes the Banestorm setting, but I wonder if it's too close to it?

I assume the Muslim imports bring the Ashirra with them, including the Assamites. Are the Assamites behind the Hashishin? Or at least infiltrating them?
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Old 07-26-2016, 12:09 PM   #4
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Default Re: [WOD] [Banestorm] Yrth of Darkness: Yttaria by Night

No, discipline and cohesion look very different in the manifestly-unequal world of Cainites. The ephors and ancient creatures like Mithras and Hardestadt the Elder look out for their clan. It's amazing how many of a neonate's problems can be solved with just two hours of the time of a pre-Christian monster with Dominate or Presence 8. The structure changes with time but at bottom, the key to the Ventrue's success is that the ancients watch over, protect and advance the neonates to a far greater degree than any other Clan. Ytarrian Ventrue are screwed in the short term because they are cut off from the support of their elders.

Everyone hates the Tremere, in not merely choosing but stealing the Curse for themselves they make a mockery of the prevailing religious ideas and call the rationale for a lot of Cainite custom into question by their very existence. But the Tzimisce, Gangrel and Nosferatu take it personally because the Tremere used their blood and neonates for experimental subjects. The Tzimisce are out. Gangrel and Nosferatu are still out there.
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Old 07-27-2016, 05:09 AM   #5
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Default Re: [WOD] [Banestorm] Yrth of Darkness: Yttaria by Night

Hmm. It's a level playing field - none of the Clans have many big hitters around - so I'd still see the Ventrue's cohesion as an advantage. That said, it occurs to me the Ventrue would also be hit by their Clan weakness; perhaps only a minority would be cut off from their food supply by the Banestorm (those whose feeding restriction is ethnic, say, or specific to a family or location), but enough to undermine them.

So with the Lasombra and Toreador heading up the Megalan/Caithnesser contingent, how about that manifesting as a church and state divide? The Lasombra reform the Amices Nocti in Megalos itself and inveigle themselves in the Church, creating a strong vampiric church across the growing Empire, with some cities being ruled by "Bishops" rather than Princes, while the Toreador focus on noble families and the civic power structures. The Ventrue, when they pick themselves up and dust themselves off, become involved in the mercantile middle classes. The Brujah, Salubri and Cappadocians fit into the system around them, with the Brujah's heartland in the chivalrous Caithness and the Cappadocians fortifying themselves on Abydos.

Over time, Yrth's equivalent of the Camarilla is a "Three Estates" model, with a Prince and a Bishop in every city, and the Church of Caine and the Empire of Night acting as checks and balances to each other.

I figure if you don't end up with goblin Tremere, then you certainly end up with goblin thaumaturges, although maybe they spawn their own bloodline off another Clan and found Thaumaturgy independently. But they would also submit to the Megalan establishment.
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Old 07-27-2016, 05:17 AM   #6
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Default Re: [WOD] [Banestorm] Yrth of Darkness: Yttaria by Night

The Second Banestorm was geographically narrow, of course, so it wouldn't massively challenge the Megalan establishment. You're dropping a hellish mix of Camarilla, Sabbat, Giovanni and, oddly, Balinese Kuei-Jin onto a marginal outpost of the Empire which probably has a fairly weak Prince to begin with.

I find myself wanting to forge some of these into some sort of alternative faction.
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Old 07-27-2016, 04:02 PM   #7
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Default Re: [WOD] [Banestorm] Yrth of Darkness: Yttaria by Night

Quote:
Originally Posted by davidtmoore View Post
The Second Banestorm was geographically narrow, of course, so it wouldn't massively challenge the Megalan establishment. You're dropping a hellish mix of Camarilla, Sabbat, Giovanni and, oddly, Balinese Kuei-Jin onto a marginal outpost of the Empire which probably has a fairly weak Prince to begin with.

I find myself wanting to forge some of these into some sort of alternative faction.
What about Sahud? Wouldn't a bunch of Kuei-jin be from the areas the first Banestorm took that population from?
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Old 07-27-2016, 07:16 PM   #8
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Default Re: [WOD] [Banestorm] Yrth of Darkness: Yttaria by Night

Quote:
Originally Posted by warellis View Post
What about Sahud? Wouldn't a bunch of Kuei-jin be from the areas the first Banestorm took that population from?
You might get a few, but kuei-jin, if you include them at all, become unique sports - no new kuei-jin could rise on Ytarria, going by KotE rules.
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