Campaign:Draculas of Wealth and Taste

Introduction

Congratulations, you're dead. The kind of dead that still walks around, but dead all the same.

You're either a newly Embraced neonate in the city of Cave Junction, Oregon, or a nomad who's recently drifted into town. The prince has a standing policy of meeting all new vampires in his domain, usually making some token request of them to prove loyalty while examining them for anything that might interest the elders of the city. You and a couple other newcomers are the latest bunch to have been invited to see him, and rumor has it he might be asking for something much more involved this time around. Getting in the good books with the prince is a sure-fire way to start climbing the ladder of the Danse Macabre, but acting against him might get you the favors of other patrons if you're skilled enough to play the game without getting left for the sun.

Whether by force, by charm, by skill, by manipulating, or by sheer luck, are you a bad enough dude to carve a place for yourself in the Requiem?

What's All This, Then?

Fridays at 8:00 PM EST, #nwod on irc.thisisnotatrueending.com. Be there, or be square.

Carthians are not in this city due to getting murdered in the backstory (because they suck), but the Sun-Walking Knights and the Holy Engineers from Danse Macabre are both in the city - The Sun-Walking Knights having absorbed a good deal of the old Carthians, and the Holy Engineers being a tiny group of lunatics most people ignore. If you want to be another covenant from Danse Macabre, you're going to need to be from out of town and also have a good justification, while accepting you're probably going to be one of the only people from that covenant in town. Tier 3 conspiracies are not allowed.

Malkavia as presented in Clanbook: Ventrue is accepted, and is not solely limited to Ventrue. If you use it to play a fishmalk I will throw you out of the game and into the sun. If you try stacking it on top of a bloodline I will be watching you extremely carefully for power-gaming.

Tzimisce exist as an uncommon but not unheard of bloodline, and Lasombra are a rare and extremely secretive bloodline most vampires don't know exists. Both use the Vampire Translation Guide's versions of their disciplines as bloodline disciplines, and the Tzimisce weakness has been changed to 'cannot enter homes uninvited' as it was in V:tM: Dark Ages.

Setting

View of the city zoomed out (click for huge)

Zoomed in view of the city with district locations (click for huge)

The districts of the city, using Damnation City's format.

The city the game is set in is Cave Junction, a real town in Oregon a friend and I have massively overhauled using some speculative history and changes in local geography to make it a large city. I wanted a city in the pacific northwest I could write mostly from the ground up, while also making it somewhat plausible for it to exist.

A brief history of the city:

Founded in the 1850s by pioneers, gold was discovered in the nearby mountains shortly after the town was established. A gold rush followed, leading to a railroad running through the town and rapid growth, which led to vampires following the kine, smelling new territory to control. Soon, most of the gold in the mountains was completely plundered, leading to a short period of stalled growth before much larger veins of other metals such as nickel, iron, chromium, and copper were discovered. Industry and ports popped up along the river, due to access to the Pacific allowing for shipments to and from California and the East. The town's economy is still mostly based on its industries and mining.

As for its vampiric history, its first prince was an Archbishop of the Lancea Sanctum, who eventually succumbed to madness and was deposed by the Primogen during the 40s. The prince who came after was an ancilla only ruled for a few short decades, but his rule was one of unchecked incompetence and despotism, embarrassing the Invictus to the point where they still heavily censor any discussion of him. He was killed and replaced by the current prince, a venerable Invictus Gangrel named Hashim al-Malik ibn Tafwiq, after he allowed the Sun-Walking Knights into the city. The Knights had promised to kill the Carthians, but instead absorbed many of them into their covenant and rapidly established a power base that threatened much of the status quo.

One of Hashim's first acts as prince was to give only a single seat on the Primogen to every covenant in the city, including the Holy Engineers - who most consider to be worthless lunatics - and Sun-Walking Knights - who most consider to be backstabbers and dangerous radicals. Many vampires hold this against him to this day, though his expert politicking has kept his rule fairly secure for decades.

High ranks in Politics, Occult, Academics, Streetwise, or Status will get you additional information about the city and history/status of your covenant.

Houserules

Begin with one dot in each Attribute (this is in addition to the XP listed below):

• 70 XP for primary Attributes, 55 XP for secondary Attributes, 45 XP for tertiary Attributes. 25 XP to increase Favored Attribute.
• Begin with no dots in any Skills. 78 XP for primary Skills, 48 XP for secondary Skills, 30 XP for tertiary Skills. 9 XP for 3 Skill Specialities.
• Begin with one dot in Blood Potency. 42 XP for Merits and increasing Blood Potency.
• 30 XP for Disciplines, at least 10 XP of which must be spent on Clan Disciplines.

In addition, I have a stack of house rules that we'll be using. First off, Humanity is out, and Atrocity is in.

When frenzy is a possibility, roll your permanent Atrocity dice (if you have any). Any successes you get add to the successes needed to resist frenzy. For example, if I'm ravenous and presented with the smell of blood, I roll my permanent Atrocity dice and get three successes. I normally need four successes to resist hunger frenzy in this situation, but due to being a huge bastard with lots of permanent Atrocity dice, I now need seven.

You add 1 + [permanent Atrocity] dice to physical actions during frenzy instead of just one die. You can only gain one temporary Atrocity die from any actions committed during frenzy, no matter how vile. Base time in Torpor is determined by Stamina + Resolve - Permanent Atrocity. Effective Humanity score to determine time spent awake during the day: Stamina + Resolve - Blood Potency. Whenever you gain a permanent Atrocity die, roll your pool of permanent Atrocity dice (including the new one). Success means you gain a derangement, exceptional success means you automatically get a severe or extreme derangement without having to upgrade an existing minor one.

Blood Potency acts as a penalty to social interactions with humans. Cruac, instead of lowering your maximum Humanity score, acts as bonus dice to your Cognitive Dissonance rolls, making it much harder to realize the monstrosity of your actions. When you commit Diablerie, instead of automatically losing a point of Humanity, you automatically gain a permanent Atrocity die.

When your character has a number of permanent Atrocity dice equal to Resolve + Composure * 2 or 10, whichever is lower, they are lost to the Beast and become an NPC.

• Ventrue weakness: +2 phantom Atrocity dice while rolling for a derangement.
• Nosferatu weakness: 1s do not subtract successes. Nosferatu take a -3 penalty to Allies rolls due to how uncomfortable people are with dealing with them.
• Daeva weakness: When presented with an opportunity to fulfill their Vice, Daeva must roll Resolve + Composure to resist at a penalty equal to the number of times they have denied their Vice since last fulfilling it. Failure means they must either act out the Vice or spend a point of Willpower to resist.
• Gangrel weakness: 1s do not subtract successes. Gangrel take a -3 penalty to extended mental actions, due to the difficulty they have focusing on something other than the Beast's instincts.
• Mekhet weakness: Unchanged, because it's fine as is.

Sun-Walking Knights, due to their ritual of Cleansing the Shadow, have slightly different weaknesses in exchange for losing the ability to create a Vinculum.

• Ventrue: +1 phantom Atrocity dice while rolling for a derangement.
• Nosferatu: Regain 10-again.
• Daeva: Daeva Knights do not take a penalty to their Resolve + Composure roll to resist indulging in their Vice for successive attempts to resist it.
• Gangrel: Regain 10-again.
• Mekhet: The additional damage Mekhet Knights take from sunlight due to their weakness is lethal, not aggravated.

Players

• Obligatum_VII - Wallace
• Ralewyn - Jack
• RAWK_LAWBSTAR - Elicia
• Reiz - Lucius Bailey
• Yue - Lily Chen, executive assistant to the stupidest Daeva unalive.
• Zeppelin666 - Reinhard

CURRENT XP: 12