Constellation: Vampire/Mage

This is the adventure for Constellation for a crossover Vampire the Masquerade and Mage the Ascension game.

I've decided on a variant World of Darkness setting, World of Obsolescence.

Its 2030 and things are not going well for the undead. Lights on cars and on lamppoles are gauged to be as close to sunlight as possible because it was found to be soothing to humans. No one asked the vamps.

The police keep watch on bad neighbourhoods and nice neighbourhoods (only the middle class are left out) with IR and visual both together unarmed predator type drones to watch for crimes. So, vamps have to burn blood all the time or stand out as anomalies.

There is already a considerable 'heat anomaly file' at every police station in America.

Paradox for mages is considerably stronger as sociology and weather research and traffic pattern research is fed in real time into Societal Dynamics Models at most universities. Thus the 'he just got lucky, and a car crashed into the enemy of the mage' becomes a lot harder to pull off. Some researchers are already tagging 'luck factor individuals' who seem to show up when unusual probability events occur.

Similar to the Collapse of the Soviet Union was the Collapse of Darwinism. In 2015, it started, and by 2018, it was hard to find anyone who would publically admit they were a Darwinist. By 2030, Darwinists have less respect than Astrologers or those who determine personality by skull features.

Ordinarily, this would not be of more than passing note, but it had the side effect of greatly increasing the incidence of True Faith. Vampires are now much more likely to run into someone who shouts 'Back Spawn of Satan!' and cases have been noted where certain rare individuals have called fire from Heaven down upon a vampire. There are even certain areas in a few cities that are no-go zones for vamps because some sort of prayer shield keeps the vamps out.

Also, there is an ever-increasing number of religiously motivated hunting squads. The Catholics are at the forefront, of course. Various Protestant groups are relatively uncommon. Baptist lone wolves and small packs are effective, and adding in the Church of Christ members, there are certain counties in the South and the West where Vamps simply don't bother to venture. But most of those are home defense groups. There are a fair number of Charismatics who use a wide variety of miracles to confound vampires although they are not as directly combat effective as the Baptists or the CoC. The Thuggee are being reborn as a Vampire Killing Force, and Northern India is considered Hostile Territory. Probably the most numerous are the Muslim mujahideen who bring a wide level of skill and planning. Some go for simply suicide attacks with garlic stuffed bodies and explosives, and others go for very elaborate and well-planned out attacks. The Vampire Prince of Paris was killed in a mujahideen operation that had been planned for three years. All the mujahideen bring a deep level of devotion to their operations. There are also Nordic berserkgang groups "For Thor and Odin! Die leech!"

Areas which are known for high crime spots (such as outside bars) are typically good locations to find 'red light cameras'.

Serial Killer taskforces are armed with very sophisticated databases which make finding pschyos and vamps very easy.

The rise of bionics. Some few people have serious amputations, and many of them have bionics capable of being 'set to overmax' and matching a superhuman vamp in an arm wrestling match.

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On the suspernatural side....

The Glass Walker Werewolves have mounted a revolution to take over the were world. They feel that outer space can be used for two things. 1)Remove much of the Weaver's impact on Earth to space orbit. 2)Colonize space aka the umbra and make it safe enough for Weres so as to expand the Wyld's influenc up there as well.

Most of the rest of the were's scoffed at their plans. So the GWW used those social databases, the financial tracking, old fashioned spying....and turned the most resistant over to the nearest vampires. This took several years of great 'tension' and some outright war, but in the end the GWW took over.

At the same time, the Virtual Adepts joined the Technocracy with the aim of creating freedom in safe order. Currently, the Virties are the leading edge of resource production and playland in the advanced states. Most of the uppper class in the bicoastal areas spends a significant amount of time each week in a virtual reality. Among the elite young, some practically live in Virtie.

With the old-fashioned mages greatly weakened and the Technocracy stifled, and with the vamps running for their hides, and the Glass Walkers building O'Neill Space Colonies for 'especially hardy individuals' its become apparent to some that most of the opposition to the Antediluvian vampires is greatly weakened. Some think this is the plan.

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The characters are a group of vamps and a separate group of mages that decided separately to deal with a rogue Son of Ether mage. They enter his warehouse, he cackles and presses a button. Its a time machine. He dissappears and they are caught in the backwash. When they step outside, its 20 years later. And one of the mages has a letter in his pocket written by his future? self advising him to help the vamps.

The vamps are a Masquerade Protection Squad. Or perhaps its just one vamp.

There are three or so elements to the rest of the adventure...

1)A Day in the Life of a Stranded Time Traveller....survive in that weird land, the future.
2)There might be an element of protect the Masquerade, but then that might be too much complication.
3)I'm considering adding in the likely response of some vamps to all this civilization....'hmm, I really liked the Dark Ages better....why not?'....at which point the vamps decide to bring down Western Civilization in a flurry of nuclear missiles. What do the PC's do about this?
4)The time traveller thing...do they track him down, or what?

Vampires would go to ground in the places that best suit them:

1: Blood Banks. The Red Cross and Red Crescent are absolutely lousy with 13th-Generation Vampires and their Gouls, all hiding in plain sight, making periodic 'withdrawals' from the Banks.

2: Circuses, Carnivals, etc. The Ravnos and Bone Gnawers have been working this angle for as long as there have been circuses. Why would they stop now?

3: The Sewer. Again, the Nosferatu have been working this angle since medieval Venice. Why stop now?

4: Churches. Just because the True Faith is resurfacing doesn't mean everything with a cross on the door is holy ground. The Ventrue and the Tzimisce would be able to pull this off effortlessly. After all, what cop would point his IR scanner at a priest? In an age where the Faith is that strong, to doubt a priest would be publicly shaming.

5: The Assamites would be right at home running the Thuggee cults in India. Low technology in the area means less fear of IR cameras and solar lamps, and less competition for increasingly hard to come by blood means India would become a vampire playground. The Lasombra would probably be elbows deep in this, too.

6: Gargoyles, as an arm of the Tremere, operate practically unfettered. With their ability to sense space, they can tell when a Predator drone is overhead and go still on a moment's notice, and why would anyone expect a gargoyle to be warm? Just part of the scenery, friend. Keep looking...

Werewolves would fit in even better. If the Masquerade really is broken and people know about things like this... well, werewolves are the good guys, right? At least we still have a pulse. Some of those Norse Berserkers up there are Get of Fenris and their Kinfolk, and those Glasswalker sellsouts don't speak for all of us. Space isn't the Umbra you chip-wits, it's just Void out there. The Umbra is here, snug up against Mother Gaea right where we all belong.
The Bone Gnawers are going to be the same gypsie-esque bums they've always been, and nobody's gonna care, just like nobody ever has.
The Silver Fangs I don't see going anywhere peacefully, but they might work with the humans to 'purify' certain remote areas. Stargazers and Wendigo the same way - Alaska is basically off limits to Vampires, although the mostly Indian Stargazers have their hands full with the Assamites in their homeland.
The Red Talons would give pretty much everyone hell. They're not going to stand for vampires being out in the open and living to tell about it, and they're not going to stand for no human-centered fundamentalists trying to take their wilderness away. Expect them to be a wild card pretty much whenever they appear.

As for your adventure hooks...
1: The world seems pretty heavily stacked against Vampires especially. Twenty years in the future they might be extinct. Maybe nobody's looking for vampires when no one has seen one in ten years...

2: The Masquerade could be gone, either because vampires are operating openly in the future, or because there are no vampires left. Either way, a protagonist group of vampires has a vested interested in remaining Masqued as long as possible.

3: The Tzimisce, Lasombra, Ventrue, and Tremere would be falling over themselves to pull this off, and every tribe of werewolves - starting with the Glasswalkers - equally falling over themselves to stop them. But it would all be going on in the background, rather like the terrorist cells of today.

4: The time-traveler thing... tracking him down become almost a no-brainer if the Mage in the group has any technological or informational magic. If he's anything else, less so.

1. Artificial plasma.
2. The databases are easily good enough to note that Circus=Higher Death Rate.
3. This is a good point. It will be harder as cameras and roving checkbots (robots on runs to check that the sewers are in good condition) will be installed.
4. One advantage of being in close communion with the Creator or the gods is an increased sensitivity. Sure Bob the Ventrue seems like a nice guy but you're always left feeling uneasy after talking to him, and he occassionally comes out with seemingly sensible ideas that are just wrong. One effect I suspect is church splitting with the more formalistic and less righteous part being dominated by vampires.
5. Low tech? Lower than the US yes, but a lot of this tech is easily transferred stuff. You can have a database transferred over a satlink. Secondly, at one point Japan had an advantage over the US because we had burned all their factories to the ground. Thus they had to rebuild with the latest stuff so they were at one point more modern than us. Thirdly, India is most likely to be the next successor to superpower status, especially if the US fails. My model for this is -Superpower (US) -Enemy of superpower (China) -ally of superpower (India). The ally of the superpower is more likely to succeed to power than the enemy who gets dragged down with the superpower. Fourth, India is massively growing. Twenty years when you're growing fast is a LONG time.
6. True, sorta. Thing is, we're talking good enough databases that they can note 'On, the seventeenth, the twenty-first, and the twenty-fourth there was a stone object here. It was not there on the other days of the month. Report anomaly to human supervisor.'

I'm not going for the Masquerade being broken. Realistically, even today it would be, and even more so in my setting, but I'm keeping it.

You're probably right that some of the berserker hunters are secretly werewolves (and some might reveal themselves to their fellow hunters)...Get Crazy!!

Red Talons...well, the GWW would be able to point out that they are creating more wilderness. And frankly, the GWW would also be able to arrange for the convenient death of anyone who got too annoying.

1. Artificial plasma.

Real enough to live off of, at least in an 'it's better than starving' sort of way? And there are still morgues, funeral homes, and so forth that are a source of real, if not exactly fresh, blood and ghouls to harvest from them.

2. The databases are easily good enough to note that Circus=Higher Death Rate.

Not all vampires kill. In fact the vampire 'Herd' background is for exactly this - the Ravnos who run that circus have a handful of people - carnies, rousties and whatnot - from whom they can feed, without killing, more or less at leisure.

3. This is a good point. It will be harder as cameras and roving checkbots (robots on runs to check that the sewers are in good condition) will be installed.

Firstly are they going to load routine maintenance bots with vampire hunting IR cameras and software? Seems expensive to me. Secondly, anything that can be programed, can be reprogramed.

4. One advantage of being in close communion with the Creator or the gods is an increased sensitivity. Sure Bob the Ventrue seems like a nice guy but you're always left feeling uneasy after talking to him, and he occassionally comes out with seemingly sensible ideas that are just wrong. One effect I suspect is church splitting with the more formalistic and less righteous part being dominated by vampires.

For those who have True Faith, for whom this isn't an issue anyway. Otherwise, Vampires - especially those who burn blood and past their Acting checks - do not radiate a palpable aura of menace or unholyness in any form unless they take a specific Flaw for it, or they are Baali (and really, I've never seen anyone use Baali except as 'monster of the week' type enemies). This is actually a bigger problem for werewolves who specifically have The Curse attached to their Rage - they subconsciously creep out any unawakened being whose Willpower is less than their Rage (which for some werewolves is pretty much everyone).

5. Low tech? Lower than the US yes, but a lot of this tech is easily transferred stuff. You can have a database transferred over a satlink.

We are talking about the same India, right? I suppose if you want to say they've been upgraded to roughly the status of Germany - a tier or so below being a legitimate world power themselves - you could, but given their track record, this seems a bit of a leap. Besides, you have to have some regions in enemy hands, don't you? Otherwise the 'Good Guys' have already won, and what's the big conflict here?

6. True, sorta. Thing is, we're talking good enough databases that they can note 'On, the seventeenth, the twenty-first, and the twenty-fourth there was a stone object here. It was not there on the other days of the month. Report anomaly to human supervisor.'

I suppose you have a point there, but you're assuming some massive leaps and bounds in advancements to both cameras and databasing. Basically you're talking about a Google Earth style database quick enough to update in realtime while keeping a continuous archive. I don't think there's enough data storage on the planet to be that precise.

I'm not going for the Masquerade being broken. Realistically, even today it would be, and even more so in my setting, but I'm keeping it.

But you've engineered a world so prohibitively difficult to Masquerade in that Vampires might be better off coming out of the coffin - to borrow a phrase - and taking their chances. After all, aren't those Church-funded hunters supposed to be all about forgiving and accepting sinners? That whole 'purification through fire' thing sort of went out with the Middle Ages, didn't it?

You're probably right that some of the berserker hunters are secretly werewolves (and some might reveal themselves to their fellow hunters)...Get Crazy!!

I normally play some pretty canny Fenrir. This is exactly what I would do.

And frankly, the GWW would also be able to arrange for the convenient death of anyone who got too annoying.

So would the Assamites, and werewolves are tasty.

One thing I would love to see you deal with, especially if you're going to be putting a big emphasis on the resurgence of religion (doubly so as you're focusing on a strongly Abrahamic vein) is incorporating Demon: the Fallen into this world. Fallen Angels playing literal Hell with people between the cracks? Stirring up inter-faith - or even inter-parochial within the same church - strife? Sowing the seeds of man's destruction as they have been since time immemorial? This world sounds like a Faustian Devourer's playground to me. (Your mileage may vary.)

1. OK, I'll buy that.
2. That sounds like it would work. So, the Ravnos have greater difficulty, but they're surviving.
3. One distinct possibility is for very simple IR to detect rats, and that the maintenance bots would be linked to each other in a pattern or net and their data would be analyzed by higher level programs. But, like the Ravnos, the Nos survive.
4. I would go for what you say against normal folk, but against those in communion with the Creator...no. This is an active ability of the person in communion.
5. India has a larger middle class than the complete population of America. They've turned from socialism to capitalism. Yeah, I'm talking about India. Think of what happened with Japan and South Korea.
Its called 'world of obsolescence...'
6. Moore's Law. Every eighteen months computer capacity doubles. So...2x at 18 months, 4x at 36, 8 at 54, 16 at 72, 32 at 90, 64 at 108, 128 at 126, 256 at 144, 512 at 162, 1024 at 180, 2048 at 198, 4096 at 216, and 8192 at 234. So at 19 years and six months your PC on the desk is 8,192 times as powerful as it is now. In other words, your wristwatch in 2030 has the same power as a Cray supercomputer now.

I've heard of Demon, but I've never played it.

4: Normal folk is who I'm talking about here. Remember, your average churchgoer does not, and never will, have True Faith. This isn't a matter of simple belief. In the WoD, True Faith takes up all seven points of your normal starting Merits, and is basically a type of Faith-based sorcery - it grants you genuine, if somewhat smallish, supernatural powers. For the average person on the street to have this would mean vampires as a whole are screwed. It's the stuff of saints and rightly-guided crusaders. Joan of Arc had True Faith. Joe from Arkansas does not.

5: Alright, I could sort of see that. But where, then, would the world still be totaled enough for there to be a vampire enclave (so that there are bad guys somewhere)? I could see the Tzimisce setting up something like that in Eastern Europe or Western Asia. Maybe working together with Assamite Antitribue to turn the -stans into their own little feudal vampiric empire.

6: Alright, I concede that point. In another twenty years, who knows? If my laptop has more 'computer' in it than put Neil Armstrong on the Moon, I suppose the idea of real-time Google Earth updates isn't that farfetched. I still think Gargoyles would have at least a marginally easier time of things, at least in big cities where the landscape from above is absurdly complex to begin with.

Maybe we should get off of these world-building debates and do a little plot plotting? What are you thinking of in terms of story for this world?

1. I might give the devout churchgoer a new merit. Actually, I'd create several new merits. One of the spiritual gifts is discernment of spirits which would be right handy at detecting 'there's something bad about Bob the Ventrue'. I'd make it a two point merit. I'd probably also give another merit which would be Protection in Prayer. It would require the vamp to beat the churchgoer in a willpower contest to feed on the not-surprised churchgoer. I'd probably also have Supernatural Guardian aka Guardian Angel. If a vamp attempts to attack a certain person, that vamp becomes aware of someone nearby, say a police officer who might interfere. If the vamp aura sights the police officer, the vamp is blinded in that ability for several days. This is largely passive defense. I'd probably add a more expensive merit which is Seal Public Spaces...which basically makes it so that the vamp has to be invited into a church. This is not a full-time defense, only during a church service usually.

And yeah, pagans get their own merits as well so you're not left alone with zero defense.

Vampires are in trouble? Yup. The name is World of Obsolescence. The forces of darkness that have oppressed humanity for millenia have met their match in a tag team of Science and Faith. Most of the vampires that are left and active belong in three categories:1) I am brilliant, and devious, and super cautious. 2) Ravnos and Nos hiding a little deeper. 3)"If I can just stay alive for one more week..."

However, one spot that would be ripe for Ventrue takeover is Western Europe. Its one of the least spiritual areas in the world, and the EU is designed to be a bueraucrats paradise where the hoi polloi don't interfere with their betters decision making. Ventrue would adore this. Still, they have to dodge advanced tech, and stay away from any Muslim vampkillers.

Story....Well, I'd considered A Night in the Life, and Let's Nuke Western Civilization and that was mostly it.

I think being able to reliably pierce the Masquerade is worth a bit more than a 2-point merit, and doubly so if your vamps have no way to resist being thus pierced (after all, one of their curses is to be, well, cast from the sight of God, as it were). This is the equivalent of Aura Sight, which is Rank 2 Auspex, which costs either 2 out of 5 starting Discipline dots or 14 freebies for a Vampire. It should be considerably more expensive for a Mortal to duplicate the powers of any vampiric Discipline.
I think there already is a Merit for requiring a vampire to make a Will roll to feed from you - I think it's called Bad Taste or something similar. You could balance yours against that. Contested Will rolls are actually easier for the Vampire most of the time, and moreso for Mages (who have a minimum Willpower of 5, on par with vampires, as opposed to humans who average a mere 3).
Guardian Angel as you've written it is very powerful - that's the stuff of Magery right there. And the blinding thing is just unbalancing. Then again, nobody actually puts that many ranks in Auspex...

Western Europe? Really? With how many Catholics there are in France and Spain, the Church of England alive and well throughout the remains of the Empire, Greek Orthodoxy still doing fine, and Rome right there? (Then again, the Sabbat have had their HQ in Milan for gods-only-know, since at least the Middle Ages, practically as long as there has been a Sabbat, so, meh.)

I'm enjoying this arguement.

Its not "This is a Vampire!!!". Its 'there's something not right about this guy.'

I did figure most vamps could beat Protection. Bad Taste is probably a good prototype for Protection.

Very powerful? Its a scare tactic. The blinding thing requires teh vamp to actually step into the trap of his own free will. Perhaps I should cut the time down to an hour instead.

CoE alive and well? How about nearly dead? America is by far the most religious nation in Western Civilization. Madison was right that State support of churches was bad for churches. You make some good points, but still Western Europe is probably the least religious area in the world.

Second post...

Well, on the other hand, the CoE might have been reformed and strengthened by the resurgence in faith. This would mean there was really no safe place on Earth for vamps.

So for the player characters it's something like being evil Kryptonians in a world where Kryptonite jewelry is cheap and fashionable.

I'm wondering to some degree what the appeal of being a vampire in this world would be. Mind, I have difficulty with the appeal of being a vampire in the World of Darkness games altogether, so I might be the wrong person to ask, but I'd have thought that people played the vampires because they were secretly powerful beings manipulating the world behind the scenes and vying with each other for power. Now they are no longer really powerful because their enemies have so much more power, and their power structures are destroyed, and there's not much point in being a vampire anymore.

Of course, that might be the point you want to make, that when good triumphs generally evil suffers massively; but is there fun in that for those who are evil? I've been in Gamma World scenarios that are more optimistic (from the player perspective) than that, and Gamma World is the harshest game I've ever played.

You might make it more interesting by placing your players in a place and time at which they have some chance of fighting against the encroaching goodness, but I'm not sure when or where that would be or whether you want to give them that chance.

--M. J. Young

M.J. has hit the nail on the head once again.

I always have my players make a second Gamma World character on the back of the sheet so that their deaths won't slow down the game.

1. I'm giving the players tough characters. The Vamp is an elder level character and the Mages are well Mages.
2. WOD is massively tilted unrealistically in favor of the vamps and the other supernaturals. This is a more realistic setting.
3. This is also a setting in which being the Vampire on TV is rewarded (unless you're on Vampire Diaries). In other words, you should be largely fine if you're smart and cautious. However, its true that a lot of folk play Vampire as 'gangbangers with superpowers', a kind of Evil Champions Superheroes.
4. I admit my annoyance at #2 is the font of this setting, but if the pc's are smart they should be fine. I suppose I ought to open up with stuff that lets them dip their toes in the water and realize the new, tougher world.
5. One thing the PC's can definitely do is go for Nuke Western Civ as a strategy.
6. Of course, a lot of players play vampire for the chance to be stupid and powerful. I remember J playing a LARP. It was the Inquisition vs. the Vamps at a con. He was the only one who chose the Inq so he got to be the RCC Bishop or Cardinal with high True Faith. Add in his innate braininess and his survival instincts, and he scared the vamps so that a lot of vamp players decided to become Inq. the next night.
It was then that I realized that a lot of vamp players don't really care about being Dark. They just want Power. The WOD designers claim its about Dark and Storytelling. Its somewhat about ST and a little bit about Dark, but even more so about the chance to be Stupid and Powerful.
So, I give them POWER and toss them to the wolves.

In case you're wondering, I don't have the highest respect or deepest love of V:TM. Its kinda cool, but also pretty annoying.

Scott--in Gamma World, we always played two characters each. That made the entire party more survivable, and kept play going when one was killed.

--M. J. Young

OK, I think I'm going to call this one done. I'll have a more developed setting than usual, and a few ideas for the game, and let the players find their own way. The ideas are Survive, Time Travel Find, and Nuke the West, and possibly Establish Self.