Another post in my continuing series of campaign ideas. This week I am presenting a Vampire: the Requiem chronicle spanning centuries. Inspired by the ideas in Fall of the Camarilla and Ancient Mysteries, it deals hidden history and declining humanity. As always, let me know if anything sounds like something you would like to hear more about.
Memories of Shadows
This three-part chronicle follows a group of vampires from their embrace in the 12th century to modern-day. Along the way the characters participate in the final nights of the Camarilla, the sacking of Constantinople, the fragmentation of vampire society during the Medieval era, the rise of new covenants, and the return of an ancient threat.
The parts include:
Dying Preludes: this section begins with the PCs becoming vampires during the 12th century within Byzantine empire. Here the last vestiges of the Camarilla, a society of vampires founded in Rome, attempts to hold on to their old glory. But an ancient threat stalks them from the shadows.
As fledgling vampires, or neonates, the PCs first investigate and try to combat this threat and then as events turn against them, they must flee the capital with the arrival of their enemies and the 4th Crusade.
This bit moves the story told by the Fall of the Camarilla to a more modern era, which also shortens the time between the first part of the Chronicle to the third by several centuries. Also I hope this makes the character creation easier. It is an attempt to have my cake (deal with declining humanity) and eat it too (tell the story of ancient vampires).
The general theme of this section is of personal stakes against a backdrop of history. The PCs cannot hope to change history or save the Camarilla but they can save themselves and grow in personal power. The mood is of being in over their heads, manipulated by powerful elders to stop an encroaching threat far beyond their capabilities.
The Long Night: After the final death of the Camarilla, the PCs find themselves adrift, isolated from their sires and other elders. Left to their own devices, they can seize control of their own Domain, where they can manipulate mortals and run their own schemes.
This section would use the game Kingdom to cover the macroscale decisions over the course of decades and centuries, with each story revolving around the current Crossroads. Will the vampires lead the city to greatness or decline? Will it form the heart of a new Roman Empire or revert to uninhabited wilderness.
As the game slowly progresses from the 13th century to the 20th, the PCs must deal with declining humanity, local politics, and other more mysterious threats. Perhaps an Elder presumed dead crawls in from the wastes. Do they slay him? Drive him away? What if a pack of angry werewolves infest the nearby forests? How do they deal with them? And then there are issues of internal divisions: their childer, their ghouls, and their minions. What happens when they begin to demand more and plot against their betters?
The Shadows Return: Finally we reach the present where the PCs are now the ancient elders ruling a European city. Now their agents bring word of mysterious occurences. Threats move in the shadows. Foes believed long dead resurface. And the doom of Rome returns.
This would be a Strix Chronicle where the PCs are the elders who must combat a threat older than themselves. Elements from the previous parts return and the characters are placed in terrible positions, forced to choose between survival and the last bits of their humanity.
Themes: Overall the theme of the game is one of threats from the past: the doom of the Camarilla, their own lost history, and things long thought put down.
The other theme is that of lost humanity and what it means to have outlived not just your mortal life but the civilization that it belonged to. How can you identify with humans when you have seen dozens of generations be born, live and die? When your power and age makes you clearly superior to mere mortals? When the passage of time means that you no longer speak the same language?
Mood: The mood of the game is as the name implies one of darkness, of incomplete knowledge of the world. This is a darkness that clouds facts, obscures truths and leaves gaps in memories. The past of the characters becomes swallowed up by the shadows. But those shadows are never really empty. Unknown horrors live there as do horrors mercifully forgotten.
This darkness extends into physical space as anything more than a days travel disappears into rumor and hearsay. As the Camarilla falls the world shrinks. Safe routes disappear and former friends become hungry enemies. Later Europe becomes a patchwork of feudal domains with no group of vampires trusting another. As science and civilization advances the roads become open but so does the threat of dangerous travelers. Light the shadows and you might not like what you see.
System: Vampire: the Requiem with some usage of Ben Robbins's game Kingdom for the middle third of the game.I might possibly use Vampire: the Requiem 2nd edition (a.k.a. Blood and Smoke: the Strix Chronicle) but I haven't yet gotten around to reading it.
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