Heartland Orphans: Session 0

So as I mentioned two weeks ago, I recently recruited players for local game of Vampire the Requiem 2nd Edition. The basic concept follows this pitch that I advertised in several places on the internet:

The first nights are the hardest. Your flesh has yet to cool. The thirst pounds inside your skull strong and new. You don’t belong among the living but the dead haven’t accepted you yet.

Day is forbidden to you. Night contains horrors worse than vampires. The light of the plains towns ends where the cornfields begin. Beyond lies darkness and hours of highway leading into the unknown.

In a town where they roll up the streets at 9 PM, the All Night Society barely exists. Covenant politics give way to the struggle of bloodlines. You struggle with the Beast and the thirst alone.

You’ve been orphaned.

Maybe you never knew your sire. Maybe he ran off. Maybe she vanished leaving only a scared voice message and scratches in the concrete.

Something is coming for you.

Can you navigate the strange politics of your kind? Can you find allies, Kindred or mortal, to ward off what’s coming? Can you keep the monster at bay? Can you find the strength to weather the coming storm?

Who can you trust? The monster that turned you? The freak practicing blood magics on the street corner? The quiet folk who gather in the old church each Sabbath? The man with the bright yellow eyes who claims you can walk in the sun again?

Find out.

We’d be using Vampire: the Requiem 2nd edition, building your characters and their connections mortal and otherwise as a group.

Heartland Orphans #0: Character Creation

This session went well with many interesting NPCs and connections getting established. It helped that I was well versed in the system and setting. My experience with Apocalypse World based games also came up handy with creating PC-NPC-PC triangles.

I prepared a short outline to guide the session. As we completed each step I would interrupt players with a question that helped flesh out the setting and their character.

Here is my outline (minus a few items I hastily dropped in play):

Step 1:

• Overview of the setting
• Review of System Basics:
• Clans and Disciplines
• Banes: Sunlight, Torpor, Fire, and Clan banes
• Humanity & Touchstones
• Decide on Character Concept, Clan, Covenant (optional)
• Make sure character concepts gel (no lone wolves, no immediate antagonism)
• Question: What mortal connection did you cut off or lose when you became one of the undead?
• Mask and Dirge
• Question: Who would you go to for help but only as a last resort?

Step 2:

• System Basics: Dice Pool, Specialities, Combat (Defense, Dodge, Base Damage)
• Assign Attributes/Skills/Specialities
• Choose Disciplines

Step 3:

• Pick Touchstones
• Merits
• Question: Who have you hurt to survive?
• Question: What vampire (besides possibly your Sire) do you fear?

I dropped the questions of "Who knows more about what you are than they should?" and "What have you seen that you still can't explain?" The latter did not work with the direction the Chronicle was heading in, something I realized at the last moment. The other one I dropped for time.

The characters that resulted were quite flavorful and gelled nicely. We ended up with:

• Alex Carlyle: a local doctor in his 40s who was recently pulled into Kindred society. A member of the Invictus (which is almost synonymous with the Ventrue clan out here), his century old sire sees him as a way into modern-day society.
• Ethan Redhawke: was once a promising student at the University. His patron Professor Martock inducted him into his cult of researchers. Ethan bought into it and advanced within the cult until he became its leader (something that required him to commit human sacrifice). Martock later Embraced him into clan Mekhet and the Ordo Dracul. His parents think he dropped out but he keeps an eye on his younger sister.
• John Porter: a scrappy archaeologist and adventurer who encountered something beneath a Mississippian mound while working for Professor Martock. His companion suffered a fate worse than death down there but he impressed the shadows within with his composure. They let him live. Martock Embraced him on his return. Somewhat impoverished, he's looking for a way to get ahead.
• Sybyl Brannon: a wilderness expert in her 30s who vanished while leading a trip in Michigan. She thinks a werewolf ate the others. She escaped and ended up Embraced by a wandering Gangrel. He or she inducted her into the Carthians though Sybyl has yet to meet another member. Her sire moved on while she lingered in Central Illinois.

What mortal connection did you cut off or lose when you became one of the undead?

• Alex sold his practice to another doctor, Bailey, cutting connections to his old employees and clients.
• Ethan stopped communicating with his family who live in a small town in Illinois.
• John left behind his bride, Sarah Porter. They had married just before his expedition.
• Syb ended her interactions with her mother and brother, Alan, letting them believe she is dead. Her father died several years ago.

Who would you go to for help but only as a last resort?

• Alex would turn a trusted employee Alan Brannon, Syb's brother. This was my contribution.
• Ethan would go to his old college roommate Travis Stout.
• John would reluctantly ask his former mentor: his grandfather. Their relationship has soured over the years.
• Syb knows a police officer that she trusts a bit: Detective Thompson.

Who have you hurt to survive?

• Alex destroyed Detective Thompson's investigation notes. In fact he had them burned.
• Ethan of course sacrificed a nameless vagrant to cement his position in the cult.
• John's choice was also clear: the colleague he abandoned in the mound.
• Syb fled when the werewolf appeared on her final trip, allowing her expedition to die in her place.

What vampire (besides possibly your Sire) do you fear?

• Alex had a companion, a fellow vampire called David. The immortal teenager spiraled into monsterdom before his eyes.
• Ethan was recently attacked by a vampire known as the Wolf. The nearly feral vampire haunts the edges of the city.
• John fears Sybyl, her powers of Protean freak him out.
• Syb fears the Blood Sorcerers, they have been sacrificing vagrants in the region. We all look at Ethan at this point.

With my warning on Humanity loss (which I personally experienced in my online Vampire game), most of the group invested in the Touchstone merit. Alex took Alan and one of his old patients as his connections to humanity. Meanwhile Ethan has his sister and the University library. John grabbed a mundane anthropology professor while Syb has a grad student she befriended and the director of a homeless shelter she lurks near.

Other interesting things that came out of the session included:

• The Heart of Akamon: Ethan's cult of graduate students and amateur archeologists seeking to uncover the secrets of ancient vampires.
• Alex's goal to uncover what happened to David after he degenerated.
• Everyone's interest in social advancement within their Covenants.
• Syb's hunt for the people or creatures behind the human sacrifice.
• Ethan's curiosity about the true identity of the Wolf.

With these ideas, I almost don't need the plot I was working up.