50 Shades of Vampire: Changelings

As we near the end of the year, it's time to finish off my backlog of vampire ideas from last summer. This time we'll look at another crossover idea mixing Vampire: the Requiem with Changeling: the Lost.

Dark Dreams

A Changeling: the Lost Crossover

So first I need to decide on the themes of the game. They should draw strongly from both games. Two ideas come to mind immediately. One is the theme of stolen lives. Both Changelings and Vampires had their lives snatched from them. Both can never really go home again. And both supernaturals have to come to terms with that or lose their minds.

The other theme is that of deals. Vampires are political creatures, well aware of favors owed and payment due. They possess an innate way to bind people to them through their blood bond. If Changelings put their faith in magically empowered contracts, Vampires put their's in blood. Changelings of course have their Contracts and Pledges. The interaction between these two sets of dealers should be interesting. Changelings should have the advantage but I find Vampire players much cannier in practice.

Speaking of blood, a vampire might lair in the Hedge, perhaps feeding on hobs through the Unnatural Affinity merit. They are not explicitly harmed by the Hedge though it would seem uncomfortable (and draining should they stray from the path).

This suggests an idea to me, one that I used in my Changeling game: Into the Hedge. A Vampire bloodline could be created when its founder broke a Pledge, perhaps with a True Fae. The curse penalized them and their childer with a new bane. But somehow part of the boon lingers twisted in their blood.

Covenants and Courts

A few covenant choices recommend themselves for a game like this. The Lancea Sanctum can draw on the rich seam of legendry about the church and the fae. The Ordo Dracul would of course be interested in exploring whether fae magic could yield a release from aspects of the curse.

Then there is the covenant from The Danse Macabre, the Children of the Thorns, who serve some sort of fae creature known as Bloody Mary. Through her they possess the power to travel (awkwardly) vast distances. The logistics of such travel are complicated and I'm not sure how well it would work in anything but a globe-trotting game.

As for Changelings, the Autumn and Winter courts work well with vampires, through curiosity and mutual survival strategies respectively. Darklings and Beasts probably also get along well with the Kindred.

Devotions and Disciplines

One way to make Vampire work better with Changeling is to create some custom Devotions dealing with dreams and emotions. That would allow Kindred to involve themselves in more aspects of Changeling existence.

Nightmare would fit thematically with powers involving real nightmares and dreamscaping. Here's an example:

Nightmarecaping 

Prerequisites: Auspex 2, Nightmare 3
Cost: 1 Vitae
Dice Pool: Presence + Expression + Nightmare (see Dreamriding for further rules)

Upon a successful use of Nightmare 3 on a target they can then access their dreams when they next sleep. By meditating on the subject and spending a point of Vitae, they can enter and manipulate the subject's dreamscape. The dreams immediately take on a dark terrifying cast as the Kindred's Beast twists them unconsciously. Otherwise this works as dreamriding using the above dice pool for all actions.

Majesty and Nightmare might both be used for emotion manipulation. There are ample Devotions to show how that might work.

Lastly Bloodlines: the Hidden presents the Alucinor, masters of a unique Discipline known as Insomnium. Converting this Discipline into a set of Devotions opens up a number of crossover options.

Dreams of the Many

Prerequisites: Auspex 2
Cost: 1 Vitae
Dice Pool: Wits + Empathy + Auspex vs. Resolve + Power

By attuning to the dreams of a mortal using some object of value to them, the vampire can learn about them, unraveling their secrets. Upon successfully activating this power, the Kindred experiences some aspect of the subject's current dreams. They uncover some minor secret like a hidden fear or valued item. This insight can be used to gain a +1 bonus to social rolls against the subject for a month or can be used to open 1 Door when Social Maneuvering the subject.

Oneiromancy

Prerequisites: Auspex 2
Cost: 1 Vitae
Dice Pool: Wits + Occult + Auspex

By dwelling on the dreams and nightmares themselves, the vampire can potentially see what the future portends. Success grants a single reroll to be used that night. This Discipline can only be used once per night.

Lucid Dreaming

Prerequisites: Auspex 2, Dreams of the Many
Cost: 1 Vitae
Dice Pool: Manipulation + Subterfuge +Auspex vs. Resolve + Power

An alternate route to dreamscaping, this power allows a vampire to manipulate the dreams of others. Each success allows a single detail to be changed in the dream. This level of power does not allow them to attack the dreamer or force anything from them.

Chain the Enslumbered Mind

Prerequisites: Nightmare 3, Auspex 2
Cost: 1 Vitae
Dice Pool: Intelligence + Empathy + Nightmare vs. Resolve + Power

The vampire inflicts night terrors on a sleeping mortal either physically present or affected by Dreams of the Many. The victims find their bodies and minds sluggish and almost paralyzed. With a successful activation the subject suffers a -2 penalty to actions for an hour per successes upon awakening.

Blissful Sleep

Prerequisites: Dominate 2
Cost: 1 Vitae
Dice Pool: Manipulation + Persuasion + Dominate vs. Resolve + Power

This power urges the subject to fall asleep and remain into a deep sleep until the end of the scene. Nothing short of suffering damage will awaken the victim. Vampires are affected as if they were active during the day.

Travails of Morpheus

Prerequisites: Nightmare 4
Cost: 1 Vitae
Dice Pool: Extended and contested; Manipulation + Subterfuge + Nightmare vs. Composure + Power. The target number is the Willpower of the opponent.

By reaching into the darkest dreams of a sleeping victim (either present or reached through Dreams of the Many) the vampire can physically harm them. Once the target number is reached the victim suffers Bashing damage equal to the vampire's Intelligence.

Sleepwalker

Prerequisites: Dominate 3
Cost: 1 Vitae
Dice Pool: Intelligence + Expression + Dominate - Resolve

This power works like Entombed Command except that the commands activate while the subject remains asleep and leave the victim with no memory of the event.

Experience Cost: 1 XP

50 Shades of Vampire: Demon the Descent crossovers

Finishing off some of the last ideas I came up in the process of creating a Vampire: the Requiem character, I have some crossover ideas. Specifically how I would make a Demon the Descent crossover.

Blood and Gears

A Demon: the Descent crossover

Themes

When combining games, I always find it best to start with themes that both games share. It helps to keep the game focused and generally drives the player characters of both groups together.

For Vampire and Demon, I think we need to dig deep into the generational struggles of Vampire and the rage against the machine of Demon. A theme of struggle against a cruel authority works well for both games.

In this scenario the elders of the city are in league, openly or in secrecy, with the Machine. Together they manipulate the mortal population, placing the right people in charge, pushing through the desired projects, and eliminating troublesome obstructions whether they be mortals, Demons, or Kindred. Our player characters should be the rebels working to overturn the establishment.

An interesting idea would be to add organizational occult matrices to the game. In other words, if people X, Y, and Z take key positions in city hall a magical effect is created.

Perhaps if a fourth candidate is financed enough to support a run for mayor and all the candidates' coffee is dosed with certain heavy metals, the elected mayor will achieve a landslide victory (with 88.8% of the vote) and be replaced by an angel upon being sworn in to office.

Covenants and Agendas

In any crossover game the politics of each different faction will be given less attention. So it helps to pick out a few that work well with the other side and focus on those.

An obvious new covenant to include are the Holy Engineers from The Danse Macabre. These vampires suffer from something called radio sickness, where they receive messages from the future for questions they haven't asked yet. These answers come from the God-Machine.

Following our theme above, they are clearly in bed with the enemy, a cult of monsters who serve the Machine and push its plans. We should probably use them to replace the Circle of the Crone and/or Lancea Sanctum in the city.

The Invictus, as our default vampire government, are probably already in league with the Engineers. Or maybe the Carthians with their "new" politics have teamed up with this symbol of technological progress to create a new regime. Either way both covenants remain viable for players as either the rebels seeking to topple the corrupt authorities or the men/women on the inside trying to clean up a broken system.

For the Demons, the same can be said for Integrators. The other Agendas should fit in fairly well with the various Vampire factions. Demons after all are natural rebels.

A few possible covenant/agenda team ups suggest themselves. Inquisitors and the Ordo Dracul could probe the secrets of the machine, sometimes at cross purposes. The Lancea Sanctum might join the Saboteurs destroy this false god. Any vampire is likely to be on good terms with a Tempter.

Another possible link comes from the source of the Theban sorcery. Are the rituals really the tools from God? Or the God-Machine? What if new rituals appear that summon Angels?

Bloodlines

Every time you've heard someone say they saw a ghost, or an angel. Every story you've ever heard about vampires, werewolves, or aliens, is the system assimilating some program that's doing something they're not supposed to be doing.

But like so many back then they caused more problems than they solved.

Adding a bloodline tied to the God-Machine might be fun. Riffing off the Matrix Reloaded, perhaps the Machine has created a set of vampiric servants to supplement its Angels. And to tie this into Demon, maybe some of those servants have rebelled...

Background: Once the Machine sought to create servants which could propagate themselves, that would help it control the masses of humanity it needed for this stage of its plans. Rather than create something anew, it took a short cut and transformed existing supernatural beings: vampires.

These agents gained access to its resources, learned new powers, and helped correct flaws in its schemes before they toppled vital occult matrices.

But like many tools of the Machine, they too were flawed. Slowly they began to manipulate the system to their benefit. Some rebelled, some simply subverted places of power. Eventually the God-Machine had enough and ended the experiment.

But a few escaped the purge and carry on the fight to this day.

Nickname: Agents, Unplugged
Clan: Mehket
Bloodline Bane: All Agents suffer a permanent Glitch (see Demon: the Descent, p.184)
Bloodline Disciplines: Auspex, Celerity, Dominate, Obfuscate
Bloodline Gift: All Agents can perceive Infrastructure as if they possessed Unseen Sense (God-Machine). They also have the ability to manifest something like a demonic form. Pick a Modification or Technology upon joining the bloodline. If the Agent spends 1 Vitae they can manifest the ability but must also make a roll of Humanity +4 or gain the Surveilled condition (Demon: the Descent p.120).

It rumored that some members of the bloodline learn to activate multiple abilities through some form of the Terrible Form Merit (Demon: the Descent p.122).

Other Threats

Recently rumors have begun circulating of a new bloodline, possibly derived from the Ventrue clan. They've shown evidence of the Celerity, Dominate, Obfuscate, and Resilience Disciplines and seem prone to Glitches related to odd behavior and madness. Are they more rebels or new, more loyal, servants of the Machine?