[After Sundown] PbP Campaign Discussion

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Mon Jul 18, 2011 2:19 am

Current plan is for the campaign to cover centuries, skipping years between story arcs. Making an immortal is easy, as over half of them start out that way, and becoming one is without concern.

Right now, I need my players to make accounts and post here with ideas for what you want out of the campaign.

How far back do we start? What style/themes do we want linking through the ages?

the_engineer_0404 · Post by **the_engineer_0404** » Mon Jul 18, 2011 2:23 am

Already got my account up. I still need to read the PDF you gave me so for the moment I have no specific pull in any direction.

elissa · Post by **elissa** » Mon Jul 18, 2011 2:27 am

I've been feeding you ideas, but, posty posty.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Mon Jul 18, 2011 2:31 am

Might be cool to play an animate from an ancient or even prehistoric era. You'd have to explain why they aren't the most powerful Animate in existance, but that's easily handwaved by saying the spent their time doing non-xp generating pursuits (I'm pretty sure being the mother of demons doesn't give you much chance to grow and improve).

But I'm a little uncertain, are you looking for players here, or do you have a play group and want them to come here?

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Mon Jul 18, 2011 2:41 am

I have a play group and this is the most comforting message board I know. It's currently five in number, but this whole process is new to me, so I'm not sure I can handle more. I'm not adverse to others interjecting, commenting, and all that from others; but keeping track of more than five players in the campaign proper might be a problem for me.

Making it a centuries-long campaign will make the characters more powerful by the time it become present day. Making it not too powerful is easy by remembering that using a hoe for two hundred years doesn't give much in the way of personal growth, should we choose to go with that.

tehtow · Post by **tehtow** » Mon Jul 18, 2011 3:02 am

It might be interesting to explore the transition from a Count Dracula style era where you have absolute control over your small area without having to care much about the masquerade, to the modern behind the scenes secret monster governments. Exploring ideas of becoming more hidden and secretive as people begin traveling and global information becomes more prevalent. And also having to silence those who refuse to adjust to the changing times.

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Tue Jul 19, 2011 6:38 pm

Just rediscovered a method for posting rolls so people can do it on their own and keep it both legit and easy to keep track; www.invisiblecastle.com

We can easily make an account for each character for the campaign and every time you use it, it will keep a log for the roll with a link to it provided.

the_engineer_0404 · Post by **the_engineer_0404** » Tue Jul 19, 2011 10:19 pm

Ok signed up for that. Seems cool.

Space Jesus · Post by **Space Jesus** » Wed Jul 20, 2011 9:29 am

Signed up too.

Cynic · Post by **Cynic** » Wed Jul 20, 2011 8:08 pm

Another variation on tehtow's idea is to look at the idea of the Illuminati society. We might have started out as the go to people for certain wet work jobs and we go up the ladder to actually having political power over empires but over time due to regime changes and changes in Church/religion politics the society ends up as pariahs. Over time this might lead to the idea of whispered rumors about a group that controls everyone or has the true version of history or even the path/access to inner workings of society or the metaphysical world. (see: Holy grail, ark conspiracy theory, freemasons/templar societies, etc..., Illuminati treasure, King tut's jewels of power, etc..)

Space Jesus · Post by **Space Jesus** » Sat Jul 23, 2011 5:38 am

I think it would be cool to start about 1000 AD as luminaries or low-level supernaturals who are tough enough to have survived the more violent era before the relative peace of the present-day setting. Maybe bring the characters along from being ignorant (but useful) pawns to more socially adept mid-level players in supernatural society, and then eventually make them the go-to guys for regional and inter-dimensional problems. Allowing a bit of skill reshaping from era to era might help as the game moves from more physical to more political/social, and the time spans involved would probably allow for things like that without being too ridiculous. That kind of time line would also let us explore the various levels of "openness" that supernatural society has gone through. Starting that far back may be a bit of an issue because many of the social constructs described in the book either didn't exist at the time or were in their infancy and would be completely different from what is described, but we could probably figure something out. I'm leaning toward vampire or leviathan so far, but I haven't really decided on anything specific yet.

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Sat Jul 23, 2011 4:47 pm

One concern on starting to far in the past, like 1000AD, is that daeva haven't left the Yucatan and bagheera don't exist yet. One player expressed an interest in playing either of those two.

Space Jesus · Post by **Space Jesus** » Mon Jul 25, 2011 9:17 pm

I don't know how willing you are to tweak the setting a little, but that could be gotten around without major changes, I think. Could it be possible to have part of this character's storyline be that they're the progenitor of the bagheera, or something similar? Considering the time span we'll be covering and the lack of solid communication that far back, it doesn't seem that far-fetched that a one-off monster could go undocumented for quite some time. Especially if they don't happen to create more of themselves due to people not surviving the attacks due to overkill and lack of medical services. And a daeva could be one who was displaced for whatever reason, perhaps an unintentional trip through another plane. If you're not willing to fudge it like that, I'm not dead set on 1000 AD, that was kind of an out-of-my-ass number.

Cynic · Post by **Cynic** » Mon Jul 25, 2011 10:30 pm

Well, it doesn't need to be progenitor of the Bagheera.

Apocalypse is a great example of this. A mutant from a time without mutants. Really, there are some comics that label him as a separate mutant species called The Externals (three or four people in the continuum are labeled as such.) But even this shows that there can be something along the line of the MIssing link.

Another bad cliche for this is that "Nature abhors a vacuum."

Quantumboost · Post by **Quantumboost** » Mon Jul 25, 2011 10:36 pm

If playing in the Americas is acceptable, you could plausibly have any of the supernatural types except Bagheera and Nezumi show up in that timescale without world changes. Daeva are native to the Americas (nothing in the description restricts them to specifically the Yucatan), and the rest of everything except Lycanthropes either existed in Sumerian times or just shows up everywhere. Werewolves could easily have come over during Norse colonization in the 11th century. Lycanthropes spread virally, so they could plausibly show up pretty far from Newfoundland pretty quickly.

Lycanthropes and the one Americas-specific Vampire strain are the only real restrictions on your timeline since everything else first existed in Eurasia on a BCE timescale.

tehtow · Post by **tehtow** » Tue Jul 26, 2011 11:48 pm

Technically a Daeva or 2 could have made it back to Europe through the vikings. Possibly without knowing what they were. When found by the European supernaturals, they could just be assumed to be some odd variation of the known vampire types.

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Mon Aug 01, 2011 6:26 am

From what people have mentioned so far over IM with me...

Tehtow - Nosferatu
Space Jesus - Strigoi or Leviathan
Engineer 0404 - Lycanthrope or Transhuman
Elissa - Reborn or Vampire
Unregistered member - Bagheera or Daeva
Cynic - no word yet

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Sun Aug 07, 2011 9:12 pm

Once the decision is made between 1000 or 1500 AD, I'm thinking we can start the game off as an origin story, so we can move all the way through the centuries to In Media Res to Power Fantasy.

Cynic · Post by **Cynic** » Mon Aug 08, 2011 3:45 am

Are we doing Origin stories?

How are we arranging the cohesiveness of the groups at this early a period?

tehtow · Post by **tehtow** » Thu Aug 11, 2011 3:35 am

"You seem trustworthy. Would you care to join us in our noble quest?"

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Sat Aug 13, 2011 5:42 am

Alrighty, the new time period is going to be 1500AD, everyone starts as humans with explicit 'destinies' for what to become; obviously syndicate membership is going to be with the Covenant. Because of the high traffic of explorers and the Inquisition hitting a high point, Spain is a good place to start for everyone to be living in, as humans.

Houserules will include the fact that the default for everyone is to be illiterate, literacy being an advantage. Any others will be when we run into something that doesn't fit the area/time period for character creation.

tehtow · Post by **tehtow** » Sat Aug 20, 2011 12:13 am

I'm planning on being a monk who quit the church over inconsistencies in the bible and with how the church is acting (Spanish Inquisition). Now going to be a traveling barber who tries to avoid the church. Might pick up the long term goal of trying to get rid of the church.

the_engineer_0404 · Post by **the_engineer_0404** » Mon Aug 22, 2011 5:23 am

So far I'm leaning a great deal to Trans-human. Specifically something akin to the first cyborg but using the gears and clockwork that DaVinci experimented with. Checked it historically and DaVinci moved from Venice for Florence in 1500. A trip by boat there is very doable so my current plan is to be a human who was with DaVinci or one he finds in Spain and starts experimenting on. As far as back-story it's basically going to be that I am a illiterate peasant who grew up hearing stories of DaVinci and worships him in a lot of ways and then when I finally meet him he experiments on me. DaVinci has lots of rumors about being a free-mason and secret society stuff so that can be my in as far as that goes.

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Mon Aug 22, 2011 8:57 pm

As it's established that it will be Spain, 1500AD. Please discuss here your background ideas for your starting human and coordinate so that it won't take terrible effort to have you six become part of the same group.

Cynic · Post by **Cynic** » Wed Aug 24, 2011 1:55 am

The idea is to be a 65 year old Dominican monk-brother who Illuminated manuscripts. But for the last 10 years he's been more of a monk travelling between different monasteries and small catholic fiefdoms (dukes, whatevs..) to exchange messages. Having had a lot more to think about, his mind more often than not goes to some of the more infernal texts he's read. The idea is to be a Baali.

One of the primary spells he's going to use is to turn into a Mr. Hyde sort of persona. Church/Political intrigue seems to be an easy way to be part of the party.

Looks like Tehtow and I have similar backgrounds and could possibly be long-lost twin brothers acquaintances.