Lord of Darkness : A Vampire Prince planquest

For a fledgling rebellion to succeed, three things are needed from the elders.
Distraction, more concerned by their own designs than direct control and power.
Division, consumed by infighting.
And cruelty enough to both turn mortals into vampires without care and use them as slaves subjected to an unlife of pain that would kill mortals.
So, our story begins with a scholar taken away by one of three bloodlines of merciless monsters that have used and made every human misery worse, and now fight over the night of one city...

Why was the Prince turned into a vampire, and by which bloodlines ?

[] Because of their talent in biology, by the Húsmágnás , lord of flesh.

It is said that when the first herders came to the land of what is now Eastern Europe, they brought with them strange creatures of the night, with which one could trade blood and child for fertility and prosperity.
Through the centuries, these creatures became lords, ruling over fields, herds and serfs, and carefully cultivating their possessions to reach a perfection of flesh and blood. Such was their mastery of flesh that they divided themselves into 4 castes. Fighter, with body strengthened by blood, Servants, with flesh malleable like clay, Herders, to do the work of cultivating and selecting the herds, and Lords, given command over blood and flesh.
A few of these Lords left their European homeland one night for the New World, seeking new flesh for their work. There, they took and selected new herds, earning power by feeding first the demand of plantations, and then the hunger of America for meat.
In a night like many others, a biologist was selected by one of the Mágnás. Brillant, but meek. A perfect Herder. The biologist's house was burned to the ground, a body left behind, and the biologist turned into a vampire and, according to customs,forced to work underground, in one of many fleshwork. The habitual apprenticeship, done until the Fleedling learned to stop thinking of the herd as something other than raw material.
The fleedling learned, and grew in hatred for their overlord, until they learned enough to break the chain of the works in progress, and make sure that all believed them dead again.
And then, our new Prince prepared their revenge…

The Prince will be a Herder caste Húsmágnás, and as such will have deep knowledge of biology, chemistry, selective breeding and the shaping of flesh and will unlock actions related to this knowledge.
The Prince will begin with the perk Alchemist of Flesh and Blood : Can spend one dice to add 1d50 to two dice for one turn.
The Prince, like all non-Lord Húsmágnás, is at risk of being bound and forced to obey a Lord if they ever drink his blood.

[] For their knowledge of the past and faith, by the Mictlāntēcutlis, lords of death

It is said that once there were many bloodlines of vampires ruling the night of Pre-Columbian America. Many have died, when their herds succumbed to illness brought by colonists. But the Mictlāntēcutlis survived. Servants of the god of death, lesser lord of the underworld under Him, their curse to only be able to feed on the recent death and the ills become a blessing in these times of poisoned herds.
They infiltrated every organization caring for the dead and ills, first the Catholic Church under Spanish rule, then hospitals and asylums.In the modern nights, some of them discovered that an ill herd could be made. With the work of the pharmaceutical industry and drug cartels, the terminally ill could be maintained barely alive, and the healthy turned into wrecks. Now, in the americains night, the Mictlāntēcutlis have grown strong, ruling over herds that will never be cured, but forever maintained alive.

So when one student of the past and old faith proved appropriate, they were taken and forced to watch as their blood and life slowly left them. When they had experienced death, they were turned into one of its Lord.
They were bound to their desk, for their work was to translate and study old text, to help rediscover the lost history of their lines. At the same time, for their initiation, they were forced to watch how life left a body in many ways, and how a lifeless body changed, and to learn how much a human can support before leaving their mortal envelope.
At the middle of the initiation, the time of despair before finally abandoning mortal sensibility, this new fledgling found something. An old rite of power, dangerous and lost, and they used it.
When our new Prince emerged from a Heaven turned slaughterhouse, they were ready to take revenge.

The Prince will know of death, the Underworld, history, and medicine, and will unlock actions related to this knowledge.
The Prince will begin with the perk Summon the Wind of Knives : As an action, can destroy most assets and beings in a location. The Prince must be present, and is not protected from the effects. This perk is not in any way discrete.
The Prince, like all Mictlāntēcutlis, can and must feed on the blood of the recently dead, dying or deadly ills.


[] For their knowledge of the supernatural and how to fight it, by the Nameless, lords of shadows and lies.

Since before the time of the Lord, the Nameless Lodge has ruled the night of West Africa, working in the shadows and infiltrating every cults, societies and order they could. The lodge used many names, in many tongues, but in the end held none. Behind a thousand masks, they worked to create a world where they could bend the lives of every mortal with one word and without any trace, taking hold of the powerful and shaping the customs of the weak.

So when merchants came, seeking to buy laborers with gold and uncaring of the cost in blood, tears and suffering, some of the Nameless became interested in what could be done with such people. So they came to America.
There, they have used many masks, worming their ways in clubs, in parties, in unions and in crime syndicates. For a true Nameless as no beliefs, no faith, no community and no roots. Only the Lodge.

The Lodge's recruitment is a wonder to behold. Take our new Prince. First there was a normal person, happy, married with a child. Then they lost all, and became a Hunter, spending years hunting the supernatural, scouring every bit of lore held by those who have fought the supernatural for centuries and creating a new family amongst their fellow hunters. Then they lost everything again, were betrayed, and saw everything they believed in made a mockery of. A careful work to break someone utterly, and reshape one Hunter into a strategist for conflicts between elders...
What a shame it failed.
And so our new Prince directed their anger toward the elders….


The Prince will know of the supernatural, and how to hunt it and destroy, or contain it. The Prince will have contact amongst and knowledge of the Hunters, and unlock special actions.
The Prince will begin with the perk Hunting Lore : Can spent dice to create re roll and one-time bonus against a specific supernatural threat, earning 1 re roll and one +10 bonus per die spent.
The Prince's, like every Nameless, will tend to forget the irrelevant more than other vampires. Futile memory, useless feelings, meaningless beliefs.


So we have it, one rebellious fledgling, one spark for a new rebellion.
Now, what allies did our Prince gather amongst the other fledglings that were slaves in the hands of the elders ?

Choose the 3 members of the Prince's Coterie

[] Renault de Montfaucon, Freed War Dog (Húsmágnás, Warrior caste) :

Once, Renault was a knight in the service of the King of France. He was brave, respected, with a beautiful fiancé and bountiful lands. Then, one night, he made the mistake of slaying the favorite experiment of one vampire of the Lord caste. So he was taken, and made a toy. For centuries kept starved and chained, released only to serve as a beast of war or to fight for the entertainment of his master. The Prince freed this broken knight from his chain, and gave him a new chance. Renault is lost, his mind wounded beyond what should be possible, his faith broken long ago. But his sword arm is strong, and his desire for revenge stronger.

Begin with Perk Blood Knight : +10 to personal combat, will re roll combat roll in exchange for wounds to himself)

[] Mei Lin, Pleasant Face (Húsmágnás, Servant caste):

There was a person named Mei Lin once, one full of hope, seeking a new life. Now there is a face with this name. One that can shape itself at will, smile endlessly or cry without end. Every role and every feeling can be expressed from this face, but beyond it there is only a void and an endless hunger for blood.
Now the face has turned against its maker. And perhaps it can be a person again.

Begin with Perk All Faces in One : +10 to Infiltration rolls (used to subvert and corrupt institutions), Unlock unique options thanks to shapeshifting (identity thief...).

[] Lászlo, Who Serve Himself (Húsmágnás, Servant caste):

Lászlo is an old servant. For centuries he has served, without fail. Many times he has been reshaped to serve his Master. Pleasant form to please, powerful one to fight, intimidating to shepherd the herd. Who remembers the peasant from Hungary now ? Who will remember the servant that was turned into a vampire without any care and only because his frame could not support another change ? The Master did not care, it never did. Now Lászlo serve himself.

Begin with Perk Old Servant : Unlock actions due to in-deep knowledge, can detect some traps when his dice are attributed to an action due to long experience.

[] John Smith, True Nameless (Nameless):

The perfect Nameless. No memories, no past, no true name, a face that faded in the crowd. Masterwork of an elder Nameless, a man broken until reduced to a tool. However, a tool has no loyalties, and one made of flesh can still feel pain and anger. John Smith will not suffer.

Begin with Perk Without Traces : +10 to Information Gathering actions, reduce risk of discovery as John slips from every mind.

[] Calvin Clay, The Sergeant (Nameless) :

When Calvin came back from Vietnam, he was angry, seeking something beyond senseless violence abroad and discrimination at home. And he found something. A society of powerful beings from the African homeland, slowly acting in the shadow to liberate every black, and create an utopia. So Calvin Clay became a foot-soldier, and then an instructor, working tirelessly for the ideal. Fighting, training new soldiers, every day, and when turned, every night.
All for nothing ! Once again, he had been made a pawn ! There would be no utopia, only an eternity under nameless monsters who did not care about anything but themselves. Creatures who were waiting until their curse would have stripped away every last bit of his humanity, to make him one of them for all eternity.
Calvin had been warned before they could finish their plans. And he would burn them all.

Begin with Perk Undead Instructor : Unlock Training actions, allowing to permanently upgrade others dice.

[] Afua Owusu, Twister of Laws (Nameless):

Some say that being a business lawyer is to sell your soul, and Afua was more than willing to do it, to ensure a life of plenty for her family, for her parents that had broken their backs sending her to law school. So sometimes one has to make hard choices, forget their morals to end the month, so what ?
This is the mindset that attracted the Nameless to Afua, and this is how she finished as the pet lawyer of an elder, rapidly losing herself in the shadows.
She now has an opportunity to make other choices. Will she take it ?

Begin with Perk Nigh Lawyer : Unlock the ability to acquire and control legal business through more or less legal means (beyond the usual vampiric strategy of intimidation and mind control), and manage financial assets.

[] Ramón Ordóñez, Reborn Shepherd (Mictlāntēcutlis):

Man of faith are a strange thing. They can be misled thanks to their beliefs, they can be broken when turned into a vampire, certain their soul is lost. But they can also be elevated by this same faith.
Ramón Ordóñez is such a man, one who once helped the ills and dying in a forgotten slum of Argentina, before becoming a perfect instrument for gathering the ills and maintaining them alive. In many cities he walked, becoming the Healer of the Forgotten, gathering a flock amongst the desperate to feed his master.
Now, in a ruined church, the Prince has resurrected his faith. He may be damned, but a good shepherd he will be again.

Begin with 2 Wretch Servant Dices (1d25 each, worth 0,5 Control Point)
Begin with perk Shepherd of the Lost : For any action to recruit people forgotten by society, multiply by 2 the result of the rolls.

[] Emma Fuchs, Vessel and Seer (Mictlāntēcutlis) :

Ghosts are powerful, fickle things, hard to bind and submit permanently. One of the easier ways to realize such a bidding is to find an appropriate vessel. Select one with the right blood and one who has learned much of the appropriate period of History, take them, put them in the appropriately reconstituted environment, turn them into a vampire, and at the moment of change, bind the ghost to their body. An habitual, well-practiced way to create a pliant vessel, with the incomplete transformation due to the possession and the bound of blood between a vampire and their maker ensuring obedience.
But sometimes this procedure fails.
Now there are two Emma Fuch, the historian turned vampire and the seer from the Thirty Years Wars. And both have nothing but hatred for the elders.
Begin with perk Ghostly Seer : 1 re-roll per turn, forewarned of majors coming events.

[] Fatima Sahli (Mictlāntēcutlis), Once Powerful:

Sometimes, people are turned not because of their value as vampires, but because of their own. Fatima had risen from nothing to become a woman of wealth and privilege, with enough money to buy anything and anyone. But not enough to buy wealth. When cancer struck, she desperately sought any remedies, uselessly, until one vampire came to her in the dark.
She was turned, but it did not heal her illness, not truly. Her maker used her as a way to both earn wealth and study how a vampiric cancer would act. So she remained weak, and every night was tested and used a little more.
The Prince ripped the undead tumor from her, and now what is left of her empire shall be used for vengeance.

Begin with additional Blood and a set-up Heaven(base) thanks to the remnants of Fatima's wealth.


So were the sparks gathered. They fought and they conspired in the night. They used the elder's division against them, blowing on the fire of conflicts. And then, one faithful night, when the elders were gathered for either the last negotiation or the final fight, they struck.
And the elders, their beautiful heaven, their tools and their plans and all their evils…

Were set Ablaze.

No moratorium, you may vote.

How do you fight elder vampires ? A creature strong from centuries of existence ?
You hit them where it hurts, the blood.

It was not an easy task, even for our gifted prince, to spread their poison in the water system of the city. Even with the help of John Smith, an agent that could not be noticed, it took months of thankless work.
But when it was done, a strange illness was spread in the veins of the mortals. The mortals were completely affected by it, but if a vampire had the ill luck to drink from an infected, they would soon puck out the blood by every orifice.

Of course, once the poisoning was done, tensions flared amongst the elders. The Húsmágnás were accused of spreading crafted poisons, the Mictlāntēcutlis of seeking to conquer new herds by making them undesirable to others, and the Nameless… well, simply of being the untrustworthy bastards behind every dirty plan for centuries. These rose rapidly, helped by the sudden death of lesser vampires, found cut into pieces, and various anonymous letters sent to the IRC on the finances of various mortal fronts of the elders.

As expected, when tensions were at their zenith, ready to explode into an all-out war, the elders gathered for one last round of negotiations, and more probably to violently solve the issues amongst themselves, without risking to attract the attention of mortals with constant nights of violence.
We can be sure that many plans were hatched and many countermeasures prepared. But all those old and suspicious elders missed one thing. They missed that the abandoned building where they gathered, in an old slum emptied of its inhabitants, was built under old and faulty infrastructures, with a broken gas system and sewer filled with rotting trash, filled with methane.
And if one set a fire in just the right place….
Well let's say that neither the elders, the building or the slum survived the night.

So, with vampire societies emptied of its cruel leaders, there was a vacuum ready to be filled, perhaps by monsters even worse than those before. So our Prince claimed the throne of night, and will defend it, for the fledglings existence, for what morality is left in them, and against the beasts in the night.

Glory to our Prince !

[] Write-in, input a name for the Prince


The Prince has the body of a...

[] 2 : Male

[] 2 : Female

[] 2 : Other, write-in

(Subtlety such as sex, gender and orientation are far less important amongst vampire than amongst mortal kind, for they are before anything else predator that reproduces by turning human. In particular, a lose of gender and sexual identity is a common consequence of spending centuries as a vampire)

[] Optional, input a description if desired


What is the Prince's Domain, taken from the elders?

[] A place of power

The Prince will rule over part of a center of political, cultural and economical power. A place rich in resources to take, but filled with foes mundane and supernatural.

[] A decaying city

The Prince will rule over a decaying land, filled with desperate mortals and institutions ready to be taken advantage of. However, excessive decay will endanger the Prince's resources flow, and risk attracting new predators, attracted by easy prey.

[] A minor city

The Prince will rule over a minor city, once under near-complete control by the elders, now emptied of most supernatural control. This Domain will have less opponents, but less resources than bigger cities, and will begin with an extreme case of power vacuum.

[] A rural town (unlocked by Húsmágnás)

The Prince will rule over what was once an experiment of eccentric elders, a Domain ruling not over a city but a wide track of countryside. This Domain will hold far more land and raw resources, but less population to exploit, which will also make disappearance far more visible than in a city. And the Prince will have to deal with the power of the wilds, powers that are near-universally opposed to vampires.


And what will be the factions already present in the Domain ? Choose up to three :

[Free, automatically taken] Vampire

The world will end before a Prince can be free of the intrigues, hunger and conflicts of their vampire kind.

[] Other Predators

There are many kinds of predators prowling the night, and some have built their courts in the city, some feeding on flesh, others on dreams, or on emotions. Predators are much like exotic variety of vampires, with unique needs and power.

[] Hunters

When the supernatural act without restraints, hunters come. Mortals that have lost something precious, and have heard the Calling of the hunt. Do not underestimate those ready to give their life to end the creatures of the night. However, know that they are mortals, and still usable.

[] Agencies

One of the many secret agencies of the US government calls the Domain home. Those agency are much like bear, slow, sleepy, ponderous and easy to exploit for the talented parasites. But who to us if we wake the bear. We will not survive the government's attention.

[] Shapeshifters

Mortals line up with symbiotic spirits, shapeshifters are the natural foes of vampires. They have hunted and fought us as abominations since the dawn of time. But no blood is sweeter than the blood of shapeshifters and their kin, and many vampires have built their power upon victories over the shapeshifters.

[] Spirits

The wall between the worlds is thin in the Domain, and spirits of nature and the elements can manifest. Simple beings bound by their nature, they are in many ways like raging rivers. Uncontrolled, they will flood and destroy. But when tamed, they will bring great benefits to the owner of those lands.

[] Ghosts

The ghosts, unquiet dead and constant issues for a kin prone to killings like the vampires. Talented necromancers have built their power on taming the land of the Underworld and the ghosts that inhabit it, but to the unprepared they are at best an hindrance and at worst a constant menace.

[] Mages

The Domain holds a line of sorcerers, as jealous of their power and possessions as any vampire. They can be a great menace if angered, ready to curse us and send their summoned servant against our interest. However, if allied or enslaved, they are a source of supernatural services.

EDIT : Vote Open