London By Night: A Quest of Murder, Betrayal and Blood

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LONDON BY NIGHT
A Game of Betrayal, Murder and Blood

The alarm is late. The sun is already...

EarthScorpion

╯‵Д′)╯彡┻━┻
LONDON BY NIGHT
A Game of Betrayal, Murder and Blood


The alarm is late. The sun is already up, the cold wintry sunlight creeping through your windows. You rub your eyes and groan. There's frost on the windowpanes and your room is cold. Clutching your head, you pull yourself out of bed, and stare out. The city of London presents itself to you. And you're running late again.

It is the fifth of November, 1924. Gunpowder, treason and plot.

This is the last day of your life.

This is a Vampire: the Requiem Quest, though with rules hacks incorporated (and liable to be more if it turns out that something doesn't work well - I'll try to stop you getting screwed over by imbalanced Disciplines, for example).

Name and gender are write-ins. Likewise, if people propose Virtue and Vice and provide details on how the character manifests them, I'll choose whichever one I like the most. Choose one background below. If you want to embellish your vote with background, that may actually result in your vote counting double (if I like your background details). Moreover, write-in backgrounds with useful plot hooks, seeds, and character will get you extra starting XP, and even potentially extra Merits if they're fitting (and I feel like it). Understanding of the Vampire setting is not necessary, although it does somewhat help if you know that the 1920s were a thing that happened.

Some of these backgrounds have additional notes or may vary based on gender. Note that this is intended to be a longer-run campaign, with in-game play sometimes taking a yearly or seasonal play, and thus gender-roles will shift as time passes. If you feel that a certain background is gender inappropriate, then write-ins can be used to shift it slightly.

Ventrue: the Lords

Clan Ventrue, the Ven, the Lords; such are the titles of clearly the greatest among the Damned. Some might accuse them of being effete aristocrats; nothing could be further from the truth. Their power is seized, not granted, and they hold it in an iron glove. Some might call them tyrants, and given their tendency to subjugate man and beast it is a role they fall into easily. Not all of the Lords rule directly, of course, but if the man who on paper has the power has no choice but to obey you, are you not the one with the real authority?

Such is unlife for the Lords. And the Ven always win.

Madness runs in their blood. As the Beast fastens onto them and corrodes the Man, they find their minds slipping away. It is for a good reason, other clans say, that the feared infectious madness-plague of Malkavia finds such an easy home in them. Though most of the Ven can escape Malkavia, they cannot escape the insanity which waits for them if they fall. Some say this is a sign of their inner strength; that unlike the other clans they can escape their curse. But the temptations of the Kindred are many, and most Ven sucumb to some extent.

The Ven crush the wills of men, subjugate animals to their whim, and are implausibly tough.

[ ] Younger Child

Your parents are jolly rich, and have a title. Of course, it's not going to be yours; neither the money nor the title. You're just the youngest of five, and even if one brother died in the Great War, you still have three older siblings. You just caught the last year of the War, though you never actually saw the frontlines. What you do have is an exceptional education (if you're female, your parents were somewhat progressive about that) and a privileged background, and a very nice arranged marriage to someone who you're rather fond of.

Perhaps that's why you're just a bit of a prat. Not too much of one. But enough that you've done one or two rather silly things in your past, although you managed to avoid any serious consequences from them. And the debts aren't that big, right?

Advantages:
A Jolly Expensive Education
Well-Bred and Privileged
Caught The Last Year Of The War (Males as junior officers, females as volunteer nurses)
Disadvantages:
Kind Of An Oik (With Debts)
Engaged To Be Married

[ ] Self Made Man

You pulled yourself up by your own bootstraps (or possibly petticoats). Society didn't want you to get where you want to be right now. Society can, be quite blunt, go fuck itself. And once you had your money, it welcomed you back in, even if it whispered things about your lack of taste and how 'old money' wouldn't do all the things you do. Well, sorry, but you're not going to listen to that kind of thing. Of course, if you lost your money - perhaps by being declared dead - you might be in a somewhat sticky situation and have to start again. Probably something to avoid.

Even without your cash, though, you have drive, you have talent, and you have a good eye for bargains and who to trust. And - though it was never proven - you might also have made contact with unsuitable sorts in your business. Might come in useful, mmm. Or might make trouble.

Advantages:
Established Assets And Lots Of Them
Strong Drive
Shady Contacts
Disadvantages:
Nouveau Riche
Inheritance Laws Are A Problem
Shady Contacts

Nosferatu: the Haunts
There are pretty vampires, beautiful vampires, vampires the masses dream of. The Nosferatu, the Haunts, the Worms? They're not those vampires. They're the vampires who are the thing under the bed. The ones who are lurking in the sewers. They're the nightmares of children. Only seriously fucked up people dream of a romantic affair with one. Other people know to be scared, because they can punch through a steel door and pass unseen. And they know fear. Oh, yes, do they know fear.

The Haunts even scare other vampires. The other Kindred react to them like mortals react to all vampires… and normal humans are even more sensitive to their inhumanity. There's something wrong about the Nosferatu, and it hangs around them. Maybe it's the way he smells of sour milk and iron, and his eyes look raw and infected. Maybe she's got open weeping wounds on her face which make it hard to look at her. Maybe, yes, he looks like Count Orlock, though that's not actually all that common. But the Worms are wrong, even among the Damned.

The Nosferatu tend to be terrifyingly strong, can evade the attention of others, and wear fear like a cloak.

[ ] War Veteran

A bit of you died in Flanders fields. You shipped out in 1914 as part of the BEF, and you lasted the full four years. The chattering of machine guns haunts your dreams, and the ringing of shell-barrages lurks, waiting for you. Men died in your gunsights. So many friends died next to you, and you can't even remember all their names.

Should you wish to take this background as a female character, you were one of the fresh-faced volunteers who went out in 1914 as part of the Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service, and came home in 1918 having seen countless horrors and watched hundreds of men die. A shell landed on your field hospital, and you survived. Others didn't.

Either way, they expected you to go back to your ordinary life. Fat chance of that. The ghosts of the past still follow you. Sometimes you wonder if they're literal ghosts. You can't hold down a stable relationship, and strange happenings are something you've almost got used to. Almost.

Advantages (male):
Hardened Veteran
Lucky, If You Can Call This Luck
Honourably Discharged
Advantages (female):
Expert Medic
Lucky, If You Can Call This Luck
Strong Stomach For Gore And Other Such Things
Disadvantages:
Haunted By The Past
Blood Stained Hands

Hunter

You never quite belonged. Maybe you ran off to join the navy. Maybe you went overseas for other reasons. Maybe you were one of the idle rich. But you saw things overseas. Things that shouldn't exist. Couldn't exist. And then when you got back home, you found there were other people who'd seen these things… and the monsters were waiting for you at home, too. So you took a stand. Pushed things. Noticed the things in the shadows, all around. All those lurking monsters.

And now you've pushed it too far. Because the things in the shadows have noticed you back. This is something you can't outrun, and won't forgive and won't forget. This is your worst fear made manifest. You've got a collection of things you found abroad and none of it will help you. You've got the rumours and whispers of half-informed men and they're not enough. Now you're headed into the hands of blood-drinking monsters in the hope that they're a lesser evil compared to the other things you've seen out there.

Advantages:
Just Informed Enough
Stared Into The Abyss
Collection of Strange Things From Overseas
Disadvantages:
The Abyss Stared Back
Collection of Strange Things From Overseas

Daeva: the Succubi
"Love me and despair," might be the motto of Clan Daeva. They say they were gods in Sumeria and Babylon, and claim descent from Lilith and Ishtar alike. They're firebrands and princesses, gods and devils and heroes all in one heady brew. They're faster than you, stronger than you, more beautiful than you; that is why you should love and adore them.

Vice calls to these wicked creatures. If they are gods, they are the old gods of myth, terrible in their rages, all-consuming in their envy, and with pride enough to break the world in twain. They find it hard to resist temptation.

The Daeva tend to be uncannily quick, terrifyingly strong, and have a fatal attraction to others.

[ ] Socialite

You're doing rather nicely for yourself, all in all. Money's never been a problem, and even though you have a profession, you certainly don't live for it. No, you're a progressive, liberated person who isn't claimed down by stuffy old rules. The Great War changed everything, and you're fully behind women voting (especially if you, yourself, are female) and parties and lots of alcohol and other rollicking good fun things like that. And you're dreadfully likeable, and even get on well with people from totally different social groups, because you don't judge people.

And sure, you did attend old 'Bugsby' Johnson's 'ritual' where he sacrificed a goat to Bapho-somethingorother, but you didn't see a damned thing. It was all a bit of innocent larks, even if he started screaming. That was probably the wine, anyway, because there had been all those funny herbs in it which Amelia Lovely's fakir had brought back from deepest India. You did feel a trifle queer and had a dreadful hangover the next night, but it was probably nothing. Poor Bugsby. His war experiences must have caught up with him, because he just started screaming about the killing fields and then his folks had him committed to an asylum. Jolly unpleasant state of affairs, all in all.

Advantages:
Awfully Good Fun
Good with People
Peripheral Contact With The Occult
Disadvantages:
Upper Class And Somewhat Dim
Peripheral Contact With The Occult

Political Activist

You burn with passion. A big change is coming. Something which will sweep away the old established order. Look at women getting the vote here and look at Russia! You'll live to see a brighter tomorrow! All it requires is for people to work together! You can lead a pub to support you with just some clever speeches, you can cite all kinds of reasons why you're right, and you've got experience with conflicts. The Revolution will not be silenced!

Shame things aren't so easy. Shame there are a lot of established forces who want to keep you pressed down. The world might not be so friendly to visionaries like you, but that's no reason not to endure, right?

Advantages:
Rabble Rouser
Book Basher
Veteran of the War / Suffragette Veteran (male/female)
Disadvantages:
Threat To The Established Order
Tied to (Ideology)

Mekhet: the Shadows
From darkest Egypt, so the tales tell, came the first among the Mekhet. They walk alone, noticing while remaining unseen, flitting away like the Shadows others name them. They do not control men or beasts as all other Kindred can, no. In the field of knowledge, however, they are unmatched by any of the dead. In the lying games of the vampires, a Mekhet can be a dangerous player indeed.

The Shadows are perhaps named ironically, for that is something they lack. Upon the Embrace, their shadow flees them, and so does their echo, their reflection, and a few other things. Some consider this an advantage, but to those among the know it makes them easy to pick out and means they must take care lest they picked out by those that seek them.. And sometimes their shadow comes back. It isn't happy with them. Not one bit. It doesn't want to kill them, oh no. It wants to make them miserable.

The Mekhet tend to be uncannily quick, impossibly perceptive, and can evade the attention of others.

[ ] Journalist

You're brilliant. That's not just opinion, by the way. That's fact. Objective fact. As true as any story you might write. Truer, possibly. You're working for one of the papers, and you're quite the hotshot, if you do say so yourself. You can root out things that others don't manage, and turn quite a pretty little phrase. You know how to get people talking to you, and can piece together bits of lies to find the truth within.

Strangely, people don't seem to like you much, when you show how much better you are than them. Must be the brilliance making them jealous.. And yes, sometimes some people might get a little bit annoyed with you seeing through their lies and… well, it's a jolly good thing you were an athletic little sprite at school, eh? Running is a better idea than staying and getting beaten up.

Advantages:
Highly Literate and Intelligent
Investigative Skills
Oddball Collection of Contacts
Disadvantages:
Know It All
Writer Not A Fighter

[ ] Devotee

It was a beautiful affair. You loved them, and they loved you back - even if some people might not have approved. It was a match made in heaven. And then they vanished. The police found nothing, and you got the feeling you were being stonewalled. All enquiries failed.

In the confusion and the chaos, you took solace in your faith. Men joined the church; women remained among the laity but may have become a Bishop's Messenger during the war. You were always there for the people around you, and even though you didn't quite notice it at the time, you became the lynchpin of your social circle. Then… you started to see them again. Or maybe you didn't. It was never something certain. It almost felt like someone was playing games with you.

Because they couldn't still be alive? Could they?

Advantages:
Good Listener
Quiet Confidence
Devout
Disadvantages:
Ghosts of the Past
Someone's Out To Get You

Gangrel: the Savages

Barbarians. Savages. The more 'civilised' clans might look down at the Gangrel as a bunch of uncontrolled animals. That's mostly slander. They're not stupid. They just… don't spend so much time lying to themselves. Their Beast is closer, and when you can turn into a limb-cutting killing machine it does sort of incentivise certain things. And they survive. Oh, yes, they survive. When the chips are down and Kindred turns on Kindred, the Gangrel often come out on top.

There's a thing about the Savages, and that's that the Beast lurks all so close to the surface. It waits within them, lurking to seize control whenever it can. A flash of flame and a Gangrel might run screaming where another Kindred might be able to hold strong. Fear, hunger, anger; these are the primal things that fill the hearts of the Savages.

The Gangrel often can reshape their flesh, subjugate animals to their whim, and are implausibly tough.

[ ] Wrong Place, Wrong Time

Yeah, let's be honest here. You weren't someone special. You had no exceptional skills. You were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. You were good at what you did, and maybe that's what led you to that fateful place, but you never asked for this.

This character background has a lot of potential to be determined by write-in. Want to be a cellist? You can be. Want to be a hard-as-nails East End cockney who can outdrink anyone? You can be. What is clear, however, is that you will be missed, and this may well cause problems. People care for you enough to go looking. Which speaks well for your character, but might be an eeny weeny problem.

Advantages:
Hidden Potential
Trained (Write-In-Determined)
Went Off To War (male) / Homefront Hero (female)
Disadvantages:
Weighed Down by Family
Unexceptional

[ ] The Sleeper

Yeah, you know the stuff which I said up the top? About how this was the last day of your life and you were just waking up as a normal human?

Lies. All lies.

Your story begins in nightmare, blood and horror. You wake after a sleep of countless years to ravenous hunger and little else. A rat was crawling over your face; you grasp it in a claw and drain it dry. The hunger drives you into a frenzy and you fall upon the rats, drinking their bland blood until you are somewhat stated. Above, you can hear rumbling. In one of the dark places of London you have stirred to find your memories a tattered gauze. Flashes of recollection paint themselves before your eyes, but sometimes they contradict each other. How long have you slept in the sleep which is almost death? Long enough that your blood has thinned to the level of the most rank neonate.

You clutch at your head. Fear. Blood. The hunt. The cull. Betrayal. And the calling of the birds.

Who are you? Who were you?

Advantages:
The Sleeper Awakens
Ancient Monster
Disadvantages:
HARD MODE
Amnesia (Will Screw You Over)
Ancient Monster (Will Screw You Over)
Dark Past (Will Screw You Over)
 
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A question what about adding stuff that heavily implies that we belong or will belong to a certain bloodline, especially one that is usually associated with a certain covenant? I assume a Dragulescu would be interesting but I am unsure if those idea would jump to far beyond the scope of the backgrounds as outlined and to disruptive for your creative process.
 
A question what about adding stuff that heavily implies that we belong or will belong to a certain bloodline, especially one that is usually associated with a certain covenant? I assume a Dragulescu would be interesting but I am unsure if those idea would jump to far beyond the scope of the backgrounds as outlined and to disruptive for your creative process.

Considering most bloodlines are poorly balanced trash, usually written for access to a Super Special Discipline, I'm not a fan of them.

However, it is... ah, not impossible that there are certain rarer Disciplines out there which in canon would be the preserve of a Bloodline. They may well come at a certain cost, though.
 
[X] Self Made Man

You started with nothing. NOTHING. And over twenty-five years, you showed them all. You cleaned, polished and shined what was caked with dirt, and sold it to very foppish and slightly dim people. You invested, bargained and perhaps you even had someone in your way removed by shady figures, not that anyone could prove it.

But you knew ambition. Always. You knew there would be a war on, the empires of Europe grinding against each other with no more space to expand. So you invested more, took credit, took chances, all in preparation-

And when the Great War came, you were there, with your guns and your cartridges and and your bandages and the gas masks AND YOU SHOWED THEM ALL when you bought out one competitor after another.

They hate you, of course, the old money of the United Kingdom. Let them.

You have your suit, your hat, and a heart that beats with bottomless, boundless, burning ambition. You have what you have made for yourself by your own hands, your own wit, your own strength. And woe upon those who would take it from you.
 
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[X] The Sleeper
Hopefully we will be able to lay low for some time and figure out who we are.
 
[X] Journalist

You're brilliant. That's not just opinion, by the way. That's fact. Objective fact. As true as any story you might write. Truer, possibly. You're working for one of the papers, and you're quite the hotshot, if you do say so yourself. You can root out things that others don't manage, and turn quite a pretty little phrase. You know how to get people talking to you, and can piece together bits of lies to find the truth within.

Strangely, people don't seem to like you much, when you show how much better you are than them. Must be the brilliance making them jealous.. And yes, sometimes some people might get a little bit annoyed with you seeing through their lies and… well, it's a jolly good thing you were an athletic little sprite at school, eh? Running is a better idea than staying and getting beaten up.
 
[X] The Sleeper
Hopefully we will be able to lay low for some time and figure out who we are.

Okay, I'm just going to cut you off here.

Did you read the Disadvantages?

HARD MODE
Amnesia (Will Screw You Over)
Ancient Monster (Will Screw You Over)
Dark Past (Will Screw You Over)

When I put "HARD MODE" in all-caps and "(Will Screw You Over)" three times, I am not joking around. Feel free to vote for it. But don't go in with any illusions that you're going to get the balanced, "made not to put you in serious danger for the early bits" game of the other backgrounds.
 
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[X] Self Made Man

Look, Donald Sykes best Syndicate member, therefore Self Made Man best Vampire choice. This is simple logic people.

More seriously, have you guys seen the Sleeper disadvantages? If you are not intimately familiar with V:tR and thus capable of hitting the ground running (and by running I mean 'running faster than a bullet train'), I would suggest that the only reason you choose Sleeper is if you want this quest to end exceptionally quickly when someone lights you on fire.
 
Okay, I'm just going to cut you off here.

Did you read the Disadvantages?

HARD MODE
Amnesia (Will Screw You Over)
Ancient Monster (Will Screw You Over)
Dark Past (Will Screw You Over)

When I put "HARD MODE" in all-caps and "(Will Screw You Over)" three times, I am not joking around. Feel free to vote for it. But don't go in with any illusions that you're going to get the balanced, "made not to put you in serious danger for the early bits" game of the other backgrounds.
Oh I thought that since we'd been out of commission for years we'd be safe until someone figured out we were back. Or is the Ancient Monster flaw going to screw us over by making that obvious?
 
[X]Political Activist
Tied to Communism

Guys, guys, this is the Era for big changes in the geopolitical scene. If normal humans like Hitler and Stalin could make such waves and gain such power, why can't we do it as a Vampire? We're way better than humans!

I mean, what's the harm? Except you know, the Masquerade, Death Squads send by the Camarilla, Technocracy agents looking to squash wave makers of our kind, Traditionalists who have the same ideas as us. Getting on the human authorities's nerves and getting sent to concentration camps etc...

See? Nothing could go wrong!

Commie Vampire says: ''Blood for you, blood for you, BLOOD FOR EVERYONE!''
 
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Okay, I'm just going to cut you off here.

Did you read the Disadvantages?

HARD MODE
Amnesia (Will Screw You Over)
Ancient Monster (Will Screw You Over)
Dark Past (Will Screw You Over)

When I put "HARD MODE" in all-caps and "(Will Screw You Over)" three times, I am not joking around. Feel free to vote for it. But don't go in with any illusions that you're going to get the balanced, "made not to put you in serious danger for the early bits" game of the other backgrounds.
I see that as more of a challenge than anything.

If it screws us over, at least it will be fun.
 
[X]Political Activist
Tied to Communism

Guys, guys, this is the Era for big changes in the geopolitical scene. If normal humans like Hitler and Stalin could make such waves and gain such power, why can't we do it as a Vampire? We're way better than humans!

I mean, what's the harm? Except you know, the Masquerade, Death Squads send by the Camarilla, Technocracy agents looking to squash wave makers of our kind, Traditionalist who have the same ideas as us. Getting on the human authorities's nerves and getting sent to concentration camps etc...

See? Nothing could go wrong!

Commie Vampire says: ''Blood for you, blood for you, BLOOD FOR EVERYONE!''

Requiem, not Masquerade. Similar problems, just fewer plasma cannons and stuffy old unbeatable elders with tons of infrastructure.

I see that as more of a challenge than anything.

If it screws us over, at least it will be fun.

How much do you know about V:tR, full stop? If the answer is not 'I literally have memorized all the books' you are basically choosing an path where you fail around endlessly (that is not a typo) and then die.
 
Oh I thought that since we'd been out of commission for years we'd be safe until someone figured out we were back. Or is the Ancient Monster flaw going to screw us over by making that obvious?
Well we wake up , we are hungry, we most likely saw London the last time somewhere in the 19th , or even 18th century and as we lost most of our power while we where asleep we are now weak , disorientated and will most likely get hit by the first car that we see as those are a out of context problem for us.
And it is explicitly stated that our power is mostly reduced to that of a newborn vampire to make a simplification.
And if we are really unlucky the birds are a sign that something is interested in us.
 
How much do you know about V:tR, full stop? If the answer is not 'I literally have memorized all the books' you are basically choosing an path where you fail around endlessly (that is not a typo) and then die.
Only familiar with Masquerade, if hard mode is that daunting I should probably change my vote.

[X] Self Made Man

Do you know this through basic knowledge of the setting or are you helping ES design the campaign, if you don't mind me asking.
 
On the other hand there is a whole covenant, ie one of the big social structures like the Camarilla and the Sabbat , that is all about modernizing the society of the vampires which ranges from democracy over communism to the creation of hive minds.
 
[X] Self Made man: Female

England in 1924 was undergoing some really interesting social changes. It would be interesting to play a character who is intimately aware of the fact that their very traditionalist society is beginning to undergo some significant changes. It would also be interesting to see how a very driven character who had previously overcome the powerful prejudices and restraints of staid English Society deals with the moribund society of the vampires.
 
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