Post by Katie on Jul 2, 2020 22:25:48 GMT -5
In V20 Dark Ages, you will have the chance to tell many
kinds of tales. Sweeping sagas that stretch from one end
of the continent to the other. Meandering yet shocking trails
through the politics of church and state. Gory crusades,
desperate pilgrimages, and hopeful relocations are all fair
game. Regardless of the chronicle the Storyteller places
before you and the tale you dare to tell, there is one story
each player will have to tell: the story of being a Cainite,
a vampire, in the Dark Medieval World.
Regardless of clan, affiliations, or missives, the Beast
within and the blood-splattered drive to sate your nature
trickles through every aspect of the story. Whether you
see your vampiric nature as a calling, a blessing, or a
curse, your nature is what it is. You can choose how you
deal with it. But you must face it. You must build your
unlife as a vampire around it carefully, meticulously, lest
the structures of society, culture and belief come crashing
down around you.
The Beast runs it course. Its dark urge ebbs and
flows, waxes and wanes. To control it, to use it, you must
become familiar with it. You must learn the cycles of your
hunger, how much blood is needed to quiet the Beast to
where you can think again, how to deal with the crash
after the ecstasy of sinking your teeth into the flesh of
your victim, and how to cope with the hunger creeping
in again, threatening to shake the brief moment of peace
you had. Exercise, habit, and rituals can focus the mind
away, prolonging any one stage of the bestial cycle.
Yet everything you do leads you around and around,
forever until your final night. Hunger. Hunt. Feed. Digest.
You pull back from or claw towards these stages, trying
to merge this aspect of your life with that you are forced
to lead and survive. Popes, kings, and armies come and
go. At the end of the night, your hunger still remains.
Introduction (from the corebook)
Good evening. I hope we find you well. Welcome to V20 Dark Ages. To put it succinctly; you're probably familiar with Vampire, and probably with Vampire: The Masquerade, 20th Anniversary Edition. You’re almost certainly familiar with roleplaying games or storytelling games.
V20 Dark Ages is its own product. If you're just coming in to Vampire, this is the only book you need to play. If you're a long-time fan, you're going to find all sorts of little love letters in here, as well as updated concepts, and some new ideas inspired by the past iterations of Vampire and Dark Ages.
What This Book Is
Here are some of our goals with V20 Dark Ages.
A Nostalgic Experience: Most of you are coming to this book with years of experience with Vampire. Every single member of our team shares that. We're digging deep to find the things that we love about Vampire, and hopefully the things you've loved about Vampire, and we're giving a new set of eyes on them.
An Authentic Experience: The Dark Medieval World is all about style, and authentic experiences. Note that this does not inherently mean historically accurate experiences. V20 Dark Ages takes place in 1242, but stylistically, we pick and choose ideas, both fictional and factual, that build an evocative experience.
A New Experience: The Dark Medieval World is a large, frightening place. Here, we want to offer some new experiences and characters to help fill that world. In many cases, the material will be deeply reminiscent of past iterations of Vampire, but you're not going to be reading the same content over again. We'll tell these stories with new voices, from different angles. We'll be providing new options, and new biases.
A Unique Experience: Tonight, we're shaking the dust off our old party dress. We're going to try to remember the old steps, and we're going to show off some moves we've learned since we last wore it. We might stumble here and there, but I think at the end of the night, you'll want to take us home for drinks and maybe a little more.
A Supplemental Experience: This book is not Roleplaying or Storyteller System 101. We offer some advice for storytelling, but we're light on the fundamentals. We have all the rules, but we saved space on rules elaboration and examples so we could devote that space to more game content. V20 goes to great lengths in a lot of these places, and if you need further details, it's a great read.
What is a Vampire
In V20 Dark Ages, players portray vampires in 1242, or as we call it, "The Dark Medieval World". Our vampires are unique to V20 Dark Ages; in some ways, they're even different than V20 vampires. They share some traits with mythological, literary, and cinematic vampires. But it's best we get some basics out of the way right now:
Vampires are immortal. Mostly true. While they can be destroyed, they can live forever.
Vampires drink blood. True. Vampires exist on the blood of the living. They take no sustenance from mortal food. They drink via retractable fangs, which they develop immediately upon becoming undead. After feeding, they can lick the wounds and close them, leaving no evidence of their theft.
A vampire's victim becomes a vampire. False. Some vampires kill dozens or even hundreds of humans across their years. Vampires choose to create new vampires by first draining a mortal of all their blood, then feeding them from their own veins.
Vampires are demons. False. Vampires are possessed of a dark passenger deep within -a Beast- which compels them to monstrous fight or flight responses. But vampires are essentially people in a horrific situation.
Vampires die in the sun. True. While some can hold off the sun's rays for a few moments, sunlight will quickly reduce a vampire to ash.
Vampires shy from crosses and running water. False. While some rare specimens cannot stand classic banes such as garlic and crosses, most have no issue. However, some of particularly true faith can repel vampires with the strength of their convictions.
Vampires die from a stake through the heart. False. However, wooden stakes will paralyze the undead, if penetrating the heart. This leaves them vulnerable.
Vampires have unholy strength and power. True and false. With time and with lineage, vampires gain certain supernatural abilities, from frightening strength, to the ability to make an unwitting victim fall into a false love, or to transform into a wild beast.
Vampires have sex. Unabashedly true. Vampiric existence is one of taboo and dark celebration. To many, sex fit those descriptions well. If anything, to vampires, sex is only diminished somewhat by the constant overstimulation of feeding. To a vampire, the moment of feeding is the single most ecstatic, euphoric experience of their immortal existences. Indeed, some attribute a holy origin to the rapture of blood drinking. A vampire’s bite is not a metaphor for sex. Vampires have sex. They have great sex. They also need to feed on human blood to survive. These things can occur at the same time, but they are not the same thing.
Caine’s Brood
In 1242, most vampires in Europe believe they descend from Caine. Caine, from the Abrahamic Bible, who killed his brother. Caine, who God cursed for committing the first murder. According to the legend, Caine took his vampiric curse to the roads, and created three other vampires. This second generation of vampires created thirteen. These thirteen, the third generation, each birthed a clan of vampires.
The Embrace
Vampires were once human. They become Cainites through a process called The Embrace. A vampire drains every bit of a human's blood, then feeds the corpse some of her own blood. The corpse becomes Cainite, and rises, hungry. The new vampire is undead; her heart does not beat, she does not breathe, she need not eat. Over the following nights, she adapts and adjusts to her new state, learning the capabilities of her Cainite vitae - the cursed blood that animates her.
The Hunt
The hunt means something different to every Cainite. To some, it means finding drunk derelicts who can’t fight back. To others, it means finding lovers who want for the bite, and ask for more when it’s over. To others, it means frightening a combatant with vulgar displays of power. To many, it means cultivating a cadre of humans who grow to need the closeness of the Kiss – the Cainite bite. The hunt is a shift in power dynamics. The vampire finds a person, and puts him into a moment of vulnerability. No matter how she finds that vulnerability, or whom she finds it in, she finds it. Sometimes she creates it. Sometimes she searches long and hard for it. Sometimes she simply waits for it.
(Taken, with gratitude, from V20 Dark ages Core Rulebook)
Here is a Quick Start Guide for V20 Dark Ages before a complete delve into the book.
kinds of tales. Sweeping sagas that stretch from one end
of the continent to the other. Meandering yet shocking trails
through the politics of church and state. Gory crusades,
desperate pilgrimages, and hopeful relocations are all fair
game. Regardless of the chronicle the Storyteller places
before you and the tale you dare to tell, there is one story
each player will have to tell: the story of being a Cainite,
a vampire, in the Dark Medieval World.
Regardless of clan, affiliations, or missives, the Beast
within and the blood-splattered drive to sate your nature
trickles through every aspect of the story. Whether you
see your vampiric nature as a calling, a blessing, or a
curse, your nature is what it is. You can choose how you
deal with it. But you must face it. You must build your
unlife as a vampire around it carefully, meticulously, lest
the structures of society, culture and belief come crashing
down around you.
The Beast runs it course. Its dark urge ebbs and
flows, waxes and wanes. To control it, to use it, you must
become familiar with it. You must learn the cycles of your
hunger, how much blood is needed to quiet the Beast to
where you can think again, how to deal with the crash
after the ecstasy of sinking your teeth into the flesh of
your victim, and how to cope with the hunger creeping
in again, threatening to shake the brief moment of peace
you had. Exercise, habit, and rituals can focus the mind
away, prolonging any one stage of the bestial cycle.
Yet everything you do leads you around and around,
forever until your final night. Hunger. Hunt. Feed. Digest.
You pull back from or claw towards these stages, trying
to merge this aspect of your life with that you are forced
to lead and survive. Popes, kings, and armies come and
go. At the end of the night, your hunger still remains.
Introduction (from the corebook)
Good evening. I hope we find you well. Welcome to V20 Dark Ages. To put it succinctly; you're probably familiar with Vampire, and probably with Vampire: The Masquerade, 20th Anniversary Edition. You’re almost certainly familiar with roleplaying games or storytelling games.
V20 Dark Ages is its own product. If you're just coming in to Vampire, this is the only book you need to play. If you're a long-time fan, you're going to find all sorts of little love letters in here, as well as updated concepts, and some new ideas inspired by the past iterations of Vampire and Dark Ages.
What This Book Is
Here are some of our goals with V20 Dark Ages.
A Nostalgic Experience: Most of you are coming to this book with years of experience with Vampire. Every single member of our team shares that. We're digging deep to find the things that we love about Vampire, and hopefully the things you've loved about Vampire, and we're giving a new set of eyes on them.
An Authentic Experience: The Dark Medieval World is all about style, and authentic experiences. Note that this does not inherently mean historically accurate experiences. V20 Dark Ages takes place in 1242, but stylistically, we pick and choose ideas, both fictional and factual, that build an evocative experience.
A New Experience: The Dark Medieval World is a large, frightening place. Here, we want to offer some new experiences and characters to help fill that world. In many cases, the material will be deeply reminiscent of past iterations of Vampire, but you're not going to be reading the same content over again. We'll tell these stories with new voices, from different angles. We'll be providing new options, and new biases.
A Unique Experience: Tonight, we're shaking the dust off our old party dress. We're going to try to remember the old steps, and we're going to show off some moves we've learned since we last wore it. We might stumble here and there, but I think at the end of the night, you'll want to take us home for drinks and maybe a little more.
A Supplemental Experience: This book is not Roleplaying or Storyteller System 101. We offer some advice for storytelling, but we're light on the fundamentals. We have all the rules, but we saved space on rules elaboration and examples so we could devote that space to more game content. V20 goes to great lengths in a lot of these places, and if you need further details, it's a great read.
What is a Vampire
In V20 Dark Ages, players portray vampires in 1242, or as we call it, "The Dark Medieval World". Our vampires are unique to V20 Dark Ages; in some ways, they're even different than V20 vampires. They share some traits with mythological, literary, and cinematic vampires. But it's best we get some basics out of the way right now:
Vampires are immortal. Mostly true. While they can be destroyed, they can live forever.
Vampires drink blood. True. Vampires exist on the blood of the living. They take no sustenance from mortal food. They drink via retractable fangs, which they develop immediately upon becoming undead. After feeding, they can lick the wounds and close them, leaving no evidence of their theft.
A vampire's victim becomes a vampire. False. Some vampires kill dozens or even hundreds of humans across their years. Vampires choose to create new vampires by first draining a mortal of all their blood, then feeding them from their own veins.
Vampires are demons. False. Vampires are possessed of a dark passenger deep within -a Beast- which compels them to monstrous fight or flight responses. But vampires are essentially people in a horrific situation.
Vampires die in the sun. True. While some can hold off the sun's rays for a few moments, sunlight will quickly reduce a vampire to ash.
Vampires shy from crosses and running water. False. While some rare specimens cannot stand classic banes such as garlic and crosses, most have no issue. However, some of particularly true faith can repel vampires with the strength of their convictions.
Vampires die from a stake through the heart. False. However, wooden stakes will paralyze the undead, if penetrating the heart. This leaves them vulnerable.
Vampires have unholy strength and power. True and false. With time and with lineage, vampires gain certain supernatural abilities, from frightening strength, to the ability to make an unwitting victim fall into a false love, or to transform into a wild beast.
Vampires have sex. Unabashedly true. Vampiric existence is one of taboo and dark celebration. To many, sex fit those descriptions well. If anything, to vampires, sex is only diminished somewhat by the constant overstimulation of feeding. To a vampire, the moment of feeding is the single most ecstatic, euphoric experience of their immortal existences. Indeed, some attribute a holy origin to the rapture of blood drinking. A vampire’s bite is not a metaphor for sex. Vampires have sex. They have great sex. They also need to feed on human blood to survive. These things can occur at the same time, but they are not the same thing.
Caine’s Brood
In 1242, most vampires in Europe believe they descend from Caine. Caine, from the Abrahamic Bible, who killed his brother. Caine, who God cursed for committing the first murder. According to the legend, Caine took his vampiric curse to the roads, and created three other vampires. This second generation of vampires created thirteen. These thirteen, the third generation, each birthed a clan of vampires.
The Embrace
Vampires were once human. They become Cainites through a process called The Embrace. A vampire drains every bit of a human's blood, then feeds the corpse some of her own blood. The corpse becomes Cainite, and rises, hungry. The new vampire is undead; her heart does not beat, she does not breathe, she need not eat. Over the following nights, she adapts and adjusts to her new state, learning the capabilities of her Cainite vitae - the cursed blood that animates her.
The Hunt
The hunt means something different to every Cainite. To some, it means finding drunk derelicts who can’t fight back. To others, it means finding lovers who want for the bite, and ask for more when it’s over. To others, it means frightening a combatant with vulgar displays of power. To many, it means cultivating a cadre of humans who grow to need the closeness of the Kiss – the Cainite bite. The hunt is a shift in power dynamics. The vampire finds a person, and puts him into a moment of vulnerability. No matter how she finds that vulnerability, or whom she finds it in, she finds it. Sometimes she creates it. Sometimes she searches long and hard for it. Sometimes she simply waits for it.
(Taken, with gratitude, from V20 Dark ages Core Rulebook)
Here is a Quick Start Guide for V20 Dark Ages before a complete delve into the book.