THE WORLD OF DARKNESS
What is the World of Darkness?
The World of Darkness is a roleplaying game,
utilizing all the games created by White Wolf. Vampire: The Masquerade,
Werewolf: The Apoclypse, Mage: The Ascension, Wraith: The
Obivion, and Changeling: The Dreaming. They are beautifully illustrated,
hardcover books that detail the passions and powers of mythic vampires,
werewolves, mages, wraiths,
and faeries. They also give you rules for creating your
own characters, and describe the dark and compelling world in which your
character exists.
Although it may be hauntingly familar, the World
of Darkness is not our world. It is the here and now, but blighted with
age-old malignancies and lengthened, creeping shadows. In the World of
Darkness, our worst fears and nightmares walk among us.
Here rain, sharp with acid, bites the skin. Here
darkness draws deep around those who walk the crumbling streets of the
cities. Here it is heroic (and perhaps futile) to perform acts of simple
kindness. Suicide hotlines ring without answer. Polluted blood races through
bloated veins, carrying drugs to deaden, degenerate and delude. Children
vanish without warning and are never seen or heard from again.
Pain is welcome, for it confirms that you're
still alive, still fighting, still moving. And pain is available in innumerable
forms - indeed, some seek out pain and pay for the privilege of being hurt
or hurting others. What happens next is up to you.
Vampire: The Masquerade
Werewolf: The Apoclypse
Mage: The Ascension
Wraith: The Oblivion
Changeling: The Dreaming
Elder Wars: A World
of Darkness Online Campaign
The Characters in The World of Darkness
Vampires
(Kindred)
To understand Vampire, you must be able
to savor its mood. It is stark and brooding, but with an underlying sensuality.
It is an exotic and sonorous nightmare, in which reason does not always
play a role. It is a neo-gothic vision of romance laid atop today’s hyper-kinetic
MTV world.
This romance is evoked by the pathos of it all.
In Vampire, characters are almost certainly doomed from the moment
they are Embraced. Though they are powerful beyond imagination, they are
also cursed. No matter what they do, they remain monsters, with a horrible,
unquenchable thirst. The stories in Vampire are unique because they
all have this element of tragedy. The traditional tragedy of the theater,
the tragedy of Aeschylus and Shakespeare, involves a hero coming to a great
and horrible demise, as he was fated to from the very beginning. Because
of who and what the hero is, because of the very virtues of the hero, the
tragedy is inevitable from the very first act - and the audience knows
it. The characters in Vampire are almost certainly doomed from the
first moment they drink from their first victim - and the players should
know it.
Paradoxically, these characters, who are the
paragons of tragic evil, have the potential to become heroes of uncommon
valor. They are evil, not because of who they are but because of what they
are. As drinkers of blood, they possess the taint of evil. They are tragic
because they care about their evil but can ultimately do nothing about
it. The characters in Vampire are expected to be heroes - they must
care about what they have become and about what they may soon be.
Justice is only served if the good overcomes
the evil - the monsters must lose. Thus, for the vampire characters to
find some way to "win," they must somehow become heroic. They
must defeat the monster within be exerting self-restraint, nurturing the
impulses of human virtue, and displaying genuine courage. Sometimes the
tragedy of Final Death is a vampire’s only hope of heroic escape.
There is a slim possibility that the characters
may find a way to escape the curse and become mortal once again. Not all
characters will seek this, but for a majority it will be their overwhelming
motivation, their all-consuming drive, especially as the steady loss of
Humanity takes its toll.
Other vampires will seek Golconda, the plateau
of control that some of the Kindred manage to reach, where their basic
drives and instincts do not control them so strongly. This is even more
difficult to attain than the escape from the curse of the undeath, but
it is sought after at least as much.
The characters spend much of their time combating
evil, but instead of fighting diabolists or evil scientists or monsters,
they are combating that which is inside of themselves, the bestial impulses
which make them evil. These conflicts in Vampire are ultimately internal;
they are about you.
Werewolves
(Garou)
What does it mean to be a Werewolf? This is a
subject not easily understood by the Garou themselves, because it is simply
what they are. Werewolves are not human, but neither are they wolves -
they are something in between. They are a unique race of creatures in and
of themselves.
In their human form they are enough like us that
we can describe them using the same rules and traits that describe humans;
it is only when they become a wolf that new features must be added: for
example, to portray the Werewolf’s lightning speed, or its terrible claws
and fangs, or the incredible strength and tenacity that is posses when
enraged. This game is about people, all kinds of people, who do their best
to make their way through life after the revelation of the truth about
their existence: that they are not the normal humans (or wolves) which
they up until recently believed they were. Instead they are Garou - outsiders,
shapeshifters, Werewolves, the last dying remnants of Earth’s protectors
against a terrible force that grows stronger by the day, a world that is
dying.
This is the world of the Apocalypse; the end
is not coming it is here. Gaia - the earth - is doomed, and the fault lies
with its guardians, the Garou themselves. The evil force known as the Wyrm
is rising once more to consume Gaia, and the eons-old battle fought by
the Garou against the horror is slowly but surely being lost. The characters
may decide to struggle to slow the approaching doom, or they may decide
to reveal as best they can in the last days, but the one thing they can
never forget is the Apocalypse.
The stories in Werewolf are unique because
they all contain some element of impending horror. Not only is the end
coming, but the characters are in some way the cause of it themselves.
The Wyrm resides within them, just as it is found across Gaia; indeed,
many of the Garou themselves have given up the struggle to join the enemy
in treacherous alliance. The very Rage that gives the Garou so much power
is in itself the taint of the Wyrm. In fact the Garou’s 1000-year oppression
of the humans may well have warped them into causing so much harm upon
Gaia. The truth will never be known, but that does not prevent blame being
shed.
However, these characters, who are so stained
with evil, may also become heroes of uncommon valor and virtue. The characters
in Werewolf are expected to be heroes - they must care about what
they have become and about what they may soon be.
Justice is only served if the good overcomes
the evil - the monsters must lose. Thus, for the Werewolf character to
find some way to "win," they must somehow become heroic. They
must defeat the monster within be exerting self-restraint, nurturing the
impulses of human virtue, and displaying genuine courage.
Mages
(Wizards)
Lurking between the gleaming towers of glass
and the crumbling industrial parks is a secret society of wizards and sorcerers.
Powerful beyond human ken and part of a tradition older than recorded history,
these mages seldom concern themselves with mundane prestige or wealth.
They seek a greater power, a power over reality itself.
Mages are, in some ways, bridges between the
mudane and supernatural worlds. While they are ordinary humans in mind
and body, they have been Awakened to their magickal powers. Though they
are born from human stock and will somedaydie of old age, they possess
a special gift. This gift grants them fundamental control over the laws
of reality, and the ability to range farther afield into its wondrous depths.
Changelings
(Fae)
You lead a double life, alternating between reality
and fantasy. Caught in the middle ground between dream and wakefulness,
you are neither wholly fae nor wholly mortal, but burdened with the cares
of both. Finding a happy medium between the wild and insane world of the
fae and the deadening, banal world of humanity is essential if you are
to remain whole.
Such a synthesis is by no means easy. Mortal
affairs seem so ephemeral and so trivial when you stand amid the ageless
magnificence of the Seelie Court. When you don garments spun on pure moonlight
and drink wine distilled from mountain mists, how can you go back to polyester
and soda pop?
Alas, you have no choice. Although your faerie
self is ageless and eternal, you mortal body and mind grow older and less
resilient as you move through life. Sooner or later, nearly all changelings
succumb to one of two equally terrifying conditions: Banality, the loss
of their faerie magic; or Bedlam, the loss of their mortal reason.
But is this fate inevitable? Can you retain you
childlike wonder while fighting against the frigid Banality that seeks
to numb your mind and steal your past? Can you ride the currents of the
Dreaming without being swept away in the maelstrom of Bedlam?
Tragically, you are alone in the mundane world.
No mortal will ever understand the depth of your alienation, strangeness
and uniqueness. Though you may try to communicate your condition through
art (and may have tried and failed), only those with faerie blood will
see, understand and appreciate what you are.
Wraith
(Ghosts)
Though death terrifies us, it also fascinates
us. Throughout history, man has glorified death, wrapping his fear in a
rich tapestry of rite, pageantry and destruction. Science strives to stay
the Reaper’s hand, while art and faith seek to draw back his awful hood
and touch his pallid face. Death, in Wraith, is not an ending; the moment
of death is simply the end of one journey and the beginning of another.
The majority of souls pass on quickly, presumably into either Transcendence
or total Oblivion. Wraiths, however, are the spirits of the dead who have
tragically lost their way on that road. They are mired in their pasts,
their memories, and their unfulfilled deeds. Wraiths’ overpowering Passions
allow them to cheat death. Indeed, they forbid them from the final sleep.
Some wraiths are driven by a longing for fulfillment denied them in life,
while others cling to the Earth in terror of what might wait beyond. These
Restless find themselves trapped in the Underworld, a spiritual half-world
between the living lands and an unknown eternity. Here, they are surrounded
by a persistent vision of decay. Though wraiths may temporarily manifest
themselves in the physical world, or even possess mortals, they are doomed
to wander forever, fettered to the world they left behind. Many wraiths
are the products of sudden, violent or cruel deaths, deaths that came before
they had a chance to resolve important life issues. Such wraiths may dwell
briefly in the Underworld before they accept death and pass on. Player
character wraiths, however, have profound Passions and Fetters that bind
them to their lost lives, and are likely to remain in the Underworld for
a long time.
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Copyright © 1996 -
1997
Created by 
Wolf
Pack Inc, Friday, August 29, 1997
Most recent revision Thursday, September 25, 1997