Mister Vampire

[Chamomile]

IC Thread

Popular opinion is divided on Mister Vampire. Most people find him an almost intolerable strain on the Masquerade, with a nasty habit of starting very large, very messy battles in a dozen different places, all of which have nothing in common except their ties to whatever supernatural Vampire's decided he's going to kill next. Usually one of the Silmoore Clan of vampires, belligerents who are hardly missed by most of their neighbors even if they'd prefer a less spectacular method of disposal.

On the other hand, sometimes cleaning up a big mess is just the price you've got to pay in order to get a big job done. So it's with mixed feelings that the supernaturals of Los Angeles make ready to welcome Mister Vampire into their city. He'd been hiding out in Birmingham across the pond since 1942, when he'd knocked off Lord Mathias Silmoore himself, thus putting what was just about the last nail in the clan's coffin, but one of the Silmoores managed to slip past Vampire's notice during his final rampage.

Michael Silmoore is barely more than a century old, which makes him juvenile at best in vampire years, but it's not vampires that run LA. There's a vampire lord with a stake in it, of course, as there always is in every city on earth, undying leeches lend themselves towards the forging of extremely long-lasting empires, but not necessarily extremely powerful empires.

Vampires freshly turned are basically just mortals with a weird diet, it takes years before the first powers even begin to manifest. Other supernaturals kick in much faster. Werewolves can transform into giant wolf monsters the night they're bit, witches will be getting their first taste of supernatural power within weeks of beginning their studies, ghosts become invulnerable to basically everything they second they leave their mortal coil behind, and so on. Upshot of all this being, a vampire isn't really scary until he's been around at least ten years, and a city as crowded as LA doesn't usually let them live that long.

Michael Silmoore's looking to change that, though, and he's endeared himself to a lot of the young vampire population in his efforts to do so. He's also proven alarmingly difficult to stop, a lot more trouble than you'd expect from someone his age, but so is Mister Vampire, and he's got close to a hundred and fifty years on Silmoore, and every one of them spent hunting some supernatural big shot just because they're there.

There's not a whole lot of talk in LA about if Mister Vampire kills off the last Silmoore, just about what the city's going to look like once he does. One thing's for sure, Vampire doesn't care who's on top at the end of it or if the whole place is reduced to a crater, so long as he gets his mark in the end.

No one knows yet, but Nathaniel Harker, one of the last Beholders of Shadows, has blown into town lately, apparently carrying a Guardian in tow. The Guardians were founded sometime in the 16th or 17th century with the goal of taking the world back from the creatures of the night, and for a while they enjoyed some pretty heavy success. Hell, Mister Vampire, the big bad monster who's going to take out the local plucky underdog no questions asked just because he can? He first got famous back during the American Revolution for surviving a Guardian attack. He didn't even win, he was just sort of a big deal locally because he got out alive at all. Well, sort of. He was still a vampire.

These last hundred years haven't been so nice to the Guardians, though. They've taken heavy losses, and for close to a decade now they've been effectively done for. Guardians operate off of special runes inscribed onto their bodies that enhance strength, speed, and etc., but only a select few individuals can take that many runes and live. The Guardian population is thus inherently limited and once supernaturals got good enough at killing them, they started to dwindle pretty quick.

By now, even the Guardians' strategists, the Beholders of Shadows, are practically gone. Towards the end, there was a fear that the Beholders might try to break the Masquerade as a desperate, last-ditch effort to get rid of the supernaturals. It'd cause global panic and war, sure, but it would be nearly guaranteed to work. There's a reason every supernatural on the face of the earth is such a fan of the Masquerade. They never did though, and now they're too few and too weak to do anything that supernaturals in powerful places couldn't shut down.

Harker and whatever brand spanking new Guardian he's brought with him are pretty much on their own in this fight. Pretty much the last of their kind anywhere on Earth, and I guess LA's as good a place as any to make a heroic last stand. Plenty of the Damned here, and everyone will call you a martyr if you go down fighting them.

That, or Harker's got a hell of a plan.

Prince Lestrand is the local vampire lord, the one who's been here since about when the city started and is betting on being here when it ends. He mostly runs Downtown and Hollywood. He does have the odd fish monster or frankensteinian abomination in his employ, but for the most part he's the head of the local leech army, and their primary concern is food. There's not one petty ruler around here who likes to give up actual territory, so Lestrand ends up making a lot of deals to allow the common vampire to feed on territory he doesn't actually own. Lestrand keeps a tight leash on his people, and his organization is very much "vampires first," which is a growing problem since the local vampire population can be counted on to slowly but steadily rise, requiring more and more feeding grounds to avoid drawing too much attention. Deals or not, what the ultimately comes down to is more and more territory, which is probably Lestrand's entire plan. Quietly annex one city block at a time, and somewhere around the turn of the 23rd century he's the undisputed ruler of LA.

This puts him into a bit of a conflict with the Griffith Pack, originally the local werewolf outfit but now greatly expanded to include all kinds of local supernaturals. Fishmen, some weird bug swarm guys, a lot of witches and warlocks, the occasional ghost, and I think one of them was just invisible. Unsurprisingly, the Pack's got its roots in Griffith Park, and they're still strongest over on Eastside. The Pack is led by the werewolf Logan Wood. As a general rule, you leave him alone, he'll leave you alone. Unfortunately, it's hard for something the size of the Griffith Pack to be left alone for longer than five minutes. These days, winning enough trust to be accepted into the Pack is a trick, but if you get it, neither Logan nor anyone else in the Pack will ever turn on you.

The Green Lotus is about what you'd expect from the name, a bunch of wannabe Asian wizards, their territory in Santa Monica being several miles removed from Chinatown and their actual Asian heritage is equally questionable. The wizard part is definitely real, though. They seem content to study their books and charms over in their own turf, and mostly want to make nice with everyone else so they can buy this sort of thing, but they're also known to steal whatever they can't or don't want to buy.

Michael Silmoore is, of course, the new kid in town. He's split the vampire vote between himself and Lestrand, but he makes much heavier use of assorted other supernaturals than Lestrand does. He's not in a position to be picking friends. Silmoore's mostly made a name for himself by killing Joseph Steele, Lestrand's old bloodhound, responsible for killing any young vampire who stuck a toe out of line or any other kind of supernatural who stuck a toe into his territory. That won Silmoore a lot of slack from Logan and a lot of support from the younger vampires who didn't want to toe Lestrand's line anymore. Silmoore's carved himself out some territory that used to belong to Lestrand in South-Central, and a bit more in South Bay that used to belong to the Damned.

The very first thing you need to know about the Damned is that the name is not a metaphor. This is not a bunch of leeches or wraiths moaning about how they don't fit in with all the mortal kids. They are actual thralls who report to actual demons in the actual Hell. Fortunately, just like everyone else they do business and they play politics, but it makes a big difference that these guys are playing from the other side of the mirror. They have countless demons waiting to spill out into whatever city their king sets them loose on, so the only limit on their resources is what they can move through the mirrors.

Fortunately, nothing but the grunts can get through your bog-standard bathroom mirror, everyone important requires all kinds of rituals over here on our end, and unsurprisingly the local Prince of the Damned, Lavros, dedicates most of his energies to making that sort of thing happen. Which means he needs material and quiet places to do creepy mirror rituals, so your regular supernaturals can still do business with him just like any old vampire or werewolf. Make no mistake though, Lavros answers to the King of Hell and if that guy ever actually wins, we all lose.

In addition to, y'know, all of Hell, these guys also have Long Beach pretty much to themselves.

There's a lot of conflicting myths about how exactly vampires work, so here's the truth. First off, vampires can feed off of just about any blood from any animal, but only in the same way that mortals can live off of nothing but McDonald's, except that vampires subsisting off of purely animal blood tend to end up thin and sickly instead of bloated. Either way, even vampires trying to be nice to regular humans will still feed off of them occasionally. Some of them just tap without draining all the way, others pick targets they think the world would be better off without, like gangsters or people who talk in the theater. Vampires can go a long while without feeding on anything at all, but it'll make them really, really weak. Vampires can also go into torpor, where they sleep for basically as long as they want. If they're full up on blood when they go under, they can sleep for decades without having to wake up for a drink.

Wooden stakes aren't instant death, they just paralyze. They still make for good anti-vampire weapons, though, because vampires aren't hard to finish off once paralyzed. The only way to kill a vampire is to either burn the body completely or make them not want to live anymore. Vampires are already dead, animated purely by their own will to live, and once that runs out, death finally catches up to them. Put them in enough pain or send them into enough shock and they'll die. A reliable way of doing this is decapitation, usually works within a minute or two and even if it doesn't, a vampire without a body doesn't even have lungs and can't even talk. They're pretty much removed as a threat regardless.

Vampires don't mix with sun. Vampires can't use any of their supernatural abilities in direct sunlight, and after a few minutes they'll burst into flames, which will typically kill them pretty quick. Direct light of the full moon, on the other hand, makes them stronger, and will heal them. Bullet wounds and the like will seal right up under the light of the full moon.

Some vampires don't respond well to garlic, it's sort of an allergic reaction, but it's far from universal and even for the ones who are weak to it, it's just really uncomfortable, not actually dangerous. I suspect the Roman use of crucifixion had something to do with vampires being repulsed by crosses made from wood, silver, or iron. Not stone ones, mind you, and the two pieces have to be physically attached to one another, not just held together. It's a purely psychological compulsion to stay away from them, which will slowly drive them insane the longer they're in range of the crucifix. The range of a crucifix is equal to its height, so very small crosses won't work unless you're practically pressing them against the leech's skin.

A long time ago, some famous vampire happened to be really obsessive about counting large amounts of small objects, like grains of rice. It's not a vampire thing, though, that's just a myth. Likewise with crossing running water, except I don't even know where that myth got started. What with all the sewer lines in the city, it'd be basically impossible to get anywhere if vampires couldn't cross running water. It is pretty easy to magic water into having the same basic effect as a cross, though, which is probably where the holy water myth came from. Actual holy water like you find in a Catholic church, though, won't do anything.

There is also the subject of the weaknesses of some of your other more common supernaturals, but the list is a lot shorter for them than for the leeches. Werewolves can only transform under the light of the moon and are burned by silver. Silver bullets are popular, because werewolves have pretty dense bodies and the bullet is likely to lodge inside of them, at which point it's not coming out easy and will probably kill them. Silver blades also work well, but are more easily ripped out before they can kill them completely. Guess they're still cut up, though, and werewolves aren't undead so regular physical trauma will end them eventually, too.

Wizards have basically just one weakness. Get them completely soaked to the skin with any kind of water and they can't use their magic, but a decent coat will stop that, and even then it's not like they're actually hurt by it. What they are, though, is relatively fragile. Shoot 'em, they die. Ghosts are on the opposite end of the spectrum. Nothing physical will harm them in the slightest, but there's plenty of incantations that will banish them. All of them are tied to a location, an object, or a person, and if you can reach it and perform the right ritual on them, the ghost is moving on whether they want to or not. Pretty easy ritual, too, it's getting to the focus that's usually tricky.

Most places, demons don't pop up often enough for anyone to care how you kill them, but with the Damned crawling all over Long Beach, it's relevant. Silver burns demons just like werewolves, and the jagged shard of a broken mirror is instant death to one of them. Demons don't usually take too well to people who break mirrors, though, considering that's how they get to and from Hell. That's where the "seven years of bad luck" bit comes from. Still, if demons are already trying to kill you, possibly you don't have much to lose. Iron is also good against some kinds of demons, but not others. Some people think it's because some demons are actually some kind of really, really evil fairy.

Keeping character power levels consistent with one another is important. It helps prevent godmoding Mary Sue-ness, of course, but more importantly it makes the narrative more consistent (none of our writers are terribly prone to Mary Sues anyway). If in one scene our heroes can barely overcome a pack of newly turned vampires or totally normal, mortal gangsters, and then in the next we can take on Silmoore, and then in another scene Silmoore is shown to be pretty much infinitely more powerful than fresh leeches, each of those scenes works just fine on its own, but taken together they make the narrative less internally consistent. This section is there to try and stop that from happening by breaking up NPCs into five different loose tiers of strength based on how strong they are relative to party members.

Grunts are cannon fodder. Even a single party member can take on one of these, no problem. Methods of dealing with them might vary, in that Samuel can actually just beat them up while Ray probably won't last long against one of them in a straight-up fist fight but he doesn't have to because he can shoot fire out of his fingertips, but one way or another these guys are only a problem in groups of at least two or three, and it would take at least four before running away would be the best option. Against our full group, it would take a small army of them to be a threat.

Lestrand has vampire grunts coming out of his ears, and Silmoore has quite a few himself. Typically, vampire grunts try to find some kind of older vampiric mentor to keep them alive long enough to come into their own at around their first century. Since most older vampires can't be bothered to babysit some newly turned brat until they get old enough to stab their mentor in the back, vampire grunts will instead group together into large packs for mutual defense. They sometimes call themselves "coteries," but only in the same way that a bunch of schoolboys might call themselves a "gang." In the larger supernatural community, "coterie" is typically reserved for a group of powerful vampires (and sometimes other supernaturals) who join together for mutual benefit.

Green Lotus grunts are students. Since the Green Lotus requires its members to know both martial arts and magic, it takes a while for most of their members to get good at either. Unlike vampire grunts, however, Green Lotus students always have a teacher and are very explicitly forbidden from doing anything important without their teacher coming along to clean up any mess they should make. So while vampire grunts are basically a random encounter, Green Lotus students are more like the warm-up fight before someone important gets their hands dirty.

Damned grunts are usually not vampires. They typically don't bother to enthrall any vampire who isn't already more powerful than that, not when mortals are in such abundance. Instead, the Damned will enthrall actual bog-standard mortals like you might find on the street to do their grunt work. These guys are even weaker than most grunts, but they make up for it in bulk. On the other side of the mirror, they also have mirror children, small children wearing eerie porcelain doll masks that do whatever their demon masters tell them to, which usually involves stabbing people. Some people say they can hear them giggling, but only when no one's looking.

Like everything else in the Griffith Pack, their grunts are all kinds of different things. Never werewolves, though. The ability to transform into a giant wolf monster makes you more than a grunt automatically. A lot of werewolves are grunts under the light of day when they can't transform, however. Griffith grunts are typically the kind of guys who don't want to pick a fight in the first place, though, since the Pack has a much more "live and let live" approach to other supernaturals than the other factions. The end result being that you'll get lots of fish creatures, bug monsters, mole people, and the like crowding out the Griffith grunts. It's also worth noting that unlike the other factions, the Griffith Pack is built on trust for other pack members, which means you can be really important without having to worry about personally defending yourself from another supernatural who might be trying to bump you off and take your job. Pack elders might actually be grunt-level threats.

Soldiers are just barely below the average party member. If you run into just one, you'll probably win, however if you run into two, you'll probably lose. They also tend to be professional fighters, one way or another. Vampiric soldiers, for example, are typically heavily entrenched in the political games vampires tend towards, which means being able to knock off a rival personally every now and then, or do the same for another vampire. Werewolves get to this level by default just by using their wolf form. Most members of the Green Lotus are soldiers, as are most vampire Damned. Thralls too long under the influence of the Damned will eventually become puppets, zombie-like creatures with unnatural, jerky movements that often look like corpses when at rest, for the way their limbs are bent at odd angles. In addition there are any number of soldier-level demon varieties, typically sporting either too few or too many of a certain body part. Limbs, mouths, eyes, etc. Lurkers are especially common, vaguely humanoid creatures with long arms and multiple appendages resembling feelers or tentacles surrounding the mouth, which faces downward, to pull victims in. Mortal soldiers are either literally soldiers or SWAT officers, if they're actually at the standard they're supposed to be. Some SWAT teams are a little lax.

Elites are basically mini-boss level. It takes at least two party members to stand a good chance at beating them, preferably three or more. Typically, these guys will be named characters, like James Manfield. Each of the factions has a few elites on hand.

Prince Lestrand has Elisabeth and Isabella Vermille, a pair of vampire twins of significant power, Carlos Espada, one of his most reliable vampire enforcers since the death of Joseph Steele, and Sophia Briggan, a cunning vampire with many strange and unusual powers. Unlike most faction leaders, Prince Lestrand himself is only elite-level in terms of raw, personal strength.

Silmoore has a number of vampiric allies from Europe, including Klaus der Vollstrecker and Siobhan Lunes. It's rumored he has a number of other Elite-level vampires (more common in Europe than America) referred to collectively as the Vanguard, who are still making their way to Los Angeles. In addition he has a few allies pulled from the locals, like the Sewer Beast, a reclusive but not totally detached many-limbed creature, and Dead Jack, a spirit that can possess corpses.

The Green Lotus has Simon Finnick, one of their foremost magical experts, and a great gargoyle they call Shitoren.

The Damned can pull through a variety of elite-level demons from any given mirror if they've got the right materials and enough time for a proper ritual, which is part of what gives them an edge on other factions of the city. Usually these are giant brutes like Japanese oni. This variety of demon is collectively referred to as hulks, and includes a few different sub-types, usually differentiated by some kind of adjective (i.e. sanguine hulk, whispering hulk, etc. etc.)

The Griffith Pack is fairly slim on elite-level toughs as far as anyone knows. Odds are at least one or two werewolves make it to that point, but since they don't often go to war with anyone, it's hard to say for sure. Kit Strive, however, a young werewolf with a tendency to get herself into fights, has proven elite-level already. There is also the Hillson Ghost, a reclusive member not active in the Pack for sometime, but he is attached to Hillson Manor. The bulk of the reason he qualifies as elite-level is simply because being a ghost makes him automatically impervious to all physical attacks and most magic, and unlike most ghosts he can actually affect the physical world beyond saying "boo!" The Hillson Ghost has only been manifesting a few years and will likely deteriorate into a standard poltergeist with time.

An elite can typically be defeated only in one of three ways. First, attrition. There are a total of five people in the group right now, and a five-on-one fight ends poorly even for an elite. Second, cleverness. Most monsters have weaknesses like being vulnerable to silver or being paralyzed when staked through the heart. A lot of them will also probably take precautions that these weaknesses are not used against them, however if you can find a way to subvert those precautions, you're golden. Even the ones that don't have obvious supernatural weaknesses like melting in water are going to have some inherent weaknesses just from the way they're built, like how werewolves are unable to use firearms and thus have no ranged attacks. Either way, a clever strategy can help you beat an opponent significantly stronger than you. Third, sacrifice. If you don't have any tricks up your sleeve and you could only manage two or three fighters between the party and NPC allies, you can still beat an elite, but it'll take a lot out of the characters who do it. The exact details don't matter, but there should be some kind of permanent loss. If an arm is crippled, for example, it should stay that way. If a character is blinded, they should stay blind. If you use up some kind of resource, like sacrificing a gang you'd enthralled, they shouldn't just be replaced offscreen. If you have only one character against an elite, typically it means either you lose or you give your life stopping them, no takebacks. NPC allies won't be tripping over themselves to make this kind of sacrifice.

The same methods apply to villains and ubervillains below, except with steeper requirements.

Villains are pretty much either faction leaders or major NPCs. They require the cooperation pretty much the entire party (at least four people) to even make it a decent fight. Making it a guaranteed victory is basically not going to happen at all without help from another party's worth of NPC allies.

Mister Jack Lee, the only surviving founder of the Green Lotus, is a villain, as is Michael Silmoore. Logan Wood of the Griffith Pack is villain-level in his wolf form. Mister Vampire and Avaros, the Demon Prince of LA, are both villain-level opponents. Joseph Steele was villain-level before Michael Silmoore killed him.

Unique demons tend to be of at least this strength, not because they were born that way but because typically a demon that is unique became unique so that there would be no other demons of the same type which might shed light on the inherent limitations or weaknesses of their specific kind. This means a unique demon is usually strong enough to have tracked down and killed hundreds or thousands of other demons without being dismembered by another demon for killing one of their subordinates or allies.

The level of sacrifice needed to kill a villain with less-than-full power is pretty harsh, and that's assuming they don't bring any friends or cannon fodder to back them up. One or two characters who sacrifice their lives attempting to stop a villain will most likely only slow him down. Even the whole group together is going to require a few lesser sacrifices to bring a villain down. This is where having NPC allies can come in handy. If you can catch a villain alone and you have two or three NPC buddies on hand to help beat him down, you won't have to sacrifice anything to beat him. Of course, being clever is always an option as well.

Ubervillains are a hypothetical category of enemy which can't be stopped regardless of the number of people you throw at it. They're creatures of such unimaginable power that no amount of brute force short of a tactical nuke will kill them. The only real option to stopping one of these things is to come up with some kind of extremely cunning plan. There's none currently in LA, and it's advised you focus your efforts on keeping it that way rather than killing one should it show up.

The Over Nine Thousand hider might raise some questions as to how power growth works, mostly because it provides a clear mark of how awesome some of the antagonists are and raises the question as to how the main characters achieve similar levels of awesome (if at all). The answer is that while advancement in Mister Vampire is supposed to happen, it's supposed to be horizontal, not vertical. Meaning, characters don't typically just get stronger, faster, harder, better, etc. etc. Instead, they can do entirely new things. Note: Not upgraded versions of old things, as in "fireball is now more better fireball," but actually new things, like "fireball is now fiery inferno that can hit multiple targets but also tends to light bystanders on fire." A vampire might gain the ability to enthrall mortals, for example, or a wizard might gain the ability to transmute things. It's the sort of thing that doesn't make characters any more capable of winning fights with villains through brute force, but does give them more options for figuring out a clever strategy on the spot, in case you're forced to confront a villain before you're ready or your first plan doesn't work. Besides, even if you have all the time in the world to prepare, it's a lot more convenient to exploit an enemy's weakness to electricity by shooting lightning out of your fingertips rather than setting up an elaborate trap involving lightning rods and hoping the weather man was right about that storm front.

The details of command positions within different supernatural organizations varies as wildly as that of different human nations, corporations, and militaries. However, there are a few common terms used to refer to positions which are very common. Thus, for example, Mister Lee of the Green Lotus technically holds the title of Lotus Grandmaster, but he's typically referred to as the Warlock Prince by supernaturals outside of the Lotus. Most of these names come from vampire factions, because vampire factions are, by far, the most stable. Whereas most supernatural factions are unlikely to survive more than thirty years, vampire factions regularly last three centuries or more.

The Damned typically go by whatever titles others expect them to have. Avaros calls himself a "Demon Prince" because "prince" is the title given to leaders of major supernatural powers in LA, but if the proper title were "lord" or "count" or "emir," he would use that instead. Most of those who interact with the Damned with any sort of regularity (without going mad) say that they appear to have an internal hierarchy with specific titles, but no one can really pin down what it is (even the title of their leader, the Hell King, was actually invented by other supernaturals, and was originally believed to be many different entities, since demons would refer to him as "Set" or "Satan" or "Chaos" or whatever happened to be the biggest supernatural baddie in local lore, and it took a while to determine that these were, in fact, the same entity).

Barons refer to minor, but independent, supernatural leaders. Barons are often found in small towns or controlling a single neighborhood in territory not considered valuable by major supernatural factions within a city. Many city parks, for example, are controlled by a werewolf baron heading a pack no more than a dozen strong, but since no one else wants the turf, they're allowed to keep it (parks as big and wild as Griffith are very much the exception to the rule in the United States).

Counts, also called lords (especially when the holder of the title is a werewolf), control a large amount of territory but a small amount of actual population. Many werewolf leaders are lords, as werewolves have great need for wide open spaces but very little need for human beings. Sometimes a vampire or warlock count will set himself up in some flyover state, seizing control of several small towns, thus ending up with territory twice as big as the prince of a city, but with half the population and economic power.

Princes are leaders of major factions within a city. If they only control part of a city, it will be given some kind of qualifier, like "Vampire Prince" or "Deep Prince" or "Rebel Prince," to indicate that they control part, but not all, of a major population center. If someone is referred to as simply "the Prince of Los Angeles" with no qualifiers, this implies they rule the entire city, undisputed. Princes will often also have control of nearby towns and sometimes even satellite cities (the Prince of San Francisco also controls much of Sacramento, and the Prince of Seattle has significant influence in Vancouver and Portland).

Archons are very rare, and thus the most likely to be called by whatever name they insist on (it also helps that they are also extremely powerful). They've been known as emperors, imperators, kings, grand lords, high lords, crown princes, grand magisters, legates, and more. Archons control multiple major cities. The line between Prince and Archon can be pretty thin (the Prince of San Francisco controls enough of Sacramento that he could probably get people to call him an Archon if he wanted to), but once a single ruler controls at least three cities indisputably, he is typically considered an Archon (or whatever else he wants to call himself).

Hegemons are things of legend, and in fact no Hegemon has ever actually used the title. It's simply an invention of secret historians to make bookkeeping easier. Legend says that the first Hegemon ruled the supernatural creatures in the City of Enoch. Of course, not only is the existence City of Enoch itself under dispute, but it was apparently supposed to be the most righteous place ever, which makes any claims of having a population of supernatural monsters to rule over at all immediately suspect. Nonetheless, a Hegemon is the ruler of an entire civilization. The only Hegemon proven to exist was Genghis Khan, a werewolf who achieved immense supernatural power through the novel technique of using his "secret identity" to do all the legwork of conquering things, thus making supernatural logistics, normally a nightmare, into a trivially easy issue. Since other Hegemons would have been less direct about their borders, it's possible that there were others. There's much debate as to how exactly one can be a Hegemon in an age of globalization. Some, typically those who aspire to the title themselves, say that the continental United States and the more populated bits in southern Canada would qualify, or the European Union. Others divide the world into loosely "the west," including the US and Europe, primarily, "the east," including mostly China and India, and "the south" or "the third world," primarily Africa and South America, and that one must control the entirety of at least one of these to qualify as Hegemon. Finally, some say that culture is global, sub-Saharan Africa is basically just like a gigantic underdeveloped province of the world, and in order to qualify as Hegemon you must literally rule the entire world. Really, though, if someone's powerful enough to qualify as Hegemon by any of these definitions, it's best to call them whatever they'd prefer.

Getting yourself from one side of the country to the other is really hard when you burst into flames in sunlight. This and other supernatural weaknesses provide the sort of incredible limitations that make city-spanning empires so terribly rare even in an age of instant communication. Different types of supernatural creature have different logistical needs, and will therefore want to control different resources within a city and require differnet arrangements if they want to get from one city to another.

Vampires are almost always found in cities simply because they can't travel very far due to sunlight and require a dense human population to feed off of. Not only do they tend to reproduce more rapidly than other supernaturals (even making just one new vampire a year is still way, way more frequent than the average rate of birth per person), but they require a lot of humans to feed off of if they're going to be stable. Vampires also prefer healthier humans, which typically means wealthier humans, since they tend to taste better and require less total blood consumed to feed to satisfaction. As such, vampires typically want to own the most densely populated upper class areas of a city. They're far more numerous than most supernatural types, but they take a very, very long time to come into their full powers, which makes them useful for little more than cannon fodder unless you are, yourself, a vampire, and have time to wait.

Werewolves need wide open spaces where people won't see them, mistake them for bigfoot, and call in a masquerade-threatening TV host who will then have to be murdered (which will be a masquerade problem in and of itself). Werewolves like being wolves, and prefer to transform every night, which means they typically inhabit places far from civilization. Most cities have very little to offer them as a whole, which means outside of Los Angeles and it's Griffith Park, werewolves are typically only seen in cities as mercenaries, brought in with the promise of some kind of payment that appeals to the specific wants or needs of a pack or individual. They have virtually no limits on their ability to travel, however.

Wizards don't actually need anything beyond what regular humans need. But if they want to actually do magic, they're going to need supplies. This means one of two things. Either they can become a crazy old hermit who cultivates their own bizarre herb garden out where no supernatural authorities will attempt to regulate them, or they want to live as close to other wizards as possible so as to be a part of an advanced wizard economy. If there are lots of wizards nearby, the odds that a nearby wizard will have what you need or know someone who does goes way up, and since wizards are typically banned from even typing up their secrets in an unsaved document because of how easy computers are to break into and the kind of threat that poses to the masquerade, word of mouth is pretty much the only way things can get done. Sane wizards generally want to be left alone, but the study of magic tends to drive people insane with alarming frequency, leading to the rise of wizard schools staffed and attended entirely by crazy people who probably want to take over the world or summon Cthulhu. These wizards have no real limitation on travel except that it's difficult to get your eye of newt past customs without drawing attention. The only real resource they're after is knowledge and supplies, making supernatural libraries and storehouses of huge importance to them.

Deep Creatures is a collective term used to refer to fish monsters, squid people, mermaids, water-dwelling snake things, and other assorted aquatic creatures. Details vary, but as a general rule this creatures want water. The salt water ones will therefore usually hang out somewhere in the 90% of the ocean that mundane humanity hasn't even seen, let alone mapped or examined. There are actual entire civilizations of deep creatures hiding down there, and the end result of that is that the surface world is of very little importance to them, and the only ones you see up top are the ones who were recently transformed (many deep creatures are just humans who like swimming up until puberty) or who have unfinished business with their old home. Occasionally you also get fresh water deep creatures, but most of your more ruthless supernatural organizations have a policy of killing these on sight for the threat they pose to the masquerade.

The Fae live in the world between worlds, the mists, the land beyond, the Otherworld, or whatever weird name you want to call it. They are intimately tied to nature and repulsed by industry (hence their vulnerability to iron). Some are friendly to mortals, known as Seelie, others, known as Unseelie, are not. Their needs or wants are vague and mysterious, and they seem to pop in to help or hinder mortals and supernaturals almost at random.

Demons come from Hell, the other side of the mirror. They enjoy human suffering and want to take over the world, so anything that allows them to further either of those two objectives is something they're going to want to have. Since they have to come through mirrors, often specially treated and shaped mirrors, they're after the same magical libraries and storehouses as the wizards typically are. They also want the same human population the vampires are after. In both situations, however, resources are surprisingly easily shared. Neither vampires nor demons want to fully consume mortals necessarily, so acting with restraint allows both of them to get what they need from a mortal without killing them, allowing them to replenish their strength for a future harvest. Libraries not only can be shared, but are often intended to be. Learning something doesn't prevent someone else from learning it. The magical ingredients needed to prepare mirrors for the coming of more powerful demons are often different from those used in regular spells (and some aren't typically stocked at all, like the full blood of a virgin freshly harvested on her nineteenth birthday).

On a similar note to Supernatural Logistics is the Conspirator Strategy. First deployed by the Silmoore Clan in the early 20th century when they realized the British Empire was no longer a good universal front for their supernatural operations and decided to attempt to expand their control to the Third Reich, the United States, and the Soviet Union as well, so as to have control over nearly half the world without attaching themselves to a single empire that might collapse at any moment ("moment" being a relative term to an immortal creature). Despite the obvious advantage of allowing you to be much less concerned with mortal politics, the Conspirator Strategy also has a crippling weakness. If agents of, say, France had discovered a link between England and the Third Reich, who were actively at war with one another, it would quickly become apparent that the common factor in the conspiracy was the Silmoore Clan itself, a purely supernatural organization which a large number of mortals now know about, even if they don't realize exactly what it is. Of course, just because the Silmoore Clan doesn't control the French Resistance doesn't mean that some supernatural or another hasn't infiltrated them and may be able to clean up the potential Masquerade breach on their own, but even if they do the constant threat to the Masquerade posed by a supernatural conspiracy is likely to create a supernatural coalition to bring them down. It's worth noting, however, that the Silmoore Clan wasn't ultimately defeated (save for Michael Silmoore) because of the weaknesses of the Conspirator Strategy, but rather because of how much they had overextended themselves and how many enemies they'd made over the course of the 19th century. It's difficult to say whether the adoption of the Conspirator Strategy slowed or accelerated their almost inevitable defeat, and also whether the rise of international espionage during the Cold War has made the strategy less dangerous (because conspiracies are expected) or more (because there are multiple large and well-funded organizations dedicated to rooting out conspiracies from enemy nations).

An alternative strategy, first used by Genghis Khan to become the most powerful supernatural ruler in all of recorded history and most popular between its famous use by Genghis Khan and the end of WWII was the Pawn Wall Strategy. Named for the chess strategy in which a wall of pawns is used to push the enemy back, give more maneuverability to more important pieces, and make the front lines nearly unbreakable, the Pawn Wall Strategy uses an army of mortals tied to a single nation (like the Mongols or the British Empire), directly or indirectly under the command of the supernatural ruler, to tear apart the mortal support base of supernatural opponents with overwhelming force and then kill or drive off the supernaturals who had commanded or been allied with them.

Prior to the Pawn Wall Strategy, the Spiderweb Strategy was most popular, sometimes also called the Network Strategy in modern times. The influence of the mortal feudal system was obvious, as the Spiderweb Strategy was reliant on a conspiracy or feudal hierarchy of supernaturals, each one commanding a number of them underneath. Because each supernatural is only directly connected to his own superior and his underlings, it prevents clever mortal investigators from easily unraveling the conspiracy, however it's also extremely unstable, since it's trivially easy for lesser lords to break away from the whole and take all their vassals with them. Despite this danger, many of the Archons of Europe still use the Spiderweb Strategy, maintaining a large stable of powerful supernaturals to bring rebelling vassals in line. As with the mortal feudal system, this leads to almost perpetual warfare (though naturally this is conducted as cover operations and mafia hits as opposed to open land wars).

1455-1485: At some point during this time, Mathias Silmoore is turned. Over the next few centuries he will begin a meteoric rise to power, seizing control of the British Empire to implement the Pawn Wall Strategy on a scale not since Genghis Khan first made it famous. By the end of the War of the Roses, Mathias Silmoore has already become Prince of London despite being less than a century old. For this reason, it is commonly believed that Mathias was turned very early on during the War of the Roses or perhaps even soon before its beginning, and used the bulk of the war to eliminate his rivals using mortals and other cats' paws.

Late 16th century: By this time, Mathias Silmoore had become an Archon in control of all England and with a few significant holdings in outlying French cities. Using his British pawn wall, Silmoore seized control of Ireland, fighting the first war directly against the Fae known to have been completely successful in driving them out of a certain land. Silmoore would then attempt to seize the Eire Fae's court in the Otherworldly island of Avalon, which proved to be a disastrous move which resulted in no gains and significantly weakened his grip on Ireland and England. A few formerly suppressed rebel factions, like the Bath School of Wizards and the Emerald Wolves, are able to re-establish themselves.

1583-1755: Silmoore runs into a brick wall against the Archons of continental Europe, and instead spreads out to Africa and the Americas, especially the Caribbean, where the supernatural world is still ruled over by petty Princes and minor lords. His success in Africa results in supernaturals native to the area fleeing in droves to the nearby Middle-East and India. Although he did not invent the slave trade, Silmoore is responsible for its propagation. He sires a number of childer during this time period, delegating certain parts of his empire to them.

The Guardians are founded at some point in this era or just before it. Most secret historians estimate they were founded in Italy or possibly Byzantium before it fell to the Ottomans, during the 15th or 16th centuries. A few put its founding as late as the 1690s, as either a cause or result of the Salem Witch Trials. This is considered unlikely, though, as the Guardians would soon prove to be frighteningly effective in killing supernaturals, and no actual witches were killed during the Witch Trials.

1755-1775: Nathaniel Silmoore comes to the Thirteen Colonies to crush a number of rebellions across all major cities (mostly Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Savanna, and Charleston), which have subverted Silmoore rule, some by using the increasing unrest of the colonists to make pawn walls of their own, and others using the more traditional Spiderweb Strategy by knocking out the supernaturals used by the Silmoore clan to manipulate the British, and then taking control of local British officials themselves. Also during this time, the Silmoore Clan advances its pawn wall into India, and opposition of old African refugees (or their descendants) combined with Indian resistance forms the beginning of the Black Armada, an organization of pirates who will eventually come to be the Silmoore Clan's main opponents in Asia. At this point, however, they fight each other as much as Silmoore and are not officially allied.

1775-1781: It is known that at some point during this time, Mister Vampire was turned, fought against Nathaniel Silmoore alongside a half-dozen different Princes, was attacked by the Guardians and survived, and survived a battle with a powerful Demon Lord summoned in Charleston by a desperate Nathaniel Silmoore who intended to use it to prevent the Revolutionary Army from seizing the city. This being the latest in a series of political moves the local supernaturals found irritating or intolerable, the Silmoore Clan became universally reviled by the colonial supernaturals. Some like to tell the story that Mister Vampire fought and killed it alone or led the battle against it, but being very recently turned, it's more accurate to say that he was present when it died. More powerful combatants sent by the colonial Princes did nearly all of the legwork.

1781-1833: Mister Vampire heads south, pursuing an agenda against the Silmoore Clan for unknown reasons. He attacks Morris and Benedict Silmoore in the Caribbean, leading a band of pirates operating out of New Orleans who became famous for night raids (for obvious reasons). Rather than take on the entire British Navy, Mister Vampire works with local Princes to oust the Silmoore Clan from control and transfer British holdings to other supernaturals. During this time he also became known for attacking any Prince who threatened to become too powerful (typically attacking any who came to control more than one island, though he attacked Prince Torres for controlling most of Cuba due to its immense size and importance).

At the same time in Asia, the various factions against Silmoore in India begin losing ground, fighting with one another whenever Silmoore is driven back, which allows them to bide their time and carefully plan their next attacks until they are ultimately successful in seizing India. As a result of this, the various Princes begin to form stronger alliances as they flee to establish courts-in-exile in the Middle East, the East Indies, and China. Those in the East Indies form an alliance known as the Five Lords of the Sea, which will eventually grow into the Black Armada.

The French Revolution results in the decapitation of King Theuderic by the Guardians. Theuderic had formerly been the vampiric Archon of France and was over 1200 years old. The Silmoore Clan used the opportunity to gain significant support throughout several French cities, but rather than consolidate power among the French they only stoked the fires of rebellion, seeking to keep the greatest opponents of their current pawns at bay. This is ultimately not successful and gives way to the rise of Napoleon, largely unassisted by supernatural forces.

In the continental United States, the Guardians cleansed the major cities of supernatural influence slowly but steadily, killing all of the Princes who had comprised the war against Nathaniel Silmoore.

1833-1871: Guardians push Silmoore out of Canada, killing Vincent Silmoore, while Mister Vampire heads back north to oppose the Guardians as they push west and begin exterminating all supernaturals in the United States. Most supernatural rulers still alive begin petitioning European Archons for support, but with the Guardians still fighting for control of France in the supernatural anarchy following Theuderic's death, most Archons are uninterested. Silmoore's plans to aid in the fight against the Guardians in exchange for control of the entire United States and Canada is thwarted when Mister Vampire kills the American Princes behind the offer. This initially earns the ire of the anti-Guardian coalition, but he wins several decisive small victories early on in the war, unraveling several key weaknesses in the Guardians' runic magic, most specifically that it is burned out at moonrise and takes some time to be reapplied. This convinces the Princes to take the fight to the Guardians themselves. The main part of the war is fought under the cover of the American Civil War, but Mister Vampire himself departs the battle midway through for unknown reasons, heading west. By 1871, the coalition had broken the back of the Guardians (even though the side they'd primarily used as pawns ultimately lost the Civil War, much to the dismay of vampires who had enjoyed the convenience of feeding off slaves), who were also losing ground fast in France. They scatter into the west seeking to rebuild their strength on the frontier.

The Five Lords of the Sea make contact with allies old and new as they begin expanding their influence to China, Australia, Siam, Korea, and Japan. They join together to form a loose coalition now known worldwide as the Black Armada. Fighting the Silmoore Clan as a united front, they are able to resist multiple attacks and deal a decisive blow to Silmoore operations in the Far East.

During this general time period, Lestrand, fleeing a decisive defeat at the hands of the Guardians in 1855, arriving in Los Angeles to rebuild. The city is already occupied by a number of factions, the dominant one being a vaguely Guardian-esque organization that grew out of the original Mission San Gabriel Arcangel in the area. Lestrand is able to establish himself, but does not take the city altogether.

1871-1929: Mister Vampire begins hunting werewolves throughout the frontier, particularly opposing the Werewolf Lord Kateri Faulkner (sometimes called a Werewolf Queen or Werewolf Lady by her contemporaries, but most modern secret historians use "Werewolf Lord" as a unisex title). Following her eventual defeat, Mister Vampire begins tracking instead the creation of a zombie army by a mad voodoo warlock, who created the first known case of a "zombie virus." Though zombies had been known to exist for centuries already, this was the first time zombies could reproduce on their own. They ultimately effected only a small area before being wiped out by Mister Vampire, however, and their total legacy on history was simply the creation of a few more ghost towns in the Old West. The Guardians are caught in the crossfire between Mister Vampire, Kateri Faulkner, and the unknown necromancer (Mister Vampire hadn't bothered asking his name during their confrontation, and all his servants were mindless zombies), further reducing their numbers and influence.

In Los Angeles, the Mission San Gabriel Arcangel summons a Guardian remnant to their aid against the increasingly powerful Lestrand. Though the details are not known, there is some kind of betrayal that drives the Guardians south into Mexico, which is thronging with voodoo warlocks and dark wizards. During this time period, it becomes common for the Beholders of Shadows to study magic.

The Black Armada subverts Silmoore control over India and China even as the British Empire tightens their grip on the former and makes a strong foothold in the latter. With a number of criminal and political mortals under their control, the Black Armada becomes an ad-hoc prototype of the Conspirator Strategy that begins to be put into use by the Silmoores towards the end of this era to gain control of the Soviet Union. Attempts at seizing control of the United States only lead to Mister Vampire ousting them from the western hemisphere once more, following Thomas Silmoore to Brazil and killing him there.

1929-1941: The Silmoore Clan enjoys a brief revival as they seize control of the Third Reich from Prussian Archon Willhelm, killing him. Mathias Silmoore begins to join the ranks of entrenched and eternal vampire Archons as he nears five hundred years since his turning. However, Mister Vampire, apparently in a fit of boredom, crosses over to England and kills him, collapsing the remnants of his empire. Michael Silmoore escapes and goes into hiding in mainland Europe, especially Germany, which still has many of Mathias' old vassals in positions of power.

1941-2012: Mister Vampire lurks about the British Isles, eventually fighting a powerful demonic cult in Birmingham. A popular story, apparently true, claims that he interrupted the battered remnants of the cult towards the end of their battle sometime around 1976, when they were attempting to summon their Demon Prince and turn the tide back against him. Supposedly he asked them to complete the ritual so he could fight their master and then killed it personally before exterminating the rest of the cult. If true, they can't have been summoning a very powerful demon (as demons go), as even at this point Mister Vampire is not known to have overwhelming amounts of raw power, while high-ranking demons very often do. The defeat at Birmingham causes the Hell King to shuffle some resources around, and Avaros is summoned to Los Angeles soon afterwards as a result.

Descendants and relations of Kateria Faulkner begin founding new packs at this time, including Dan Wood, who willingly allows himself to be turned into a werewolf by his fiancee Vanessa Faulkner. The two of them then go on to found the Griffith Pack, the leadership of which passes to their son Logan upon their death.

The Black Armada begin to tighten their hold on the Far East, becoming more hierarchical. Though they have no single leader, many of their founding members become Archons, and a surprising lack of infighting between them leads to their having the effective resources of the Hegemons of old, making them even more difficult to challenge than the Archons of Europe. Mister Jack Lee's previous supernatural faction (the details of which are unknown) attempt to remain independent from the Armada and is crushed, sending Lee fleeing across the Pacific where he founds the Green Lotus.

The Guardians destabilize many factions in Mexico and Central America, but quickly earn the ire of the locals and are hunted down and broken once more, this time wiped out almost entirely. As far as Nathaniel Harker knows, his teacher was the only one to make it out of the battle for Mexico City alive, making Nathaniel and his protege the last of the Guardians since 1998, when his teacher passed on.

Sometime in the early 2000s, Michael Silmoore begins the laborious process of transporting himself and his followers to the United States, traveling to Los Angeles, which has become one of the most important cities in the world, yet the constant power vacuums caused by Mister Vampire and the Guardians have prevented any major powers from rising to seize control of it. Michael heads there and begins building power from the shadows, finally revealing himself in 2011 when he confronts and kills Joseph Steele. Mister Vampire vanishes from Birmingham and begins moving towards LA almost immediately afterwards.

Character Sheet:

What's your name?

Just what are you anyway?

What do you look like?

What's your story?

What can you do?



A few notes on the sheet: For the question of what you are, feel free to get inventive or to go with the typical vampire/werewolf/wizard classics, whatever. So long as it's not thoroughly out of genre for supernatural action (i.e. being an orc or an alien) or overwhelmingly powerful, it's fine. The "what can you do" question should cover not only supernatural abilities (don't go overboard with those) but also mundane skills. Also, being strongly allied with the Damned is frowned upon, seeing as they're made to be "those guys everyone else hates."

Character sheet links:

Raymond Matheos

Kyra

Lucia (barely seen since the downtime)

Samuel Langerach

Nathan Reach

Alvi Freydisardottir (hasn't posted in a week)

[Gelatinous Cube]

What's your name?

Raymond Matheos, just call me Ray. Not Mr. Matheos, not Sir...just Ray.

Other names I've gone by are "Hey, you!" or "Asshole."

Just what are you anyway?

Oh, nothing really. Just your average, everyday friendly neighbourhood Warlock. Supplying arcane service to the bums and normies who pay in cash.

Not a party wizard!

What do you look like?

Well it's been a while since I had a haircut...and shaved, but I think I'm pulling it off.
I have green eyes and uh, I don't know...dark brown hair...uh, I wear a lot of coats. I like them, and it gets cold in my loft.

I mean, what the hell kind of questions are these anyway? Wasting my damn time...

What's your story?

I was born out of the fiery darkness of hell itself, wielding a power so red-hot and inconceivable that...heh, sorry. I couldn't keep a straight face.

But seriously, my story? I'm just a guy who knows magic who was kicked out of the Mages Council. Don't like to talk about it.
I live in a medium sized loft that's full of ghosts, some were there already (they don't like me much) and some just...found me. I seem to attract them or something.
I make ends meet, but I don't always do it with nice people. Sometimes you have to do a couple of investigative favors for Vampires.


What can you do?

I make my living by being something of a...PI, or Private Investigator for all you slow folk out there.
I'm a hell of a spellslinger (if you'll allow me to toot my own horn) and I'm pretty damn good at divination and scrying (since you're letting me climb up on this pedestal).
Of course, despite all this I can hardly pay my rent on time or keep out of trouble. It gets even worse when you owe some Vampires a few favours...


Hope that's alright.
I tried to inject a lot of his character into the answers. Hope it's what you were looking for.

[Chamomile]

Yeah, that works just fine. Probably Ray's got his office and apartment in either Downtown or South-Central, and either Lestrand or Silmoore (in recent years) occasionally pressgangs him into running some magical investigation for them in exchange for not murdering him for playing things so loose with the Masquerade.

We'll probably need at least one more if we're going to make this work.

[Chamomile]

Eek. I'm beginning to fear this might not get started at all. But it's only been about 24 hours.

Anyways, posting to let people know I've added a bit on supernaturals and their weaknesses (mostly vampires, since they have so many) to the OP.

[MelonHead]

I'd probably be interested in joining, maybe you should set up a seperate interest check for this.

[Chamomile]

I'm considering it. Were those two statements supposed to be connected to each other, or were they separate thoughts? Because the implication I'm getting is that you can't join an RP in its OOC thread.

[MelonHead]

No, I'm happy to join. I'm just throwing an idea out there for gathering interest, as this seems like an interesting story but I had to go to some trouble to find it, and others might not bother.

[Eddsheadisashed]

This is...The Masquerade.
Thaumaturgy is epicly awesome.

[Chamomile]

@MelonHead: I went ahead and gave Mister Vampire a dedicated interest check thread, hopefully that'll draw a bit more attention.

@Eddshead: If you're talking about Vampire: the Masquerade, no it isn't. They're in the same genre, but there's some significant fundamental differences between the settings that are explicitly mentioned in the hiders.

[Chamomile]

Hrm. Two people have expressed interest but there's no sheet from either of them. It looks like this RP won't be happening, unfortunately. If someone else does put up a CS, we can go ahead, but I'm getting the feeling that won't be happening.

Oh, I should also mention that I threw up an interest check just for Mister Vampire, but it hasn't done so well (and I kind of messed up by not linking the OOC thread, too).