TL;DR Summary
- Short character sheet format and lore stub format created to allow for players to submit setting info and help craft the world they interact with in the RP.
- Modern day in the United States, but an alternate history where the federal government is kept weak and in the dark by rival supernatural factions.
- A goth-punk sort of world ruled by supernatural factions that keep the knowledge of their existence tightly controlled.
- In Afghanistan, a young Alpha of werewolves emerges from the firestorm of strife and blood.
- They return to America and wind up becoming the Wild Hunt, the reincarnation of an old MC that a Vietnam veteran ancestor belonged to; they revive the badge and the culture.
- There is a price, the club/pack owes debts.
- Character process: we are using abbreviated stubs that don't require writing a novel to put in a character. Basics and a sentence or two of narrative about who they are.
- Must have a main character that is a patched member of the Wild Hunt, but then you can create NPC's and peripheral/related characters of various types/factions.
- It's 2020something, so the Alpha can be a woman. The members can be women. Even the combat vets. We're modifying history to say that women have been serving in combat roles longer than in our real world timeline to facilitate freedom of background.
- Without committing to one thing or another, I'm going with the idea of social unrest, climate change, pandemic...stuff causing a lot of social upheaval anyway. Winds are blowing, arguments are already happening, people are fed up. This includes the supernatural world, taking the mortal zeitgeist like wind in sails.
- Inspired by "The Wild One," "Easy Rider," Hunter S. Thompson, every shit biker flick made in the 70's (damn there were a lot of them), Riverdale (ask in discord? :) ) and other items.
- HeySeuss#6650 on Discord for anyone that wants to brainstorm/talk through ideas.
In Character
Werewolf history is full of tales of glorious struggle and bloody defeat. Many warlords, raiders, rebels and barbarians were led by packs of such, which were ruthlessly ground down by civilizations like the Roman Empire or the French monarchs, controlled by other, more sophisticated, more subtle fashions. Nonetheless, these legends persist, handed down as folklore among the bloodlines of werewolves.
Werewolves were always kept on a leash. When the last great revolt with an Alpha king at the head was put down, Werewolves, their capabilities substantially reduced, became the bellboys, the doormen, the legbreakers of other supernatural beings that were more sophisticated at finance, commerce and politics. There were, of course, rumors of werewolf bloodlines producing an alpha, who could make new werewolves with a bite, but the rumors also were that other supernaturals were adept at finding and killing these individuals when they arose before they could surround themselves with others.
Alphas are not merely a matter of bloodline; they are born in battle. Someone of werewolf blood may well have the potential to be an alpha, but the process of becoming one is not well understood beyond the essentials - blood fury, or adrenaline from struggle is thought to create the hormonal cocktail that starts the change into an Alpha. They come from brutality, and they often die violently for they are of a type that lead from the front. There are few cautious Alphas, and no one ever became an Alpha by tending a garden.
The other supernaturals know this and try to keep an eye on warzones and battlefields, but these are inherently chaotic places. Things are missed. Despite today's information technology, the fog of war is still very much a thing.
In Afghanistan, there is a young US Army Ranger that is. part of a patrol that is cut off. The weather is awful, they can hear the Taliban foot soldiers moving around and calling to each other in the darkness when they aren't opening fire, seemingly from any direction. They are cut off, their platoon leader is dead and the situation looks bleak. And that's when the Alpha is born. The Alpha makes friends into werewolves.
What comes after is a collective scar on the psyche of Taliban fighters that neither the British nor the phalangites of Alexander the Great manage to inflict on these rugged mountain warriors. After that first battle and in the course of the subsequent months, they learn fear deep in their bones. There are legends of things of fur and fang in the darkness that hunt them. The Taliban starts going dormant every full moon, and whether that's a planned thing or a collective subconscious reaction is hard to tell, but it's real.
The new Alpha came back to the world with their military buddies. They found a nice place to lay low, the town of Mineral Springs California, but they had the bad luck to find themselves in the fief of a vampire prince that was old but less than talented, even if he was ambitious -- or, it was perhaps accurate to say, he was querulous and thought that he was entitled to more than he had. The extortion bled the town dry and stunted its growth, and when the legbreakers came to the Lupo Motorworks, they aroused the bloodlust of the werewolves, who struck back with unexpected ferocity. Skilled warriors even before they were bitten and turned into werewolves and led by an Alpha, they used their skills to utterly destroy the goons, their town sheriff, other thralls that supported them, and, finally, the vampires and their prince that considered the town part of their territory, an absentee landlord that resented anyone else being there and doing something without their approval.
Making all those actions and corpses disappear was complicated, but necessary. The Club went into deep debt with their fixer, a dragon pulling at the strings of the world's financial and legal interdependencies from a cave somewhere near Mount Shasta, who demanded a seemingly innocuous payment; nine 75th Ranger Regiment challenge coins, sawed through, which entitled the bearer to a favor from the Club, if in their power, to not be refused. The fixer did not keep all of these as they too had debts to pay, after all. But this was the price of calling off the heat, and it was necessary. One of the bearers immediately demanded money, so the Club had to get to work in the only way that it could make the kind of money being demanded -- by breaking the law. It was the price of their freedom and lives.
Now, with a base of operations in California and debts to pay off, they had to figure out what to do.
This is the saga of the Wild Hunt, the Werewolf biker gang, and its fight against the cabals and conspiracies of the world arrayed against them.
Werewolves were always kept on a leash. When the last great revolt with an Alpha king at the head was put down, Werewolves, their capabilities substantially reduced, became the bellboys, the doormen, the legbreakers of other supernatural beings that were more sophisticated at finance, commerce and politics. There were, of course, rumors of werewolf bloodlines producing an alpha, who could make new werewolves with a bite, but the rumors also were that other supernaturals were adept at finding and killing these individuals when they arose before they could surround themselves with others.
Alphas are not merely a matter of bloodline; they are born in battle. Someone of werewolf blood may well have the potential to be an alpha, but the process of becoming one is not well understood beyond the essentials - blood fury, or adrenaline from struggle is thought to create the hormonal cocktail that starts the change into an Alpha. They come from brutality, and they often die violently for they are of a type that lead from the front. There are few cautious Alphas, and no one ever became an Alpha by tending a garden.
The other supernaturals know this and try to keep an eye on warzones and battlefields, but these are inherently chaotic places. Things are missed. Despite today's information technology, the fog of war is still very much a thing.
In Afghanistan, there is a young US Army Ranger that is. part of a patrol that is cut off. The weather is awful, they can hear the Taliban foot soldiers moving around and calling to each other in the darkness when they aren't opening fire, seemingly from any direction. They are cut off, their platoon leader is dead and the situation looks bleak. And that's when the Alpha is born. The Alpha makes friends into werewolves.
What comes after is a collective scar on the psyche of Taliban fighters that neither the British nor the phalangites of Alexander the Great manage to inflict on these rugged mountain warriors. After that first battle and in the course of the subsequent months, they learn fear deep in their bones. There are legends of things of fur and fang in the darkness that hunt them. The Taliban starts going dormant every full moon, and whether that's a planned thing or a collective subconscious reaction is hard to tell, but it's real.
The new Alpha came back to the world with their military buddies. They found a nice place to lay low, the town of Mineral Springs California, but they had the bad luck to find themselves in the fief of a vampire prince that was old but less than talented, even if he was ambitious -- or, it was perhaps accurate to say, he was querulous and thought that he was entitled to more than he had. The extortion bled the town dry and stunted its growth, and when the legbreakers came to the Lupo Motorworks, they aroused the bloodlust of the werewolves, who struck back with unexpected ferocity. Skilled warriors even before they were bitten and turned into werewolves and led by an Alpha, they used their skills to utterly destroy the goons, their town sheriff, other thralls that supported them, and, finally, the vampires and their prince that considered the town part of their territory, an absentee landlord that resented anyone else being there and doing something without their approval.
Making all those actions and corpses disappear was complicated, but necessary. The Club went into deep debt with their fixer, a dragon pulling at the strings of the world's financial and legal interdependencies from a cave somewhere near Mount Shasta, who demanded a seemingly innocuous payment; nine 75th Ranger Regiment challenge coins, sawed through, which entitled the bearer to a favor from the Club, if in their power, to not be refused. The fixer did not keep all of these as they too had debts to pay, after all. But this was the price of calling off the heat, and it was necessary. One of the bearers immediately demanded money, so the Club had to get to work in the only way that it could make the kind of money being demanded -- by breaking the law. It was the price of their freedom and lives.
Now, with a base of operations in California and debts to pay off, they had to figure out what to do.
This is the saga of the Wild Hunt, the Werewolf biker gang, and its fight against the cabals and conspiracies of the world arrayed against them.
Out of Character Info
Werewolf bikers.
I am going to break the convention and make the gang multi-ethnic and multi-gendered to allow people to create a great character that they feel. The Alpha, of course, is a werewolf of great power and influence, but also will be hunted by anyone supernatural who comes across them out of fear -- even the ones that doing have were's doing servant work for them aren't going to relish the destabilization of their cushy lives. Without an alpha, Werewolves are few in number and less potent, docile and content to serve other supernatural factions and live off the bones they gnaw, figuratively (sometimes literally.)
With an Alpha in play, the game changes. Some weres are so far gone in their servitude that they will fight against them, but others are potential recruits to the cause. The Alpha's leadership is primal and magnetic, they are a natural leader among their kind. Of course, the Alpha is also in danger. Not all werewolves are apt to follow, particularly if they are kept addicted to drugs or are otherwise being controlled by a rival being. Of course, by the same token, wolves in an Alpha's pack are not easy to subvert by mind domination and charm magic; they are bonded in spirit and that much more dangerous. Not only that, the bite of an Alpha can make new werewolves. Without an Alpha, it's all about who has the wolf-blood, descended from bitten werewolves.
Also, I am thinking there is an ebb and flow to the werewolves and their powers. At the full moon, they are at their most violent and dangerous, whereas the opposite applies at a new moon, it's a time for them to sleep it all off. By the same token, they can rouse themselves to fight at any time, but it's harder in a new moon and all too easy to see red during the full. I am definitely looking for them to be able to go to that wolf-man form that the movies like to show off, and maybe see if they do a normal wolf form as well.
What we have here is a skeleton -- in the interest check, people asked "how do were's become were's?" and I came up with the 'bloodlines and Alpha's bite' system. Hopefully, we can flesh out the plot and the factions more as we proceed. The Alpha's bite is pretty disruptive to the ole bloodlines system, so there's lots of friction to look at there.
Character sheets are kept very minimal, the necessary information to understand the character, a sentence or two of summary. The first character must be a werewolf and a member of the club. After that, you're free to come up with characters that are related to the plot in some way. After all, there are eight more coin halves out there, eight more favors owed.
I am going to break the convention and make the gang multi-ethnic and multi-gendered to allow people to create a great character that they feel. The Alpha, of course, is a werewolf of great power and influence, but also will be hunted by anyone supernatural who comes across them out of fear -- even the ones that doing have were's doing servant work for them aren't going to relish the destabilization of their cushy lives. Without an alpha, Werewolves are few in number and less potent, docile and content to serve other supernatural factions and live off the bones they gnaw, figuratively (sometimes literally.)
With an Alpha in play, the game changes. Some weres are so far gone in their servitude that they will fight against them, but others are potential recruits to the cause. The Alpha's leadership is primal and magnetic, they are a natural leader among their kind. Of course, the Alpha is also in danger. Not all werewolves are apt to follow, particularly if they are kept addicted to drugs or are otherwise being controlled by a rival being. Of course, by the same token, wolves in an Alpha's pack are not easy to subvert by mind domination and charm magic; they are bonded in spirit and that much more dangerous. Not only that, the bite of an Alpha can make new werewolves. Without an Alpha, it's all about who has the wolf-blood, descended from bitten werewolves.
Also, I am thinking there is an ebb and flow to the werewolves and their powers. At the full moon, they are at their most violent and dangerous, whereas the opposite applies at a new moon, it's a time for them to sleep it all off. By the same token, they can rouse themselves to fight at any time, but it's harder in a new moon and all too easy to see red during the full. I am definitely looking for them to be able to go to that wolf-man form that the movies like to show off, and maybe see if they do a normal wolf form as well.
What we have here is a skeleton -- in the interest check, people asked "how do were's become were's?" and I came up with the 'bloodlines and Alpha's bite' system. Hopefully, we can flesh out the plot and the factions more as we proceed. The Alpha's bite is pretty disruptive to the ole bloodlines system, so there's lots of friction to look at there.
Character sheets are kept very minimal, the necessary information to understand the character, a sentence or two of summary. The first character must be a werewolf and a member of the club. After that, you're free to come up with characters that are related to the plot in some way. After all, there are eight more coin halves out there, eight more favors owed.
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