The Sabbat

by Jon G.

April 18th, 2012

Tony turned on the car.  It had a nice hum to it.  Sang a bit, like they used to, before everybody started driving those little rice balls.  The car was riding low, with the load in the back seat, but he wasn't all that concerned.  It's not like he'd paid for it.

"We going?" asked Mike, who was in the passenger seat.

"We're going," replied Tony.  Mike was a bit of a freak, but that had never bothered Tony.  Oh, sure, he had piercings in every bit of his face, but pack was pack, and Tony didn't let it get to him.

Mike turned around in the seat as they drove, and looked into the back.  "I'm gonna suck down the one with the coat, and then maybe the girl.  Fuckin hungry!" 

"You can't take them all.  Gotta save something for the pack."  They had a trio of kine that they'd picked up off the street, all duct taped into the back of the car.  Tony wasn't exactly sure how picking people up off the street had become his responsability, but he wasn't about to let his pack mates down.  His mind raced ahead to the Vaulderie that would follow, revelling in the closeness and the joy of the ritae.  

Then the girl got the duct tape off her mouth, and started to scream.  Tony rolled his eyes as Mike squeezed the flesh of her lips, until they fused shut.

The drive wasn't far, and Tony carried the struggling food into the warehouse that the whole pack used as a haven.  Mike had run ahead to get all the supplies set up.  As he was carrying the third one in something strange came over him.  A sense of loss, very briefly, flickered over his soul, like a cold drenched blanket thrown over a fire, and when it was gone, there was a sense that something was missing.

Anger roared up in him, as parts of his being long dormant burst to life, and exploded forth in a flame inside.  

He dropped the food where it was, ignoring it as it started to crawl away, tearing its jacket and pulling itself along the ground, and went inside.

The whole pack was in there, except Tina, their Lasombra, who had been missing these last few nights.  There was Mike, who was a freakshow, and proud of it.  His eyes flickered over the rest of them.  Saw the indolance, and laziness, and the conniving.  The sight of them filled him with rage.  

Mike looked at him.  "Where's the food?  Go get the food!"  

That's when Tony hit him, and he'd never felt so alive.

___________________________________________________________________________

 

Nine years ago, the Sabbat fell to itself, in an orgy of violence.  While the Sword could strike down any foe, that power turned overnight into a horrifying liability.  Packmate turned on packmate, and pack on pack.  One night, all of the Viniculi simply... stopped.  With the Lasombra gone (More on that later), there was nothing to hold it together.  

Some packs stayed together, tied by more than blood and false comraderie.  Many of these are still active tonight, but without anything higher than the pack to hold a coherent theology, they drift apart from other packs on philosophical grounds.  War packs turn on Fabians, and Ultra-Cons on Loyalists.  

Then there are the loners, who survived the death of their packmates, all alone in the night.

All of these former Sabbat (some of whom still claim to be Sabbat, even the "only TRUE Sabbat") are dealing with new realities, where there are risen Ancients, but no Sword to meet them, and Federalist "free elections" but no true Freedom.  

The Sword of Caine is broken, but broken swords can still kill.

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Welcome to Echoes: Some basic good things to know about the world

by Jon G.

April 17th, 2012

Welcome To Echoes of Empires

  First of all, welcome to the Echoes of Empires Universe. We're glad to have you here. There's a few things you should know as you enter play. 

1.  The world has moved on. The Camarilla and the Sabbat have both collapsed, and their elders have fallen into torpor.  All of the clans engage and politic and live with each other, in the same cities. There are factions which are new, but they operate more like political parties. You can join them, but you don't have to. You can find more information on each faction on the website in the sections labeled, Unbroken Circle, Iron Crown, Federalists, and Church of the Guardian. Other minor factions exist usually with region specific interests. 

2. Boons are still tracked, and usually enforced. Who owes whom is in some cases the sole measure of who lives and dies. The prince is sometimes held responsible for the debts of kindred in their domain should they be unable to pay.   There are two special cases that it’s good to be aware of.  The first is that there is generally a hefty charge to join a domain, usually a Major, and a small charge to visit one, usually a Minor.   The second is that kindred doing violence on behalf of another should be paid, and not less than a Minor, or equivalent worth.  

3.  There is now a hierarchy of states. Princes of Domains owe taxes to the Chancellors of the Dominions, which span several states and many domains each.   Each Dominion sees to the affairs of a region ensuring the smooth flow of prestation and law even between warring cities. They hire couriers to brave the wild and dangerous realms between urbanscapes, entreat with the other dark and terrible forces of the world, and see to inter-domain conflicts. 

4. The Right of Destruction is absolute but not without tempering. Those who are sentenced to death by their Princes have have whatever the Domain allows for defence, but those tried by their Dominion or the Federation have certain defenses, and something resembling a tribunal.  Those tried by the Federation have someone to speak on their behalf and beg mercy

5.  The Dominons have joined in a grand federation of states. The North American Federation covers from the Panama Canal to the arctic circle, quite a few nearby islands, but by no means has the enforcement power of the older Camarilla. 

6. The system has been largely rewritten, and hopefully improved. Many if not most powers have been rebalanced, and in some cases totally rewritten.  The balance has been rejiggered to make the Core 8 disciplines better, esoteric ones weaker, and blood magic, which anyone can have, reasonable. There is a book, and a website.  The website is always more up to date and accurate, and should be considered authoritative.  

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How to build a sheet from a package

by Jon G.

April 16th, 2012

So you've been handed a package, probably by the other players in your coterie/brood/etc., and would like to know how to build your sheet from it, let's try to explain that:

 

0.  Imagine the character.  Think about who they are, and what the concept is.  The rest really does follow.  Pick a nature and demeanor

 

1.  How old are you?  This is determined by your package.  Pick an embrace date to match.  If you want to be older or younger, trade packages with someone until you get one that has the age you'd like.  Sheet size and age need to line up with each other.

<caption>Embrace Date</caption>

Fledgeling	2007-2012
Early Neonate	1987-2007
Late Neonate	1937-1987
Early Ancilla	1887-1937
Late Ancilla	1812-1887
Early Elder	1712-1812
Late Elder	1512-1712

The Sabbat Collapse happened in 2003, and the Camarilla in 2005, so if you're from later than that, you don't remember them existing, except through what you've been told.  It's history, not current events.

The Camarilla and Sabbat were officially founded in 1493, so nobody in play will predate them.  Most will have known and lived in them, before they imploded.  

 

2.  Pick a clan, any clan, no really.  They're all allowed, and several but not all bloodlines.  If you have a sire, you need to be of the same clan/bloodline as your sire.  Fill this in.  Take a look at the clan advantage and disadvantage, and fill those in.  Make note of the in clan disciplines

3.  Select your background, and jot it down to the side. There's two:

The monsterous backgrond is for those who have deliberately thrown off the shackles of humanity.  The human background is for those who have retained it, or lost bits of it slowly.  

<caption>Package Background</caption>

Monsterous	Bonus Discipline Dot (Basic In Clan)
Human	Bonus Influences, Virtues, and usually better Generation

The benefits will be explained in detail later.  

If your sire has built his sheet already, you can have a generation one worse than his, otherwise, fill it in from this chart:

<caption>Generation</caption>

	Monsterous	Human
Fledgeling	Consult Staff	Consult Staff
Early Neonate	13th	12th
Late Neonate	12th	11th
Early Ancilla	11th	10th
Late Ancilla	10th	9th
Early Elder	9th	8th
Late Elder	8th	7th

The reason the Fledgeling has to consult staff is that they've just been Embraced, so their sire is still around.  We'd encourage them to take a PC, but if it's an NPC, they're probably still around, so we'd like to work them into the story.  

The staff will sometimes vary these guidelines a bit to get a particular sire into your story, but generally we'd like to stick with predictable results during intial start up.  Later, this chart will be expired (and we'll announce that).  If you're reading this long after publication, the chart is probably been retired in favor of handcrafting based on what's already in the chronicle.

 Remember, if you don't like the Generation off the chart, you can always ask someone to be your sire, and get your generation from them.  

Consult this chart: http://www.vampire.echoesofempires.org/index.php?title=Generation

It'll be usefull in the next steps.  

 

4.  Write in your willpower.  It's the starting from your generation, plus the bonus from your package

 

5.  Pick your virtues.  They're explained fully here: http://www.vampire.echoesofempires.org/index.php?title=Virtues#For_Vampires

Human Backround gives you a free dot in each, Monsterous doesn't.  After that, you spend 7, and any bonues virtues from your package.  They cap at 5, or (13-Generation) if that would be better.

 

6.  Attributes:  You get a Primary with 7, a Secondary with 5, and a Tertiary with 3.  Then spend the extra ones from the package.  Your cap comes from the generation chart, with a bonues cap point to your Secondary, and Two bonues cap points to the Primary.  This just raises the cap.  You still have to buy them.  

 

There's no specific names attribute traits.  Just write a number.  No negative attributes either.

 

7.  Disciplines:  Each package has a number of free disciplines.  They're in the left column.  

 

Start with the ones labeled "I".  Those are your in clan disciplines.  Write in the names from your clan discipline list.  For example, if your package has 3 "I" Disciplines at x1, then you get each of your in clans at one to start, not 1 at level 3.  

 

Then skip to the Bottom, and do the ones labelled "O"  Those can be any discipline, or blood magic path, that you don't already have.  Anything BUT an in clan is fine.  Write those in.  

 

Finally, some of the biggest packages have lines labelled "B" which stands for Core Eight (for some reason).  If there are any Core eight that you don't already have, write them in here.  Total up the freebie point value of the lines you didn't get to use (because you already had that discipline), and add it to the pile of freebies you get at the end.  

 

If you took blood magic of any kind, take some rituals.  You get a level 1, a level 2 if you have any blood magic path at 2, a 3 if you have a 3, and so on.  Even if you have more than one path, you still only get 1 rituals based on your highest path.  

 

When you go to spend freebies

 

8.  Abilities: Each package gets a bunch of prespent abilities.  They're printed on the sheet.  You get those.  (Fledgelings don't have them actually prespent, but do get 10 abilities to spend as their "prespents")  

After that, you get your "In Clan" and "Out of clan" ability stacks.  These stack with the ones printed on your sheet, but are capped at 5 (or 13-gen if better).  If you go over the cap, take the extra, and add it to the freebies you get at the end.  

 

9.  Freebies.  Each package gets some, and now's the time to spend them.  Costs are here:  http://www.vampire.echoesofempires.org/index.php?title=Character_Creation

and should be familiar to most vetern larpers.

 

Anything bought with freebies don't give you free abilities, or free anything else, that it would have if it wasn't from freebies

 

10.  Character Questions: Lastly there's a questioneer to help fill out the character, and help us integrate it into a game.  It's here: http://www.vampire.echoesofempires.org/index.php?title=Character_Questions

 

Only the first 5 questions have to be answered, but if you do the whole thing, you can have 2 more freebies.  

 

Enjoy, and Welcome to Echoes!

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Announcing the Staff:

by Jon G.

April 16th, 2012

The staff has collected and identified itself.  Here we Are:

 

HST Connecticut: Jon (that's me!)

CT Staff:

Jim W.

Charlie R.

Ben R.

Chris B.

 

World Staff:

• WST: Delaware dot larp at gmail dot com (Dave)
• ST: sempermortis84 at gmail dot com (Eric)
• ST: ben dot mmn at gmail dot com (Ben, convention larps)

 

We'll have duties and such figured out after our Thursday meeting.  Until then, please run everything through me, since the rest haven't had a chance to get situated.  Thanks All!

 

Jon

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