Creating a Rural Vampire: The Requiem Chronicle is Impossible to do.
I am going to run a roleplaying game. Not just any roleplaying game. A game that doesn't get a lot of love in the community. I'm running a second edition Vampire: Requiem game. I've never run any game before and I have no idea what I'm doing. I'm like that dog in that meme. You know the one.
I've played in maybe half a dozen games and I want to give it a try. I'm a writer of fictions anyway so the whole prospect of making a chronicle is probably the most exciting part. I've been taking notes on the era I want to write in and started making up NPC's for the game and that has been a lot of fun. One facet of this process has made it a bit daunting. That is the fact that White Wolf doesn't encourage or really even give examples of how to set a Vampire game in a rural environment. Vampire, from what I have seen so far, is all about the glitz and glamor of the city. All vampires live within some sort of shining metropolis in sky scraper lofts or dank alleys. They control the wealthy one percent of humans and make them give up all their money and houses or they live with the rats and homeless sneaking about just trying to survive. But life isn't just in a city and the vast majority of vampires would not exist in such a clastrophobic place. Especially if they were actually trying to continue the masquerade successfully.
Sure, writing a story or campaign or chronicle or whatever in the heart of Los Angeles can be wildly exciting. Especially if you don't live in LA or one of the numerous world class cities around the world. But, there is something deeply unsettling about rural communities that White Wolf has never attempted to take into account. They have the Gangrel that prefer to live on the outskirts of society. I think they saw that Gangrel like to hang out with the homeless or in national parks. But that simply isn't enough. It doesn't satisfy my itch to explore what is beyond the city.
I have always found rural America to be deeply disturbing. You take the highway out of the city. Buildings and homes slowly get farther and farther apart until you are alone in the wilderness with the occasional home on either side. It feels as if laws don't apply out there. You could disappear and either you would never be found or it would take a significant group of people to find you again. This is where vampires would live and have their hunting grounds. Not amidst the cloistered buildings of the city. But of the desolate wild most rural areas have to offer.
This is what has always piqued my interest in vampire fiction and this is what I will be using for my setting in my chronicle. White Wolf has never intended for a vampire game to be run this way, but I say fie on them! I'm gunna do it and it will be fabulous! I have a lot of other elements that I will go into detail in a later blog. I plan on putting every step of my process in this blog and i might even publish my chronicle here so other people can play it. I will have a YouTube channel soon that I am going to do an actual play of the chronicle on as well as whatever else I feel like doing. So, welcome to the beginning of this new era of nerd for me. I hope you enjoy.
