Hi folks. So I am presently STing a V20 Dark Ages Vampire game and my players have suggested doing a “modern nights” 2010s game using V20. (We won’t be using V5.) They want the game to be set during the present (2018) and so, since today was my day off, I came up with an alternate version of the metaplot, bringing it from the late 1990s to today.
Thoughts, comments, feedback welcome!
January 1998-October 1999: The Kue-jin courts of China direct the Great Leap Outward, a highly coordinated offensive by Asia’s native vampires to seize control of U.S. domains from Western vampires as revenge for colonialism (and the Cainites’ profit from it). The Anarch Free State in southern California suffers heavy losses in the first year, but with Camarilla assistance fights the invaders to a stalemate in Los Angeles. The Kuei-jin take San Francisco from the Camarilla in 1999 but by the end of the year suspend their offensives to focus on domestic concerns. The Anarchs rally to San Diego while the Camarilla focuses on Sabbat attacks across the East Coast and the southern U.S.
April 1998: Giangaleazzo, the Sabbat Archbishop of Milan, defects to the Camarilla and openly burns the original version of the Code of Milan, the code of conduct for the sect.
November 1998: The Tremere antitribu of the Sabbat are annihilated in a single night, bursting into flames instantly and crumbling to ash wherever they are. Shortly after diaberlizing Saulot to steal the Antediluvian’s power, Tremere loses a spiritual battle with the far more powerful entity. Saulot ends up possessing Tremere, while Tremere’s soul is placed in that of his former lover and disciple, Goratrix. As part of a desperate effort to achieve the strength necessary to retake his body, Tremere (as Goratrix) resorts to a ritual that sacrifices the Tremere who followed “Goratrix” in his Sabbat defection. Intended to magically steal Saulot’’s power and give it to Tremere, the ritual fails, but does succeed in forcing Saulot into a deeper torpor, limiting his manipulations.
May 1999: Xaviar, the Justicar of Clan Gangrel, concludes that the Antediluvians may not be a myth as the Camarilla claims. After unsuccessfully trying to persuade the sect’s warlord, Karsh, to lead the clan out of the Camarilla, Xaviar decides to publicly maintain the Camarilla position while secretly investigating the Antediluvians’ existence with the clandestine assistance of the Noddist scholar and fellow Gangrel known as Beckett.
June 1999: The Ravnos Antediluvian rises from torpor in northern India, consuming the souls of almost all its descendants in the area. Three Kuei-jin Bodhisattvas, some of the most potent of their kind, manage to weaken the ancient creature enough so that it slips back into hibernation beneath the earth. A historically destructive monsoon covers up the supernatural nature of the incident from mortal eyes, but many vampires witness several days of insanity and instability in all Ravnos vampires. Vampires in the Western Hemisphere are mostly unaffected long-term, but the elimination of so many Ravnos Kindred in Asia leads to a resurgence of Kuei-jin control across southern Asia.
June-August 1999: The Sabbat initiates a “Black Crusade” against the Camarilla, fueled by an overpopulation of sect members as well as religious fervor brought on by the millennium. Fabrizia Conteraz, the Archbishop of Miami, leads the conquest of St. Louis, Memphis, and Atlanta from the Camarilla. The East Coast offensive under Archbishop Francisco Domingo de Polonia stalls, however, locked into a war of attrition in Washington, D.C. and Philadelphia. Even worse, New York City – long the base of the Sabbat in the northeastern United States – falls to the Camarilla, although Polonia kills the Ventrue Prince, Michaela, before retreating to the Sabbat stronghold of Baltimore.
December 1999: It is discovered that the Sabbat Regent, Melinda Galbraith, is dead, after “she” is revealed to be impostor by Sascha Vykos. After calling in numerous boons, Vykos is appointed the new Regent of the sect. They have Polonia destroyed for his failures, while Conteraz is promoted to Cardinal of the Southeastern U.S. They also declare that the “Black Crusade” will continue as Gehenna is close at hand.
There is no vampire involvement in the September 11 attacks, but the Camarilla invests a large amount of its resources in arms-manufacturing and military contractors, making huge profits. The sect takes an even more authoritarian turn, taking advantage of the enhancement of state power in the wake of the War on Terror. The Inner Circle conducts a covert purge of known individuals associated with study of Caine and the Antediluvians, sending Beckett further underground. New York City becomes consolidated Camarilla territory, the Kindred resuming control of global finance.
The U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 has the unintended consequence of waking ur-Shugli, a childe of Haqim, the founder of the Assamites. Soon after waking, he breaks the Tremere curse placed on the clan that prevented them from drinking the blood of other vampires. As the new Eldest of the Assamites, ur-Shugli preaches a fundamentalist return to worshipping Haqim and acting as isolationist assassins once more, as before the Treaty of Tyre. Around a quarter of the main clan (mostly its younger members) refuse to renounce Islam and become “the Dispossessed.” A sizable portion of the warrior caste under Fatima al-Faqadi travels to Mexico and joins the Sabbat. The Camarilla responds to the breaking of the curse and the assassination of several of its leading princes at Assamite hands by declaring itself at war with the clan and its agents.
Huge advances in technology such as search engines, social media, and other digital innovations puts the Masquerade at heightened risk. With the kine armed with high-definition camera phones, violations of the First Tradition become frequent, and the Camarilla becomes even harsher in its practices, to the extent that just having a MySpace page is grounds for calling a Blood Hunt. The Nosferatu-controlled SchreckNet, a private Internet network, is opened to other Camarilla clans. Anarchs are also able to access it without too much difficulty, although the Sabbat is actively prevented from using it. Attempts to reveal and spread the existence of vampires online are instantly met by smear campaigns by Nosferatu “trolls” who poke holes in the accounts and evidence that manage to leak on to the Internet. They cannot catch everything, however, and vampire hunters are an increasingly common problem.
The rising importance of Silicon Valley as a place of innovation and global economic importance leads the Camarilla to redouble its efforts to retake San Francisco, which it does by 2006. Around the same time, the Anarchs strike north from San Diego and succeed in reclaiming Los Angeles for the Free States. The Kuei-jin retains presences in the many Chinatowns across the West Coast, but nevertheless the Quincunx is humbled by the failure of the Great Leap Outward, leading to the rise of more isolationist leadership more concerned with the increasing power of the Yama Kings.
The Camarilla is caught unprepared for the Great Recession of 2008, and as fortunes disappear overnight, elders and even princes find themselves exposed to challenges from enemies and upstarts. The inability of the sect to anticipate or prevent the crisis does much to damage its credibility, and the seeds of almost a decade of intense repression produce the fruit of rebellion. The Third Anarch Revolt erupts across North America and even the Camarilla bulwark of Europe, with several notable cities – Athens, Berlin, Liverpool – falling under Anarch control. Simultaneously, the Sabbat takes advantage of the chaos in the close of the decade by destroying Lasombra and Tzimisce “traitors” in Eastern Europe, Italy, and Spain, including Giangaleazzo in Milan. The sect uses already existing xenophobia and strong anti-globalization populism to instigate violent outbursts against immigrants and leftists to mask its own bloody assaults.
In 2010, it is revealed that ur-Shugli serves the Baali after an operation ostensibly meant to excavate the Second City instead unearths a reliquary containing an incredibly powerful and ancient demon. Before ur-Shugli can finish releasing the entity, the Methuselahs of Clan Assamite come together to interrupt the ritual at the cost of their own lives. The Third Baali War erupts across the Middle East and North Africa against the backdrop of the Arab Spring. Many of the Dispossessed Assamites return to the main clan to wipe out the Baali and salvage assorted supernatural relics looted amidst the riots and insurgencies now common in the region. By 2013 the Assamites can claim a tactical victory in limiting infernal incursions and sending the Baali back into the shadows, but with the main Assamite clan much reduced in strength, its oldest elders all but gone. Most of the Dispossessed Assamites return to Alamut; as a sign of younger and more progressive attitudes, Fatima al-Faqadi becomes the first woman caliph. The Camarilla and the Assamites remain at war.
During the Third Baali War, demon-worshipping cults are uncovered across the world. The Sabbat Inquisition culls virtually all the packs in Montreal after a bishop is found responsible for a series of murders believed to be Satanic in nature. Camarilla cities are not immune either, with several European cities rotten with secret and blasphemous orders from the past. Yet again, the sect tends to execute those suspected of corruption without evidence, only worsening accusations that is little more a society for tyrants.
The Giovanni and the Followers of Set, never trusted by any of the sects, are often casualties in the purges that follow the war, their activities linked to dark magic and licentious behavior. In response, the two clans form an alliance in 2011, stating that their domains will be shared, save for the respective clan headquarters in Venice and Egypt. The union has served each clan, as their combined influence in organized crime as well as the mystical arts has proven mutually beneficial. Elder vampires call it the “Independent Alliance” while neonates refer to the “Snakes and Skulls, Inc.”
The Camarilla continues to decline into the 2010s, strongest in Western Europe and the Northeastern United States. While materially strong as an institution, there has never been a greater divide between the powerful and the powerless, the old and the young. The talk of a “meritocracy of vampires” rings hollow, and not just in traditional Anarch-leaning cities. Consequently, the Camarilla has responded by gradually removing the velvet glove from around the iron fist. This has led to the rise of two factions, the Traditionalists, who favor the status quo, and Modernizers, who want to introduce liberal reforms to save the Camarilla from becoming totally archaic and irrelevant.
The Sabbat under Regent Vykos is once more resurgent, with Cardinal Conteraz taking Little Rock, Cleveland, and Kansas City for the sect in the U.S. Vykos, however, has proved a polarizing figure, as their scholarly and autocratic bent has upset those members who feel the Sabbat has become too centralized in its authority. The revelation of infernalism among the sect’s higher ranks has also provoked a desire for new, younger leaders. Joseph Pander, the leader of the Sabbat’s clanless vampires, has become the leading spokesperson against Vykos, prompting some to speculate of a new civil war.
Of the three major sects, the Anarchs have prospered the most. Unrest and anger in mortal society has led to greater popularity for anti-establishment values, and it is easy to describe Camarilla elders as “the Kindred’s 1%.” Within the Movement itself, however, ideologies range from the far left to the far right, and vampires welcome in one Anarch city might be driven out of another. Berlin has become something of the latest Kindred experiments at creating a new democratic order for vampires, although what exactly such an order will ultimately look like is not something that is agreed upon.
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