I'd really love to hear about world of darkness hehe<3
HI OMG YES MY WOD okay oh god how do i even get all of this across in 1 post
OKAYYY so. uhhhh I gm SPECIFICALLY cross splat WoD, so my lore goes into the WHOLE world of darkness, not just vampires, not just werewolves or mages, the WHOLE THING.
Recently, I've been doing more stuff with this little known crossover between Cyberpunk 2020 and Vampire the Masquerade that ran in 3 issues of White Wolf Magazine, World of Future Darkness. The lore was pretty barebones, but the idea was just WAY too good to not indulge myself in.
Since I was using my past lore for modern day WoD as a base, I had to make it cross splat too. I just... IT'S A REQUIREMENT OKAY AND IT JUST MAKES IT BETTERRRR
What makes CyberWoD in particular so interesting to me is that mortals have the potential to become all-powerful too. I always like including mortals in my games, I like to think of them as limitless potential. You could discover you have Fera blood one day and suddenly have your first change, you could become a vampire, you could wake up as a mage... If you can't decide what to play, remember you can always be a mortal! And, in CyberWoD, you could actually just play as a normal guy the whole time while being totally combat capable too, even against the beefiest aggressors.
And with advancements in cybernetics, the masquerade has grown INCREDIBLY thin. The supernatural are hardly so super anymore. Edgerunners especially like to have a more personalized, recognizable stage persona, so what's stopping one from getting a custom Exotic Bodysculpt to literally become their fursona? And, what's preventing that same guy from going toe to toe with a werewolf? What prevents the sparkle dog cyberwolf from winning if he's got the power of COLD HARD STEEL on his side? What's preventing some emo kid from getting fang implants and a new stomach to process blood and just... become a vampire without ever being embraced? That's literally every emo kid's dream ever. Any naysayers DAMN well know that's a lie.
Fera have grown depressed in the modern day. Many feel like their battle for Gaia has been lost. To many, it seems like if you don't embrace modernity and all its sins, you just won't make it. Recent movements amongst Fera focusing on rational self interest and finding fulfillment in oneself rather than Gaia has become a contentious issue with the more traditionalist beastfolk. Some Fera just acclimate better than others too, Ratkin, Bastet, Ananasi, and Kitsune in particular, along with the far less wild domesticated dog variant Garou do well in the endless urban sprawl.
Pentex collapsed in the corporate wars, their assets cannibalized by capitalism. The board members have all either died, or live hidden away in gilded cages sitting on what dragon hoard they have left, squirreled away from the rest of the world in fear. The psychics birthed by Kiro Yamazaki's now long accomplished project to create a perfect fomori (wow its a homebrew of mine ayooo, a playable based on Project Aeneid) are no different from any other asset Pentex owned. These children of profit and war are often still under the familiar thumb of new corporate overlords, acting as special operations units or as bodyguards that have become equally feared and sensationalized.
There's also nothing stopping kindred from getting cybernetic implants. They are walking corpses after all, they're free to augment as they see fit. While the more hardline traditional "capes" grumble and catastrophize about the young whippersnappers these days like they always have, the newer generations pack their bodies to the brim. Thinbloods in particular see cybernetics as a way to thrive, what used to be seen as something pathetic and sad is now a way around cyberpsychosis.
After the Sixth Great Maelstrom and the Week of Nightmares, the Underworld has collapsed, and in a very much living world dominated by angst, Specters aren't just an issue plaguing the dead. Many wraiths use their Arcanoi to carve out a niche in the Skinlands. An incredibly common refuge for wraiths incapable of skinriding is the internet, a hopefully permanent haven available to any spirit capable of using Inhabit. Though Orpheus Group has long since fallen, a street variant of Pigment called Sauce has become popular for those who want to see the dearly departed.
The modern era is just new. Time still ticks on by, and those living in the moment never skirt the need to survive.
