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Five Great HousesThe origin of the Malkavian known as Marcus is unclear. What is known is that he travelled extensively, collecting quite a coterie of friends and lovers, before arriving in London. Shortly after, around the turn of the 12th century, a strange plague swept the city, killing only the weakest of mortals but virtually all the Cainites; all except Marcus and his five companions. Returning after a brief quarantine, the Malkavian declared himself Prince and gave his coterie freedom to sire new Cainites. For a hundred years, London was ruled by Marcus and populated largely by his companions and the Houses they established; outsiders came and went, but only a handful of the city's vampires fail to trace themselves back to that coterie. In 1206, the plague returned. A blood-borne disease was loose in the city, carried by mortals, bringing sickness and debilitation to the Cainites. Nobody was prepared this time, no safe places to hide, no emergency herd carefully quarantined. But this time it didn't strike so hard: younger Cainites and outsiders were virtually untouched, while even the eldest chider of the original five were only out of circulation for a few months. By some twisted irony, the plague worst affected those who were unscathed the first time: the heads of the five Houses are in deathly torpor and Marcus is missing, presumed the same or worse. As 1206 draws to a close, the city is in disarray. The tension between the Houses may be the calm before the storm as the new leaders seek someone to blame, and some way to get an edge over their rivals. The Five Great Houses is a large play-by-forum game of Vampire: the Dark Ages (with some elements of Dark Ages: Vampire, for those who know the difference) that I'm planning. It'll be at RPoL, where the custom-built forums give GMs plenty of tools and control, and it'll be open both to those I know at Tigars and those who are looking for new games at RPoL. With any luck, I can get enough players to have few NPCs, so that the game has a real player-driven feel like a live-action game. Characters will be the vampires of London, beginning at the close of AD 1206, under the alternate history given above. Most characters should be from the five Houses. This means playing a character descended from (the childer or grandchilder of, most likely) one of Marcus's five companions. Once I've detailed those NPCs, players should take care to make characters that they might conceivably embrace, or find intermediate player characters so that they can be worse generation.
Players are free to choose these clans, ignoring their normal geographic character. The companions of Marcus left their native lands and came here, and when given free rein to embrace did so from local stock. In essence, we're actually playing bloodlines of these clans based as much on the character of the immediate progenitor as the clan itself, but you'll just have to wait for those descriptions of the progenitors. Individual Cainites of the following clans would probably be reasonable:
Other clans are not sources of support (or plot devices) in the same way as the main ones. You should only choose one of those clans if you are prepared to work a little harder to get yourself involved in the game. The other clans (Assamites, Followers of Set, Ravnos) are not appropriate, due to issues of mood and geography. Please do not ask for them. That's enough for the moment. Get in touch if you're interested or if you want more information. By Matthew at 2006-11-30 12:10 | World of Darkness | printer-friendly version
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