[Introduction] Welcome to the Living World of Darkness! Please Start Here

[Khodexus]

Introduction: This is where you'll find all the information you need to get started in the Living World of Darkness, whether you wish to contribute as a Storyteller, help build the setting and mechanics, or if you simply want to play in a diverse and open game setting with potentially dozens of stories.

What is the Living World of Darkness? In a nutshell, it's a setting, and a set of rules, designed with the idea of intersecting chronicles run by multiple storytellers. Your vampire could run into NPCs universal to all chronicles within the setting, or even cross paths with player characters from a completely separate story. In order to facilitate this, we've started by developing a setting to stand as the backdrop and foundation of all our games here. The Lake Destinos Metropolitan Area. At it's core, the Living World of Darkness is meant for collaborative storytelling. The setting is left open precisely so that players and storytellers alike can contribute in developing the world as a group. We've also created a set of house rules meant to unify the systems, simplify certain aspects that get in the way, and overall bring each of the races together to facilitate mixed play more easily than may occur in traditional World of Darkness.

Getting Started If you're joining as a player, the first thing you'll need is a character concept. However it's important to consider not just your character, but how he or she might fit into the world we've created. I've mentioned collaborative storytelling, and this extends to players as much as storytellers. One key thing here is that players are encouraged to develop not just their own characters, but also any NPCs that are important to the character and their background. This includes merit based characters such as allies, contacts, and retainers, but can also include enemies, mentors, or even individuals involved in the local power structure that defines the character's position in the Lake Destinos cities. The one thing to keep in mind when creating characters is that others will also be fleshing out NPCs alongside their characters, so this may unfortunately cause some ideas to conflict. I'll do my best to help sort those out. This collaboration also extends to the setting, which means you can define not just your character's haven or sanctum, but also other important locations. Well thought out contributions will earn a player small bonuses for their character. A well written merit based character could be awarded an extra merit dot to the character, making a retainer more useful or an ally stronger and more experienced. Fleshing out NPCs that do not directly benefit your character may start you off with additional experience as well. This also applies to contributions to the setting, whether merit based or otherwise. Another important thing to know getting started is the level of mechanical changes we have made to the core World of Darkness game in order to facilitate this setting. Almost every race - be it Vampire, Hunter, or Changeling - has been looked at and revised to at least some small degree. This includes simple changes, such as giving Vampire's some inherent ability to heal without spending Vitae provided their pool is high enough, to more in-depth systems, such as completely reworking how Werewolf/Feral tribes function. Many of these changes directly affect character creation, so once you've determined a basic concept or at least which race you want to play, look at the new mechanics before getting too far along on your character. Also of note is that there are areas where our rules changes are incomplete. The scope of these changes are significant, and it would simply be impractical for us as storytellers to fill in all the planned mechanics on our own, at least in a timely manner. Plus, it offers additional opportunities for the aforementioned collaboration. We've done our best to at least summarize and describe in some detail everything that we've changed or added, but if you wish to use a mechanic that is missing or incomplete (such as a power that we haven't filled in yet), feel free to offer your own interpretation of the rule, expand on the description or flavor text, or even simply make a request for us to prioritize that particular area over others that may not be actively used right away. With that said, Vampires, Mages, and Changelings are the most complete and are ready for active play with minimal contributions. So if you just want to jump in and get your feet wet, you might want to try one of those. Hunters are also fully playable, but only if you don't want to use the optional additional systems we're developing for "Marked" Hunters. If you wish to play a regular mortal Hunter, then you can jump in with one of those as well, but if you're interested in our expanded system for them, take a look at what we've written up and earn yourself a little bonus by helping us flesh said system out. For those who wish to play Werewolves or other Feral Shifters, know that they require the most work of any of the available races. So while we're willing to accept applications for them, you'll need to be willing to contribute mechanically in order to get a working character into the game. However, like with contributions to the setting, any contributions to our modified and expanded content will earn you bonus experience or similar rewards. Anyways, if you're ready to get started, you'll want to jump over to our applications thread and start acquainting yourself with our character creation process. See you there!

The Setting The setting for the Living World of Darkness is the Lake Destinos Metropolitan Area. This is a fictional group of cities in the Mojave desert not far from Las Vegas. Destino City is the heart of the region, with a wealthy financial center build right on the shores of the lake for which it was named. Las Noches is acity of opportunity and corruption, where legalized gambling has created another bastion of high end casinos to mirror Las Vegas just down the highway. Clear Springs grew out of the original settlement that discovered the spring water that eventually became the lake, and Truman City was founded after World War II, and was funded by the government to provide new work opportunities and a safe haven for people who were sorely effected by the war. This includes a japanese-centric district known as Little Tokyo. Finally, the Sous is more of a low sprawling collection of suburban commercial centers among the agriculture that follows the river from the lake than it is a fully fledged city, but there is still alot of room for stories in this area. Each of the races has their own power bases, and their own interests, in each of the five cities. For more information, see the appropriate threads.

Why a Customized Ruleset? When we first started this project, I myself came on board with alot of ideas already in the works for how to improve and better balance the new World of Darkness game. We knew that such a diverse setting would require alot of interaction between the various game lines within World of Darkness, and we wanted to make sure these interactions would come together smoothly and in a fashion we could all get behind. Obviously, everyone has their own tastes, but we agreed early on that there were a few aspects of the World of Darkness' existing material that we weren't satisfied with. So I brought to the table a set of rules modifications and world alterations that I've been working on almost since the World of Darkness rulebook was released. We discussed the merits of various ideas, and came to a few conclusions. First: We weren't satisfied with the place Werewolf was at. Of all the 'races' they fit into our setting the least, and didn't seem to 'play well' with the other races (surprisingly, even more so than Hunters). So we did some simple redefining of how they work, culturally, socially, and mechanically, as well as brought the other Feral shifters more directly into the game's focus. Hopefully the result will help facilitate many interesting games that include werewolves, and their ilk. Secondly: We wanted to make the various factions REALLY fit our setting, so we determined to customize the factions for all the existing races, to some degree or another. So while a few are based on existing factions (such as the Invictus and the Lancea Sanctum) only the Changelings saw no significant changes to their existing factions, though we did add a couple new courts for additional flavor. We've also tried to tie the factions together more closely, As mentioned above, we're changing werewolves the most, so we've completely reorganized how their Tribes work. Tribal Gifts are now limited to 1 gift tree per tribe, and they've become inter-species social organizations now, rather than being specific to each Shifter race. This also means that Breeds are back, and more important, we've converted some of the things that used to correspond to Tribes to correspond to Auspice or Breed instead (such as the children of Father Wolf in the 'creation story'). Thirdly: We've made some subtle, and not-so subtle rules changes to the various World of Darkness lines. Things such as somewhat enhanced regeneration for Werewolves, to Vampires being able to gain some inherent benefits without vitae expenditures provided their pool of vitae is nearly full. These rules are not yet complete, which leaves room for people to help develop them further, if they are so inclined. This can either be as a group project, or can just be an 'as needed' basis, where people who want to make characters can help shape the rules most likely to apply to their characters. Finally: We've got some brand new content we're hoping to make available for this setting. This includes additions to the Hunter rule set, in the form of an optional supernatural template of sorts for Hunters, allowing players to create Hunter characters with an edge against the things they hunt, as well as two new races/game lines for the game. The first new game line, is called "Demon the Possessed", and is based very loosely on "Demon the Fallen" from Old World of Darkness, mixed in with information on Demons from various nWoD sources such as Mage the Awakening, and Hunter the Vigil. The second new game line is called "Aeon the Forgotten". They are a race of endlessly reincarnated immortals on the path to enlightenment. They associate themselves with the primal and philosophical elements of our oldest cultures, as well as the various godhoods in those cultures' mythology. Inspiration for the race came from a number of sources, including "Highlander", and "The Journey West". These new races are in development, and while we appreciate any contributions made to them, they are unfortunately not open for character applications at this time.

Welcome! That's all for the moment. If you have further questions about how you can contribute, or are still confused about anything regarding the Living World of Darkness, feel free to ask here in this thread. Cheers!

[Gilroy Sammael]

Im not too knowledgeable about Requiem being a Masquerade player myself but I've played through two or three Changeling: The Lost chronicles and have enjoyed the nWoD system in that medium. Hope this turns out well it sounds like an awesome idea

[Khodexus]

If you're interested in helping, there's a strong influence from Masquerade on some of what we're putting together for Vampires. If you're not sure you have the time to help us build the rules, you could certainly just act as a sounding board, either helping us refine our ideas by telling us what you think as we go, or by giving us some ideas of what you'd like us to work on next (which helps with motivation, certainly).

Haven't done alot on this recently, in part, I'm sure, due to the holidays, but also because I just haven't had alot of people showing interest in the past month or so, which doesn't help my motivation.

[Manimal6]

This sounds awesome. I am currently involved in a classic WoD Living World. This is tough to get off the ground, but I am willing to help with Werewolf stuff.

[Khodexus]

Well, we definitely need help with the Werewolves. They're not my favorite WoD race, but I think they have definite potential. That's part of why I'm doing quite as much of an overhaul of them as I am. Hopefully my ideas for them will retain the things that make them awesome, while also making them work better in the setting we are creating.

Feel free to PM me if you'd like to start up a dialogue regarding this game moving forwards, and help me get it back on track (even just having someone to sound ideas off of could be enough).

[Khodexus]

Well, I've modified the first post here in preparation for trying to get this game started soon, assuming I can get the updated versions of the pdfs posted soon. Here's looking forwards to the stories we may tell here!

[Khodexus]

I've got the Lake Destinos setting pdf updated, and that's the last vital piece we need to get started. I'll update the other documents where needed, but I'm very eager to finally get this up and running.