Charles Plemons’ Blog

About a year ago, I heard that veteran game designer, Monte Cook, would be writing his own version of White Wolf Games Studio’s World of Darkness setting. Mr. Cook is renowned for being one of the authors of the 3rd Edition of Dungeons & Dragons and owner of the very successful Malhavoc Press. As a fan of Monte’s work and of the World of Darkness, I was intrigued. I later discovered the project would be set in the World of Darkness setting but use the d20 rules. Because my players seem to favor d20, this really piqued my interest.

I purchased the PDF version of Monte Cook’s World of Darkness (or McWoD for short) from DriveThruRPG yesterday. Wow, just wow. It is a fantastic blend of d20, d20 Modern and Storytelling System that is easy to pick up and understand. Character creation is a snap; anyone who has played any of the d20 games can being playing this in a very, very short amount of time.

What is truly spectacular about the product is the creative twist on the old World of Darkness. Rather than running with the thousands of years of history the supernatural creatures in normal WoD possess, Monte made the appearance of supernatural creatures in the world a brand new occurance in McWoD. Basically, some Cthulu-esqe entities (known as the Iconnu) attempted to enter our reality in full, but failed. Instead, the attempt caused an explosion of supernatural energy that wiped out central USA and spread waves of nightmarish energy across the globe. The intrusion failed because of a number of humans, known as Awakened, whose subconscious powers were able to hold the barrier between worlds. Now, the Iconnu have sent their spiritual agents into the world to destroy the Awakened and bring the barrier crashing down. Their main agents consist of:

• Vampires - The Iconnu brought forth the most evil, twisted souls of dead humans that ever existed and forced them into the bodies of living (and often innocent) people. The result killed the body and suffused it with the supernatural strength and power of the vampire. Like most traditional vampires, they drink blood, avoid sunlight, etc. However, they have a huge twist; there are two souls locked in the body. Some vampires are completely controlled by their “evil” soul, some by their “normal” soul, and some have a blend of both or even completely split personalities!
• Werewolves - Where vampires are a fusion of a dead soul and a living soul, werewolves are the fusion of a primitive, primal spirit with a living soul. The result is a total meld of personalities into one body, with the bestial nature of the spirit mostly dominant. Werewolves are wild, dangerous creatures capable of tremendous destruction.
• Demons - Not the traditional “devil” that immediately comes to mind, demons are spirit creatures brought forth from some unknown dimension. They are not merged with a living soul; instead, they have the power to take the shape of any human they wish and change that shape on a whim. The result is a powerful spirit entity that can hide anywhere! That little girl on the swing, the cop coming to your rescue, or the taxi driver picking you up could be a disguised demon waiting to rip you to shreds!

Players can be members of these three races; not all are loyal to the Iconnu. For example, sometimes the “wrong” soul is dominant in a vampire, or a werewolf puts its destructive urges to use against evil. Even a demon can change sides. Perhaps the allure of having a physical body is better than where it came from, and it is not interested in the Iconnu destroying this world. If these three options weren’t enough, there are two other options available:

• Awakened - These are the humans who had the latent ability to hold reality together against the Iconnu. Thus, they are the target for most of the vampires, werewolves and demons out there. They have some supernatural talents and can really be the focus of many stories. If all the Awakened die, reality comes crashing down.
• Mages - When the Iconnu backlash occured, mystical energy washed over the world. Suddenly, magic actually began working! Now, shapers of magic walk the world trying to learn new ways to unleash their talents. They are really the wild cards, because they have no ties to the Iconnu, nor are they targetted by them. Thus, a mage could be working for either side in this hidden war.

Antagonists in the game are regular humans (thus, a similarity to d20 Modern), one of the five “supernaturals” described above, or even more exotic monsters. Due to the Nightmare Wave, many bizarre creatures can be found in the world. The most bizarre are in places near the central US where the devastation was the worst. Most any d20 monster imaginable could crop up there. Further away things like ghosts and other undead, bizarre plants, giant insects and other sterotypical horror creatures could easily fit into the campaign.

The way the story is written, it allows the Iconnu intrusion to play as much or as little into the campaign as you want. It can be the entire focus, with players trying to protect Awakened and destroy minions of the Iconnu, or it can be way in the background. This allows for a post-apocalypse style of gaming all the up to a modern horror, depending on where you base your game in relation to the central US. I think that flexibility alone makes McWoD have huge appeal. You could easily replicate the feel of the TV show Supernatural with these rules. If you want more extreme, you can sway more toward the Mad Max feel.

All-in-all, I think McWoD is a brilliant adaptation of WoD. I think it is a niche market; most of your WoD purists are going to avoid it. However, it is a really good way to expose the d20 gamer market to an exciting and rich setting. After reading through it, all I could really say about is summed up in my first thoughts, “good stuff.”

On Saturday, April 21st, we embarked on our second game of the Blood Cell Chronicles, playing the Operation: Plague Walker adventure. The game used the Storyteller System from the Vampire: The Masquerade 3rd Edition rulebook. The starting cast included “Boomstick” Anders, “Boon” Wilkins, “Jarhead” Smith and “Rocket Man” Winchester. Later appearances were made by “Dom” Santori, “Ghost” Lee and “Whisper” Vasquez.

The team hit the beach and engaged a trio of soldiers immediately. “Jarhead” used the SAW to spray the two in the treeline, and “Boomstick”, “Boon” and “Rocket Man” made sure they were out of commission. “Boon” took a round to the thigh, but his ghoul blood quickly healed the injury. The landing was almost without incident except for “Boomstick’s” embarassing moment where he ejected a full magazine from his pistol instead of pulling the trigger.

The group moved to one of the helicopter crash sites and found the chopper had not exploded but fuel was leaking all around. Somehow, the pilot’s intestines had animated with WD-41 and attacked the group. The thing was thrown toward the chopper, and “Boon” shot the fuel tanks causing a horrendous explosion. Unfortunately, the team was caught in the blast and badly injured. Nursing their wounds, they investigated the other crash site and found it already burned out.

Next, they moved on the military base and found it littered with corpses. A number of WD-41 zombies charged and attacked but were soon cut down in overlapping fields of fire. The team fired up a generator they discovered and moved into the underground lab. They quickly came upon the mess hall and four WD-41 zombies. The team was swarmed, leaving “Jarhead” and “Boon” cut off and mobbed. “Jarhead” cleared the way for the rest of the team at the cost of his and “Boon’s” lives; he pulled the pins on his two frag grenades and blew up everything in the room.

The remaining team called in reinforcements, “Ghost” Lee and “Whisper” Vasquez. Together, they found Heinreich’s lab. Unfortunately, it was protected by a WD-41 Die-Borg and two WD-41 zombies. “Whisper” was caught in the lab with two of the creatures, and “Ghost” had one clamped onto her back. “Rocket Man” fired his rocket launcher into the room, destroying the Die-Borg. Sadly, the backblast also injured his allies, including causing the death of “Boomstick”. The group dug in and waiting for “Dom” to arrive before proceeding past the lab.

Down another hallway, they found the suite of Dr. Heinreich. Unfortunately, Heinreich had become a monstrous creature with huge rending claws, a WD-43 Ripper! A single swipe of his claws decapitated “Whisper”, but it was quickly put down with a 3-round burst from “Rocket Man”.

After clearing the complex, the team gathered the datafiles and evacuated the island. Four of the Blood Cell team were killed in the operation, but all objectives were met. Central Command was quite displeased with the casualties, but the spread of WD-41 and its variants was stopped.

We debuted our Blood Cell Chronicle at Super Brawl this weekend. Four players took off on the first mission with a large set of objectives. After getting dropped in the drop zone, the team moved in on the manor they were to raid. “Hellbilly” Hoost went for the first guard and attempted to slit his throat. Although he injured the guard, the man got a shot off, separating Hoost from his ear. Angered, “Hellbilly” finished the job, but not before the enemies were alerted. “Boomstick” Anders setup his .50 calibur sniper rifle in the tree line and put the approaching guard down. The other two ran into manor and spread the alert.

The team moved in quickly, with “Boomstick” setting up to snipe from atop the West Loggia. The rest of the team fired suppressing fire into the manor, blowing out most of the windows on the first floor. The enemy soon returned fire and battle was engaged. “Boomstick” began picking off targets through windows, while “Hellfire” Hale drew enemy fire. “Hellbilly” and “Rocket Man” Winchester moved in on the East Dining Room with concussion grenades, shotguns and assault rifles. They made fairly short work of a few lackeys and a ghoul. “Hellfire” massacred another lackey in the West Dining Room with a concussion grenade and sent a second ghoul running after shooting him with his M16.

The team moved in while “Boomstick” performed a thermal scan of the second floor and started shooting huge holes in the blacked windows of the east wing. The team cleared the first floor and set IEDs on the two elevators. They then disarmed a claymore mine on the stairwell and moved to the second floor. A sniper began a shootout with “Boomstick” put quickly went down. Unfortunately, “Boomstick” succeeded in damaging his rifle and had to give up his position and enter the house with his trusty 45.

Upstairs, the team rescued Ilsa Lorenz and cleared all but the east wing. They then began moving slowly and discovered Marcus Petrovich waiting for them. “Hellfire” slung a concussion grenade that tagged the ghoul in the face, and his remains were blown out a window and onto the front yard. The team then swept through the rooms, found massive amount of packaged cocaine and captured a day-sleeping vamprie. The group destroyed the drugs, booby-trapped the house, and exfiltrated with the rescued hostage and a captured vampire.

Perfect success.

I found an interesting post on the White Wolf web site. Famed role-playing game designer, Monte Cook, has signed on to do a re-write of the World of Darkness. I have to assume this will be like what he did with Dungeons & Dragons and his alternate Arcana Unearthed; same game, but radically different in style. It is slated for a GenCon Indy 2007 release. More details can be found here.

Personally, I’m a big fan of Monte’s work, so I am very excited to see how he makes over the WoD.

It was game 2 of our Underworld variation of Vampire: The Masquerade, played at our first Thanksgaming Day event.

The Death Dealers set out to execute two enemy mafia leaders, Mariano and Paul Massoli. They raided the house and engaged in fierce battle throughout the first floor. Unfortunately, two Lycans were aiding the Massolis, and Johnny Dean was decapitated.

After clearing the first floor, Hagitha, Ryu and Darren moved up to the second floor, which was filled with mafia muscle. Hagitha and Darren were soon neutralized, but Ryu was able to outgun the opposition. Darren had succeeded in executing Mariano Massoli before he was incapacitated, leaving only Paul Massoli as a remaining target. Ryu stalked down to his holdout and put two .45ACP rounds through his body.

Unfortunately, Ryu showed a bit of mercy and left call girl, Sally Willis, alive as a witness. They group’s plan of framing the Jamaicans failed, because she told everyone an Asian was the trigger man. Confusion about who executed the hit still exists, but there have been no retaliations against the Jamaicans as the Death Dealers’ bosses wanted.

RPG giant, White Wolf Publishing, has announced its merger with video game developer CCP in Reykjavik, Iceland. Find more details here. White Wolf will continue as a subsiduary company and produce the Storyteller RPG products as before.

I did some reassigning of points on the characters in our Underworld Vampire: The Masquerade campaign. I reduced the level of Fortitude for each character but reassigned the points into other disciplines, abilities and attributes.