Rookie GM in Calgary looking to pick your brain

[MurderCityDisciple]

I've been running a Nightbane campaign for going on 8 months...so I'd be game to help.

[MurderCityDisciple]

I've been running a Nightbane campaign for going on 8 months...so I'd be game to help.

Thanks MurderCityDisciple, if you could give me some time I will post some info as soon as I can. I'd also like to hear what sort of campaign you are running.

I've been running a Seeker based campaign where the characters work for and out of a massive rare book store in Detroit called John King Books. John King himself is a high level sorcerer and the player characters are working for him for the most part.

Thusfar the group has been tussling with the old guard faction of the local vampires, it was originally supposed to be just one or two warmup sessions, but it ended up taking months of real time to resolve. My cyber-mage ended up with a kinky vampire girlfriend out of the deal.

Now the campaign is about to become Nightlands exploration and treasure/information hunting.

[Blindscout]

Thanks and I hope this isn't too long to post.

While the post is long-ish (it's positively miniscule compared to some of the walls-o-text floating around the forums), the way you laid it out makes it quite easy to read.

It looks like you have the start of a great campaign. Let us know how it progresses!

[MurderCityDisciple]

I've been running a Nightbane campaign for going on 8 months...so I'd be game to help.

Thanks MurderCityDisciple, if you could give me some time I will post some info as soon as I can. I'd also like to hear what sort of campaign you are running.

I've been running a Seeker based campaign where the characters work for and out of a massive rare book store in Detroit called John King Books. John King himself is a high level sorcerer and the player characters are working for him for the most part.

Thusfar the group has been tussling with the old guard faction of the local vampires, it was originally supposed to be just one or two warmup sessions, but it ended up taking months of real time to resolve. My cyber-mage ended up with a kinky vampire girlfriend out of the deal.

Now the campaign is about to become Nightlands exploration and treasure/information hunting.

Sounds cool MurderCityDisciple. Have you strayed much outside of the themes you stated? I suppose part of my problem was I had too many plot threads, factions, and npcs. Any tips on how to achieve that?

Yeah you definitely do have a lot of plot threads and factions. But don't fret, never forget, you are in control. Pick one theme and go for it. Add more as you go along. Think episodically, like a TV show....it helps to focus.

Too many baddies can be dealt with. Just put some plot threads and baddies on the back burner and deal with them one at a time.

For my game, I build slowly. I started with an occult auction and then added vampires. The scuffle with the vamps took a while, but it just got resolved recently. (with a love triangle and jealous ex-boyfriend vampire drama)

One of the things I always do is build the backbone of my games around a kind of supernatural soap opera. It works great, players love their characters and get really immersed into them.

Treat the characters in your game like real people.

Ask yourself, what are their dreams? Are they looking for love? Money? A place to call home? Family? A sense of purpose? etc.

Just beating up monsters week after week gets stale. Throw in some drama. Make your game more than just a power fantasy. Even Nightbane, vampires and cybermages have day jobs and a social life. Build on that. That way you have precious people and things to threaten and plot angles to exploit.

I just popped in from working on tomorrows game out in my mancave. Goodluck

[GlitterKnight]

Have you though of how rough you want the NSB/CSS to play with the PCs? I just got the NSG, and it made me think about how much spy fieldcraft a competent Nightbane cell has to use to operate without it being pathetically easy for the NSB to catch them once they are aware of the cell's existence. I think it could be fun to play magical monster spies, but you could also make it really hard for them if you play the CSS smart and mean, like good stormtroopers, plus magical backup.

Nasty.

Getting the Nightbane involved in the criminal underworld is always fun in my opinion, and the Warlords are the ultimate excuse for it. How you set up your local Warlords is an interesting question. Remember, the Warlords will take any gang that will submit to them, and most of the established gangs and syndicates got wiped out or co-opted by the Nightlords during their takeover and purges of anyone with the power to oppose them. The Nightbane on the streets banded together with their human gang mates and formed the Warlords, and have been expanding ever since. The default Warlords chapter appears to be a street gang of your average gangbangers, with some biker gangs thrown in for fun. But the Warlords would have taken any 'bane or human who swore allegiance in their expansions, and could have sworn in whole gangs as they joined as new chapters. Biker MCs do something similar, a patch over, when a smaller gang joins a larger one, and replaces their previous colors with their new clubs colors.

So what descent your Warlords are could color what kind of gang they are and what pressures there are within. Say the Warlords in town are really three different chapters; a Calgary native street gang, a outlaw MC that has it's headquarters in town, and a crew run by an ex-Mafia capo who survived the Nightlords purge when he Became and fought his way free. The street gang has the largest numbers, both human and 'bane, but is the loosest organized, more of a fusion of various independent minded crews. The biker gang is the smallest, but they survived from before Dark Day because several of their members turned out to be Nightbane. They're a tight and loyal crew, and they have plenty of contacts throughout the country and across the border. They can run guns, drugs, people. The other Warlords crews rely on them a lot, which gives them more power than their numbers would indicate. The crew run by the ex-Mafia capo is run like it's boss' old organization, rather than a street gang. It is much more hierarchical and organized than either of the other crews. It's also more sophisticated in it's rackets, and is quite profitable. However, their boss is ambitious and is eager to take control of all the Warlords crews in the city, and his ambitions divides the Warlords, and allows the PCs as outsiders to leverage greater support from the Warlords depending on which side they help.

The Russians could become a whole other problem in the city's mystic underworld. The Tongs have their own magical back up, and the Warlords have their 'bane members, but the Russians don't stand out as having magical firepower to match it. This could make them even more vicious than most Russian mobs are, with an emphasis on military style weapons and equipment (possibly making them reach out to the Spook Squad. Many Russian gangsters have military experience...). Or they could find themselves pressed by the "freaks", when a stranger comes to them offering support...and delivers the heads of dead Nightbane as their proof. Little do the Russians realize that their new hitman is secretly a Night Prince or Hound Master, and his silent enforcers are really disguised Hounds.

As for the overarching plot, and the Avatar and this ritual, what do you want to do? Most of the books are written in a sort of "maybe possibly kinda" viewpoint when it comes to details about the Nightlords. They're meant to be an enigma, so whatever you want to make them be, they are. Now, as for the Avatar trying to use this ritual to achieve apotheosis into a Night Lord on its own, or something else, that has potential. If you want Avatars to be independent enough to plot against their Night Lord, I say run with it. Even if it's foolish for the Avatar to try, the Nightlords are evil and treacherous bastards; an independent piece of them betraying themselves would be par for the course. As for the ritual... so many possibilities.

How the Dark is involved in making Nightlords isn't clear, but it could just be that it taught Moloch the original rite, and he passed it on to the others. The Dark might not be the originator of it at all. The Dark's assistance might not be required at all. Remember, according to canon, Moloch is the real zealot for the Dark and it's requirement that humanity be wiped out. Lilith and other Nightlords aren't as eager for that mission. We know little to nothing about the Dark, so we don't know if it can punish the Nightlords for disobeying it. This Avatar can think that he's found an out; independence for himself, never being reabsorbed, and the power of a true lord of his kind. This will require vast power, however. The kind of power only mass sacrifices on a nexus during a planetary conjunction can provide. Plus, much work must be done to prepare for the rite. Wizards and scholars go missing, their expertise and power needed for the ritual. People start going missing, lots of people. Martial law is declared, people disappear at frightening rates. They're all being held in some isolated camps, being prepared for sacrifice for the rite, both on Earth and in the Nightlands. This blatant but necessary step could be what incites the whole city to open revolt.

Besides people for sacrifices and mages for assistance, the rite might also need various magical artifacts and objects, making it a race for them, possibly all over the world.

[GlitterKnight]

Awesome! Glad to know my thoughts helped.

But I think there can be no peace between the Nightlords and the Warlords. Remember, Warlords are a Nightbane gang, and the Nightlords want to exterminate all of the 'bane, especially any with a power base like the Warlords have. The Nightlords would work at infiltrating human double agents into the Warlords, and turning members into informants. The 'bane in the Warlords, from what I can tell, are pretty elitist towards their human members, so I can see some unappreciated and much-abused human member turning on them.

On top of that idea, you're totally right about the Nightlords exploiting crime rates, especially those caused by the Warlords, to use as justification for crackdowns, block sweeps, checkpoints and bloody raids. Their media puppets will decry the criminal violence and use it as an excuse to arrest and abduct people for their nefarious purposes. The NSB and the corrupted police are really there now to oppress and assist the Nightlords plans. Crimes that don't affect the Nightlords and their pawns are basically going to be ignored, unless there's something it for crooked cops to investigate. So crime is basically allowed to run rampant as it destroys and divides communities and contributes to the weakness of human society. The only problem is that's a power vacuum for partisan forces like the Warlords to fill. Basically, the Nightlords destroyed or took over every institution they could during Dark Day and it's aftermath. Governments, churches, corporations, NGOs, criminal syndicates. None of them saw this coming or had any defense against it. So the old syndicates fell or were co-opted, and crime basically flourishes as no one has any interest in stopping it. Crime makes the public beg for security, which gets the sheep to agree to being led to the slaughter by the wolves. A certain amount of gang war is good for Nightlord business.

They can also fuel the fight by just letting the Tongs and Russians go nuts on the Warlords, egging them on and ignoring their activities while they pursue the Warlords.

The other thing that got me thinking was you bringing in the Catholic Church. Like I said, all the major power institutions in the world should be firmly under Nightlord control...including the church. Unless they've got a secret order of wizard-priests (which would be pretty cool, like, the Order of Simon Magus) they wouldn't have had any defense against Nightlord infiltration, barring, I dunno, divine intervention. The US President is an Avatar...so I would think the Pope is one too. Now, on a local level, the church probably has resistance groups who have some idea what's going on, but the bishops and cardinals? Probably Doppelgangers, or replaced with Cult of Night traitors.