|
|
|
Chronicle's Outline
|
|
|
|
Chronicle's Outline
Sacrifice of Milwaukee
The world is ending. No one knows it, but many have a version of the truth. There are
many religious themes in the game and the structure of the world follows the Bible (with
fictional alterations) almost to the letter. The world is only six thousand years old, and
there people such as Adam, Lilith, Moses, and Jesus, as well as the Angels and Demons.
This Apocolyptic game begins in the late 20th century in Chicago as the Sabbat
begin to raid the city once again. They raid the suburbs first, to gain some Vampiric
cannon fodder. The characters of the game were those helpless victims in the Chicago
Outlands.
After the characters were buried, but before they were able to crawl out and aid their
creators, the Sabbat were attacked by Camarilla
forces. When they finally emerged, hungry and in a Frenzy, they killed the
inhabitants of their neighborhood. Finally they calmed down and one remaining Vampire,
Anita Wainwright, a member of the Brujah clan, found them and took them to her Haven
in downtown Chicago.
For the next several weeks she taught them the nature of the city and Kindred life. Prince
Lodin ruled the city in name only, as a powerful council, called the Primogen, made most
of the rules. Not everyone in the city even agreed to follow that rule. The Elders of the
Camarilla, consisting of the Prince and the Primogen, were in a battle against the Anarchs,
free-willed Vampires that would not submit to the rulership of the Elders. This instablility
within Chicago has allowed the Sabbat, the largest group of Vampires outside of the
Camarilla, to gain footholds in the city.
Anita Wainwright, a member of one of the many fractured Anarch groups lurking inside of
Chicago, gave a biased opinion of the evils of the Elders and the freedom and
righteousness of the Anarchs. After the few months of learning to be Vampires the
characters were summoned to the Sears Tower by the orders of the Prince Lodin. Even
the Anarchs feel compelled to go the Prince when called. No one Anarch gang (nor any
several gangs combined) has the strength to ignore the powerful Elders.
Prince Lodin sent the characters on a voyage to Milwaukee, a city of over a million
Mortals to the north, to help a fellow Elder in that city. The Prince knows that the
characters have Anarch tendencies and will do their best to not help the Milwaukee Elder,
but to, in fact hurt the her. Lodin planned on this. Anita Wainwright held in her possesion
a list of all of her Anarch contacts from around North America. If Lodin could get the
characters to harm the Milwaukee Elder and bring down the Camarilla of Miwaukee (and,
incidently, cause the Anarchs to rise in power), then they would gain respect from
Wainwright, and maybe get to see that list.
While in Milwaukee the characters do, in fact, bring down the Elder, and the situation in
that northern city soon degraded into all out war. The Camarilla Prince of that city was
killed (he was, also, insane) and the Anarchs rose up in a fury. Unfortunately for Lodin,
back in Chicago, the Sabbat were alreay trying to destablize Milwaukee so that they could
invade. With the Elders dead or in disarray, the Sabbat invaded and killed off almost
every member of the Camarilla in a leadership position. Werewolves, trying to get into the city to retrived a lost artifact, managed to work their way through
the defenseless city and steal a powerful object that later plays an important role in the
Chronicle.
The characters return to Chicago to report to the Prince. Lodin is enraged. His attempt
to put the characters in a position of influence with Anita Wainwright by destroying
Milwaukee's Elders ended in the loss of another city to the hated Sabbat. The characters
did, in fact, gain Anita's trust, and with it, the list of North American Anarchs, but that
information didn't help Lodin now that the Anarchs were no longer his main concern. The
Anarchs, after hearing that the Sabbat slaughtered their fellows in Milwaukee, started to
call truces and cease fires with the Elders and joined up with them to try and end the
Sabbat threat. A visiting Justicar (one of thirteen powerful Camarilla that act as
enforcers/leaders) to Chicago takes great interest in the list of Anarchs. He also takes
great interest in the characters.
Conspiracy Theory
The visiting Justicar came to Chicago to help the city in its defense against an expected
Sabbat attack. The Anarch List was a very sweet bonus. Also a bonus for this Justicar
was the report that rural compond in Illinois, owned by religious nuts, was recently visited
by a member of the Sabbat. The report was not entirely correct (though he didn't know it)
but he sent the characters there to investigate by the request of Prince Lodin. No one in
the Camarilla really cared about the compound, but Lodin wanted the characters out of
town while the Justicar was there for fear that his role in the fall of Milwaukee (which the
Camarilla is really pissed at) will be uncovered.
The compound was under siege by the local police, the ATF, and a horde of news crews.
The cultist preached that Christ was about to return,, that the final battle is upon them, the
government is controlling their lives, . The only thing the Mortals care about is the large
buildup of illegal arms. An investigation, which shows that the cult leader is, in reality,
being possesed by a soul looking for a place to escape Hell and doing well while in the
body of a Mortal, also reveals that a member of this cult believes that he was really visited
by a fallen angel, Michael. As the cultist is suffering from mental illness so the truth of this
fallen angel visit was not really believe.
The psychotic cultist, before being gunned down by the police in a violent raid, told the
characters about a journel he had been keeping. This journel, he says, proves that the
world is coming to an end, that Christ is returning. Sadly, the Waco style fire that
destroyed the compound destroyed most of the journel (which consisted of several books
in the cultist's personal library). Only a scrapbook, containing pictures, maps, and a few
choice clues survived. On the last page it is written that an angel, Michael, wondered into
the compound days ago and spoke with the cultist. He fell from Heaven and was injured.
Some Sabbat from Sault Ste. Marie found his body and nursed him back to health (this is
the 'Sabbat' that the Justicar's report mentioned) before letting him go on some sort of
mission (the journel doesn't say what).
After an impressive escape from the compound during an early morning ATF raid, the
character return the next night to Chicago and report their findings to the Justicar and
Prince Lodin. After seeing the Scrapbook the Prince and the Justicar decide to
investigate. Well, they decide to order the characters to investigate, and if possible, find
the one named Michael. Camarilla forces are gathering to attack Milwaukee, so only new
Vampires, like the characters, could be spared. Armed with a little information about the
defenses the Sabbat have, the characters get in a boat and head north to Sault Ste. Marie.
Fallen from Grace
While walking through the Sabbat city of Sault Ste. Marie the characters found a statue of
a woman, twice the size of a normal person. At her feet were several sculpted bodies of
men lying at her feet, seeming to represent the dead. Oddly, three places at the base of the
statue there were hollows. It seemed as if a carving of one of the dead men had been
removed. Investigations into the Anarch population reveal that the statue was carved
from rock carried over to North America from the Middle East centuries ago and made
into Lady Grace, the city's 'protector.' It seemed to the Anarchs that vandals have defaced
Lady Grace. In reality, the missing men are actually Fallen Angels who have 'fallen from
Grace' and are now roaming the earth. The characters get a hint of this when the
investigate a Sabbat cathedral and interrogate one of their higher-ups.
The Sabbat in this city helped the angel Michael and knew that after his Fall he needed
help. He was badly injured and could hardly walk. They cared for him, and when he was
ready he went on his way, south, to find someone named Isis Harama in Gary, south of
Chicago. While in Sault Ste. Marie the characters recieve word that the Camarilla have
begun their assult on Milwaukee, a city that the characters lost for them in the first place.
Things begin to heat up about that time. The Sabbat, getting ready for battle, begin to
closely watch the characters' movements. With the knowledge of where Michael might be
next, the characters flee the town and head back to Chicago. They see the statue of Lady
Grace, again, but this time there are four cavities around the base of the statue.
The group decided to spend the rest of the night searching for whatever popped out of
that hole. They figured that if Michael was hurt by his Fall, then whoever this was would
be hurt as well. Well, morning came and they couldn't find anything (except a large fight
with the Sabbat) so they got on their boat, slept in the hold, and motored their way to a
Gary port. Whatever popped out of that hole remaind a mystery. If you really want to
know what happened, go to theHidden
Truth part of my Chronicle. It took the characters a while to figure it out.
While the Camarilla were out of Chicago attacking the Sabbat of Milwaukee, Prince
Modius of Gary, envious of Lodin's power in Chicago, began to push the Anarchs of
Chicago into rebellion. Anita Wainwright participated in an attack on the Sears Tower
and penetrated Lodin's Haven. There she found a list of all Anarchs in North America, the
same list she gave the players. Anita later sent word to all Anarchs in Chicago and Gary
that the characters have betrayed their cause and were sell outs to the Elders. When they
finally docked in a port in Gary, the characters found a cold reception from the local
Anarchs. It didn't take them long to figure out why, and they fled to the Gary Prince's
home.
Prince Modius welcomed them, and became a fast ally. Lodin later found out that the
characters have allied with his immortal enemy and pronounced a Blood Hunt against
them. Chicago Camarilla and Anarchs, Milwaukee Camarilla, and Gary Anarchs now
pretty much despise the characters, but oddly most Sabbat cities still welcome them, as
well as Gary's Camarilla. With attacks from the Anarch gangs occuring every week or so,
the characters set up shop in Gary and began to search for Isis Harama. They have made
powerful enemies, but by telling Prince Modius about Lodin's activities in aiding the
Anarchs in Milwaukee (thereby upsetting the balance of power and allowing the Sabbat to
take control) the characters have gained a powerful ally in the form of the Prince of Gary.
Political Lightning
Isis Harama turned out to be a Tradition Mage living in Gary. She was a member of a local cabal that, oddly, had
connections to the cultist out side of Chicago that wrote the Scrapbook. The characters
find her and befriend her and her group of wizards. Isis admitted to being visited by the
angel Michael and that they had a long conversation. The angel presented her with the
knowledge that the world was soon to end, that him, and two other angels before him,
have fallen from Heaven to search for Jesus Christ, who seemed to be missing.
This information, shocking to the characters, was already known to the Mages, in a
fashion. They used their magick to determine that the world was soon to end and years
before had searched for a way to survive the end. Their research showed, and confirmed
by Michael, that there exists a way to slip into alternate realities, similar to earth, but not
to be destroyed by God. Michael even told them that the instructions to reach such an
alternate reality were written, long ago, on tablets in the Holy Land. Where they are now,
however, he did not know. In truth, he did know.
The characters, just thinking that this was another crazie that thought the world was
ending (they had met several so far in the Chronicle), didn't really believe her or her cabal
of magic-users. But, while Lodin didn't employ them any longer, Modius was curious
about the Scrapbook and the journey of a fallen angel. He was also interested in the fact
that there was an active cabal of magicians in his city. He didn't want them there. After
getting to know the cabal (and therefore, getting to know who their enemies were) the
characters sought out and destroyed in a very interesting battle on the Gary docks another
group of mages that were trying to find the same information as Isis. The characters
smuggled Isis and her cabal out of Gary and gave Modius the bodies of the defeated
mages to prove that they destroyed Gary's only wizards. Modius was very happy, and
became an even stronger ally.
Indianapolis was where Isis fled. She and her cabal joined up with a similar-thinking
group there and continued her studies. The characters performed a few minor jobs for
Modius, mostly against Lodin and the Elders of Chicago. Several Anarchs were
destroyed, thrown into battle by the Elders to fight the characters. Milwaukee was
retaken by the Camarilla, and Lodin was back in his city. Things grew bad for the
characters then. But Modius was very happy with the character's work and granted them
a seat on the newly formed Primogen of Gary. The characters, glad to be out of the
fighting for a change, gladly took up jobs as undead politicians for a while.
Those seats on the Primogen didn't last very long. Lodin, with the help of international
Camarilla members, decided to end the threat Modius posed to his reign in Chicago. With
Milwaukee firmly under Camarilla control, he decided to invade Gary and gain back, what
Lodin believes to be, just an extension of Chicago. Nightly assults wore Modius's
defenses down and finally Modius fled across the lake on a boat and was not heard from in
a long, long time. The characters, through clever use of their vampiric powers and by
calling in a few favors from mortals, were the only surviving members of the Gary
Primogen. They fled south, to Indianapolis, and rested in Isis's new home there. It was
there they decided to completely forget about trying to be Elders in any city. They
decided to try their luck at being Anarchs, and felt that they should make up to their old
friend, Anita Wainwright. They decided to destroy Prince Lodin and the Primogen of
Chicago. They also needed a lot of time before they would have the strength to pull it off.
The Raven, the Coyote, and the Mouse
The name of the large Mage cabal in Indianapolis called itself the Static. They were
thankful to the characters for saving Isis and her fellows and for bringing them safely out
of Gary. To repay them, Static agreed to allow the characters access to, and use of, all
research that they have made concerning the End. In fact, while the characters were
fighting Lodin, serving on the Primogen, and fighting Lodin again, Static had found where
the tablet Michael had discribed was located. A group of mages had been sent to recover
it, but no one has heard from them. The characters volunteerd to be on the next trip to get
the tablet. They left later that week, with Isis and some other Static mages leading the
way.
The tablet, oddly, was discovered a century ago in Iraq but was currently being sent on a
world tour. The last museum to have it, in Milwaukee, reported it stolen. During the fall
of Milwaukee to the Sabbat, a group of Werewolves entered the city and stole the tablet,
believing it to be an important religious artifcat. The mages were welcomed in Milwaukee
(as they could walk in the daylight and the vampires hardly knew they were not Mortal)
but the characters kept to the shadows, hiding from the Lodin-friendly Camarilla that now
ruled the city. Many vampires remember the characters' involvement with the death of an
Elder and the Anarchs remember their betrayal of Anita Wainwright. They were not
welcome. After some battles, the group found that some Lupines did, indeed, steal the
tablet, and set off to find them.
They searched and did find some werewolves, but the ones they found (and fought) were
followers of the Raven totem. The ones who stole the tablet belonged to the Mouse
totem. All three totems were at war, trying to get the tablet for themselves, but the
Mouse was the ones to get it. The Coyote were the strongest and, now that the Raven's
were weakened from their battle with Mages and Vampires, were able to attack the weak
Mouse and capture the tablet. The last surviving Raven told the characters that they
believed the Mouse held the tablet. The battle was taken to the Mouse, who were already
wounded from the Coyote. Evidence showed the way to the Coyote, and after a
three-sided battle in the suburbs between several Lupines, several vampires aided by
Mages, and an interruption by Camarilla goons that spotted the characters earlier in the
night, the characters ended up with the location of the tablet.
The tablet was not where the Coyote said it would be. In a wilderness cave, there were
the bodies of two Lupine guards and no tablet. Everyone was starting to get pissed off
that they were always one step behind a silly piece of stone, but Isis kept them moving.
Someone spotted clues that led everyone to believe that a single vampire had killed these
two poor creatures and stole the tablet. That was an interesting development. Who else
would want the tablet in the first place? It wasn't as if the world was going to end, was it?
For information on who really stole the tablet, go to the Hidden
Truth section.
With no good ideas, they decided to use a bad one. During the day, Isis and her mage
buddies stole the sleeping body of a Milwaukee Elder and brought him out to the center of
nowhere, in the woods. They restrained him, and when the sun set, he was trapped. The
characters questioned him. Terrified at being out in Bum Fuck with no way of getting
back, the Elder talked. He knew nothing of the tablet, or anything about the end of the
world nonsense. The only thing he did know was that the Anarchs were being stirred up
and causing the Camarilla problems. The Nosferatu, a vampire clan within the Camarilla,
were no longer active in Milwaukee's Primogen, and that Lodin reports Chicago's Anarchs
and Nosferatu were both up to something, but they don't seemed to be connected.
The characters see this as a good opportunity to use the Anarchs to bring down Lodin. If
they could make Chicago's Primogen turn against Lodin (because he couldn't stop the
unrest) then Lodin would be no longer be the powerful Prince. They could take their
revenge on him. The group killed the Elder and then returned to Indianapolis empty
handed. Static was not pleased, but they were worried about the fact that a vampire had
ended up with the tablet. They waited a few weeks, the characters healing (Isis got shot in
a battle coming back from Milwaukee) and Static studying the information they obtained.
Another trip, this time to Chicago, was planned. The characters were to help Anita
Wainwright bring down Lodin (and, maybe get her trust back) and the mages would help.
In exchange, the characters would use their contacts, including Anarchs, Camralla, even
Sabbat, to help hunt down the tablet. Static even produced a deadline. The world had
just longer than a year before the first signs of destruction show.
Blood and Vapor
A major thunderstorm swept through the upper midwest and continued throughout most
of this story. There wasn't an outdoor encounter that took place in a completely dry
space. The characters, still with Static members Isis and others, entered Gary to begin
their assult on Prince Lodin. They learned of and helped prevent an attack by the city's
Elders on a group of Anarchs. The Anarchs, still angry with the characters, were very
cold and hostile, even though their unlives were saved. But this was the first step the
characters took to getting their trust. Another pesky problem the Anarchs were having
was the intrusion of the Mortal police department ruining their nightly fun. The characters
Dominated and generally got the local policy system and policy so screwed up that a crime
wave was started in Gary. The Anarchs there then loved the characters. They could trash
a parking lot and burn trash in huge dumpster bonfires and it took hours for the police to
arrive (if they ever did).
Anita Wainwright, in Chicago, heard of the characters efforts and decided to see them, but
not to trust them just yet. The characters irritated Lodin, as his Camarilla influence in
Gary was weakening and the Masquerade was being threatened by the Anarch's horrific
actions. The Justicar, long since departed from Chicago, was threatening to return and
take control of things if the Prince couldn't handle the Anarch problem. This power
struggle in the upper levels of the Camarilla secretly makes Anita happy and more willing
to meet the characters. After a few more riot-like acts of violence and crime in Gary, the
Anarchs agree to take the characters to Chicago so that they can speak with Anita.
Prince Lodin, seeing his careful plans of uniting Milwaukee, Chicago, and Gary under
Camarilla control (and, thus, under his control) failing as the Anarchs of Gary were
uprising, began to look to others for help. He found a Nephandi
mage to aid him. This Nephandi, a powerful and evil young girl (who only looks like
a 15 year old. She is really centuries old), created a vaporous entitiy, capable of floating
through tiny cracks in walls and killing vampires very easily, while being unable to be
harmed by them. Lodin gave this girl information she wanted about the location of the
tablet. Lodin knows where it is, although he doesn't have it. The characters didn't know
he had that knowledge at the time. That vaporous being traveled at night, slowly,
through Chicago towards Gary to stop the Anarch uprising.
The characters met with Anita and really made up for their past mistake. She really liked
the characters' mission to destroy Lodin. With him gone, the Camarilla would have lost
much of their power in the city, and the Anarchs could finish off the Primogen. With the
Camarilla out of Chicago, the Anarchs would have a Free City. Anita felt that the Sabbat
would be happy to regain control of Milwaukee and leave the other cities to the Anarchs.
She agreed to help out in Lodin's fall.
Sometime after the meeting with Anita a courier came to Anita reporting that a strange
gaseous being was seen in South Chicago. She went to investigate, bringing the
characters along, and they found the Vapor Monster. It attacked Anita (it was out to kill
Anarchs) and the characters, but no one was killed. It really injured Isis (who seemed to
get hurt in every battle) and the characters fled with her away from the monster. That
encounter lead Anita to believe it was hunting Anarchs (it was) and lead Isis to believe it
was magical (it was). They figured Lodin was in league with Mages, a serious crime to
the Camarilla. They formulated a plan to bring Lodin down.
Anita incited the Chicago Anarchs to openly flaunt vampiric powers. They even created
bands and television shows to inform the public. Lodin tried to stop them, but the
Anarchs were too many. The Justicar, seeing that Lodin couldn't keep his city under
control, came to put down the break in the Masquerade. All this time, Isis and Static
members were trailing the Vapor creature and trying to find the Mage that created it.
When the Justicar arrived in Chicago, the characters set up a meeting with him, claiming
to know how to end the Anarch revolt. He met with them, and before the characters gave
him a solution, they told him about Lodin's affair with a Mage. They set the meeting up
with Isis's help, knowing that the Vapor Monster would be in sight. The Justicar became
very angry. Forgetting why he came to meet the characters in the first place, he stormed
out and went searching for Prince Lodin.
Lodin was franticly trying to stop the Anarchs, and when the Justicar entered his Haven in
the Sears Tower, he fled in terror. The Justicar, far more powerful than Lodin, easily
apprehended the fleeing Prince. In front of the character's eyes, he ripped Lodin's throat
out and spilled his blood all over the room. One character Frenzied and ran up to the
dying Prince and sucked the blood from his neck, becoming a bit more powerful. The
Justicar thanked the characters, and offered the blood-filled one if he'd like to be the new
Prince. Not wanting to turn down a Justicar, the character agreed. Somehow, there was a
new Anarch (it seemed) Prince of Chicago.
Inside the Pervert Mound
Anita Wainwright was pleased that the characters gained such a high position in the city as
Prince. When the Justicar left Chicago, the characters began to dismantle the Camarilla
Primogen and instead ended most of the stricter laws of the Masquerade. When the city
was in near anarchy, the left the throne to an Elder, who, when the Justicar came back to
see how horribly the city was being run, died at the angry Justicar's hands. But, while the
characters were in power, then summoned the heads of the Camarilla clans, including the
Nosferatu, to their Haven and tired to find out who knew what about the missing tablet.
While the Anarchs make no secret about their criminal acts, the Camarilla Elders of
Chicago put on a show of respectability to hide their monsterous desires. They sit and
talk and remain civil, but when they leave (or when they excuse themselves) they tear open
the necks of innocent women and men, children and the infirm. The only reason they are
in power is because they are powerful themselves, and they have the backing of distant
members of the Camarilla. These freaks and monsters assembled to present themselves to
the new Prince, and the Prince made an effort to find the information.
Most new nothing, but the Nosferatu did. This deformed creature, hundreds of years old,
refused to say much. For some reason, this Nosferatu, named Cae, hated the characters. But, refusing the Prince has always been a bad idea, and after being
beaten and tortured by the characters and the Elders (Isis and the Mages were not to be
seen, as their presence would damage the Prince as the now missing Nephandi did Lodin)
he finally told what he knew. A member of the Nosferatu clan, calling himself Elucid, was
recently created (in the past decade) but has somehow gained much power in a short
amount of time, enough to kill two full grown Werewolves on his own. Most Elders can
fight a single Lupine and hope to win, but two would be pushing it.
The characters pass this information to Isis and they begin their plan to ruin the Camarillia
in Chicago. Isis, with other members of Static, go throughout the sewers and homeless
shelters of Chicago (where most Nosferatu have their Havens) to find this Elucid. When
the characters finally give up the rocky throne to the weak Elder, just in time for the
Justicar's visit, members of Static come to the characters and tell that Isis and a few others
have been captured by Elucid. The ransom for their release is information about how to
read the tablet, information that the characters (and Static) have.
Underground, in a subway station, there is a hole in the ground. Surrounding it is a pile of
dirt, similar to an ant hill. Inside that mound lies Elucid, Static members say. The
characters suck some blood to power themselves, make them strong, and then go down
the hole. Inside there are dozens of new vampires. Children, taken from homes, shopping
centers, and day cares, have been turned into little vampires and given extraordinary
strength and speed. The characters, trying to find Isis, chop and slice their way to the
center of this series of tunnels under Chicago.
The final battle takes place when the characters find Isis, chained to a wall, having her
naked skin ritualisticly cut from her body by some little girl. This little girl was the
Nephandi that aided Lodin and created the Vapor creature that Anita is, at this very
moment, trying to destroy on the surface. Elucid, grossly deformed and hideous, tells the
characters that there is no need for Static's information, as he has found someone else to
read the tablet. WIth that, he uses his vampiric and (thanks to the Nephandi) magical
powers to fight the characters. There was a time limit to this battle. Every round of
combat, Isis got closer to death, as the Nephandi took the skin from her thighs, arms, and
then abdomen and put it in a bowl of water.
The characters destroyed Elucid and saved Isis, but the Nephandi used her magic to take the bowl of water (with sheets of Isis's
skin) and herself out of the caves. Isis went to the hospital, but it took months for her to
leave. She was transfered to Indianapolis and studied with Static the information gained
from the tablet. The characters, seeing so many players involved in the search for this
tablet, began to believe that the end was near. They were all shocked about what the
tablet had to say about escaping the world's end.