Due to strong enthusiasm from players, staff have decided to admit applications for shapeshifters during this very early testing phase. It should be noted that shapeshifter applications will move gradually, perhaps more slowly than the norm. (At this point, as we are not even officially in alpha testing, most applications take at least a week because of staff’s workload.)
We have three main shapeshifter groups, the werewolves, wererats, and wereleopards. Exotic shapeshifters are secondary in concern and (at any point in the game) require spectacular concepts. As an aside, we have a fourth group, too, that will come into play later – the merfolk. While they are not shapeshifters in the typical sense but are a different race altogether, the group will be handled much the same.
Group leaders can be PCs or NPCs, and each group effectively exists as a prop. (See +help prop.) OOCly, we treat it like a player organization, and the first players to establish a group should create a local history for the group to help other players and staff understand the situation and to increase plot hooks in general.
Exotic shapeshifter types are treated similarly, although the player should also contrive a culture for that shapeshifter type. Cultures and histories are subject to approval from staff.
Our most important concern, however, is how the were-types interact with vampires and what the different types’ relationships with the vampires are like. Pre-existing involvement with the vampires is not required, but an OOC intent to become involved with the vampires is preferred.
Since vampires call other animals besides leopards, wolves, and rats, we understand that there should be one or two animals of a vampire’s animal to call. Concepts that tie into existing vampires are currently more welcome than those exotic concepts that do not. We do recommend that players avoid joint-applications though, as the players may find they have little interest in RPing with one another yet are tied together via backgrounds. That’s un-fun, and therefore uncool.
As always, please talk to staff and other players for ideas on possible RP hooks for your characters.
PS: We have culture notes on jaguars and some on tigers, but we do not have a local history for those two groups.
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If you’ve read the initial posts here, you’d certainly have the impression we’d settled on a setting for the game. After talking a bit more about it though, we’ve decided to revisit that decision.
One of the things we talked about was, naturally, how to create conflict since it’s what drives RP. Now, setting the game in the past does a couple of things which make creating conflict a little easier.
- Since preters are relatively unknown, no one is watching for evidence of preter-on-preter violence
- Even if they were known, they still don’t have any rights and most people will be all too happy to have them killing one another
- The Vampire Council ban against turf wars doesn’t exist
Now, couple these with the fact that vampires tend to be very good at manipulation and are very territorial, and you have a lovely avenue for conflict: vampire courts not only in conflict with one another, but manipulating humans into attacking other territories as a prelude to an attempt to take over.
To make these sorts of conflicts more likely and realistic, we’d need territories which are fairly easily demarcated but near by and politically (at the human level) independent. The classic city-state is the obvious example.
And of course ancient Greece is the time and place which likely leaps to mind when city-states are mentioned.
I don’t want to RP in ancient Greece. After asking a few other people where they’d choose to set an historical Anita Blake RPG, none of them mentioned it either. People did mention Viking Age Scandinavia and Victorian Age London. We’ve also tossed around the idea of ancient India or Egypt as well.
The problem is, with the possible exception of the Viking Age, none of those really featured city-states. So we hit upon the idea of simply extending our creation of a fictitious island in 18th century Caribbean: why not drawn inspiration from a particular historical milieu to create our own setting from. (Readers familiar with Guy Gavriel Kay’s novels will recognize this approach no doubt.)
So! With this in mind, it becomes a question of selecting a milieu which provides good inspiration and color, and then we drop in our conflict-tailored political system.
Of course not everyone wants to RP a war, and naturally we would never require anyone to participate in it directly who did not. Just as naturally, it will be hard to avoid dealing with it indirectly, but as it is also intended to give a backdrop for RP that’s just fine.
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