Mind's Eye Theatre - Vampire The Requiem.pdf - RoseRed

focus almost entirely on raw survival: hunting for animals to feed upon, avoiding the sun,
possibly even dodging other supernatural creatures who also hide far from mortal eyes.
THE SHADOWY REFLECTION
Once you decide where to set your chronicle, take that location and translate it into the
World Of Darkness. Exaggerate the negative in a real-world city to turn it into a hellhole.
Make the slums, barrios and other low-income neighborhoods poorer and more dilapidated.
More buildings are vacant, except for the squatters. Gang tags and other graffi ti are
everywhere, the only new paint any building has seen in decades. Many buildings, even
people’s homes, have broken windows covered with boards or plastic sheeting. The streets
glitter with broken glass while garbage chokes the alleys. The only evidence of money comes
from the pimps and drug dealers who cruise around in fl ashy cars. Most people won’t meet
another person’s eye and talk as little as possible, as they try to avoid the notice of the young
toughs who swagger about in gang colors. Boomboxes, screaming arguments, car alarms and
the occasional gunshot provide the soundtrack.
Affl uent residential neighborhoods hold their own inhumanity. Blocks of apartments or
condominiums are built like fortresses. Suburban homes look like they were cloned, with
no trace of individuality. Anyone who can afford it lives in a gated community, behind high
concrete walls topped with barbed wire or broken glass, and an armed guard at the gate. The
very richest people, however, can live in luxurious penthouse suites or private, walled estates
— rather more common in the World of Darkness than in most real, contemporary cities.
Strip away any trace of beauty or humanity from the business districts. Skyscrapers become
brutal monoliths faced with blank, featureless steel, stone, concrete or glass, or fearsome gargoyles
jut from their crenellations. At night, the streets are deserted except for the homeless
person huddled on a grate or in an alley. Let a business person have to walk a ways, though,
instead of driving into and out of a skyscraper’s guarded, underground parking garage, and
human wolves appear like magic to demand money. Away from the fi nancial towers, some
businesses stay open: bars, strip clubs, nightclubs and X-rated video parlors, with the occasional
convenience store or gas station. Out in the suburbs, meanwhile, massive iron security grills
turn the closed shops and offi ces of the strip malls into lines of prison cells.
The industrial district becomes a barren wasteland of crumbling brick and concrete factories
and warehouses. Most of the industries shut down long ago, leaving towering machines to
rust and collapse onto poison-soaked dirt or asphalt.
Now and then, one comes across relics of a more gracious past, or at least a past with more
ornamental tastes. An old church might nestle in between grim offi ce blocks, its stained
glass and carved stone more astonishing by the contrast. Older retail blocks still show fancy
brickwork and molded concrete, albeit grimy and eroded by time and neglect.
As you design your World of Darkness city, think of places where Kindred might dwell or
congregate. Museums, opera houses and other “cultural” locations work well for Elysiums,
but so do old rail or bus terminals built in elegant Art Deco or earlier gingerbread style.
Feel free to change your urban landmarks to make them more atmospheric: a derelict train
station instead of a new one, for instance. Ruined churches are too perfectly symbolic of the
World of Darkness for you to ignore. Buildings left unfi nished and abandoned also convey
the despair of the World of Darkness.
WHY IS THAT EVEN THERE?
There is another advantage to understanding what your player base wants out of
a chronicle. It allows you to plan out what in-game locations are going to be used
306
mind’s chapter eye four: theatre: storytelling requiem