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

Now you can go through this skeletal plot and block out its beginning, middle, climax and
end, along with the sorts of choices you present to the characters. Remember that your actual
stories may change from what you plan; this is still just a slightly more detailed outline.
Opening
The story should start simply, if only because the characters need some time to learn
about the city, the other Kindred and the relations between the groups in town. (New players
would also need time to get comfortable with the Mind’s Eye Theatre rules, as well as
the special powers and weaknesses of vampires.) It would be best to center the fi rst stories
on the characters’ Embrace experiences, as well as their relationships with their sires, other
members of their coteries and the remnants of their mortal lives. Depending on how much
time you have to devote to it, you might want to have prelude sessions, where one or two
players experience the Embrace on an individual basis — especially if they have the same sire.
Use your Storytelling staff and perhaps even other players as background personnel (perhaps
offering experience points for assisting).
The characters’ reactions to undeath and the Kindred they meet can give rise to confl icts
and goals that you develop in later subplots. The players will establish where their loyalties
lie (or lack thereof), and the usual backroom deal-making will begin. Along the way, you can
use Narrator characters and Storyteller-controlled events to show the characters how much
power the older, better-established Kindred have over them — especially the iron hand of
the Prince. You and your Storytelling staff can arrange to show the unrest growing among
some the city’s Kindred as they chafe under a tyrant’s reign. This calls for stories, scenes and
encounters that give the characters fi rsthand experience of tyranny.
For example, one character might try to continue running a business he started as a mortal,
only to have one of the Prince’s cronies seize it under the pretext that the character’s continuing
involvement risked the Masquerade. Another character might see his sire, who has tried to
treat him fairly, forced to abase himself before the Prince in order to gain some trifl ing favor.
To cement the image of the Prince as a despot, have the characters ordered to take part in a
blood hunt against another neonate, whom they’ve already met. They know the victim well
enough to realize the charges are trumped-up or even false, or at least other Kindred mutter
this to the characters. Older Kindred might fi nd ways to weasel out of the blood hunt, but they
make clear to the characters that any neonates who refuse to join the hunt will be suspected of
collaboration with the “criminal,” and could face blood hunts themselves some night.
This introductory phase of the story ends with the characters’ fi rst big decision, their response
to the Blood Hunt. In the end any that join in harrowing or murdering the fugitive
will have to deal with the fallout of their actions, as well as potentially the consequences to
their Humanity. It is possible that some of the more sympathetic players will turn away but
let other Kindred kill the fugitive, or they try to fi nd some way for the fugitive to make the
dangerous journey out of town, with full knowledge that if anyone else fi nds out they, too,
face a sentence of Final Death.
Unrest
Some time in the introductory phase, some of the characters might meet an ancilla — a
Carthian is a natural choice, but any covenant will do — who cautiously opposes the current
regime. She speaks eloquently about how the Kindred should govern themselves, while barely
avoiding direct accusations about the Prince’s deeds. She helps neonates cope with the trials
of joining the undead, such as giving advice on setting up a new identity, or getting permission
to hunt in an older vampire’s territory.
After the blood hunt, this ancilla becomes bolder and sounds out the characters about
forcing changes in the policies of the Prince and Primogen. In this middle phase of the
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mind’s chapter eye four: theatre: storytelling requiem