(For upcoming territory references, please see: goo.gl/maps/tuYFT )
[i]30 years ago the secret world of Auckland was divided differently to how it is today. We, the mages of the Pentacle, held the central city as the fringe of our domain - a frontier zone where the Seers of the Throne constantly tried to extend their fingers into. It wasn’t as safe or secure for us as the other side of the harbour, but we did keep it. Further West there was another divide: this one between the Forsaken and the Pure. Werewolves fighting their own war in the name of their religions.
Twenty years back, it happened. The Reckoning of Auckland. An explosive confrontation between mages that brought about an end to the war. Both sides took heavy casualties, and in the end it was the reinforcements from out of town that won the day for the Pentacle. I never understood why the Seers didn’t do the same thing. Perhaps I never will? By the end of it, all but three awakened souls of the original Pentacle had perished in the conflict. We recommended to our superiors that we leave Auckland and return to it, but for some classified mumbo jumbo bullsh*t we were told Auckland had to be held with our forces present there no matter what.
It was at this point that a new factor entered the field - vampires. Small groups of them revealed themselves from within the territories of our enemy when we were still at our weakest. The proposed a peace treaty - their co-operation and alliance in exchange for free reign over the sleepers. We rejected the offer, unwilling to stand idly by and let free people be reduced to cattle. Unwilling to compromise they attacked us with large numbers of vampires. We were caught off guard and forced to retreat North to the other side of the harbour. We’ve spent the last 20 years skirmishing with the vampire force. Central Auckland is frequently contested, and neither faction can manage to secure control for more than a year.
The werewolves had always stayed away from the conflict, until recently. A plague has crippled the Northern Pack Alliance, locking up their attention, making them weaker with every day. With their enemy afflicted, the Pure have suddenly turned their attention towards us, pushing into our domain to the West, drawing us into their war. We don’t know why they’ve chosen now to strike but one thing is clear to us - if we do not act soon, we will be wiped out, and then there will be nobody to stand up against the villainy of the vampires and the Pure.[/i]
The following is common knowledge to PCs.
30 years ago the territory of the [1]Vampires was held by the [2]Seers of the throne and Auckland city was held loosely by the [3]Pentacle, with Seer agents known to be throughout it.
The [4]Pure and [5]Forsaken territories were as they are today, and there was no known Vampire population.
20 years ago there was a huge magical battle for Auckland. At this point the Seers and the Pentacle went full on at each other and almost every [6]mage in the city was killed. The Seers never sent reinforcements but the Pentacle did - this was always considered to be odd.
The Pentacle won the battle eventually but only 3 of the original mages of the Pentacle remained from the battle.
When the mages numbers were dwindled and divided, the Vampires revealed themselves in small numbers and [7]Coteries inside of the Seers territories and offered an agreement to the mages of the Pentacle.
The [8]Council of the Pentacle met, and it was agreed upon that they would not accept this offer of a truce - being that the terms included Vampires freely feeding on [9]Sleepers.
The Vampires would not accept the removal of this clause, and turned on the Pentacle - revealing huge numbers of quickly mobilized Vampires.
Catching the Pentacle off guard, they were forced not only out of South Auckland, but out of the City Center.
It has been 20 years of on and off conflict, with both Pentacle and Vampires holding the city center at differing times, but never for longer than a year at a time - if either side held it at all.
Largely uninvolved in the conflict due to their own fighting, the opposing werewolf packs have never moved on either side of the Vampire-Mage conflict, until recently.
A plague has hit the Northern Pack Alliance, and its growing weaker and weaker by the day. With this, the Pure have turned their attention to the Pentacle Mages of Auckland and have done a recent push into their territory (the recently contested territory).
Nobody knows why the Pure have decided to strike now but it’s is blatantly obvious that if the Mages of the Pentacle do not mobilize quickly, they are going to lose Auckland - turning it into a mass feeding ground for Pure and Vampires.
IMPORTANT: This game is not being run on the North Shore, but in town.
(Thanks Kerry Pellet for this awesome rewrite of my game idea!)
This is still only in the woodworks, but this is what we have so far. A LOT more people showed interest than i thought, so here is essentially a “teaser”.
This game, although looking combat heavy, has plenty of spots and incentives for those who are not combat inclined with involvement in the political side of things, or hunting for long lost stuff Indiana Jones style.
There will be weekly Wednesday night scenes at the same spot as Nexus (Wendys in town), and also possibilities for requested scenes on different nights. It is also planned at the moment to run during the day, much like Nexus, at the same venue.
If interested, please email northshoremage@gmail.com so that we can keep you posted with updates and eventually send you all your character information and things like that.
Also the GMing team has been decided and are in full swing at the moment, now all we need is you as a player! There will be a character creation workshop, but for those of you who know what this means all dots will be capped at 3 dots (with some Merits as exceptions. This is to discourage crunching and number running, and really get people in to their characters.
Also this will be a rewards system, not an Exp system - you will be rewarded dots for in game things your character does over time.
(The following index descriptions are taken from the perspective of a Pentacle mage)
[1] A lot of the time, Vampires are a common enemy to Mages. This is not necessarily always true, but they typically are.
[2] The Seers of the Throne are a notoriously evil and twisted when it comes to use of magic and abuse of people to gain power. They have been at war with the Pentacle since anyone can remember.
[3] The Pentacle Orders are 5 different ‘factions’ of mages united under 1 banner. The 5 orders all do different things, have different jobs and strengths and are trying to liberate humanity and protect it from the supernatural. This is the player group.
[4] The Pure are much like the Seers of the Werewolf world. They’re a lot like “the bad guys”. Think Werewolf Nazis, and Werewolfness is Arian.
[5] The Forsaken are the Pentacle of the Werewolf world. They fight for the herd and follow the ways of the Spirit, putting Spirits over stepping their boundaries in to the real world back in their place in the spirit world.
[6] A mage, what the player is, is some one who can bend the fabrics of reality and existence in 10 different ways. Very few mages can bend it in more than 3 ways, and almost none can bend it in all 10 ways. The amount of things a mage can do is almost limitless, small examples are: Change the sexuality of a person with Mind magic, throw fire at people with Forces or send Ghosts to do your bidding with Death magic.
[7] A Coterie is a group of Vampires working together intimately. Werewolves do the same with their Packs, Seers do the same with Pylons and Pentacle form intimate alliances with other mages via Cabals. You cabal is a close group of mages who work together, and vice versa for the other factions.
[8] The 5 Orders of the Pentacle are: The Free Council, The Mysterium, The Guardians of the Veil, The Adamantine Arrow and the Silver Ladder. Each chooses some one to speak on behalf of their entire order and they vote on important things and distribute orders throughout the Orders.
[9] Sleepers are what Mages call normal people. When you are not a Mage, you are asleep to the occult truths of existence. Mages maintain the lie for the sake of humanity, but when you awaken you usually don’t get a say in becoming a Mage.
) What it does do is provide funding, resources and guidance. After Chimera, I’m happy to have a chat about what the benefits are of being an nzLARPS project, and whether its useful to your project.