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Light and Shadow - Building Paris


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This a thread for building Paris, which will be a cooperative effort with things approved by me. Partially, I don't have the time/energy/brainpower to build the city up myself across all the venues, and also I'd like the city to reflect the interest of players.

So, some initial questions:

Vampire:

Paris will be either Sabbat or Camarilla-controlled, with another nearby city acting as stronghold for the other faction and numerous disputed areas around the city. So, do the Sabbat or the Cam hold the city proper?

Anarchs and independents are around, but neither hold the city.

Changeling:

Paris itself is held by a Sidhe-led feudal system. Most freeholds and trods are controlled/led by a Sidhe, though there are the rare ones that have commoner kith in leadership either as new gentry or out of sheer stubbornness (to give us some wiggle room). The rulers of Paris are a traditional crew and the conventions of the Seelie and Unseelie are upheld. This means that during the winter (from the Autumnal Equinox until the Spring Equinox), the Sidhe are almost universally Unseelie and expect the peasantry to follow suite, and same for being Seelie during the 'light' half of the year.

There are no freeholds in the financial district and new Changelings are warned away from the area as a Banality-laden dead zone.

Werewolf:

One cairn holds the city, with a number of packs underneath it. As is fitting with French culture, the leader of the cairn is a pure-blood Silver Fang leader and a large portion of Glass Walkers and Bone Gnawers in the city as well.

Wraith:

There is a major necropolis in the city, anchored by the catacombs of Paris. I don't know much about Wraith, so any Wraith players will have a lot of room to play around here.

Mage:

Parisian culture is fertile ground for the Traditions, while the financial district houses a Technocracy Construct. To counterbalance the Construct, Paris is home to one of the largest cross-Tradition Chantry in the world, allowing mages from even the most obscure or nearly forgotten traditions to mingle in safety. To avoid Technocratic attacks, the Chantry is mobile, with members given attuned tokens to be able to track down the current entrance to the extradimensional space that the Chantry itself exists in.

Due to the tradition of culture and pleasure of Paris, there is a large Cultist population among the Tradition mages.

Other Venues: I don't remember all of them at the moment. Suggest one if you're going to play it or want to see if anyone else has interest and we can work out the rough outline.

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Hunter: The Reckoning...

Since there is so few of them, I see maybe one team of hunters and a few solos for all of Paris. The team would be diverse in terms of Creeds. They would be based out of a small warehouse in the outskirts. They would try to maintain mortal lives for the most part, unless they decided to give up everything for this war.

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Vampire:

Paris will be either Sabbat or Camarilla-controlled, with another nearby city acting as stronghold for the other faction and numerous disputed areas around the city. So, do the Sabbat or the Cam hold the city proper?

Anarchs and independents are around, but neither hold the city.

Traditionally Paris is Camarilla controlled. To my knowledge (and I could be off since I no longer have some of my books), the Prince is a douche bag Venture named LeCroix who is 6th Generation and nearly 1,000 years old.

Ecaterina The Wise who was one a Bishop within the Sabbat awakens from torpor not long before the turn of the millennia and joins the Camarilla in an attempt to destroy them from the inside... frankly I think she'd make a better Sabbat antagonist. She's 7th Generation (through diablerie) but is also nearly 1,000 years old. She now goes by the name Catherine Weiss.

The Followers of Set have a strong influence within the city and have a temple somewhere within the city. A Horizon Realm is the best way to describe it, an inverted pyramid that does nearly eight stories deep under the city.

Mage:

Parisian culture is fertile ground for the Traditions, while the financial district houses a Technocracy Construct. To counterbalance the Construct, Paris is home to one of the largest cross-Tradition Chantry in the world, allowing mages from even the most obscure or nearly forgotten traditions to mingle in safety. To avoid Technocratic attacks, the Chantry is mobile, with members given attuned tokens to be able to track down the current entrance to the extradimensional space that the Chantry itself exists in.

Due to the tradition of culture and pleasure of Paris, there is a large Cultist population among the Tradition mages.

Cross Roads

Cross Roads is a popular night club in Paris. Ran by an enigmatic bachelor and entrepreneur Xavier Cross. The supernatural scene knows the he's an Orphan Mage, and the city's largest black market connection. If you can drive it, fly it, sail it, fuck it, shoot it, snort it, or order it from Grainer... chances are Cross can (and will) get it for you. How he keeps his neck clean is a mystery but in the past he's worked with (not for) just about every good and bad group in the supernatural universe. The universal truth of Xavier Cross is that he doesn't take sides.

The club itself caters to everyone's needs. Dancing, music, sex, and drugs, even feeding for vampires, providing everyone follows the simple laws of neutrality within the club (enforced by powerful enchantments). Although many of the supernats come for fun it is not considered an 'official' place of neutrality (like an Elysium) because it is not directly under the control of any one faction (Cross considers himself his own faction), but remains the number one popular place for business dealing to be handled quietly and discreetly (and have a lot of fun afterwards). The club has a strict 'no violence' rule. No one knows how Cross does it but everyone who enters his club falls under the effects of powerful magicks that prevent them from acting up. Coincidentally, when a fight might break out those involved feel it's "just not worth it" or "there's too many witnesses" and the most popular seems to be "this isn't over."

Cross has helped many supers relocate, providing documentation, passports and even passage for them to other countries.

That's what I've to offer.

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Thanks, Dave. I have most of the books but I'm not going to spend forever and a day pouring over them. I was trying to leave the major positions in the city as fairly vague to give anyone that wanted to make a character for that spot the ability to, otherwise I say we generally go with whatever is the "vanilla" for the pre-End of Days situation. In this case, I'd keep LaCroix as Prince, but not do the Bishop-as-spy or whatever. Either she woke up and is heading the Sabbat or she's still asleep, whatever the Sabbat players really want to run with.

Do you have a preference for which way the city goes in Vampire venue?

Edit: Also, the Followers of Set kick ass. :D

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Let me know if any of this is an issue, since it forms a bit of the background that I am trying to flesh out for Curtis.

MinervaSearch

Officially, this doesn't exist per say. Curtis Shane, American-born tech geek and Virtual Adept, does however use it as the nickname for his informal information providing/gathering business and network. It is also the website, assiduously guarded and protected, that is one of the two ways to contact him for business. The other is being unexpectedly ushered into a private room at Cross Roads (OOC: Dave, perhaps Curtis has an arrangement with Cross, maybe Cross is a regular customer?), where Curtis will be patiently waiting.

There are no other options. Curtis Shane, similarly to Cross, is generally neutral, and has worked with many groups in the supernatural world, though the Technocracy is not one of them. What Xavier Cross can do with the black market goods and services, Curtis one way or another, does with information.

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I would strongly suggest to keep Paris Camarilla controlled. Sabbath is traditionally very thin spread in Europe having less members but of older generation compared to the younger and more wide spread "cousins" in the New World/USA.

Reasoning for this - Paris is one of the major cities in Europe - the Camarilla wouldn't sit idly and have that city claimed by the Sabbath without causing a major almost open war. It'd be very unlikely tbh or only in the case when the End of days actually happened (which didn't in this scenario iirc).

I'm not favouring this because I want to play a Camarilla Character, this comes from my personal experience STing Games in Europe/Germany.

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So, one vote for Camarilla.

As a note, I'm fine with having the city in contention as well, though as Joani rightly pointed out, Sabbat or contested control of the city would probably mean a more violent, war-torn vampire side to the city. Not a vote for or against, just a mention.

Second note, as we're building the world up, the setting does not have to match what's written in the books. The turn of the century did see a lot of upheaval because people expected some great war, revelation, whatnot. That gives over a decade to play with in the timeline to suit our desires as a writing group.

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It's World of Darkness. Violence, war-torn, murder, rape, theft, oppression, and generally negative vibes should be the 'catch of the day'. I always assume there's a war, just because mortal aren't involved doesn't mean some shovel-heads aren't running a raid on something or someone, somewhere.

Or Nehpandi, or Maruaders, or Chimera, or White Howlers.... oh, the list goes on... the carnage, the mayhem, the slaughter...(the laughter).

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Mala: So I figure the Camarilla is still in nominal control, but the Sabbat is contesting this status, certainly. Even if the Judgement/Apocalyptic stuff never occurred, the increase in fear has certainly empowered the Sabbat during this time, and momentum in on their side.

Dave: Well, said. Separately, you have no issues then with the suggestions I put forth in the connections between Xavier and Curtis?

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I've no issues with Curtis and Cross having ties. Digital information is just as valuable of a commodity as anything else in this world, and if Cross find a way can make a profit on it, he will. He'd not be to keen on Curtis's ties to the traditions, but frankly he's usually to knee deep in pussy and blow to give a fuck...

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