the elder’s life. One night his ghoul confirms her inability to withdraw cash from the bank — they froze the account. The next evening, the taxman queries the unregistered house occupant — who is he, and why does he pay no taxes? Then, the ghoul commits suicide, jumping from one of the city’s new high rises. One night later, and the vampires at Elysium all snub the elder, but they will not confirm why. The elder then receives a letter addressed to his ghoul. All his stocks are now worthless.
The elder believes someone is trying to ruin his reputation and finances. He may be correct, or this may be an early symptom of the Great Depression.
BONDS
• The Ghoul is the elder’s daytime earner and respectable façade. She has served the elder for many years. Something compels her to commit suicide by leaping from a tall building. • The Vanities are the city’s Carthian Kindred, who revel in
the Boom’s laissez-faire opulence. As the elder’s fortunes turn, they turn their backs on him, just as they do every unfashionable vampire.
• The Taxman is a mortal with a vested interest in exposing the elder as a tax dodger and criminal. He risks delving too deeply. • Ruin is truly the winds of economic change, though the elder
believes an enemy uses the Depression against him.
STAKES
As the Great Depression dawns, mortals and Kindred alike lose it all. The elder is not exempt. The elder loses his wealth to financiers reclaiming loans and rendering stock worthless. He loses the Ghoul to suicide, as the retainer blames herself for the vampire’s collapsing situation. She cannot confess responsibility, and takes her own life.
The Taxman is an innocent in this situation, just doing a job, but risks waking a vampire during daytime sleep. The Vanities swiftly turn on each other, as one after another they lose their wealth. Desperate Kindred do desperate things to cling to power.
There is little to gain from the Depression’s onset, unless the elder overcomes his paranoid delusions and realizes the situation’s scope. Otherwise, he believes everything bad emerges from the mind of one, fictional enemy.
RESOLUTION AND MOVING ON
The elder loses any dots in Merits tied to personal wealth, unless the value stems from physical artifacts. Every comment made by another vampire seems like a veiled threat and every onlooker a potential spy for his “enemy.” Paranoia increases, unless the elder realizes what’s going on economically.
The Great Depression gives the elder an opportunity to start over. If he stays in the city, it requires a new Carthian structure after the Vanities implode. He can acquire abandoned havens and feeding territory.
When the Taxman wakes him during the day, the elder may murder him in frenzy, with likely Humanity loss. If he does not do this, a mortal exists with knowledge of Kindred.
POLITICS
Political scheming and one-upmanship are the bread and butter of Kindred existence. Vampires form covenants, coteries, and cling to their clans as their tribal need to surpass their rivals needs support. Elders may reminisce about the time when all Kindred in a domain bent the knee to a single Prince, or when a revolution swept the city and removed all the heads from power. Politics may drive an elder to reattempt coups from the past, avenge political failures, or campaign for freedoms denied in centuries past.
Revolution
As the French Revolution removed aristocrats’ heads and allowed the rise of the lower classes — at least for a time — the nascent Carthian Movement tried the same actions against the Parisian Invictus and Lancea et Sanctum. Hidden within peasant and worker ranks, the Carthians assemble against the First and Second Estates, and make the covenants an offer: all must leave, or die by the guillotine.
The elder’s role in this conflict is central. She may assist one covenant or the other, remain impartial, or seek to place herself in authority once the revolt concludes.
The scene begins with the Carthians hunting throughout Paris. They find the Invictus and the Sanctified guilty of corrupting Kindred, living to excess, and betraying each of the Traditions when it suits them.
BONDS
• The Comte is one of the few Invictus not put to death by the rebelling Carthians. A stabilizing force, the Comte seeks peace, and wishes to use the elder as intermediary.
• The Montagnard, a Carthian who pursues a campaign of terror against the Invictus, seeks to raze the historical pillars of Kindred power across the entirety of France. He promises to reward the elder with governing power if the elder supports the Movement.
• The Bourbon is a decadent Sanctified vampire who will see Paris drenched in blood before she gives up both her mortal and immortal right to rule. She moves to rally the other covenants against the Carthians.
• The Feuillant is an ambitious member of the Ordo Dracul. She pushes both sides against each other, hoping for an emergent power vacuum. She will offer the elder a place of privilege once the revolution dies down, on the condition of alliance.
STAKES
The political situation in Paris offers the potential for great gains and devastating losses. The Carthians engage in a heated feud, and the Comte’s desire for peace is likely a futile gesture with firebrands such as the Montagnard and the Bourbon active in the revolution.
The elder may gain title, covenant membership, and reputation for their role in the vampiric equivalent to the French Revolution. How it resolves is down to the elder’s choices. The autocratic Invictus and Lancea et Sanctum may continue to squeeze the vampires outside their covenants, or the Carthians may usher in their new laws and new corruption.
This scene forges Paris’ — and potentially France’s — political state for centuries to come. Whatever decisions the elder makes will have repercussions through to the modern nights.
RESOLUTION AND MOVING ON
The elder gains membership and Kindred Status in any one of the covenants present in this scene. Depending on the covenant, Merits such as the Oath of Fealty or Carthian Pull will be appropriate.
Involvement in the revolution grants increased dots in Skills including Politics, Firearms, and Survival. Siding with the victorious covenant helps the elder in gaining Disciplines and benefits exclusive to the triumphant group. Consider the elder gaining Aspirations related to forming new governments, or rebuilding the old society.
If the elder makes poor choices, and the Storyteller feels their involvement jeopardized one side’s actions, the elder gains permanent foes.
SURVIVAL
No vampire is on top forever. Whether recalling the time hunters pursued her across multiple domains, or reliving the terror of nearly dying within a burning haven; survival leaves a deep impression. Some elders revisit their memories of survival against adversity with a sense of pride, confident in their actions and the results gained. Others wonder whether a divine presence played a part in their survival, or whether they even deserved to survive, when others perished. Weathering harsh environments, withstanding aggressive Kindred, and outlasting a determined foe — all produce survival scenes perpetually replayed in an elder’s mind.
Walkabout
The elder made many enemies in her domain. After her once-loyal childe staked and transported her to the depths of the Australian Outback, the domain expected to never again hear of the disruptive vampire, with her offensive beliefs and covenant practices.
Her staked form lay beneath the starlight, when a young Pitjantjatjara Aboriginal Australian discovered the body, and
elevated it to the nearby trees. The movement dislodged the stake, waking the elder, and giving her a second chance at life.
The Pitjantjatjara speaks his traditional language, but illustrates that the vampire is lost, and must follow her dreams and engage on a path of discovery to once again be found. The elder must embark on a spiritual walkabout across the Outback, preying on wildlife while accompanying the one guide capable of leading her back to the domain.
BONDS
• The Pitjantjatjara is a young man, curious about the vampire, and unaware of the danger she poses. He leads her to feed from wildlife, but endangers his life by staying close. The Pitjantjatjara falls for the elder, no matter her levels of aggression and rudeness. He needs no blood bond to stay loyal, but if Embraced, will abandon her side.
• The Dreams haunt the elder, as she pursues the nomadic spirit journey across the Outback. Memories of her sins, betrayals, enemies, and friends assault her as she struggles to survive in the harsh environment. The Dreams only leave her once she reenters her domain, but once gone, she may wish their return.
STAKES
The elder’s spiritual and physical survival is at stake. The long journey across the Australian Outback is a grueling ordeal, designed to make her grow, learn, and respect the world in which she exists.
The relationship the elder forms with the Pitjantjatjara is profound, as she needs the mortal for her to survive the day. His skill in tracking wildlife from which she can feed makes his survival vital, therefore forming a dependent relationship. The bond she forms with her guide makes him a Touchstone, and potential ghoul.
If the elder kills the Pitjantjatjara, she must make the journey alone, guided only by the Dreams in her mind. She loses Humanity, but grows confident that her fate is self-determined.
RESOLUTION AND MOVING ON
The trials the elder overcomes or endures during the walkabout change or calcify any outlooks held before her abandonment in the Outback.
If the elder follows the Pitjantjatjara’s lead and learns to respect the world, she gains dots in Survival, at least one dot in Humanity, and another in Fortitude. The Pitjantjatjara becomes a Touchstone, forever bound spiritually to the elder. The elder accepts the actions leading to her abandonment, and moves on to new experiences, joining a new covenant and cutting herself free from former bonds.
If the elder discards the Pitjantjatjara and makes the journey led only by the Dreams, her view hardens, and she commits to vengeance upon her return to the domain. The Dreams grant a dot in Auspex, and another in Willpower, along with several more in Survival.