So you're playing some World of Darkness. Maybe you wanted to start in the future, maybe your vampires got torpored, your werewolves took a wrong step in the umbra, or your mages got caught in their own time shenanigans, and you want to give them some level of futureshock. I've thought of the following scenarios and some ideas on what would happen, supernatural wise.
1- Society goes through little change and we somehow remain with the current neoliberal status quo. Perhaps Africa is developed. Perhaps climate change has devastated us, but it's more the same than not.
2- As automation takes jobs and the wealth gap increases, Our political systems slide between extremes of economically right-authoritarian and economically right- Liberal, and have the occasional communist revolution attempt. The communists are always exterminated by any means necessary.
A- The Gauntlet thickens or stays as thick. Technology remains scientific outside of the usual suspects.
B-Hypertech flourishes: Though thought of as science, Mages and the Umbra improve our technology (for reasons that usually aren't good). Security robots look like, and are possessed by, hunter spiders. Balefire thowers and advanced wyrm element weapons are used by militaries. Handheld laser weapons and certain high end cybernetics exist but are secretly magical because science couldn't realistically achieve such results on their own. (Optimistically; Cyborgs are rare, not as rare as the present day, but normal people aren't wanting to cut off their arms for cool new ones like in Human Revolution. Most people would use cybernetics when their body parts fail because they got old or were in an accident, though a few subcultures may have their reasons to "upgrade" perfectly functional body parts. That said, I imagine some very aggressive marketing and some very aggressive conservatism towards the issue. Plus most people can't afford it)
Personally, I lean towards 2B, I feel it's the most likely thing to happen for the World of Darkness. but other variations are definitely worth discussing.
My notes so far:
In general
-Advanced technology often justifies the inhuman capabilities of different WoD splats. ("I saw a guy throw a car!" "Must've been a cyborg!") ("Did you see that video of a giant wolf tearing through the office? Sure is amazing what you can do with ¥2000 software nowadays")
-Infernalism is always on the rise.
-B- The performance enhancers of wyrm and weaver corporations are to some degree available to the masses.
-Police use drones and robots. (B And robots possessed by matching Weaver spirits)
-Personal androids are available. They're used as trustworthy servants by the wealthy, and for sex by everybody.
2- Mass murder can be blamed on Communist Terrorists and other state enemies. There's much less need to keep a low body count.
B- Plastic surgery emulates vicissitude now.
Vampires:
-The Camarilla has entrenched itself at the top of society and has done it's absolute best to steer the world away from developments that would lead to finding vampires: Cutting down on surveillance and thermal cameras, ensuring they have easy access to public police files or that they have good sway, if not ownership, over private police.
-Vampire population has remained largely the same as it is now, even though the population has increased markedly.
-Thaumaturgy has advanced and, among other tech related discoveries, makes it very easy to surpress knowledge of vampires being shared over technological devices.
-Kindred keep devices on their person to warm their bodies, in order to fool thermal cameras.
-A jaded populace embracing Virtual reality makes a really good food source.
-An upsurge in poverty makes a really good food source
-A huge prison population makes a really good food source.
-Expanded homeless population makes really good food sources
-Designer drugs add spice to the food source.
-Cybernetics work with vampires only after the proper rituals have been used. Ditto with "entering the matrix" for later years.
-Anarch games are basically shadowrun. The Sabbat both mirror Anarchs and the Camarilla.
Werewolf:
-Perhaps there's a black spiral equivalent for the weaver now.
-The shadow lords lead the nation, because of course they do. Did you think the silver fangs would get round the "last king" thing by using queens? Absurd. The Silver Fangs are too busy with Harrano.
-In scenario 1, they're still fighting. In scenario 2, they're at the apocaylpse. Caerns are being bombed with drones. Despite the wolf population increasing in the early century, the planet's changed too much, and the Red Talons have died off. The black furies are endangered. The Children of Gaia have completely changed their philosophy (Many Garou believe peace loving right now is treason). The Bone Gnawers, Ronin and BSD are huge. Glass walkers are Big, and Dies Ultima are very influentual
-Garou come to accept the use of "modern" (as in, our time) weapons a lot more, shunning contemporary weapons.
Mage
The Traditions capitalise somewhat on man's distaste for automation and frustration with the establishment, and love for escapist fiction. They're still hanging in there. There's probably a plot to make super realistic virtual realities with fantasy elements so that people become accustomed to seeing crazy vulgar magics.
Scenario A: In some ways, for technocrats, things are good, because many of their creations are less vulgar, are built on systems that use need less "enlightenment" to work, . On other ways, Despite being less vulgar a lot of their hypertech improvements aren't getting proportionately more powerful, and they're incredibly upset, because humans are more technologically literate and know that they're not getting laser guns or hyperspace travel with science anytime soon. Humans are just becoming more apathetic to technology.
Scenario B:
Everything's going our way, why haven't we ascended yet? -Technocracy.
Maybe we should conquer space - Technocracy.
Maybe we should try Communism - Half of the Technocracy
Maybe we should purge them? -The other half of the technocracy.
Anyone got anything to add? can we make a complete setting here? What do you think the World of Darkness would become 2060, 2070, 80, 90...
1- Society goes through little change and we somehow remain with the current neoliberal status quo. Perhaps Africa is developed. Perhaps climate change has devastated us, but it's more the same than not.
2- As automation takes jobs and the wealth gap increases, Our political systems slide between extremes of economically right-authoritarian and economically right- Liberal, and have the occasional communist revolution attempt. The communists are always exterminated by any means necessary.
A- The Gauntlet thickens or stays as thick. Technology remains scientific outside of the usual suspects.
B-Hypertech flourishes: Though thought of as science, Mages and the Umbra improve our technology (for reasons that usually aren't good). Security robots look like, and are possessed by, hunter spiders. Balefire thowers and advanced wyrm element weapons are used by militaries. Handheld laser weapons and certain high end cybernetics exist but are secretly magical because science couldn't realistically achieve such results on their own. (Optimistically; Cyborgs are rare, not as rare as the present day, but normal people aren't wanting to cut off their arms for cool new ones like in Human Revolution. Most people would use cybernetics when their body parts fail because they got old or were in an accident, though a few subcultures may have their reasons to "upgrade" perfectly functional body parts. That said, I imagine some very aggressive marketing and some very aggressive conservatism towards the issue. Plus most people can't afford it)
Personally, I lean towards 2B, I feel it's the most likely thing to happen for the World of Darkness. but other variations are definitely worth discussing.
My notes so far:
In general
-Advanced technology often justifies the inhuman capabilities of different WoD splats. ("I saw a guy throw a car!" "Must've been a cyborg!") ("Did you see that video of a giant wolf tearing through the office? Sure is amazing what you can do with ¥2000 software nowadays")
-Infernalism is always on the rise.
-B- The performance enhancers of wyrm and weaver corporations are to some degree available to the masses.
-Police use drones and robots. (B And robots possessed by matching Weaver spirits)
-Personal androids are available. They're used as trustworthy servants by the wealthy, and for sex by everybody.
2- Mass murder can be blamed on Communist Terrorists and other state enemies. There's much less need to keep a low body count.
B- Plastic surgery emulates vicissitude now.
Vampires:
-The Camarilla has entrenched itself at the top of society and has done it's absolute best to steer the world away from developments that would lead to finding vampires: Cutting down on surveillance and thermal cameras, ensuring they have easy access to public police files or that they have good sway, if not ownership, over private police.
-Vampire population has remained largely the same as it is now, even though the population has increased markedly.
-Thaumaturgy has advanced and, among other tech related discoveries, makes it very easy to surpress knowledge of vampires being shared over technological devices.
-Kindred keep devices on their person to warm their bodies, in order to fool thermal cameras.
-A jaded populace embracing Virtual reality makes a really good food source.
-An upsurge in poverty makes a really good food source
-A huge prison population makes a really good food source.
-Expanded homeless population makes really good food sources
-Designer drugs add spice to the food source.
-Cybernetics work with vampires only after the proper rituals have been used. Ditto with "entering the matrix" for later years.
-Anarch games are basically shadowrun. The Sabbat both mirror Anarchs and the Camarilla.
Werewolf:
-Perhaps there's a black spiral equivalent for the weaver now.
-The shadow lords lead the nation, because of course they do. Did you think the silver fangs would get round the "last king" thing by using queens? Absurd. The Silver Fangs are too busy with Harrano.
-In scenario 1, they're still fighting. In scenario 2, they're at the apocaylpse. Caerns are being bombed with drones. Despite the wolf population increasing in the early century, the planet's changed too much, and the Red Talons have died off. The black furies are endangered. The Children of Gaia have completely changed their philosophy (Many Garou believe peace loving right now is treason). The Bone Gnawers, Ronin and BSD are huge. Glass walkers are Big, and Dies Ultima are very influentual
-Garou come to accept the use of "modern" (as in, our time) weapons a lot more, shunning contemporary weapons.
Mage
The Traditions capitalise somewhat on man's distaste for automation and frustration with the establishment, and love for escapist fiction. They're still hanging in there. There's probably a plot to make super realistic virtual realities with fantasy elements so that people become accustomed to seeing crazy vulgar magics.
Scenario A: In some ways, for technocrats, things are good, because many of their creations are less vulgar, are built on systems that use need less "enlightenment" to work, . On other ways, Despite being less vulgar a lot of their hypertech improvements aren't getting proportionately more powerful, and they're incredibly upset, because humans are more technologically literate and know that they're not getting laser guns or hyperspace travel with science anytime soon. Humans are just becoming more apathetic to technology.
Scenario B:
Everything's going our way, why haven't we ascended yet? -Technocracy.
Maybe we should conquer space - Technocracy.
Maybe we should try Communism - Half of the Technocracy
Maybe we should purge them? -The other half of the technocracy.
Anyone got anything to add? can we make a complete setting here? What do you think the World of Darkness would become 2060, 2070, 80, 90...
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