Crazy and Mundane Headcanons for V5

[CTPhipps]

Over on RPG.net, there's a common game where players and Storytellers share their personal canons for their favorite pieces of media. Things like Spider-Man lost his virginity to Gwen Stacy or has undiagnosed PTSD he's constantly dealing with to how the basics of the universe works.

Every Storyteller runs a slightly different World of Darkness and we're all very different in how we handle things. How we handle Anarchs, Camarilla, Hunters, or elements in our games about NPCs that are just kind of nifty.

Given how relatively small the pool of books there is for V5 and how much content is left underscribed, this seems like a perfect thread to share what you think would or should be canon for the setting. Try to color in the lines if you want but if not, no problem, as it's all for good fun anyway.

[CTPhipps]

Here's some of mine:

Camarilla

+ Marcus Vitel is one of the primary movers and shakers of the Second Inquisition. He's used his immense 5th Generation, millennia-old powers to prevent the Camarilla from cracking down on it and has been organizing it behind the scenes as a replacement for his nuclear war plan. It's since escaped his control (at least the non-American branch) but he's responsible for a lot of its successes. Really, is it megalomania if you really are smart and powerful enough to take over the world?

+ Tyler was one of the Brujah Elders at the Convention of Prague. When Theo Bell assassinated Hardelstadt, she'd used her Presence powers to incite the rest of the Brujah presence to frenzy and caused the massacre that allowed Bell to escape. She also finished off Hardelstadt personally.

+ Jan Pieterszoon is currently a prisoner of Lucinde for suspicion of helping with the assassination of Hardelstadt. She's considering Dominating him into believing he's the new one and using a Tzimisce to sculpt him into the third one. She's hesitating because she's not sure that's necessary these days.

+ The death of Hardelstadt resulted in a lot of the Gehenna Cults that was always there going public and everyone breaking out their copies of the Book of Nod that they'd been hiding. The Camarilla isn't really any more (or less) religious than it's always been but is going through a "mystical" phase since Hardy isn't there to enforce it.

Sabbat

+ The Sabbat lost a lot of their strategic reserve in the Gehenna Crusade and most die-hard fanatics as well as followers. They also have suffered major losses in South America to the Drowned, Mexico City, Montreal, and so on due to the Second Inquisition. Many defected to the Anarchs, though. They're not dead as a sect, just dramatically weakened. Having gone from the Soviet Union to the Camarilla to their North Korea.

Beckoning

+ The Beckoning tends to only affect Elders who are over 1000 years old and/or 6th generation or below. Even then, it's about 1 out of 3 who are affected so far.

+ The Beckoning summons vampires to the deserts of Saudi Arabia where satellite footage is corrupted and very few people return.

+ Those Elders who do resist it suffer the Withering and start to lose much of their greater powers.

+ The Beckoning is due to the 1000 year Gehenna Cycle. The Antediluvians are summoning their eldest and strongest childer to either feed themselves or grow stronger.

+ The Antediluvians are feeding on the Sabbat but allowing some of them to feed on their "favored" childer that makes them 5th to 6th generation and able to stay awake. Like Mithras being eaten by Monty Coven, his higher generation helps him stay awake and adapt to the modern era.

[Grumpy RPG Reviews]

Göbekli Tepe is the ruins of the last of the Second City - and the Second City was a series of settlements across several thousand, from the Fertile Crescent to Doggerland.

The ruins of the First City, and Irem the City of Pillars, are the same place.

There are other ancient terrors, besides the Antedeluvian Blood Gods, manipulating vampire politics and the jyhad. For the night is dark, and full of terrors... well beyond vampires.

Dis Pater is the Shadow of the wraith of Cappadocius.

Tremere is seeking the True Name of humanity, as that is really his last option.

Eastern vampires, and vampire like creatures across the Pacific and into the Americas, are not related to Caine.

Theo Bell knows how to rap.

Beckett does not know how to rap.

Tally did not destroy Lucita.

[CTPhipps]

The ruins of the First City, and Irem the City of Pillars, are the same place.

I came to this conclusion myself.

There are other ancient terrors, besides the Antedeluvian Blood Gods, manipulating vampire politics and the jyhad. For the night is dark, and full of terrors... well beyond vampires.

Agreed. "The Hidden Masters" of the Ventrue are neither a particularly weird theory about how the world works or inaccurate.

Dis Pater is the Shadow of the wraith of Cappadocius.

Ooo good one.

Tremere is seeking the True Name of humanity, as that is really his last option.

Mine is Tremere and Saulot have merged. The Worm is actually Kupala.

Kupala has also tried to take over Tzimisce but failed due to Tzimisce becoming an enormous hive minded-god thing.

Eastern vampires, and vampire like creatures across the Pacific and into the Americas, are not related to Caine.

My view is they're from Antediluvians who left the Second City early before the Flood.

Theo Bell knows how to rap.

Theo Bell is a HUGE Wesley Snipes Blade fan. He also knows Ice Cube personally.

Kevin Jackson also has a massive man-crush on Bell the one time they met. Theo thought he was an enormous poseur.

Beckett does not know how to rap.

Beckett does not even know what rap IS.

Tally did not destroy Lucita.

Agreed.

I also believe Lucita is in an on-again-off-again relationship with Anatole and Fatima both.

[Vysha]

Eastern vampires, and vampire like creatures across the Pacific and into the Americas, are not related to Caine.

I've been doing that a lot for a while now, complete with new "clans" and retooling a lot of KotE stuff into more VtM-style mechanics. All of my vampire-types use the same V20 basics; blood pools, Generation, Humanity/Paths of Enlightenment, etc. But with different flavor texts and wholly different "origin stories" and, for lack of a better term, biology. Eastern vampires might have blood pools and generation, but European kindred can't diablerize them any more than they can diablerize a garou. They're different animals entirely. Similarly, I've come up with half a dozen "American vampire" clans, two unique disciplines, etc. My players used to speculate that all these other vampire-types were, as CTP said, from unknown Antediluvians who survived the flood but later learned they have nothing to do with the story of Caine, even if they resemble the brood of Caine in some ways. Their current speculation is that either the entire Caine story is a myth, or that different divine beings using similar curses (walk the land for eternity, cast out of the sun's light, etc) end with similar effects.

Relatedly, in my headcanon, more than thirteen 3rd generation vampires survived the flood. Some never Embraced, some only Embraced a very small number of kindred, some died post-Flood, and some went into torpor because of the flood and never made it out. The big thirteen are just the prolific ones. My players are aware there's possibly more hidden uber-monsters out there, but thus far have only found hints, rumors, speculation and oddities that both back up and contradict it all. I have no plans to really use these "missing Antediluvians", but I like having them exist.

[CTPhipps]

* Joseph Peterson has written numerous pseudo-intellectual books and has actually appeared on the Red Network repeatedly. This has endangered the Masquerade a great deal and he's only gotten much worse since losing the Princedom of Chicago. He's even got his own studio to broadcast out of now. Weirdly, Pentex is genuinely baffled by their vampire associate as he frequently goes of script and is utterly uncontrollable even by servants of the Wyrm.

* Roger Stone was actually Joseph Peterson's ghoul.

* Fred Trump is a vampire in the World of Darkness. He's amusingly, only 10th generation and barely escaped New York with his life.

* Kevin Jackson's favorite movie is the Candyman and favorite show was Good Times. He's an extra in both.

* Lodin's feeding restriction was beautiful women. Almost all Ventrue who learned this rolled their eyes. All except Louis Fortier who finds nothing weird about it at all.

* Anatole is actually a saint of the Catholic Church as a 12th century wandering religious preacher was canonized in 2004 after much debate regarding his miracles. Weirdly, prayers invoking him do work as much as any other saint.

* Sullivan Dane is actually a Florentine Heretic. It's just he knows most vampires and supernaturals are still worthy of death. He had a crush on Allicia that he never acted on and she never was aware of from his observation.

* Son sired Michael the Malkavian.

* Beckett irrationally believes Indiana Jones is based on him. A good way to get him upset is to say he's closer to Belloq. He has no idea what a Tomb Raider is.

* Isaac Abrams is a 6th generation childe of Christopher and was his cover in the city.

* Damsel was sired by Anita Wainwright during one of her visits to the Anarch Free States.

* Al Capone hasn't twigged the Masquerade because he doesn't actually look anything like his photos. He actually uses Dominate, Presence, blood, makeup, and more to disguise the fact that his "natural" appearance is a white haired syphilitic prematurely aged man who vampirism has not enhanced the appearance of. Bela Lugosi (in Los Angeles by Night) is similar but ironically does his best not to appear as his classic self. When he remembers he's not Dracula at least.

[Vysha]

Silly stuff? Oh, I have some silly stuff for you.

~A conversation came up at the table about which vampire, mage, werewolf, mummy, changeling, ghost or whatever controls the president, if any. In the end, it was decided that the president is controlled by three vampires, a half dozen technocrats, a single lonely BSD, two different demons, at least seventeen psychics, and between one and fifteen changelings. Each one's control cancels out the others', leaving the president fully under his own wits and control. This has been the state of affairs since the late 60s, for every president in office. This has since become canon in my game.

~Bruce Wayne is the current Malkavian Primogen of New York City, and has been around since at least the 1800s, though he claims to have been around for much longer. His predation of criminals became a local urban legend that inspired Bob Kane, Bill Finger and the rest to create the first Batman stories. When Bruce first learned about these stories, he sought out the comic creators, blood bound and Dominated them, and had them keep writing. The ongoing tales of Batman provide a cover for his activities.

That's all for now. More later.

[Grumpy RPG Reviews]

The primogen council of New York is made up of the "Bosses" of each of the five boroughs, and two or three other positions. There is a lot of bickering.

The ruins of Ceoris are home to a lich.

Toreador are heavily involved in porn, and Ventrue run computer game companies. This explains much about both businesses.

Some Tzimisce have set up shop in the Anarchs, because they didn't give a damn about the Gehenna War. They can be reasonable and even cordial, for Fiends.

Carna is hiding out in the Bohemian Grove in San Fransisco.

Meerlinda, of the Tremere Sevem, could come back through her "essential saltes" but Tremere himself cannot find her ashes. Someone stole them.

The S.I. has the Goratrix mirror, and he talks to them through it. He is attempting to seduce those members he knows and see. But they all have psyops training, utterly have his number, and play him like a fiddle.

[GilbyTheFat]

The ruins of Ceoris are home to a lich.

I wanna know more about this lich.

[Grumpy RPG Reviews]

The lich is just a bit of home-brew, a former member of the original seven who suggested lichdom as a means of immortality. The other members of the original seven rejected him, and then forgot about him, because of the subtle manipulations of Kupula and Saulot.

[MyWifeIsScary]

Aside from the banes (Fire, Sunlight, Faith) vampires can soak aggravated with their stamina (though have difficulty healing it)

Vampires are really riding the Mexican drug war. The Giovanni, Sabbat, Settites, Camarilla and sometimes even the anarchs are going at it down there. This isnt anything to do with Gehenna of course, it's about money.

Brexit is a Camarilla conspiracy with huge support from the Tremere especially. It's not just the idea of privatizing everything and creating a tax haven for the Tremere, it's there to pressure the Assamites. Of course, the reality is that even with Brexit, there will be no change to the numbers of Assamites in the country, and the Ventrue know that. The Cam is delighted to increase the wealth gap and encourage nationalism, but everybody's keen on having more Assamite sorcerers in the nation to help break the Tremere monopoly.
(The Lib Dems and Greens are set up by the Conservatives to split the labour vote, The Camarilla and ignorant Anarchs push for them. JC is immune to dominate, presence and the blood bond and it very much scares the Camarilla)

Methuselah's Thirst isn't actually a real thing, it's just what Ancillae have been telling neonates for a few thousand years to rail them against elders. Of course, like "can't cross running water" sometimes belief makes it happen.

Set was right; But just like the first Sihk Guru advocated love for everyone and the tenth advocated swords, things don't follow the best course.

Ravana is still alive and fucking with everybody.

The malkavians got a hold of Nu Black dog, explaining their recent publications.

[Justycar]

1 Isaac Abrahams is the producer of Twilight.
2 Twilight has some satanic hidden messages.
3 The Lasombra are going to decapitate the Camarilla of Chicago and maybe America.
4 Moncada reborn is in Siria.
5 Saulot had no master plan and he had depression.
6 The Malkavians are not connected with Malkav, but with the jungian collective unconscious.
7 Moncada has a dog named Abascal.

[El Barto]

* Beckett irrationally believes Indiana Jones is based on him. A good way to get him upset is to say he's closer to Belloq. He has no idea what a Tomb Raider is.

When he's investigating alone, Beckett will sometimes hum the Indiana Jones theme. When he's with others, he'll just play it in his head. If Anatole's there, he'll sometimes hum it when his friend is thinking it, and Beckett will desperately feign ignorance

[El Barto]

While cappadocius' shadow became a nephwrack and his ba was consumed by augustus, his ka is tied to the blood in the true vessel, making it a classic cursed/haunted item... and there may still be other pieces of him doing who knows what

[False Epiphany]

Mundane: Dominique Tourain has gone Anarch. She's basically a holdover from the original Anarch Revolt who saw the Sabbat as the first Anarch Movement, only to watch her sect morph over the centuries from something that was about freedom from elder tyranny to exactly the opposite, a heavily top-down organization dominated by its own elders. She'd harbored a lot of doubts about the Sabbat for a while (Black Fox made an excellent post here about its evolution and increasingly authoritarian leadership over the centuries), but always hoped she could push it back towards its roots. She never could. No elders wanted to give up power and the neonates were shitheads with about as much regard for human life as toilet paper. Melinda Galbraith's assassination gave her some hope for the first time in a while, and she made a bid to become regent (as partly detailed in Beckett's Jyhad Diary) that was ultimately unsuccessful. The start of the Gehenna Crusade was the final nail in the coffin to her belief the Sabbat was about freedom, and convinced her the sect could never be reformed. The Anarchs were on the upswing, so she jumped ship.

She wishes she'd thought to do that hundreds of years ago. She could have been an arguably better MacNeil than MacNeil, making her wisdom and experience available to the sect without actually forbidding its members from establishing a working system of government like the Scotsman essentially did.