[WIR] Let the Streets Run Red (COMPLETE!)

[CTPhipps]

The Dying Fields NPC: Nazeera

Type: NPC

Synopsis: A non-binary Morrocan woman Embraced by one of Carna's childer. She is a Loyalist Tremere, though, which has not helped her situation in the slighest. Exiled to Willerton, she has instead devoted herself to winning back the respect of her Clan.

Analysis: One of the issues I have with Willerton is that the presence of Camarilla and Anarch vampires in the town is somewhat unnecessary. It's kind of cute that even in a town of 600 people, the Camarilla and Anarch posturing is still going on because it's so fundamental to so many Kindred identities.

Even so, I think you could probably remove the vampire NPCs of the Chronicle without significantly hurting it. The best use for them is that they are horrible sacrifices for the cult and that's kind of a waste for the well-detailed characters of both Nazeera as well as Robert Warrington.

An interesting element about "The Loyalists" is the fact that they were apparently exiled to Willerton, specifically. Given there's no reason to choose this specific location for exile unless you DID know about its weird curse, I am inclined to think that the Camarilla knows that this is a kind of roach motel for Kindred.

Basically, when you want to get rid of some Kindred but not have room for a Blood Hunt, you just exile them and say that "if you want to come back, stay in Willerton until we call for you." They never will call for you because you will be kept there until offered as a sacrifce for the Harvest God. Maybe its part of a pact between the Prince of Chicago and the Harvest God, local Kindred, Lupines, or just something Lodin was told to do some time.

Inyanga: Listen, Lodin, there's something really evil under the town of Willerton.

Lodin: Mmm hmm.

Inyanga: I need you to send some vampires there to feed it every ten years or so.

Lodin: What now?

Inyanga: Otherwise, it will awaken and you don't want that.

Lodin: Okay.

Twenty Years Later

Kevin Jackson: Hey, do you know why Lodin sent exiles down to Willerton?

"Khalid": Yes but I cannot tell you for reasons.

Kevin Jackson: Well, okay, best to keep up the tradition. Let's send that obnoxious House Carna girl that fled Milwaukee.

At least that's how I assume it went.

Nazeera is an interesting character who expands on the House Carna plotline in the wake of the Vienna attack and provides a kind of unintentionally hilarious character. Basically, Nazeera is a cheerleader for the inclusiveness and progressiveness of the Tremere who has SPECTACULARLY bad political sense.

Basically, she decides to side with the Camarilla against House Carna, which is probably the "safe" bet but they have no reason to believe her loyalty and it's not like she brings anything to table against her grandsire. Then the Tremere Chantry in Vienna is destroyed and the Tremere Loyalists are no longer ABLE to persecute House Carna, which makes her someone who now has to fear Carna retaliation. Nazeera is also staying in the Chicago/Milwaukee area where Carna's "betrayal" is a fresh wound versus going to some place like New York where Ailsing Sturbridge might be willing to give her a fresh start.

I should note that I liked the letter from Carna to Nazeera because it nicely shows how much misandry Carna is carrying around and how much she's also misjudged/misgendered Nazeera. Carna thinks of Nazeera as a woman and basically gets pissed that she would rather take orders from a man like Shrekt than a woman like them. Forgetting or not caring that Nazeera does not identify as a woman alone.

I hope when Carna does get her V5 write-up they don't remove the fact Carna is a serial killer of men. I.e. she's not a good person despite having some feminist ideals.

Honestly, I think the best use of Nazeera in the game is her having tons of theories but very little information on what is REALLY going on in Willerton. Basically, she's someone that the PCs should recognize is denying the reality that even if the Tremere Pyramid were to rise again, there's no place for her in it because no one cares enough about her to want her to return. Not even Dusable, who could do with a fanatical loyalist like her but doesn't think enough of her to welcome her back to the Pyramid. I suspect because he thinks she's either working with Carna or, worse, isn't loyal to her Regent enough to follow her. Which is a Catch-22 but one that the Tremere would respect.

After all, as a Regent, you want them to obey you no matter what. It's why no one respects the Frey family in Westeros. It's not that they were loyal to the King, they weren't loyal to their Lords (The Tully's) either.

[CTPhipps]

Aside from the fact this adventure clearly should have been in Shermer (a well known center for murder, depravity, and depraved murders) this is a solid adventure. And for the reasons CTPhipps lays out here - it so utterly puts vampires outside of anything with which they are familiar. It so utterly places them in a position where they are not the local apex predator, but are hoping not to be destroyed by something they cannot classify or understand.

Yeah, the big appeal of this adventure is that it is the most off-kilter compared to the other ones and that's what makes it work. It's not something you'd want to do very often but it definitely would make an excellent break from a larger chronicle or work as a standalone by itself. Like I said, I think it might make a little much in the way of accomadation toward the larger vampire universe (there's a Camarilla and Anarch vampire in the group) but I think this is still probably the strongest Chronicle in the adventure book.

And you know how hard that is for me to say with my love of Gary.

[CTPhipps]

The Dying Fields NPC: Robert Warrington

Type: NPC

Synopsis: A social media influencer and Instagram model that has been Embraced as a Thin Blood with delusions of being a Toreador. He is unwittingly playing with fire by recruiting the Church of the Harvest God to worship him.

Analysis: Robert Warrington is a fascinating character that could be used in multiple ways in a game but seems specifically designed to be a rebuttal to the Brujah Anarch stereotype. He's about as far from the tough as nails one-percenter biker as you're going to get and that opens a lot of interesting possibilities. He's a fabulous Toreador social media guru that just so happened to be Embraced by a 13th generation Toreador, so the blood didn't take. Which is a shame because he otherwise fits in perfectly within the clan.

Robert seems like a character that would be entertaining for an encounter or two just because he's such an inversion of stereotype. However, I should point out that he's a character who comes in with numerous built-in flaws that should be used if one is going to incorporate him into the Chronicle. Robert Warrington is a Thin Blood leader of his "gang" but it seems to be because he's actually liked rather than respected or feared. Mariangel outright disrespects him and could probably tear him apart if she was inclined. He's broadcasting on social media despite being "dead" and in touch with at least one former fan. He also is trying to cultivate Willerton as his "herd" with the local church as a possible method of control.

In simple terms, if Robert were anywhere else in the country then he probably would have been staked and beheaded because leaving him out for the sun might not kill him. Even those sympathetic to Thin Bloods should probably eventually turn on Robert because he's so fame-hungry and careless that he doesn't realize just how much danger that he's putting in his fellow Kindred. I fully suggest that he try to film the PCs as part of a feed even if he doesn't identify them as vampires.

Using Robert as an example of what can go horribly wrong may seem a bit of a waste of an entertaining character (albeit I believe he could be VERY annoying if played camp instead of theatrical) but I do think there's potential for good tragedy here. Robert isn't a disaster as an Embrace and could probably be simply talked into being sensible if someone bothered but he's a rare case of an angst-free background that arguably has left him ill-prepared for the potential consequences of his actions.

Basically, Robert is spoiled and thinks being "Baron of Willerton" is beneath him but is already thinking of this as a legitimate path just a few years into his Embrace. Getting strung up for human (vampire) sacrifice and barely surviving might be the best thing to happen to him. However, if he does make it back to Chicago, he could easily be a good character to rebuilt in a Masquerade breach disaster of epic proportions.

Another possible use for them as a completely hilarious one would be to have Robert Warrington, Arthur Caldwell, and Gabrielle make a Twitch channel.

[CTPhipps]

I am really looking forward to Innocence in Blood but I should note that I've actually already played around with the adventure more than I have the others. I thought I would share these because they're funny.

1. DC Adventures: The first time I ran this adventure was actually not for V:TM at all. I also run a superhero game for Mutants and Masterminds. I needed a swift adventure for the heroes and it occured to me that this was actually something I could adapt. In this case, I ended up running a modified version where the player characters are hired/blackmailed by Deathstroke into rescuing Rose Wilson from the Church of Trigon that has brainwashed her. Its just that it turns out (surprise!) Rose doesn't want to return to Deathstroke.

2. Upcoming Game: I'm actually planning to do this game again in a couple of weeks and I'm planning on modifying it again. In this version, I'm thinking of substituting the Cult of Eligos for the Followers of Set in the setting. That will change a lot but I think it works really well and will allow me to use the Second Inquisition. The player characters think they're rescuing a young Kindred from a CULT OF EVIL but it is actually just them planning to brainwash her like they've done other Kindred as infiltrators.

Bwhaha.

[CTPhipps]

FYI - I'm also trying to update the Wiki on this page while I update this thread.

https://whitewolf.fandom.com/wiki/Le...treets_Run_Red

There's also TV tropes page for the Chicago Chronicles in 5th Edition.

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.p...ChicagoByNight

[CTPhipps]

The Dying Fields NPC: Starchild



Type: NPC

Synopsis: An original hippie turned ghoul that has since become the local cult leader. He attempts to serve the Harvest God with sacrifices of blood.

Analysis: I both love and hate Starchild. He is a character that I think can be done very well and be genuinely terrifying but also a character that could easily fall into camp humor that could destroy what makes him effective as a character. It's taken me a while to get my full thinking done on the character as a result.

Version One: Serious Terrifying Cult Leader

If you want to do Starchild as a terrifying character then the best way to do it is to play him as as an EXPY of Manson and/or David Koresh. A guy who loves singing, superficially charming, and pretty permissive in terms of his religious teachings that are actually about tying everyone to him. The thing is that, human sacrifice aside, I think he's actually pretty tame on the 5th Edition horror slide. If the player characters are PROPERLY INFORMED/WARNED and you want to go this route, I wouldn't hesitate to make it so Starchild is surrounded by a lot of teenage girls and actively using drugs to control them.



You might actually do a slow burn with Starchild and have him have the seemingly harmless farm full of weed and peyote in the back of Willerton. Have the player characters investigate the secretive weird hippie involved in the local religion and discover that he HAS A POT GROW OP! Which, of course, is a red herring to disguise the fact that he's actually a malevolent psychopath.

Putting too much out there too soon can result in the PCs casually breaking Starchild's neck or drianing him dry early in the game, though, so I'd probably make all the women in his cult to be twenty somethings or the wives of cult members. Player characters are much less likely to outright murder him as they would a child rapist or ephebophile like that moment in Daredevil when Frank Castle casually pulls out a baseball bat to murder the kiddie porn dealer.

To no one's condemnation.

I bring up incorporating real life elements of a cult leader with control over a town's youth because having grown up in the reactionary part of the Bible Belt, I actually do know plenty of cults in my area where there's seemingly pleasant long-haired hippie types who are fully capable of getting people to overlook heinous abuse because they're *finger wag* men of God *finger wag*. IF YOU FEEL LIKE IT and your group is COMFORTABLE WITH IT then this might be a place to deal with an all-too-human evil.

Version Two: Trapped by a Fool and the Fools Who Follow Him

Another way of running Starchild is to dial up the kookiness and make him a complete joke, which isn't great for horror but highlights the campiness that I stated can be done for this game. That essentially a random brain-fried hippie wandered into this town, took over its centuries-old religion and convinced them to do human sacrifice. The absudity of the whole thing adds a kind of layer to what could easily be the equivalent of Shaggy ordering people to be killed.



One of the interesting things about THE WICKER MAN and why it holds up to this day is the fact that the people of the Summer Isles aren't a surviving millennia-old pagan tradition. Lord Summerssle says, essentially, it's about 50 years old and was started by his father using a bunch of history books and local superstitions. It's a scam religion (that Lord Summerisle fully believes) that was started because people were satisfied with the local orthodox Christianity, liked the free love, liked the drugs, and it wasn't so different that they rebelled against the switch. It doesn't take much for the locals to get conned by a outsider who knows how to play on their basest fears and may not even know what he's doing half the time.

You can make a commentary that the people of Willerton are incredibly F***ING STUPID and your player character might go, "I'm a frigging vampire and I'm about to be sacrificed to a tree by a brain dead hippie!"

However, honestly, Starchild isn't necessary to this story anymore than Nazeera or Robert Warrington too. You can easily never have the player characters interact with the cult on a person to person level or have the local priest of the Harvest God be a local serious Minister or Old Timey Farmer to play it more straight. The campy Starchild works almost better if the whole Harvest God thing is just a delusion of the locals and the monsters are being hunted down in the name of a nonexistent god to illustrate just why the Masquerade is so important.

This is just how I would handle it.

Ghoul, Mage, Garou, or Malkavian?

As mentioned, there's the simple fact that the least of the player characters are probably going to be able to grab Starchild by the throat and snap his neck like a Navy SEAL. He's not an actual threat and the biggest argument against his lack of use is the fact that he's a very poor antagonist if the player characters are purveyors of violence.

As mentioned earlier, if you do want to add some juice to the cult's threat then making him have other vampires in his service like Mariangel is an easy fix. If that's the case, then you should probably make Starchild either a mage or Malkavian (12th to 9th generation is fine--he doesn't need to be a powerful one). It just strains credibility to believe vampires would serve a human without some form of power.

As a mage making him an apprentice Cult of Ecstasy that has since gone Marauder is a possibility. So is just making a garden variety sorcerer in the service of a powerful spirit. If you want to go Gonzo, a Ronin Child of Gaia is also possible, albeit that makes it a very real possibility he could eat your protagonists even if he has low Rage.

[CTPhipps]

The Dying Fiends part 4 [Analysis]



Type: Review

Analysis: I think this is probably the strongest adventure in the book and also the most memorable. I also feel like The Dying Fields is also the one that benefits the most from customization to one's campaign. I would definitely do a lot of things definitely, and did, when I ran the campaign versus just running it straight outta the tool box.

Some minor issues/suggestions that I had:

* Everett York is more a Maguffin than a character and could have used a full write-up if the players are going after him. Probably best to substitute an NPC that the player characters actually care about.
* I think that the Harvest God has some good suggestions for use but an actual write-up might have benefited it. Not setting it in stone isn't a bad thing but if you did plan to include "He Who Walks Between the Rows" then that might have been helpful.
* The three NPCs detailed for the town of Willerton are all outsiders and I kind of think the game would benefit from a Chaosium approach. One of the things they did in the old Innsmouth supplement was make a dozen or so tiny NPCs to interact with around town. There's some suggestions and locals so its not an issue might some hints there would be good.
* The antagonistic forces of Starchild and the cultists are fairly easy to overcome and I suggest for a sufficiently well-prepared set of PCs that they get upped a bit. I mentioned making Starchild a vampire and giving him some cult followers as the easiest version.
* I do think that "vampires can only leave if they all leave together" is a bit weak and a sacrifice of a vampire to the Harvest God as the only way to leave is a better more horrific option (or burning down its tree).

Now aside from these minor tone issues, the game is fantastic and you really could use Willerton as the basis for the exact opposite of a Chicago or Los Angeles game. A Twin Peaks or Midnight, Texas game could be run out of this place with the PCs as the only vampires in town but dealing with problems like banes, Garou, ghosts, Revenants, or other things brought to the town by the Goblin Roads.

Now if you don't want to use Charlaine Harris or David Lynch as your basis, you can also go full The Hills Have Eyes or The Shadow Over Innsmouth here too with the PCs being chased out of a town full of horrors.

The Innsmouth Raid or "Willerton Must Die"

While I don't recommend this above other options, this is also notably a "disposable" town. If the ST wants to end on a big event, they may have the Harvest God wake up and reveal dozens or even hundreds of Drowned Legacy vampires who descend on the town in a murderous massacre of Biblical proportions with the only thing the players can do being to flee. Maybe even demons or something utterly indescribable. If there's a time for a shoggoth or Thunder Wyrm to rise from the ground outside of Werewolf: The Apocalypse then this is the place.

In that situation, you can have the player characters find out Willerton is under quarantine or a massive chemical fire happened that the Second Inquisition cleaned up with a Salem's Lot-esque mass destruction of all the undead in town during the daytime. Hell, the player characters may be the people who tipped them off to it.

I bring this up because destroying an entire town is one of those rare things that you can do in Vampire like with Thorns. Also an apocalyptic event like that is another thing utterly removed from most vampires' experience and might be fun to insert as an epic climax.

Like I said, a very flexible adventure that could easily be adapted to other horror games or game lines.

[CTPhipps]

Innocence in Blood part 1 [Outline]



Type: Chronicle

Synopsis: Honor Mercer is the childe of Mark Decker, Prince of Milwaukee. Chaffing under his strict rule, she panics when she feeds on camera and flees to the city of Indianapolis. She is chased by two FBI agents, Rick L'Italien and Penny Cusick (ghoul of Dawn Nakada), while taking refuge in the arms of the Ministry. Unbeknownst to her, this was all arranged by Freddie Montgomery of the Ministry.

Analysis: This is the chapter I was looking forward to most after the Gary adventure Rusted Jungle. I've mentioned repeatedly how I am primarily a fan of the Chicago Chronicles and 1st Edition Vampire: The Masquerade. Milwaukee by Night was the second city book of that era and thus still firmly in my wheelhouse. I've always felt it was a very underrated product and deserved a lot more attention than it got.

In a very real way, I think this Chronicle is more of a guidebook to two cities than it is a single strong adventure. The stakes (no pun intended) are also fairly low as chasing after a Prince's wayward childe is not something that automatically will result in that much collateral damage should they fail and arguably should. Indeed, the major crux of this adventure is sort of a Mass Effect or
Dragon Age moral choice:

Do you turn Hope Mercer over to:

* Her Lawful Evil controlling sire?
* Her Chaotic Evil cult handlers?
* Her Family/The Camarilla planning to eliminate her?
* Some unseen fourth option?

The "obvious" way for this story to end is to expose Freddie Montgommery's evil plot to Honor and that she was set up to be blackmailed by the Ministry and then help Honor get to some better Anarchs either in East Chicago (Anita Wainwright's faction) or to the Los Angeles Free State. This will mean making an enemy of every single other faction, though. They can almost certainly never visit each city again, which may not be a problem if they don't intend to but is almost a waste given how much detail goes into them.

This above option is one designed for "decent" Kindred trying to do the right thing by Honor, though, and that isn't necessarily the way most PCs will fall. There's actually multiple way to play Honor's situation and I'm going to discuss how sympathetic she really should be treated. I'm inclined to also suggest if you don't have any reason to re-use Honor that attempts to do the right thing should also backfire. Basically, if the PCs do help her escape to Anita Wainwright then she gets exchanged with Decker for the lives of seven Anarchs in Mikwaukee like the Cold War or Dawn Nakada kills her or the Second Inquisition when she slips the PCs to visit her family.

That's because I'm a sadistic bastard, though.

Part of the thing that I think is worth exploring is the fact that Honor Mercer's story is one that pretty much one that left a bunch of wrecked lives in its wake. It's getting a lot of attention because she's (unbeknownst to herself) a Blue Blood of a different pedigree. Having the PCs repeatedly witness vampires killed, tortured, and destroyed because of her will likely make them less sympathetic to her attempt to get away from her sire--which I feel is a good attitude. Honor has had the Earth moved (or at least Midwest) for her and is completely unaware of it.

Bigger than Honor's plight is arguably both cities represent extremes of Camarilla and Anarch philosophy writ-large. The city of Milwaukee is a hell hole for Kindred where vampires are tortured and killed for the slightest reason under an all-powerful Masquerade-obsessed tyrant. The city of Indianapolis lets them run wild and free with no one to reign them in but huge numbers of dead mortals as a result. I don't think either 100% works for their respective sects philosophy but does pose the interesting philosophical point, "Which government is better: the one terrible for mortals and good vampires or good for vampires but terrible for mortals."

I'm also inclined to think that Decker and the Ministry's cities are things that neither sect would particularly like. Decker is probably only able to get away with running "his" city the way he is because it looks like it is protected against the Second Inquisition and he's not bullying anyone of importance while the Ministry's massive number of wights and dead mortals are being concealed from the general populace. I'm also inclined to analyse "Coach" and Keisha's mishandling of Setite philosophy.

This should be a fun Chronicle to analyze!

[CTPhipps]

Why Jessica Hambly as played by Deborah Anne Woll?

Because if you're going to persuade some players that they should go out of their way to risk their lives for some random redheaded Anarch girl then you might as well go with a beloved character from vampire fiction.

[DifferentJustin]

I really enjoy Honor as a character because she's a great foil for someone like Julia Calvin (and the rest of the Anubi as a whole). Decker gave her the chance that Julia never received and never seemed to push her into the fight against the Lupines, but gave her a different batch of responsibilities.

[CTPhipps]

I really enjoy Honor as a character because she's a great foil for someone like Julia Calvin (and the rest of the Anubi as a whole). Decker gave her the chance that Julia never received and never seemed to push her into the fight against the Lupines, but gave her a different batch of responsibilities.

There's a lot of interesting reads you can do and she does serve as an excellent foil to Julia even in the text. The fact that Julia also began life as a hitwoman, was sent to kill Mark by a particularly sadistic sense of humor Kindred, and then is made into a vampire against her will before being enslaved by Mark (with implications she's also his vampire bride) makes the treatment of Honor Mercer all the more egregious.

At least to Julia.

I've mentioned I have the theory that Mark planned to make Honor a bride but they had incompatible orientations and he backed off, another source of jealousy for Julia.

[DifferentJustin]

I don't really know if I agree with Decker wanting to make Honor into a bride/lover, but I definitely agree with the read that Honor isn't 100% heterosexual. The lack of Blood Bond (and low Humanity) from Decker really suggests to me that his obsession with Honor comes from a non-romantic or human space. I interpreted it as the first signs of his Beckoning personally.

[CTPhipps]

I don't really know if I agree with Decker wanting to make Honor into a bride/lover, but I definitely agree with the read that Honor isn't 100% heterosexual. The lack of Blood Bond (and low Humanity) from Decker really suggests to me that his obsession with Honor comes from a non-romantic or human space. I interpreted it as the first signs of his Beckoning personally.

Mark is a surprisingly classical vampire in some respects and has a lot of Gary Oldman Dracula elements (in that he's a warlord, feudal despot feeding on slaves, and forming obsessions) updated to the Modern Era.

So he could actually have a "fascination with her humanity" element too.

[DifferentJustin]

That is a good point, I think something like that might even be mentioned in-text as part of Decker's relationship to Honor and Julia.

[CTPhipps]

Innocence in Blood part 2 [Events] part 1



Type: Chronicle

Synopsis: The player characters are either recruited by Mark Decker, Keisha Phelps, or Dawn Nakada to find Honor Mercer.

Analysis: Reviewing Innocence in Blood as a Chronicle is going to take multiple parts because it is really both a mini "By Night" book (two really) and an adventure module in one. This is part of what makes Let the Streets Run Red work so well as it provides a lot of information for Storytellers that goes beyond those who want to run the Chronicle.

There's enough information on Milwaukee that you could run a campaign out of the city if you were so inclined and works as a decent update for Milwaukee by Night. Indianaopolis is not a city I'd personally run a campaign as an Anarch in but it is also well-detailed enough to work for it. Oddly, I think it's a great setting to be a Hunter in or working with the Second Inquisition because it's a very well-designed pit.

So, the way I'm going to be doing my review of this adventure's events will be addressing the introduction, each city, and then the events of the book. There's a LOT of information compacted here, particularly about Milwaukee, which I want to get into. So this could definitely take awhile but thankfully none of us are going anywhere.
The introduction is an easy enough thing to handle anyway. All three of the ones offered are basically variants on the same idea: Where in the World is Honor Mercer? *Doo Whop, Do do do way do whoop* (There's a reference if you get it).

1. Mark Decker doesn't trust any of his own people not to exploit his missing child for political gain. He's probably correct in this as his enemies would point to him being unduly harsh on them while ignoring his daughter's fuck ups or might even try to ransom her back to him (which would make him look weak). So he's turned to outside contractors with J.W. Blue leading them to the Black Rose where Mark wants to have a sit down. He offers them feeding territory in Milwaukee, which is a very rare gift from him, in exchange for their help.

2. Keisha Phelps summons the PCs to her church and tells them that Honor is in their domain and they need to find her. This is all smoke and mirrors [from a Setite? NO!] and she already knows where Honor is but wants the PCs to look like they're looking for her. This will throw other people off the track like spies or Nosferatu I presume. Either that or she's just being a dick to them.

3. The two FBI agents are looking for Honor, ostensibly, for her family but one of them is actually a ghoul for Dawn Nakada the Archon. Poor Honor is in a really bad situation because Dawn has a berserk button about women under abusive controlling men. Normally this would be a good thing except Dawn thinks its better to kill Honor than return her or let her escape. Because that's the logic of Tremere.

My suggestions for arranging all of these are fairly mild:

1. Stick with Decker as the introduction, no matter sect: The game really is all about comparing and contrasting the two cities. As such, starting with Keisha or the FBI potentially undermines the enjoyment factor from exploring both. Even if the PCs are Anarchs, I don't see why it couldn't be done well to have Mark hire them. It requires a few extra steps but he's a 200 year old Elder that has already recruited Anarchs into his organization. In Kindred speak, killing dozens of Anarchs and Thin Bloods for no reason other than they're Anarchs and Thin Bloods is nothing personal, just business. The PCs being recruited by a rapidly anti-Anarch Prince is unusual but not so much that it is impossible given the way Kindred politics works. What's Decker's motivation? Probably that he suspects [correctly] Honor hooked up with Anarchs and fled her sire and that members of said sect would have an easier time getting her back.

2. Token of Safety: If you want to do it Game of Thrones stylish, have Mark give them a bear-claw on a pendant with a letter or some other talisman that says, "If you come into my domain, you are under my protection and have my word you will be safe. Provided you aren't outstanding assholes or break the Masquerade." Which would be bullshit from any other Clan but Decker is a Gangrel and [mostly] means it.

3. Increase the Reward: Feeding ground in Milwaukee is all well and good but unless the PCs intend to live in the Cheese City, there's not much reward there. My suggestion is to come up with a bigger Maguffin tailored to the PCs or part of a chain of favors. If the PCs are Anarchs, have them told that Decker has 5-6 Anarchs staked in a storage container somewhere that he's willing to return to the Movement if they recover his childe unharmed. If the PCs have a NPC they like, then they could be a "guest" of Decker in the meantime. Decker doesn't want to be threatening, though he's incapable of not being a LITTLE threatening, so it's not quite a hostage situation. However, it should be something valuable and perhaps enough to tempt the players to turn over Honor to Mark.

In my last running of the game, I had the PCs barely survive an Assamite attack on them and Mark was willing to tell them who was behind the payment [note: It was Maxwell as a lead in to Rusted Jungle]. Other possible rewards could be a Circulatory System franchise in Milwaukee that gives the PCs access to blood or the option to loot Carna's former chantry [let the buyer beware there]. If I do it again, I may have the PCs want to get back Lily the Thin Blood who was one of the PC's lovers in our current game.

4. Have Decker meet the PCs at a Night Baseball Game: It's such a striking image that I think it should be used instead of the Black Rose.

5. Red Herring: Drop Hints on the FBI being Hunters: Have the FBI starting up a dragnet for Hope Mercer, pictures in the paper, lots of local cops, and seemingly limitless resources. This should get the players to think she's being hunted by the Second Inquisition [Mark will mention it and "This has never happened in my entire domain's history!"]. It's actually Dawn Nakada, of course, and the Camarilla's influence. Mark will be both relieved and INFURIATED by this.