Chronicle Idea: Rise and fall of a Dynasty

[Rosencroft]

Evening everyone,
I apologize in advance for any bad grammar or typos, currently writing this on a phone from a hospital.

I had an idea that passed my mind on several occasions and I wanted to ask for advice from players and storytellers here.
Its about a vampire that flees burning Rome and destruction of Camarilla to Thracia ( moderm day Serbia ) where he establishes a dynasty that would see rise and fall during the Dark ages.
Now, the question that i have is this: Can dynasties consist of many bloodlines or just one? Or can there be many members of different bloodlines in a same dynasty?
My idea would be that this Founder would be joined by several vampires that would make their own subsections ( Houses/Families ) tjat would in turn make a greater Dynasty.

The story would see them taking over a ruined castle, slowly rebuilding and eventually going to war with different clans, Plaguebringers ( tjat were mentioned in the core 2e ) and Striges/Strix.

So, since I dont have the Invictus book on me here, I dont know much about dynasties, and would be gratefull if someone would explain them to me pr if could answer my questions about different clan/bloodline members.

Thnakful in advace.

[Live Bait]

The Invictus have a practice of leaving everything to someone else when you face torpor and then when you wake up you share everything they have and look after their stuff when they torpor, such relationships usually top out at 3 members. The Dynasty Membership merit in the core book is intended for single clan membership since it requires Clan Status to take it.
Now that’s out of the way it should be relatively easy to rework anything you need to to make this work for your game, what would you want to represent with the merits?

[Aurumae]

Given that the game will be starting out in the 4th or 5th century, the Invictus doesn't exist yet. So whether the "canon" Invictus lets you have multiple bloodlines in a dynasty or not, there's no reason why you couldn't have it be otherwise for this character, after all they'll be the one writing the rules.

Another option would be to take a look at Night Horrors Spilled Blood. Some of the Bloodlines in that book are available to multiple clans, or even to all clans within a covenant. You could pick one of those as the Dynastic Bloodline (or invent your own) - everyone in the Dynasty has to join this particular bloodline.

[Rosencroft]

Dynasty (of the Founder) would be represented as a merit
Then I would somehow represent all the other Houses as sub-dynasties, for each House would have different unique gifts or bloodlines. I just don't know how to mechanically represent different stages of membership with merits.

In my head it goes like this:

Dynasty Founder
House Founders
House members

But aome of the houses/bloodlines would hail from different clans. Because not all of the Houses fit thematically to a same clan

[Rosencroft]

The story wpuld be that in modern nights, descendants of that Dynasty ( Vennic ) would be several Venteues, Daevas and a Mekhet.

They would be targeted by Striges and possessed kindred and they would start unveiling mystery of the grudge Strix hold against them for long forgotten crimes.
They would pinpoint their common origin to a now ruined castle and mount an expedition/excavation.
There they would slowly unveil history of Vennic and their downfall.

Also big mystery would be whether the Founder ( Vendrick ) was a Ventrue or Julii

[Live Bait]

You could treat the Dynasty as effectively another covenant or make a Mystery Cult to represent it. Remember that if something is unavailable to the players like being the founder then there’s no reason to try and balance it or make it a merit so some of your concerns might be redundant.

[Rosencroft]

Thats the thing, I will allow them to rise to be House leaders. That os why Im asking should i make one merit to represent the entire Vennic dynasty or should they each have separate merits to upgrade/buy?

[Live Bait]

If each house is one clan only then the Dynasty Membership merit is sufficient for your needs, beyond that depends on what they get from being in charge of the whole thing (and how many steps there are between 3 dots in DM and the top job).
As I mentioned above I would be tempted to write up a Mystery Cult to represent the cooperation between the different houses maybe requiring 3 dots in Dynasty Membership before you can join it but you could have a merit for wider status in the whole Vennic Dynasty but if you do that it’s probably best to start your players off with one free dot in clan and vennic status and Dynasty Membership so they don’t have to spend all their xp on social stuff.

[Baaldam]

Evening everyone,
Its about a vampire that flees burning Rome and destruction of Camarilla to Thracia ( moderm day Serbia ) where he establishes a dynasty that would see rise and fall during the Dark ages.

Not wanting to be too much of a nitpicker, but i think Thracia has little to no relation to modern Serbia but Bulgaria and some parts of modern Greece and Turkey? Kind of confused here.

[Rosencroft]

Not wanting to be too much of a nitpicker, but i think Thracia has little to no relation to modern Serbia but Bulgaria and some parts of modern Greece and Turkey? Kind of confused here.

Sorry, my bad, Moesia Superior, not Thracia. My town is literally on the border but you're right. Aorry for mistake.

[Baaldam]

Sorry, my bad, Moesia Superior, not Thracia. My town is literally on the border but you're right. Aorry for mistake.

It happens, pobody is nerfect.

But back on the game itself, what do you have in mind? Is the founder a remnant of the Julii, Cult of Augurs or part of any other once great group that dies out bit by bit along with the roman empire?
A member of the other clans and wings of the Camarilla trying to adapt to changing conditions and find opportunities amids the uncertainty?
Or part of Lancea et Sanctum and other newer, strange groups that seem to mark the downfall of Rome and the new, dark ages incoming?
What attracted him or her to this particular land as a place to hide and start anew? What circunstances led to this unbreathing man or woman to gather followers and/or childer to its banner, at least for a time?


Also got this based on your last post. Thought it might be of use to help setting up the playing field, with potential locations & historical events to reference and riff story ideas and hooks from. Maybe also this one, not certain.


Just read your post giving the dynasty's name and mentioning a modern nights game it ties into. Is that modern nights chronicle something you have already running or do you plan to make it after sketching out these ancient/medieval story bits? Asking since in the first case you might already have background and events to mine and rework stuff from for ideas to set up this "old nights" game.

The "enemy clans" would be lineages from the core five, "anachronic" variants like the "Hollow" Mekhet or "Vermes" Nosferatu, VII, "dead" clans from other books (or your own imagination) or a little bit of everything?

What are the Plaguebringers, are they kindred or something else? Is there any relation with the Morbus bloodline and the Cachexy discipline?

And before i forget, any folklore, favorite novels, comics or films you might want to reference/insert elements from in the tale?

[Rosencroft]

What I had in mind is as follows.
Camarilla collapses, and kindred flee from the wreckage of the once great Necropolis.
Vennic legends would say that Vendrick ( still thinking on Roman version of his name ) was a part of Senex, while I had in mind that it's a lie, and that he was only a bodyguard/childe of an unknown Senex member.
He flees to Moesia Superior, to Naissus to be exact. There's a cool battle that took place there ( Battle of Naissus ) that I will tweak a bit to suit the story.
I'll connect it with the purge of Camarilla from the territory.
So, Vendrick escapes further into the forests and mountains and srumbles upon the ruins of an old Empire fort. With outlying villages and towns, he has a steady supply of blood and proceeds to use it as a haven. Loneliness takes it's toll on him, and he slowly begins embracing.
Now, I'm still thinking of keeping the clan Vendrick bel9ngs to a secret and dance constantly between Julii/Ventrue mystery.
Every childe of Vendrick's would go on and make a separate bloodline/Bloodline, and I will probably fall back on local folklore on vampires ( Upiri, More, Psoglav, Zduhach, etc. ) as these unique vampires/progeny of Vendrick and his children.

Eventually, whether or not Vendrick is Julii, everyone thinks that he is and that information eventually reaches Striges ( Strix ) and owl-possessed kindred and they decide to attack.

Plaguebringers are mentioned once in the core Vampire the Requiem 2e, but I don't think it was elaborated whether they were Morbus or not, just that they were active in the region during Dark ages.

Vendrick's children, now Vennic, ex0anded fort into a castle, and that would be their final resting place, as Strix descended on them.

I planned the chronicle to constantly jump between past and present, where players would play their modern characters, and through flashbacks, their ancestors.

Expedition to Vennic castle and troubles getting there ( sabotages, killings, mysterious occurances, somebody from Invictus and Ordo Dracul not wanting kindred digging up the history ) as well flashbacks that would include teoubles of repairing the castle, clash with local Strigoi ( proto-vampires I had in mind similar to Falmer from Skyrim, local werewolf packs and all sort of strange phenomena ).

In the end, Vennic were almost all destroyed, with players left as their only modern day descendants, while leaving an epilogue of sorts ( post credits scene 😁 ) where somewhre in the local? Underworld, a Sin-eater would stumble upon a Lower Mystery domain of a Twice-dead king and his cohort of undead offspring living in an exact replica of Vennic castle.

That's the general idea for a cheonicle.
So, not much of Roman Empire lore, more local Slavic/Serbian/Romanian lore.

Edit:
Other inspiration would be something as a mix between Bloodborne/Dark Souls creepy/tragic lore.
Lots of Darkest Dungeon inspiration ( sins and secrets of the Ancestor - Vendrick )
Eldritch abominations, experiments and blood-starved vampires roaming the halls of Vennic Castle.
Zlatna Krv ( Golden Blood ) - a book, murder mystery involving a gathering of vampires in Balkans. Not sure on the author or the english translation, I read it a decade ago, but it still stuck to me to this day in my mind with castle descriptions. In a way, the castle was a character in itself.
Dracula ( the novel ) obviously 😁
Vampir - Tihomir Djordjevic ( an essay/book, a collection of historyc alleged vampire sightings and vampire lore in Balkans )

If I remember something else, I'll add it here.

[Baaldam]

Vennic legends would say that Vendrick ( still thinking on Roman version of his name ) was a part of Senex, while I had in mind that it's a lie, and that he was only a bodyguard/childe of an unknown Senex member.

Well, as far i know, Vendrick is a totally made-up name out of Dark Souls, what may make finding equivalents complicated.

He flees to Moesia Superior, to Naissus to be exact. There's a cool battle that took place there (Battle of Naissus) that I will tweak a bit to suit the story.
I'll connect it with the purge of Camarilla from the territory.

A curious choice to mark the decadence of the Camarilla, considering the battle was a great roman victory, at least from what i could quickly gather online.

As an aside, do you have Requiem for Rome and/or Fall of the Camarilla? Even if your focus is in late antiquity/early medieval Serbia and its environs, they might offer hooks and ideas to mine in flashing out the Founder and its particular circunstances.

So, Vendrick escapes further into the forests and mountains and srumbles upon the ruins of an old Empire fort. With outlying villages and towns, he has a steady supply of blood and proceeds to use it as a haven. Loneliness takes it's toll on him, and he slowly begins embracing.
Now, I'm still thinking of keeping the clan Vendrick belongs to a secret and dance constantly between Julii/Ventrue mystery.

Well, there's the Licinii, a "cursed" bloodline of Julii - that are actually the descendants of the childer of a strix-possessed Nosferatu. Even if you don't use them in particular, i doubt they were the only example of the Strix trolling the Jullii's patrician pretensions of lineage.

More comments, suggestions & etc i'll leave for later when they do come up. Hope these bits do make a bit of a start.

[Rosencroft]

Actually Macellarius are also listed as both a Julii and Ventrue bloodline, so that gave me the inspiration for Vendrick's clan mystery.
Yeah, the name is from the Dark Souls, but as I mentioned, I use the game for inspiration and VENdrick suites me fine with the Ventrue/Ven naming.

[Baaldam]

Actually Macellarius are also listed as both a Julii and Ventrue bloodline, so that gave me the inspiration for Vendrick's clan mystery.

Well, Macellarii are made to blatantly stradle the "are Julii Ventrue or not?" riddle, so calling hybrid or mixed is kind of sketchy, but fair.

Yeah, the name is from the Dark Souls, but as I mentioned, I use the game for inspiration and VENdrick suites me fine with the Ventrue/Ven naming.

So, how about Venturus?
Sorry, couldn't resist.

These Strigoi/Falmer - how different would they be from the subterranean Vermes or the possibly related Telamones, or a subterranean bloodline/blood cult of Mekhet (Auspex would go well with Falmer uncanny hearing/echolocation, i guess), perhaps?

Speaking of ruined empire forts, something for a little extra historical fun.
Also kind of related things (not really, but a fun bit of inspiration).