Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Strange bedfellows / Carthian Democracy story idea for Vampire: the Requiem

Here in the UK we have a coalition government, created when the Conservative party failed to secure a clear majority in parliament and entered into a power sharing deal with the much smaller Liberal Democrats party.
As a result of this, we are due a referendum vote on the 5th May to decide if we, as a country, want to fundamentally alter our democratic process - do we want to change from our current 'first past the post' vote counting system, and move to the multi-vote Alternative Vote system.
This would never have happened if the Conservatives hadn't gotten into bed with the Lib Dems. The Lib Dems are the third runners in a two party system, and have a lot of idealistic and progressive policies that none of the other parties share.
Arguably, they are the Carthian Movement.
OK, probably not, but It's my way into this post.

The Carthian Movement is the newest political group within the Vampire ruling sects, and has a lot of funny, darling ideas, like democracy, equal say, upward mobility, are against feudal rule, rule by elders and rule by divine mandate as well as any other more traditional method of vampiric governance.

So, chronicle idea. The city has recently fallen under Carthian governance, and is a major victory for the Movement. Sweeping reform is in effect. Elysium has moved, the Primogen and Priscus have mostly changed, and the prominent members of the other Covenants have virtually vanished from the public eye.

The received wisdom is that the Carthians have achieved this magnificent coup due to the genius of the new Prince, a virtual neonate with influence in mortal business and politics.
The truth is slightly more complicated...

The new Prince is indeed a genius, and has brokered deals with some of the city's more powerful and influential Kindred which have allowed him to oust the previous incumbent and assume to position of Prince. Without this support, the new Prince would have been ignored at best, or ushered across to the final death at worst.

Now, the elders have upheld their end of the deal, and have no doubt profited greatly from the removal of old allies, but now they know that the new Prince cannot stand without their support, and will keep asking more and more of him until his ability to deliver crumbles, and they can appoint a new Prince.

The Prince is aware of the position he is in, balanced between the public perception of a truly democratic state, and the power plays of the elders he opposes.

The players should be affiliated with the Carthian Movement in some way, or have a vested interest in the smooth running of the city's new political order.
They will be employed by the new Prince to handle the elders and their demand, either granting them their more... reasonable requests or limiting the damages of their excesses.
As the story progresses, they will be called on to act against the elders, reducing their temporal influence or muting their power within Kindred society.
This is a dangerous game for the players, as the elders could crush them, physically, mentally and socially, with a simple act, as could the new Prince.

Eventually they will have a decision to make. Side fully with the new Prince and destroy the elders, side with the elders and topple the new Prince, or act to remove both sides from power and establish something of their own choosing.


6 comments:

  1. I really love this setup. A great thing about playing in the WoD is that you only have to look to the real wold for endless inspiration.

    It also pleases me greatly to see anther blogger who occasionally has something to say about games like Vampire. There seem to be very few of us.

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  2. Thanks Christian. Can I say that I also enjoy your blog posts immensely, and started reading them because a WoD Google search threw you up.

    It's probably quite cynical of me, but I did notice a dearth of blogs about any game other than D&D/Pathfinder/OSR, and made a conscious decision to try to make up the numbers.

    Now, if only more people would read it...

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  3. "Now, if only more people would read it..."

    I think that as you make your way through the blogs, making comments and what not, you'll see more traffic. :)

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  4. Yup. What Christian said. Thats what got me here. Great idea by the way.

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  5. P.S Your on my bloglist now as well. I don't see that much traffic myself, but hopefully it will help net you some more for your blog.

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  6. Thanks Brian, that's great.
    Glad you like my idea as well.

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