14 Vampire plot hooks from Witch of the Vale

Hunter on RPGnet liked the Episodes Based On Song Titles idea as recently showcased here and started a thread for more. So I felt I should contribute.

Fortunately, the most recent album I bought and the game I’m currently running fit together, being rather Goth.

Vampire: The Masquerade

with

Commemorate by Witch of the Vale

Something Lost

One of a vampire’s few human connections is moving away, ready to make a new and better life for herself. Can she really let go?

Fever

“Please, someone stake me, bury me, put me in the ground”

A vampire is infected with a blood borne disease. Can the coterie find a way to cleanse him before the Camarilla puts him down?

Trust the Pain

“Now you know we’re not good people”

A vampire finds herself unable to feel pain. Is this a sign of growing power, or of fading humanity?

Undressed

In a most intimate moment, a vampire’s lover sees what he really is. Can they ever recover?

Death Dream

A vampire wakes from a shockingly vivid dream of someone dying - and realises that her hated sire has returned and plans to Embrace another victim. What can she do?

Crash

A car crash. The driver can’t possibly survive. So much blood. Would it really be wrong to take some?

The Sky and the Sea

A ship comes in with everyone on board dead. What came to port with it?

Your Voice

A vampire soprano finds someone recorded her last performance in life. What would she do to hear her living voice again, and how would it make her feel?

Commemorate

The Prince is dead, and his childe wishes a wake in his honour. Who would speak kindly of him? And who would dare speak true?

Suffocation

A vampire wakes to find herself in a coffin, buried in the city cemetery. How can she get out? And who put her there?

The Way This Will End

A vampire realises that her lover is going to leave her. Will she let him?

Gods & Monsters

A vampire cult worshipping a cruel ancient god comes to the city. What are they looking for here, and what happens if they find it?

The Ghosts Won’t Know

A seer of the Giovanni family approaches the coterie with a warning of a ghost stalking them. What have they done to bring this on themselves?

Live Again

A scholar of Golconda finds a way to be human again. What would the Kindred do for this, or to stop it?

The best counterfeiter ever

Rose Bailey tells the true story of the man who solved the basic problem of counterfeiting and thus totally fucked Portugal’s economy.

Character Creation Challenge 2023 14: I Was A Teenage Ghost

Character Creation Challenge 2023

31 Buffy The Vampire Slayer characters

14: I Was A Teenage Ghost

One of my earliest Buffy character ideas. 

Neither Buffy nor Angel had a ghost in the regular cast, although Willow spent Halloween as one, Cordelia had Phantom Dennis as a roommate, and Spike’s soul was incorporeal for a chunk of Angel season five.

As such, the setting rules for ghosts are a bit handwavy. And the game rules likewise, there’s no official Ghost Quality. I’ve DIYed this kind of thing since my first Buffy PBP.

Borrowing from Being Human and the RPG MonsterHearts, a ghost who’s visible most of the time and can make herself substantial so she can pass for still alive, but reverts to normal ghostiness sometimes, and can be harmed by mortal means. And since she can pick things up with her ghostly hands like Spike learns to I haven’t given her telekinesis.

Minda Baker

Type: White Hat

Bailee Madison

Description: Usually visible but unobtrusive

Example quote: “Boo, I guess?”

Minda died recently in a botched cult sacrifice, and due to it going a bit wrong she’s still in the world. She can see and hear, touch and feel, and move things like normal. But sometimes when she’s startled or scared she dissipates, and when it gets too much she becomes invisible. And it gets too much more and more around this one member of the slayer’s gang... 

Lockwood & Co.

Lockwood & Co. from Joe Cornish on Netflix. Trailer and discussion at Empire. Teens go into business shunting ghosts in a world where hunting ghosts is a major concern. From the creator of Attack The Block and The Kid Who Would Be King, this shows some similarities with kids sword fighting monsters and the threat being too big to hide from the world.

The Open RPG Creative Licence

ORC for short. Not to be confused with Edinburgh’s Open Roleplaying Community. Morgue was way ahead there.

In related news, WOTC is backing off in some ways, it seems.

Character Creation Challenge 2023 13: A Talking Cat

Character Creation Challenge 2023

31 Buffy The Vampire Slayer characters

13: A Talking Cat

So that’s variably similar analogues to everybody who featured in the series credits. And now for something completely different. Starting with some other classic supernatural creature types...

It’s also Friday the 13th! So... no, not a guy with a machete.

Instead, inspired by Steve D statting up a throwaway gag from the rulebook about Slayo the Slayer-dog, something I’ve sometimes threatened but never done in a Buffy game: an adorable talking animal episode. It’s no weirder than The Puppet Show, after all.

And while an adorable talking animal has some obvious limitations as a full cast member, it could be pretty fun as a recurring guest star.

Mittens

Type: Hero

Thackery Binx in Hocus Pocus

Description: Black cat with a hint of a smirk

Example quote: “My mistress will be avenged! Also are you going to finish that sandwich?”

Mittens is a witch’s cat, but his mistress is missing presumed dead or lost in a spirit realm, and now he seeks the aid of supernatural warriors in saving or avenging her. What, are they busy or something?

Universal Horror Nights Every Night

Universal are bringing a horror park to Las Vegas, all year round.

I WANNA!

Paramore, C'est Comme Ça

Paramore, C’est Comme Ça lyric video

I still need a certain degree of disorder

Character Creation Challenge 2023 12: The Witch

Character Creation Challenge 2023

31 Buffy The Vampire Slayer characters

12: The Witch

Magic is a powerful and unpredictable thing. And a powerful and unpredictable thing can make for interesting plots.

Willow gets into magic in a big way, but there are lower-key magic types around from the first regular episode of Buffy onwards, and this includes Tara, the last character added to the opening credits and therefore the last of this subset of the challenge that I’ll be making a playable sorta-kinda riff on.

Having at least ritual magic available is handy for the series from the get-go, with opportunities for countering hexes, discovering things that are hard to learn normally, and making Funny Magic Episodes happen.

And there are also players who love spellcaster options. But at this point I should make a note about balance. Buffy as a system is sorta-kinda balanced, but Sorcery isn’t. It being both very powerful and really cheap perfectly models Willow going from first spell to extinction level event in four years flat, but other magical characters note that her power is extraordinary.

(TWH digression: I gave the group a friendly witch type NPC as nobody started with magic, as a way to have magic-related plots as well as latterly adding romantic tensions. Then Ziggy’s player took some Sorcery and he got scary good scary fast, and was written out when his player moved away. Then Matthew’s player took some Sorcery and he also got scary good scary fast, and his player decided we should nerf him. Twice. Making him totally unable to affect or suffer from magic the second time. Hence warnings like the above, house rules, and more.)

So anyway, a starting witch type can have plenty to do without much Sorcery.

Lana Donovan

Type: White Hat

Grace Fulton

Description: Notably funky earrings

Example quote: “Make it work, make it work, make it work, make it work...”

Lana discovered there was a Vampire Slayer in town when she was researching the town cemeteries and their tendency to have more open graves at night than during the day. It seemed only polite to introduce herself, and help with rogue sorcerers, ancient curses rising, and that thing with the pirates.

Character Creation Challenge 2023 11: The Kid

Character Creation Challenge 2023

31 Buffy The Vampire Slayer characters

11: The Kid

With the Scoobies out of high school for a year already, Dawn brought a mid-teens character back to the main cast of a teen show. Of course introducing a kid is tricky, and Dawn being a frequent hostage and written to be extremely annoying to our hero didn’t help win fans over.

But a trouble magnet can be fun to play, and a seemingly unremarkable friend or relative of an established central character could be a good choice for a player who prefers a supporting role.

Dawn is also special and important to the wider world, all the trouble of being a Chosen One with none of the empowerment. See also the kids in various Star Wars series, but note that Ezra, Baby Yoda Grogu and Omega are all introduced in their series’ first episodes so they’re part of the setup, so check before bringing something like that into an existing game.

(Inevitable The Watch House reminiscences: The online pilot of The Night Watch had the trainee Watchers find a “possessed” little girl was actually a Slayer reliving previous Chosen memories. And a guest player came in to TWH as someone marked for death by a cult through no fault of his own, so he got to be the “escort mission” target for his stay.)

Angel also has this with Connor - as a baby in particular, though the audition for the teen version is a scene where he argues with Angel who’s his sworn protector but not his father. They also established it can happen to others, with the blind seer children in season one and the marked-for-fate baby at the start of season two. Who should be out of college by now. Hmm...

Jodie Adams

Type: White Hat

Emily Alyn Lind

Description: Young enough to make our teen heroes feel old

Example quote: “Ew. Ew. I repeat: Ew.”

Jodie is Lane’s cousin, and about to start high school so he was told to look out for her. Unfortunately this resulted in her tagging along in an impromptu ritual-disrupting outing and getting caught in the blowback, so now her blood calls to every vampire that can smell it, who could use it to complete the ritual and become True Demons unaffected by stake or sunlight. Lane’s pretty sure that this isn’t what Aunt Kath meant.

The Bad Batch 2.03

Star Wars: The Bad Batch

2.03: The Solitary Clone

“Clones battle against a Separatist hold out.”

27 minutes plus credits.

A Crosshair episode. Also featuring another returning clone.

Character Creation Challenge 2023 10: The Occultist

Character Creation Challenge 2023

31 Buffy The Vampire Slayer characters

10: The Occultist

The show replaced Cordelia’s uncomfortably honest outside perspective with Spike and Anya, both also deactivated monsterish types who could bring the occult knowledge as well. So, an occult expert, which risks overlapping with the Watcher and those Scoobies who have invested in research skills but it’s not bad to have help there. Maybe with some shady connections most people wouldn’t want to deal with.

A Sorcery-heavy PC got de-magicked in The Watch House as the power level stopped being fun for the player. This is a riff on that.

Carter Brandon

Type: White Hat

Thomas Doherty

Description: Doesn’t actually have a little raincloud hanging over his head. Wishes he could.

Example quote: “I really miss being able to make doors hit people on the way out of the room.”

Brandon used to be a capable self-serving sorcerer, until a dangerous spell backfired and burned out his powers. But for how long?

He’s not bitter.

Sorry, let me read that again and try to keep a straight face.

Character Creation Challenge 2023 9: The Vampire With Another Playability Option

Character Creation Challenge 2023

31 Buffy The Vampire Slayer characters

9: The Vampire With Another Playability Option

Having discussed playable options for vampires when I gave one a soul, here we are again after Spike gets into the credits. This one isn’t so nice, for those wanting to play a Big Bad stuck with the forces of good.

Magpie

Type: (Anti-)Hero

Description: Grumpy, with a certain wicked glee

Example quote: “When this is done... well, that’ll be an interesting day.”

Phoebe Tonkin

A vampire who’s tangled with the slayer and her gang a couple of times went to a mystic to see what she was doing wrong... and the mystic placed a curse on her so that she had to protect the portal in town until an alignment that could open or shut it.

And since now there’s a question about how that’s going to go for good or ill, if the gang stake her that could destroy the world.

Darn.

OGL 1.1

The business changes in the OGL 1.1 news, with a leaked draft covered here, do not concern me directly but may concern friends in the industry.

The OGL has been in place since 2000, encouraging third party games and settings and adventures based around the d20 system in its last three and a half editions. A lot of lines depend on it.

Character Creation Challenge 2023 8: The Supersoldier

Character Creation Challenge 2023

31 Buffy The Vampire Slayer characters

8: The Supersoldier

Riley was always going to split the fandom, but from an RPG perspective a new fighter in the group who brings some plot hooks and doesn’t step on any other PCs’ shticks is much more welcome.

Well-supported, well-trained and well-equipped monster hunters show up now and then, to contrast with the thrown-into-this Scoobies without taking over the show. So take one, put them on the outs with the big group, have some conflict on methods and see how that goes...

Dan Clayburn

Type: Hero

Description: Clearly he works out.

Example quote: “Stand down. I’m asking once to be nice.”

Enver Gjokaj

A decorated soldier before his move to special ops, “Clay” has seen a bit too much. And now he’s on secondment to the ROTC program in a little college town where he’s also supposed to be keeping an eye on monsters. And, apparently, a Vampire Slayer.

Buffy Unmatched painted

Thank you to Chris for painting my Buffy Unmatched miniatures!

Photos by Chris as well.

Polyhedral Magazine

Polyhedral Magazine, spearheaded by Tabletop Scotland lead organiser Dave Wright, hoping for quarterly physical releases with issue 1 coming to Kickstarter in February and a sample issue 0 available now.

Character Creation Challenge 2023 7: Teen Wolf

Character Creation Challenge 2023

31 Buffy The Vampire Slayer characters

7: Teen Wolf

Werewolves get a mention in Welcome To The Hellmouth, and they’re the classic monster exemplar for adolescence, a double life and impulse control issues. So when one shows up in the form of Oz he’s already an established sympathetic character, so the show takes that The Wolf Man approach, naturally by way of the variously Buffyish I Was A Teenage Werewolf, Werewolf By Night, An American Werewolf In London, Teen Wolf, Turning Red and Ginger Snaps. The Teen Wolf TV series sticks closer to Buffy and Angel in tone than the original films.

But overall Oz being a werewolf is only a big deal in four episodes. Bruce Banner has more trouble with his monstrous alter ego in The Avengers. For one thing, it doesn’t seem particularly infectious. And while we get werewolves who are cooler with lycanthropy, we never get a fully monstrous example who chose it on purpose.

The Buffy rulebook has Werewolf as a Quality if you’re in control and a Drawback if not, and is the basis for rules for part-time monster PCs, expanded on in Monster Smackdown. The Angel rulebook uses a fully modular approach with more options, but going with Buffy I can still tweak by houseruling.

The Watch House followed its inspiration The Night Watch in having a hereditary werebeing with the group for safety, and in control of the curse (the big Quality version) so they could be handy in a fight. Among his featured episodes was one like The Replacement where he got split in two, regular human and hyper-werewolf, both played by this player.

And I’ve had a Drawback-type werewolf in a play-by-post, and one episode involved her accidentally trading her lycanthropy to a witch who then sold it to someone who wanted the power so she had to take it back.

So anyway, some werewolf system notes and plot hooks from my experience of Buffy games.

To be different from Oz, let’s start with the gang meeting the werewolf because of the werewolf-ness.

Melissa Walden

Type: White Hat

Description: Oddly confident

Example quote “Don’t make me angry. It would be awesome.”

Vanessa Morgan

Walden comes from a cursed lineage. Which she didn’t know was actually a thing until the recent Blood Moon. So now she has some wolf in her, a little bonus when in human form making her sure of herself, quick to defend herself and others, and also the kind of person who attracts the attention of monster hunters.

Ken Hite is recovering at home after being shot in the leg in a robbery attempt. All the best to him and his loved ones.

Character Creation Challenge 2023 6: The Vampire With A Soul

Character Creation Challenge 2023

31 Buffy The Vampire Slayer characters

6: The Vampire With A Soul

Okay, so, a good vampire is an ironic addition and a perfect romantic foil in a show about a vampire hunter, but you have to work to avoid moral questions about possible rehabilitation of the monsters our heroes keep on killing.

The series does this by making the magic to curse Angel rare and highly dangerous (the first Angel series comic written by Joss Whedon establishes that the group responsible tried again, failed, and were killed by their target) and latterly giving Spike a soul due to his personal oddness. But wanting to play a vampire in a setting where it’s possible but not the default (as in most RPGs with Vampire in the title) can be appealing, so options like souls, chips, curses, being haunted by your own ghost and so on have been raised.

In The Watch House I had a recurring Big Bad vampire cursed with a soul for somewhat convoluted reasons, after a PC became a vampire and the player kept playing him. So I’m open to the idea, but I need a good reason.

So anyway, to include one here...

Blake

Type: Hero

Aubrey Joseph

Description: Looks great in a big coat suitable for swooping

Example quote: “You should be careful who you invite into your life.”

All Blake knew for the last twenty years was pain. It felt like the sun was burning him from the inside. He remembers someone placing their hand on his chest and feeling the fire ignite inside. It was while he was trying to kill a band of hunters. After that... nothing but pain for almost a year.

Other vampires - those he had known for decades, in some cases centuries - shun and fear and attack him. He still burns in the sun, at the touch of the cross. Whatever this is, it’s not redemption. It’s a torment on an undeserving soul.

All he can be sure of is that someone did this to him, forced his soul back into this cursed body. And that it’s slowly coming apart. It can’t last.

He has a purpose, a duty he has to perform, and then perhaps his soul will be released and maybe he can finally rest. If he fails, he knows it spells doom for him and maybe for the world.

And then fate added a further twist, bringing him in contact with a slayer...