9V: MEDIUM
There’s a huge array of supernatural horror and urban fantasy media out there, including direct influences on the Darkness family of games and those directly influenced by it. Which of them exist in your setting as media, and which stories happened in the setting or otherwise don’t exist?
This is mostly a question with vampires, as Masquerade and Requiem both start with the idea of fitting a wide variety of fictional vampires in the same setting, where for example the Werewolf games aren’t much like most werewolf fiction beforehand.
Dracula exists in Masquerade, and is quite like the version in the novel - though this kind of contradicts the opening in-character introduction for the first two editions written as an apology to Mina. It was later established that he had a hand in the writing of the book. This is regarded as a disastrous breach of the Masquerade, even as it gets various things about the Kindred wrong. Do vampire movies in-setting play up the errors?
Dracula founded the Ordo Dracul in Requiem, and the book about them presents a multiple-choice version of him in its history, and the setting also features the self-proclaimed heir to his title, Count F Dracula.
Buffy The Vampire Slayer, True Blood and Blade Trinity all play with the idea of Dracula as a celebrity as well.
The 1931 film was made in Masquerade canon, as the original Los Angeles By Night has a Malkavian in town who may or may not be Bela Lugosi.
The idea of Bram Stoker knowing more than he let on isn’t new, as the novel is epistolary, presented as transcripts of documents and that lends itself to “what if it was real?” responses much like found footage movies. An unmade sequel script has a manuscript of the novel as a plot element, something Pelgrane’s Dracula Dossier for Night’s Black Agents takes a lot further, with the plot kicked off by an edited version of the novel with in-character marginalia.
Nosferatu, derived from Dracula, exists as a film as well as a clan name, which might be taken from the same source in-character or a film reference. It adds the vampire burning by sunlight, not in the book but true in the Vampire settings, so would be more of a Masquerade violation. I’ve used the attempt to get it destroyed over copyright violation as a plot hook before, suggesting its creators really did know too much. (See also Shadow Of The Vampire which totally goes for this.)
And the Count from Sesame Street happened as well, as shown to the Ravnos illustration in the original Players Guide. No definitive word on Count Chocula and the other cereal mascots of various supernatural character types.
Clanbook Nosferatu revised indicates that Anne Rice’s books, or a series very like them, exist. The Hunger directly influenced the Succubus Club in Masquerade among other things, but at least some of happened in Requiem. Carmilla is a character and a book in Requiem lore. (And the web series version has a visual reference in Dark Eras...)
Removing the clearly influenced follow-ups isn’t as hard. We’d have to lose Underworld. The Blade movies would look different without the very Masquerade influenced world for him to crash. The Vampire Diaries and Teen Wolf would change a bit here and there. The biggest gap here is True Blood, what takes its place?
And maybe the John Wick series, which aren’t vampire movies but very much are Vampire: The Masquerade movies.
More generally, what kind of supernatural media is there in a setting where supernatural beings exist and try to influence the media? What do they change, stop, or encourage? Do vampires nudge vampire movies away from accuracy to spread inaccurate superstitions about crosses and mirrors, and actively encourage Friendly Neighbourhood Vampire fiction?
See also Black Dog Game Factory for the ultimate meta example in either setting, along with other Pentex subsidiaries like the one producing toys and tie-in series with werewolf villains. (Was there a short-run Revenant TV series in the mid 90s?)
(And also these being settings with ghosts, that kind of medium can also appear. Wraith: The Oblivion, Ghost Hunters, Orpheus and Geist: The Sin-Eaters are about crossing the division of life and afterlife in different ways, and other games have connections as well like Masquerade’s Hecata. My current V5 chronicle features a fairly prominent one. And bringing these two Medium ideas together, the Orpheus Group consults on at least one ghost-hunting reality show.)
1.09: Showtime
Goth bands playing up the vampire shtick aren’t new, but after the incident with an actual vampire band do you really want to book one for Nocturne?
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