Friday 29 December 2023

Russia as a World Of Darkness setting

A request for ideas for a Vampire: The Masquerade game set in Russia, which led me to discover Empire V, and quoting myself having thought about this before in the last thirty years:

(And it reminded me of the Moscow By Night LARP event video that looked like a LARP event anywhere in the world, Bloodlines Lacuna Coil song and all. I find that oddly comforting.)

Lore about Russia from previous editions features a lot of major-league monsters running amok but the official version’s easily overwritten. Baba Yaga as a fourth generation Nosferatu with vast magic powers and an army of supernatural beings opposed by Russia’s werewolves, after she took out the Brujah-led backers of vampire Communism. Also Rasputin as... pretty much every kind of monster.

(I would have made the Brujah council come in to shore up the Communists after the actually-people-led Revolution, and never be that big a deal as they kept backing different factions.)

A more low-key version where it has the same spread of supernatural troubles as settings like the USA would also work, with an emphasis on its current division and authoritarian control in mortal society.

(The KGB’s successors could have some pretty scary hunters, as well as plenty of corrupt do-nothing officials happy to take bribes.)

And it has its club scenes, underground music styles and other subcultures where vampires thrive...

Avoiding anything like the Chechnya section cut after the original printing of the V5 Camarilla book, but it’s fine to be snarky at your own table.

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