Section One: Chronicle Compatibility

Chronicle Location: Champaign-Urbana IL

Chronicle Name: Crossroads in the Dust

Chronicle Description: A hierarchy city with the usual smattering of Renegades, Heretics and Guild members. Which given the very personal nature of wraith tells you almost nothing. Wraith is about individual stories, about lives that were incomplete, unsatisfying or somehow unfulfilled. It is about regrets and wasted time.

Wraith is a game about personal triumphs and tragedies. It is about developing a city as we develop the rules necessary to run a game. We have had to change much to make the rules work and to ensure compatibility with the new addition of Vampire rules. In that time I have seen some of the best role-playing from all of our players. In six months not a single players has been rolled.

If that doesn't sell it than all I can say is this: it is about telling a story.

Storytellers' Names, Duties, and Email Addresses:

Jason Brandon

thewraithlord@juno.com

Head Storyteller

Matthew Wander

bardstongue@hotmail.com

OWBN Council Member

Duties: Practically everything is shared.

Game Structure: Weekly on Fridays nights (Starting December we will stop playing the last Friday in each month). About 4-12 active players. We meet in Gregory Hall on the UIUC Campus along with Elysium on the Prairie. We have been playing for the last six months. There is no charge for this game.

Power Level: Currently the power level of the game is low as it is a relatively new chronicle. In time we expect the level to grow slowly. Players characters range from about 5 xp to around 50xp.

The question of generation is a moot one as wraiths do not have a generation. Please refer to the section on Age in the charter. Also the question of clan is likewise irrelevant.

Yes, we follow Elysium on the Prairie's rules on build points with one exception: players can only spend those points at a rate of five per month. These five are in addition to the up to eight they can earn in a normal month. The reason for this is that we didn't want a bunch of dead vampires coming in and unbalancing the game. In fitting with our "parent" chronicle, however, we have now done away with build points.

At least half of the characters have received some sort of build points. Most of the time this was somewhere between 5-15 points. Maximum is 35 points in accordance with Elysium rules.

Are all player characters described within Whitewolf live action rules? (At this time, OWBN will not admit chronicles with mage, wraith, or changeling player characters, as there are no universally accessible live action rules for them.)

Comments: We use as the basis for our rules the Oblivion live action rules. We have used the last six months to play test those rules and have worked out the majority of the kinks. We have included a copy of our house rules. In addition to play balance issues we changed a number of things (Mentor Background, Freebee Points etc.) to make our game compatible with live action vampire rules. All characters in our chronicle are wraiths.

In recognition of the fact that OWBN has certain ironclad rules we have made this charter to conform as closely as possible. However, certain changes had to be made in order to account for the differences between vampires and wraiths. Article 1,4,5,9,10 are accepted in full, some have additions.

Article 1: Chronicle SovereigntyThe storytellers of individual chronicles have the right to ban any player or character from their game if s/he would upset game balance or the plot, though they should be diplomatic towards players when exerting this right. Furthermore, storytellers have the right to craft a set of house rules for their chronicle, though major deviations from the Laws of the Night's game mechanics should be limited. Any house rules should be easily accessible on the Web and available at the check-in desk of games, and they should not contradict the OWBN specific rules below. Finally, a chronicle may withdraw from OWBN with no hard feelings if they become disenchanted with the organization. While considering this rule, keep in mind that it means other chronicles may apply it to your players and yourself when you visit other games.

Article 2: Teaching Arcanoi

Wraith does not have in-clan or out of clan distinctions. Instead, Arcanoi have been divided into four categories: common, uncommon, guild, and rare. Common Arcanoi can be learned by anyone and do not require any sort of teacher. Uncommon require a mentor either of the in-game or out of game variety (i.e. the Mentor background). The Mentor background works as follows, for every dot of mentor one can learn all of the uncommon Arcanoi of one arcanos or any one rare. In either case the wraith must have fulfilled all prerequisite levels before being taught the Arcanoi in question. Guild Arcanoi can only be learned by members of that guild. Wraiths are only allowed to be members of one guild at most. The final category, Rare, represent Arcanoi which are known only by individual wraiths or by only a select handful. As such they should be extremely limited in any chronicle. Arcanoi were divided into categories based in part upon game balance and in part to keep with the feel of Wraith: the Oblivion by Richard Dansky.

Article 3: Status Regulation and Rank Cap

In wraith Status works much more along the idea of rank in the military. Within the hierarchy, there are five ranks with status six reserved for the governor of the city. There are only eight members of the city with a rank of five, each of these command one of the legions. Persons with status greater than six are either deathlords or their closest advisors, these persons should never be considered PCs. In addition to hierarchy status there is also renegade status, Heretic Status, and Guild Status. Players may have any combination of status within these four organizations with two restrictions. First, they may only be a member of one guild, never more. Second it is very difficult to balance conflicting loyalties so each player will have one area that they will be able to maintain a high level of status.

Article 4: Experience Rate

So that characters in different chronicles advance at roughly the same rate, no OWBN character can earn more than eight experience points in a single month. Of these eight, no more than five may be for game attendance. Most OWBN games award one experience point per game night, plus bonus experience for such things as exceptional role-playing and extraordinary contributions to the game.

Addendum: A wraith's shadow may also receive an experience point, called a "Golden Angst," if the ST's feel that the player did an exceptional job role-playing his or her darker half and have earned such a reward.

Article 5: Rare Creatures

Exceptionally rare characters such as Salubri, mummies, most bloodlines, Lasombra antitribu, 6th gen and lower vampires, and so forth, should be cleared with the council before they appear in your game. This is particularly true for player characters, but also true for narrators. Approval is not hard to get; this is simply a measure to prevent OWBN from having 13 Salubri, 70 mummies, and more Daughters of Cacophony than Nosferatu. Generally speaking, players should be encouraged to choose to play mortals, ghouls, and vampires from the seven Camarilla clans over the unaligned and Sabbat clans, lest the "strangeness" of the rare creatures become commonplace. Council approval is unnecessary for those characters, however.

Addendum: Creature types that should be added to this list are Risen and certain guilds: Solicitors, Mnemoi, and Alchemists. Ferrymen and Specters should never be allowed as PC's. As there is no precedence for this, nor a wraith coordinator to oversee such rarities, we as ST's reserve the right to declare what is rare and unusual in our chronicle.

Article 6: The Inigo Montoya Clause

No player may play two or more character related to, allied with, or otherwise possessing knowledge of each other at creation. This clause is intended to cut down on players sharing knowledge from character to character, and is also meant to prevent players from bringing in characters whose goals are to avenge their last character's death. ("You keeled my father! Prepare to die!") Note that characters may eventually gain knowledge of each other, but players should never be allowed to turn their multiple characters into a tag team, for example using a Child of Osiris character to remove another of their character's beast traits.

Addendum: The situation of playing a character that was your PC vampire who died is an unusual exception to this rule. You are still the same PC even if you changed states. The system we have developed to determine if a character becomes a wraith is as follows. First, they perform three simple tests with the wraith STs. If they win (not tie) all three tests they become a wraith. They get whatever build points are appropriate and then remake their character from scratch as a wraith. Some "amnesia" is assumed to have set in at death, as per the wraith novels.

Article 7: Age

While in theory it is possible for wraiths to have any number of traits it is not reasonable for enfants to be outbidding elder vampires. As such we have developed a system for determining a trait cap in accordance with these two criterion. The base cap for wraiths is ten in each category (physical, social, mental) in addition to this there is an age background which adds one to the cap for each point in this background to a maximum of fifteen. In addition for every six months of play the maximum is raised by one above and beyond any age bonuses. We are still deciding what the ultimate cap on traits should be.

Article 8: NPC Usage

All NPCs should have strict in-game goals and an out of game purpose. Too often NPCs have become overgrown PCs for friends of storytellers or NPCs become the solution to PCs problems. "Hey, lets go ask Superkindred, he'll beat up the bad guys!" From the Storytellers perspective the out of game purpose is to further plot lines, provide antagonists and educate players on certain aspects of the World of darkness but never to solve plots for the players. The in-game goals give to the players will correspond largely to the out of game purpose. They should include instructions on what Arcanoi they could teach and under what circumstances (if any) they would attack or kill player characters. NPCs should never have complete freedom of action and the players portraying them should never make up goals for that character without consulting the STs in charge first.

Article 9: Exceptions to the Rule

Any chronicle wishing to make an exception to the rules of OWBN must petition the OWBN Council with 2 weeks notice. This is especially relevant to the Unique/Rare Creatures article, but should apply to all of them. Obviously, our entire chronicle is an exception to the rule, and we are petitioning OWBN to allow us to be an individual chronicle.

Article 10: Accepting the Consequences

If you are visiting another chronicle you have agreed to abide by the rulings of their storytellers and to accept the consequences of playing in that game. If you go to another chronicle know that the storytellers have every right to put you in a box and ship you to the moon if they want. Your character is subject to the same consequences you may face in your home chronicle, and maybe even more. If you don't like a set of storytellers or the way a particular game does something, DON'T GO! If they are unfair in what they do, complain to your home chronicle storytellers (like everyone doesn't know how to do that already) and ask them to have the appropriate ST reconsider the actions taken. Maybe there are circumstances you don't know about. Maybe it's the culmination of a very long character plot. You don't know. Maybe the ST's decided enough is enough and the 'Powers that Be' had taken notice and appropriate action. Maybe you were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Section 2: Linking with OWBN

Once you submit your completed Section 1, above, copies of your responses will be mailed to all OWBN council members, who will consider yourapplication for two weeks, then vote on your admittance. You will be notified of the results immediately. If you are approved, the next step is to beginintegrating your chronicle with OWBN.

The first step is to establish a strong internet presence for your chronicle. OWBN is made possible mostly because of the cheap and easycommunication available to storytellers and players through e-mail. If you aren't able to exploit this resource, you won't be getting all you could from theorganization.

First, compile a master list of the e-mail addresses of the players and storytellers in your game. No doubt this will prove useful whether or not you joinOWBN, so begin work on this while waiting for your application to be approved. At check-in one game, have everyone who has net access writedown their addresses. Next, assign someone to change this list into an .html document that you can post on the Web. This address list will be the root ofa Web site that will grow as your players become more interested in their intercity plots.

Shawn Carroll (shawn@iit.edu), an old Chicago Storyteller and all-around great guy, and Lance W. Larsen (tremere@tremere.com), the current HeadStoryteller of Cincinnati, have made and maintained a number of OWBN mailing lists. You can go to the OWBN Listservers Web Interface andsubscribe everyone in your game to the main OWBN mailing list, where they can read and post e-mail of interest to all OWBN members. Also, all thestorytellers of your game should fill out the Storyteller Application to be added to the exclusive OWBN storytellers list, where the business of runningthe linked chronicles is handled. The ins and outs of working with other storytellers on the listserv will become apparent as you go along. Also, if youwish, Shawn (shawn@iit.edu) will create a listserv for your game, so that local issues can be discussed in - and out - of character.

You should appoint someone with net access from you game to post game updates to the OWBN list. This person is often either a storyteller acting asthe grapevine or someone who plays a harpy (or galliard, or whatever), posting as their character. The updates should describe important events fromthat week's elysium (or moot, or whatever) and mention news of national interest to Kindred (or Garou...you get the idea.)

The next step is to prepare for visitors! As soon as possible, you should make OWBN rules and your house rules available to all players. Post them onyour web site and distribute printed copies. Though no one expects you to perfect the massively ambiguous and flawed White-Wolf rules, playersshould be able to expect a certain consistency in the rules. This way, players from other cities will know what to expect when they show up with theirown OWBN characters: they will have read your house rules on the web.

OWBN's goal is to have four major events a year, one per season. Players from all over attend these major events. In addition, players are oftenroad-tripping to other cities for the hell of it. Though problems can arise from this kind of crossover, many games have more than doubled their fun dueto the cross-pollination of plots. If your city feels capable of hosting a horde of role-players, propose one of these (well in advance!) to the storyteller mailing list.

Well, that's a beginning. It may seem like a lot, but in the end, a little work pays off with big rewards.

On behalf of the entire One World by Night, thank you for your application! If you have any further questions or comments - please feel free to get in touch with any of us. We'd love to hear from you!

Please refer to OWbN's Contact List to directly contact anyone in the OWBN organization.

Created and Maintained by Lance W. Larsen ( tremere@tremere.com) & James Beamish-White (james@nda-eng.co.nz ).

Copyright© 1999 One World By Night.

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