VtR - Ascendancy or Endless Nights
Ascendancy
Once there were green places, so the legend goes, but now? The City is the world. Whole countries are now little more than glorified neighborhoods, notable only by a change in the language on billboards and street signs otherwise identical the world over. Neon suns light up the streets at midnight while skyscrapers, tall beyond imagining, cast shadows so deep high noon might as well be a memory. When the City first began to take shape, many Kindred
rejoiced, for it offered a limitless supply of Vitae and all the comfort of urban living stretching in all directions. Even those who opposed the rise of the massive global arcology had to admit it offered a great number of advantages compared to the society it was replacing.
As the covenants vied for control of the City in the new order, however, they missed a threat right under their noses. In the span of a few rapid technological developments, the ultrarich of mortal society combined cybernetics and biochemistry to achieve immortality and superhuman capabilities. With artificial limbs, improved senses, overcharged reaction times, and the ability to transfer their consciousness and memories into new bodies thanks to specialized implants, combined with their vast wealth and political power, these posthumans are a terrifying force. Dubbed the Ascendancy, these augmented elites are poised to become an undying ruling class in their own right — and true rivals to the Kindred. The City will be a playground forever…but whose playground will it be?
Endless Night
The Earth is a memory, and with it the time when humanity didn’t know the monsters that walked among them. Early in the diaspora, as humanity charted the Waylanes and found habitable planets to replace the home it lost, the Kindred came to a realization — they were uniquely suited to the stars. Ships and stations were enclosed against solar radiation, fire was all but unknown due to strict safety protocols, and the afflictions that troubled mortals during long periods in space such as radiation exposure or bone-density loss didn’t trouble the Kindred. They could even enter their own form of suspended animation for long voyages between worlds.
Rather than surviving like rats down in the holds, eking out a meager existence, the Kindred could be lords of the endless night between the stars. Over time, they assumed total control of the spacefaring industries that linked the struggling colonies, along with associated properties such as orbital stations, ship docks, and communications arrays. At first, they moved behind a screen of mortal pawns, but in time they abandoned even this pretense and openly asserted their true nature. Humanity had a choice: Accept their Kindred overlords, or face isolation and oblivion as rebellious colonies were cut off from the human race.
Staring extinction in the face, humanity submitted. In the centuries since then, the Kindred have come to control not just the spacefaring industries but also the most powerful corporate, political, and religious entities as well. Ghouls and dhampirs act as planet-side agents and liaisons with human populations, while the Kindred use their interstellar empires to carry out their ancient wars and intrigue across the New Terran Dominion. With eternity to plan, an ever-expanding list of star systems to conquer, and whole worlds of humans willingly sustaining them, vampires are masters of all they survey … if they can keep from burning it all down themselves. After all, sometimes getting everything you ever wanted is the greatest curse.
This message was last edited by the user at 05:49, Sat 24 Nov 2018.