Alex Borgia has always been a vagabond. His parents before him were vagabonds. It is in his blood. He has traveled the world, staying in one place until he is driven out or he loses interest. Never longer than a year or two.
He first heard of The Society a few years ago. There had been this mystic revival in the world, starting with the Freemasons, and moving on to more… obscure practices like the various Magickal Orders, religious cults, and Satanic Parlors. Alex never really gave them much mental traction. Until Bob joined The Society.
Bob was an alright guy. As close to a friend as Alex ever made in a place, so it peeked his curiosity. Enough that he noticed more and more groups calling themselves The Society in almost every city he visits. Most of them professed a desire to help mankind be better to each other and themselves, but each city had a different twist on it from what he could tell. One cities Society even let woman and colored people join.
Some men when they are ready to think about settling down think the Army, or a factory job. Alex was never much interested in those occupations. Instead he thought what he needed most was a group of people who were doing something besides idle beer drinking and killing people. So he looked up The Society in the city he was in. He’s spent the last year with them, raising money, building houses for those in need, learning the rites and rituals of their spiritual routines. Stability, friendship. He can’t say if he has learned anything about his spiritual side, but it feels nice to help people.
This week he was asked to join the Sanguine Circle. The next step up in the society. Everyone says it’s a life changing event and that they are very selective on who gets to join. How could he refuse? Even if it turns out to be smoke and mirrors, at least he tried it, and trying things is what Alex Borgia does.
//———-//
Sanguine is a Storium game about vampires. It is intentionally a vague setting so that the Storium gaming platform can take over and let the world evolve organically. The basic set up is that a Freemason like society or series of societies have inner circles that are very much vampire like. To be a vampire is to be admitted into the inner circles of those societies. They control the rite, they control the numbers. The world is a mix of cultural styles ranging from 1880s to the 1920s. The city and place is fictional but the feel is very eastern America or Western Europe, depending on the backdrop used in each scene.
What is a vampire in Sanguine?
What a vampire is, is set by both the player and the narrator. Playing wild cards is the only way to define the strengths of a vampire, and one of two ways to define the weaknesses. Sanguine games are designed to let the play define all those rules, but a Narrator can set them ahead of time by including them in the narrative of the game or the game description.
In the case of Alex I won’t be setting any rules. For all intents and purposes Alex is a normal person when the game starts.
Are there any odd uses of the Storium rules for Sanguine?
Sanguine is a game about being a vampire. To simulate the need for the vampire to consume life, we are going to use an asset card called “Urge”. Every time a Sanguine character plays a card associated with their vampire abilities, weakness or strength, they get an Urge asset card. They can use this to simulate their need to feed, and it can help them in challenges. If they ever get up to five Urge cards their character must use them all, no other cards can be used, until they are all gone. They have completely lost control to the urge.
The urge is rage, an insane need for control, and most of all the need for blood.
Can you get rid of Urge any other way?
No but you can raise your urge limit by taking on weaknesses. This is the only other way to get a vampire like weakness in the game. These weaknesses are not cards but limit the narrative according to the vampire lore the game is building. To do that you just narrate the weakness into play and comment about the urge limit in the comments.
Vampire Lore?
Sure. Just like in Storium the cards don’t represent everything the vampire can do. We are just using the cards to help build what they can do, but once they gain and use a card that represents a vampires strenght or weakness it becomes vampire lore (at least for that character). This means they can now use it in the narrative. Sure it doesn’t have the impact that playing a card has but it is something to use. Kinda like how we know all humans can punch people, they don’t need a card to do that.
Are there any changes to how Storium plays?
While I am trying to leverage Storium to help tell stories in the way only Storium can, I do want to clarify that shared narrative is a blessing and a curse. I feel that the act of winning narrative control by the players is awesome but can be undermined by having too much narrative control before winning a challenge. So I feel that while minor narration without winning a challenge is awesome, adding in things or changing things that undermine or distance the game from the narrators current goal should only be done after winning a challenge, and should be confined by the Strength/Weakness description in that challenge. A great thing about Storium is the comments section. If your not sure, just ask.
Are Copyrighted Images Ok?
Copyrighted images are not ok. If you’re a player in one of my games I can point you to places to find images or help you create them.
Hosted and narrated by:
Inoir
Started 05/19/14.
Scenes played: 7
License: Community License
