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Narrator: Twelve years ago, White Wolf Publishing unveiled the shadowy reflection of our
own world
inhabited by monsters who wore the guise
of men. The most subtle of these were the scions of Caine,
the blood-drinking vampires who call themselves Kindred.
Their story was Vampire: The Masquerade.
Justin Achilli: Vampire --
and all of White Wolf, really -- was built on a commitment to quality. We believed that
roleplayers wanted
and deserved a game that was both exciting and that tackled moral complexities
head-on.
Roleplaying is a unique form of storytelling, and we wanted to push the envelope.
We wanted to introduce little artistry and maturity to what had been a less-mature hobby.
Narrator: But the Kindred had a dreaded enemy:
savage beasts they called the Lupines.
To these shape-changers, however, vampires were just one more manifestation of the malignant
force that they were made to fight.
Half man, half wolf, they called themselves Garou.
Their story was Werewolf: The Apocalypse.
Joining the Kindred and Garou
were men and women of will and enlightenment,
able to reshape reality itself.
Some called them witches, sorcerers, or madmen.
They called themselves Awakened. Their story
was Mage: The Ascension.
Mike Tinney: Vampire, Werewolf, and Mage really were the pillars of the World of Darkness.
They established the precedents upon which everything else was built.
Narrator: Vampire, Werewolf, and Mage together formed the core of the World of Darkness,
a dark and terrible reflection of the modern world
in which a legion of stories would unfold.
But every story has its end.
Achilli: By calling this the World of Darkness and talking about Gehenna and the Apocalypse,
and so on
we were delivering a message: we're saying the story's gonna and one day.
That's important. That gives a sense of finality. Tinney: Our fans have come to expect
top-notch storytelling from the World of Darkness. A great story needs a great ending.
With the release of the Revised Edition of Vampire: The Masquerade,
White Wolf launched the Final Nights. With each subsequent year, armageddon
would get closer and closer. A shadow war raged between Kindred of the East
and West,
and in the midst of it, the progenitor of Clan Ravnos met his end
in a terrible conflagration. This was the
Week of Nightmares. In its aftermath, the youngest of vampires were able to sire,
giving rise to half undead freaks,
able to resist the sun and even mate with the living.
This was the Time of Thin Blood.
Achilli: Vampire Revised really started the whole thing.
We called it the Final Nights, and it meant we were now heading down the slippery
slope toward the big end.
But you can say the end until you're blue in the face: you gonna show it,
you gotta mean it, that's why we killed the Ravnos. Tinney: The Clan Novel series allowed us
to really show what the beginning and the end felt like.
Not only did we bring in some heavy hitters -- Methuselahs, Antediluvians,
and so on,
we got to see what it was like when the vampires themselves got the message.
Narrator: Then the Sixth Maelstrom swept the Underworld
and the most hateful of the dead rose in the flesh of their own corpses
as the Walking Dead.
They faced those men and women imbued with the power to see the unnatural, and the
outrage to hunt it. This was the Reckoning.
Tinney: Hunter broke with our tradition of playing the monster.
That was intentional: the Reckoning allows us to focus on the normal folks
caught up in this apocalyptic time.
Narrator: those who knew the spirit worlds trembled as a Red
Star appeared in the sky, growing brighter and brighter.
This was Anthelios, the anti-sun,
and they despaired. The mightiest of mages flocked to uncover its secrets,
and the Maelstrom destroyed them. This
was the time of Revelations. Achilli: The Red Star and the Avatar Storm were counterpoints to Hunter,
really,
just like things were falling apart on the street, so too were they in the spirit
realms.
In games like Mage and Werewolf, the Spirit is as important as the physical.
Both games also got Revised Editions that emphasized the Final Nights aspects
of the setting.
Narrator: The Maelstrom swept through the stronghold of the Egyptian dead,
Osiris, who had slumbered for uncounted millennia,
rose to see all he had built destroyed. This was the Resurrection.
Tinney: Mummy is a more hopeful, even heroic game
than most others in the World of Darkness. In context of the march to the end.
allowed us to show that some people --
and some creatures -- were making a stand against that end.
If there was ever a time to make a difference, it was now.
Narrator: Finally, the Maelstrom cracked the gates of Hell itself.
The Devils and abominations of the pit rose to Earth to fight their wars anew.
This was the Devil's Night. Achilli: The infernal had been around in the World of Darkness
before,
but it was always a little bit off to the side. People here and there would
make a deal with a mysterious devil or they served the Pit,
but they never really had the richness of vampires and werewolves.
So the release of Demon: The Fallen, that told the demons' own story,
and that was a final way of saying that things had changed, that things aren't
reversible anymore.
And Hell, if demons walking around doesn't mean the end of the world is here, what does?
Narrator: In the First Sign:
Dawn Wars With Dusk And A Great Conflagration Ensues
In the Second Sign: The Blood Runs Thin And
Creatures Unknown Rise
In the Third Sign: The Grave Gives Up The Dead
To Fight A War With The Quick
In the Fourth Sign: The Sky Grows Red And The Wisest
Fall
In the Fifth Sign: The Dead God Rises And Begets His Children
In the Sixth Sign: The Damned Are Loosed And The City of Angels Trembles And
Burns
Know By These Signs that the Time of Judgment
Is Upon Us. From now to
March of 2004, White Wolf does the unthinkable
and brings the world of darkness to an end. Achilli: We've been building up to this point
for years now:
it's time to put up or shut up. Tinney: In 1991 we released Vampire: The Masquerade.
We promised the fans that the world was gonna end.
Now we're making good on that promise.
The Vampire Gehenna.
The Werewolf Apocalypse.
The Mages' Ascension. All merge into a great event that not only shakes the world,
but destroys it!
And you're invited.
This is the Time of Judgment.