Category:Tight Rope on a Spiders Web

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VSS: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1tHn6dqIoL2n9lVdixrZGB77AqhTVX6bfRqnADUQdD94/edit?usp=sharing


Tight Rope on a Spider’s Web

Sept Type: None
Territory Boundaries: City of Houston (Beltway 8)
Theme: Walking a dangerous balance
Mood: Moral quandaries, pushing boundaries, paranoia
Theme Song: https://youtu.be/l_7SxoQW11g
Shard Caern Level: 0
Caern Totem: None

Traditional Setting Elements:

0 -Never Present, 1 -Rarely Present, 2 -Sometimes Present, 3 -Often Present, 4 -Usually Present, 5 -Always Present

Action (Combat and challenges): 4
Combat will happen very often. While your character doesn’t necessarily need to be combat-specced, it’s important for your own fun to have something you can contribute to a combat situation. This includes party buffs, antagonist debuffs, distractions, and escape plans.

Character Development (Personal dilemmas and choices): 5
This chronicle presents a significant number of moral quandaries that don’t have obvious or “correct” answers. Characters will be presented with hard choices that players may find challenging. Players are encouraged to complete the character development questionnaire so they can play true to the character and differentiate the character from themselves. (This will also assist in avoiding bleed.)

Darkness (PC Corruption): 2
While choices will be difficult, Garou and other shifters are expected to be focused on the greater good rather than personal gain.

Death (PC Death): 3
With the high level of danger in this chronicle, players should expect that their characters will die at some point during the chronicle. Remember that character death does NOT mean you have lost the game. A glorious death can often be the best ending for a character arc, and Galliards will sing of those sacrifices for many years.

Drama (Ceremony and grand story): 3
Gaia’s shifters are creatures of both earth and spirit. The spirit world is close, accessible, and important to characters’ daily lives. Spirits can provide significant assistance if propitiated through the appropriate rites and rituals. If not, they can become insurmountable barriers.

Intrigue (Politics and negotiation): 2
Players are encouraged to design characters that fit the setting created for this chronicle. While each character may have different ideas about how to achieve the overall goal of the local shifters, they should, at least publicly, be seen to agree with that goal.

Manners (Social etiquette and peer pressure): 2
One of the defining characteristics of Werewolf is that it is a largely cooperative game. Social disagreements should be resolved quickly with the use of the Staredown mechanic or by roleplaying the respect of the pack structure.

Mystery (Enigmas and investigation): 4
There will be ample opportunity for sneaksy characters to sneak. In a setting where our protagonists are fighting a war on two fronts, the ability to gather intel or end fights before they begin will be crucial.


Chronicle Teaser:
You've got to be closer to the edge than ever to win. That means sometimes you go over the edge, and I don't mean driving, either.
~Dale Earnhardt


VSS Description:

The song of the Weaver was on the rise, and the Glasswalkers of Houston were divided into two camps on how to deal with the rise of the Spider’s influence on the world. Most were still deeply tied to the Weaver’s Web, but a small contingent had begun to seek new ways to infuse technology with the energy of the Wyld instead of the Weaver.

In the Summer of 2012, they were vindicated in the most horrible way: the Weaver Sang and the world watched the majority of Glasswalkers and Kinfolk fall to the Spider’s call. They lost family, kin and shifter alike.

The years that followed saw a growing war on two fronts across the city of Houston. The Weaver launched attacks on the caern with waves of drones, and forces of the Wyrm took advantage of this chaos to press their advantage as well. With a large part of their members lost, the Sept of Dark Waters made the hard choice to uproot its shard seed and send it to somewhere it could be better protected, while those who could stayed to continue the fight.

It has been a long, wearying war for the scattered Gaians. The underground fighting has dragged on for control of the city: slowly, methodically, painstakingly pushing back the influences and forces of Weaver and Wyrm. The first major break in the local war was a massive ice storm in early 2021 that weakened the Weaver’s hold. Combined with attacks by Garou and their allies, the Shifters of Houston planted the seed that would grow into the need for expanded Green Tech - wind, solar, and hydro power, among other things.

It is only now that this scattered coalition have found the space to breathe, finally seeing the tide of that war turn ever so slightly and finding hope that it is a fight they might be able to win. Garou and Fera alike have lost loved ones in this war and it has brought them together in a way that would surprise many.

Characters on the Houston VSS at the beginning of our story - Feb 4, 2023 - have taken part in over a decade of guerrilla warfare against the Weaver and the Wyrm. A wiley Elder Bastet has managed to coordinate hundreds of physical attacks, sabotage, corporate espionage, carefully managed influences, and information wars from his personal territory in the city, and has a reputation for vanishing from sight and memory in a moment.

Members of the Gaian community in Houston form temporary war packs to accomplish short term goals, then vanish. They are tired, but battle-hardened. They have had to stay under the radar for ten long years while trying to quietly retake their city. The stream of visiting allies is constant, but the demands of this fighting style aren’t for everyone, and many disappear as quickly as they come. However, there is a kind of desperate hope that has sprung up since the destruction of the Weaver-controlled power grid of Texas. The multi-year campaign may have culminated during the 2021 ice storm, but the effects have taken the past two years to materialize in the form of what’s now a Wyld-controlled power grid. The time has come to take a new step forward.

Sept Laws:

Having lost their Caern, the shifters do not currently maintain a sept. They are only loosely organized into small, guerrilla fighting packs that dissolve and reform as the needs of the war change.

VSS Timeline

Year Event
9200 BC The nomadic Paleo-Indians of what is now eastern Texas hunt mammoths & giant bison with flint weapons. The Uktena move among the human tribes, ensuring harmony with the land and spirits and a close connection to Gaia.
500 BC - 1800 AD The Ananasi influence the human Atacapa and Karankawa tribes to give up 9 millennia of hunting and gathering and in order to build small villages and farms. The newly agrarian society attracts the attention of Wyrm Banes, requiring the intervention of the Uktena to corral and trap them in burial mounds just outside of the villages. They continue to live among the indigenous people in the guise of powerful shamans in order to keep an eye on the trapped Banes. Silent Striders come and go, and the rare Camazotz flies through, although their numbers dwindle away entirely by the late 16th century.

The indigenous population in the area currently known as Houston remains rather sparse, and interactions between Purelands and Invaders are rare and relatively peaceful.

1836 4/21 - General Houston, a European Gurahl kinfolk, leads the Texas army in victory against Mexico in the Battle of San Jacinto, ending the Texas War for Independence. Among the Mexican soldiers were a number of Shadow Lord Garou and Kinfolk who had arrived with the Spaniards and sought new lands to explore. Their northward wandering largely ended at this point.

8/30 - The settlement of Houston is founded by Allen brothers on the banks of Buffalo Bayou. Enslavement of Black people is made the law of the land, and Texas convenes its first Congress.

Local Uktena have stayed away from this area, so the incoming Silver Fangs and Get of Fenris find fertile, if soggy, unclaimed territory.

1845 12/29 - Texas is annexed as a state to the USA by vote of the US congress and Texan voters (composed entirely of white, male landowners).
1850-60 With the male population of Houston outnumbering the female by 1.4 to 1, saloons and gambling halls become widely popular. A third of Houstonians at this time had emigrated from Germany; a fifth are enslaved people. Get of Fenris, Ajaba, Bastet, and Ananasi are heavily represented in the diversity of the fledgling city.
1861 Houston serves as a logistics center for the Confederate Army during the Civil War. It is never attacked, and receives semi-regular shipments of goods through its port. While the Children of Gaia are distressed by the enforcement of human enslavement, their efforts maintain peace in the area despite the ongoing war.
1865 6/19 - General Order No. 3 orders the emancipation of enslaved Americans. Juneteenth becomes an annual holiday that originates in Galveston.
1900 11/8 - The Galveston Hurricane flattens the island of Galveston. A large Uktena pack is called in to recapture the Storm Bane that caused the hurricane, but not before 8,000 people are killed. Houstonian Gaians are more conscientious about maintaining a friendly relationship with the local Banetender.
1901 Most of the population of Galveston resettles in Houston. The Garou establish the Sept of Dark Waters as their home, consisting mostly of Uktena and Get of Fenris, but with many other Tribes and the occasional Fera wandering through or settling in. The city of Houston is simply too embattled by Wyrm creatures for too much infighting to arise among the Gaians.
1912 The Rice Institute is established as Houston’s first institution of higher learning. The Tremere vampires who founded the university make an agreement with the Gaians to respect their territory and the laws of the city, so long as they are allowed to study and embrace consenting students.
1917 Ellington Field is built in support of World War I, serving as an advanced flight training base for the Army Air Corp. Black Furies, Silent Striders, and lots of various Ahrouns find themselves training here.
1936 Houston & the State of Texas celebrate their centennials near the end of the Great Depression. Silver Fangs had worked tirelessly to mitigate the effects of the Depression on the city, and Houston suffers lesser losses than many other locations in the United States.
1962 7/4 - Johnson Space Center opens in Clear Lake to the celebration of Glasswalkers and Ananasi.
1983 8/18 - Hurricane Alicia rips up Houston and Galveston, spinning off 22 tornadoes and killing 21 people. Strangely, the same Bane-Tender from 1900 is still available to help curtail the storm, and the loss of life is much less. Many shifters who are not Uktena find they must take part in the ritual and ensuing battle, as there are few local Uktena left in the area.
2012 7/4 - The Night the Weaver Sang - Glasswalkers, Kinfolk, and other Weaver-influenced shifters vanish or become completely possessed by the Weaver.
2012-13 The Year of Sorrow - Weaver drones assault the Houston caern with unending battle, ending only when the survivors uproot the Shard Seed and flee to the Wyld-held areas far away from Houston. The Seed was hidden with trusted allies in the hopes of retrieving it in the future, but it is currently far away.
2013-21 The Gaians maintain only the loosest contact with each other as they fight a guerrilla war against the organized and powerful drones of the Weaver. The vast majority of shifters are killed or forced to flee. Those who remain are only able to maintain connections through the Awakened “tech” designed by the Wyld-leaning Glass Walkers. They remain deep in the shadows, undermining the Weaver and Wyrm with the quietest of actions.
Jan 2021 Years of planning, covert operations, and propitiation of the Spirits results in a great ice storm that demolishes the Weaver-controlled Houston power grid for nearly a week. This is the first major victory for the caernless Gaians.

Storyteller Notes

Players in Houston should be respectful of our domain’s Cultural Norms:

  1. Play like a storyteller. Do the thing that makes the best story rather than playing to "win."
  2. Behave like an adult. This means: a) tell someone if they hurt your feelings; b) ask for help if you're lost or lonely; c) always act in the best interest of the group.
  3. Effort in = awesome out. Personal effort and participation are both encouraged and rewarded. Make your cheat sheets. Fill out those backgrounds. Spend time on costuming. Ask for character ties. Be brave and enthusiastic and conscientious.
  4. Share! Take on responsibilities. Spread the plot. Let specialists do their thing, and appreciate them for it. Be impressed by other characters!

VSS Specific Rules

Glasswalkers and Kinfolk have been written in the NSS to be particularly rare. If you want to play one of these concepts, you will need to justify why they weren’t lost to the Weaver over the past eleven years.

Players are highly encouraged to fill out the Character Development Questionnaire before playing their character.

Live Play/Virtual Play

This game will occur at live games at 1:00 PM on the first Saturday of each month at Midtown Bar & Grill.

CvC/PvP

The Sept of the Wyld Shift is fairly unified in its fight against the Weaver, but there will be a wide range of ideas about how to effect that fight, and how far the battle should be taken. These disagreements should be discussed and settled in character and may lead to staredowns and challenges. That being said, players should respect the desired play-style of their fellow players.

Proxies

Proxy actions should be cleared with the VST at least 2 days in advance (preferably more), including dates and methods of travel, aliases, and other relevant information. Proxying out of the domain is generally approved, though should not be used as a way to attempt to escape PvP or PvE in-character consequences.

CCR

This section defines Houston’s policy on Character Conflict Resolution (formerly known as Killboxes).

CCR and other aggressive proxies to this domain are unlikely to be approved by the VST. Similarly, summoning characters from this Venue in order to kill them is highly discouraged unless there has been a proper and, hopefully, voluntary lead-up to such an event. However, local players will not be protected against fallout from their own aggressive or negative actions.

Mass Combat

Mass combat will be played through rounds until the outcome becomes clear, and then mediated with appropriate consequences offered and accepted. Players are expected to be familiar with their sheets so that combat rounds move quickly and smoothly. Cheat sheets with descriptors of gifts and their mechanics are highly encouraged for each player.

One Minute Rule

-(Optional)- NOPE If the VST has a question about a rule, she’ll ask. If she makes a call you don’t agree with from a mechanical standpoint, you’ll need to just roll with it. This game is more about the role-play than the rules, and your participation in-character will count for more than how well you are playing to the dots.

Pages in category "Tight Rope on a Spiders Web"

The following 3 pages are in this category, out of 3 total.

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