Eldritch - A World of Darkness MUX

[Coin]

This is your World. Your world holds unspeakable things. You may not see them, lurking in the shadow; you may not hear them, prowling in the woods; you may not sense them, hidden between the gears of reality; but there are things that go bump in the night, and they watch you, waiting. Some will treat you as food; others will treat you as prey; still others will steal the most fundamental parts of your being.

Unless you're one of them. Vampire. Werewolf. Demon. You lurk and either eek out an existence in the fringes of humanity or take it by the throat and attempt to rule it. Either way, you're certainly not human anymore--some of you never were. This is your world too.

Eldritch is a cooperative, semi-improvisational roleplaying setting for the World of Darkness, by Onyx Path. It supports the first edition of Demon: The Descent, and the second editions of Vampire: The Requiem, and Werewolf: The Forsaken, in addition to their sub-templates and your basic Mortals (including Psychics). Eldritch is an attempt to create a story- and character-driven game that explores the themes of each of these games not only by themselves but also in their interaction with each other. It is a full-inclusion, cross-over-friendly game.

There will be politics. There will be murder. There will be espionage. There will be lust and fear; terror and savagery; adventure and techgnosticism. Find a place in our city and tell your story while helping us tell ours. Remember: no character exists in a vacuum, and you have the power to change this world.

[Coin]

That's the intro. Now for some facts:

We're not open yet! We're not even letting people log onto the game yet. But we are showing people our wiki! Take a look at it. There is a lot of stuff there. We've been working pretty hard to cover a lot of bases, but some things are still missing. These include:

• Splat-specific character creation guidelines;
• putting a lot of our NPCs up on the wiki;
• anything related to werewolf and the Shadow/spirits;
• some setting stuff (mostly city history from the points of view of vampires and werewolves);
• some of the custom content stuff that we've got to put up.

It may seem like a lot, and in some cases it is, but mostly because it'll be challenging. I'm still trying to figure out how we're going to do Bloodlines and Lodges, largely because Requiem 2e didn't touch Bloodlines at all, and Forsaken 2e is unlikely to touch Lodges much at all, either.

Instead of waiting forever to get the official material, we'll most likely go with something custom made that reminisces back to the first edition. I've even picked out some stuff already to work on.

That said, some stuff we have is all us. We have a territory-claiming system for all splats (even mortals!) called "Neighborhoods", and our High Society and Government spheres have their own "how to get on top" or "how to screw the other person" mechanics.

Eldritch has a metaplot and it has themes that we feel include something for everyone: mysteries, horror, savagery, humor, regret. It's all there.

We are also super duper proud of our grid, y'all!

I will be updating this post periodically as things get closer to opening. For the moment feel free to stalk our wiki and take a look around, read the copious amounts of stuff we've written (omg, y'all) and get ideas for PCs. In a few weeks, we open the doors for people to log into the game and start networking.

We soft-open for Mortals only (perhaps with minor templates of spheres, perhaps not) on the tentative date of March 16th, code-allowing.

...

Bam!

[darksabrz]

Very eeee-nteresting. I've only scratched the surface of the wiki (and ye gods, you guys are prolific writers!), but I do like what I've seen thus far, by and large.

[Coin]

@darksabrz, we've been at it for a while. Most of the actual written stuff has been myself and @Eerie, with some content written by @EmmahSue. We wanted to make something that, when presented, was consistent with itself, and I think so far we've achieved that.

There's a lot left to do but we are nearing the zone where we reach "playability", so to speak. It's very exciting.

[darksabrz]

I confess, I enjoy writing a fair bit myself (and I could use a reason to get myself writing more regularly again). If you're game for it and don't already have someone working on it (and you don't think it would be any potential CoI, since Vampire's gonna be one of the major draws), I'd be willing to offer my writing skills for stuff like the Vampire history of Eldritch and the like.

[Coin]

@darksabrz, we have a lot of it outlined already. It's just a matter of putting it in prose and connecting it with the others.

Right now, what we're potentially looking for is people who are willing to contribute time and effort towards building hangouts and locations. Mostly just the describing, honestly. This would not be a staff position, but rather just "hey, if you want to help speed us up by taking some of the build workload off of us", so we can concentrate on the other stuff.

Our grid is one of the things I am the most proud of, but we could use some more specific places built in it. We have ideas, just lack time.

The other thing we will be looking for constantly is storytellers. Eldritch is going to be a game heavily reliant on storytellers and the more we've got--of any stripe, be they player-storytellers or staff-storytellers, limited by splat or not, whatever--the better.

[Doozer]

You tease.

[Coin]

@Shincashay
Why thank you!

[Thenomain]

@Coin said:

There's a lot left to do but we are nearing the zone where we reach "playability", so to speak. It's very exciting.

(slit wrists)

For you!!!!

[tragedyjones]

I just wanna say, the bulk of your House Rules look like Coin. :neckbeard:

[Monogram]

Goddamnit, I read the first word in the title and thought it was a Call of Cthulu related theme.

Ah well.

Good luck, padre.

[Sanguine]

@Coin I've been teased about this game for weeks. I have a PC ready. I read the title and got all squee... and then I read the rest. Alas.

ETA: PS. I really love the Neighborhoods idea.

[Coin]

@Thenomain, what? You're the one that gave me the date!

@tragedyjones, yeah, well, I got them from this other sloppy website. I mean, it was way worse before I made them better, so there's that!

@Monogram, it may not be Call of Cthulhu, but all those themes are and/or will be readily available at Eldritch MUX!

@Sanguine, sorry not sorry, bro. See Theno above. And thanks for the Neighborhoods props. I'm hoping it'll get tons of use!

[Sanguine]

@Sanguine, sorry not sorry, bro. See Theno above. And thanks for the Neighborhoods props. I'm hoping it'll get tons of use!

@Coin First, I'll leave wrist slitting to Theno and just opt for the unblinking stare of impatience.

And moving on to more pertinent matter and taking talk of your game where it belongs... (And away from the Edward-maker over there). I have plans for a neighborhood we are eyeing already.

Are there tentative plans for when it will be open for supernaturals? And when you mention a 'group' controlling a neighborhood can the members of said group be composed of different flavored of supernatural. I'm sure this sounds rather nitpicky, but we've all seen how mind numbingly nit picky these games can get.

[lordbelh]

@Sanguine said:

And when you mention a 'group' controlling a neighborhood can the members of said group be composed of different flavored of supernatural. I'm sure this sounds rather nitpicky, but we've all seen how mind numbingly nit picky these games can get.

I never really understood that. If you've got a multi sphere game, what's wrong with the spheres interacting? It's not oWoD where sphere antagonism was a major part of the theme.

[Sanguine]

@lordbelh Right. It still amazes me that there are people who don't seem to have gotten that memo.

[Wizz]

A lot of people bitch about cross-sphere always "turning into the Superfriends," but I don't really understand the criticism. Personally I've always kind of wanted to run with a Being Human-esque group, I think it'd be pretty fun.

[Sanguine]

@Wizz That isn't a bad idea. It could be fun. Just make it the BBC version.

[Arkandel]

@Wizz said:

A lot of people bitch about cross-sphere always "turning into the Superfriends,"

It's basic human nature (even if the creatures involved aren't entirely human any more) to form rapport and camaraderie after facing adversity together.

So while it's not mandatory that this will happen I don't see why it's unreasonable barring external thematic reasons; if there's no competition over resources or other reasons for them to clash, it'd actually be a pretty natural result especially after months of being allied in PrPs, fighting on the same side, etc.

What I don't like - but it's a peeve more than a real complaint - is when people sit at a bar and provide exposition about spheres which sound like they're quoting the game manual. "A Sin-Eater is a hybrid between a ghost and..." At least cloud it in some mystery. Make it sound like it's not cut and dried.

[Wizz]

@Arkandel - Exactly. You don't talk about Fight Club, but you can help each other nurse the wounds. It would add a sort of melancholy air to the whole thing that I'd really like, haha-- "You don't and can't get what I go through, but you totally do because you're going through it too."