The Lost Boys

The Lost Boys was a Werewolf campaign, but not a typical one. The Storyteller running the game set it in the 1980s and it was more like a John Hughes high school film mixed with a Steven Spielberg adventure. There were three of us playing in the game and we were a trio of high school students who just happened to also secretly be werewolves. The trio dealt with high school drama, keeping their secret identities, and battling forces of the Wyrm and other supernatural threats in small-town New England. A few years after the game ended the Storyteller ran a one-shot set at the characters' 10-year high school reunion, bringing the characters together with a new generation of Garou.

The three young werewolves were sent to the town of Sea Point, Maine to protect the area. The three were Kit Walker, Silver Fang Ragabash; Isaac Reinigen, Silent Strider Theurge; and Aaron Gordon, Stargazer Ahroun. In high school archetype terms Kit was the Preppie, Isaac was the Delinquent, and Aaron was the Jock (with major, major Rage issues). Aided by mortal and supernatural allies alike, the three eventually discover a dormant Caern that had once belonged to the lost Croatan tribe. Over a series of adventures they recover the Caern's hearthstone and restore it.

Kit Walker

Anyone familiar with classic pulp comic heroes will recognize the name of my character that I played in the Lost Boys campaign. As I mentioned above I would often have to reach to other genres for inspiration for my World of Darkness characters, and super-hero comics were a frequent source of that inspiration. In this case it was The Phantom, a character with a lineage stretching back decades, the son resembling his father and a name and mantle passed down generation to generation over centuries - Christopher "Kit" Walker (XXV), heroic Silver Fang and leader (in his mind at least) of the teenage pack at Sea Point High School.

To further the Phantom analogy, when Kit was Crinos form his fur showed a skull pattern and his family had hereditary enemies in the form of the former pirates of the Seng Brotherhood. By the ten year school reunion adventure Kit had fully stepped into the family mantle and had mystic artifacts that included, among other things, a skull ring.

Dream a Little Dream

Like many other World of Darkness games, Changeling was one that I had trouble getting into the setting for. In any case, I was invited by friends to join a new Changeling campaign that was starting, so I tried to familiarize myself with the setting while also looking for inspiration for a character to play. As was often the case with World of Darkness, that inspiration came from the world of comic books.

Like a few World of Darkness games I was involved in, I didn't play in this campaign for long; and it was a while ago so I don't remember any details. I do still remember the character, though.

Cal

The World of Darkness settings lend themselves to super hero tropes very easily. Changeling is maybe one of the most super hero-like, as the characters all have mortal "secret identities" in addition to supernatural powers. In the spirit of this a made a character named Cal, whose mortal identity was a mild-mannered, glasses-wearing reporter and whose fae form was a super-strong troll. Can you figure out which comic book character I based Cal on? Maybe the picture I drew of him will help.

More Than This

This was the only Vampire campaign I played in from start to finish. Several of the characters at the start of the game were humans and over the course of several sessions slowly became aware of the existence of the Kindred and eventually were turned. Characters who joined later on were more typical and were already vampires.

The overall story arc of the campaign involved a coming apocalypse, with the Storyteller having a different end-of-the-world plan than what White Wolf were moving towards in the published World of Darkness games. Underlying these events was a theme of redemption, with the characters having the opportunity to reclaim their souls and turn away from the path of darkness. The campaign finished up with the world ending and being reborn anew. The characters who had managed to achieve redemption would also be reborn in the new world, those who hadn't would not.

Quinn

My character in the campaign was a teenage hacker conspiracy theorist named Quinn. Quinn slowly discovered the secret existence of the Kindred as he dug into traditional Illuminati-style conspiracies. This led him to the Order of Hermes and he was eventually turned by the Tremere. As a Tremere vampire, Quinn started learning magic and became a technomancer, capable of manipulating computers and technology with his spells.

Quinn fell deeper and deeper into the conspiracies, machinations, manipulations, betrayals and battles of the Camarilla. As the coming apocalypse drew near Quinn made his own plans, seeking power and ways to survive the coming struggle. Unlike the other player characters, Quinn did not achieve redemption at the end. This was not the end of Quinn however. In a desperate move Quinn used his technomancy to preserve his mind in a specially designed computer storage device. The world ended and was reborn as a paradise, but Quinn's essence survived in a technological genie bottle, a Serpent for the New Eden just waiting to be discovered.