Note to self: It's bad when LJ tells you 'Error: post too large' with regards to your BPAL post & you have to split it into two...
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( Wish list - last overhauled 15-03-08 )
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The moon is setting. Her final fading rays draw stark bars of shadow across familiar landmarks and pathways, transmuting them into something bleak, dark and alien. The taint, however, is not hers - she simply illuminates the hidden heart of things, stripping away the comfort of self-deception.

This is a world that has never recovered from war. Pearl Harbour, Little Boy & Fat Man. Dresden, Dachau. McCarthyism and the Berlin Wall. Reds under the bed. The Killing Fields & Tiananmen Square. The Troubles, Jihad, the War on Terror...

Individual packs & septs of the Garou, Gaia's shapeshifting wolf-warriors, continue to fight the good fight against the monsters and mayhem...but their idealized Nation is - in truth - in fragments, long divided by human lines on maps, human politics, and a generational distrust of outsiders.

In recent years, the isolation has been increased still further, with fewer than ever of the young going through First Change and joining the fight. Each group struggles to defend its own territory, losing knowledge and experience as battle takes its toll.

You and your pack are of these few. With hindsight, future Garou may well wonder at the chain of events that led the pack to leave family and friends behind, for the self-proclaimed green & sceptred isle of Britain, away to the east...

OoC:
Legacy is an independent Werewolf: The Apocalypse ("OldWOD") game, running monthly in London, usually on the second Saturday. We use MET rules, but are a tabletop-sized group. Emphasis is high on narrative, low on system - and although we largely use the OldWOD setting, metaplot & the nature of non-werewolf NPCs are determined by the STs (settings books should not be relied on for accurate IC info ;)

We are looking for 3-4 new players to join the existing game, and would like to run at least 2 character gen/prequel sessions for this new group before mixing old and new. We would like the new characters to be a pre-existing pack by the end of prequel (or at least be familiar with working together), from 'elsewhere' geographically speaking compared to the existing characters. Our initial plans are either America or Ireland for this location, but will depend on what the new players as a whole agree on. Bad accents not required ;)

Characters will be around fostern rank when they join the main game (possibly as much as ready to challenge for adren, but not yet having done so). Garou characters only - Stargazers banned. Wendigo, Uktena, Red Talons & Silent Striders restricted by character background - talk to STs.

We try to keep the game low maintenance between sessions - we do have an LJ community and yahoogroup for announcements, and STs can be contacted by email - but email scenes etc are not expected. Links to all three as follows:

LJ community: http://community.livejournal.com/legacy_london/
Yahoogroup for players: legacy_players@yahoogroups.com
ST email: legacy.sts@gmail.com

Please email legacy.sts@gmail.com if you would be interested in joining the game.

...Ooooh, there's a fox, in broad daylight. Hello fox, I wonder whether you're the same one we've seen occasionally before.

Oh, hello! You've got a friend! Now, *two* foxes, there's something you don't see every day, in a city garden...

...Oh.

Well, folks, I think we can officially say the joys of spring are upon us. Never mind waiting for the first snowdrop - the foxes are up & at it!

I shall try to get some non x-rated pics of the gorgeous beasties ;)

ETA: Got some pictures on my phone, including them sunning themselves perched on our back wall - they've not great quality I'm afraid, although these have largely been chopped down to a quarter of the original resolution to make them a sociable size! I took some far better pictures on Dave's camera as well, once I found it, but I don't know where the card reader is so I can't get those onto the computer just yet!

( Phone pictures )
ETA: Found the card reader!
( More pictures - from a proper camera this time! My camera phone isn't bad for snapshots, but for zoom like this a real camera makes all the difference... )

The first session of Legacy will be at the Old Kings Head on Saturday 12th May (ie this weekend)

I've got the upstairs room booked from 2pm-10pm, for an extended-length session.

I'll be there from a bit earlier than this, so I'm there to open up - if anyone wants to try to grab me before the game, let me know and I'll quantify 'earlier' with you!

Information about Legacy can be found here: Legacy LJ community
OC summary: Indie, Old-WOD Werewolf campaign, running monthly in London, STed by madwitch, lanfykins and myself. Low-ranked, high personal plot, and the usual helpings of doom and angst, but hopefully only the IC variety - we're running this for everyone's enjoyment, including our own!
IC summary: The Warlord of the UK, and all the members of the Albion's Hearth sept were killed 3 days ago, but the caern has survived due to the Warlord's sacrifice. After discussion, the remaining members of the Elder Council have called a levy on the other septs around the country, asking them to send whoever they can spare long-term/permanently to re-populate the sept.

STs can be contacted on: legacyDOTsts@gmail.com
Or, on the day, use my mobile: 07950 357 566

Pub Address:
King's Head Yard
45-49 Borough High Street
SE1 9AL

Multimap: here (somewhat annoyingly, I don't think it actually shows Kings Head Yard!)

Directions:

Very easy once you've been there once, but I'll list them explicitly.

From the Underground: exit London Bridge station by the Borough High Street exit. Take the escalators on your left (rather than the stairs) as you come out of the ticket gates - the escalators are signposted as the EAST side of the high street - and turn left when you come out of the exit. King's Head Yard is a matter of yards further on (again on your left!), and the pub is in front of you, on your right. If you do take the more distant stairs from the ticket gates, you'll come up on the other side of the junction and need to cross the road - you should be able to see the King's Head Yard easily enough though.

From the overground: Take whichever exit is easiest for you, and head for Borough High Street, following it away from the river: From Tooley Street, that's turn left when you exit the station, then left again down the High Street; From St Thomas Street, it's turn right when you exit the station, then left down the High Street. Walk down Borough High Street (you'll walk past the Borough St exit to London Bridge underground station, as mentioned above), and King's Head Yard is on your left - and the pub is in front of you, on your right. If you go right past the island in the moddle of the road with the Slug and Lettuce on it, you've overshot - the underground station is your last useful landmark before the Yard.

By car: Um...there is parking marked nearby on the map, but from the location I have a nasty suspicion it may be hospital parking, which will probably be ££silly. Any suggestions from the drivers? I'd suggest dropping cars off at London players' houses and taking public transport in may actually be easier, but I'm a coward. (Sarah, if you're crashing at ours, we have some visitor permits left in the book for parking on our road)

Other notes:

There's several cashpoints easily found on the High Street if you need to get money. I've personally paid to hire the room - if people can give me £2/head towards it, it would be gratefully received.

It's a pub, please buy drinks, it keeps the landlord happy.
It's a pub, please DON'T bring in your own food and drink. It makes the landlord unhappy.
I don't know whether there'll be pub food available on the day - if there isn't, we will take a break to go and grab food at some point.

Borough Market is across the road if by some fluke people get there early and want to go drool at all the nice food.

From my own experience, bags have occasionally 'walked' from the Borough area - we've got a private room so you should be fine with stuff up there, but please keep an eye on your own belongings elsewhere.

I've set up legacy_london for further posts on this, although at the moment it's just got the initial intro blerb on it.

Legacy[1]
Werewolf: The Post-Apocalypse

Commuters throng the city streets, going to work. Banners advertising the 2012 Olympics and a Bright New Future hang from lamp posts. The Thames shines silver as a mirror beneath the morning sun.

The Thames is grey as iron beneath a moonless sky. Here and there are dead and dying trees; even those that still cling to life are withered and unhealthy. Everywhere there are webs, some bright and shining silver, some tarnished beneath the faint starlight.

Despite all appearances, this is a world that is dying. Every year more of its defenders are lost. Every year fewer are born to replace them. They're beaten. But they're not extinct. Yet.

Who would be interested in a Garou game?

***

lanfykins, madwitch and I are planning a Werewolf game.

Setting:
Present-day old WOD; characters will be werewolves only. Other shifters may exist, but with the size of the game we're planning, we'd rather stick to just Garou. Other supernaturals may exist, but making assumptions about how they work will be dangerous; there may be surprises...

Player experience:
Having played werewolf before would without a doubt be useful, but we're newbie-friendly.

Player numbers:
We want to be big on personal attention, so we do want to stick to player:ST ratios of about 5:1 to allow this without our going insane. This would initially give us space for 15 players - realistically, we'd be happy to go up to a max of 7:1 (ie 21 players), since we know that usually not everyone makes every game.

Timetabling:
We're still planning things out so can't quote a exact game-length in terms of number of sessions just yet, but this isn't going to be the start of an endless chronicle; there will be an end in mind. We might run future games in the same game world at a later date if we feel like it and there's interest.
Rough plan at present is a monthly game in London, provisionally starting in April 07. I need to chat with Paul to see what slots are available during the weekends at the College Arms, so watch this space on that.

Ruleset:
There will be a few custom 'tweaks' (principally in terms of XP costs, availability of merits etc), but on the whole, we'll be using the Revised edition of the Laws of The Wild MET book. Stuff from tribebooks etc may be used, but that will be with discussion with individual players. We're not taking the OMG Approval111!!! route, it's just the same argument as not allowing fera - with a small player pool, too many special snowflakes becomes a problem for game balance.
This isn't going to be linked with any other games/organisations, it's just us and our little gameworld ;)

Character ranks:
With what we're planning, cliath/fostern characters will be by far the majority. A few cubs or higher ranked characters could be fitted in, but we'd need to hear some good arguments for these.

PBM/email-only players:
For the most part, we do want to be running a live game rather than a play by email. However, there is what is effectively a 'penpal' option - if you are unable to attend games, but want to take part, and you can pair up with a live player who would like a mentor, then we'd work with you to create an older DPC, likely a kinfolk or garou who had lost the wolf - and you could interact with & advise your protege by email between games. This might work particularly well if unavailable but experienced garou players paired up with live-action newbies.
As a forewarning though, this would basically just be soft roleplay (running MET mechanics by email is HORRIBLE!) - and for the most part, it would be interaction between the two players rather than the STs joining in as NPCs - we have lives and jobs!


More information on background & setting will be coming out over the next few days/weeks...

[1] No relation to the current OURPGSoc society game - sorry, we didn't realise the name was actively in use until we'd already decided on it...and by the time we start playing, you'll have finished with it!

Was thinking about brief discussion on previous (locked) post about LJ being insecure.

OK, so someone could feasibly get hold of your password in some nefarious fashion and hack your account (oh, please - they're far more likely to phish for your bank details - it's more profitable!) - but the most common ways that people get to see or hear about posts they shouldn't are by other people leaving themselves logged in, people showing each other posts that they shouldn't (whether directly on screen, or by emailling screenshots/cut & pastes etc), or by people inadvertently talking about posts that others didn't have access to.

Which leads to an obvious comment:

LJ itself isn't insecure. LJ users are insecure.

My sense of humour then caught up with my plodding logic, and giggled, lots :)

(And yes, yes, I know - it's only some users, you're not all insecure in either sense of the word...but the fact I even had to make this disclaimer to point this out is rather telling, don't you think?)

...because people have rapidly scrolling friends' pages.

In answer to queries:

Sources/inspirations:
The Tempest as in the Shakespeare play (also Caliban's Hour by Tad Williams, which was based on the play).
The Crucible as in the Arthur Miller play (thank you taimatsu, I'd forgotten who is was by, it's ages since I read it). Salem witchtrials and all that. When I'm putting stuff together for the game, I'll be including links to online sources if I can find them.

Period:
I need to set this a bit more clearly, but it's more likely to be regarding who is on the throne, recent events and so forth than a set year. It's going to be set in that era in the same way as, say, Neverwhere is set in the present day - you don't need precise dates to know the setting - and rather more importantly, I should state now, although this is a 'period' setting, it's not going to stay purely by-the-book historical - and I may well tweak the setting to make things fit better - for example, witch trials still going on at the time of the game, even if historically they'd stopped by then - however, I will be writing a gameworld history to make such things clear. If that makes the historians twitch - think of it as 'inspired by' rather than strictly accurate)

Setting...in particular, magic and witchcraft:
In case the previous post didn't make things very clear (I blame scribbling things before 9am ;) - as I said above, this isn't historical/scientific. Witchcraft is...well, "alive and well" sounds a little too cheery, but it's definitely Out There. There's always someone who knew someone saw old hags dancing naked and calling up the Devil/got cursed by the old biddy with cats. It is certainly understood that people can get unnatural powers, but these are by making infernal pacts - that is to say, there's no doubt about the existence of such powers, but they're a Really Bad Thing to admit to knowing too much about. At the same time, many people who would still consider themselves good christian folk will not consider this to be inconsistent with getting a poultice/blessing from the local wise woman (right up until one of their sheep gets sick after they shirked on payment, and then it's likely to be pitchfork time...) Witchfinders like Hopkins are about - and while (because various people I know will hang draw and quarter me unless I make this clear) witches are not being burnt at the stake on any sort of regular basis, there ARE witch trials, interrogations and torture do happen, and being found guilty will result in being hanged by the neck until you're dead. Heresy and treason were still fair game for burning, particularly for women (the normal method of being hung drawn and quarter being considered unacceptable because it would have involved nudity).

I may indeed be persuadable to let you have some witchcraft on your character - but I wouldn't recommend letting other characters know about it, because there IS likely to be at least one other character out there who will want to see you 'saved' (in the executed sort of sense), and a lot of others who will be too concerned about ending up as suspects themselves to be prepared to speak out in your favour.

This is not to say that this is necessarally 'how' magic works, or indeed how your character would believe themselves to be able to do supernatural things if they are a practitioner - but it is certainly the common belief, and one that I would expect most characters to follow.


Compare the belief in witches/witchcraft perhaps to the modern belief in Al Qaeda. There may be a lot of young asian guys with backpacks who have no intention of blowing anybody up - but there's certainly SOME out there, whose actions are quite probably inspired by that organisation, as evidenced by events in the news - and the authorities are likely to stop and question (and possibly take away for further interrogation) those who fit the stereotype; and people living near someone who fits the bill may well start getting very twitchy about what is being cooked up next door.


Finally - gender roles:
I'm a firm believer in people having a free choice of characters - however, I do think that people playing the opposite gender is at best initially confusing to other players and a bit of a pain to remember, and at worst tends to make other players continutally break character. You may consider that to be their roleplaying inflexibility rather than yours, but it doesn't make for a good game for the group - which is bad for everyone. Trust me, I've tried bindings & an eye-liner beard, and it just Doesn't Work. This means, if you want to play a role that would more usually within the period have been limited to the other gender (ladies, I'm afraid this is going to mostly apply to you), try to come up with a good background reason that fits with the setting to explain why you got into it. Perhaps you helped your husband/father out for some years, then when he died suddenly you took over the reins. Perhaps you are IC disguising yourself as the other gender (Yes, this IS ok - there's a big difference in my opinion between a CHARACTER disguising themselves and a PLAYER trying to convincingly BE the other gender) - or perhaps you disguised yourself like this in the past, and got away with it for long enough that when you showed yourself as you were, you managed to gain acceptance. Think about all the gender-disguising in Shakespeare (Twelfth Night, As You LIke It....) if you need inspiration.

The Tempest meets The Crucible meets....whatever other inspirations I throw in. Bits of the Odyssey and Swiss Family Robinson entirely probable. Concept has also been described as "17th century Lost"

Game would provisionally be starting in, say, May (strikes me as more of a summer game - in our garden if numbers make it sensible, or possibly go out into Greenwich Park or Blackheath...could do it indoors too, but I like the sunshine damnit :) - this is giving masses of notice but I still need to write up lots of background, not to mention character gen system/conflict resolution, and that's not going to be started until my exams are over in a couple of weeks time. At this stage, this post is partly just to give me a project to look forward to post-exams.

Basic premise - a ship sets out from Portsmouth, pilgrim fathers era. On the voyage, there is a great storm, and the ship is wrecked, leaving the survivors on a weird island. I might run a prelude 'voyage' session or two if people wanted a chance to get used to their characters a bit before the wreck - but the main game is going to be set n the island itself.

Those on the ship could be a whole variety of characters - those from the crew (most likely sailors, but ship's officers, surgeon, chaplain etc would also be possible, though if you want something like that where there would only be one aboard ship, yell early), passengers (emigrant families heading to the new world, those leaving England to seek religious freedom, young brides heading out to join their sweethearts, traders and craftsmen taking their entire stock and hoping to set up shop where commodities are so much dearer, young couples intending that the captain should marry them as soon as they're at sea and out of British waters, wanted criminals travelling under false names...if it's in period and feasible, it probably fits), and stowaways (as above, but more desperate/destitute ;)

Backgrounds may well be very brief - if people have shared backgrounds, they may want to write longer joint sections - but a lot of the background details may well be filled in as brief pull-the-GM-to-one-side flashbacks during the game. Hence why I'm intending to largely start after the wreck - a lot of the interesting background detail will gradually get filled in into stories that can be told around the campfire, rather than you knowing absolutely everything to start with.

For now, I'd mainly just like to get an idea of whether people would be interested, and what type of thing thwey'd like to play, since this will guide me when writing plot & system.

Oh, and suggestions for the game name would also be welcomed, chosen name might even get something weird and shiny in game for the player's character ;)

Factual discussion here:
http://www.livejournal.com/community/london_070705

Check-in post here:
http://www.livejournal.com/community/london_070705/2794.html

Go and check in, then there's a single place for people to check for friends...