So I have been making a setting for Vampire the Masquerade and so far i kinda have an idea of what its going to be...

So I have been making a setting for Vampire the Masquerade and so far i kinda have an idea of what its going to be, but since this is my first time with this game i don't want to fuck it up. The idea is that the players are a group of vampires that, because of a VERY large population of werewolves and dense forests, are essentially stranded in the small town of Raven View (population 1,093) in the Ozark Mountains. Due to it being so small with an infestation of hostile werewolves surrounding the place, there is very little if any of the larger vampire sects, with the vampires living there forming a tense alliance. However, a fairly powerful drug ring started pushing a new drug called "Devil's Paste" that has been causing the blood of possible victims to be very poor to useless. It is up to the vampires of Raven View to rid the town of the drug or slowly starve.

Just curious, OP

What is your frame of reference for a town of 1,093? Have you ever been in a town this size for a significant amount of time? I've found that people from large urban areas radically overestimate the services and locations available in a town this size.

I lived in a small town in Kansas for 5 years. There were more cows in a 5 mile radius then there was actual people. We didn't even have a movie theater, the nearest one was a 40 minute drive away.

Also, i wanted the town to be small enough so that they would have to conserve their resources bt not small enough so that everyone that is not a vampire would narrow it easily.

>I lived in a small town in Kansas for 5 years. There were more cows in a 5 mile radius then there was actual people. We didn't even have a movie theater, the nearest one was a 40 minute drive away.
Alright solid. It bugs me when Veeky Forums has small town threads where 95% of the posts are from people who live in places large enough to have malls and think a town of 500 has two competing movie theatres.

What other towns or locales are nearby to Raven View? How is it connected to the rest of the world (gas deliveries, etc.)? I assume most of the surrounding communities are populated or controlled by werewolves. Where's the Paste coming from?

How often to vampires have to feed? Anonymity is going to be hard to pull off, as you know.

Some Locals include Kingston (founded in 1867 with a poplation of around 200) which is a 20 minute drive by dirt road from Raven View and Purdy (pop. 48) where everyone belongs to the same family clan and who are very wary of outsiders and "city folk" like those from Raven View. Raven View itself only has one road going through it, and once was fairly prosperous before highways were built, redirecting almost all traffic away and causing its decline over the years. As For the issue of Anonymity, i may increase the population size to try and fix that.

Obviously not

In a town of 1000, that's very difficult

As for the Paste, it started to spread from Purdy, and although The Family won't admit it, it is very clear that they are making the stuff through unknown means.

Yo dude I really dig this premise, good job. I dunno about Raven View as a name, but that's just because I'm a picky boy-- other than that I'd love to play in this game.

i actually based the name off of a town i passed through several times in the Ozarks somewhere in Missouri or Arkansas. It had a big statue of a raven because apparently there is a big population of them that live in the town. Wish i could remember the actual name though.

I as also thinking of having a group of gun-toting hicks be reoccurring baddies, where normally the vampires can just off them but because they have to live in a town so small they instead have to arrange "accidents" so that no one really questions why they disappeared.

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Here is what i have so far:
VtM: Small Towns

the players are a group of vampires that, because of a VERY large population of werewolves and dense forests, are essentially stranded in the small town of Raven View (population 1,093) in the Ozark Mountains. Due to it being so small with an infestation of hostile werewolves surrounding the place, there is very little if any of the larger vampire sects, with the vampires living there forming a tense alliance.
However, a fairly powerful drug ring started pushing a new drug called "Devil's Paste" that has been causing the blood of possible victims to be very poor to useless. It is up to the vampires of Raven View to rid the town of the drug or slowly starve.

Some Locals include Kingston (founded in 1867 with a population of around 200) which is a 20 minute drive by dirt road from Raven View and Purdy (pop. 48) where everyone belongs to the same family clan and who are very wary of outsiders and "city folk" like those from Raven View.
Raven View itself only has one road going through it, and once was fairly prosperous before highways were built, redirecting almost all traffic away and causing its decline over the years.
The Purdy Clan has deep roots in the region, living on the same plot of land ever since the first settlers arrived in the region. They are notorious in having their fingers in just about every politician's pocket in the area along with being the de-facto drug lords of the surrounding towns. Some of the older vampires in the area believe that they may be using vampiric blood in their latest product called Devil's Paste, aka Shine, which cause extreme euphoric affects and youthful appearance, but long time use causes the body to, in extreme cases, be utterly reliant on the drug for living.

Part 2:

The actual going ons in the family are unknown as they are extremely secretive, almost never sharing anything about each other to the outside world
the clan is a strange mix of humans and vampires, hence why it is so secretive. The Patriarch introduced the blood to the clan and has been leading them ever since they settled the region long ago
the humans are related to him through his descendants, and act as liaisons to the world of mortals when they are forced to do so
if the larger sects found them they would want to purge the bloodline as it has been far too corrupted to be allowed to exist
Raven View was originally much larger then it is today, almost being able to be put on the map, but when the highways were constructed redirecting almost all of the traffic away and with the closing of a large mine the town nearly collapsed. Today it is a pale shadow of its former self, filled with corruption, drugs, and forsaken dreams
Mayor Harris , who has been elected consecutively for the past 30 years unopposed, is known to have connections to the Purdy Clan, and may be helping them get drugs into the town by turning a blind eye to their activites

I'm actually really interested to know why a secretive (probably?) inbred clan of vampires and humans are making a drug that makes blood worthless. I wanna know more about them, it seems like a cool idea, OP.

the blood tainting is just a small side affect of a HUGE slew of symptoms that accompany withdrawl.

Also, The Purdy Clan has long lost its humanity, both the vampires and humans. They want to kept an iron grip over the area so that they can do as they please and be left alone.

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How'd they get that way? Inbreeding nonsense long ago? Did a small group of vampires break off or something?

Hi there, I'm a friend of OP's helping out on this project of his. To answer the question it's mainly inbreeding nonsense, with the family patriarch being a vamp akin to Joseph Curwen.

As for the family it's a mix between Tremere vamps that thanks to the incest are ugly even to a Nosferatu would find them hideous and Nephandi with older generations of the family worshiping Earthbound and younger generations leaning towards the Wyrm.

Werewolves are also hostile to other vamps namely since the Purdy's hunt them down for sport and the like

Also, Pappy Purdy, the patriarch of the clan and its founder, created werewolf abominations called Wendigo. The Wendigo here being a guard dog for the Purdy's, a werewolf that's been repeatedly tortured to death by disease and brought back by Pappy Purdy's necromancy into a monster that resists magic, generates necrosis inducing blades from it's body, and pumps out disease and toxin like it's a goddamn Great Unclean One

My words, not his

also, the inbreeding has been going on for so long that even though new vampires are sired fairly regularly in the clan, they are all pretty much the same generation. Think "I'm my own grandpa"

Adding on to the generations bit, the clan itself was founded just before the Louisiana Purchase making it late fourth/late fifth generation

>Late fifth
>Early fifth

Anyways, as for Pappy himself the old man is a fourth generation vamp himself with the rest of the family saddling that distinction

>tremere joseph curwen
Goddman, user, I like it

Danke, so you got anything to add in yourself?

I'm curious about the Purdy's motives. They clearly have an agenda, but I don't get the feeling they have huge ambitions, like they want to cover their local bases and remain hidden from vampire society at large, stay nice and comfy. So they have this drug, connections with the main town, and are probably seeding it to keep the populace nice and powerless. How far does their influence reach into the town? Hell, do the corrupt officials even know about the vampires or is it all done through the family's human liaisons? They might just believe it's an old family of criminals, local 'mafia', as it were, or something akin to that. If they don't know about vampires and mages being behind it all, would sufficient evidence of spookiness be enough to get some folks together to try and take out the Purdys? But then there's the issue of the PCs being vampires, too, that'd be terribly awkward. And what about afterwards? Those townsfolk would know about vampires. Interesting dilemma. At 4:10am I'm not sure I'm coherent enough to follow through with it, but I'm a little invested, I have to say. It's a cool set up.

The towns of Raven View, Kingston, and other small towns in the area are fairly superstitious folk. They don't believe in vampires, but demons and monsters are more believable to them. Also While they essentially control all of the politicians and police, they don't tell them anything related to their blood. For all the politicians know, they are just a well established family clan that have been here for longer than anyone remembers.

Would either Raven View or Kingston have a church? Could that figure into anything? Could the PCs work from the shadows trying to expose the Purdy's for what they are, incite some mob violence? I don't know how active the PCs could get given their situation. The werewolves in the area must know, could they covertly be led to attack the family? Might whittle down numbers for the players to work with or escape.

When OP first posted, I assumed that the werewolves were the ones manufacturing the drug and they were doing it intentionally to starve the vampires out.

I find this slightly disturbing... while not on the scale of small as this town...

I live in Kingston, There's a subdivision called Ravenswood, and we don't have the population to support a movie theater... Everyone knows everyone's business. Better not have the wrong last name, or you are automatically judged.

and yeah, there's the great legend about the family on the south mountain that liked to keep it in the family... as it were.

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So what are the players going to play?

Do you want this to be an investigation/intrigue heavy story or will there be loads of combat or ?

You should make a bunch of hooks to get the story going or clues/locations where they might be found.

Lupines must be portrayed as both an insane and dangerous last resort but possibly a risky solution - especially if they can be told about the Abomination, they would go fucking mental.

Jesus Christ, how horrifying.

Where are the drugs coming from? Is there a grow-op in the woods? Is it harvested from some supernatural form? How is the drug used?

What's there to do in town? How's the infrastructure? Is it one of those "poor but clean and desperately holding on" small towns or one of the "total shithole" small towns?

Also if at some point the party doesn't fight/flee desperately from a werewolf in overalls with a shotgun I'm going to be very disappointed.

You married to the Purdys as vampires? Because what you're describing is pretty close to a Revenant family. Like, if I played this and a clock appeared anywhere you wouldn't be able to convince me these weren't Ducheskis.

It is implied he's trying to make them into such.

My Fellow Cainites.

Anyone here has the link for the pdf dump of Rulebooks?

I need to see the Vampire: The Dark Ages / Dark Ages: Vampire one while I languish at work

Starting a chronicle soon

I once went through a town named Shade. Always thought that was a very ominous and WoD sounding "town".

Too on the nose.

Also if you need more inspiration, check out the Oberlochs from Bloodlines: The Hidden.

This is a bad idea.