Okay, here we go! @BananaPhone, if you could please edit this into the OP and change the thread's tag to Recruiting, I would appreciate it.

WEREWOLF THE APOCALYPSE
Under a Blood Red Moon





"Luna weeps a storm of blood
The red swan falls from the sky
The fanged maw opens
Many-faced beasts are loosed
We shall meet them
Under a blood red moon"
-From Prophecies of Grey Raven, 1925.


"The Dogs broke the peace. We're just defending ourselves."
-Nicolai Antonescu, Tremere Primogen of Chicago.


"The Leeches broke the peace. We're just defending ourselves."
-Luther Stepshadow Lynch, Uktena Theurge of (former) Temple of the Fanum.


Welcome, warriors of Gaia!

By request, I am running a pack of Garou through the 1993 module Under a Blood Red Moon. As written, it is a story about loyalty, about the tension between individual and collective will. The way I like to run it, it's more of a story about perspective, about how our world-view is built from available information, and then how resilient that world-view can be to new information.

Here's how it is:
  • Chicago is an important city for both Kindred and Garou. The two have existed in a fragile, tense truce for decades.
  • About two weeks ago, for unknown reasons, the leeches broke the peace with a series of attacks against the Garou.
  • Taking advantage of the chaos and the Garou's weakened state, Black Spiral Dancers assaulted and overtook one of the City's two urban Caerns, the Temple of the Fanum.
  • Aside from its spiritual and political importance, the Fanum housed (and/or imprisoned) an extremely powerful and volatile spirit, a Celestine called Jupiter. If Jupiter is freed or Wyrm-tainted, the results could be catastrophic.
  • The second Caern, the Sept of the Wind Catchers, has not been heard from since the fall of Fanum (nor have any of the Fanum Garou who fled there after the assault).
  • Most of the available information comes from Garou who escaped to the Ring of the Raccoon, a Shadow Lord Caern outside of Chicago. They are also the ones who have called for help.

The Shadow Lords of the Ring of the Raccoon have sent out a call for help.

You have answered.

Spoiler: THE CONSOLIDATED 16
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1. What kind of game is this (system, power-level, genre, tone, etc)? ("Big16" #1, 2, 4)
-Old World of Darkness, Werewolf the Apocalypse (W20 or Revised), linear one-shot, advanced characters, tone is grim and desperate with clear goals and high stakes.

2. How many players? ("Big16" #3)
-Probably three or four. Five at the absolute maximum. By ancient compact, the OP of a game request is automatically invited to play, so it'll be BananaPhone plus 2 or 3 more.

3. What are the character creation guidelines? ("Big16" #5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 16)
-I don't want any sheets or dots at this stage, so I'll be giving the precise guidelines to whoever is invited to play. But, for planning purposes, characters can possibly be up to Rank 3, and will have something like 15 extra Freebies and 50 XP.
-I'm not 100% against someone playing another Changing Breed, but this is a very Garou-centric story, so anything else would have to really fit in well.

4. Are you gonna screw with the rules or the dice any? ("Big16" #12, 13)
-I tend to run World of Darkness games very 'rules lite.' I usually only involve dice when every possible result of a roll (success, failure, Botch) is more interesting than just letting the scene play out.

5. Is a character background required? If so, how big? Are you looking for anything in particular (i.e. the backgrounds all ending up with the characters in the same city)? ("Big16" #14)
-Nothing too intense. An Elevator Pitch and a few short-answer questions (see the "Application" section, below).

6. Does your game involve a lot of hack & slash, puzzle solving, roleplaying, or a combination of the above? ("Big16" #15)
-There will be a fair amount of combat, clearly, but I expect there to be a lot of tense interpersonal scenes as well. And probably some light mystery solving.

7. Is there anything else we need to know? (NEW!)
-I have a complicated and chaotic RL, so my posting rate is all over the place. I'll try to keep you informed of when I'm likely to be away for any length of time. Even under ideal conditions, my posting rate is generally around two or three updates per week.
-This is usually an unnecessary warning, but I won't tolerate any racism, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, queerphobia, ageism, ableism or any other sort of weaponized, systemized prejudice, either implicit or explicit; from neither the players nor the PC's.
-As a general rule, people in the game world will have no strong expectations or biases based on gender presentation, gender identity, sexual or romantic orientation, race, ethnicity, or any other markers of personal identity. In-universe, people will generally accept your stated identity at face value and make no assumptions about you as a result.
-It only takes a little bit of negativity or bad blood to completely sink a PbP game. Everyone is expected to remain courteous at all times and assume good faith and best intentions with the other players. Everyone is expected to approach conflict through empathy and de-escalation. If you have a problem with someone and you don't think you can approach them with the right mindset, talk to me first.


Spoiler: APPLICATION
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In my experience, player chemistry is the foundation of a successful game. So the RTJ is more about you (the player) than it is about your character. As much as you can, try to give me a sense of the person behind the keyboard and an idea of what would make you (the player) a fun and interesting and constructive addition to this group project.

Also, I hate making people do a lot of work for these things. So I don't need, or want, novels for any of this. 100 words or less should do for most of them. Less is more so long as it gets the job done.

1. The "Elevator Pitch." This is a high-energy, high-intensity description of what this character brings to the table. Imagine you're in an elevator with a Netflix exec and you only have a couple of floors to sell them on a mini-series about this character. You don't have time for the whole backstory, just the essentials. The core. The real juicy stuff. Tell me that.

2a. How did you get the Call to go to war in Chicago? Where were you? Who told you? What are your motivations for answering?
2b. OPTIONAL. What was it about the Call for help that made you wary? Or suspicious? That made you think there was more to this than it seemed?


ANSWER ONE OF THESE:
3a. Tell me about the delicate, important situation you walked away from to answer the Call. Tell me something really bad that will probably happen because you did.

OR

3b. Tell me about someone your character hopes/dreads/expects to run into in Chicago, for any reason. Friend, foe, ally, villain. Tell me why you hope/dread/expect to meet them and why.

4. Tell me one way that your character exactly matches a common stereotype of their Tribe, Breed, or Auspice. And tell me one way they directly defy a common stereotype of their Tribe, Breed, or Auspice.

5. What are your preferred pronouns?

NOTE: if we've ever been in a game together, you can skip the next two questions (feel free to ask if you're not sure).

6. Imagine we've been playing together for a while and I PM you and say that one of your Gifts, Merits or other trait is causing me a problem (too powerful, clashes thematically, etc). You disagree with my assessment. You don't see the problem I describe and can't really see where I'm coming from. How would you approach this? How would your approach differ if it was something non-mechanical your character is doing that I have an issue with? What if it was something you (the player) were doing Out of Character?

7. Again, imagine we've been playing together for a while. One of the other players has a cool plan that depends on a certain rule working a certain way. The player checks with me and I okay it. You know I'm wrong. Not in a 'different interpretation' sort of way, but factually, objectively wrong. That's just not how the rule works and you know it. What do you do? How would your approach differ if it was me (the ST) whose cool plan depended on a rule that I had wrong? What if it was your cool plan?


I'm really excited to run this module again. I'm looking forward to seeing the characters who are coming along.