Archived-Antagonists

General information

This is a page detailing the national NPC groups for the Australian Requiem game. Each of these groups are open to be used by local STs in making local stories. These groups will best fit a particular type of story. The astute reader will notice some differences between these groups as presented here and their original write up in The Danse Macabre. These differences are deliberate, in order to create groups more suited to our chronicle.

The Society of the Accord

Overview

The Society of the Accord believes that the Beast is something that shouldn't be fought against. It's not something that you overcome, or get overcome by. To the Accord, the Beast is an ally. It's something you work with.

This attitude towards the Beast informs all their other decisions. For example, most vampires feel the supernatural weight of the Traditions on their Beast and accept them as limitations, if not absolute rules to be obeyed. The Accord sees the Traditions as enemies of their ally, and thus something to be fought against and overcome. They take pride in being able to break the Traditions.

Night to Night

Vampires of the Accord spend their nights in constant communion with the Beast. They provoke one another to frenzy with fire, blood or violence. They declare their vampiric nature to passers by. They embrace excessively, and send their childer into the world with little to no explanation of what they have become. They even hunt other vampires (usually from outside the cult) to drink their souls and feast on their power. They are rough, tough, and dangerous to be around.

Stories

To a vampire who considers the Traditions as essential to their continued existance, the Accord presents a clear and present danger. They threaten the Masquerade as a matter of course, which means if they aren't stopped, sooner or later the mortal world will turn against all vampires.

The majority of the time the Accord is going to facilitate two main types of stories:

- Combat heavy scenes where bad guys can get beaten up

- Masquerade protection stories relying on influence in the mortal world and specialised skills

While these are relatively simple stories, the themes run a lot deeper. the Society of the Accord helps the PCs to define themselves be being a counter point. By showing contempt for the Traditions, they encourage PCs to care deeply about them. By reveling in frenzy, they encourage the PCs to value their control. Their rejection of Requiem Society's norms encourages the PCs to accept those norms and care about them in a personal way.

The Nemites

Overview

Nemites beleive in loyalty to the group. They believe in the good of their community coming before the good of a single individual. They reject the exploitation of the young by the old through the use of Boons and Status. They believe in Love, Community and Penance. While this might make them sound like a Socialist Hippy Commune, the truth is far darker.

Love comes from the Vinculum, Dominate and Majesty. All members of the cult are bound into it using these tools. This love is real in a way mortal love can never be; if a mortal catches their best friend and their partner together in bed, the love the mortal felt for them is destroyed by feelings of anger and betrayal. Nemite love, enforced with supernatural strength, endures. It is completely unconditional and enduring.

Community builds off this Nemite love. Giving to one another is the right thing to do. If another Nemite needs something you have, you should give it to them to show your love for them and for the community as a whole. People that track who has given what to whom with Boons and reward the powerful with Status are selfish creatures just out for themselves. The more you give, the better you are.

Penance is a little more complicated. The Nemites acccept that they are sinful creatures, and believe that being selfish and prideful creates an obligation for penance. A summary from page 113 of Danse Macabe explains this best.

 Let us concern ourselves with one of our type named Leucippus. Leucippus feeds on a mortal 
 woman, and he is thereby burdened with sin. He is selfish and callous. Similarly, if a woman of 
 our ilk, let us presume to name her Xanthippe, feeds on a mortal man, then Xanthippe has polluted herself.
 If Leucippus gives his woman to Xanthippe, Leucippus is innocent and, indeed, has shown moral kindness. 
 He has relieved Xanthippe’s suffering by assuaging her thirst. But Xanthippe, now, is bearing the burden. 
 Not only has she harmed the mortal woman, and thereby done wrong, but she risks becoming a burden on 
 Leucippus and causing suffering through sloth.
 The resolution of this dilemma is for Xanthippe to feed her man to Leucippus, and for Leucippus to 
 feed his woman to Xanthippe. Through this, the sins of each are mitigated and the generosity of each
 is placed in balance. Neither is obligated to the other and each has put selflessness before greed.
 Nemites who feed one another are morally neutral, whereas Nemites who feed themselves are guilty
 and Nemites who permit themselves to be fed without reciprocating are doubly guilty.
 Relieving suffering is the standard by which expiation is measured, and whose suffering is best 
 relieved? Why, the suffering of one’s beloved fellows, of course. Thus Nemites are known to beg one
 another to permit some act of generosity. Refusing aid from one’s beloved brethren is prideful and therefore 
 merits penitence. 
 The greatest act of penance, of course, is to sacrifice yourself, not though suicide, but by accepting 
 destruction to save your fellows. 

Night to Night

Nemites aren't generally an obvious threat. They quietly take up residence in a Domain, in an area that they won't be noticed. Usually a group that moves into a PC controlled Domain will be a splinter cult; a small group of Priests taking their bound lackeys with them. In theory these splinter cults break away for the greater good of the cult as a whole, but in practice it's usually so the Priests can avoid having to give quite so freely to their fellows in the larger cult.

The Nemites rarely embrace, so when they want to expand their numbers, they recruit. Sometimes this is just whispering honeyed words in the ears of neonates. After all, a society built on Love, Community and Penance sounds great from the outside. But occasionally, when there isn't time for that, or when a particular idividual would be valuable to the cult but isn't interested in joining, they resort to kidnapping and forced indoctrination.

Stories

The Nemites are a more subtle and nuanced antagonist group. Theirs is a struggle based more on the finesee of ideas rather than the force of arms. The main stories that you can tell with Nemites are:

- Subtle discussions about ideas and philosophies, especially the value of free will, and why Boons and Status are better than Nemite Love. (I might have to write up a page for this discussion, since a once off NPC player might not really understand the complex philosophical cut and thrust after a 5 minute briefing)

- Values based stories, where PCs are asked to weigh two or more competing "good things". For example, the sire/childe of a PC is kidnaped and indoctrinated by the Nemites. When the PCs discover this they have to judge whether the sire/childe should be allowed to continue in the cult like they want to (freedom of choice), whether they should be destroyed as an enemy because they know too much about the PCs (safety), or whether to try to destroy all the other local Nemites in order to save the sire/childe (the other side of freedom of choice). This could be made a more complicated story yet of the sire/childe was originally a PC and had complicated relationships with the PCs involved.

The stories here are more complicated. The themes of Nemite based stories are ones of deeply personal choices and values, and aren't going to be appealing to the type of player who just wants to beat something up. That's what the Society of the Accord is good for. Nemites are also designed to re-inforce the mainstream Requiem Society of the PCs by making choices outside that, especially regarding the value of loyalty over Status and Boons, but that choice isn't as obvious and straight forward as the choice about Traditions with the Accord.