World of darkness
The term Welt der Dunkelheit ( World of Darkness , WoD for short ) denotes either
- one of two modern fantasy scenarios, conceived and developed by the American publisher White Wolf , or
- one of the two groups of English-language role-playing games from the above-mentioned publisher that are set in these scenarios.
The term is also wrongly used to name the underlying role-playing game systems . However, these are called storytelling systems or storyteller systems .
There is a third version of the "World of Darkness" in the form of the single volume Monte Cook's World of Darkness . This uses a modification of the d20 role-playing system as game mechanics .
Disambiguation
World of Darkness and what it means is closely interwoven with the company history of the game publisher White Wolf . First, World of Darkness referred to the fictional universe of his games used by White Wolf , starting with Vampire: The Masquerade in 1991. This game world was officially ended in 2004. Starting with the source books World of Darkness and Vampire: The Requiem , a new fictional universe with the same name was used for an entire line of new games. To distinguish the game worlds, fans often referred to the older universe as the old / original World of Darkness (oWoD) or WoD1 , the newer as the new World of Darkness (nWoD) or WoD2 .
The publisher used the term World of Darkness exclusively for the newer fictional universe; no new publication was published for the older universe until 2012. Only an anniversary edition for the 20th anniversary of Vampire: The Masquerade was published. In 2012, however, the White Wolf publishing house was dissolved by the parent company CCP and it was announced at the same time that the newly founded company Onyx Path Publishing would publish source books for both game universes as a licensee. The name of the first fictional universe was set to Classic World of Darkness in press releases . As part of this continuation, The God-Machine Chronicle was released for the second World of Darkness , which expands and changes the rules that apply to all games in the series.
On November 26, 2015, White Wolf and everything that makes up the company's intellectual property were sold to the Swedish computer game manufacturer Paradox Interactive and White Wolf was re-established as an independent legal entity based in Stockholm. On December 12, 2015, White Wolf announced a realignment at the Tenebrae Noctis Convention by Ulisses Spiele (German translator of various vampire titles) and Biblioteca Oscuar (Spanish translator). The first fictional universe is henceforth called the only World of Darkness . The second fictional universe will be continued as Chronicles of Darkness , the World of Darkness land register will be re-published with the rule adjustments from The God-Machine Chronicle as Chonicles of Darkness and all game series land registers that came out before the rule amendment were published as " 2nd Edition “revised.
The original world of darkness uses the storyteller system as the rules of the game in the rule editions “1st Edition”, “2nd Edition”, “Revised Edition” and “20th Anniversary Edition” . The Chronicles of Darkness uses the storytelling system as the rules of the game . Starting with the fifth edition of "Vampire: the Masquerade" in 2018, a new dice system will be used that is closer to the storytelling system. White Wolf has published games with both the storyteller rules and the storytelling rules that do not belong to the respective game world, for example the licensed product RPG Street Fighter (storyteller system) or the fantasy game Exalted (storytelling system).
The world
The World of Darkness or "World of Darkness" is a fictional world of horror and myth in which the beings and personalities of classic and modern horror exist.
The World of Darkness serves as the basis for various role-playing games and novels . Most of these works are published by White Wolf Publishing and bear the publisher's logo , the logo of the respective World of Darkness (the logo is different) and the logo of the respective single role-playing games. The World of Darkness houses different creatures such as demons , ghosts , magicians , vampires and werewolves .
The balance of power in the World of Darkness tends towards a "dark" evil in both the old and the new WoD. However, there are differences in the type and extent of "evil". For example, the actual control of the old world of darkness lies in the hands of the various, partly non-human organizations, which for the most part compete or war with one another without the knowledge of human society. A good example of this are vampires, who have great political and economic influence in human society, and in whose circles one intrigues against one another in order to rise within the hierarchy of the vampire society. On the other hand, in the new world of darkness there are also different societies of malicious creatures, but these are not omniscient or dominate, but represent hidden parallel societies that have no or only little (local) influence on the course of the world as such. The approach of the new world of darkness is thus much more oriented towards motifs and narrative styles of horror romance or Gothic novels , meanwhile the old world of darkness is in parts more oriented towards “ metaplots ” spanning continents and ages .
The fictional story of the old World of Darkness ranges from Cain's biblical fratricide of Abel through the Middle Ages to the present day. The story and the personalities of the old World of Darkness are based on the real story or real existing as well as known fictional personalities. In contrast, the fictional story of the new “World of Darkness” is lost, especially with the vampires, in the darkness of the unknown. Legends, myths and the struggle for different understandings of past events, the origin and meaning of things and existence take the place of the epochal conflicts of an eternal "jihad" as it was present in the old World of Darkness . Werewolves and magicians have a more elaborate creation myth, but in contrast to their oWoD counterparts, these are just myths and not a firm certainty.
An interesting aspect of both worlds is that it provides a glimpse inside some of the beings understood as evil by Western European culture , blurring the lines between good and evil. For example, in the World of Darkness, not every vampire is automatically a monster or a murderer because they feed on the blood of living people. So characters appear again and again who do not want to put up with their existence as vampires and therefore fall back on blood reserves.
The role play
The World of Darkness was published in German under the title Welt der Dunkelheit by Feder und Schwert Verlag until 2006 . The role-playing games of the World of Darkness series are played both as pen & paper role-playing games and as LARP . Vampires in particular : The Masquerade and, more recently, Vampires: The Requiem are relatively popular with LARPs.
Since the production of the old World of Darkness was discontinued in 2004, there has been a new World of Darkness , as already mentioned above , which differs greatly from the previous version in terms of both control technology and content. The set of rules for the individual role-playing games has been standardized and simplified to a greater extent. The new version is often referred to as WoD 2.0 or nWoD ( new World of Darkness ), the old version accordingly as WoD 1.0 or oWoD ( old World of Darkness ), but this can easily lead to wrong conclusions:
- The old and the new world of darkness do not build on each other. The new world of darkness is a completely independent game universe that only has a similar theme and some (for outsiders seemingly confusing) similarities in the handling of individual names, terms and concepts, especially in the first new game line, Vampire: The Requiem .
- The spelling used by the publisher from 2012 is Classic World of Darkness for the old and simply World of Darkness for the new world of darkness . Since 2015, the old World of Darkness is the only one to be called that again. The newer game world is now called Chronicles of Darkness .
- In the course of the creation of the new world of darkness, various of the role-playing games set in the World of Darkness were recreated. The affiliation to the old or new World of Darkness can be recognized by the subtitles.
- The magicians and werewolves of the new (current) WoD have a very special and narrowly framed narrative and mythological focus. Other versions of the subject are covered extensively in the books Second Sight and Changing Breeds . The latter books and Immortals as well as Inferno deal with so-called minor templates , i. H. often less powerful and less detailed forms of supernatural creatures. However, these are also fully playable.
- A special feature of the Chronicles of Darkness is that the basic set of rules that gives it its name contains the basic rules relevant to all subsequent lines of play and thus makes it possible to act as "simple mortals" in the world of darkness with the other lines in the game background (or without). The older world of darkness concentrated very much on the "monsters" and only had books on the individual games in the game world, but no general rules. Furthermore, in the old world of darkness there were no independently available, binding basic rules, which means that individual rules in the various game lines were not always handled identically.
Here is an overview of the games and themes in both game worlds:
| World of Darkness | Chronicles of Darkness | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rule or cube system | Storyteller system (up to and including 20 th Anniversary Edition) storytelling system (from Vampire 5 th Edition) |
Storytelling system | ||
| theme | English | German | English | German |
| Demons | Demon: The Fallen | Demons - The Fallen | Inferno Demon: The Descent |
- - |
| Fairies | Changeling: The Dreaming | Changeling - The Dream | Changeling: The Lost | - |
| Ghosts |
Wraith: The Oblivion Orpheus (standalone) |
- | Ghost: The Sin-Eaters | - |
| children | - | - | Innocents | - |
| Constructs | - | - | Promethean: The Created | - |
| magician | Mage: The Ascension | Magus - The Enlightenment | Mage: The Awakening | - |
| Other magical myths and psykers | WoD: Sorcerer Sorcerer: revised edition |
- | Second sight | - |
| Monster hunter | Hunter: The Reckoning | Hunter - The Retribution | Hunter: The Vigil | - |
| Mummies | Mummy Mummy 2 nd Edition Mummy: The Resurrection |
- - Mummies - The rebirth |
Mummy: The Curse | - |
| immortal | - | - | Immortals | - |
|
Vampires (western myth) |
Vampires: The Masquerade | Vampires - The Masquerade | Vampires: The Requiem | Vampires: Requiem |
|
Vampires (asian myth) |
Kindred of the East | Children of the lotus | - | - |
| Werewolves | Werewolf: The Apocalypse | Werewolf - The Apocalypse | Werewolf: The Forsaken | Werewolf: Pariah |
| Other shapeshifter myths | included in werewolf game series | Changing Breeds Skinchangers |
- | |
There are also several historical settings for the role-playing games of the old World of Darkness such as Dark Ages (Middle Ages), Victorian Age (Victorian Age), Wild West (Wild West) and Great War ( First World War ). For the vampire setting of the Chronicles of Darkness there are the settings Requiem for Rome (vampires in ancient Rome) and New Wave Requiem (vampires in the 1980s) as well as the scenario collections Dark Eras and Dark Eras 2 .
In addition, LARP rules exist for both versions of the World of Darkness under the name Mind's Eye Theater .
Subject-based publications
White Wolf began specifying certain topics in 1996 and within about a year of publishing books on this topic for existing game series. These topics were:
| year | Name of the topic / year | Description topic |
|---|---|---|
| 1996 | Year of the Hunter | Mortals beginning to take back the night. |
| 1997 | Year of the Ally | Mortal and part-human allies for the supernatural |
| 1998 | Year of the Lotus | Supernatural beings from the Far East, start of Kindred of the East |
| 1999 | Year of the Reckoning | Publication of Hunter: The Reckoning and publication of the "Revised Edition" of Vampire, Werewolf and Magus |
| 2000 | Year of Revelations | Secrets of bygone ages |
| 2001 | Year of the Scarab | Publication of Mummy: The Resurrection and books on Egypt |
| 2002 | Year of the Damned | Release of Demon: The Fallen |
| 2004 | Time of Judgment | End of the game world. |
A similar theme was pursued for the “new” world of darkness. After the release of the three permanent series Vampire: The Requiem , Werewolf: The Forsaken and Mage: The Awakening in 2004 and 2005, only limited series based on the Orpheus model should appear. From 2006 to 2009, Promethean: The Created , Changeling: The Lost , Hunter: The Vigil and Geist: The Sin-Eaters were published . However, due to the success of changeling in sales and critics, more books on the game have been published. No further limited series appeared until 2012, in 2013 Mummy: The Curse was released as the first new game line by the new license holder Onyx Path Publishing ( see above ), followed by Demon: The Descent in early 2014.
MMORPG
In addition to the merger of Crowd Control Productions and White Wolf, Inc. has been at the annual EVE Online consequent so also Fan Fest World of Darkness - MMORPG announced. In the press release it was confirmed that CCP Games will deal with the implementation of a World-of-Darkness -MMORPG. Little was known about the content and implementation of the MMORPG until then, but it was mentioned in an interview that all experiences with the DirectX 10 graphics engine from EVE Online, which is currently under development, have a direct influence on the world of darkness - MMORPG will have.
At the World of Darkness Convention The Grand Masquerade , which was held from September 23 to 26, 2010, the developers presented a two-minute teaser of the online game. It should be primarily based on Vampires: The Masquerade and focus on player-led politics and social interactions. According to reports, only vampires should be playable at first. Internal tests at CCP began in March 2013. On April 14, 2014, however, the managing director of CCP Games, Hilmar Veigar Pétursson, announced via online notification that the entire project had been abandoned and 56 employees had been dismissed or assigned to other development teams.
With the sale of White Wolf to Paradox Interactive , all the content of the MMORPG, all ideas, project drawings and code have also been transferred to White Wolf . The lead storyteller Martin Ericsson said at the Tenebrae Noctis Convention, "The work on the MMORPG will not have been in vain". The MMORPG's graphic designer has since started helping to create the artwork for the fifth edition of Vampire, and mechanics for the hunt for blood have been incorporated into the rules of the fifth edition of Vampire .
Monte Cook's World of Darkness
The single volume was written by the well-known (role) game designer Monte Cook and includes his approach to a “modern horror” setting. The band was released at Gen Con 2007 and was announced as the last role-playing game by Monte Cook, who from then on only wanted to write novels. Monte Cook, however, returned to game design and was involved in the development of the fifth edition of Dungeons & Dragons , among other things .
Monte Cook's World of Darkness has little or no elements of the other two World of Darkness settings and uses a d20 rule system. It also describes its own story of the game world with a post-apocalyptic approach. The focus is on the USA, the center of which was destroyed by a mystical catastrophe about a year before the start of the game and whose impact is known as the Nightmare Wave and the appearance of supernatural beings and effects with it, but this is the majority the population is not aware of it. The book also offers inspiration to adapt this setting and e.g. B. Establishing the center of the Nightmare Wave in other locations and describing how this would change the game world.
Monte Cook's World of Darkness was published by White Wolf under ISBN 1-58846-467-9 .
literature
World of Darkness (formerly Classic World of Darkness )
Anthologies
- Haunting the Dead . White Wolf Publishing, 2003, ISBN 1-58846-837-2 ( Orpheus )
- The Quintessential World of Darkness . White Wolf Publishing, 1998, ISBN 1-56504-880-6 ( Changeling: The Dreaming , Mage: The Ascension , Vampire: The Masquerade , Werewolf: The Apocalypse and Wraith: The Oblivion )
comics
- Nightmares in our Midst: Vampires and Werewolves . Moonstone, 2004, ISBN 0-9712937-7-5 (title mostly changed.)
Novels
- Demon Triology (trilogy for the game series Demon: The Fallen )
- Time of Reckoning Trilogy
- In this series of 3 independent books, each of the three major game series has been brought to an end, the books are in detail:
- Gehenna The Last Night (about Vampires: the Masquerade) ( ISBN 3-935282-98-2 German / ISBN 1-58846-855-0 English);
- The Last Battle (about Werwolf: The Apocalypse) ( ISBN 3-937255-00-1 German / ISBN 1-58846-856-9 English);
- Judgment Day (on Magus: Enlightenment) ( ISBN 1-58846-857-7 English);
- Year of the Scarab . White Wolf Publishing (trilogy for the game series "Mummies: The Rebirth")
Rules of the game
There are several hundred sets of rules and source books for the old World of Darkness , some of them in different editions or reprints in anthologies. Since this was discontinued in 2004, most of these books are usually only used or can be obtained from remnants. On auction websites, prices of up to 100 euros are achieved for individual rarities. But there are also numerous books that are still widely available and therefore very inexpensive. Since 2011, however, virtually all books in the game world have been available as PDF downloads. In addition, these books will gradually be included in the Print On Demand offer from White Wolf's partner DriveThruRPG and can therefore be obtained again as new and relatively inexpensive.
- Vampires - The Masquerade
- Werewolf - The Apocalypse
- Mage - The Ascension
- Changeling - The Dreaming
- Wraith - The Oblivion
- There are no German-language books in this game series, but various elements (e.g. guild names) have been translated for the German clan book Giovanni ( ISBN 3-931612-81-3 ).
- Kindred of the East
- Hunter - The Reckoning
- Mummy - The Ressurection
- Demon - The Fallen
- Orpheus
- Dark Ages
- Others
- A comprehensive list of the English publications that have been published by White Wolf's imprint Black Dog Game Factory can be found in the Black Dog Game Factory article.
Chronicles of Darkness (formerly 'new' World of Darkness )
Novels
- Requiem trilogy A Hunger like Fire , Blood in, Blood out , Virtue and Viciousness . White Wolf Publishing 2005 ( nWoD )
Rules of the game
| Game series | English books (incomplete) |
German translation | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| title | WW code | ISBN | title | FS number | ISBN | |
| World of Darkness | World of Darkness Core Rulebook | WW55002 | ISBN 1-58846-484-9 | The World of Darkness Principles | FS40000 | |
| Antagonists | WW55301 | Antagonists | FS40001 | |||
| Chicago | WW55200 | |||||
| Mysterious Places | WW55302 | |||||
| Ghost stories | WW55400 | |||||
| World of Darkness Slipcase | WW55902 | |||||
| Armory | WW55102 | |||||
| Vampires: The Requiem | Vampires: The Requiem | WW25000 | Vampires: Requiem | FS40100 | ||
| Coteries | WW25100 | Clique | FS40101 | |||
| Character sheet block | FS40102 | |||||
| Rites of the Dragon | WW25300 | Rites of the dragon | FS40103 | |||
| Lancea Sanctum | WW25001 | Lancea Sancta | FS40104 | |||
| Nomads | WW25101 | |||||
| Ghouls | WW25110 | |||||
| The Invictus | WW25121 | |||||
| City of the Damned: New Orleans | WW25200 | |||||
| VII | WW25301 | |||||
| Storyteller Screen | WW25700 | |||||
| Ordo Dracul | WW25129 | |||||
| Bloodlines: The Hidden | WW25102 | |||||
| Werewolf: The Forsaken | Werewolf: The Forsaken | WW30000 | Werewolf: Pariah | FS40200 | ||
| Werewolf: Pariah Character Sheet Block | FS40201 | |||||
| Hunting Ground: The Rockies | WW30200 | |||||
| Lore of the Forsaken | WW30100 | |||||
| Lodges | WW30101 | |||||
| Predators | WW30300 | |||||
| Mage: The Awakening | Mage: The Awakening | WW40000 | ||||
| Boston Unveiled | WW40200 | |||||
| Sanctum and Sigil | WW40201 | |||||
| Character sheet pad | WW40701 | |||||
| Legacies: The Sublime | WW40100 | |||||
| Guardians of the Veil | WW40305 | |||||
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b White Wolf Release Schedule 2011–2012. ( Memento from September 10, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Paradox Interactive Acquires White Wolf Publishing from CCP Games ( Memento from December 22, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ One World of Darkness: White Wolf present their future plans (YouTube video)
- ↑ Breaking: World of Darkness Online. worldpress.com, September 24, 2010, accessed October 17, 2010 .
- ↑ CCP Games Halts Development of World of Darkness MMO. Archived from the original on April 15, 2014 ; Retrieved April 14, 2014 .
- ↑ Review on RPG-Net
Web links
- World of Darkness (English)
- White Wolf (English)
- Feder & Schwert (the official German WoD publisher)
- World of Darkness in DRoSI
- Book database on the classic World of Darkness
- Book database for the (new) World of Darkness