Heart of the Machine

[  Mood: Neutral ]
I’m putting together a game for my SO and maybe one or two more people using the cinematic Unisystem from Angel (with The Magic Box and Monster Smackdown from Buffy to fill out things) that is essentially a Dresden Files game with the name removed. I want to mirror certain elements from the books without mimicing them completely and I want to put my own spin on things. Obviously this is a supernatural behind the scenes type game so it will have a lot of those tropes. But the first step is to figure out who the major players and organizations in this world and put names and descriptions on them.

The Quiet

This is the organization composed of the magic using folks of the world; witches, ritual magicians, street shaman, you name it. They don’t require a specific approach to magic just that it is used. They have a code that they strictly follow, the core tenents of which are: try not to alert the main stream society to the presence of the supernatural, police the use of magic when it violates the first rule. To do this they have agents (who use magic) and vigilants (who don’t) to enforce their policies and fight their battles. To an extent they also try and control/combat other supernatural threats in order to keep humanity in the dark. They have an uneasy truce with the Syndicate.

The Syndicate

There has always been some sort of organization among the vampire community but it didn’t become completely formalized until the mid-19th century. The heads of several of the major clans, cabals and what have you of the vampire community banded together in order to exert greater control over vampire society as a whole. They modeled this after the emerging human companies and corporations they saw forming. They used the Syndicate to manage their daytime affairs, provide gaurds and manpower and increase the overall wealth of the vampire community at large. They are more interested in money and comfort than hunting and killing and tend to live the lives of a commited sybarite. One dark side of the group is their eradication of problem causing or even fractious vampires. This has allowed them to form a shaky truce with the Quiet, who used to hunt and kill them without exception.

The Underground

The shapeshifting and demonic types have tried, as hard as possible, to vanish into the woodwork. Sure a rogue will pop up now and then, but the majority want to avoid the halls of the Syndicate (who wish to enslave them) and the houses of the Quiet (who routinely kill them). Also, some rogue members of Syndicate and Quiet have made their way Underground and try to stay off the radar while persuing their own agendas. They have cell-like structures in some areas, sprawling gang-style communities in others. It varies wildly.

There are other minor players and powers out there, but this is the big three to start.