Friday, June 12, 2009

Methuselah in Iceland

Well, I have this Vampire: the Masquerade campaign going on, and I decided to add something "dangerous" to game. Some real threat. Decided, what would be better than a hint character gets, that Methuselah is hidden in the land of Ice!

Ok, Methuselah are really powerful vampires of 4th or 5th generation. Vampires, what Sabbat constantly hunts down to prevent Gehenna, where Methuselah rise from their hidden graves to destroy all vampires! Sounds nice doesn't it?

So, there is rumored to be one Methuselah hidden in Iceland. Player character had a hint of its existence and now is her "job" to find the location of this devourer.

How character is able to find this Methuselah then? I and player gave it a thought and decided, that character might want to try to find and examine some old Icelandic and nordic mythology to find hint of some powerful being what has been "real" to the people of thousands of years back, but on modern ages forgotten. Player announced, that her character tries to Google something what could suit well. I thought, "okay, your character Angelmoon Googles for information, so should you." I asked player to go to Google and show me, what his character finds out.

This addes a bit flavour and exitement to play, as player didn't throw Intelligence+Computer/Investigation difficulty 8 4 successes but actually himself started to find that information as her character was doing. That added something new to our game to actually do something rather than count on dices to determine success.

And there was another great feature in that. For me as Storyteller I wasn't decided in advance, what part of mythology or what ancient being was this supposed Methuselah but player did it for me. She showed the internet page what her character "found out" and I decided, that that was the actual hint. That way player had her share in developing story.

This is the web page my player showed for me:
http://www.pantheon.org/articles/f/fenrir.html

Ok, I know that sounds a bit more like Werewolf than vampire, but there is that clan Gangrel what can also go into that profile, especially ancient one what is most definately inhuman. The most awesome and fascinating thing behind that link is texts last chapter:

Being very pleased with themselves, the gods carried Fenrir off and chained him to a rock (called Gioll) a mile down into the earth. They put a sword between his jaws to prevent him from biting. On the day of Ragnarok, Fenrir will break his chains and join the giants in their battle against the gods. He will seek out Odin and devour him. Vidar, Odin's son, will avenge his father by killing the wolf.

In that text, those other "gods" are vampires. As usually Methuselah are described to be hidden under the earth, that part also makes sense. "Sword between his jaws" can be also understood as "staked to torpor". Ragnarok will ofcourse be Ghenenna, vampiric armageddon where Methuselah rise from their hidden graves to feed on their offspring to the destruction of vampire race.
Odin and Vidar part of that mythology are still open for me, what they will represent in World of Darkness and vampire lore.

Still, I am quite excited of this "founding" how well random website can suit to story, or generally real old mythology of gods.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Heh, tervetuloa nodistien joukkoon;) (VentrueCupFinalist, toinen blogspottaaja)

Unknown said...

Juu, kiitos. Harmillisesti vain tämän jälkeinen blogi hieman raunioittaa tuota...