Subcategories
-
Rules and Accessories
<p>The year is 1795, A great Rent has torn open reality and sunk most of Europe beneath <br />the waves. Only one place stands untouched by the calamity: Venice.</p> <p>By day the city bustles, the Queen of the Adriatic taking pride of place once again as <br />the West's capital of trade. However, by night Venice takes on a darker persona, both<br /> figuratively and literally masking itself. Gangs stalk the canals looking for blood, the <br />clandestine secret societies making themselves known, fighting to carve out their own <br />territories.</p> <p>But more sinister still, the Rent in the Sky has opened the path for otherworldly <br />phenomena. Magic spills out from a world beyond the veil, bringing with it creatures<br /> devoted to ancient deities- beings who look on the burgeoning Venetian empire and <br />smile at the madness unfolding.</p> -
The Doctors
<p>There has been an indisputable rise in the number of Venetians suffering mental <br />breakdown following the advent of the Rent in the Sky. It is widely accepted across<br /> the city that the unnatural phenomenon preys upon the mind, as does the sleeplessness<br /> and tension brought about by the change in the city’s inhabitants. What only a relative <br />few understand is that there exists a direct correlation between the new influx of magic <br />and the affect on the human mind. The link between madness and magic was not always <br />the main concern of the doctors that work in the Ospedale San Servolo, but since the <br />Rent in the Sky tore apart the heavens it has become their sole focus.</p> -
The Gifted
<p>The people known as Gifted are not a single entity. Most have never even met each <br />other, let alone work together. Each holds their own view on the world and although <br />sometimes their paths and goals cross, it’s equally likely that members of this moniker <br />will cross blades if they were to meet in the streets. The powers that the Gifted possess<br /> are linked to the Rent, gaining potency when it waxes and trickling away to almost <br />nothing when it fades from view. More and more are unveiling themselves as time goes<br /> on and although there are rumours of Gifted the world over, Venice holds the highest <br />concentration of them by far.</p> -
The Guild
<p>The Guild as it stands today has gone through many transformations, though its origins <br />come from the old tradition of the shipbuilding Castellani family and the fishing Nicolottis.<br /> The two warring families created the first guilds in Venice, groups that ostensibly would <br />work together for the benefit of their own workers, but realistically were only created to <br />organise the fighting between the two families. The Guild consists of both of these groups<br /> and more, coming from destitution into power.</p> <p>Venice always had a number of guilds representing the various businesses of the city. <br />As Venice struggled financially the Guild's lost their power and pull over the running of <br />Venice, eventually becoming nothing more than a collection of out of work, impoverished <br />commoners. This lead to them turning towards the criminal underbelly of Venice, in little <br />time the Thieves Guild became the biggest and strongest guild of Venice.</p> -
The Patricians
<p>Though it boasts to be one of the oldest republics in the world, Venice and its empire<br /> is nevertheless organised and run for the most part to the benefit of a very small portion<br /> of its inhabitants. Its laws, traditions and history have been shaped by the needs and <br />demands of the Patrician families that rule the city through the Doge’s government. <br />It may not have a king or queen, but La Serenissima is arranged no less for the benefit<br /> of the aristocratic few than the monarchies of Europe.</p> <p>The power of the ruling classes has been under threat for a while, not just within Venice, <br />but throughout Europe as the merchantile and artisan classes gain wealth and land. <br />Many rich families of Venice, ones who had always had power and position, were shrunk<br /> to almost nothing by Venice's poor economy. As trade and ship building dwindled to <br />nothing in Venice, these families got smaller and smaller, many losing everything. <br />High society became even more insular, rather prop up rivals and neighbours than let <br />the entire system, a system they relied on, to collapse.</p> -
The Rashaar
<p>The Rashaar are a race of creatures from beyond the pale. They are an ancient race, older<br /> than the realms of mankind by millennia. The creatures are undoubtedly linked to the <br />emergence of the Rent in the Sky and their occupation of Venice is no mere coincidence. <br />However their emergence pre-dates the great catastrophe, the City of Canals by dozens of<br /> years and on the Earth by many thousands.</p> <p>For generations there have been tales of monsters in the sea. Giant sea creatures living <br />beneath the waves that could eat ships and their crews whole. Even older still are the <br />stories of cities beneath the waves, drowned by catastrophes in the past. Cities such as <br />Atlantis with streets paved of gold, buildings of smooth marble and statues of strange <br />aquatic creatures. Cities destroyed or sunk by God himself as punishment for the <br />decadent splendour.</p> -
The Strigoi
<p>From the birth of humanity there have always been individuals possessed of the ability <br />to tap into the otherworldly energy known as magic. While the opening of the Rent in <br />the Sky has awakened many to their powers, there have always been a scant few <br />individuals throughout time that tapped into this primordial force. Of this latter category<br /> perhaps the most infamous is Vlad Dracul, also known as Count Dracula.</p> -
The Vatican
<p>Pope Clement XV has had much to contend with since his recent elevation to Bishop of <br />Avignon and leadership of the Holy Roman Catholic Church, but foremost in his plans has<br /> been re-establishing the influence of the Papacy in Venice. There are a number of reasons<br /> for this, some mundane but most due to the city’s unique position to exploit the Rent in <br />the Sky and the magic it brings.</p> <p>The Vatican in Rome is destroyed, Italy all but wiped from the map. When the Rent opened<br /> it seemed as if God himself smote Italy from the sky. Few escaped, including Cardinal <br />Gerdil. Gerdil went to Geneva, where most of the survivors had assembled. Preaching of <br />the corruption of Rome and of how he had emerged from the flaming wreckage of the <br />Vatican as God's chosen one, he gained support from many of the church and of the local <br />population. In time, he was appointed as Pope Clement XV.</p>