Stories

From Gothpoodle

Plot list for World of Darkness: San Francisco.

Contents 1 Active 1.1 Silicon Empress 1.2 Occult Sightings Network 2 Back Burner 2.1 Refugees 2.2 Black Cat 2.3 Hunters Point 2.4 Bale Hound 2.5 Death of a Vampire 2.6 Fall of the House of Phelan 3 Unstarted 3.1 Lost Cub 3.2 Sea Monster 3.3 Spirit War 3.4 Killer’s Call 3.5 Fire-Claimed 3.6 Goetic Mage 3.7 Wiccan Dabblers 3.8 Shinto Priest 3.9 Refugee 3.10 The Kennel 4 Completed 4.1 Church of the Lighthouse 4.2 Death Angel 4.3 Azlu Web 4.4 Werewolf Hunters 4.5 Victim’s Ghost 4.6 Getting Around the Totem 4.7 Vampiric Satanists

Active

Silicon Empress

The pack is blackmailed into retrieving a bone of father wolf from the Shrine of St. Christopher so that the Silicon Empress can be freed.

• Theme: Intrigue, manipulation, ancient history, and myth
• Mood: Surreality and strangeness
• Setting: The weird spirit world of the Internet.
• Status: Pack has been told to retrieve a relic of Father Wolf.

Occult Sightings Network

An internet website that catalogs supernatural occurances in the city gets perilously close to knowing the truth. The PCs are referenced or some picture is up. Investigation just reveals interested mundane people after lots of implications of otherwise. The site is growing and starting to produce a newsletter. Silicon Empress is behind it, driving the PCs if they don't accept her task.

• Theme: Enforcing the Oath
• Mood: Hesitance
• Setting: A small office (cube farm) in SOMA full of frightened, clueless humans.
• Status: Hank points out the site to the pack.

Back Burner

Refugees

A number of unruly spirits (lust, disease, anger) are coming over from the Castro and causing trouble. It turns out that Penny is driving them out of the territory with his Endless Moon policies. Start with a gang of vandals fettered by Vandalism, driven by fear and anger lesser gafflings. Follow up with lust and disease lesser gafflings in the club scene.

• Theme: Diplomacy
• Mood: Irritation
• Setting: Chasing a lust spirit through a club in Lower Haight, jumping from club-goer to clubgoer.
• Status: Vandalism and crew tearing up Lower Haight.

Black Cat

A black cat is seen stealing the breath of a passed-out drunk. It is a death-possessed stray who is feeding on the homeless and helpless.

• Theme: Creepy superstitions come true
• Mood: Mad chase
• Setting: Nighttime, foggy back alleys and maybe the spirit world, if it makes it to the dumpster
• Status: Pack heard of cat through Twilight.

Hunters Point

The Predator King pack is becoming Bale Hounds due to the influence of the wound on their strongest locus and their pack totem’s transformation into a Maeltinet of Violence. Autumn’s character’s brother asks for help.

• Theme: Slippery slope and unwanted help
• Mood: Violence
• Setting: Gunfight on the street moving into the Double Rock tenements.
• Status: Had a conversation with Reggie about his concerns for his pack.

Bale Hound

Beshilu leader Bale Hound kidnaps the scion of the Mission pack, removes her face, and impersonates her to get close to the alpha. Assassination attempt at a birthday party or other gathering which the PCs are invited to.

• Theme: Vengeance and insanity
• Mood: Horror
• Setting: Old state armory, with hidden Beshilu and kidnapped daughter.
• Status: Met Phillip, not sure to make of him, hit Christoval with Moonshunner.

Death of a Vampire

A vampire is killed at Alamo Square. The PCs have it brought to their attention and find themselves investigating in parallel to the Stone Garden pack, who is allied with the vampires and seeking to kill the assassin, in violation of the Oath. The assassin is a member of a hidden Polish pack and an ex-Iraq sharpshooter.

• Theme: Secrets and the risks of war
• Mood: Mystery
• Setting: Meeting at art gallery in the middle of the night.
• Status: Kevin is staking out Mia's house and preparing to kill Cesare.

Fall of the House of Phelan

Hugh conspires with Phillip Hellstrom to kill Tess to regain control of the family. Phillip has his own plans for using Tess' face to incite a war.

• Theme: Paranoia
• Mood: Corruption and manipulation
• Setting: Hugh backed into his office, defenestration through window?
• Status: Hugh is approached by Phillip.

Unstarted

Lost Cub

A new homeless werewolf First Changes on a Wound and becomes a cannibalistic Bale Hound, hunting and eating the homeless.

• Theme: Betraying the Oath for the greater good
• Mood: Disturbing
• Setting: Harmony threatening chase in Gauru through a crowded street

Sea Monster

The Phalanx approaches the pack about a Claimed which has fled into their territory. After dealing with it, they ask for help with an ancient creature from the deep.

• Theme: Cthonic threats and primordial creatures
• Mood: Chaotic nature
• Setting: Fight on a boat during a massive storm

Spirit War

The Court of the Phoenix goes to war with the spirits of Silicon Valley as the rivalry between San Francisco and San Jose reaches its climax.

• Theme: Widespread spiritual turmoil
• Mood: Chaos
• Setting: Massive spiritual battle in the Shadow reflection of Portsmouth Square.

Killer’s Call

Every Blood Talon in the city gets a feeling of dread and portents pointing to the mountains to the south. Fenris is sending a war-cry, say the Cahalith, and all members of his tribe must comply. (Buy War Against the Pure first.)

• Theme: War and duty
• Mood: Fear, exhileration, flashbacks (for Lee and Christoval).
• Setting: The mountain wilderness.

Fire-Claimed

A number of bodies turn up burned to death from the inside. Police tip off the pack, the latest being found in the Haight, a homeless kid who frequents the neighborhood. It is the Fire-Touched in the Tenderloin trying to find a vessal for one of the Flameborn (Rank 3 Fire spirit).

• Theme: Hubris and madness
• Mood: Horror
• Setting: The latest victim, holed up in an abandoned house which they are inadvertantly setting on fire as they die horribly.

Goetic Mage

A goetic mage has lost control of his vice spirit, which is periodically possessing him and causing him to commit horrible acts of lustful violence and robbery. Jekyll and Hyde.

• Theme: Duality and being out of control
• Mood: Madness
• Setting: Bank robbery in progress, hostages, and wild magic.

Wiccan Dabblers

A coven of college kids at USF manage to get the attention of a maeltinet when they do a séance at a wound and now are the cult/pawns of a lust spirit who is driving them to acts of excess. A string of rapes and a murder would not register on the radar of the PCs if not for the odd confession passed on to them by Park PD contacts.

• Theme: Dabbling in powers they cannot control
• Mood: Urgency
• Setting: Séance in a clock tower on campus where a new ridden is born.

Shinto Priest

The new caretaker at the Japanese Tea Garden is actually a Thyrsus mage who, after a bad run-in with Uratha, wards them out of the glade. Implications are that any harm to him might bring down the mage’s Consilium. Mage politics ensue.

• Theme: Patrolling human mages
• Mood: Conflict
• Setting: A nearly impossible fight in the warded and glade-y tea garden against a fairly powerful magical foe.

Refugee

A young wolf-blooded woman of the Nob Hill Ivory Claws begins to go through First Change and flees, ending up with a college friend at SFU, coming to the attention of the pack. She was told by her mother to get to family in Pacific Heights, but is being followed.

• Theme: Dark family secrets
• Mood: Outrage
• Setting: Spirits and Pure in a dorm hall on a dark, stormy night.

The Kennel

The Scum Fucks come to the pack requested assistance in finding people who are abducting homeless people. Investigation leads to the vampire Groom and her vampiric brothel in the Tenderloin.

• Theme: Humanity as herd
• Mood: Disgust
• Setting: The brothel and its secret doors and passageways.

Completed

Church of the Lighthouse

Hidden conspiracy of Pure throughout territories. Comes to light when stories of cancer and AIDS patients being cured reach the party. Investigation leads them to the Free Clinic and Hospice.

• Theme: Unseen enemies and unfinished business
• Mood: Horror
• Setting: Clinic and hospice, full of patients and staff, some aware and some not.
• Status: The Plague Prophets have been killed and the clinic shut down.

Death Angel

The spirit Death Angel comes to the Haight and possesses a gun, which is then used in a strong of shootings, one involving a cop. The Legend Trippers come in after it and tell the PCs what is going on.

• Theme: The chase is on
• Mood: Suspense
• Setting: Chase through a foggy night in Golden Gate Park, random citizens pulled in.
• Status: Bound the spirit with the help of the Night Stalkers and made it into a fetish.

Azlu Web

An azuluth has set up shop on a Shelter Locus in an abandoned building used by squatters in Lower Haight. It is served by two crawlerings. Word gets back to the PCs via contacts that homeless are disappearing who go there.

• Theme: Overwhelming foes
• Mood: Danger
• Setting: The decaying, barely stable building, whose floors collapse under Gauru weight.
• Status: Forced the three Azlu to discorporate and cleaned up the nest.

Werewolf Hunters

Wolf-blooded hunters out of Castro led by Devlin’s Child (Ghost Child). Assassination attempts on Mission, Haight, and Park werewolves.

• Theme: Past comes back to haunt the Tribes of the Moon
• Mood: Paranoia
• Setting: Daylight attack on crowded street or square.
• Status: Pack assassinated cult members and their leader Adam Hellstrom.

Victim’s Ghost

The ghost of a street kid tries to contact the party to draw their attention to her killer, who is claimed by a murder and rape spirit (the Dark Man?).

• Theme: The horrors of street kids
• Mood: Desperation
• Setting: Chase through darkened back alleys.
• Status: Got the full story from Dougie and Tiffany moved on.

Getting Around the Totem

The Devotees of Wen-Chang need help getting rid of a fairly powerful computer-claimed which they can't kill due to their pack totem's ban. Grandfather Jiang calls in the pack's favor and asks them to handle it. Of course, it will put them on the outs with the Silicon Court, hurting their relationship with Wireless. Hidden plots of the Silicon Emperor are hinted at.

• Theme: Obligations and diplomacy
• Mood: Ambivalence and foreshadowing
• Setting: Fight in a darkened server room after hours.
• Status: Track down and slay Cray in her office in Richmond.

Vampiric Satanists

Blood, death, and murder spirits congregating and the disappearance of a club-goer or two and some homeless point to a cult of Satan-worshiping vampires who have holed up in the neighborhood. While young, they are wily and have dark magic. Preferably after getting a hold of Belial's Brood.

• Theme: True evil
• Mood: Menace
• Setting: Fight in a crowded nightclub, lots of hostages and chances to blow the Masquerade.
• Status: Adrian and his childer were captured by Vincenzio, Turnbull, and Bousquet and executed.