New Player Lore Guide

Welcome to The Final Nights!

Welcome! The World of Darkness is a sprawling collection of splatbooks, lore novels, video games, and all kinds of other storytelling methods. It can feel overwhelming at times to try to consume the series. To try to assist those new to the setting, we're developing a series of pages of condensed lore. This page is a short summary of our setting that will help new players understand the lore, and more importantly help them understand the ins and outs of their chosen splats. After reading this page, Splat Roleplay Expectations and the Making a Character in WoD, you'll have the foundation of knowledge to enjoy The Final Nights!

The World of Darkness

Earth in 2015, state of the mortal world

San Francisco, 2015

the game's location, state of the mortal world

Vampire: The Masquerade

Undead vampires locked in a hierarchical battle between their 'sires,' older vampires who bring new vampires into the world, and the 'kine,' the normal mortal people that surround them that they must feed on to survive. All the while maintaining their Humanity or sating their Beast.

Vampires are broadly broken up by Sect, Generation, Clans, and Age Status.

Werewolf: The Apocalypse

Known to most as Werewolves, Garou are individuals who have awakened a supernatural connection to Gaia, the life and spirit of the world, gaining the power to shift between human and wolf forms. Their awareness of Gaia's suffering as both humanity and nature are corrupted by "The Wyrm", along with the supernatural force of Rage within them, drive them to resist the Apocalypse as warriors of Gaia.

Central to Garou mythology are the three forces of the Wyld, Weaver, and Wyrm. The Wyld creates from shapeless material, the Weaver brings order and longevity to chaotic creation, and the Wyrm ensures everything eventually falls apart to be made anew by the Wyld - or at least, that's how it should be. Longer ago than even the oldest Garou tales go, the Wyrm went mad in the confines of the Weaver, and lost all restraint or goodness in its work. Ever since then, it has been a corruptive, destructive force that would drown out creation and order with decay.

Cheap fast-food from factory farms? Toxic plastic shells around acidic batteries, towering to the sky in landfills? To most Garou, these are the greatest signs of the Wyrm's corruption in human society. The Amberglade sept, living in a precious and untainted territory, is made up of those tribes who would typically rather minimise their exposure to such taint - while the sept of the Painted City is a stronghold within the city of San Francisco, where others strive to coexist with humanity. All the while, the Black Spiral Dancers - Garou who swear themselves to the Wyrm and embrace the Apocalypse - wage war in the dark and barter for souls in skyscrapers as valued partners of Pentex, Endron, and its many other subsidiaries.