Shadowwalkers: Setting
Premise[edit]
In a time before time when vampires dwelt openly among men, worshipped and revered, there rose up certain among them with far reaching designs who imprisoned a select number of their kind in a forced sleep in sarcophagai of sorcery, silver, and stone, buried for an eternity in sightless unmarked tombs across the globe.
It is not known which among them did this heinous thing or why, but the powers they called on and the glyphs they wrought held their victims for time beyond time. As intended, the legend of the vampire faded into myth as they removed themselves from the world of men.
In that time the five courts were established and divided the globe between them, bloodlines queued up in a complex hierarchy, and the creatures of the night who fed on men began manipulating every force and power on the earth to their own ends.
It is unknown when the first shadowwalker woke and broke free of their imprisonment, but rumors of a Lost Court began to circulate about the time an unknown plague wiped out most of the Court of the Southron Sky, and stepping foot on the shores of Australia and the great and small isles beneath it became a death sentence for vampires.
In the modern world more and more prisoners of the Lost Court walk among their brethren, seeking those who did this thing to them if they yet live, or vengeance on their scions if they do not. Though they are grossly out of place in time, they do not consider themselves Lost at all, and in secret refer to themselves as the Shadowwalker Court, or just Shadowwalkers.
In the thousands of centuries that they were locked away from the world they gained nothing of the power that such vast oceans of time would normally have granted them. Next to their elder kindred, the shadowwalkers remain babes in comparisson. Nevertheless, much was lost to the new courts in that time, shades of the Echo that they could no longer reach as their bloodlines became narrow and inbred. Power that the shadowwalkers still weild.
Still, all else set aside, the power structure and factions and etiquette and secret laws of the courts put the shadowwalkers at a disadvantage as precarious and eternal as time itself and they are forced to work within those structures as they seek their goals among the brethren who so long ago betrayed them.
Vampire Courts[edit]
There are five known vampric lineages.
- The Ancient: The Ancient claim to be the first bloodline, though this claim is disputed - somewhat ineffectively - by the Lost. The Ancient originate from Africa and tend toward an almost koan-like approach to tribal wisdom, emulating the values of Tickster gods throughout the world. The Ancient are big on teaching lessons to those around them they feel to be in need of such service.
- The Court of the Old World: This is the largest of the vampire lineages occupying most of Europe and Asia. The Court of the Old World are traditionalists, hidebound, and very strict in their views of the world. Vamps of the Old World are very much the sort to exert control over the behavior of others until that behavior conforms to what they believe is right and proper.
- The Jade Court:, The most secretive of the bloodlines, the Jade Court makes their home throughout Southest Asia (including the Indian subcontinent), Japan, and the Pacific Islands. Jade vampires tend to keep to themselves and to the shadows, but they are always watching, always learning, always keeping an unseen thumb on the scales.
- The Aurora: Broadly considered the newest and youngest bloodline, there is also some merit to the idea that they are the most versatile and adaptive lineage. The Aurora control the entirety of the Americas from Cape Horn to the landless ice north of Canada. Vampires of the Aurora make no bones about interfering in the business of other lineages and indeed the world at large.
- The Lost Court: Originally out of Australia and New Zealand, fewer than thirty of their number remain in existence since an unknown pox nearly wiped their lineage out at the end of the eighteenth century. It is rumored none of them can return to the land of their origin. Those of the Lost Court who would set foot in Australia or the large and small islands to its south never leave those lands. Lost vamps tend to hide in the open, alone or in pairs or trios wherever they might be found in the world, tending to keep out of the afairs of others while all the while being extremely aware of the world and society around them.
