Difference between revisions of "Lost Tribes: Workshop: Setting"

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(Created page with '=Setting= The Tribes have always existed, and always shall. They fight for the glory of their totems, for control and power, as they always have. The Eagle kings tried to exterm…')
 
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There are nodes of ley power in the city. This power charges various items in that area. You can tap that power to enhance yourself (your totem power) or give it to your tribe's totem (thus allowing access for anyone who needs it).
 
There are nodes of ley power in the city. This power charges various items in that area. You can tap that power to enhance yourself (your totem power) or give it to your tribe's totem (thus allowing access for anyone who needs it).
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If this is set in Britain the idea that there was once this wonderful power that could do almost anything but which has now declined to nothing more than history, faded memory and a few old monuments is rather in keeping.
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Latest revision as of 11:42, 17 June 2010

Setting[edit]

The Tribes have always existed, and always shall. They fight for the glory of their totems, for control and power, as they always have. The Eagle kings tried to exterminate them before, covering their corpses with robes or purple and gold and blood red, but the totems still speak to those of the blood, even today. In New York, the Tribes continue their struggle for dominance under the guise of gangs and under the veils of masks, hidden from the public view.

Fight for your Totem

Fight for glory

Fight to win.

Lost Tribes: A game of totemic street gangs in an ageless war.


So Totem Tribes fighting for things both material and immaterial.

If you have your mask, you can use a very simple ritual to enhance yourself via your totem power.

You would think the big animals would rock this, but really, they are losing strength as their numbers diminish. Thus Dogs, Cats, and Mice rule this secret world. (Alligators, Kangaroos, Rabbits, various Birds, are out there as well).

In each area, the tribes find their own way of being.

In some places they are "secret societies" behind the places of powers. In some places they are "the organized crime". In some places they are part of the anitquities community, as older items have power. In some places they are just gangs of people mystically bound together by their totem.

(really you can have all the above ... those who have been playing the game longer move up the food chain into the various other elements. )

There are nodes of ley power in the city. This power charges various items in that area. You can tap that power to enhance yourself (your totem power) or give it to your tribe's totem (thus allowing access for anyone who needs it).


If this is set in Britain the idea that there was once this wonderful power that could do almost anything but which has now declined to nothing more than history, faded memory and a few old monuments is rather in keeping.


History is pretty damn important- while there are tens of different tribes, only the Mice, Dogs and Cats have great numbers. The rest are hangers on, small groupings, weird cult like gangs, rumours of bad memories. But once they weren't. There is a Secret History running through the entire world, where the Tribes have been, where they have altered things merely by their presence. And they've left things behind.

Artifacts are really rare- there's a cat-faced statue in a decaying Venetian Mansion and a Lion Skull on a pole at Balmoral. These are the only two known artifacts in the world. There are rumours of rumours of others, but no one has any details.

Documentation is fairly erratic. Yes, maybe some diarist will note the struggles of 'Ye Masked Kinde' but really that isn't much to go on.

Buildings are generally built to the standards of the ruling elite- if there is one- but they don't actually have any power.

Generally speaking if it's common it has no real power- if it's rare it's impossible to find, guarded like hell and incredibly powerful. There are however sites of interest. Say the Slaughterhouses where the Cats broke the Pigs as a Power. Or the sewers where the Rats once held Parliament. These places hold old secrets, rituals that were witnessed by the stones, echoes of old magic, mirages of power. The Tribes try to hold these places, work out scraps of their secrets, and then put them together with other scraps from other sites (or stolen from enemy Tribes) in order to work Power in the world.

Of course it's erratic as hell and ordinary crime pays better. But it's what the Tribes do.


I would think about setting it in the swinging 60s. It would be groovy man.

"Whoo. Listen here, First Year. There is no "One Voice" for the tribes or for the bloody kinds. The Totem Tribes are all factured. I could run it all down for you boyo. It would take too long and you don't have enough coin for that many pints. So before I drain this guinness, let me give you the scratch version. Millenias of history have provided enough events to cause schisms, new factions, and losers. Every war, every big score, every broken grand spell, has caused them. Even Packs and Prides, all them grouping kinds, can have a fall out. Sometimes it is just a group of um move on to greener territory following a new alpha that leads. Old wounds and strong pride have kept these groups seperate. We ain't all anarchists. There be some order. So there is a council of lions. That is proven fact, cold stone. More roar than claw. Yet they keep their tribe moving in about the same direction. Don't let um fool you, their are plenty of strays. Their Dove allies, been broken since the Reformation. They all fly south for the winter, but that about it. The Temple of Bast, claims to speak for all the cats, but really that is a fantasy. Best they can do is each temple just directing their kits. The Raj for the Tigers, that is a honorific - having no real bite. There are three of them anyways - here in London, one in New Delhi, and one in Tailand now. The legendary pack of packleaders is more myth than reality. Them Dogs been trying. Been really tried twice by owl reckonning, but never worked. Too much proving and posing for top alpha. Unlike the others, most Dog Tribes tend to work for the same goals (though their motives and methods might clash). Pigeons and Rats, they just follow the loudest at the time. No order there. Other tribes might hold it together in an area, but not much to them. We birds got it straight. Owls, Swans, and Hawks, we all keep to our own. We all help and share, but it is only for mates and favors. Others can fight it out. The Birds just keep flying their own course. "

With the clank of a mug on the bar. "So even here, in our mightly London, there are at least six Dog Packs, 9 herds of cats, two dozen rat gangs, a few of each other tribe. There is no one voice, no one leader to bring us all to heel. So First Year, it is a right mess you got yourself into. Now you have to make amends to a few dozen leaders while keeping your head on your shoulders and your face on your face. Right down to be you First Year. Maybe your friends might help. You'll make an interesting tale should you do it, a right interesting one. "

East End Bird, to the now legendary Blue Fox, after he spectacularly (and accidently) stole an entire nodes worth of power


The thing to remeber about the sixties is that it only swung in and around a very few streets in London. Everywhere else it might as well have been the fifites. Austerity might have been a decade ago but habits die hard. Bombed out buildings have been mostly cleared away, but even where there's no more rubble that doesn't mean that rebuilding has started.

The buildings that are going up are the High-Rise blocks of flats on the edge of town. This is the era of the demolition of the inner-city slums, and the building of new, modern slums. For now people are really pleased with their new flats, but the commuity spirit has been broken and in a few years the leaking windows, damp, poor-insalation and the whole 'swaying in the wind' thing will begin to take a toll.

Empire is dead, and the few colonial wars left are grinding to a slow, horrible close. Racial tensions will be at their height in decades when Enoch Powel gives his 'Rivers of Blood' speach towards the end of the decade. The Suez showed that Britain was no great power anymore. Radical politics and the decline of respect for authority with the satire boom of 'That was the week that was' and 'Private Eye' is getting the generals and civil servents in a tizzy. The Profumo scandal will destroy deference forever.

But there's hope. People are bored of grime and grit. A new spirit is being slowly created, the young generation wants to have fun and freedom. The 'White Heat' of technology looks like it could solve all our problems, and Britian is still an industrial and technological power.

The Lion and the Raven were on a small upsurge last decade, bolstered by the Coronation. The Rat has been chased down into the UnderLondon, and plots bitterly, while trying to influence the Mouse. The Dogs and Cats fight openly as the Rockers and the Mods, while immigrant Tribes are finding a new voice against the prejudice they have been facing. It's a time of change, and the old Establishment is about to be nailed firmly into it's coffin. And that means everything is up for grabs.


It was just a thought (the sixties). There are some great historical bits in the 60s, in England in general, and London in specific. However that is just one more layer of things for people not in the know to pick up.

Actually playing a troupe of characters in a given period might be interesting. So we "flashback" to the Great Cat Caper that happened in the 60s.. play a little of that.. then flash back to the modern. In an occult game, with layers upon layers of history and events that lead up to "now", you could go back far... play out events in the past (Elizabethan, Victorian, Roman era, heck back to Egypt itself), and run on. Important things (i.e. things that define what has happened in the now) aren't rolled for, they are fiat. However, the other things are rolled for normally.

Can you say tribals re-incarnate? Of course they do. So your past character might be a similar character to your modern one.. (with the chrome adjusted for the time period).

A soul might have shards that live in several lives at one (in the way we mortals experience time). So when one shard dies, another young one might be ready to come alive.


I like. But hears a thought, taking it a step further. What if they re-incarnate, but through the Masks? Rather than simply being born and living again, complete with flashbacks, the tribal's soul goes through a traditional reincarnation, but their memories linger in the Mask, waiting for the tribal to recover it. Most have to make due with new Masks, but some manage to track down those of their previous incarnation, (or in some cases, incarnations), and can draw upon the memories, and the power, of their past selves.

But, the memories aren't limited to a Mask's owner. If another tribal gets their hands on a Reincarnate Mask, they can conduct a ritual to draw forth the memories stored within it, and experience them for themselves. And worse, if they know the modern identity of any of those with memories and lives stored within, they can strike at those modern incarnations through the Mask.

As a result, some tribes hoard Masks, attempting to fit mask to owner, as so to increase the tribe's power. Others destroy a Mask upon it's owner's death, so that it may not come back to haunt future incarnations. And still others (Rats, Ravens and Crows most especially) attempt to thieve all the Masks they can, and use the threat of them to gain footholds of control and influence in other tribes.

How did the Lion enslave the Raven? The Masks.