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The World of Darkness is a fictional RPG multiverse developed by White Wolf Game Studio. It is described as "gothic-punk" by the developers.
The World of Darkness resembles the contemporary world, but darker, more devious, more conspiratorial. Humanity is losing hope as it is preyed upon and abused by supernatural creatures such as vampires, werewolves and wraiths. Worse, they are not solitary predators to be hunted down and destroyed, but numerous and intelligent enough to form societies, develop various warring factions and use humans as pawns in their games.
Interlocking conspiracies, some mirroring those said to exist in our own world, some unique, can be found throughout the setting. Cabals of powerful mages, coteries of cunning vampires, and other, stranger powers vie within their own cultures and with each other for control of the world. The dichotomy between rich and poor, influential and weak, powerful and powerless, is larger than in our world. Decadence is common and corruption is everywhere. This dark reflection seen everywhere: gargoyles and gothic construction influence architecture, while the leather look and punk atmosphere crowd the streets.
White Wolf developed the following games set in the World of Darkness:
In parallel to these settings, White Wolf has developed historical settings for their major product lines. They include:
- Vampire: The Dark Ages
- Werewolf: The Wild West
- Mage: The Sorcerer's Crusade
- Wraith: The Great War
Though each game line is ostensibly its own self-contained universe, as time has passed, more and more obvious connections between the settings have been made in the canonical, published material. This presents difficulties for Storytellers (the term in the World of Darkness games for the gamemaster) since some canonical cosmologies subtly or blatantly conflict with others. Many of the later game supplements have optional rules suggesting how to handle interactions between different types of supernatural beings, and in some cases, present rules that attempt to allow discrepancies to exist between settings.
In late 2003, White Wolf announced it would stop publishing new books for the line, bringing the published history of the multiverse to an end with a series called The Time of Judgment. This event is described from different supernatural perspectives in four books: Vampire: Gehenna, Werewolf: Apocalypse, Mage: Ascension, and World of Darkness: Time of Judgment (the last covering all of White Wolf's minor product lines).
On August 21, 2004, White Wolf launched its new World of Darkness line, the first releases consisting of a generic corebook, with both general rules and those for human characters, and the sourcebook for the new line, Vampire: The Requiem. Originally scheduled for a November 2004 release, Werewolf: The Forsaken is now slotted for a February 2005 release, with Mage: The Awakening currently scheduled for a March 2005 release.
See also: Storyteller System
External links
- The new World of Darkness Web site (http://www.worldofdarkness.com/) - includes art samples.
- London: World of Darkness (http://www.geocities.com/london_wod/) - Online role playing website taking place in Yacho-chat, based on the third edition rule system with extensive information on the World of Darkness setting.
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