That One Time I Single-Handedly Screwed Up a Vampire/Changeling Crossover Event

In addition to being a regular tabletop player, I'm usually down for a good LARP (before we were surviving a global pandemic, anyway), and though Changeling: The Lost was always my favorite game to attend, the organization I was part of also ran Vampire: The Requiem games. Since they were often held on the same day, in the same location, I tended to stick around and just make a full day out of it.

This is a tale of how I unknowingly turned myself into a monkey wrench, and screwed up something like 6 months worth of behind-the-scenes setup and planning with little more than malice, and a phone call.

When the stranger calls, nothing good will happen.

For those who are curious, this game was run using the Chronicles of Darkness Mind's Eye Theatre system, and all of those books are currently for sale in a bundle on Drive Thru RPG! Also, for those who don't want to miss any of my further updates, don't forget to sign up for my weekly newsletter to get all my freshest content sent straight to your inbox.

And now, on with the story...

The Doctor and The Monster

One of my favorite character archetypes to play is an homage to Jekyll and Hyde, and for the vampire game I'd had Dr. Henry Marks approved by the organization. Henry had the unique mutation of the Malkovian bloodline, and he would have occasional black outs where he couldn't remember what had been happening. A clinical psychiatrist, his creator had hoped that his knowledge would be a boon to understanding what had gone wrong within the bloodline, and how they could fix it. Quickly recruited into the Ordo Dracul, Henry spent his every waking hour attempting to understand the nuances and limitations of the unlife he found himself living.

Edward, on the other hand, had his own perverse interest in Henry's work. For while Henry wouldn't acknowledge him, Edward peered from behind Henry's eyes. He took the findings of the doctor, and applied them to his (often brutal) activities.

Murder is so banal... I call it "field research".

If this unlikely duo sounds familiar, it's because I told a story about them several months back in That One Time I Shocked Storytellers By Solving Vampire Plot With Violence.

A Strange Set of Circumstances

Henry and Edward had been doing their bloody dance for some time when a strange phenomenon began to occur in the city. The Elysium, which was typically safeguarded mystically as well as physically, had been... exposed. The protections that typically kept them hidden in plain sight had vanished. That was distressing in and of itself, but what prompted Henry to call it an early evening while Edward shouldered himself into the driver's seat was that the sheriff and his staff seemed completely indifferent to the massive hole in the Elysium's security.

Which is why Edward decided to have a bit of fun.

The first thing he did, just to test the limits, was to Obfuscate his way into the Elysium. This normally would have been prevented by the wards, but since they were down it allowed him to start some minor mischief. Mostly just to amuse himself, and to see just how lethargic the guards were. He kept escalating, but there was no push back of any kind. No one told him to stop... or attempted to make him stop.

That was frustrating, but since I had to call it an early night to drive back home, I laid down one last card. Elysium that night was being held in one of Chicago's museums in a private party. The theme was a murder mystery, but vampires being vampires they were using real blood, and authentic body parts. It was a grisly scene... and Edward simply dropped a quarter and made a call to the police from one of the museum's few remaining pay phones. He told the police there were bodies, blood everywhere, and maybe two dozen people; hard to tell if they were the killers, witnesses, or something else. He gave the address, then hung up the phone and walked into the night laughing at his own practical joke.

The Massive (Unexpected) Fallout

Because this was a Vampire game, and several players had their characters in the city's influence circles, I had assumed this last trick would be a minor inconvenience. Someone would get a phone call tipping them off that the cops were inbound, the gathered kindred could put together a plan, and either bribe, bully, or use their unique powers to "convince" the police it was all a false alarm. Just someone trying to cause trouble. A little evening excitement, but nothing more.

Hoo boy was I wrong on that score.

What do you mean that was a load-bearing plot?

It seems that, despite the amount of opulent wealth and underworld ties among the kindred populace, none of them had actually bought and paid for the police. None of them owned the district attorney's office, and it seemed none of them had the proper disciplines or skill set to take a handful of mortal cops (tooled up for a raid as they were), and bend their minds to seeing things the kindreds' way.

So what should have been a minor inconvenience blew up the entire venue for the night!

A handful of kindred actually surrendered, going to jail for several hours. Others fled, using their disciplines to shift forms and escape the net closing around the museum. All in all, about half the venue got away and reconvened elsewhere, forming a plan to spring the rest out of jail before the sun came up and seriously complicated things for maintaining the masquerade.

But that was only a part of what was going on.

Unbeknownst to me, the heads of the Vampire and Changeling venues had been trying to work out some crossover plot for months at that point. The irregularities in the protections of Elysium was one of the signs of the two spheres coming too close to one another and causing disruptions. There were upcoming plots that were planned for Changeling that involved the museums, weak points between reality and the Hedge, and agents of the true fae... and those were going to bleed over (pun very much intended) into Vampire.

Or at least they were going to, until I unknowingly set the charges and blew all that up with a touch of chaos.

Lessons Learned

As I've said before, communication is the most important part of running a game... doubly so for running LARPs where there are multiple storytellers and all kinds of plot plates spinning on sticks. And from what I heard in the post-action from the ST staff, one reason everything slid so far out of control was that not everyone was briefed on what was happening, so they didn't know they were supposed to be trying to preserve this scene to act as the linchpin for the plan... and by the time I'd unknowingly kicked the plan in the nuts, it was too late to ret con it without causing even further problems.

I would like to believe that had all storytellers been given a briefing on the import of that night's planned events, then the NPC who took my call at the police station would have just rolled their eyes, and written it off as a prank call. Maybe sent around a single squad car to poke around before filing it away as a false report. As a player, I would have been more than all right with an action that would have been hugely disruptive getting set aside if it meant the big plan could come to fruition that evening.

Looking back on it, this is one of the only actions I wish I hadn't taken during that chronicle. Because I was one of the most vocal players about how crossover games would be great... and nobody took me aside and told me to keep my hands in my pockets for an evening to make that happen. So storytellers, be advised, don't play things too close to the chest if you want to avoid problems; keeping folks on the same page is important for getting the game to progress in the direction you're hoping.

What's Next on Table Talk?

That's it for this installment of Table Talk! Hopefully other folks learn a lesson or two from this one.

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