Should I Add Another "Werewolf: The Apocalypse" Story To The Channel?

If you're one of the readers who also checks out my contributions on the Azukail Games YouTube channel, then chances are good you are one of the folks who saw the latest audio drama Screams in The Shadow. This short little audio drama follows a strike team of garou who delve into the Umbra in order to purify a corrupted place... a place whose constant spewing of vile hatred has led to a spiritual cancer in the hearts and minds of those who listen to it for too long.

This little story was the introductory fiction from my supplement Dark Reflections: 50 Sights To See In The Penumbra, which is for Werewolf: The Apocalypse. And if you haven't grabbed a copy, consider doing so... I'm still trying to get the supplement up over Copper status. However, putting that audio drama together got me thinking... would my regular readers/listeners be interested in more Werewolf content?

Before we get into the nitty gritty this week, don't forget to sign up for my bi-weekly newsletter to get all my updates right in your inbox. Also, if you've got a bit of spare cash that you'd like to use to help keep the wheels turning, consider becoming a Patreon patron! Also, be sure you're following all of my followables, check out my LinkTree.

Lastly, for hundreds of extra articles on gaming, weird history, and for more free fiction, check out my Vocal archive, too!

Breathing Life Into Tales From The Moot

Most folks who are familiar with my World of Darkness supplements know me for my 100 Kinfolk supplements (which are still in the 100 Kinfolk Bundle, which has something approaching 1,500 NPCs in it). However, in addition to those supplements I also put together Evil Inc.: 10 Pentex Subsidiaries, and I was invited to be part of the Savage Age project, penning 101 Savage Kinfolk. However, what a lot of readers might not know is that a few years ago I managed to get a project going where I gathered several of my fellow authors and Werewolf enthusiasts, and we put together Tales From The Moot; a short story anthology filled with the kinds of stories the garou tend to tell around the fire to their fellows. Some are filled with action and savagery, others sorrow and heartbreak. Some seem to underline the pointlessness of this long war. But this collection has, largely, been overlooked by readers out there.

Which is why if you haven't checked it out, you definitely should!

I'll be honest, I've been wracking my brain for some way to get more eyes on this collection. I've written about it on this blog several times, it's gotten shout-outs on several WoD podcasts in the past, I've shouted it from the hilltops of social media, and my fellow creators did their best to spread the word so other folks could find out about it... but we could just never seem to really reach the folks who would be interested in tie-in fiction.

Which made me wonder... would you all be interested in hearing a few stories in the collection get the audio drama treatment the way some of my other vignettes have?

The way this project would work is that I would begin with the introductory story (which is a van of three kinfolk on their way to the moot), and I would make it as a kind of lead-in/commercial for the anthology as it stands. And if folks enjoyed and supported that part of the project, I'd look into dramatizing my contribution to the collection, Late Bloomer, which is a story about a Silver Fang who had his first change while he was on deployment in Afghanistan. And if folks wanted to see more of the stories then I would reach out to Josh Heath and the folks over at High Level Games, as well as contacting the authors of some of the other pieces, to see whether this is something they'd be interested in.

And if you're one of the folks who would like to see this project go forward, then leave your thoughts in the comments below, and make sure you respond on social media! In addition to your thoughts, consider grabbing a copy of Tales From The Moot for yourself, and leaving a review where you tell us which story you'd most like to hear get the audio drama treatment!

Because, as I repeat so often on this channel, the squeaky wheel gets the grease. If this book suddenly gets a lot of fresh interest, sales, etc., it's very likely that future anthologies could finally go into production... but at that point we'd be asking you, our audience, what you'd like to see from us going forward!

Lastly, if you're looking for something else to get excited about, I'm still scripting season 1 of Windy City Shadows, which is a Chronicles of Darkness podcast project. And if you haven't heard about that yet, then check out the AMA I did for it a little while ago.

Like, Follow, and Stay in Touch!

That's all for this week's Table Talk. To stay on top of all my content and releases, make sure you subscribe to my newsletter at the bottom of the page!

Again, for more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, and stop by the Azukail Games YouTube channel, or my Rumble channel The Literary Mercenary! Or if you'd prefer to read some of my books, like my dystopian sci-fi thriller Old Soldiers, my hardboiled gangland noir series starring a bruiser of a Maine Coon with Marked Territory and Painted Cats, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife or my latest short story collection The Rejects, then head over to My Amazon Author Page!

To stay on top of all my latest releases, follow me on Blue Sky, Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now Pinterest as well! To support my work, consider Buying Me a Ko-Fi, or heading to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page to become a regular, monthly patron. That one helps ensure you get more Improved Initiative, and it means you'll get my regular, monthly giveaways as a bonus!

Pentex, Windy City Shadows, And Closing In On Goals For Azukail Games

There's been a lot of nonsense going on behind the screen recently, so I wanted to take this week's Table Talk to bring some folks up-to-date, and to provide something of a progress report on two current projects. So if you've been hoping for some news on some irons I mentioned I had in the fire, then this should answer some of your questions. And if you're only just now joining me, well, keep reading because I'm going to do my best to provide any necessary context as we go along!

Now, let's get into the details!

Before we get into the nitty gritty this week, don't forget to sign up for my bi-weekly newsletter to get all my updates right in your inbox. Also, if you've got a bit of spare cash that you'd like to use to help keep the wheels turning, consider becoming a Patreon patron! Also, be sure you're following all of my followables, check out my LinkTree.

Lastly, for hundreds of extra articles on gaming, weird history, and for more free fiction, check out my Vocal archive, too!

First and Foremost, Progress And Pentex

For those who don't know, I've been making a lot of videos for the Azukail Games YouTube channel for the past several years. Originally used as a place to host the preview videos for several of the company's TTRPG supplements, I expanded the offerings with several shows like Speaking of Sundara (where I talk about my RPG setting Sundara: Dawn of a New Age), Discussions of Darkness (where I talk about the World and Chronicles of Darkness settings), Tabletop Mercenary (where I talk about the business of TTRPGs), and now Tactical Plastic Report (where I talk about my RPG Army Men: A Game of Tactical Plastic), along with a slew of audio dramas taken from TTRPG supplements I've written.

I've been fighting an uphill battle to try to get the channel monetized for a while, and we were well on our way this time last year... until the algorithm change last Autumn. That absolutely cratered our progress, and sent us several rungs down the ladder. As of my last check-in with Adrian, though, the channel is at 2,825 hours of the 3,000 hours we need to hit in order for us to become monetized.

That means we only need 175 hours of additional watched time on our videos, which is the closest we've gotten so far in this entire saga! It's still a huge chunk of watch time for a relatively small channel, but I'm hoping that I can get some folks currently reading this to help us reach that goal.

And this is where Pentex comes into the picture.

Since I've wanted to revisit it ever since I worked on this supplement.

As I mentioned a while back in my post Video Essays On The World and Chronicles of Darkness... What Would You Like To See?, I've had a couple of concepts floating around in my head for a little while. One of those is one that I'm tentatively titling, "The Problem With Pentex," because while I love it as an antagonist, and a thematic part of the World of Darkness, there is (in my opinion) something that makes it fit strangely with the rest of the setting. So I wanted to outline the position I'm taking, and then provide some suggestions to fellow Storytellers for how I would handle Pentex, were I to alter the setup and origin of this faction (or just expand it out to encompass a bigger picture).

I've also got a fun little tongue-in-cheek commercial that will be appearing in the middle of the episode. While I'm definitely taking the piss, though, Dubby is a real product, and I do really get a cut of the proceeds if you choose to try it out. All the info for this powdered energy drink is in the video below, so give this a watch if you're looking for a chuckle, or if you want to be one of the first to check out the closest thing to a sponsor any of my videos have had yet!

Up Next, Windy City Shadows!

I tend to bring up this project once a month or so, but it's a big deal to me, and it's something I've been kicking around for a while that feels like it's close to finally moving beyond the idea phase. While I have a full Ask Me Anything about the project, posted below, the elevator pitch is that Windy City Shadows is going to be an audio drama podcast set in the world of the Chronicles of Darkness. Each season will focus on different spheres of this world, but each season will build off the story of the one that came before, dealing with the ripples of those stories as they move across the various supernatural communities. Season One, Grim Promises, can best be summarized as "modern fantasy John Wick," and for a textual rundown check out the blog post Windy City Shadows: A Chronicles of Darkness Podcast Proposal.

For folks who have wondered why I first proposed this podcast a year ago, but nothing has been released for it, well, it's because even if art is offered at no cost to the customer that doesn't mean it's free to make. One of the major things I needed to have in place to help underwrite the project was that the Azukail Games YouTube chanel (where the podcast is going to be backed up and available for folks to listen to in addition to other podcast platforms) needed to be monetized so that these episodes were seen as something with earning potential, instead of just one more thing floating out there on the vast sea of the Internet.

However, since we're slowly closing in on that goal, I have started laying the groundwork for the show's production! During the month of October I laid out the skeleton for season one's 10-episode plan, and I have a script for a preview that I'll be putting together and releasing both on the Azukail Games YT channel, and on the Windy City Shadows podcast channel once we cross that finish line and get the YT channel monetized. And while there are currently some extra projects on my work desk, my hope is to start writing scripts for the show before the year is over, and to begin recording once my current housing situation is settled next year (for those who don't know, I reside in government-subsidized housing, which makes renewing my lease a less-than-straightforward process).

Though I feel like a broken record saying it, this may be some folks' first time seeing these words. If you're interested in Windy City Shadows as a project, or just seeing me continue to make videos in general, please help me smash that goal this month! Like and subscribe to the Azukail Games YouTube channel, but even more than that, go through the archive and watch our videos! Leave comments on the ones you like (or, hell, the one's you don't like), and consider sharing some of them around on your own social media pages. The algorithm is stamping down harder than even before, and the only way we can get our stuff seen at all is by folks like you helping to boost our signal.

Thank you in advance... 175 hours is a lot for a relatively small channel of our size, but with your help hopefully we can surpass it before Thanksgiving comes and goes!

What's Next on Table Talk?

That's it for this installment of Table Talk! What would you like to see next? I'm listening for your comments and votes!

For more of my work, check out my Vocal archives, as well as the YouTube channel for Azukail Games. Or, to check out books like my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife, my hard-boiled noir series featuring the street beasts of NYC in Marked Territory and Painted Cats, my dystopian sci-fi thriller Old Soldiers, or my recent short story collection The Rejects, head over to My Amazon Author Page!

To stay on top of all my latest releases, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, and Twitter, as well as on Pinterest where I'm building all sorts of boards dedicated to my books, RPG supplements, and greatest hits. Lastly, to help support me and my work, consider Buying Me A Ko-Fi, or heading over to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page to become a regular, monthly patron! Even a little donation can have a big impact.

Video Essays on The World and Chronicles of Darkness... What Would You Like To See?

For the past year and change I've been putting out regular episodes of the show Discussions of Darkness over on the Azukail Games YouTube channel. However, while I've spent 27 episodes talking about the setting and giving advice for how to breathe life into it around your table, I recently got a bee in my bonnet over a particular topic. Rather than just holding forth in my traditional format where I talk to the camera, though, I wanted to do something a little special. A little different.

That was why I sat down, wrote out an actual script, and made a video essay entitled The Liminal Horror of Changeling: The Lost... and judging from the reaction some folks have had, this is a direction at least folks would like to see me take more in future releases.

As always, don't forget to sign up for my weekly newsletter to get all my updates right in your inbox. Also, if you've got a bit of spare cash that you'd like to use to help keep the wheels turning, consider becoming a Patreon patron! Also, be sure you're following all of my followables, check out my LinkTree.

Lastly, for hundreds of extra articles on gaming, weird history, and for more free fiction, check out my Vocal archive, too!

Where Would You Like Me To Explore Next?

While the video has just over 160 views at time of writing, there have also been a surprising amount of comments left both on the video itself, as well as on social media regarding it. The response has been pretty positive overall, and while I'm hoping the views keep climbing on the video, I did have a couple of other topics up my sleeve in the event the audience wanted to see more stuff in the same vein.

So, what can you look forward to if I expand some of this?

As a for instance...

One of the ideas I've been mentally combing through is something I'm tentatively titling, "The Problem With Pentex, And The Historical Figure That Could Fix It". As folks know, Evil Incorporated: 10 Pentex Subsidiaries is something I put a lot of work into, and while I was doing research for that supplement I went back through the canon origins for Pentex as an antagonist... and found that it only goes back to the 1800s. This seems to be a uniquely American phenomenon, where to us a century is a really long time, but in a setting as old as the World of Darkness, I feel this overlooks a lot of additional juice you could add into this antagonist. Which is why I'd like to go through capitalism as a force of evil (in the game, of course), its origin, some other mercantile atrocities that feel like they should have been added into Pentex's history, and finally taking it back to a figure that I feel would make a truly bizarre addition to some of the historical persons that have become supernatural members of the setting.

Two of the other ideas, which are more in-line with the format of the first video (and may receive preference as a result of that), deal with viewing these particular games in ways we don't often think about, or which can fade into the background. For example, one video would be The Existential Horror of Vampire: The Requiem, and how the undead are largely left with no hard answers as to why they exist, what their purpose is, and how they're staring down the barrel of eternity... a condition that the human mind was never meant to grapple with. The second idea in this format is The Cosmic Horror of Mage: The Awakening. Given that the game brings many aspects of gnosticism into the setting, and it deals with the hubris of mages themselves, it can stretch the mind in directions it was never meant to go, and leave mages changed after their experiences. This can lead to them losing their humanity in ways that are very different from other characters in the setting... especially given how powerful mages can be, even in the throes of their madness.

What I Need From You, As Viewers

A lot of you know the drill by now, but if you don't it goes like this:

- Subscribe to the Azukail Games YouTube channel. Hit the bell for extra points!

- Watch The Liminal Horror of Changeling: The Lost if you haven't. Leave comments and upvotes on it if you have! Bonus points for sharing the video on your own social media to boost the signal.

- Leave comments on this post (or on social media) regarding which topics you'd like to see me cover in future videos. If you'd like to see something other than one of the three options I mentioned, make sure to include that in your comment!

It's a simple, three-step process. The content I make (and which is accepted/put out by Azukail Games) is driven by you. Your views, your purchases, your likes, upvotes, comments, and follows all have an effect on what I work on, and what gets released... so use your power, raise your voice, and let me know what you want to see more of!

And, lastly, if you want to help me keep the lights on and the bills paid, consider grabbing some of my World/Chronicles of Darkness supplements from Storyteller's Vault! There's 36 of them at time of writing and (fingers crossed) I'll be able to add at least a few more to that list in the near future!

Like, Follow, and Stay in Touch!

That's all for this week's Moon Pope Monday. To stay on top of all my content and releases, make sure you subscribe to my newsletter at the bottom of the page!

Again, for more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, and stop by the Azukail Games YouTube channel, or my Rumble channel The Literary Mercenary! Or if you'd prefer to read some of my books, like my dystopian sci-fi thriller Old Soldiers, my hardboiled gangland noir series starring a bruiser of a Maine Coon with Marked Territory and Painted Cats, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife or my latest short story collection The Rejects, then head over to My Amazon Author Page!

To stay on top of all my latest releases, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now Pinterest as well! To support my work, consider Buying Me a Ko-Fi, or heading to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page to become a regular, monthly patron. That one helps ensure you get more Improved Initiative, and it means you'll get my regular, monthly giveaways as a bonus!

World of Darkness STs, Don't Overuse Your Big, Nasty Threats!

There's an old truth when it comes to horror movies; the less you see of the monster, the scarier it is. From the giant shark in Jaws, to the alien trophy hunter in Predator, to the xenomorph in Alien, every time we're left alone with our own imaginations we end up making something far worse than whatever the director and the special effects team could put up on the screen in front of us.

Part of this is that our brains seek out danger, and when lighting, tone, tense music, etc. tells us there's a danger, and we can't see it, it makes us anxious as we try to spot the threat before it sneaks up on us. However, familiarity breeds contempt. When you see a monster for the first time it can be horrifying, repulsive, and chilling. When you see it for the hundredth time it can be familiar, and even comforting in a strange way.

That's why if you're running a World of Darkness game, you should strive to save your game-specific big bads. Build them up. Make your players really sweat about them. Because if they're constantly showing up, pretty soon whatever edge they had is going to get pretty dull.

Consider using smaller, in-between threats to fill in the cracks instead.

Before we get into the nitty gritty this week, don't forget to sign up for my weekly newsletter to get all my updates right in your inbox. Also, if you've got a bit of spare cash that you'd like to use to help keep the wheels turning, consider becoming a Patreon patron!

Lastly, to be sure you're following all of my followables, check out my LinkTree!

True Fae, BSDs, and Antediluvians, Oh My!

Every sphere of the World of Darkness (and the Chronicles of Darkness, as well) has different iterations on the same theme. There's which family you belong to (clan, tribe, seeming, etc.), which political organization you're affiliated with (court, order, covenant, etc.), which special pocket realm only your kind can access (the Umbra, the Hedge, and so on), and what special resource you harvest to power your magic (gnosis, blood, glamour, and so forth). However, there is one other category that often gets overlooked, and it's which special monster is your creature type's personal big bad?

If you're playing Werewolf: The Apocalypse then the one that's front-and-center are the Black Spiral Dancers, as they're a dark reflection, showing all the savage and corrupt things the garou could become. In Changeling: The Lost the True Fae are the Keepers who stole them, and the little gods who torment them, looming as large as a child's bogeyman. Vampires have to cope with the ancients of their kind whose power makes even the strongest of young bloods feel weak and frail, and mages in Mage: The Ascension have to cope with the Technocracy, who uses their immense power to take away freedom from others, sacrificing it for safety and security... or so they tell themselves.

Oh... oh we are in deep.

A problem I've seen a lot of Storytellers run into is that they see these personalized antagonists, and they focus on making what should be an end-of-arc villain, or something with a lot of build-up, into the garden-variety threat that their players are dealing with on a regular basis. And the effect is basically the same one you get in movies where the monster is in plain sight, standing under bright lights in more than half the scenes of the film.

Put bluntly, it loses its mystery. And without mystery, it's got no power over the imaginations of the players.

If you're going to use these big bads to raise the stakes of your game (which you should, it's what they're for), you need to take the time to actually draw out their legends. Keep them in the shadows, and let the PCs learn about them slowly. Have them move around one another in a tightening circle, but without coming to blows until there's been enough buildup that the tension is really starting to show on the players' actions.

Give Me an Example?

Let's say that you are running a Werewolf: The Apocalypse game. Your players have formed a relatively young pack, and they're hungry for glory. What better way to give them that glory than for them to defeat a noted Black Spiral Dancer (or an entire pack of them)?

That's your goal as the Storyteller... but that's not where you start the game. That's where you want to end things. Once you have that end game, you work backwards.

It's easier when you know where you're going.

Start at the end. Who are these infamous villains, and what relationship do they have to your young werewolves? Is one of them an uncle, aunt, parent, or brother who fell to the Wyrm, and a PC needs to slay them in order to put their soul to rest and purge its corruption? Is one of them a former mentor? Or for a more thematic connection, is one of them a dark mirror of a particular PC, showing what they could become... and maybe deep down what part of them wants to become?

It's a concept very similar to The Anti-Party, it just happens to work really well with werewolves.

Once you know who your villains are, build up their history. Give them a reputation, like I talked about in The Small Legend, and figure out what your players will learn about them.

For example, the head of the pack may have been noted Silver Fang Konstantin Romanoff, considered a shining light among his tribe. In his desperation for victory, and to prove himself, he traded his pride and his morals a little at a time. Now he fancies that his eyes are open, and that he has become the true king he was meant to be. A Wyrm Lord who will rule the polluted ashes of the new world... a werewolf Dr. Doom, if you're looking for a simple, gothic comparison. At his side the former Get of Fenris champion Ragnar Thorsson, whose brutal rages consumed him from within until eventually he declared his fealty to a power that never asked him to hold back. Den Mother Lorna Dane pledged herself to end the hostilities, and to spare the lives of the young, becoming a twisted version of the gentle soul she'd once been. And so on.

Once you know what your villains are, and what their reputations are, plant clues in the game for your PCs to learn more about them. Figure out which NPCs are going to be knowledgeable about these villains, and who will big-up their legend. If they have a personal connection to the PCs, ask if the villains were thought dead, but it turns out they're alive, but wicked. Then, once you have all of that information, ask what your PCs have to deal with before they even find out who and what the true villains of the story are!

It's all connected!

If your pack of Black Spiral Dancers are the big bads, chances are they have corrupt kinfolk working under them. They may have purely mortal servants, attack teams of fomori, first response teams from a Pentex subsidiary, or a dozen other servants carrying out their plans, as well. While individual pack members might be considered lieutenant villains of different arcs of the story, have the PCs come across clues about them. Maybe they're tracking down a group of dangerous kinfolk to question them, only to find them torn apart to the last man, expended shell casings all over the ground and silver slugs in the walls showing that whatever did it simply would not stop. Or perhaps the PCs find a powerful ally mortally wounded, and the ally tells them about the creature that hurt him so badly. Lower-level villains might talk if they're captured, or the big bads might even send messengers or communications to the PCs, either threatening them or congratulating them for their strength and cleverness in foiling their plans.

Once you have all of that set up, let your players work their way up the chain of command, getting in the way of the villains' plans, learning about them, and building up to a big conclusion. But do not skimp on the reveal of the bad guys' legends, or the presentation of what they're capable of. Let your players marinate, and really drink in exactly how much of a threat this could be for them.

While the above example uses corrupted werewolves, you could do the same thing with the True Fae in changeling, Methuselahs and Antediluvians in Vampire, or most other big bads that a game provides you with. If something is supposed to be a serious threat, and a major force to reckon with, take your time with it. Spool out their legend, let the players explore, give them little bits of story here and there, and show how other NPCs fear and respect these forces. Much like how most of the cast of a film talks about John Wick, you need to make these baddies your bogeymen.

And the less you have them physically there, but still present in the narrative, the more effective they tend to be.

For More World of Darkness Content!

If you enjoyed this week's post, and you'd like more World of Darkness or Chronicles of Darkness content, consider some of my supplements below!

Vampire: The Masquerade

If you need secondary villains and minions to pepper your story with, consider the following titles:

- New World Nights: 100 Ghouls For The American Camarilla

- New World Shadows: 100 Ghouls For The Sabbat

- Children of The Night: 100 Animal Ghouls

And those who are looking for a unique method to get information to their players might want to check out this piece, along with the audio drama of its introductory short story below!

- 100 Resources and Rumors to Find on SchreckNet

Werewolf: The Apocalypse

Perhaps the game line I've created the most content for to-date, those looking for unique NPCs should check out the following bundle, which has all 13 tribes, Black Spiral Dancers, as well as kinfolk for the mokole!

- 100 Kinfolk Bundle

- 101 Savage Kinfolk

Those who need additional villains (especially villains that can be used in multiple genres of the World of Darkness) should consider:

- Evil Incorporated: 10 Pentex Subsidiaries

Lastly, if you're a fiction fiend, I was part of a Werewolf anthology not long ago. Check this one out if you'd like to see even more tales told across the setting by myself and fellow contributors:

- Tales From The Moot

Changeling: The Lost

The game I've been doing the most work on lately, the ongoing tales from these supplements are also getting their own audio dramas! So if you enjoy listening to them, consider subscribing to the Azukail Games YouTube channel so I can keep the publisher greenlighting them!

- 100 Mourning Cant Dialects, Phrases, and Meanings

- 100 (Mostly) Harmless Goblin Fruits and Oddments To Find in The Hedge

- 100 Strange Sights to See in The Hedge

- 100 Hobs to Meet in The Hedge

- Buyer Beware: 10 Goblin Markets

Like, Follow, and Stay in Touch!

That's all for this week's Moon Pope Monday. To stay on top of all my content and releases, make sure you subscribe to my newsletter at the bottom of the page!

Again, for more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, and stop by the YouTube channel Dungeon Keeper Radio. Or if you'd prefer to read some of my books, like my cat noir thriller Marked Territory, its sequel Painted Cats, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife or my latest short story collection The Rejects, then head over to My Amazon Author Page!

To stay on top of all my latest releases, follow me on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and now Pinterest as well! To support my work, consider Buying Me a Ko-Fi, or heading to The Literary Mercenary's Patreon page to become a regular, monthly patron. That one helps ensure you get more Improved Initiative, and it means you'll get my regular, monthly giveaways as a bonus!

Rage Against Capitalism: Pentex as a Werewolf Antagonist

If you've ever played a game of Werewolf: The Apocalypse, then you're already passingly familiar with a lot of the game's central themes and antagonists. For those who haven't, you are one of the garou, shape-shifting warriors who have fought on behalf of the Earth Mother Gaia since time immemorial. Once upon a time the three major powers of the world, the Wyld (representing nature), the Weaver (representing order) and the Wyrm (representing destruction) all existed in harmony. But the Weaver attempted to control the Wyrm, and the Wyrm has gone mad, rampaging across the world in an attempt to destroy everything. As Gaia's chosen you are the one who stands against the servants of the Wyrm and attempts to bring back balance... or at least prevent the apocalypse.

It's a really unique game, and perhaps one of my favorite parts of the World of Darkness setting... but there's also no other RPG I've played that has made it clear we all need to work together if we're going to stop capitalism from destroying the world.

Maybe the Red Talons had a few good ideas after all...

Before I get too deep into this topic, wanted to remind folks that patrons are what keep the blog going, so consider becoming a Patreon patron if you can. Also, make sure you subscribe to my weekly newsletter to be sure you don't miss anything that comes off my desk in the future!

Pentex: Capitalism As Antagonist

There are a lot of themes in Werewolf, but most of them can be boiled down to restoring the balance. Werewolves fight to stop the Wyrm from destroying everything, they struggle to maintain their Rage so it can be used against their foes without harming their loved ones, and they often have to balance between the physical and the spiritual worlds. There's the balance between pride in their actions, and the horror at the things they have to do, and attempting to hang onto themselves and their principles in the face of the yawning void that waits to swallow them up.

Pretty heavy stuff for a game about turning into a giant furry death machine and rolling handfuls of plastic dice.

So where does capitalism come into this?

Since Werewolf takes place in the World of Darkness setting, which is a grim modern fantasy, it was going to have to address capitalism sooner or later. And the game doesn't mince words when it comes to this financial system, either. Because at its core capitalism is about an imbalance of power, the impossibility of infinite growth, and reaping the planet for every penny that can be made. From dumping toxic waste into drinking water, to running child labor camps, to imprisoning people on meaningless offenses and stealing years of their lives just to turn profits, there is basically no corner dark enough that capitalism hasn't tried to turn a profit off of it. And though there are some aspects of the game that let you use the tools of capital to further your goals (the Corporate Wolves camp of the Glass Walkers, spirits like Easy Credit and Almighty Dollar, etc.), even characters who use these tools would be trying to use money, investment, etc., to oppose things like child labor, human trafficking, and environmental destruction rather than profiting off of them.

The game itself personifies the danger of capitalism as Pentex, a conglomeration of corporations that all share interests, and which are connected to each other by board members, mutual profits, love of money, and lack of scruples. And in a game that perfected the Ever Present Threat that can never truly be defeated once and for all in the form of the Wyrm, Pentex is a solid runner-up in terms of a villain. Because you can't kill a single CEO, blow up a particular construction site, or expose any one network of abuses and cover-ups to get rid of what Pentex represents... someone else will just step up tomorrow to try to do it again. The logo will be different, and the stationery has changed, but it's the same empty suits trying to finish the oil pipeline, restart the coal plant, sell you the toxic product, or get you to hand over your money in exchange for a false blessing from a mega pastor.

While a lot of STs are leery about using Pentex in their games, preferring to focus on the purely supernatural threats like vampires, Black Spiral Dancers, fomori, and corrupt spirits, this corporate villain works really well when it comes to defining the shape of the battlefield. Because Pentex is often a purely mortal threat, which can allow players to really cut loose and feel powerful as werewolves... but it also presents a lot of moral challenges to them. Do you use lethal force against the security guards, most of which are just working stiffs who need a job (any job) so they don't wind up on the street? Is the loss of the economic gain to the community created by destroying a dangerous project (coal mine, natural gas pipeline, fracking operation, etc.) going to affect their spirits just as badly as the pollution would affect their bodies? Can your message of balance, community bonds, and living in harmony counter generations of propaganda about how greed is good, money makes the world go round, and it's a dog-eat-dog world?

Though Pentex can (and often does) mix with elements of the supernatural from vampire investors and company officers, to mad scientists trying to mass produce supernatural templates, etc., it often represents a very mortal antagonist that is just as hard to defeat as any monster from myth. And that can often ground your game in ways that are hard to accomplish just fighting banes and fomori all the time.

Though The Written Material Often Falls Short of Reality

For those who haven't come across it, I recently put together my own supplement for STs who want to have their players go up against corporate interests. Evil Incorporated: 10 Pentex Subsidiaries was a particularly challenging piece for me to write because of a problem that I kept running into time and time again.

Namely that any time you end up trying to make some kind of super advanced monstrous version of capitalism, you just end up making something that already exists, or which has happened in the past. And trying to add vampires or Black Spiral Dancers into the mix just feels like you're working in metaphors to soften the blow, rather than letting the villain just be what they are; a stark testament to the atrocities that a lot of humans are willing to commit in the name of profit margins and personal gain.

The introductory story, dramatized over on the Azukail Games YouTube channel, says it all, really.

According to the soft canon, the idea that would become Pentex was born in the Texas oil fields sometime in the 1800s... but for those who are students of history, and are aware of the crimes of the East India Trading Company, Pentex can seem like a Johnny-come-lately. And while Pentex is often supposed to be this cartoonishly evil collection of villains that feel like something out of Captain Planet, is it really so unbelievable that people would poison huge swaths of the population or destroy the planet for money? That's no different than how cigarette companies fought for years to suppress widespread information about their products causing cancer, or how oil companies knew about global warming for decades and kept it wrapped up so they wouldn't lose money. Companies like Tesla and Apple have been accused of using child labor in their products, and the American military has been directed by corporate interests for decades to those familiar with the banana wars.

Hell, in my research for Can Large-Scale Telecommuting Save The Environment?, I found numbers that consistently said remote work increases corporate profits and productivity, increases worker morale, lowers overhead costs, and reduces emissions by millions of tons a year. But corporations are fighting tooth-and-nail to force people to come back to work in the middle of a pandemic, spending more money to be less efficient and to put their workers at-risk while making them more miserable. Why? Because the middle managers were exposed as mostly useless positions when they didn't have tiny fiefdoms of office workers to lord over, and pretend they were an asset to the company, and that loss of face (as well as the potential to cut positions that it turned out weren't necessary) was all it took to start the meat grinder up again.

So if you're going to run Pentex as part of your games, keep all of this in mind. Because it might feel close to home, but at the same time it might provide a unique catharsis that defeating a vampire lord or overcoming a great bane spirit simply won't.

More Werewolf Stuff, Anyone?

If Evil Incorporated is enough to get your mind going, I've got other stuff for an Apocalypse game you might find particularly useful. So if you're itching for shapeshifting stories, check these out too!

- 100 Garou Kinfolk Bundle: With over 1,500 NPCs (100 for each of the base tribes, plus 100 mokole' kin on top of that!) this will ensure that you're never lacking for support characters in your game.

- 100 Stargazer Kinfolk: The encore guide that came out after the bundle was set, this is for all the players and STs alike who want to bring this enigmatic tribe into your game... especially if these mystics intend to oppose what both capital and the state are trying to do to Gaia in their part of the world.

- Deadly Country: 100 NPCs of Central Florida: While a lot of these characters can be swapped around to other parts of the country, one might argue that there are few places in America more primed to be a stronghold of Pentex than Florida.

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