World of Darkness: The Beckoning

The air in this room is thick with the smell of old paper, dust, and something else… something like ozone and dried blood. It clings to the back of your throat, a phantom taste of forgotten secrets. Outside, the city never sleeps. It’s a concrete beast of neon arteries and steel bones, weeping acid rain into gutters clogged with filth and despair. But in here, in this forgotten archive, this mausoleum of forbidden knowledge, the only sound is the frantic, desperate scratch of your pen.

You are a chronicler of the end times. Whether you know it or not, you have stumbled upon the frayed edges of the tapestry, and now you can see the rotting stitches holding this world together. The mundane is a lie, a comforting blanket pulled over the chittering, gnashing truth. There are things in the dark, ancient and hungry, that predate the first brick laid in this city. They wear familiar faces—faces of lovers, CEOs, beggars, cops—but their eyes hold the cold, patient hunger of the abyss. They are the Kindred, the Damned, vampires who pull the strings of mortal puppets in a game.

And on that page, a dotted line, a pact to enter a world left beyond the awareness of mankind and the home of horrors ready to feast.