Rio de Janeiro by Night [Fan-Project]

This will be the thread of my independent, fan-made project "Rio de Janeiro by Night", which I'm putting some good effort into. The fan-book will try to mix real history with Vampire fiction in order to present a new, different setting for modern Vampire chronicles, and while oriented to the old Vampire the Masquerade setting, it should be easy enough to be adapted into a Requiem chronicle, or at least offer some ideas for your own games regardless of version.

I will use this thread for general updates, discussion and idea sharing on the topic.

Since this is a "by fans, for fans" thing, I would feel glad if WoD players, old or new, could drop by, check the updates, opinate, suggest, critique, troll, discuss or, well, comment.

Introduction - First page - [Click here]

This will be the first page of the introductory chapter. I turned it into .jpg for practicity, but the whole work itself is being worked as a .pdf. I'll be honoured to hear you guys opinions. Typos, layout, interesting topics, uninteresting topics, grammar mistakes (remember - english isnt my first language), whatever floats your boat.

The only semi canonical fact about Rio on Revised is that on the Lasombra Trilogy, Rio is a Sabbat city with its Archbishop being, ahem, none other that Gratiano de Veronese. He places a team to hunt a Ananasi (although he still could not figure out what she was) called Octavia. When the move failed, she whispered to the presence she felt from the shadows (Gratiano) that she will tell the Toreador about this little incident and how would it affect their peace. This happened in Av. Rio Blanco. Gratiano's haven is called Propiedade Nova da Lua, in Gávea (maybe this is a neighboorhood or disctrict).

-Saga

Oh Saga, thanks a lot for the info. This one, from the trilogy, is the only bit of info that I wasn't aware of, but it should be pretty simple for the players to adapt it in if they feel necessary. For sake of keeping the surprise, I wont say a lot now, but all what you said seems to be in concordance with World of Darkness first edition, which is also one of my main sources of official info. Also, the core ideas of the game were put down on paper as Storyteller notes far before the clan novels (the main course) were finished.

The actual name is Av. Rio Branco, and Gávea is a district in the upper class part of the city. Octavia is also depicted in World of Darkness first edition (or was it second?).

Thanks a lot for the heads up.

To me it seems like it could be a cool setting. The introduction gave me some old New-Orleans by night vibes. This with a Sabbat court in revised sounds promising.

I was about to give you some material on Rio, but then I noticed where you live...

And as Saga stated, there is some Gratiano material in the Lasombra trilogy. Personally, the way they described Gratiano in the books was one of the only things I didn't quite like. They overdid it imo. He was too much of a proud brat in my eyes. But if you wanna check it out and can get your hands on the books I'm pretty sure (note: not 100%) they meet up with him in book two (Shards?).

Hope to see more from this in the near future.

Looks very interesting, looking forward to the complete book!

Unbelievable you're doing this! Looking forward to it! If I can be of any assistance in playtesting, just let me know!

I'm very grateful, the support the forums gave me so far keeps me happy to be producing this.

I am 90% done with the history chapter, which is taking me longer than I thought, but is turning out real cool. Things such as dates and events meddled in a subtle manner with the story of the first vampires in Rio make the story interesting and still informative without being too boring to read (I hope!).

As a matter of fact, Brazil was discovered in 1500 and while it was taking shape there was some conflicts between the arriving europeans and the natives of the region; catholic missionaries and jungle explorers tried to control or enslave them, ideologically and practically. This gives me nice ideas about the interests of those vampires backing or involved with these groups...

So here is another teaser of my upcoming fan-work which will figure as a prop among the first chapter's page. I hope you guys take a while to tell me how does it sounds, if there are any grammar mistakes that slipped, etc.
[Rio by Night - An Old Letter]

I'd love to hear your feedback, critiques, comments, etc.

I love that intro page....send me the rest now!!! LOL!  I tend to play my vampires on the sensual side so reading that part made me giddy (Becca and Randy are now in a relationship of sorts...hehe.)

The prop is good and has me intrigued.  I can't wait to see how you do the Catholic angle, I have always wanted to see True Faith in the modern era and think that would be a cool angle to play up.

Hurry up so I can actually test run this stuff!! =)

This is a great idea, being trying to figure out where to put a new game of mine, rio is starting to tickle that itch. Cant wait to hear more. So far your doing a great job, if there is anyway i can help let me know.

It seems like you're going by canon, so I have a question. Are you gonna present Gratiano as the Arch-bishop of Rio, or present him at all for that matter? Don't expect an answer since you seem set on your secret-weaving and teasing =).

Haha! Teller, the whole secret-weaving thing is more in fear that I show a lot and take too long to produce more stuff, generating too long of a gap between updates. And of course, it all gets spiced with a little anteci..........pation. :)

But regarding that matter: We can assume that Gratiano position as Arch-Bishop of Rio is somewhat of a recent fact, or at least was omitted till that trilogy. For example, in the Vampire card game, he is a Priscus, and previous mentions of Rio (on sources I mentioned on that intro page) do not even cite him. As a matter of fact, one of the plots that the game proposes as an initial idea for chronicle IS about choosing leaders. Besides, when I started writing/storytelling the game itself, it was even before the Clan Novels were written.

So, replying more directly - I'm not mentioning Gratiano as a Vampire of Rio, mainly to not mess with official continuity. But it leaves space perfectly to place him as a character (either as the choosen Archbishop or as one of the power-players for the seat), or to avoid him entirely. This is highly up to the storyteller, but as a matter of fact, the scenario could use either path to develop the story. There are official characters that I intend to explore in the chronicle; but currently they arent too germane to the whole plot so I dont want to put them as fillers. It is able to change, though.

Yeah, I understand. Better if you take your time and get a good setting than to rush it.

We're running a chronicle atm (and I'm actually playing for once!), but as soon as we're done with that I've promised the guys a Sabbat chronicle. So I've started to read through the books again for some inspiration, checking out Montreal and Mexico city by night, some of the clan books and the novels/trilogies etc. So some "new" inspiration so to speak wouldn't be all that bad =).

Btw, you worried about the legal part of your project. Check this out (if you havn't already found it):

http://www.white-wolf.com/fansites/fs_faq.php

Allow me to go a bit off topic here to say that Montreal by night is hands down one of my favorite books ever from the Vampire line. Mainly, for its characters, they have background so demented that it really looks like a gritty horror story. So it does influence me on the write-ups for a few of Rio's originals characters. Mexico city is a cool book and sets ideas for some cool chronicles, but its characters seems a bit too... shallow and uninspiring, with a few exceptions, when compared to some other by nights.

A little back on topic - expect some illustrations. Besides being a great pleasure to see the community receiving so well these ideas, the project also made me discover that I really like to do some photomanipulation stuff. Our next update probably will be something on that nature.

And yeah, I've seen Dark Pack rules before, and the way I'm doing things are totally okay according to the guidelines there. But thanks a lot for the heads up Teller. In fact by reading it again I noticed a few things that I didnt earlier (like a few copyright text that they ask you to use on fan-stuff).

Anyways, I'll be back to writing.