I created the following “One Night Plays” when not all of my regular players could make it to a game. This was so the absent players didn’t miss out on anything related to the core campaign.
Most of these plays were on-the-spot creative endeavors that I used to add more background and history to my main campaigns.
| 3000 BC – A Fire in Memphis | 83 AD – When in Rome … |
| 387 AD – Macaw Feathers and Yax Spots | 495 AD – The Once and Future King |
| 515 AD – On the Road to Avebury | 600 AD – On the Viking Coast |
| 778 AD – The Horn of Roland | 1100 AD – A History of Clan Bahari |
| 1189 AD – A Castle in Spain | 1250 AD – A Templar Knight Falls |
| 1500 AD – The Ottoman Turks | 1614 AD – The Blood Countess |
| 1640 AD – A Small Matter of a Dagger | 1671 AD – A Storm at Sea |
| 1725 AD – The Legend of the Firebird | 1731 AD – A Death in the Family |
| 1760 AD – The Pirate King | 1850 AD – A Gamble Lost |
| 1878 AD – The Wild West | 1888 AD – Jack the Ripper |
| 1896 AD – The Strange Case of the Sussex Vampire | 1897 AD – Dracula |
| 1910 AD – Jack the Ripper II | 1922 AD – The Roaring 20s |
| 1995 AD – Let’s Try Again | 1997 AD – The Lady of the Lake |
3000 BC – A Fire in Memphis
Lillane’s Sire Leda becomes a monster of the first order and slays thousands, including Theshen, an Egyptian architect and Lillane’s lover. After Leda kills Theshen, Lillane determines a plan for Leda’s destruction.
Having identified the yet-to-be awakened Angel and Phoenix – the Angel is a Priestess of Isis and the Phoenix is a General in Pharaoh’s Army – Lillane realizes she has a way of destroying Leda. Lillane runs the General through with a sword, awakening him to his true nature and powers. He awakens the Angel in the same manner – brutal but effective.
The Angel and Phoenix use their powers of Air and Fire respectively to create a conflagration that severely weakens Leda. Lillane steps up, kills Leda and drinks her blood, thus becoming a truly awesome 2nd Gen vampire. She commences using Leda’s name in order to trade off the fear Leda instilled in the populace.
83 AD – When in Rome
Lillane (as Livillia) brings her reincarnated lover Theshen, now Tribune Aquila Sabinus Tatianus, into Clan Bahari as her ghoul. Lillane also makes Monico, a citizen of Rome, her ghoul.
Read Rome 83 AD.
387 AD – Macaw Feathers and Yax Spots
The Phoenix incarnates as K’inick Yax K’uk’ Mo’, Sun-eyed Green Quetzal Macaw, in what will become Honduras, Central America. He establishes the Mayan Copan dynasty in 426 AD and rules until 738 AD when he is poisoned, captured and sacrificed by the king of a rival city-state. The Angel incarnates as the god-king’s Shaman-Priestess, and dies soon after his murder.
495 – The Once and Future King
Beginning of the Arthurian Britain campaign. Lillane (as “Lady Leda”) embraces Sir Brion, an Irish knight after he is possessed by the Morrigan. Lucifer (as “Lucien”) builds several castles of advanced structure to educate the locals.
515 – On the Road to Avebury
Britain
Lillane embraces Gwyn, a female Celtic knight after Gwyn dies protecting Lillane from brigands on the road to Avebury.
600 – On the Viking Coast
Lillane embraces Wolfstead Hengisson, a Saxon warrior of impressive stature and abilities.
778 – The Horn of Roland
Roncesvaux, Pyrenees
Lillane embraces Roland at the scene of his defeat by the Basques. She also embraces Raushan ibn Taariq at the request of her blood brother, Lucifer. Unknown to Raushan, Lucifer is his biological father.
1100 – A History of Clan Bahari
Jerusalem
Lillane has an illuminated manuscript prepared by a young monk. The manuscript contains the history of Clan Bahari, disguised as religious poetry.
1189 AD – A Castle in Spain
Sadaba, Spain
Beginning of the Dark Ages campaign.
1250 – A Templar Knight Falls
Spain
A Templar Knight loses his life protecting a message from Lillane to Abdiel. She keeps the knight’s sword and blood-stained overshirt as reminders of human fragility and mortality.
1500 – The Ottoman Turks
Lillane and Tyler settle in the midst of the Ottoman Empire.
1614 – The Blood Countess
Hungary
After Countess Elizabeth Bathory murders one of Lillane’s protected kinswomen, Lucifer (as “Ludovic”) encourages two locals, a writer, and a German soldier, to investigate Castle Bathory. Lillane retaliates by walling Elizabeth up in her own castle.
Later, Lillane embraces the soldier.
1640 – A Small Matter of a Dagger
Narbonne, France
Lillane and Tyler are importing Spanish horses into Narbonne from Andorra, Spain. Two Musketeers south on the business of the King aid in recovering Lillane’s ceremonial dagger. A local lord is attempting to use it to raise Lucifer (as “Lucien”), who appears in his Fallen form.
1671 – A Storm at Sea
Jamaica, West Indies
Lillane and Tyler are aboard a Spanish galleon bound for Jamaica when the ship is crippled by a violent storm. To survive, Lillane and Tyler kill some of the crew. Tyler is locked in the brig and Lillane doesn’t rescue him – punishment for getting her “stuck on this damned ship in the middle of nowhere”.
On arrival in Caribbean waters southwest of Jamaica, the ship appears “deserted”. Tyler is released from the brig by curious pirates under the command of Captain Henry Morgan. Morgan is returning from his successful raid on Panama. The pirates include Michael Winter’s earlier incarnation, one William (Bill) Mains, a 23-year-old Cornishman who jumped ship from the British Navy.
While trying to salvage the ship and its treasure, the pirates run foul of Lillane. She embraces one of the pirates, a 35-year-old Frenchman named Jacques, because he assists her in escaping Morgan’s crewmen.
On returning to Jamaica, Lillane ingratiates herself with Morgan and “persuades” him to part with his treasure, including the contents of the Spanish galleon. On discovering that the treasure is missing, Morgan’s crew capture him and send him back to England in 1672 to answer charges of piracy. In England Morgan is treated as a hero and returns to Jamaica as lieutenant-governor, where he lives quietly thereafter.
1725 – The Legend of the Firebird
Lucifer (as “Count Vladimir Ludevich Petrov syn Turgeneva”), hereditary noble, landowner and builder of bridges, cathedrals, and palaces, has been commissioned by Tsar Peter the Great to build the first floating bridge over the Neva River in the new capital of St Petersburg. Assisting the Count is Rafael, a young Venetian architect and canal builder, newly arrived in the “Venice of the North” after leaving a difficult and dangerous personal situation in somewhat of a hurry.
New at Court is the very earnest young Boris Alekseyevich Golitsyn II, 17 years old and a student at the St Petersburg Academy, and his beautiful sister Illaria (16). Boris and Illaria are the grandchildren of the great Russian statesman and friend of Peter the Great, the late Boris Alekseyevich Golitsyn. Illaria is making her formal debut into Russian society at a magnificent Court function attended by all the important people in St Petersburg, including many foreign dignitaries such as “Count Temnoi Ostromirich” (Tyler) and his wife, “Countess Volodimerna Lidena” (Lillane) from Novgorod, north-western Russia, and by Peter the Great himself.
During the course of the next few days, Illaria sickens with river fever. She is quarantined in a room at Count Petrov’s palace while he tries to treat her illness. He recognizes that Illaria is a nascent air Ka Nephilim, an Angel. Having some prior experience with Angels, Count Petrov uses Illaria’s black lacquer jewel box to summon another of her kind, the legendary Russian Firebird, a fire Ka Nephilim.
The jewel box contains a solid silver tube engraved with Firebird images, the container for a thick vellum scroll on which is written the Legend of the Firebird. The box comes from Dagestan in the Northern Caucasus (a forward point on the Great Silk Road).
Illaria, at death’s door and rapidly coming into her own as an Angel, is taken away from Count Petrov’s palace in the arms of the Firebird, who will now care for her and guide her into her new way of life.
Count Petrov completes the first floating bridge over the Neva River in 1727, two years after Tsar Peter’s death. Soon more than 370 such bridges are built over the many man-made canals and river channels, as well as fine stone palaces, houses, government buildings, hospitals, squares and broad avenues, at the cost of over 30,000 human lives. St Petersburg rests on a swamp of human bones.
1731 – A Death in the Family
North Americas
Lillane and Tyler spend time in the deep snows of North America tracking down and executing one of Lillane’s progeny, the German soldier embraced in 1614 in Hungary. An impulsive move on Lillane’s part spawned a cunning and brutal menace who cut a trail of terror from Europe to the New World.
1760 – The Pirate King
Madagascar
A Lady Missionary, a Sea Captain, and a Blacksmith are kidnapped by pirates while trying to assist the dying cargo of an abandoned slave ship aground on the shores of East Africa. They find themselves reluctant guests of Lord Rescator, a pirate king feared throughout the high seas and trapped in his island stronghold on the seaward coast of Madagascar.
Here they try to make a new life for themselves. The blacksmith learns to make weapons, the sea captain sells his soul to the devil in exchange for a ship and a pirate crew of his own, and the missionary, having escaped, returns of her own free will to be a thorn in Lord Rescator’s side.
1850 – A Gamble Lost
New Orleans, Louisiana
Lillane and Tyler track another of her renegade progeny, Jacques, to New Orleans and then on to Baton Rouge. On a Mississippi steam paddle-wheeler, they execute Jacques, thus correcting another of Lillane’s errors of judgment.
1878 – The Wild West
Kenneton Wells, Arizona
Start of the Modern campaign. A time-traveling 1920s writer and photographer meets the Wild West US Marshall of her dreams and takes him back home with her to Los Angeles, 1925.
1888 – Jack the Ripper
London, England
Lillane and Tyler search for a renegade vampire known as “Jack the Ripper” who is slaughtering women of ill repute. Jack is, surprisingly, not one of Lillane’s progeny but a Ventrue of high position in the English aristocracy. Against Tyler’s better judgment, Lillane embraces an alcoholic East End Doctor after the Doctor’s hand is severely damaged in a confrontation with Jack.
1896 – The Strange Case of the Sussex Vampire
Sussex, England
November 20th to 22nd – the adventure of the Sussex Vampire in Lamberly, south of Horsham in Sussex, with the famous Sherlock Holmes. Lillane and Tyler are posing as Lily and Thomas, English aristocrats and neighbors of the protagonists. Tyler (as “Thomas”) is importing Andalusian horses from Spain and already has a fine stallion called Cappodocian.
1897 – Dracula
Whitby, England
Once a Ventrue, always a Ventrue.
1910 – Jack the Ripper II
Lillane and Tyler travel to Cape Town and Johannesburg in pursuit of a 3rd Gen Doctor skilled with a scalpel. Once again, Clan Bahari feels the death of one of their own. Tyler knows better than to say “I told you so”.
1922 to 1933 – The Roaring Twenties
New York, Boston, and Long Island, USA
Nothing like a little prohibition, bootlegging, racketeering, Charleston dances, and Long Island Teas to put a jaded 5,000-year-old 2nd Gen in a better frame of mind.
1995 – Let’s Try Again
After nearly three centuries spent tracking down and executing renegade progeny, Lillane and Tyler opt for the quiet life in the Antipodes. Lillane embraces four new Bahari after recognizing each person as a recent incarnation of a prior acquaintance, and begins training them in their new “un-life”.
She blood bonds Sam without his knowledge of the consequences, reveals the purpose of her ceremonial dagger, shows her neophytes some of the contents of the cellar, and invites them through the portal in the attic – the entrance to Lucifer’s retreat.
Tyler sighs resignedly and continues to improve his swordsmanship.
1997 – The Lady of the Lake
Brazil, South America
Gwyn atones for her role in the deaths of several children by recovering Excalibur and preventing Cthulhu cultists from using it to power the Dark Circle. Lillane decides not to execute Gwyn for her transgressions and reinstates Gwyn as Excalibur’s Keeper.