u/Alfy55

I wanted to keep practicing my Photoshop skills, so I made these title cards for each of the PCs in my chronicle. They all come with unique context and meaning I wanted to share here :>

• Cassandra of Troy: The actual princess that met her fate during the war of Troy. She was a priestess for the god Apollo (a Malkavian) because in my story many of the deities of old were in fact kindred passing as gods. He embraced Cassandra giving her the vision of the wooden horse which went unheard. Then, she mysteriously turned into a marble statue as they were about to chop her head off with an axe. She remained a statue for 3,000 years before finally someone broke her spell in Portland, 2005.

  • The text framing the top and bottom is supposed to look like some ancient Greek art where I see they like to add two borderlines with a pattern. The words are part of the lyrics for "Cassandra" by Abba (a band the player loves).
  • The small stars in her name are a nod to Apollo as god of the sun and how he sealed this fate for her.

• Draven the Viking: Draven was a Viking that, alongside Leif Erikson, were amongst the first to arrive in America. His group was ambushed by a coterie of Gangrels that after seeing his strength in somehow managing to kill 2 of their group, decided to keep him as a ghoul for a long time before finally embracing them. The moment that happened, he killed everyone and escaped into the woods. Lost for 1,000 years in a savage/feral state as his inner beast took over the entire time before finally brought back to civilization in 2005.

  • The text in the backdrop are all titles he has held by other people. He accidentally started the myth of bigfoot/sasquatch, he has also been confused by locals with a wendigo, skin-walker (naaldlooshii), and various other myths depending on who saw him.
  • The knife is one he had for a thousand years and (through suspension of disbelief) survived until today. The last remnant of his previous identity which he has trouble remembering.
  • The quote "Living in the shadows" is from a song with the same name by Matthew Perryman that I feel represents his state during his backstory.

• Thomasine Blackwood: Her family arrived and settled in Salem, Massachusetts during colonial times. There, she delved in witchcraft though the help of a mentor she met, and became a Mage (Order of Hermes). She was then discovered and arrested by the town same as her entire family and lover. In desperation, she accepted a deal from a mysterious woman that came to her cell the night before her execution, offering her great power to save her loved ones. She was subsequently embraced and turned into a Tremere. The town found out she had turned into a vampire, so they staked her through the heart and buried her while in torpor thinking that would kill her. She was finally rescued 300 years later in 2005 after her coffin was brought all the way to Portland.

  • The VVitch is spelt like so as a nod to the movie that inspired the character concept for the player.
  • "Crawled from under the earth" and "Rises the moon" are quotes from two separate songs with the same name that together paint a good picture of her backstory (since she was always associated with the moon).

Additionally, some extra notes to consider are the color theme is the color I as the Storyteller identify for each character. Cassandra is yellow because her eyes glow yellow when she has strong visions (courtesy of Apollo), Draven is green because he is so nature-coded, and Thomasine is blue because of the moonlight association.

So as you can see, these are all vampires lost in time that were embraced just moments before mentally teleporting to the modern day. A mysterious Ministry vampire brought them all together hoping he could get something out of them. He believed they'd all be elders (they aren't) he could manipulate while posing as a mentor. And that is the premise for how my first chronicle started last year!

The last image was just the first test I did before doing the PCs title cards. Wanted to include it as well!

TL;DR: I made covers for the chapters of our first ever VTM game that I use in discord alongside a song intro for each chapter like it's opening. I made a (quite long) summary of the context and reasoning behind each chapter cover, and it's song in case anyone was interested and to see if it could inspire anyone to do something similar in their games!

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Hi! I wanted so share some more art I've done for our first time playing VTM! Instead of "Stories" I chose to divide the chronicle into chapters, making it feel more like a book or a video game. I use these covers in one of our discord channels, along the link to an intro song which I play every session of that chapter like a series opening!

So here are my covers I made in photoshop. Chapter 0 was only for the first introduction session, thereafter each chapter has taken on average 3-7 sessions. Each cover is themed on what that chapter will contain, making it fun to see my players struggle to decipher any secret meaning or clue from the cover alone. Each name was chosen because it fit the story and also using a reference, joke or quote from something else in media. The song I use for that chapter's opening also holds a lot of context and symbolism in the lyrics.

I've made a summary in case anyone is curious and maybe this inspires you with how we have been managing our silly and very angsty game:

• Chapter 0: The players awoke lost in time. A viking (Gangrel) that had lived in a feral state for 1,000 years always moving west. A witch (Tremere) staked in Salem and left in a coffin in torpor for 300 years. A princess of troy (Malkavian) cursed and turned into a statue for 3,000 years. All were "rescued" on the same night by a mysterious kindred who offered to be their mentor, both to understand their vampiric nature (which none had been conscious enough to understand after all these centuries), and the reality of the modern world of 2005.
  • The name is a reference to Portal 2 which has a similar chapter name for its start. All three kindred finally "awoke" after their embrace and subsequently "time travel".
  • The image is to represent they all woke up in an abandoned cabin in the woods of Oregon under a starlit sky.
  • No song opening was used for this chapter because we had just started.
• Chapter 1: The story starts! The coterie is trying to figure out what happened to them, who this strange mentor figure is and what he wants from them.
  • The name is a reference to the quote "with one foot IN the grave" only kindred are coming out ;D
  • The image shows their first steps into the city of Portland!
  • The chapter intro is Rises the moon because this first chronicle covers the witch's story first. So most intros revolve around her character for now. She was associated with the moon in her backstory, so now the moon rises again.
• Chapter 2: The coterie is encountering their first personal struggles. Not everything is as it seems, and they haven't had time to process their trauma...
  • The name is a reference to a quote said in the movie "The VVitch" which was a big inspiration for the Tremere character. This was a nod to that.
  • The image is because they've all found a new home in a quiet area of the city. A neighborhood surrounded by nature.
  • The chapter intro is Laplace's Angel which the lyrics explain well. The Tremere is out for blood. She wants revenge on the descendants of those who wronged her (the priest, the town mayor, and her brother-in-law). Something the rest of the coterie aren't okay with.
• Chapter 3: The main story continues. They've now come to find this mentor needs their help. He thought he was finding naive elders lost in time. In reality for shenanigans (and mechanic reasons) they are all gen 12th. At this point the mentor wants help overthrowing two human criminal families. Last chapter they dealt with the one on the east side of Portland, now they are after the family that controls the west.
  • The name is a popular reference to WW1 which felt fitting with what they were doing.
  • The image made my players think they were having a beach episode lol. In reality, it was because there was going to be a massacre orchestrated by the mentor figure, on a wedding for the criminal family in their private yacht.
  • The chapter intro is The Emptiness Machine because the coterie is finally truly bonding and the lyrics shares what they all have in common in their angsty little backstories.
• Chapter 4: We finally are delving into the Tremere's backstory. She was looking for her Sire, hoping for answers on what happened after she went on torpor immediately after being staked 300 years ago in Salem. What she didn't expect, was her sire had a new coterie. A witch coven if you will. And her new childe are people the Tremere knew... her sister, and her ex-girlfriend...
  • The name is just a reference to how this chapter introduces more of the Tremere's backstory.
  • The image shows a camper/caravan like the one her sire uses to transport her and her coven around the country.
  • This chapter intro is The Devil Within. It shows the struggles of the Tremere because I did something cool here imo. I read that if a mage gets embraced, the avatar is lost and consumed by the inner beast. I liked the symbolism in that, so I took it a step further. I gave her inner beast a conscience, and she manifests physically in the Tremere's headspace. The Tremere is having actual arguments and fights with the inner beast and these lyrics are a representation of the Tremere and her inner beast exchanging words!
  • This chapter also had an Outro song I played after the session. Maybe which the lyrics are supposed to be sung by the Tremere's sire dedicated to the Tremere player, who wants nothing more than to get her childe back, but only when she finally breaks. When the Tremere realizes she won't be able to save her loved ones from her sire and all she can do is come crawling in her knees to welcome her in the coven knowing her place. Because our Tremere is a rebel with a strong fire inside her!
• Chapter 5: The current chapter! They are finally realizing their mentor is not a good influence for them (it's complicated) and the coterie is trying to find the Tremere's sire again so they can rescue her sister and ex-girlfriend from her claws.
  • The name is not a reference. Just to summarize this chapter is about the coterie finding themselves while also on the quest to help the Tremere with her problem.
  • The image is just to show they are in November now (the story started in late August) so there is snow showing up. The red truck is the mentor's truck they've been using for transportation this whole time.
  • The chapter intro is Monsters which the lyrics encapsulate perfectly well how the entire coterie feels right now. Because everyone has backstory traumas and 2/3 have sire issues too!

So yea! This is the longest post I've ever made on Reddit lol. Sooo thank you for reading through all these if you did. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this idea of the chapter covers, the intro songs or even just the story summary so far.

This is our first time playing VTM after all, but we've been enjoying it so much so far. Who knew a bunch of dnd nerds really wanted a place to be angsty young vampire adults lol. And sorry for the long post, so have a potato! 🥔

It has been almost 1 entire year and 31 sessions total since we began playing VTM for the first time. At some point we decided to make a "Vampire dex" where we would document all the vampires we encountered. We kinda fell on that plan, so I as the storyteller did this for my players. To incentivize them to immerse themselves in the story, I gave them a fun side quest to uncover all the clans while In-Character. After 31 sessions these are all the clans they have confirmed so far. Every time they unlock one I grant them +1 exp!

You can find the fully filled and empty versions on a previous post of mine I made 7 months ago. Like always, original credit for the base pixel art for most of the clan logos goes to raindropsonwhiskers. I only made the 4 missing ones, touched it up a bit before turning them into badges and making the case itself. The font is the Pokemon ruby I found online.

For anyone interested here is a little insight on how they've acquired the information and in what order, as well as a short summary of the cool concepts of my player characters:

• Gangrel, Malkavian, and Tremere are the player clans, so they started with those by default. They are all vampires lost in time.
  • A Viking (Gangrel) who was part of the Leif Erikson expedition when they first arrived to America, living off in the woods for a thousand years in an almost feral semi-unconscious state. He is the reason the bigfoot myth exists.
  • The actual princess Cassandra of Troy (Malkavian) who was cursed and turned into a statue after the troyan war, until rescued by her new "step-sire", who tracked her around the globe as the statue kept being relocated every so often.
  • A young witch (Tremere) from Salem who was a WoD Mage before the village caught her and then, upon accepting a deal from a mysterious undead woman, was subsequently embraced, staked through the heart and buried in a coffin while in torpor all in the same night, for the last 300 years.
• Their step-sire is a Ministry that tracked and brought the entire coterie together one by one. He later confessed his clan after they pressured him on it.
• A not-so-friendly coterie they fought against turned out to be Banu Haqim.
• The Viking wanted to de-age his body, so they found a Thin-Blood that could produce a potion for him.
• One of the prince's advisors is an ancient Nosferatu that hides his appearance under a hare mask.
• Finally, they met their first Salubri two sessions ago after the same prince's advisor requested their aid to smuggle the Salubri away since it was revealed to him kindred traffickers were after him.

Sooo yea, just wanted to share this with the community! :>