The default date for the vampire dark ages rpg is 1212, centuries after what the historians have traditionally dubbed the dark ages period. In the same vein, the Inquisition (along with the infamous spanish variety) wasn’t set in motion until much later than the canon of VtDA. Of course we’re talking here about the World of Darkness (WoD)’s history, where real world historical events have almost always supernatural actors in the background. In such a world it seems perfectly reasonable to have an Inquisition as soon as the 13th century (and they’re kind of the good guys too, or at least vindicated in torturing and burning people?). But what I meant to say is that, as an history buff myself, I find it oddly pleasant to take real events and put a WoD stamp on it, i.e. there’s an earthquake in Seville in 1356? That’s an andalusian mages’s retaliation against the vampire shadow reconquista, et voilà!

Player Characters (PCs:

• Harold Necros (Ben), 7th generation Cappadocian ancilla, Road of Bones, contacts with the Lazarenes
• Johan Grimes (Pascal), 7th generation Malkavian ancilla, Road of Sin, member of the Ordo Enigmatis
• Krad McClaleen (Chris) , 7th generation Gangrel ancilla, Road of the Beast, multiple diablerie
• Adhémar (Jason), 7th generation Kiasyd ancilla, Road of Caine, member of the Cainite Heresy

No stone left unturned at Merìda

Reunited in Badajoz after Harold’s diplomatic tour, the PCs decided to investigate what was happening in nearby Merìda. The small town (around 5000 pop) had many impressive roman ruins. The citizens were obviously fearful and they had organized night patrols. Evading those, the PCs first went to the ancient necropolis. There they found some evidence of occupation and a well-hidden pouch of almohad coins. Inside the pouch was also a severed hand, perfectly preserved, that Harold kept for study. Leaving the necropolis. They were followed by a black cat but Johan jumped on it using obfuscate and killed the poor creature. They then went to the amphitheatre and found an entrance blocked by a huge granite slab. Krad used potence and moved it aside without a sweat.

A stair led beneath the amphitheatre. Adhémar, with his heightened senses, saw a part of the stone wall that was more recent, despite the fact that it was expertly crafted to blend with the rest. Using again his supernatural strength, Krad pushed the wall down, revealing a treasure cache with andalusian coins, precious carpets, silver plates and other valuables. There was a prayer room which showed recent activity but not much else. The inhabitant(s) proved to be elusive. The next area they chose to investigate was the roman bridge, still intact after all those years.

They saw that the bridge’s arches provided perfectcly serviceable hideouts and proceeded to inspect the alcoves one by one. Krad transformed into a bat to accelerate the search but was soon swarmed by angry non-vampire ones. Krad just ignored them as they couldn’t bite through his fortitude-enhanced skin. But then, a thin figure got out of an alcove further along the bridge and jumped into the river. Oddly, use of auspex couldn’t reveal any aura in the river.The PCs tried to see if it would reemerge somewhere but at this very moment another figure, this one seriously ugly and bricked up, appeared from nowhere and attacked Johan from behind with a heavy hammer! Johan still managed to get out of the way and the mighty blow hit the pavement instead with a loud thud.

Meanwhile Krad just ignored the fight and chose to dive after the fleeing figure in the water, he saw it at the bottom, one arm stuck deep in the river bed and otherwise just being like a dessicated corpse, pushed one side by the current. Krad, tranformed back, seized the corpse with one hand but immediately felt an unholy force draining his strength away while the « corpse » (a cappadocian vampire using a mortis power) tried to push him away. Drained or not, Krad was still way stronger than his captive and kept a firm grip to bring him back to the surface.

The combat with the bricked-up figure, a nosferatu in fact, was concluded almost as soon as it started as Adhémar took two big swings of his 2-handed sword at him, struck him down and lopped his head off just like that.

The PCs wished to interrogate the vampire that Krad had fished out of the water but he proved adamant in his refusal to cooperate as they had just killed his companion. They kept him captive and brought him back to Badajoz.

Note: I had quite a different idea in mind for these two (Jakeem and Hamad) vampires of arabic descent. Those were survivors of Cordoua, in hiding in Merìda. I thought that if given the chance they would be useful allies if offered protection, Jakeem was a scholar and Hamad an architect, with the conundrum of having to, possibly, go against the wishes of a faction of christian fanatic vampires that would want them eliminated. It is true that the nosferatu attacked first, but only because they were aggressively pursued out of hiding. Without presence or dominate to help them, the two exiled vampires had caused much distress in the human population but they weren’t evil per se.