Roleplay / Shadows over the South

"Take it from somebody who has actually been to hell, Altair. The road to hell is paved with good intentions."

Shadows over the South is a Living World of Darkness game. Primarily set in the small town of Starke, Florida, the game centers around the sudden, massive influx of numerous supernaturals all at once, isolated from the larger supernatural community at first. In time, a fragile peace was set up between the various, disparate factions. Of course, those who prefer the status quo quickly took notice... and peace has a nasty habit of never being able to last.

With multiple pains being taken to ensure balance between the various types of characters and a plot that evolves by the week, the game itself is over a year old as of this writing. The game's website can be found here. The game's wiki can be found here. The game's Discord server can be found here, where the vast majority of the roleplaying is done.

---

Shadows over the South provides examples of:

• Absurdly Spacious Sewer: The Starke Catacombs, which obviously don't exist in real life. Indeed, it wouldn't be possible in real life, due to the water table in the Real Life city, which was lampshaded in the game. Of course, A Wizard Did It in the game. And by wizard, of course, we mean a Mage.
• Aerith and Bob: You have ordinary names like Thomas, Ivan, Vivian and Gabriel, then the unusual such as Sinestrae, Szarik and Veruka.
• All Myths Are True: All the gods are one flavor or another of either spirit, ex-mage, angel or something far worse... The problem is deciding which of them is true, which has at one time stated that there are actually several different aspects of Odin, even if they're all technically the same entity.
• All Your Powers Combined: Another point of the alliance, as the diversity of powers among all the splats offers them all a much bigger chance of surviving a much stronger force than a single splat might be able to tackle.
  "Way I see it, if the Amenti and a Corax can't find it, it can't be found."
• Always Someone Better: Even if you're the most badass, high-XP character in the game, there's always someone or something out there bigger, badder, and scarier than you, and if you make too much noise, it will take notice.
• Anti-Frustration Features: Vampires do not automatically fall asleep during the daylight hours, but they do need to avoid sunlight.
  • Mages also recover from Paradox much faster to account for the possibility of casting spells constantly, and no longer need months in order to read a grimoire.
  • Changelings have a far bigger buffer against banality, and only have to roll for it if the level of banality is truly intolerable (8 and above).
  • Amenti have a much more relaxed balance in order to not be forced to be assholes to the others for just existing as long as they do not intentionally go against the balance.
  • As of March 2019, Demons lose one point of Temporary Torment (but not Permanent Torment) per month, so long as they don't gain any for that month.
  • The 'Character Save Card' is a downplayed example. Once per character, if that character is going to die and there are no more saving throws left for the player to attempt, they may invoke their card to have the Storyteller pull a Deus ex Machina to save them. Note, however, that this cannot be used if the character death was the result of being Too Dumb to Live (i.e. purely the player's fault and not the fault of the dice), and it only saves them from death: That character is still at the Storyteller's mercy, and could very well end up owing a life debt to an NPC or with a very nasty flaw, in a few notable cases pushing this into Cruel Mercy territory on the part of the Storyteller.
• Anyone Can Die: There's a "No Stomping" rule for newbies (meaning, you can't just go around hunting new characters for sport; they're immune from PVP for a month unless they do something to bring it upon themselves), but that only applies to PVP. At one point, even the character with the highest XP at te time was killed in action, so it's generally a good idea not to get too attached to anyone in this game.
• The Apocalypse Brings Out the Best in People: More or less the entire premise of the game. You have the Garou and Fera fighting anything Wyrm-tainted, the Amenti forcibly enforcing the Balance at gunpoint, Vampires and Demons trying to hoard power for themselves, the Imbued trying to keep all of the above from growing too powerful as to protect normal humans, and Mages, Changelings, and Wraiths just trying to live while keeping (almost) everyone else at arm's length. But the moment shit hits the fan, Enemy Mine takes full affect, status quos are upended, and relationships are formed. Whether or not this can actually last is another matter entirely.
• Artistic License – Geography: Despite one of the game's admins actually living in the area, all of the Storytellers are upfront about the fact that the game's take on the locations in the story are not based on their Real Life equivalents. Only a few historical landmarks are used, though if somebody knows of a Real Life location in the area and wants to feature in a plot, go for it.
• Autobots, Rock Out!: Sometimes a Storyteller will drop a YouTube link to music before a particularly epic fight scene, to set the mood. Sometimes it will even be playing in-character, such as from an overturned car's blaring radio.
• Badass Crew: The characters who have been in the longest have developed a reputation for this, having taken down enemies way above their weight class like elder vampires, mages just below The Archmage, even an Earthbound. Other characters are taking notice, however, and are starting to view this group as a threat...
• Beethoven Was an Alien Spy: Particularly prevalent with Mage: The Ascension, with Keith Richards having been shown to be an Ecstatic, and Elon Musk having been implied to be a Void Engineer.
• Big Bad Ensemble: One of the core reasons why the supernaturals teamed up is because they realized that the bad things from every Splat do not discriminate, and will hunt them all equally. Then it got worse as Apophis and the Wyrm teamed up.
• Black-and-Gray Morality: The situation in Gainesville, from the perspective of many in Starke. With the previous Mêlée à Trois between the Sabbat, Pentex, and the Technocratic Union now largely replaced by Pentex and the Union fighting over what's left of Gainesville with the Amkhat taking potshots at both sides and at Starke, the majority opinion of the Council is that an Enemy Mine with the Technocracy may be possible, given that out of the three of them, the Technocracy is by far the Lesser of Two Evils given that they at least try to keep the Masses out of harm's way. The problem is their militant xenophobia toward 'Reality Deviants,' at least among their leadership.
• Canon Welding: Needs to be done sometimes as the books directly contradict each other often when not keeping to the same splat. And sometimes they do it in the same splat as well. And sometimes in the same sentence.
• Can't Catch Up: Steps were taken to avert this, such as Floor XP and the Catchup XP mechanics, in order to prevent the game from being completely dominated by characters who have been in the game for months as opposed to fresh-off-the-boat newbies.
• Cap: On how much XP one can earn in a month, to ensure that the hyperactive players do not outrun everyone by jumping into every possible scene, or that an ST does not abuse ST XP to quickly power up their characters. There's also a cap of 600 XP total before your character straight-up cannot earn any more and are heavily encouraged to retire... or become a Main Stage character.
• Competitive Balance: Several House Rules were put in place to ensure one splat cannot dominate every other splat (in large part due to White Wolf really not even trying to make the various splats balanced against one another). If they weren't in place, vampires and hunters would be extinct, demons, wraiths, and changelings would be hiding in a corner, and the rest of the game would be a free-for-all between the Werewolves, Mummies, and Mages.
  "The houserules seem daunting, but they're not. It's a few things here and there to make multi-splat less of a giant pain in the ass." - An admin
• Cutscene Power to the Max: Often used for plot purposes, both for player characters and NPCs alike. One particularly notable case was with Gabriel Martinez during "Blood, Drugs, and Magick," built up as a monstrously powerful Ravnos Elder... and then his now-legendarily funny boss fight happened.
• Cutting the Knot: STs in this game oppose railroading on principle, meaning this is an entirely valid tactic for players clever enough to figure out a way to do it. Some examples:
  • A group of extremist Knight Templar Hunters took an old Cold War era fallout shelter and converted it into a heavily-boobytrapped fortress, hoping to lure the PCs into a death trap where the Hunters would stage their Last Stand. The PCs instead planted demolition charges in the main entrance tunnel and warded the exterior (meaning they couldn't escape via magical means or even radio for help), leaving the Hunters inside to slowly starve to death once their supplies inevitably ran out.
  • In a similar manner, a group of renegade Mages had holed up inside a building that the PCs were sure was boobytrapped. While the other PCs were arguing amongst themselves how to attempt to disable the traps remotely with magick, the Technocrat present stomped right passed them and fired a single canister of totally-mundane CS gas through a window. The Mages were outside surrendering while violently coughing less than a minute later.
    Jim Mathers: "And you wonder why you're losing the Ascension War."
  • A vampire with high Potence was wielding a One-Handed Zweihänder and getting all kinda of lucky dice rolls, both in saving throws and attack rolls, and was one more lucky roll away from killing a PC. So what does Joy Livingstone do? Use Matter and Forces to make the damned thing exactly as heavy as it looked, causing the vampire to drop it even with Potence. He was dust the very next turn.
• Enemy Mine:
  • The reason why the local Camarilla and the local Garou Sept buried the hatchet, at least at first. The Sabbat and the Black Spiral Dancers were attacking both sides indiscriminately, and due to mutual Villain Respect between the Sept Elder and the then-Prince, both sides called a truce until they could defeat their mutual enemies. This true continues to this day, though not without consternation from hard-liners on both sides. This was also seemingly the rationale behind the Study Continuum Chantry throwing in their lot with Starke, until the Ranger's true identity was revealed.
  • This is also the rationale for why the Hunters are trying to make peace with Starke, though this also has drawn heavy criticism from of the more extreme corners of Hunternet... especially Waywards and members of the Society of Leopold.
  • The Technocratic Union is another big one. Many of the Traditions mages really hate their guts (and for good reason), and even the Hunters don't trust them despite the overlap in their overall goals, knowing just how much firepower and influence over nearly all aspects of mortal society the Technocracy has and that they've shown on multiple occasions that they're not afraid to use it. Still, the Council agrees that peace is in everyone's best interest, and the Technocracy has shown some willingness to cooperate against groups like the Black Spiral Dancers and the Amkhat, but how long genuine peace with them can last is anyone's guess.
• Energy Economy: In order to give a more monetary incentive, the council splats officially trades in Tass, the mage currency, and the other Splats have been given abilities in order to obtain it from their own energy sources. Or you can just get it as loot.
• Experience Points: As per the source material. Of note is that players receive 2 XP every week (as long as they are at least semi-active) and a Storyteller can assign one of their characters just as much XP as they gave to any characters in a scene they ran, to encourage the running of said scenes, as well as admin XP, to offer a payback for managing the extensive structure the game uses in running such as the forum, site and discord server.
• Extra-Strength Masquerade: Those who do notice weird things going on in Starke just shrug their shoulders and realize that they live in Florida.
• Fantasy Kitchen Sink: Vampires? They're real. Werewolves? They're real. Ghosts? They're real. Wizards? They're real. The Egyptian Gods, demons and angels, even fairies and goblins? Noticing a pattern here?
• Four Lines, All Waiting: Every storyteller is encouraged to have their own plots, and while attempts are made to make them tie into each other, sometimes that just isn't possible, and given timezone differences and the real-time nature of Living World of Darkness games, the different plots can give this feeling.
• Genre Shift: Experienced one when the previous administration was removed, which also changed the location of the story. The previous owner was much more strict.
• Hard Levels, Easy Bosses: While most bosses are rather well statted to prove a challenge to even the diversity of powers in the game, and the STs try to make them a challenge without resorting to straight-up railroading, certain characters, like Altair, were designed to survive in a much more difficult setting and can usually stomp them hard. Thus, this trope applies even when it isn't intentional, especially in cases such as the Blood, Drugs, and Magick and The Lady of Discord plotlines, where actually getting into a fight with the bosses was hard, but they did not last longer than a turn.
• I Take Offense to That Last One:
  • A common reaction from Fallen to being compared to Fomori. They're not offended by being called evil spirits that possess human hosts, they're offended by the implication that they come from the Wyrm, when few Fallen have even heard of the Wyrm, and indeed actual Fomori have been known to attack Fallen as much as they attack anything else.
  • In a similar vein, most Technocrats roll their eyes any time a Traditions Mage accuses them of being power-hungry fascists, while others will point out that when the Traditions ruled the world, they were even worse. They do, however, tend to take offense whenever a Shapechanger of some flavor accuses them of being servants of the Weaver, as they find the idea of them being an Unwitting Pawn to some EDE few of them have even heard of to be deeply insulting.
• Katanas Are Just Better: Averted. Other swords were brought to be in-line with katanas stat-wise, which, in the books, really are just better for... some reason.
• Lighter and Softer: When compared to the usual World of Darkness game, and often called out as such, which has in turn averted what becomes of the servers who keep the original recipe.
• Mauve Shirt: Several NPCs such as the vampires' ghouls, demons' thralls, or the staff at the Chantry. Some of them become so well-liked that they become a Breakout Character, as was the case with Ada Hendricks.
• Mechanically Unusual Class: Several of the Limited character types are this. Examples include the Void Engineers for Mage: The Ascension, Risen for Wraith: The Oblivion, and Earthbound for Demon: The Fallen. The storytellers who allow characters like this straight-up warn players that attempting to play them is effectively playing on hard mode for one reason or another, including being kill-on-sight for other characters, specifically to deter Special Snowflake Syndrome.
• Mega Crossover: The entire World of Darkness. Bring some books or have a wiki handy, you're going to need them.
• More Friends, More Benefits: Getting enough friends in high places, whether they be player characters or NPCs, is a possible route to power, just like in every other World of Darkness game. Of course, keeping that power is another matter entirely...
• Mutual Disadvantage: Sums up the state of the conflict between the Technocracy and Pentex. The latter knows that it can't win a straight fight against the former due to being massively outnumbered and outgunned, and waging economic warfare against a group counting the Syndicate as one of its main assets would be financial suicide. The former, however, is extremely reluctant to bring down the full force of its vast arsenal and financial assets against the latter due to the fact that Pentex has a nasty habit of using its employees — most of whom are average Joes just trying to earn a paycheck and have no idea what their bosses are really up to — as human shields, and considering that Pentex is the very definition of 'too big to fail,' it going belly-up financially would trigger a global economic recession if not a full-blown depression with the Masses feeling the worst of it, and that's assuming it doesn't get just bailed out by the taxpayers. The result is a stalemate that only the player characters can break, meaning they have to decide if aiding the Lesser of Two Evils is worth it.
• Nerds Are Naïve: Simon was noticeably apprehensive about changing into the VR system's synaptic bodysuit with Teen Genius Alissa watching during his first Seeking scene. Alissa, oblivious to why Simon didn't want to get half naked in front of her, instead surmises that it must be because that bodysuit was universally hated by Technocrats at the Symposium due to it being made from uncomfortably form-fitting Future Spandex. She then assures him that she personally overhauled the VR system and it no longer needed the suit.
• New Game Plus: The Retiring mechanic can be seen as a form of this. When you voluntarily retire a character, you are allowed to create a new character with 25% of the retired character's XP as Floor XP.
• No Campaign for the Wicked: Some character types, such as Nephandi, Black Spiral Dancers, and Baali are banned due to being impossible to implement into this setting without the game turning into a Player Versus Player free-for-all. The ones that aren’t banned are allowed on the grounds that they're only Ambiguously Evil or are Hero Antagonists such as Technocrats and Waywards (though in their cases, they’re Limited, meaning only established players the STs trust will be allowed to play them). Others are much less Ambiguously Evil, and the STs are experimenting with allowing certain things to be playable (such Earthbound for Demon: The Fallen).
• Not in This for Your Revolution: While there are a few true believers in Starke's vision, there are several characters who are just going along for the ride because they personally benefit from the protection of other characters, or they feel they can manipulate the others into serving their own interests.
• One-Steve Limit:
  • Thoroughly averted with the name 'Michael.' There's at least two NPCs named 'Michael' (and that's not even counting the Archangel Michael from Demon: The Fallen's background) as well as one player character named Michael.
  • Also averted with the names 'William,' 'Daniel,' and 'Madeline.' Exaggerated with the name 'Alex,' when there were 'three' different characters named Alex at once, two male and one female.
• Prestige Class: So-called 'Main Stage' characters. These are characters who successfully reached the 600 XP cap without being retired for one or another before then, and become so famous in-game that they become a part of the lore of their own splats (Status 6 and higher, mechanically). They are explicitly forbidden from taking part in plots not specifically tailored for them (so as to avoid being a Spotlight-Stealing Squad or a Crutch Character), but those plots that are meant for them are Harder Than Hard.
• Put on a Bus: More often than not, when a character is retired. This allows for that character to come back in some way, such as when a former player returns and wants to pick that character back up, or if that character was beloved enough to become an NPC. In other, much rarer circumstances, they're Killed Offscreen, usually when the Storytellers know that that character (or their player) is for sure never coming back.
• Real Life Writes the Plot:
  • Hurricane Michael's effects on Florida were reflected in the game, much to the amusement of at least one character in the game named Michael.
  • Thoroughly averted with the Covid-19 outbreak. Given that several players and storytellers have had their lives negatively affected by the virus, storytellers immediately ruled out having any sort of plotline based on it, as it would have been in very poor taste.
  • Anything based on Real Life politics - especially in the United States - is also strictly off-limits, due to just about anything political these days being potent Flame Bait.
• Shout-Out:
  • Several. Characters regularly make references to everything from Pokémon GO to Game of Thrones. When Lucifer finally appeared, he was pretty blatantly, well, Lucifer.
  • When the Hunters needed help dealing with some rogue Wraiths, a type of supernatural they are not well-equipped to deal with, they came up with the idea of asking the Void Engineers for help. The ST of that scene titled the scene, "Who You Gonna Call?"
• Skill Point Reset: Your first one is free. Every respec after that will shave an increasing percentage of XP from your character.
• Storming the Castle: Several times, often during the conclusions of major plotlines. The first was the conclusion of the 'Blood, Drugs, and Magick' plotline, and the second was 'The Once and Future Prince.'
• Talking Is a Free Action: Almost always. Unless one of the Storytellers decides to be a jerk.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork:
  • All over the place. Werewolves and vampires in Starke, for example, have come to realize that there are greater threats out there than each other and are willing to fight together to defeat them, but that sure as hell doesn't mean they have to like it.
  • Definitely between the Continuum Study Chantry and the Technocracy. Claire Weldon and Joy Livingstone barely even try to hide their contempt for one another, but Joy, having seen for herself just how dangerous Threat Null is even before becoming leader of the Chantry, admits that the Void Engineers at least have a point about them in particular.
• Town with a Dark Secret: Starke, Florida, founded by one Amadeus Starke, is built right on top of a massive, underground magickal research facility, that has existed in temporal stasis for centuries. The Sabbat found out about it, which is why they keep attacking the city. They think that a sleeping ancient is down there, somewhere, and they want to do what what they do best. The players found out about it eventually, kicking the game's metaplot into high gear.
• Urban Fantasy: The game's primary setting is in a small town in Florida, though other settings have included Jacksonville, Gainesville, and Amelia Island.
• Video Game Caring Potential: Aside from the mechanics found in various splats that encourage this, a notable example involved Sofia Gómez's return as a Wraith. Madeline Cooper's own Vengeance Sword appeared, and after Joy Livingstone scored a ridiculously lucky number of successess on a damage roll with it, Sofia only had a single health level remaining. Joy could have easily finished her off. What did she and Michael do, instead? Offered her mercy and then helped her pass on, allowing her Avatar another chance at reincarnation. Even the Storyteller running the scene admitted he didn't see that coming, and threw in another reward for both players afterward.
• We ARE Struggling Together: The true believers in Starke, most notably at least one former Visionary Hunter, make this into an artform. They've managed to get a few people in high places, such as Imbued in the United States Government, a Garou Sept Elder, and a Camarilla Prince to at least give it a shot, but the rest of the major players in supernatural society are all either skeptical at best and openly hostile to the idea at worst.
• We Hardly Knew Ye: Some of the named mooks have been particularly memorable as characters for funny one-liners or being a Boss in Mook's Clothing due to particularly lucky (or unlucky) dice rolls. Few of them make second appearances.
• What the Hell, Player?: Certain STs have been known to use the Common Sense merit (assuming the character has it) to all but reach through the Fourth Wall and shake that character by the shoulders either before or after they make a questionable decision.
• World Half Full: The World of Darkness is one of the most notorious examples of a Crapsack World in all of tabletop. It pretty much defined the Gothic Punk subgenre. While it's still very much a Crapsack World here, Starke is a rare island in an endless sea of crap, but even those that live there question as to how long it can possibly last until the rest of the world takes notices and tries to throttle it in the crib.
• Xanatos Gambit: How Pentex has boxed the Technocracy into a corner when it comes to the stalemate between them. They know the Syndicate can't run their usual playbook against them given that Pentex going bankrupt would bring a considerable portion of the global economy down with them, which in the long term means more suffering for the Masses and therefore more Banes. More direct action is out of the question as well, given that the vast majority of Pentex's employees are innocent members of the Masses who would inevitably be caught in the crossfire. Pentex can't win against them, but they don't have to, because they can't lose, either.