Published by Choice of Games and written by Jason Stevan Hill. The series previously consisted of Choice of the Vampire
and the sequel, Choice of Vampire: The Fall of Memphis, but with the release of part 4, St. Louis, Unreal City, it all became one game.
Beginning in the Battle of New Orleans in 1815, you play a newly turned vampire who must now figure out what they will do with the rest of their unlife and find their place in the Society. So far the series has covered almost an entire century as the PC travels to many cities, interacts with many reoccurring vampire characters, encounters historical people and deals with the sudden revolution in the Society that's causing everyone to pick sides.
Tropes:
- Black Gal on White Guy Drama: Can be acknowledged with two mortals you can date. Silas, a Confederate soldier, is willing to court a female PC but points out that things could be bad if they were discovered, while the second Clotho can show some worry about courting a white PC, with the narration stating they got some stares, but quicky moves past it.
- Blamed for Being Railroaded: The game blames you for a Morton's Fork: in St. Charles, you are starved for blood and hear a child crying in pain. If you try to help, you lose control of your Horror Hunger and kill them; if not, you abandon the injured child. Either way, you get run out of town by a mob.
- Boy Meets Ghoul: There are several mortals whom you can befriend and woo. It usually doesn't end well.
- There are two versions of a woman named Clotho: one during the 1830s in New Orleans and her grand-niece in the 1870s in Memphis. While there are some similarities there are plenty of differences between them, the main one being that the first Clotho wants to become a vampire while the second would refuse the chance even while dying.
- Silas Hope is an Confederate soldier and amateur poet, who while willing to become a vampire if told is insistent of taking care of the men under his command before doing so. If you let him leave he will be killed in a battle and if you try to force the transformation onto him he will kill himself.
- Annie is a bearded woman and circus performer, who will be killed by an insane West if you fail to obtain Memeskia's permission to turn her. Subverted if you do get his permission, as you turn Annie without fuss, and she quickly integrates into vampire society.
- Break His Heart to Save Him: Unless you break up with each of your mortal love interests, circumstances contrive to get them killed prematurely — whether by murder, Accidental Suicide by sunlight, or simply as a casualty of war.
- Child Eater: You can choose children as your Trademark Favorite Food, but the choice comes with a hefty hit to the Karma Meter and the unambiguous disgust of every other vampire you mention it to.
- Character Customization: There's a lot in this game; you have a say in your race, religion (or lack thereof), creativity, political views (both mortal and undead), romance, favorite type of human to eat...
- Comfort the Dying: The player character can choose to comfort their grandmother on her deathbed by talking with her, leave her to die alone, or brush off her hopes of seeing an afterlife.
- Dead Man Writing: If Clotho is killed by your Dominus, you can find a letter in their remains detailing how they knew this was coming, and asking you not to blame yourself.
- Exactly What It Says on the Tin: You play as a vampire in America.
- Foregone Conclusion: You become a vampire, Vicksburg goes under siege, and Memphis falls.
- Friendly Neighborhood Vampires: You can try to be one, especially if you have a high Compassion. It's deconstructed at one point, though. If you're a friendly lord in St. Charles, the game throws you into a situation where your neighbors expect your help so often that you're unable to hunt, and you're put into a Morton's Fork where you either have to leave a child to die, or try to help and end up unable to control your Horror Hunger and kill the child while feeding.
- Funetik Aksent: Often used in Choice of the Vampire.
- Gay Option: The game offers romance options of both genders, irrespective of the player character's gender.
- Hollywood Atheist: In Choice of the Vampire, choices that reduce your level of superstition generally involve openly mocking religion. You can be quiet about your lack of belief, but the stat won't go down as far that way.
- Holy Burns Evil: Zig-zagged in a case of Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane — you're repelled by crosses and hallowed ground unless you're an atheist. If you confront the priest in St. Charles, he'll use this in an attempt to fight you off.
- Hypnotic Eyes: Some vampires possess the ability to use these. You can learn how to do it yourself.
- I Do Not Drink Wine: If you try to eat human food to preserve the Masquerade, you either vomit it up immediately and messily or, if you're exceptionally tough, keep it down just long enough to vomit in private.
- I Hate You, Vampire Dad: It's possible to turn on you Dominus at the start of the game and kill him out of hate for what he did to you.
- Irony: You decide that Vicksburg is a good place to wait out the squabbles between slave and free states. It is not.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Jesse is an asshole, no doubt, but if Clotho is killed by your Dominus, and if you're on decent terms with him, he'll try, in his own rough way, to comfort you.
- Kiss of the Vampire: Humans go into a pleasurable stupor while they're being fed from — enough so that you drink a lover's blood in lieu of having sex and they won't notice the difference. As a practical bonus, this helps vampires acquire repeat donors.
- Lesbian Vampire: You can play as one.
- Lover, Not a Fighter: Though faithful to his principles, army is not for the meek Silas.
- Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: Crosses and holy ground only repel vampires who aren't atheists, leaving it ambiguous whether a religious vampire is defeated by the placebo effect or a skeptical vampire's own convictions let them Fight Off the Kryptonite. The vampire community treats the matter with some caution as a result.
- Mayfly–December Romance: You can romance up to four mortals: Clotho, a voodoo priestess in New Orleans you can meet during the 1820s; Silas Hope, a Confederate soldier in Vicksburg during the American Civil War; a second Clotho in Memphis during the 1870s, who is the great-niece of the original and is only romanceable if you never met the first Clotho; and Annie, a bearded woman in a travelling circus who you meet in St. Louis during the 1890s/1900s. It's somewhat downplayed as you're still rather young by vampire standards, but the first Clotho lampshades the trope if she asks to become a vampire as well.
- Meaningful Gift: Downplayed as it's an educated guess, but when romancing the voodoo priestess Clotho, you can decide that a goat would be a more practical gift than jewellery or flowers. She seems pleasantly surprised.
- Meaningful Name: Silas Hope.
- Morton's Fork:
- When romancing Clotho, either you petition your Dominus to turn her into a vampire and she gets killed instead, or you turn her yourself and your Dominus kills her in retribution.
- When romancing Silas, if you wait to turn him into a vampire, he dies in battle the next day; if you turn him against his will, he goes berserk and runs into the sunlight.
- You are inevitably run out of St. Charles if you settle there; the last straw that incites a Torches and Pitchforks mob is either you ignoring an injured child's cries for help, or going to help him but inevitably losing control of your Horror Hunger when you see his blood. This is notable as a later addition, since in the original game, the mob would run you out even if you were a benign and popular philanthropist.
- Optional Sexual Encounter: If you have a good enough relationship with him, you and Jesse can participate in a "thrilling hunt" during The Fall of Memphis.
- Our Vampires Are Different: Choice of the Vampire actually fits in pretty well with the standard modern vampires — they can't go out in sunlight, must drink blood to live, and can have some supernatural powers. Whether they're affected by holy symbols depends on their own beliefs.
- Paranormal Romance: Optionally, with you being the paranormal one in the relationship.
- Playing Up the Stereotype: Clotho cultivates an extravagant Voodoo Priestess mystique, complete with a heavy accent that she can drop on a whim, to attract customers in New Orleans. She's a sincere practitioner but is much more reserved in her private life.
- Politically Correct History: Averted, the series acknowledges how your different backgrounds affect how others see you. While racism and sexism was obviously common, New Orleans in real life was a pretty diverse place to live in the early 19th century that a non-white and/or female PC could live reasonably well. Not long after leaving New Orleans however, these kind of PCs will often be confronted by the racism and sexism of the world. Also classism is very real, and therefore a PC with a rich background won't be accepted by those from a poorer background and vice versa.
- Prone to Tears: Samantha Withers cries quite easily.
- Punch-Clock Villain: Silas is naturally this on account of being part of the Confederacy. However he's actually aware that his cause is unjust and that they will lose the war, and is only fighting out of a desire to protect his friends and family as much as he can. This is why he's willing to court a woman of color or even a man, if somewhat hesitant and worried about the consequences of this being discovered, since he doesn't really believe in the values the Confederacy believe in.
- Reassigned to Antarctica: Samantha Withers' position in Vicksburg is treated as a sinecure to get her away from vampire society. She plays a lot of cards to stave off the boredom.
- Refuge in Audacity: An ancient vampire governor asks your opinion on who should be the next lord of the city. You can name yourself, in which case the governor astonishes the appalled crowd by laughing in admiration of your sheer pluck. However, if you're a total nobody in vampire society at the time, she'll coldly snub you, so the trope only stretches so far.
- Relationship Values: Most NPCs have an approval rating towards you that is adjusted behind the scenes in response to your actions, affecting their dialogue and even some of the story branches available to you.
- Religious Vampire: Zig-zagged. Some vampires are militant atheists, some have adopted a vampire-themed pagan belief system, and others are devout Christians, one of whom warns the player character against disregarding the Church's teachings. To muddy the waters, only religious vampires are affected by Holy Burns Evil, raising the question of what precisely is causing the effect.
- Scary Black Man: Apollo Carothers seems like one at first glance, though he's quite amicable and kind unless you get on his bad side. By the end of The Fall of Memphis, though, he's rather more unstable.
- Sickeningly Sweethearts: You and Silas.
- Sinister Minister: You can be as evil as possible and still not only be a priest, but fervent in your devotion to god.
- Spiked Blood: The player character can choose to specify that they enjoy feeding on drunks because the intoxication is carried through their blood, giving it a certain flavour.
- Torches and Pitchforks: The citizens of St. Charles blame the player character for a Morton's Fork regarding an injured child and assemble a mob to run them out of town; if you try to face them, you're inevitably killed. Your manservant even comments on how you're getting your just desserts (if your Karma Meter is low), or on what Ungrateful Bastards the townspeople are (if it's high).
- Trademark Favorite Food: Some vampires have strong opinions about which class of people to drink from. Estefania talks up the sophisticated pleasures of poets and artists; Jesse appreciates being referred to a reputable brothel; and the player character can pick almost anything and choose whether or not to reveal their preferences.
- Turbulent Priest: A priest in St. Charles decides you're some kind of unholy influence on the townspeople and tries to rally them against you. You can arrange for him to be run out of town or simply eat him — though his religious vestments might pose an obstacle.
- Typhoid Mary: Your former manservant, who is turned either by you or Samantha Withers, becomes this as a vampire, as he was sick with yellow fever when he was turned. Being undead, he's unaffected by the disease — but his victims are not.
- Undying Loyalty: It's possible to cultivate this in several people, depending on your actions, including Jesse, Samantha, and Estefania.
- Unwanted Gift Plot: In Clotho's Romance Sidequest, the player character can buy her either jewellery, flowers, or... a goat. Subverted since the goat turns out to be a practical gift that she likes the most.
- Useless Useful Skill: Unfortunately, things like "technology" and "lore" seem to have little purpose at all in the game beyond some choices in certain situations.
- Vague Age: The PC's age is never specified, though it is presumably somewhere between late twenties to early thirties. The German background mentions your father fought during the American Revolution and you were presumably born after which would make the character 28 or 29 at the latest. However other backgrounds don't give any clues to your character's age.
- Voluntary Shapeshifting: Another power you can learn, though you can only shapeshift certain body parts instead of completely becoming an animal and it results in you losing some compassion.
