The shadows are waiting.
Shadows of New York is a stand-alone expansion and sequel to Vampire: The Masquerade – Coteries of New York. It was released on the PC on the 10th September, 2020.
Set during the first wave of the COVID pandemic, less than a year after Coteries, you play Julia, a Polish immigrant in New York who was Embraced by a Lasombra named Caren. Soon after, Caren all but abandons her childe and makes her the drastically underqualified representative of the Lasombra in the New York Camarilla court.
Now the Butt-Monkey of the Camarilla, when Callihan, the leader of the Anarchs, is murdered while locked in a room alone, it's Julia who's charged with investigating. Naturally, nobody cooperates with it, and Julia has to fight to find the truth all by herself... except for the help of the Fledgling's coterie from Coteries. If she can find them.
Since the game is a whodunit with an Asshole Victim, expect spoilers by the sheer presence of trope names.
The game contains the following tropes:
- All for Nothing: Hope destroys the evil corporate culture at Double Helix that Julia devoted 16 months of her life to exposing. Apparently, she did it within a few days because that's how powerful she is.
- All Take and No Give: Apparently Dakota's ex-girlfriend had this opinion about her. And she has this opinion about Julia.
- Ambiguously Bi: Julia despite being in a longstanding relationship with a woman apparently had a sexual relationship with fellow journalist Nigel.
- Ambiguous Situation: The fate of the first game's protagonist.
- Asshole Victim: As Qadir points out in his summary of the case, absolutely everyone had a motive to kill Callihan. And absolutely everyone did.
- Authority in Name Only: Julia is the representative of the Lasombra Clan in New York. She's also the only Lasombra Clan member and not part of the Primogen.
- Badass Bureaucrat: Julia's job is to handle the entrance of vampires to New York, which consists primarily of paperwork.
- Became Their Own Antithesis: Torque suffers this as he's gone from being a firebrand revolutionary to being a moderate compromiser fully under the control of the Camarilla.
- Bittersweet Ending: Both endings are this.
- The Good Ending has Julia successfully rise to become Primogen of the Lasombra in the city despite being only a year old as well as having a real office as well as haven. She also wins the respect of the Camarilla court who recognize a player when they see one. It requires her to have sacrificed her ex-girlfriend and given up much of her morality, though. She must murder a fellow Kindred and frame him for Callihan's murder while helping the court get away with their crime. It's implied that the ghosts of those she's destroyed start haunting her too.
- The Bad Ending has Julia become a tool in the coverup of the murder and then flee the city to not be killed by Kaiser or the other parties she's angered on the way. She's failed as a representative of the Lasombra and with COVID on the rise, it's uncertain whether she'll survive the trip to the West Coast. But she has retained her humanity and her relationship with Dakota is not destroyed beyond repair.
- Blackmail: How Julia can become Lasombra Primogen despite being only a year old. She blackmails the Prince and Primogen to obey her and eliminates the Malkavian one.
- Blatant Lies:
- Qadir claiming that Baron Callihan committed suicide.
- Julia can get Tamika's ring from Torque by employing this against him.
- Blue-and-Orange Morality: The basis for the "Good" and "Bad" endings. They're "Good" and "Bad" by the Lasombra credo of ruthlessness—the Good ending sees Julia claw her way to the top by any means necessary, while the Bad ending sees her throw in the towel and skip town to hold onto what's left of her humanity.
- Broken Pedestal:
- Julia used to love the magazine Lodestar and dreamed of working there. By the time she does, it is a has-been organization that is terrified of offending rich people.
- Dakota has this to Julia in the Bad Ending. She comes to view Julia as a self-centered sociopath. Amusingly, Julia comes to the same conclusion.
- Casting a Shadow: Part of Julia's repertoire as the signature Lasombra discipline. Per fifth edition lore, it functions through a connection to Oblivion, and is subject to a certain amount of Power Incontinence, as Julia's shadow-walking occasionally activates on its own and pulls her into another plane of reality. In the Good Ending it's implied that this is edging into Power Degeneration, as Julia notes that the shadowy wraiths she sees have been becoming more numerous.
- Central Theme: The various kinds of truth. Dakota starts the present portion of the game by explaining how conspiracy theories sate the demand for an emotional or metaphysical truth. In the Good Ending Julia is able to blackmail the court because they've concocted a coverup that sort of fits the facts, but is emotionally unfulfilling. Julia presents them with two options: Either take her improved version that sacrifices a double-dealing member of the Primogen everyone subconsciously wants to see go down anyway... or be prepared for her to release a tale of conspiracy that implicates half the court and the Anarch leader. The latter is probably true at least in broad strokes and although she has little proof for it, it will be what people want to believe has happened, especially if the court goes on to silence Julia right after her investigation concludes.
- Chekhov's Gun: Julia almost gets run over by Kaiser's black limo early on.
- Cool and Unusual Punishment:
- Julia can use Dominate to screw with several misogynists and other people she dislikes. One way is forcing her ex, Nigel, to write a book on toxic masculinity.
- Another way is to get a guy bothering her to hit on a homophobe who hits him.
- Contrasting Sequel Main Character: Julia is far more of a developed personality than the three blank slates of the previous game. She's a Polish immigrant, freelance journalist, and incredibly cynical as well as sarcastic. She's also a former Goth Girl and queer.
- Didn't See That Coming: In the Good Ending, Thomas Arturo attempts to prevent Julia's appointment as Lasombra Primogen by "suggesting" that a Primogen should set a good example for the Masquerade, meaning that Dakota has to be dealt with. Unfortunately for him, this comes on the heels of a truly vicious falling out between Julia and Dakota, and he can only be shocked as Julia agrees to the stipulation without blinking. Her narration even gleefully notes that he clearly expected the move to be a checkmate.
- Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette: Julia certainly qualifies as this as well as Raven Hair, Ivory Skin.
- Evil Feels Good: In the "Good Ending", Julia claims she feels the same high as right after her Embrace when she thought she was on top of the world. It comes from having lied, swindled and possibly tortured to gather enough shreds of a story in order to blackmail the entire Camarilla court into granting her a real Primogen position at the cost of her mortal ex-girlfriend's life. Clan Lasombra is So Proud of You.
- Failed a Spot Check: Likely through a combo of her inability to use technology and it not being important to the Kindred, Julia, almost impressively, fails to notice COVID happening around her until the lockdowns begin and her usual restaurant is closed.
- Gayngst: Julia says this is part of the reason she moved to America. She also states that a famous Warsaw actor she admired got himself deformed via a beating by his own family when he came out.
- Genre Savvy: Julia.Julia: In TV shows where an investigative journalist gets too close to the heart of a politically incendiary case, it rarely goes well.
- Good Shepherd: Father Leonard is a kind, compassionate, progressive, and sincerely religious priest of the Catholic Church. He's also an employee of the Lasombra and resigned to serving people he knows to be evil. Julia still wonders whether he's as good a person as he appears to be or is very good at hiding his secrets.
- Hidden Depths: Benoit. He might be a pretentious Toreador, especially after certain revelations towards the end of the game, but he observes a lot more than he pretends not to and makes some rather accurate, cutting observations about Julia. The reason why he's been trying to convert her? It's because he knows she needs to feel a part of something bigger than herself to feel purpose, and that her isolation is tormenting her. He doesn't believe in God, not for a second, but he knows Julia once did and that going back could give her the peace she's craving.Father Leonard: He's like a worried parent.
- I See Dead People: As a Lasombra, Julia has an innate connection to Oblivion that allows her to see wraiths. She notes that they're rarely actively malevolent, but they tend to run the gamut from vaguely helpful to menacing and creepy.
- Lawyer-Friendly Cameo: Julia encounters a short-haired blonde in a sweater and long skirt that is presumably an ancient and powerful Kindred with the ability to trap her enemies in a pocket dimension that she controls. Who is assuredly not from Tsukihime.
- Lesbian Vampire: Julia was a lesbian (or bisexual) in life and in a post-mortem relationship with a woman named Dakota.
- Multiple Endings: There's a Good Ending and a Bad Ending. Which is which is very debatable. In the official Good Ending, Julia exhibits all the classic traits of Clan Lasombra to ruthlessly blackmail the entire court into granting her actual Primogen status while sacrificing her girlfriend for it. The Bad Ending has her and Dakota flee the city from the fallout of her unsubtle investigation, trying to make it through to the Anarch Free States to a place where someone is trying to erect New Carthage, though it's not exactly certain they'll actually make it there.
- Nice Guy: Samira seems to genuinely be looking out for Julia and hoping things get better for her. Of course, this is the World of Darkness, so it might be fake...
- No-Respect Guy: Julia starts as this. All the Camarilla Elders take special pleasure in insulting and belittling her despite the fact she's only a Lasombra because they arranged for her creation.
- Non-Standard Game Over: Just like in Coteries, making the wrong decision 20 minutes or so into the game can result in Julia being killed and you being forced to start again from the beginning.
- Pinball Protagonist: By design. The Camarilla has little interest in actually solving Callahan's murder, Julia's appointment as investigator being a vague diplomatic gesture at best, and accordingly she spends a lot of time bouncing from vague, inconclusive lead to vague, inconclusive lead. She winds up being keener than anybody counted on, though, and in the Good Ending she upgrades to a full-fledged Spanner in the Works.
- Real Life Writes the Plot: The COVID-19 pandemic was written into the story.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Benoit gives a spectacular one to Julia near the end, and every jab he gives hits her where it hurts.Benoit: Ever since World War II, I've been watching every person and ever ideal I cared about wither and disappear. That's the source of my pain. That's the reason I am what I am. The source of your pain? A thing that defines you? People have been mean to you.
- It's implied that Father Leonard gives him one afterwards, off-screen.
- Julia can give one of these to the Prince and Primogen, right before she convinces them to make her one of their court.
- Sink or Swim Mentor: A particularly dark example. Julia had her life destroyed by her sire and the local Camarilla to prepare her for being a Kindred.
- Stalker with a Crush: There's a hint early on, but close to the end it gets revealed that Dakota has an unhealthy obsession for Julia, putting on her clothes and jewelry and trying to live through herNote . Julia draws the parallel to Single White Female and it's telling that in the title screen, Dakota may have the vampire bites, but it's her who is in the classic vampire-about-to-bite-a-neck pose. Whether the relationship can or should be salvaged is ambiguous. And of course, there are a few cases of Stalker without a Crush as well.
- Take That!: Julia runs into a Kindred looking for "the lowest kind of art." One of the things you can get her is some anime. It's implied to be hentai. An alternative is a fantasy novel with what looks suspiciously like Kudzu Plot. Played With in that the recipient praises them for being a pure expression of what the author obviously wanted to get off their chest.
- Voluntary Vampire Victim: Dakota. Despite being in the know about the vampiric world and living with a vampire, she's actually not a ghoul. And she's figured out that by taking drugs before letting Julia bite her, they can share the high. Julia finds out that Dakota is not just in love with her, she's trying to live through her. In the end, the two either leave town together or Julia sacrifices Dakota to further her advancement in the Camarilla.
- Vitriolic Best Buds: Julia and Qadir have this dynamic when they're not required by circumstances to be serious. May qualify as Ship Tease if you think Julia is bi or that vampires don't care.
- Who Murdered the Asshole: The victim was very much an Asshole Victim, and it turns out Everybody Did It.
