World of Darkness: Banshees

By Andrew Fowler (vlfowler@netins.net)

Prelude

The year was 1499. Columbus had sailed across the Atlantic, and Nigel Rensbury of the Ravnos, Elizabeth Benlaecawr of the Lasombra, and Paulo Giovanni of the Giovanni were running from a group of angry Ventrue through the Atlas Mountains. They found a cave where they could hide, and decided to wait in the sunless grottos until nightfall. Little did they know that this area was a Harbingers' haunt. At night, Paulo Giovanni noticed the wraiths. According to Giovanni legend, he had created a discipline called Corpuswork. The user of this discipline had the ability to shape Wraith corpora, much like the arcanos of Moliate. He supposedly embraced the wraiths, but Corpuswork was lost when Paulo Giovanni was killed by the Ventrue later that year. However, the embraced wraiths remained. They could embrace others, but they would become the strange wraith-vampires. The small group remained unnoticed until its founder, Da'ud Ibn Abdul travelled to Ireland, guided by the wraiths of Nigel Rensbury and Elizabeth Benlaecawr. He listened to tales from the Ravnos of Ireland about banshees, the wailing spirits of rural Ireland, thought by wraiths to be Chanteurs of Ireland. The group of travelling wraith-vampires called themselves banshees, and so were created the Banshees.

Description

Simply worded, Banshees are a line of embraced wraiths founded by Paulo Giovanni. They can travel throughout the Shadowlands and Skinlands alike, and throughout a Shadowlands-like realm called the Sanctums by the Banshees, and the Dark Kingdom of Emerald by the wraiths. The Banshees tend to hang out with the Black Hand when in the World of Darkness (called the Megalopolis by Banshees), the Masquers while in the Shadowlands (called the Grey World by Banshees), and other Banshees while in the Sanctums. The Banshees have organizations, called houses. The houses are:

The Dreamweavers are thinkers, philosophers, and artists who weave the dreams of mortals. They are rumored to have been created from an embraced Sandman.

Spiral: Fluxtwisting

Suggested Boreens: The Fetter, Insight

Advantage: Can make Intelligence+Enigmas roll to give complete scientific insight into a mortal. This costs 2 Willpower and has a difficulty of 6.

Ban: Must strive towards Vision (Golconda, Ascension, etc.) constantly.

The Financiers take care of all banking, stocks, and the like for Banshee society. They supposedly have ties to the Bank of England. Paulo Giovanni himself created this house, thinking of all the money that could be made with syndicates and stocks in the Sanctums.

Spiral: Distortion

Suggested Boreens: Lore, Hazards

Advantage: While in the Shadowlands, a Financier may hypnotize a wraith into trading a handful of oboli for anyting weighing over 10 oz.

Ban: Financiers are notorious loansharks. Any conscious (not counting things under hypnosis) thing must make a Willpower roll diff. 6 to agree to trade with a Financier, no matter how tantalizing the deal sounds.

The Vulpines are odd beings. They can shapeshift into foxes at any time, and are known for their mischievous ways. There are many theories about how the Vulpines developed. Most theories somehow involve the theory that they were originally the banshees of pooka or werefoxes from the Orient.

Spiral: Spycraft

Suggested Boreens: Nature, Corruption

Advantage: A Vulpine may, at any time, shapeshift into a fox, provided they have at least 1 point of Sanity left.

Ban: Vulpines are mischievous creatures. They are often distrusted, and rolls involved in believing one have their difficulties raised by 2.


Note that the character may belong to any Black Hand bloodline, or the Sandmen, Chanteurs, Artificers, Masquers, Mnemoi, or Oracles guild.

Character Creation

Create a character as for the game you want to use banshees in, except for these few rules.
• Use Sanity to replace Arete, Glamour, Blood, Pathos, or Gnosis.
• You might want to include the Banshee-only abilities for a Banshee character.
• Use Spirals to replace disciplines, spheres, arcanoi, gifts, arts, or other magic systems.
• Use Boreens as well.

Sanity

Sanity is the magical power the Banshees harness from the Sanctums. Sanity can be refilled to 10 by meditating in the Sanctums. For each hour you meditate, you regain one point of Sanity.

New Skill

Dreamweaving

Dreamweaving is the art of manipulating the flux of creativity that flows throughout all Banshees into a dream to be placed in the heads of mortals, Sidhe not of House Scathach, Kiasyd, and Changelings.

*	You can adjust a bit of the flux into a bit of dream.
**	You can adjust a bit more: approximately half of a dream.
***	You can create 3/4 of a dream.
****	You can weave a full dream.
*****	You can create two dreams at a time, or one extremely important dream.

New Knowledge

Sanctums Lore

Sanctums Lore is the gossip, rumors, and the occasional hypotheses of Banshees. It is valuable for many social situations in the Sanctums.




*	You've heard a bit of gossip here, a hypothesis there . . .
**	You know a couple of hypotheses and fair amounts of gossip.
***	You know more rumors about the Sanctums than a Financier knows about stocks and bonds.
****	You are a master of gossip in the Sanctums.
*****	You are a master of gossip and hypotheses and speculation about the Sanctums.

Spirals

Fluxtwisting is the art of actively warping the Banshee flux of thought. Dreamweavers always have Fluxtwisting 1 for free.

*	Fluxhammer: You may gain 2 points of temporary Dreamweaving for your next roll involving Dreamweaving. Sanity Cost: 2.
**	Twist the Dream: You may twist a dream already in progress, therefore affecting the thing that is dreaming in a different way. Sanity Cost: 1.
***	Corpus Flux: You may have the great Flux of Creativity flow through 5 Corpora, giving the wraiths Dreamweaving 1 and Sanctums Lore 2. At the ST's discretion, the wraiths may also gain an extra point of Pathos, and Sandmen may gain Dreamweaving 2. Difficulty is 3 for Haunters, Proctors, and Puppeteers, 4 for Sandmen, 5 for Chanteurs, 6 for Masquers, Oracles, Usurers, and Spooks, and 7 for all other guilds. The Sanity cost for Corpus Flux is 3.

Distortion is the art of making things distorted using Spirals. Financiers always have Distortion 1 for free.

*	Distort the Cones and Rods: The character may make a mortal, vampire, or Non-Harbinger wraith's vision extremely fuzzy. Sanity Cost: 1
**	Curse of the Enfant: The character may make anything have distorted senses. Sanity Cost: 3.
***	The Clearing: The character may completely rewrite something's brain. Sanity Cost is a whoppin' 4.

Spycraft is the art of spying successfully. Vulpines always have Spycraft 1 for free.

*	Peek: The character may make a 1" by 1" hole that only the character can see through. Sanity Cost: 1
**	Hole: The character may make a 3' by 3' hole that only the character can see through. Sanity Cost: 2
***	Eavesdropping Network: The Banshee may listen to any conversation in the world via shadows. This was supposedly developed from the Obtenebration power Darksight. Sanity Cost: 3

Boreens

Boreens are the philosophical codes that the Banshees follow. There are six Boreens:

Insight: Perception, wit, wisdom, and intelligence are pathways to Vision. Follow them and enter enlightenment.

The Fetter: The Fetter prevents we Banshees from becoming spectres. If The Fetter can save us from Oblivion, it can save us from the Children of Osiris and their fellow hunters.

Lore: Listen to the Sanctums' Lore. It will help you tremendously one day.

Hazards: Pranks and booby traps are roads towards pleasure, a thing that most wraiths need to fuel their passions. Lure the gullible into these traps, and sell the pleasure to wraiths for big bucks (in oboli).

Nature: What gives anyone the right to corrupt the wilderness with urban sprawl? Protect the forests, clean up oil spills, and recycle for a better future.

Corruption: Tempting all in to doing all sorts of things is a path to Vision. It is also something to do. Be the knave and trick and tempt all for the purpose of your Vision.

Stereotypes

Camarilla: Order almost perfected. I'm still a bit distant from the Camarilla, but I'll do fine among their crowds.

Sabbat: Ooooooooh. Mister big bad Tzimisce wants to terrorize all kine. Their ways repulse me.

Black Hand: Our allies. The Black Hand is the organization of Kindred that we look up to and the True Brujah make wonderful travelling companions.

Gaki: Good travelling companions. Their rifts make great places for meditation to get back lost Sanity.

Garou: Do we need yet more emphasis on the Boreen of Nature? No. So I say "Oh Please!!!" to the Garou.

Bastet: Bastet are fine, as long as they don't bug me. Those werepanthers called Bagheera and werelynxes called Qualmi can be great informants.

Fae: Remnants of the lost sections of the Flux of Creativity.

Mages: Grimoire readers cannot help but delve into the Sanctums. I wish they'd just leave us alone and bug those Red Talon Garou over there.

Wraiths: Wraiths are our progenitors. Annoying at times, but our progenitors. I'm glad were the next step in their evolution.

Children of Osiris: These hypocritical hunters are a definite problem. I say we use Bardo against them. Who's with me?