The World of Darkness (or WoD) is the name given to two distinct fictional universes developed by White Wolf Game Studio. Both World of Darkness settings have been used for several horror fiction-themed role-playing games that make use of the Storytelling System.
The first setting was created in 1991 with the release of Vampire: The Masquerade; support for it subsequently ended in 2004 with the release of Time of Judgment. The theme of the old World of Darkness is described as "gothic-punk" by the developers.
The World of Darkness resembles the contemporary world, but darker, more devious, more conspiratorial. Humanity is losing hope as it is preyed upon by supernatural creatures such as vampires, werewolves and wraiths. One facet that sets the World of Darkness apart from most other horror fiction is that these creatures are not solitary predators to be hunted down and destroyed, but they are numerous and intelligent; enough so to form societies, develop various factions and allegiances, and use humans as pawns in their power struggles and murderous games. However, the rising tide of human civilization is too much for many of them to bear, and an atmosphere of hopelessness presides over many of the games as once-mighty supernatural beings, the dark Princes and Lords of a previous era, now face the bleak and unbearable prospect of a future spent straining and shrinking under the ever-and-ever more meticulous systematization and control of a power-obsessed mankind.While at the same time humanity flounders under this hidden oppresion, prey and pawns to enemies they cannot fight or are even aware of.
Interlocking conspiracies, some mirroring those said to exist in our own world, some unique, can be found throughout the setting. Cabals of powerful mages, coteries of cunning vampires, and other, stranger powers vie within their own cultures and with each other for control of the world. The dichotomy between rich and poor, influential and weak, powerful and powerless, is larger than in our world. Decadence is common and corruption is everywhere. This dark reflection is seen everywhere: gargoyles and gothic construction influence architecture, while the leather look and punk atmosphere crowd the streets.
White Wolf developed the following game sets in the World of Darkness between 1991 and 2003:
These all represent a Rulebook and a varying number of Sourcebook supplementals on anything from specific clans and tribes to gadgets and entire citybooks describing all the supernatural denizens. In parallel to these settings, White Wolf has developed historical settings for their major product lines. They include:
Additionally, whilst White Wolf owned the rights to Ars Magica they made additions to that game's setting to bring it into the World of Darkness timeline. Atlas Games would later acquire Ars Magica and remove these alterations, however, and the connection between Ars Magica and the old World of Darkness is no longer considered canonical.
Each new year had a theme at White Wolf Game Studios and the books published in that year were focused on the theme. This brought about the new sets of Hunters, Demons and Mummies, but more importantly it dictated the focus of all the Sourcebooks for every system that were published that year. For instance, Vampire and Werewolf were rewritten with an Eastern theme in the Year of the Lotus cycle and the books concerned the Asian variety of these creatures.
A World of Darkness Sourcebook was published in two editions as well and provided general guidelines for story creation on every continent as well as outlining the differences between, for instance African Werecreatures and North American ones.
Though each game line is its own self-contained universe, as time has passed, more and more obvious connections between the settings have been made in the canonical, published material. Unfortunately this was not planned from the beginning, so the World of Darkness is riddled with discrepancies and sometimes blatant contradictions in the cosmologies of each system. Many of the later game supplements have optional rules suggesting how to handle interactions between different types of supernatural beings, and in some cases, present rules that attempt to allow discrepancies to exist between settings.
The rules were also streamlined and standardized, and the templates of all the different system started to look more similar with each edition. The downside of which was that with each step towards a common ground for the systems, the rules, terms, and templates underwent dramatic and backwards-incompatible changes. During all this, Wraith: The Oblivion was discontinued and even at the end of the third edition of Vampire, Werewolf and Mage, the bumps had still not been smoothed out.
In the end it was left up to each individual Storyteller (the term in the World of Darkness games for the gamemaster) to interpret the rules and try to combine the systems that were used.
In late 2003, White Wolf announced it would stop publishing new books for the line, bringing the published history of the setting to an end with a series called The Time of Judgment. This event is described from different supernatural perspectives in four Sourcebooks: Vampire: Gehenna; Werewolf: Apocalypse; Mage: Ascension; and World of Darkness: Time of Judgment (the last covering all of White Wolf's minor product lines).
The publishers stated that in doing so, they followed up on a promise that has existed in the World of Darkness since the first edition of Vampire, with the concept of Gehenna, and in Werewolf, with the Apocalypse, as well as some elements of some of the published material that pertain to 'end of the world' themes in other games. Fiction novels from each of the three major gaming lines concluded the official storyline.
On August 21, 2004, White Wolf launched its new World of Darkness line. While the setting is superficially very similar, the overall theme is one of "dark mystery", with an emphasis on the unknown and the personal. Many details of the setting, especially in regards to its history, are left vague or otherwise have multiple explanations. This is partly a response to a frequent criticism of the old game: so much material had been published that Storytellers found it difficult to surprise their players, who knew every supposed "mystery" of the setting. Additionally, "end of the world" themes were noticeably absent from the new World of Darkness games, leading many to conclude that White Wolf does not intend to end the new WoD in the same manner as it did the old.
Instead of reprinting a full ruleset with each major title, tweaked and modified for each game, the new setting uses one core system for all games, a streamlined and redesigned version of the Storyteller System renamed the "Storytelling System". A core rule book, simply titled The World of Darkness, has full rules for human characters and ghosts; though it has no specific setting material, it establishes a tone and mood for games featuring human protagonists. This is another contrast to the old games, where so many different types of supernatural creature had been defined that normal humans often seemed unimportant. (Players often joked that "mortals" were a minority in the setting, far rarer than vampires or werewolves.) The World of Darkness core book was well received, and won the Origins Gamers' Choice Award for 2004.
The World of Darkness is copyright 2004. It was written by Bill Bridges, Rick Chillot, Ken Cliffe and Mike Lee. Concept and Design by Justin Achilli, Andrew Bates, Philippe Boulle, Carl Bowen, Bill Bridges, Conrad Hubbard, Mike Lee, Chris McDonough, Matthew McFarland, Ethan Skemp, Richard Thomas, Mike Tinney, Stephan Wieck, Stewart Wieck and Fred Yelk.
Each new game setting now consists of a rule book which includes only those rules specific to the type of protagonist portrayed, leaving more room for specifics of that aspect of the World of Darkness. This has also vastly improved compatibility between games, particularly as all characters are created as normal humans and thus have the same basic traits. Supernatural traits still vary for each character type, but their interactions with each other are governed largely by a single, simple mechanic. In addition, all supernatural types (including the ones in the Limited Series books) follow similar rules in terms of game mechanics, including:
The three core games are as follows:
In addition to the main three games, there will be an additional game each year. Like Orpheus for the old World of Darkness, each of these "fourth games" will have a limited series of only six supplements.[1] The first such game is Promethean: The Created for August, 2006, based largely on Frankenstein and similar stories of giving the unliving life through alchemy. The second game will be Changeling, to be released in August, 2007.