Hunter: The Vigil Outline

As promised, here's the original (actually, version two-and-a-half) of the outline for Hunter: The Vigil. Careful — it's a beast, weighing in at almost 15,000 words. It's presented warts and all, with many of the creative director's comments intact and many of my brilliant typos preserved. I didn't even put any art in here, to reflect the document as it originally looked. I just thought this might be interesting to those who like to look "under the hood" of their games, given that Hunter has been nominated for an ENnie award. If you'd like to cast your vote for Hunter, check out the ENnies page. Enjoy!

Hunter: The Vigil

Once, the world belonged to men. Don't let the stories those things tell you fool you. They're all bullshit. They're all lies propagated by motherfuckers that go bump in the night to justify to themselves why they don't just off themselves like any self-respecting aberration would.

The world belonged to men. Top of the food chain. No natural predators. Invented the wheel and language. Space shuttles and computers and medicine and ballpark hotdogs.

Somewhere on down the line, other people showed up. We know that happened after the world already belonged to men because of simple logistics. Vampires need men to feed on. If werewolves were around first, they'd already have had us outnumbered and I wouldn't be telling you this right now. The wizards, they are human, but they've made the devil's deals that tricked them into thinking they'd be able to leave "mortal" men behind. All that other shit out there — ghosts, spirits, the walking dead — the world's just not meant to have shit like that in it. Sometimes they find their way here. Maybe there's another world, somewhere, that belongs to them. Whatever the case, this ain't it.

Some of us — men, mind you, people of humankind — see the balance tipping. Vampires not only survive but thrive. Sorcerers put hexes on whoever they feel like. Werewolves kill and kill and keep killing to satisfy whatever force it is that drives them. Monsters crawl out of nightmares or in through the holes between worlds and set themselves up in dens here in our world. The world of men.

We're taking back the world. One night at a time, yeah, and one monster at a time. You know it's true, though, and you know it's our right, our destiny. I can tell because you didn't laugh your ass off when I started talking about monsters.

It's a lonely road to walk. The people you're giving the world back to think you're fucked in the head and the people you're fighting to take it from want to gnaw your skull or voodoo your blood. You got no one to count on but your gun and your buddy and yourself. Your gun might run out of ammo. Your buddy might get turned into one of them. You have to make the choice yourself.

You have to choose the fight you can't possibly win in your lifetime.

What's the alternative?

• This intro seems a little oWod Hunter-y to me. What if you did it in three parts, with the same guy going from Tier to Tier to Tier; from angry and ignorant through to conspiring cultist or something?
• I haven't yet reworked this because it's just flavor, but I'll get to it in the next revision.

The Hunter Niche

Strange as it may seem, hunters occupy the “Power” niche in the World of Darkness Attribute matrix. (Vampires are social, werewolves are physical, mages are mental, Prometheans are resistance, and changelings are finesse.) With a bit of consideration, that’s not so shocking as it appears at first blush.

Hunters represent the most numerous residents of the World of Darkness, the seething mass of humanity’s limitless numbers. That’s why the monsters of the World of Darkness operate in secret: If humanity became aware of them in a larger sense, they’d crush the monsters for their own survival. Thus, hunters symbolize the brute force of humanity, both in human nature and in sheer numbers.

As well, hunters are those lone or sorely outnumbered individuals who face what look like impossible odds and turn the tables on the monsters that prey upon them. That moxie and drive in the face of adversity suits the Power appellation perfectly.

Although hunters embody Power, it’s a subtle power. Hunters stand against the depredations of supernatural monsters, though the acquisition of special abilities might find them questioning whether they've become al but supernatural monsters themselves. The subtlety of powers and the responsibility for them is an especially poignant point in “tier three” chronicles (see below), in which hunters do indeed possess mystical abilities themselves. As well, those sane among hunters realize that the rest of the world doesn’t really believe in monsters, and they’re only going to hurt themselves if they run into a City Council meeting shrieking about vampires and witches — no one will take them seriously and they’ll probably be locked up. As a result, they fight a lonely, misunderstood fight for the benefit of people who would consider them dangerous lunatics if they truly understood the hunters’ motivations.

Themes

The primary, bottom-line theme of Hunter is resistance. Monsters exist and inch by inch they're taking over the world. What was once the legacy of men is being inexorably usurped by the horrors that can subvert men to their conscious will.

On a very basic level, resistance keeps the setting from drowning in irredeemable horror. The "good guys" win at least a few here and there, and the default Hunter experience is one of being the good guys, at least ostensibly. Granted, they're good guys facing impossible odds and a literally infinite pool of enemies. Still, resistance against the darkness is a victory well won, and if a hunter can improve the lot of only a single individual, he's earned his place in the world.

The dark side of the hunter psyche acknowledges that corruption is an omnipresent threat, however, and to many hunters, deviation from their noble calling comes too easily. They say the road to Hell is paved with good intentions, and even a hunter with the purest of altruistic motives can lose his way along the journey. Resistance might deteriorate into brutal revenge. A hunter may decide that it's more profitable to work with werewolves instead of against them, helping them off their enemies and earning some kind of benefit from it. A hunter might fall under the mental domination of a vampire, or become dangerously infatuated with a changeling, in either case becoming the pawn or confidant of that monster. It might just prove easier to kill vampires and grow fat off kickbacks from the mages. Because hunters are designed to integrate other monsters in their stories, those other monsters can work in their clever idiom to maximize what the hunters offer.

The corruption of resistance can be internal, too. Hunters need not make pacts with monsters to become corrupt. What about the criminally inclined hunter who eliminates a Promethean gang lord and then takes over the gang's rackets? What about a hunter who eliminates his own mortal enemies and justifies it with the delusion that they were monsters? What about a hunter for whom "resistance" comes to mean "Those who oppose my vision for a better world are evil and must therefore be culled"?

A theme or recurring motif applicable to most Hunter games is sunset. Even when you're dealing with monsters that aren't necessarily restricted to nocturnal activity, the symbol suggests that the light is gone and the next several hours are going to be punctuated by tribulation, pain, and even death. Whether we're beginning a new chronicle faced by the unknowable denizens of the darkness, or participating in a one-shot with a tangible ending, the sense of the game is an overwhelming darkness is about to fall. Dawn is God only knows how many hours away, and nobody has any guarantee he's going to make it. Even when the next day comes — if it does; if this isn't the world's last stand before fading into obliviating darkness,— that's just the brief respite before the sun sets again and the while horror begins anew. The worry is for the hours of darkness about to overwhelm the world and the myriad terrors hidden within them.

Note that night's interminability end doesn't mean that the hunters efforts are wholly futile. Remember that salvation can come to a single individual and still be considered a victory. So long as the suffering eases for at least one person, the hunters have achieved some amount of their goal. The night may be long and stormy and menaced by danger on all sides, but a hunter has the fortitude to face the night on its own terms, since he can't impose his.

That's why the game's subtitle is the Vigil. The vigil is the long watch, the constant alertness, possibly even eternal. It is the thankless guardianship of humankind. Vigil is a word fraught with meaning. The vigil suggests a continuing and possibly eternal watch. That doesn’t exclude any play style and adds a thematic pressure-build. When you're on vigil, you’re watching for something — what happens when you see it? A moment of decision and drama, that's what! Most vigils end at some point — will the hunters' vigil see them through the troubled times? Or will the Vigil falter, guttering like a candle before being completely extinguished? It sounds a bit like "vengeance," which is appropriate for many hunters, and it sounds a bit like "angel," implying a guardianship ordained by a higher power than the hunters themselves.

Mood

Without a doubt, Hunter's most suitable moods are toil and desperation. "Toil" for its back-breaking connotations and the fact that it so frequently goes without acknowledgment in the World of Darkness. "Desperation" because the fight is all but impossible to win, but not making the effort is the same as condoning the world's damnation.

Hunters can make a difference. It's going to be hard, it's going to deviate from the plan along the way, and people are going to get hurt, or even die. But all of that contributes to the greater goal of taking back their own corner of the night from the horrors that have laid claim to it. It's toil. It's not futile toil, and it can pay off.

At the same time, and contributing to the high turnover and burnout (and death) rate of hunters is that, in most situations, the hunters' cell isn't going to achieve a sweeping victory each time they undertake something. Killing one vampire is hard enough — rooting out an entire city's vampire population and satellite network of sybarites, flunkies, and parasites is damn near impossible. That doesn't mean the effort doesn't need to be made, however. Being a hunter is very much about being a part of a greater effort, and the works of the individual, while important to that individual, are but a tiny part of the greater whole — and the greater whole isn't necessarily destined for success.

These moods give writers and players a lot of room to work with. For altruistic hunters, it's the stuff of raw heroism. For the practical hunter, it's ensuring that his family or neighborhood can achieve normal lives without the encroachment of monsters. For the fanatical hunter, the end might justify the means, and burning down the orphanage with the vampires inside might kill those abandoned children, but it will also kill the vampire, who would surely have gone on to harm more people than died in the fire tonight. For the corrupt hunter, the installation of a "good" force (as the debased hunter might see himself) is preferable to the depredations of monsters, even though it may simply be a question ousting one evil and replacing it with another.

At what point does optimism become fanaticism? At what point does it become fatalism garnished with the scrupulous seeking of any minor vindication? At what point does optimism truly pay off? Can a hunter ever really retire, knowing that there's always going to be more evil to purge? And is one evil preferable to a different one, if the hunter has flaws (self-acknowledged or otherwise)?

The Three Tiers of Hunter

The Hunter experience is “stepped” to allow players the amount of overarching World of Darkness exposure they desire for their own stories or chronicles. With this format, it’s possible to run a one-shot pickup or a thousand-episode chronicle, with as much depth as the Storyteller wants to include.

Bear in mind that players might ascend these steps, or they might spend the entirety of a chronicle involved with only a single step. That is, a Hunter chronicle might focus on a group of people who are suddenly clued into the fact that monsters exist and fight them, or it may begin at that point and allow the characters to progressively earn their way up the ranks of the tiers described below, eventually acquiring powers and influence of their own. Either is a valid Hunter chronicle. They'll probably have different themes, but they're both inherently "correct" ways to play the game.

Tiers are also a metagame contrivance. Characters would never say, "I'm a third-tier hunter" or "our cell belongs to the first tier." It's just a simple way for the Storyteller and players to communicate the power level and setting importance of the game.

Tier One: A Dude with a Gun and a Grudge

Tier one encompasses the most fundamental Hunter experience. In this chronicle model, the hunters are aware that monsters exist, and they stand against them. There’s no organization other than the isolated cell of the players’ characters. To refine, there might be other hunter cells out there or better organized groups, but the characters aren’t assumed to be part of them at the beginning of the chronicle. It’s you and your comrades against the diabolical denizens of the night. Characters from this tier are similar to the investigators from Call of Cthulhu in scope, power, and, let's be fair, likely fates.

The intent with this tier is to provide a very visceral against-the-monsters experience. This chronicle model is likely best suited to short chronicles, but I would like treatments of this model to make special efforts to exceed the monster-of-the-week format.

The players’ characters on this tier won’t have any special powers outside their own capabilities. As such, those characters are going to have to be memorable and vital. Backstories will be paramount and players will need to understand exactly who their characters are and why they’re taking the front lines in the fight against the hidden world.

The benefit to this tier is that it fits any character concept. Anyone in the world can have witnessed a “monster” and thus feel a deep motivation to hunt such things, from the blue-collar protagonists of Hunter’s original predecessor to the eccentric media mogul who wants to inform the world about monsters but his Board of Directors won’t let him to the Navy SEAL ex-Mafia hitman who works for the NSA and kills monsters with a katana while clad in a trenchcoat.

Tier Two: Organized Resistance

The second tier represents what happens when those few people who recognize the monstrous threat among us gets their shit together enough to take a localized stand against those monsters. In a large city, you'll have maybe 20 to 100 guys, all of whom have witnessed monster attacks, suspected supernatural influence, or otherwise devoted themselves to the fight against the minions of night. These guys then find others of like mind and take the fight to the enemy.

The beauty of this tier is the sheer number of things you can do with individuals and organizations. The pieces are all here to have a monster-hunting branch of the local police, a zealous religious cult, an urban militia of survivalists, weird modern theosophists — whatever the idea for the organization, they can fit here. It also includes the opportunity to get a little creative with chronicle themes. These guys hunting down vampires — are they freedom fighters waging a war to drive a stake through the collective hearts of the unholy undead, or are they a homeland terrorist militia on a witch-hunt and answerable only to themselves?

The primary difference between tier one and tier two is the resources that tier two offers to the characters. By their nature, characters will organize. With the widespread or at least locally established organizations that form the cornerstone of tier two, characters are no longer on their own against the monster threat. They can call upon money, equipment, lore, or manpower by beseeching their organization to help them. At tier one, all that's available to the characters is what they gather themselves and their own acumen. At tier two, characters belong to formalized groups that can grant some of their own assets to characters who need them.

Tier Three: Me and This Army, Dracula

Tier three represents the cooperation of humankind to the point at which that can dictate the terms on which monsters operate in their locality, and might even be able to face one such creature at even odds. The organizations themselves are larger, with more of the assets that tier two offers. As well, hunters of tier three have access to distinct advantages provided by those organizations, such as potent weaponry, rituals to increase human capacity, monster-slaying artifacts of yore, or even mystical powers. Both the organizations and the individual hunters here have a sense of history: It's a storied fight of the institution against the agents of darkness.

Complications arise for tier three in that the organizations that exist have become their own impersonal entities. Each tier three organization has its own hidden agenda, and some might even be more sinister than the petty hungers of local monsters. At tier three, the hunter realizes that the threat of monsters is all around, from the creatures that prowl the night to the patrons of the war against darkness to the monster potentially lurking within every living person. If the organizations that hunt monsters simply replace the local fiends with their own evils, has humanity really gained at succor?

As well, tier three poses the question of what a hunter becomes when he relies on superhuman or external potentials. Is he not, then, effectively a "monster" in his own right, or at least an ubermensch who has the potential to exert his will over lesser creatures, men included?

Of course, tier three need not be so existential or conspiratorial. It can also be an opportunity to blow monsters into smithereens with the moral certainty that one is on the right side, if that's the chronicle the Storyteller chooses to run. Shit blows up real good in tier three.

Distinguishing the Tiers

There's a clear demarcation that exists between the various tiers we'll be using to represent the "level" of experience that the chronicle encompasses and the Storyteller wishes to employ.

Tier one is very straightforward. It's the hunters against the monsters. Hunters have no assets outside what they can immediately gather for themselves.

Tier two is the point at which hunters take on some degree of an organization aspect. It's not just four dudes against whatever they come across, it's four dudes as an extension of the parent org. That org may give them orders, or it may be a more laissez-faire group that's more like a fraternal order sworn to help each other. The immediate benefits are manpower, some degree of solidarity, and perhaps a bit of resources. Storytellers can take advantage of this to disseminate information to characters ("The captain hands you a packet with photographs of an individual who always seems to be out of focus.") or to guide the chronicle back on track ("The captain wants to know why the hell you're wasting time on some supposed sorcerer when the Roosevelt Park slasher is still at large.").

Tier three moves the drama into the realm of high stakes. Characters gain access to powers and equipment that normal mortals just don't have. The downside is that this raises questions, whether in the agenda of the group or in the nature of the hunter himself. If the character has supernal powers, is the semantic trick of distinguishing "supernal" from "supernatural" going to cut it? What's the difference between the hunter and the creatures he hunts.

It's easy to determine the scope of a given chronicle by answering two questions: Are the hunters part of a larger organization, and do they have access to the unique powers offered to members of the most advanced organizations?

Setting Conceits

Because Hunter belongs to the World of Darkness, all that's true of the WoD is true for Hunter. Inside that parameter, though, Hunter has a unique setting that includes the following.

One Discrete World

All three of Hunter's tiers coexist. Although the tier-one cell might not know that IPSI 53 is out there, fighting against the creatures of the night with biomechanically augmented agents, those IPSI 53 agents are out there. Third-tier organizations may well sponsor second-tier cells, but that might never come up. If I never use them in my chronicle, that's fine, but the whole of the Hunter environment belongs to the larger World of Darkness. Think of each tier as a "mode" of the larger setting if it helps, not three isolated worlds built for separate play experiences.

Custom Tiers

Players and Storytellers love to create, so an implicit facet of the world needs to be the understanding that new organizations of hunters are surfacing all the time. It's the boon of the information age that hunters can contact each other with greater ease than at any other time in the past, and they can share information at practically the speed of thought. A tier-two or even tier-three organization might surface veritably overnight, choosing to go public (as it were) with its presence at any given point. That lets players and Storytellers plausibly invent new organizations to their heart's content, and it gives us the opportunity to likewise introduce a new one any time it behooves us.

Supernal vs. Supernatural

In a general sense, hunters hunt the supernatural. In some cases, though, hunters gain their own inexplicable powers that are obviously granted by something greater than human ingenuity. Wise hunters are aware of this — and the hypocrisy in human nature leads them to rationalize it. Hunters define their own powers "from above" as supernal. Hunters classify monsters and other night threats as supernatural. It's a fine point of distinction, but it's a good method by which to characterize the fragility of hunter morality. Supernal is good; supernatural is evil or otherwise "above natural" and thus unnatural.

Faith

Along those lines, many hunters have distinctly religious outlooks, or at least outlooks that are shaped by the understanding of religion, if not the observance of it. It's a curious duality of the Vigil that so many hunters believe in some greater power out there guiding them, watching over them, or at least interested in what goes on with them, while at the same time they fight agents of darkness borne of a power they don't understand. At what point does faith in the unknowable nature of God become distinct enough from the evidence of the "supernatural" to let the hunter know he's doing the right thing? If he can't comprehend God and he can't comprehend the supernatural, why does he venerate one and violently oppose the other?

It's a question relevant to atheistic hunters, as well, for, confronted with proof of one type of existence beyond the boundaries of natural law, how can the atheist so confidently deny another? From the unexamined perspective, the agnostic perspective is probably the most sensible. But does the World of Darkness bear that out?

Neat Stuff

Hunters of all tiers have access to nifty gadgets and gizmos. Whether it's a dramatically sawed-off shotgun for a tier-one hunter or a panic-preventing autonomic adrenaline shunt worn by a tier-three hunter, some degree of technology makes it possible for hunters to do what hey do. Go ahead and fetishize a little bit over what a hunter might possess. Does his favorite pistol have a name? Might she always leave "one in the chamber"? Does he consider a given piece of equipment lucky? Does she make a show of pumping her shotgun ch-chok? Let the equipment become an extension of the character. Show us that hunters rely on their gear. This also serves to humanize them somewhat, making them vulnerable, superstitious, or dependent, instead of just a badass list of stuff that blows up monsters real good.

Of course, this sort of stuff isn't restricted to just weapons. This includes technological ways to find monsters, ways to track them, protective devices, etc.

Be careful with this, though. Avoiding that last bit is key. We always need to see the character underneath the combat-issue gear. Even if the character has become terribly dependent on his neat stuff, let us see that tenuousness. Use the neat stuff to help illustrate character, don't have it eclipse the character.

The core book will have an expansive equipment section, from realistically available stuff to the experimental gadgetry available to some of the more innovative organizations. We'll go into greater depth and more detail with Neat Stuff" and "Clever Tactics" (below) in each of the supplements, too, but the core book should give us a healthy dose of the experience.

Clever Tactics

Some hunters just hope to be in the right place at the right time with the right weapon on hand. These hunters often end up dead or twiddling their thumbs.

As hunters learn the finer points of the hunt, they also learn puissant tricks and tactics to use against the monsters they seek. This needs to be represented throughout all aspects of Hunter material. They hide in ambush. They stake things out. They have special weapons (see above).

Tactics complement equipment. Show us a few interesting takes on using monster characteristics against them. What about an EMT who's actually a hunter — when he discovers that his ambulance victim is actually a vampire feigning death, he makes sure that the Kindred meets his end.

Working with this conceit can mean a variety of things. It can be captivating bits in the short fiction. It can be commentary in the Storytelling section. It can be legendary ruses that pass among the hunter community ("Plank brought down the head werewolf by using the Firestep gambit!"). They can be special Merits that work like combat maneuvers.

Let us see that being a hunter is more than standing over the vampire's coffin with a mallet and a stake. Let us see quirky, interesting, effective (and some not-so-effective) tricks of the hunter's trade. Learning the secrets about a monster or bringing it to its end can be amazingly stylish; it needn't always be a hail of bullets and columns of fire.

These tactics should have some support from the game systems themselves, particularly among tiers two and three. Don't let the reference scare you, but consider a bit of mechanical support along the lines of the combos in Exalted. Each of the various organizations teaches secret group-attack techniques that characters can learn from those groups. Retired hunters might have a few of their own to teach ambitious young monster-fighters. Coolest of all, individual cells can create their own. These can be anything from literal combat applications to attention-diverting techniques, to ways to sneak into monster lairs. Get creative with the idea of using the group's strengths to allow them cool abilities (see "Team Functions," below).

Taking that idea a little further, there might even be a thriving trade in new techniques. Hunter cells that meet up on the streets might give each other tips, hints, and instruction on proven combos and methodologies. I'm sure not everyone will be entirely open and honest with these, and there's a cool sense of hunter vanity that's concomitant with being the only cell that knows the Cross-Slash Werewolf Hamstring Technique. That said, be careful with these — use them as rewards and player bonus abilities. If every time a cell wants to learn one, they have to go to the Wise Old Hunter On the Hill and bring him three vampire fangs, it gets a bit artificial.

Team Functions

A cell is a group of hunters, most often the players' characters. The word is used in the same context as pack, coterie, cabal, etc.

Hunters operate in cells because there's safety in numbers and because any individual representative of supernatural creature type X is almost certainly going to have a leg up on any individual hunter. It's to the hunters' benefit to bring superior numbers to a conflict. They're better able to isolate, divide, and conquer that way.

However, each hunter is a unique personality, a person who hunts monsters for her own intensely personal reasons. Cells of hunters are groups of individuals.

It's important to understand that each hunter in a cell knows his role and purpose, but still maintains the distinction of individuality. I like this as a contrast to how the hunters see the faceless mobs of monsters. In the hunter sensibilities, monsters may be individuals, but they're homogenized by their needs and functions. Vampires need blood. Werewolves are savage predators. Prometheans depend on artificial stimuli and resources. Changelings are fueled by madness and inscrutable desires.

Hunter cells can be like ensemble shows. What if the A-Team hunted monsters? What if the plot twists and swerves of Law & Order could be woven into a Hunter story? Moreover, where does the group role end and the individual begin? This can be an especially poignant question when a hunter cell faces a pack of werewolves, or even a lone werewolf that no longer heeds the instinct to follow the pack.

(Part of hunters' problems is that they often react to monster types rather than individual monsters. More accurately, this is a question of what players bring to the game from the experience with the other World of Darkness games. That can get a cell of hunters into trouble fast, especially inexperienced hunters, or those who don't understand the full breadth of ability available to certain monsters. We need to make efforts to get the Storyteller to acknowledge his sources. Obviously, there's nothing wrong with having the hunters oppose a Nosferatu or Blood Talon, because there's a ton of source material there. On the other hand, Storytellers who want to keep their troupes on their toes can treat the monsters of Hunter as individual manifestations than the archetypal models we use for the other World of Darkness games. As always, it's in the Storyteller's hands, but some coaching on both sides of the issue and some blending of the material is warranted.)

Not Always Supernatural

Hunters might find themselves on the trail of horror staples that don't necessarily have any supernatural abilities or overtones. While this should stop short of vigilantism, it should account for horrific threats that might arise to threaten a community. Examples include slashers, child-snatchers, and weird cults that venerate whatever, so long as that whatever doesn't actually manifest. (Then again, it can manifest and still be suitable for Hunter, but not every cult is going to be so clued into the cosmology. Indeed, very few of those outside the spheres of influence of legitimate monster types will have any real understanding of how the world's metaphysics work.)

These non-supernatural threats can work as a change of pace from an escalating monster-bash or recurring antagonist in a chronicle. As well, they might have some connection to a better hidden supernatural threat. An otherwise mortal gang might have connections to a vampire exercising the right of domain, for example, or a serial killer might be collecting parts for a mage patron, for use in that mage's fiendish ritual.

Show us both sides of this. From the hunters' perspective, a deranged killer is just as vicious a foe as a Kindred. From a Storyteller perspective, a malicious mortal is a perfectly valid antagonist (and might have the added bonus of confounding the players as they try to understand their prey's "powers").

Naturally, these mundane threats should be fewer in number than supernatural foes, but they contribute greatly to the thriller/horror genre, as with Se7en, From Hell, or the face-value interpretation of Frailty.

Protagonists and Flawed Heroes

This is the World of Darkness, and the people we want to come out ahead in a given chronicle aren't always conventional "heroes." We do a strong trade in anti-heroes, flawed heroes, and other protagonists without many redeeming qualities. All a hunter is, at his core, is a guy who takes it upon himself to bring down the agents of darkness. His motivations are his own, and go much further toward defining his moral and ethical bent than his actions.

While the game shouldn't encourage people to become giant sociopaths, there should be plenty of room for characters' dramatic shortcomings. You'll see some distinct gray morality among the high-powered hunter organizations, for example. The players' characters might well follow in that idiom, answerable to their own vices (and Vices) and faults.

Imagine a character who used to drink himself into a stupor, and one night his wife was slain by a vampire while he was too drunk to do anything about it. Or a parent whose child was a werewolf — unbeknownst to her — and she had to sit idly by and watch as the werewolves stole the child away, so now she hunts werewolves with a fanatical rage. The character's faults need not even be supernatural-related. A hunter who steps out on his wife has an obvious problem with honesty and fidelity; a hunter who's got a short fuse probably gets into a lot of fights that don't involve anyone other than the poor guy who bumped into him at the grocery store. Sherlock Holmes used cocaine and morphine. James Bond is a lush and a lecher. Johnny Cash shot a man in Reno just to watch him die.

That said, Hunter has a lot of room for genuine heroes. Don't denigrate them, and don't paint the setting with a palette so dark that everyone's a rapist who dabbles in redemptive do-goodery for the free Willpower points. As mentioned elsewhere herein, we need the darkness to contrast with the light and make it more valuable. Without light, darkness has no meaning of its own.

Pride vs. the Vigil

Hunters are capable individuals, and ones who are used to seeing immediate results for their efforts. It's entirely possible that hunters may even butt heads with one another over the best way to take down an especially vicious supernatural foe. As well, especially on the organizational level, it possible that hunters might see their cause as one with overlapping "jurisdictions." One cell of hunters might plan a careful assault on a werewolf den... only to find some other goddamn bunch of hunters staking the place out and about to fuck everything up.

This shouldn't intrude on every Hunter story ever told, but some degree of territoriality and (sometimes overweening) trust in one's own expertise is appropriate. Think of it like in those cop shows, where the city cops are all up in the feds' faces, and the tension ratchets up a few degrees as the protagonists have to outwit not only the villain, but also rival law enforcement.

This probably happens among organizations most often, but it can also occur among mixed-organization cells, especially if they begin to build a bit of a reputation.

Large cities in particular harbor numerous hunter populations, and the understanding that other guys are out there probably causes a bit of friction. This is a great boon to the Storyteller — he can inject as much inter-organizational politics and inter-cell politics as he likes, or let it all play out in the background. Troupes that enjoy high action and tons of monster-bashing can ignore the politics, while traditional, conspiracy-minded World of Darkness players should take to the environment of brinksmanship, competition, and secret ploys like a fish to water.

Do not neglect this! It's important that the Hunter setting has a social aspect and an environment in which the "all is not as it seems" trademarks of the World of Darkness can flourish. Without enough meat on its bones, the simple act of hunting monsters can become rote and dull. The challenging social arena and the personal details of each hunter's life need to balance the action to make a well-rounded story. If we don't have any investment in the characters, why would we care if they succeed or fail in their crusade against the monsters?

Cosmology

This is a great game for people like me who don't want to deal with all sorts of fruity para-realms and high-concept esoterica. You find the wolfman and you shoot him before he claws your girlfriend's face off. It's awesome.

More seriously, while hunters might understand the words in which a werewolf, mage, or other realm-hopping entity might describe those worlds, he's at a distinct disadvantage in truly knowing the experience because it's not something he can do. The downside is that the experience become imperiled if we never bother with comprehension. If we neglect all the details, a ghost is no different from a vampire, which is no different from a thought-eating shadow-beast from Farthest Aether, they're all just critters to be whacked.

Thus, we must strike a balance. We must include enough detail to make individual monsters distinct, especially the more profound among them, but we don't need so many cosmological underpinnings and incomprehensible details that it bogs down our efforts to stomp that shadow-beast into brain-goo.

The reason we need to be aware of the full breadth of the cosmology is because we need to offer it as a full Hunter experience. While a given cell of hunters might never go into those other Realms, they might well be dealing with creatures native to those Realms, especially in chronicles that have more introspective, metaphysical, or high-concept foundations. Recall the previous point about players bringing in their own knowledge about the World of Darkness, but remember that Hunter indeed takes place therein, and offer some advice about using weird cosmology as a way to keep characters from having all the answers if their players are steeped in World of Darkness functionality.

All Monsters! Monster Jamboree!

Hunters don't have to confine themselves to monster types who have hardcover supplemental splats devoted to them. They're just as likely to hunt zombies, spirits, the Jersey Devil, etc. Indeed, they'll often be a damn sight better suited to hunting comparatively weaker critters, at least in their early careers. This outline makes much of vampires, werewolves, and mages, but that's just because they're immediately identifying, heavy-hitting properties. Use the full bestiary of World of Darkness terrors with which to haunt hunters.

Hunter Organizations

Organizations are the "splat" choice for Hunter.

People opting for the Hunter experience are deliberately looking to be underdogs, at least in some sense. As well, hunters are basically just normal people who hunt monsters.

I'm advocating a break from the X and Y axis of character creation, the choice the player makes among what "type" of creature the character is and what "philosophy" he espouses. Since everyone here is effectively human, the X axis has already been decided.

Now, if managers want, we can add something here that refines character a little more and gives some more iconic "splat" function. My idea for this is "Code" or "Creed," representing the character's underlying personal archetype that dictates how or why he hunts monsters. That's very much like what old Hunter did, so I kind of want to avoid it, as it won't even dictate the powers you get here. (That makes even more sense, since the powers themselves won't even occur in all chronicles.) A lot of that will emerge through roleplaying anyway, so it's a largely artificial element that characters would never talk about in-game, even though the players might discuss it a bit.

I can go back to the drawing board if managers see a distinct need for the X axis here, but again, I think that decision is already made in the choice to play Hunter: People want to be a dude who fights the monsters. The material presented in this outline is so centrally focused on being a human and reclaiming the human legacy that having hunters become "more than human" jeopardizes the sincerity of the setting.

• We should go over this more thoroughly, I think. I don’t think it makes sense for Tier 1 Hunters to suddenly have “splats” that regular mortals don’t have. And don’t know that even the other Tiers do either- but we know from experience that games without them don’t do as well. So is there a different division we haven’t touched on yet beyond the Tiers and the orgs that could work here and not feel “wrong” for mortals?
• Agreed. I think the splats should be there. Three points on this matter:

1. We might be able to skirt the issue by having the splats for the other tiers exist. Games without splats don't do well, and this game does have splats, but Storytellers going for the most visceral experience don't have to use them. That satisfies my "purist" outlook, but it doesn't necessarily work from a "the game is the central concept" point of view.

1. For all tiers, we can offer a series of "hunter profession" splats. I like the way Spycraft breaks out the roles of modern espionage, and we could probably do something similar here. It would definitely make for cool art. My reservation is that it enforces that all hunters lend themselves to occupational functions, which sort of restricts the idea that anyone can become a hunter. Only soldiers, demolitions experts, assassins, facemen, etc. become hunters. That's good for Spycraft because it's a game in which certain classes dominate the functions of its world, but Hunter doesn't work that way.
2. A life-pathing system. We give general, personal archetypes such as athlete, sneak, socialite, survivor, dilettante, etc. that correspond to the divisions of attributes (physical, mental, social, power, finesse, resistance, and catch-all). I think this is the most versatile, but it feels the "softest" to me, as they're not true splats that you can point to and say, "my dude looks like that and does that."

Tier Two Organizations

Tier two organizations offer a leg up on tier one hunters: institutionalism. There's safety in numbers, and even though these organizations are small and not very densely propagated and sometimes chaotic, they're people with common interests to whom other hunters can turn.

Tier two organizations offer additional benefit to characters that tier one cells don't have in patronage. Tier two hunters have access to better weapons (or at least easier access to them), more men, or other concerns that we'll be able to codify mechanically.

The Long Night

A sect of eschatological Christians, the Long Night is a group that believes the biblical End is nigh. Its hunters fight back the armies of darkness that Satan has sent to reclaim the physical world. Their hope is that they can extend the time of men on Earth just a little longer because it's obvious that the world has been judged and found wanting. If they can prolong the existence of the world (by destroying the agents of Hell) just a little bit longer, the world might have time to achieve some degree of redemption. If they're amazingly successful, the Rapture might even be postponed. This is the metaphorical last night of the world, and they wish to lengthen it, doing their good works, for as long as possible.

The Long Night espouses a fairly dire philosophy, and it's not an organization to which one belongs casually. Of all the hunter organizations, it's one that mingles "non-combat" members with its in-the-field hunters most closely. That is, non-hunters who belong to the organization believe in the same doctrine, and support the hunter members of the group.

This is a popular organization for deathbed conversions, and it's fairly wealthy, funded as it is by people leaving the physical world in hopes of buying their way into Heaven (either cynically or with the genuine desire to uphold the sect's dogma). The government has, of course, classified it as a cult, and the Long Night takes great pains to hide its monster crusade from curious eyes, believing that ideas so patently different from the modern social norm will earn them only more trouble. It expressly doesn't hide its monster-hunting efforts from the ranks of the faithful, however.

Null Mysteris

The efforts of Null Mysteris are a combination of the practical and the academic. This organization has set for itself the goal of disproving the supernatural. To the minds of Null Mysteris members, the supernatural is something not yet understood, it's not something inherently evil. The only problem is, it seems to consistently manifest in ways detrimental to mankind. That doesn't mean the energy that creates supernatural results is inherently evil, it just is. By way of analogy, Null Mysteris sees the supernatural as radiation, the by-product of some presence or process. The difference is that mankind doesn't yet understand the natural process that results in the malignancy-producing by-product.

Adding to the difficulties posed to the organization is its leadership schism. Some members of the organization follow a Svengali-like leader, whose fuzzy science gives a feeling of misled New Aginess to the organization. In contrast to this individual, a die-hard rationalist leads the other internal faction, whose position is that it's not a question of phantom energies or parapsychology, it's just a realm of science that mankind's steps are too tentative to date to understand, like string theory or quantum physics.

Neither side, however, thinks that theirs is the organization to make the comprehensive breakthrough that makes supernatural phenomenon understandable. That can't happen until the world accepts the presence of the phenomena in the first place. Until then, Null Mysteris is more like an organization of field medics, fighting the symptoms of supernatural infestation in the field until the cause can be found and rationalized.

Hunters of Null Mysteris are the ones who turn up on local-access channels late at night, and who take extensive photographs of anomaly sites with Kirlian cameras and the like. They're not necessarily the action-operative hunters, with holy-stake crossbows and blessed bullets who wade into the monster's lair. Remember the cover of the old Hunters Hunted? They're those dudes, a handful of disciples led by a somewhat knowledgeable professor or patron. That often gets them into trouble, but they’re proven uncannily adept and handling such situations. One wonders if it's luck or some external "good fortune."

Network 21

A pirate television station and internet video station, Network 21 is a small organization of computer-savvy monster hunters who not only bring down creatures of the night, they actually film their hunts and broadcast them via whatever media they find available. These videos are available on the World Wide Web, where they've developed a cult following and enthusiastic subculture of viewers who think they're watching web-isodes of an independent television series. In some regions, where they're numerous enough and have enough resources, they broadcast their hunts sporadically via unsecured television transmissions.

The feel here, for the viewer, should be like watching a weird, unexpected "channel zero" type broadcast out of nowhere. Remember back when The Blair Witch Project first came out, and they leaked the whole thing to the web and everyone thought it was a real documentary? That's the sort of vision into the world of monster that I want Network 21 to provide. They have the potential to break the secret to the world, but for the time being, the world just wants to believe it's all fiction.

Escutcheon

The Escutcheon organization is a bit of a catch-all, a haven for hunter types of whatever stripe who realize the safety of numbers but who don't espouse the occasionally ponderous rhetoric of any of the other groups. It's a group of hunters, loosely led by hunters, and operated for the wellbeing of hunters on their missions.

Of course, that also makes it ridiculously illegal: a group of organized killers, in effect. Escutcheon occupies a place on numerous government lists, from a designation as a cabal of survivalist wing-nuts to a cult of anarchists to a veritable Murder, Inc.

The lax environment makes Escutcheon an unreliable patron. That occasionally works to its benefit, however, as the "disorganized organization" is impossible to bring down because of its decentralized nature. Assuming the organization even has a leader, nobody knows who it is. Most hunters in Escutcheon pursue their prey at their own discretion, and any time some hierarchical order makes its way down the chain, it's just as likely to be ignored by its addressee as fulfilled.

The intent here is to give the Hunter equivalent of a French Foreign Legion, a ragtag group of whomever finds himself among the ranks that receives the occasional opportunity to make a name for herself by striking down the enemies of humanity. The organization's members include a vast spectrum of hunters, from the independently wealthy to the hard-luck cases to the fervent to the quite possibly insane. It's a Casablanca haven for any Joe with a gun who hates zombies and wants to take his turn on Vigil — and that's why its members love it.

Sabat Revan Entropos

The origins of Sabat Revan (they added Entropos some time after their formation, which is believed to have been in the 1850s) seem to be shrouded in mystery, the fact of the matter is that its members and leaders deliberately occlude information about the organization. They do so even more than other hunter groups. Those who care suspect the organization of deliberately hiding distressing information, and accusations of being "in league with the monsters!" are never far from skeptics' lips.

Sabat Revan Entropos is effectively a hellfire club, albeit an uncommonly capable one. Its members are almost universally wealthy, with lives of boredom they seek to abate by pursuing perversion. The hunting of monsters is the organizations one (and defining) charitable work, which very often serves as a façade for the revels the club indulges.

Hunters belonging to Sabat Revan Entropos don't just hunt monsters, they almost commune with them. Club members will drink the blood of vampires for the forbidden thrill. They'll eat the flesh of werewolves and inhale the smoke of a burning mage's brain. Indeed, the mindset of many members of the club is that they're not really harming anyone — they're killing monsters, for heaven's sake, and they're just sampling everything the world has to offer. It's the ultimate hedonism, like a gourmand's club that dines on endangered animals, but (to them) without the moral dubiousness of that endeavor.

This isn't a particularly heroic hunter organization, nor is it one that I imagine many players will want to portray, but they're excellent "good antagonists" and a functional way to exhibit some kink and button-pushing imagery. They're certainly not as effective as those organizations that set themselves up in paramilitary capacities, but that's okay, as they have different methodologies. A literal interview with a vampire might happen here, and serve as an ambush for the club to procure its next taboo. Of course, becoming ghouls or other types of crossover characters is eminently possible here.

Loyalists of Thule

The Loyalists of Thule seek out information about the occult, hoping to use it for the benefit of mankind. The organization is made up of those of a variety of outlooks: Some are occultists looking to garner power of their own, some are monster-hunters looking to bring down creatures of darkness, and some are visionaries who wish to extract whatever secrets or tangible treasures the secret world can offer and use them to expand mortals' knowledge. They typically take a hands-off approach to the world of monsters — they mostly want knowledge, not body count, and their hunters exist more along the lines of field researchers and hazardous-environment experts. They fight monsters as a last resort only, preferring to collect their knowledge and an understanding of how monsters function. If Indiana Jones hunted the occult exclusively, he might belong to the Loyalists of Thule.

Then again, he might not, as the Loyalists of Thule have shady origins, originating with the German Thule-Gesellschaft. They have existed in one form or another throughout the Nazi regime. Indeed, during Hitler's reign, the Loyalists of Thule (under a different name) were a state-sponsored occult-hunting organization led by Heinrich Himmler. They'll likely appear predominantly as antagonists, but they're good for those morally gray games in which the remnants of the Nazi party might be doing a bit of good for the world. Today the Loyalists of Thule are very much a secret society of academics, but their ties to Nazi history are undeniable and therefore a source of worry to many.

Tier Three Organizations

Tier Three organizations offer a huge benefit that lesser organizations don't. Tier Three organizations have monster-hunting assets and abilities that can be brought to bear against monsters. Hunters belonging to the upper echelons of Tier Three organizations gain access to "powerz" that allow them to even the playing field against monsters somewhat. IPSI 53, for example, offers low-grade "cyber" modifications that augment hunters' abilities. The Lucifuge gains supernatural investments from its demonic patron. Dori Kai Hoplon has access to ancient, mystical artifacts that have proven effective against monsters. The Malleus Maleficarum uses miracles granted by its angelic patrons to smite the horrors of the night.

Note that Tier Three organizations can operate as Tier Two organizations. That is, it's possible to be a lower-level operative of Dori Kai Hoplon without knowing its supernatural secrets of having access to its reliquaries of powerful artifacts. This is a good "level up" for midgame that allows access to new and cool powers for Storytellers whose chronicles will span multiple Tiers. (We'll explore this idea extensively in the Storytelling chapter of the core book.)

Operation: Valkyrie

The hunters of Operation: Valkyrie face a double threat. On the one hand, they've got the monsters of the night aligned against them, the very creatures they're hired to hunt. That's the second threat: They're hired. They're told who to go after, who to compile information on, and who to leave alone (strangely).

Operation: Valkyrie is a government covert ops anti-monster brigade. To that end, it's well funded, and it provides its agents access to cutting-edge weapons and equipment. It takes on a sinister cast, though, in that its shadowy leaders don't necessarily want all monsters hunted into extinction. Hunters who gain the attention of Project: Valkyrie don't necessarily kill every monster they come across, only the ones they're told to eliminate. For many hunters in the organization, it's hypocritical or disillusioning. They joined the organization to protect humanity. The layers of conspiracy protecting certain monsters, though, suggests to many of these hunters that the government wants certain monsters kept alive (or undead), leading many Valkyrie hunters to believe that the government is somehow trying to exploit the abilities of certain monsters or certain monster types.

In a sense, they're the quintessential Hunter group, walloping enemies and leaving nothing but greasy ash in their wake. In practice, though, they often have difficulty learning how to get close to the enemy. Valkyrie doesn't often care about the how and why of the supernatural, it only wants to eradicate it. As an arm of the government, its internal processes are often gummed up by bureaucracy, procuring budget, and keeping itself out of the public perception. It might be kind of neat to have hunters whose job it is to rub out other hunter groups, whether because they know dangerous secrets, or because they finally grew so disenfranchised that they now threaten to take their story to the media. Indeed, they might even hunt other hunter groups, because those other hunter groups operate outside the law and jurisdiction claimed by the government.

The feel here is one appropriate to early-1990s conspiracy-theory entertainment. Here's your X-Files, with dudes getting their assignments and sometimes deciding to buck the system and discover "too much." It can also be played like The Unit meets the World of Darkness, specifically in how the individuals' monster-hunting duties impact their personal lives. It's also a classic way to play the monster-hunting genre with rationalized access to big guns and immunity to arrest. Any of these flavors is appropriate, depending on what the Storyteller wants to do.

The tier-three benefit enjoyed by Operation: Valkyrie is its experimental equipment designed to enable agents to bring down supernatural creatures with greater ease. Valkyrie is effective, but not subtle — its advanced technology is designed to destroy enemies, not study them.

The Lucifuge

Members of the Lucifuge order believe themselves to be the descendents of Lucifer, the bringer of light and a fallen angel. Lucifuge philosophy positions Lucifucian hunters as the children of a devil who are the scourge of other monsters prowling the night. Those other monsters have run amok and it’s up to the Lucifuge to stop them. The idea is to mix a little bit of Hellboy with a good dose of Catholic guilt over what the Lucifuge believes itself to be — self-styled “evil” religious penitents trying to smother greater evils by way of atonement. Be careful with this. I don’t want to glorify Satanism, but I want the Lucifuge to be sympathetic, obviously.

There are some good opportunities to tie this into existing World of Darkness cosmology for the Lucifuge. Lucifer himself, as the light-bringer, is in some contexts very similar to Prometheus, so a connection to the Divine Fire might be appropriate. (Heck, maybe Lucifucians are sometimes visited by the qashmalim, which could be cool and weird.) As well, “Lucifuge Rofocale” is the “Prime Minister of Hell,” according to Honorius of Thebes, whose Liber Juratus is an occult grimoire that might have some connection to mages or Magical Traditions.

IPSI 53

The confederacy of international corporations known as International Paranormal Safety Directive 53 is a hunter-funding organization that seeks to learn from the supernatural as much as it seeks to eradicate it. It is effectively a secret, privatized supernatural Interpol. The companies that make up IPSI 53 have no legal authority to do what they do. They reason, however, that the existence of the supernatural likewise lies outside the law, and since nothing protects the supernatural, they're not outside their rights to explore it as they will.

IPSI 53 is driven by corporate funding, and its shadow stockholders have a vested interest in learning what they can about the supernatural. More often than any other organization, IPSI 53 wants its hunters to capture the creatures of the night for study at their facilities. Stockholders want to turn all of this expensive funding into something saleable. That's a reasonable goal, but critics wonder if it's going to place undue risk on customers who buy products derived from supernatural origins. If IPSI 53 considers the supernatural outside the law, at what point does corporate responsibility likewise end?

Hunters affiliated with IPSI 53 gain access to experimental equipment that's the equivalent of low-grade "cyberware." I don't think it should be called that, as it skews the experience too much into the realm of sci-fi, but savvy players will realize it for what it is. Indeed, there's a sinister element behind it all, as the agents of IPSI 53 sometimes harvest their kills for mysterious ingredients that fuel this primitive bio-tech, or can be researched in facilities to develop new technologies. This points at larger motives for the organization, but we can explore those in a later supplement.

The number 53 comes from safety phrases established by Council Directive 67/548/EEC regarding dangerous substances. S-phrase 53 is a warning to "avoid exposure — obtain special instructions before use." The EEC is the European Economic Community, a now-defunct precursor to what became the EU.

Dori Kai Hoplon

A secret society of wealthy families of Classical origin and their cult of hunters, the Dori Kai Hoplon specializes in uncovering ancient artifacts and using them in the fight against monsters. Thus, the special powers hunters of the Dori Kai Hoplon wield come from their artifacts. It's both a blessing and a curse for them — the artifacts are hella powerful, but separate the hunter from his relic and he's simply a fragile mortal again.

Dori Kai Hoplon has an especial hostility toward mages and werewolves. Their antipathy toward mages comes from an ancient grudge that dates back to the sinking of Atlantis, and it should be intimated that the organization recalls that time and before, and hates the Atlantean legacy, even in its vastly changed modern incarnation. Its vendetta against the werewolves is similarly venerable, originating perhaps even when the uratha (maybe they even know that word) first neglected their duties to the world and perhaps even slew Father Wolf.

The subtext is that the Dori Kai Hoplon was once a faction of the Guardians of the Veil, from Mage. That's where their ability to create artifacts came from, but they're no longer mages and their reliquaries consist of ever-dwindling stores of artifacts. This is a cool point of contention that players can argue about until the cows come home. To paraphrase Bill, Guardian mages today can claim that "No, they weren't really part of us — they were just an arm of the Labyrinth, part of our misinformation campaign to watch over Sleepers who risk knowing too much." Even though we're defining that they really were part of the Guardians; it gives Guardians plausible deniability.

Thus, its seemingly altruistic motive of fighting monsters sometimes has the cast of an ancient grievance that was never settled. This is a great place for odd ritual and timeless traditions that feel weird but are nonetheless observed today. Time and short human memory has eroded much of the true dogma of the Dori Kai Hoplon (whatever it once was), but the urge to protect the world from its ravening predators and rapacious sorcerers survives to this day.

"Dori Kai Hoplon" is Greek for "spear and shield" literally, or "the tools of war" a little loosely. I chose it because they use such tools against the monsters. I like the potential significance of "spear" as it relates to the Lancea Sanctum, which we can explore or ignore as ignites our imagination. It lends credence to why the organization doesn't hunt Kindred with any notable vigor, though hunts against the vrykolakas definitely aren't out of the question.

Ascending Ones

The Ascending Ones take their name from the Egyptian phoenix myth, which associates the bennu bird with Ra, the sun-god. The iconography is strong, presenting the sun as the cleansing agent by which the creatures of the night are scourged from the world. Ascending One culture is somewhat cultic, as might be expected, with hierarchies of soldiers and priests who administer rites. The Ascending Ones are also a secret society, as any advanced hunter organization is, with hidden chapters worldwide devoted to the destruction of the hellish creatures that prowl the world.

Hunters who belong to the Ascending Ones use a variety of substances to augment their abilities, from potent incense to outright drugs. These drugs and rituals can send Ascending Ones hunters into states of mighty fervor, heal them when they've suffered, and grant them unwavering resolve in the face of hellish opposition.

While some of their activities are admirable — most notably, the hunting of monsters — the true agenda (hidden from most players' characters) is more sinister. The Ascending Ones are actually the seemingly heroic face of a faction devoted to religious conquest. The highest echelons of the Ascending Ones espouse the "sixth pillar of Islam," jihad, in order to spread the Mohammedan faith across the world, converting unbelievers or removing them utterly. The origins of the Ascending Ones are secretly tied to the Kharijite sect of Muslims (on the order of Sunnis or Shiites, though now almost entirely defunct) who were ascendant in the 7th century AD. Ridding the world of monsters, which they see as corruptions of Creation, is simply part of the doctrine.

Branches of the Ascending Ones traffic in decidedly non-altruistic ventures. The organization's ability to manufacture, process, and distribute vast quantities of drugs doesn't apply solely to the substances it offers its hunters. The Ascending Ones have ties to pro-Muslim terrorist organizations the world over, from the Egyptian Takfir wal-Hijra to the Spanish Martyrs for Morocco to the ubiquitous al-Qaeda. Ascending Ones have a thriving side business in illicit drugs that funds their own organization and occasionally helps fund other terrorist organizations as well.

Naturally, most hunters of the Ascending Ones don't know this, and consider the Egyptian symbols of their order little more than that, or draw a clear distinction between their own Dynastic-era faith and that of Islam, never even considering that there might be a connection between the two. This might be something we reveal in later books, or might flag as something exclusive for the Storyteller's eyes.

Malleus Maleficarum

The "witch-hammer" of the legendary Renaissance text, this organization is a secret splinter group given its charter by Pope Paul III in the mid-16th century. Specifically, the organization known as the Malleus Maleficarum was empowered in a "rider" attached to the regimini militantis ecclesiae that resulted in the formation of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits). The Jesuits are an entirely separate organization, and those familiar with the regimini militantis ecclesiae and the secret society, which is to say not many, resent the inclusion of the Malleus Maleficarum, who they see as tarnishing their legacy. (Before it was habit to pin things on the Templars or Opus Dei, the Jesuits always took the hit.)

The Malleus Maleficarum is a book that outlined the investigation and prosecution of witches, published in the late 15th century. One of the writers of the book was condemned by the Inquisition shortly thereafter, so it is certainly odd that a witch-hunter's organization in the idiom of the book inconsistent with Catholic doctrine would be sanctioned by papal bull some 80 years after the book's condemnation, but that's what transpired. Conspiracy historians attribute this to a different agenda for Pope Paul III than for Pope Innocent VIII, in the summis desiderantis, which the Malleus Maleficarum originally prefaced.

The truth of the matter is that the organization known as the Malleus Maleficarum grew out of the efforts of an extraordinarily clever and successful ghoul whose Kindred patron had used for his connections to the Church. The ghoul eventually managed to free himself from the yoke of Kindred subservience and created the organization to fight vampires with the unknowing patronage of the Church, so that no others would ever fall prey to the depredations of vampires again. That's a huge goal, of course, but it's one that Malleus Maleficarum hunters take seriously, as a matter of their faith. Of course, rumors suggest that the original ghoul still exists, having fallen back to the dependencies of ghouldom, and uses the organization to procure Kindred Vitae to sustain him as well as a tool against his enemies, which are certainly as many as any elder Kindred might have himself.

Regardless of its strange history, the Malleus Maleficarum organization persists to this day, hunting down monsters of every stripe with all of a zeal many consider fanatical. It has a decidedly anachronistic feel, combining a Germanic, Dark Ages severity that exalts faith over pragmatism or worldliness. Hunters of the Malleus Maleficarum often live penitent, ascetic lives, emerging from their monasticism almost exclusively when a fiendish threat arises.

The hierarchy of the organization becomes occulted at levels above those of he individual hunters. Certainly, some greater authority is assigning hunts to "field agents," and the group's information is disseminated at the decision of someone, but it's not immediate who that is. Either the members of the organization are almost inhumanly adept at keeping the secret, or they don't even know themselves.

The supernal benefit Malleus Maleficarum hunters possess is an on-demand invocation of miracles, most of which are used to smite the evils that plague the world. Naturally, members of the organization believe these powers to be divinely bestowed. Some holistic scholars doubt this, and a few radical thinkers believe that the Malleus Maleficarum's power might originate from the same source as that of the Lucifuge. They may also have a connection to Promethean's qashmallim or other crossover potential.

Hunter Powers

Unlike other "template types" in the World of Darkness, hunters don't have an umbrella term for the various supernal abilities they can come to possess when they're members of third-tier organizations. Each ability has a different function and application, so they're all referred to specifically by the name of each. As well, this suggests that hunters don't have the carefully constructed society that their enemies in the World of Darkness do. It's good for demonstrating that the hunter's path is often him against the world, and any time we need to refer collectively to hunter powers, we just call them "hunter powers," "supernal powers," or specify them by name.

That leads us to the second consideration: the definition of powers. Hunter powers are purchased as Merits, with at least one of the Merit's prerequisites being membership in the tier-three organization that provides them. They're separate Merit categories of their own (like Social, Mental, Physical), each titled according to its own unique function.

Remember that once we're talking about Merits specific to the organizations, we're talking specifically about tier three organizations. Joe Hunter can’t just walk in and get thaumatechnological augmentation, he needs membership in IPSI 53 and probably more than a little prepping, which can be played out through the chronicle. Each of these should have some distinct flavor for the learning or preparation, since they're the secret and proprietary weapons of utterly unique organizations. Maybe Elixirs require tolerance and immunity preparation, for example, or they’re deadly as poison. Castigation is a battery of secret rituals. Smitings come from scrolls and other ancient, protected lore in the hands of the Malleus Maleficarum. You don't just go to the Awesome Powers Store and load up, you have to be indoctrinated and otherwise prepared to receive the benefits of these supernal Merits.

• Advanced Armory: The weapons and equipment of Operation: Valkyrie are a cut above what you'll normally be able to find on the streets or even in the military organizations elsewhere in the world. They specifically focus on supernatural threats, and might even be weaker than normal weapons against mortals — think Ghostbusters' beams, but played straight. As well, Operation: Valkyrie offers non-weapon equipment that gives its users advantages over monsters. You're offering sample equipment here, and I'd like to see a system by which characters can R&D their own equipment. You'll probably also want to look at WoD: Armory to see how weapon and equipment writeups can be cool and even spawn their own stories, as opposed to just giving a list of weapons names and how much damage they do.
• Castigation: The possibly-demonic powers practiced by the Lucifuge. These powers are thematically designed to "cleanse" monsters in the name of Lucifer, bringing them to salvation and redemption in their destruction.
• Thaumatechnology: The experimental occult-fueled proto-cyber wielded by IPSI 53. Too much "cyber" vocabulary swerves us further into the realm of sci-fi than I think we want to be, so I'm deliberately going for a greasier, more diesel-stained affectation that drips repulsive ichor or bleeds off ether like steam.
• Relics: For the Dori Kai Hoplon. This is very similar to the Artifacts Mage Merit, but they're usable only by members of the hunter organization. You'll be creating sample relics here, so spend a few words on discussing power levels, balancing relic abilities, and how their prices are governed, R&D, etc., as with Advanced Armory.
• Elixirs: Fancy talk for the drugs, potions, oils, and other substances used by the Ascending Ones.
• Smitings: The miracles invoked by the Malleus Maleficarum. Many of these are martial in design, hence the name, but several should also be "buffs" to protect the practitioner from the various witchcrafts he'll be facing in his campaign against the darkness.

Tactics

To complement the tier-three powers, to give an extra benefit to tier-two organizations, and to keep tier one hunters alive, hunters develop special tactics, group-oriented combinations that take advantage of the fact that hunters work in groups and depend on each other for their very lives. In some sense, these are like the Combos from Exalted (see p. 244 of that book, if you have it), but they're much more mundane in practice. That is, they don't necessarily require any supernal abilities to form the basis (unlike how the Exalted Combos are based upon Charms). Rather, these are special defensive, offensive, or other discrete-effect-generating maneuvers.

These are things like Hamstring Attack, in which one hunter distracts the prey while the other clips his Achilles tendon, reducing his movement score. Another might be a technique by which the hunters can more reliably find a vampire's heart for staking, or one in which they confuse a mage and impose a penalty to any spellcasting rolls he might make.

Tactics use minor amounts of [AS YET UNDETERMINED HUNTER POWER TRAIT], and they always require at least one additional participant. They're accessible to all tiers of hunters as a general ability, but some may require special knowledge of tier two or three dogma or abilities.

Tactics (we'll refine the name to something more significant and dynamic) can be purchased with Practical Experience (see below), not normal experience.

Morality

The issue of morality is going to come up a lot in Hunter stories, so let's invest a lot of effort in making it a cool part of the Vigil and not some preachy bombast that the Storyteller uses to rein in players running amok. Storytellers need to be encouraged to use Morality as a wellspring for interesting stories and dramatic scenes that reward the characters for being fully conceptualized. Don't think of Morality as the stick, use it like the carrot.

Custom Morality: Teleologies

Let’s face it: When it’s your job to send the monstrous denizens of the night screaming back into the hells that spawned them, your work is bound to leave you a little whacked. Some people sell books for a living. Some people write computer code. You drive a wooden stake into the cold, dead heart of the would-be Dracula who’s terrorizing the back alleys of the Old Fifth Ward.

The Morality system of Hunter combines the standard World of Darkness Morality mechanic with the unique experiences of each hunter. Because the hunter’s belief in her purpose is so strong, that belief can occasionally trump the “normal” human urge in the hunter, suborning the good-neighbor outlook of everyday people in favor of the stark necessities of the monster-killer.

Teleologies are custom-built entries on the ladder of sin that each character eventually adopts over his career as a hunter. For example, a religiously motivated hunter might have little consideration for the property of others in his zealous pursuit of monsters — this character might replace the Morality 8 prohibition against harm to another with something like “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.” Thus, the character doesn’t mind a bit of property damage against an innocent while in the pursuit of a known night-fiend. In the character’s mind, the greater sin would be to allow the monster’s depredations to continue. If he has to break someone’s car window to get to that monster, so be it.

The intent here is to use Morality to have the individual hunters decide how righteously they pursue their goals. At the same time, they distance hunters from normal people — there will be a social dice-pool penalty for each teleology a character possesses. Thus, as the character becomes more and more devoted to her hunter ideal, she becomes more and more of a fanatic, alienating herself from the very people she wishes to protect.

Players and Storytellers should be able to get a lot of mileage out of this in a maturely played chronicle. Indeed, I see a lot of lines blurring between derangements and teleologies. Is this character truly stalwart in his hunterly cause, or is he just a sadist?

What I want to avoid is the old Vampire problem of finding the “Path of What I was Going to Do Anyway.” That’s why the social drawback is there. Writers should pay particular attention to this thematic element in their use of it in game material. Don't delve too deeply into the admonition against "incorrect" play styles, though. We don't want to punish players for having fun with the games. Instead of railing against it, show, as mentioned above, how Morality can be used to generate cool scenes of story realization and dramatic plotlines of its own. Would people still love Wolverine if he didn't have his quasi-Bushido code of honor? No, he'd just be a maniac.

Derangements

Characters who duly observe any rigorous morality are probably going to acquire an impressive list of derangements. A few are listed below, but don't consider that list exhaustive. Again, special effort must be made to introduce these as exciting game concepts and good dramatic tools, not the overt punishments they mechanically seem to be.

• Calling Cards: The hunter leaves a signature token or mark at the scene of his successful hunts. In an individual without the derangement, this might just be a symbol of pride or a commemoration of a job well done. When it becomes a derangement, though, it takes on a new dimension of cruelty or malice. When a killer leaves a motif at the scene of multiple crimes, he wants to be caught. What does it say when a hunter starts leaving compulsive calling cards?
• Overkill: Some hunters take the notion of "making sure" too far, guaranteeing that their monstrous prey will never rise again by inflicting such catastrophic damage — even after the monster is dead — that there's nothing left to run away to fight another day. Better-adjusted hunters find this practice grotesque, and it's sure to cause a problem of a police officer happens on the scene and witnesses a suspect grinding up the remains of a "werewolf" in a wood chipper.
• Sadism: Similar to the above, but it's in a unique position to be used in Hunter. When the hunter has his monster on the ropes, does he do the deed without affectation or remorse? Or does he do it with a glint in his eye, wracked by vengeance? Taking this third-rate Crowley to pieces bit by bit won't bring Nathan back, but it'll sure let the son of a bitch know what all of his victims must have felt like in their terrified final moments.
• Monstrous Delusion: Hunters sometimes stalk a particular sort of monster that they come to identify with that monster type. This is a great place for players and Storytellers to turn our monster myths on their ears, because hunters almost certainly don't know the intimate truths of those monstrous conditions as well as the genuine monsters actually do. A hunter who thought he was a vampire is an obvious thought to entertain, but look deeply at this. How does a hunter "mage" rationalize his lack of overt "spells"? Do his own powers cover that? How whacked is a hunter who thinks he's a werewolf? Does a hunter who believes he's a changeling understand madness in the same the Lost truly do, or is he just schizophrenic?
• Sexual Deviancies: It's a shotgun topic, but it probably happens, given the association between sex and violence in many humans. Necrophilia is the obvious one, with a hunter pursuing vampires and maybe zombies (soo narsty!) for sex, but what about a hunter who lusts carnally for werewolves in their beast-forms? What about the fantasy-fetish that might attract a hunter to a changeling? Or the thankfully nameless sexual lust for an amalgamation of previously dead bodies given alchemical life? Weirdoes, I tell ya.
• Solipsistic Denial: When a hunter cracks, in certain situations, he simply denies what he's seen over the course of his experience and knows to be the case. Effectively, he denies in his mind the existence of the supernatural, deeming it superstitious or absurd. In a way, the hunter "reverts" to his pre-hunter mindset, either oblivious to the secret world or cynically doubting it. This is dangerous for a person whose responsibilities are to fight the supernatural incursion. In can potentially also cause episodes of self-mutilation or "penance" if the character has some sort of supernal augmentation or abilities of his own. Imagine a hunter who plucks out his own bio-augmented eye because he wants to justify that the supernatural isn't real. Remember how Pi ended? With the poor guy drilling into his head to stop the flow of information?

The Hunter Gone Rogue

What happens when a human with the inclination to hunt loses his moral compass? Obviously, it depends on the individual, but with the amount of bloodshed and supernatural atrocity, in addition to the World of Darkness' inherent mortal atrocity, the fragile, mortal minds of hunters are almost guaranteed to be a casualty of their line of work.

I also think it's worthwhile to entertain the notion of "reclaiming" a hunter lost to the fugue of Morality 0. Those tier-three organizations probably have some sort of program or ritual in place to help them do so. The archetype of the fallen hero returning from the Other Side is too good to pass up. Normally, you just turn in your character sheet and start a new character, but with the hunters' goal of redeeming the world, there's got to be some almost-ethereal way to return to the ranks of the sane.

Restoring a 0-Morality character takes that character out of play for a time determined by the Storyteller, but we'll have some guidelines based on how it's done. A hunter returned loses a permanent Willpower and a permanent Morality space. That is, a hunter coming back now has a maximum Morality of 9 (if it's his first time) or lower (if he's had other trips beyond the pale). A hunter returning also returns to play with a Morality of 4 and one point of Willpower — a precarious point, at which any indelicacy can send him back into the vast abyss of depravity.

Some don't make it back. Some just don't have the will. Others don't even make it into an environment where they can attempt to reclaim themselves. There's something about the morally bankrupt hunter being out there somewhere that makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up. This could be a great antagonist in a chronicle — a relentless, implacable hunter whose only desire is to bring down his prey, whatever his addled mind might decide prey is.

We'll introduce this all with a cursory but tantalizing initial look, and then examine it more exhaustively in one of the supplements. I want to lay the groundwork for it here, though.

The Retired Hunter

Being a hunter takes its toll. Most ex-hunters are dead hunters, but every now and then, someone managed to buck the odds and hang up his stake and mallet while he's still alive.

How can a hunter justify it to himself to let the vigil go, though? How can a guy know that evil threatens the world at every corner... and decide that he just can't fight it anymore?

This is a huge concept for dramatic awesomeness. Herein we'll have everything from Whistler in Blade (who doesn't fight monsters, though he develops weapons for someone else to fight them) to Colonel Kurtz in Apocalypse Now (who abandons his military duty because he's gone crazy and withdrawn into himself)

Practical Experience

As Mage has Arcane Experience and Promethean has Vitriol, so too does Hunter have its own unique sort of experience: Practical Experience points. Hunters earn both standard experience and Practical Experience.

We draw the distinction because hunters' whole raison d'etre is destroying monsters that threaten the world. It's one thing for a player to have a scene in which his characters comes off as particularly memorable (for which he'd earn a bonus experience point); it's entirely another end wholly in character for a pack of hunters to bring an end to the local werewolf menace. This latter act is something worthy of Practical experience — it reflects the hunters' learning how creatures function in the World of Darkness and the best tactics with which to oppose them. See the "Team Functions" conceit above for more on this. Practical experience is how hunters stay alive to continue the fight. Standard experience is what hunters use to develop less martial characteristics (though they can use it for combat abilities, too).

This additional mechanic is kind of a neat way to get a little old-school with Hunter where it's appropriate. It recalls the roots of roleplaying, when experience systems represented only the amount of monsters you killed. As such, Practical Experience makes for a good system by which increases in character traits can increase — by living up to a cool character premise, and by kicking the asses of the things whose asses you're literally supposed to kick, given your choice of vocation.

As well, Practical Experience is the best way to gain access to those special techniques and combos described in the "Clever Tactics" section, above. Right away, let's assume that they're the only way to acquire those tactics (which we can scale back later if we need to). And let's assume that they're a little less expensive than Vampire Devotions — say, two times the dot-level of the tactic in question, since they're so focused in scope, with the more universal ones becoming more expensive.

Comments

[richt]

Wow. Quite a trip down memory lane! That was the second or third pass? Seems really complete. Do you have any of the notes from when this was presented to the other developers? That bit of the process might also be interesting to get a peek at- or not, I just remember a fair bit of feedback on preferred tiers and such that much discussion was made over. Nice bit of history, JA.

[Genghis Philip]

Cool to see the birth certificate of Hunter. Really really amazed to see how much got kept from just the outline. You have these from the other games as well?

[Justin Achilli]

Rich, I'm going back and seeing which of the drafts I still have. I know this went through a lot of iteration, and this was "version 2.5" which I extricated from an e-mail. If I can find an even older one, I'll see about getting that up here as well.

Philip, yes, this happens for all the game lines. I don't have a lot of my older ones anymore, but I'll peek around and see if any of the other developers have their lying around.