VANDERBUCK

PATRIARCH Darian

BLOODLINE Eileen and Emilia

The Vanderbuck family has been watching over Chicago for generations. Darian Vanderbuck is the man behind the curtain, and the reason Chicago politics are as cutthroat as they are. His willingness to ally with were packs has earned him disfavor with his fellow coven leaders in the past, but no one has been able to oust him from Chicago's throne... And many have tried.

FAMILY NAME

MOTHER Mother's Name
FATHER Father's Name

SISTER Sibling's Name
BROTHER Sibling's Name

SPOUSE Spouse's Name

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FAMILY NAME

MOTHER Mother's Name
FATHER Father's Name

SISTER Sibling's Name
BROTHER Sibling's Name

SPOUSE Spouse's Name

Text goes here? Describe the family in a few words? Blah blah blah?

SPECIES

Vampires are the living dead. Nobody can remember a time vampires have not walked the Earth, and they are thought to be the true apex predator of the planet. The living dead, given a believable semblance of life thanks to their bloody appetites: the more human/warlock/were blood a vampire consumes, the more alive they appear, but they will become emaciated and withered if they stop drinking human blood. They played a huge part in overthrowing the witches and establishing life as it is today, where humans are little more than herds for the slaughter. Due to generations old agreements made with the weres, vampires stick to
ABILITIES: Addictive bite, extreme strength/speed/jump/stamina (one or two, depending on age), enhanced senses, persuasion (including the ability to make a person see someone or something else when they look at them), fangs, cannot be photographed or appear in mirrors, weak to garlic and truly blessed objects, will burn under sunlight

Weres were once spirits, bound in service to witches as their otherworldly guides. The witches called them familiars. Generations ago, an old coven rose to prominence. They called themselves the Skellington Coven, but they meddled in more than just death magic. They were the first to bind their familiars' spirits to physical flesh. Their first experiments resulted in creatures too monstrous to control: they were kept alive long enough to breed, and then were neutralized. But as the breeding program continued, kept alive by witches who wanted physical as well as spiritual protection, the weres became civilized enough to be controlled... For a little while, anyway. The practice spread throughout the covens in the world, and soon more witches turned their familiars into weres than not. That was when the weres turned the tables, helped in part by a witch's natural enemy: vampires. Today, weres are one of two dominant species in the world, and they tend to be especially brutal when it comes to holding the leash over their territory when used-to-be-witches are living in it.
ABILITIES: Enhanced strength, enhanced senses, enhanced speed, enhanced jump, enhanced stamina, power fluctuates with the moon (lessens during a waning, increases during a waxing), wolf shapeshifting (larger, stronger, etc than average), feral shapeshifting (human/animal hybrid, bipedal with animal attributes), A/B/O pack dynamics, resistant to a vampire's persuasion

Warlocks are what the surviving witch families have come to be called. They have lost much of what they used to be, thanks to the grimoire purges ordered by some of the more ruthless were Alphas. Warlocks are scattered around the world and forbidden from gathering en masse anywhere. They are seen as the property of the pack or coven they belong to, and are expected to perform whatever magical tasks that need to be done. Some packs and covens treat their warlocks with respect, almost akin to a shaman role of old, others treat them no better than humans, and a few treat them worse than that.
ABILITIES: Magic casting that is dependent on training/experience/experimentation, communicating with the inner world, magical channeling, spirit walking, dimensional sensitivity, human physical weaknesses

Humans are the sheep of the new world. They do not remember what they are, nor the power they once held. They were once the caretakers of the world, responsible for maintaining the balances between the physical world and the spiritual realm. They had powerful covens, supported by ancient family names, and grimoires that had been added to for thousands of years... Then, they became greedy, and too many of them strayed into the Forbidden Arts. The witches built their own destruction, and are reaping what they sowed to this day.
ABILITIES: Regular human abilities. Intuition.

The Fae live in another realm. A door was accidentally opened to Earth by a witch's coven that was practicing forbidden arts. Their goal was to find something that could beat the weres and vampires back into submission, but they were naive in the eyes of the Fae. Easy pickings, and how fun that harvest was... The Seelie Court made first contact with the coven, and they showered the witches in powerful gifts. They swore to help them make their enemies disappear. They made a were army disappear overnight, and a vampire coven the night after that. On the third night, when the Seelie Court had met the obligations spelled out by their initial agreements, they took the largest coven on Earth and made them disappear, too. Ever since, the Fae have ridden through the open door into the world: bringing with them their Wild Hunts, their deadly political games, and the changeling half-breeds they leave in the cradles of the human children they steal.
ABILITIES:

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FREQUENCIES

What are frequencies? People born on Earth tend to have their psyche operating from three separate frequencies: Alpha frequency, beta frequency, or omega frequency. Of the three, beta is the most common, followed by Alpha, and then omega. Although frequencies are normally only consciously recognized by weres, it is a universal truth.

Alphas are the drive and strength of every civilization. They tend to have more energy than the other tiers and are more prone to using physical force to solve their problems. Although Alphas can be underhanded, they are stereotyped among the weres as being blunt, direct, and hard-headed. Only Alphas can rise to be the leaders of were packs, and in many packs they are the only ones who can hold higher ranks. Packs that have non-Alphas in essential pack ranks are often looked down upon. The most driving characteristic of an Alpha is their ability to nudge betas and omegas into doing what they want.

Betas are the support system of every civilization; the worker bees and Average Joes. They help bring other people's visions to life. Betas who are more oriented toward serving omegas tend to be more dominant than betas who are more oriented toward serving Alphas. In general, a beta that works well with Alphas will stumble when trying to work with an omega, and vise versa. Betas live to serve and take care of others.

Omegas are the heart of every civilization.

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MAGIC

How does magic work?

What is spirit magic?

What is elemental magic?

What is psychic magic?

What is necromancy?

What is wild magic?

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POTIONS & BREWS

What are potions? Potions are

What are brews? Brews are

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CHARMS & CURSES

What are charms? Charms are

What are curses? Curses are

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HISTORY

The world has not always been the way it is now, and Her people have not always been downtrodden. A long time ago, the world was ruled by witches; powerfully magical beings whose primary purpose was to maintain the balance between the mental plane and physical sphere of their existence. One of their most important tasks was to keep the vampires - rogue spirits who learned how to avoid crossing over to the mental plane after death - from anchoring in human flesh. It was a war the witches ultimately lost, and they were the ones who gave their enemies the means to their own defeat.

The Gravediggers Coven had been searching for a way to give their familiars - the spirits who guided them when they went walking on the mental plane - a physical form. Their experiments ventured deep into what was considered black art at the time, merging two spiritual entities into one physical body, but that was what they did. The first of these creatures were too wild and unpredictable to be allowed to live long, but their bloodline was carried on. The process was repeated, perfected, and then distributed to the other covens. Sharing magical lore was rarely done, even back then, but this was seen as an important step to defeating the vampires. So all witches were given the knowledge, and many of them turned that knowledge against their most fervent allies. The familiar bond was twisted out of recognition, perverted from partnership into enslavement.

For years, the weres were no better than the witches' slaves, and too many of them had felt the deep sting of that betrayal for too long. One were in particular had had enough of the abuse; she brutally savaged her witch one night and fled before she could be neutralized by the others in the coven. Although she was chased by the best hunters the witches had, she fell into the hands of a vampire before she could be found by the coven. That meeting between vampire and were was the seed that would eventually tip the power balances in the world, forcing a brutal but swift war between the supernaturals. In the end, the vampires and weres were the unquestioned victors, though casualties from the war had greatly diminished the weres' numbers.

Although both the vampires and weres were publicly touted as the winners of the war, it was the vampires who truly benefited. They suffered few losses, and the war provided them with plenty of opportunities for vampiric spirits to enter the bodies of people who would have died otherwise. That was how the vampires ended up with control over a majority of the towns and cities in America at the time, and the weres were given stewardship over the country's wild land. Some of that has changed over the years that have passed since the uprising, and the weres have gained control over some of the bigger towns and smaller cities, but for the moment it is the vampires who have the upperhand.

Since the war, the topic of magic has been strictly guarded from the population. Nearly all of the descendants of witches have forgotten who they were and what they're supposed to be, and those who still remember sometimes wish they could forget. They have been civilized, domesticated, and more than anything else downtrodden. The few families allowed to hold onto their magic are known as warlocks, and any who are caught practicing magic not sanctioned by the pack or coven they belong to is burned alive.

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