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Message: <blockquote data-quote="kigmatzomat" data-source="post: 9661441" data-attributes="member: 9254">I ran a MtA game set near a college campus, in an old house with numerous tenants of different ages, which draws no attention in that part of town.  The plot was a pastiche of published adventures i strung together, the main one is MTAs Chaos Factor, except removing the worst character.  I used 2 NPCs to help massage things in place before Chaos Factor.  I ran 3ish arcs prior to establish backstory and relationships.The first is Merlin, the historic Merlin...sort of.  Merlin is a mage who Awakened moments before the end of the universe, as Time itself was broken.  He has the ability to travel backwards in time, changing the path of history, shifting the End of All.  He does it again, and again, moving the End, his own personal timeline shifting around, but he's always right there, Awakening just as the Wyrm breaks the Weave.But...he can't be in the same place twice, so he pops in, gives advice, and vanishes.  Occasionally he drags people around in time.  He can't teach time travel...but a Mage who accrues a large amount of Paradox while time-shifted can be blasted to near the time they left.He pops in with information he collected from the future to get the PCs to do whatever needs doing to shift the apocalypse.The other one has to be used sparingly. It is Cain.  Yes, that Cain, cursed by Jehova to suffer forever.  Cain is burned by the sun, running water washes away his flesh, the touch of his feet to soil is like iron spikes. Except he can never die and doesn't even get to sleep.  A mark on his forehead causes all to forget him.  If he harms anyone, he feels twenty times their pain.*But in my cosmology, Cain didn't create vampires on purpose.  A demon pretending to be an angel convinced a group of priests (great-great-grand neices & nephews) that Cain was still alive only because Jehova was waiting for the righteous to smite him.  When they fell on Cain, the curse of Jehova struck them, the demon possessed them and they became vampires.  This happened waaaaaaaay back in time.He ran across Jesus.  He couldn't forgive Cain, Jehova's wrath and all, but if Cain can get all the demon-possessed vampires off Earth before the Apocalypse then Cain would be allowed into Heaven at the end times.So the PCs will get odd bits of advice regarding vampires from random people they never meet again.  Or rather, one person they can never correctly remember and keep misattributing.  Except when it's the last time you're going to use him, and they remember all those past instances were Cain.Yes, those two cosmologies in direct conflict, but I'm a-ok with it.ChaosFactor changes  [spoiler] there is no Haigt.  It's a person who wants to be turned into a powerful vampire by Huitzilopoctoli in the temple underground.  Cain wants the methuselah to come out and get killed. See the * on Cain hurting people doesn't apply to demons or demon-possessed corpses, so he can only get out all his aggression & frustration while beating on vampires.Merlin is trying to keep the methuselah from going on a blood-frenzy, creating hundreds of low-generation vampires which is the Apocalypse trigger du jour.So Cain can tank, taking all the methuselah's abuse, while the PCs whittle him down.  Use the various other characters in the adventure as needed to give the PCs a real chance.  I recommend having Merlin time shift them forward a month at the start, so if a Pac winds up bursting with Paradox, the PCs can be punted back in time to heal up and prep.Just remember, they can't exist in the same time twice, so once they reach the moment where Merlin landed them, they skip forward to the fight with Huitzilopoctoli.[/spoiler]</blockquote>

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