Paradigm of the Camarilla Mortals Venue UK

Updated: November 2007

Each venue within the Camarilla Chronicle has a specific paradigm that gives guidance to Storytellers and players. Paradigm is the frame of a chronicle, and everything proceeds from it.

“Mortals” here refers to humans endeavouring to live their day to day lives without being fully lodged into one niche of the Supernatural Genres of the World of Darkness. It does not cover ghouls, wolf-blooded, Awakened mages, Awakened-venue-variants, Redeemed or Ensorcelled humans. Such characters are not permitted in the Mortals Venue as PCs.

The Mortals Venue is about those people who have become aware of the supernatural and joined together in communities to do something about it. Mortals are committed to the simple principals of secrecy and community, and operate in an environment of extreme paranoia and the shared understanding that the general population is not ready for the truth.

There are two main components to the idea of secrecy, the supernatural and the human.

All characters in the Mortals Venue are committed to preserving the secrecy of the supernatural. There are two general approaches to this. These are NOT mutually exclusive, so it is possible to have characters or games with a mix of both.

1. PCs believe that the world is a better place if the existence of the supernatural is not revealed to the general public.

2. PCs accept that attempts to reveal their knowledge to the general public will be met with widespread disbelief and possible consequences such as confinement in a mental institution.

Regardless of which general category your PC (or VSS) is subsumed under, attempts reveal the existence of the supernatural to the general public will be considered in violation of paradigm. Note that this does not preclude a character from selectively revealing certain facts to other individuals in a one-to-conversation, nor does it cover such things as tabloid media or similar “hiding the truth in plain sight” measures. But public preaching, mass recruitment, media revelations designed to reveal instead of deceive, or other such activities targeted at “the public” are not appropriate to the venue.

The Human Element

There is a human element to secrecy as well. Mortals naturally form communities. Whether the community in-game is a secret society, a corporation, a family, the fact is, mortals in the World of Darkness who do not have some sort of community generally lead lives which are nasty, brutish, and short. So humans seek each other out to find mutual protection and support. Your community is a voluntary association. Your community is where you go to feel safe. Your community is (most likely, but not always) safe because it is secret.
Mortals do not needlessly jeopardize the safety, or when applicable, the secrecy, of their own community. The protection of your community can be selfish, or altruistic, or both, but it is uniformly recognized by mortals that they are all better off if they can preserve the integrity of their communities.

For those involved in Secret Societies

For secret societies or secret communities, this means that its members are committed to preserving that society’s secrecy. Beyond that, they respect the secrecy and integrity of other societies. This doesn’t mean there aren’t plenty of attempts at gaining inside information or other unsavory activities, but it does mean that out-right betrayal is rare, and harshly punished. Outright infiltration is almost unheard of.

Mortals who quit a secret association are considered to be the black sheep of the venue because they have, in essence, turned their back on their community. They are a liability to the community they left, and a liability to any future community they join because they are seen as untrustworthy and lacking a sense of what community is.

This commitment to secrecy is how secret societies have managed to avoid being infiltrated by mortals or supernaturals. In those rare cases of infiltration, the infiltrator is killed.

The commitment to community is how secret societies have stayed free from indirect control by unsavory mortals or supernaturals. Anyone found to be under the influence is rescued; sometimes that ‘rescue’ means death. The supernatural exerting the influence is also traced down, if possible, and destroyed, and the group will take additional measures to safeguard themselves according to the situation.

“Mortals” Mindset

All of this is driven by the third element of the Venue. Human beings are paranoid. It’s not about what they know, but what they don’t know. Everyone realizes that secrecy is a full time effort, that communities are vulnerable, and so they are paranoid. They take constant measures to protect secrecy and community, they are consistently on the look out for signs of violation of either, and they are very, very certain that anyone admitted to their community is a trustworthy individual who holds their same values. They are especially suspicious of anything that might even look like divided loyalties, which is why so few mortals hold membership in more than one community. This is also why secret societies rarely recruit from pre-existing communities, including organized crime, paramilitary organizations, or other groups to which a person already outside loyalties as strong as those held by members of the occult societies.

Second Sight

Paranoia and fear should play as much a part of the life of an individual with an ability or power from "Second Sight" as it does for a normal. Obviously their understanding of the nature of the world and the reality of things is slightly different and as such paranoia and fear will manifest in different ways, sometimes even seeming alien in their mindset. However, these elements are there and exposure, to be uncovered, found out or documented should terrify an individual. This breeds again either a sense of smaller community should others of the same ilk be found, caution and responsibility of behaviour. How long before the errant wizard is locked up or wiped out by something wishing to maintain secrecy for security? These things should be heavily taken into account when playing a member of any magical segment of the Mortals venue.

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