The DC Chronicle, subtitled DC by Night, is a play-by-post Vampire: The Masquerade chronicle that began in November 2015 and is still currently running. It is played via asynchronous forum posting and writing at the DC by Night forum website. It is a semi-closed game, allowing new players only on approval from Admin.
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Theme
The themes of DC by Night revolve around largely political and social conflicts in the Capitol of the United States, where change comes both very slowly and frighteningly rapidly and different factions are constantly jockeying for influence that can be felt around the world.
Themes explored in this game include:
| Come the Revolution If you do not believe that the sun will rise then stand alone and greet the coming night in the last remaining light. |
Characters who have been downtrodden, mistreated, abused, or excluded from mainstream Camarilla life must choose their moment to rise up and decide what freedom looks like to them. |
| Crossroads of the World There comes a time in the life of every nation when it stands at the crossroads of history and must choose which way to go. |
The greater political landscape of not just the city but the world is in flux, and the characters could fundamentally change the way vampiric society works... or cause it to erupt in flames. |
| Redemption for the Worthy How did you know that what you sought was redemption and not righteous vengeance? |
Characters must confront the harm and evil they have done in the past and decide whether to embrace their crimes or seek redemption for them. |
| Sins of the Fathers For I am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents, to the third and fourth generation. |
Characters must confront the legacies left to them by their elders - parents, sires, clans, sects, and everyone else who has gone before them. |
| Stand and Deliver We cannot always be the bridge. Sometimes we must choose our time to be the flooding river. |
Characters who are fleeing - from their pasts, from dangers pursuing them, or from themselves - must face their demons and either defeat them or break in the process. |
Plot
The Domain of Washington, DC, under the control of the Lasombra Camarilla Prince Marcus Vitel, is the central location and power bloc around which events of the game revolve.
Politics
Political plots are usually tied to the unorthodox Prince and his questionable rise to power. The Primogen Council agitates for their own return to power, finding the Prince untrustworthy but unable to band together against him due to decades of entrenched enmity; the Prince's Cabinet angles to create their own power blocs beneath him; and Vitel himself looks toward making the Americas into a new empire to rival the ancient Domains of the Elders of Europe. Power players of ancient blood fight slow, laborious fights of influence and intrigue against one another, while the city's huge population of young blood, attracted by the sudden shifts in power and vacuums waiting to be filled in its leadership, jockey to rise to their level.
Nor is the city safe from outside interference, unsurprising in the cutthroat global world of vampire politics. Delegations from other powerhouse cities such as New York and Paris affect the landscape both from a distance and distressingly up close and personally. Wars - against the Sabbat or other, more esoteric enemies - are planned, financed, and designed to campaign in distant locations while bringing DC itself glory and renown. The childer of several powerful European families have chosen to make their homes here, bringing with them the political scrutiny of their relatives back home. Rumors persist that Clan Lasombra plans to make a bid for membership in the Camarilla on the back of Vitel's success, leading to factions from all over the globe arriving to help - or hinder - that potentially huge shake-up of power.
The influential and powerful are not the only players in town, either, with the Anarchs looking for the chance to topple the Prince and take the Capitol for their own and the dispossessed and downtrodden vampires of The Blood Disco providing a haven for those who, in many other cities, would already have been destroyed by their elders and betters. The native vampires of the Americas, long in hiding due to the destructive European invasions of their lands, have begun to emerge with their own representatives and agendas, seeking to return to control over and stewardship of their ancient territories.
Social & Supernatural Plots
Social plots are complex and often rely on the established alliances and relationships among the vampires in residence. Among other things, survivors of the recent Sabbat offensives in Atlanta, New York, and Chicago struggle to make new lives for themselves, renew old acquaintances (and enmities), and learn how to move on from such large-scale destruction; Clan Toreador suffers from a huge influx of new members at the same time as they discover predators seeking out the vulnerable among them; and Clan Ventrue struggles with internecine conflict, the local DC vampires shattered by the revelation of the Prince's subterfuge among them and desperately trying to hold off the interlopers who have come to take the city's reins back from them.
DC's ghoul underclass is among the most active in the world as well, supporting as it does an enormous number of vampires and their strange allies. Human servants, surviving the world of the undead by the skin of their teeth (or, very often, not at all) thrive with their own machinations, working behind the scenes to support their masters' plans, protect them from danger, or seek to change society so that their own goals and ideas are more than just dreams.
DC is perhaps one of the most active supernatural hubs in North America, and it shows. Seers and those touched with the gift of supernatural sight suffer from visions, forecasts, and premonitions; creatures that even vampires do not recognize stalk the streets. The werewolves of West Potomac Park fiercely guard spiritual territories from the undead in an ever-escalating war of defensive aggression, while the many graves of the national cemeteries are haunted by the ghosts of times gone by and human beings with startling magical powers have begun to pop up here and there. Creatures from the fairy realms desperately try to manipulate from behind the scenes and use the Capitol to return some wonder to a world that is slowly starving them to death, and the Hunters of the government's most secret organizations not only intentionally target vampires and other supernatural beings but have invented terrifying new technologies in the process.