Behind the Scenes: Campaign Notes for Tribes of Tokyo

I tend to write a lot of notes for longer campaigns, especially complex ones like Tribes of Tokyo. Here are my earliest notes for Tribes, outlining the basic set up and how vampires worked. Obviously, a few things changed over the course of the game. Anyway, enjoy!Sheng the Greater, the immortal reincarnated sorcerer began his path to true power in 2001 AD in Tokyo. Reincarnated as a young Japanese student, Sheng had brief glimpses of his past life as Taoist alchemist but it wasn’t until he took the forbidden Liao drug in Tokyo that he learned the truth. The drug transports the mind of the user into the future. Sheng was thrown 3,000 years into the future and met himself. Sheng revealed the truth of his existence: he had completed a powerful ritual long ago that made him immortal but only through reincarnation. His mind was transferred into an infant upon death and it took Sheng decades to relearn his true past. Each generation of Sheng could only accomplish a little more before the frailties of the human form doomed it. But by now 2001, Sheng had accomplished enough to assure success. The Liao drug sped up the memory recovery, which was introduced into the Tokyo night club scene years ago. The last Sheng left behind a Swiss bank account for the young generation to fund his new work. The Sheng of the future explained that in the year 5,000, a threat to Sheng has finally emerged. After mastering true immortality in the year 4,000, Sheng founded a great empire and reintroduced civilization to a world devastated by pollution, nuclear war, and worse. However, a rival empire formed in the year 4850 and now threatens war against Sheng. They have summoned a being of indescribable power and will use it to permanently slay Sheng. Only one weapon has proven useful against this being – a magical ritual that requires a psychic human as a sacrifice. Psychics are also essential in ferreting out spies – essential to maintaining his empire. Sheng the Ruler needs psychics to win the war but he can’t afford to sacrifice the few he has under his command. Sheng of the year 2001 learned this and set about securing a supply of sacrificial victims for his future self. In the next 12 years, he built up a conspiracy using his fortune, occult knowledge, and a small team of vampiric servants to do his bidding. He now poses as a teacher but scouts for young psychics while his servants look for them in other sectors. Once a psychic is found, they are kidnapped and taken to a secret facility where they are slain with ritual magic and transformed into essential salts. The salts can be used to resurrect the psychic thousands of years in the future. The salts are taken to a secure vault through a magical gate to a stable underground location in western China that borders the Plateau of Leng, to be guarded by carefully planned wards and seals. Because of paradox, Sheng the Ruler cannot tell Sheng the Teacher what is in the vault or how to proceed. Sheng the Ruler has no memory of his time as a teacher – possibly because he created too many vampires during his time there. VampiresAll vampires are humans infected with a memory from Sheng the Greater, which allows Sheng to channel a fragment of his incredible power through the host’s body and imbues the vampire with psychic abilities. Both the future and modern Sheng control access to the greater powers of the vampires, but the vampire can access the lesser powers at will. The more powerful memories come from the Sheng of the future but that can only be transferred to the past with the use of the Liao drug. Weaker memories come from the present Sheng – only his current incarnation’s memories can be used in this way, not his past lives. Vampires need human blood in order to remain animate – the toll of Sheng’s presence damages the body on a continual basis but the vampire continually heals these injuries as long as they have blood to burn. A vampire without blood feels greater and greater pain, until they go mad and seek out blood. If deprived of blood after this berserker state is reached, they fall apart in a manner of hours. Each memory constantly plays in the head of the vampire – a foreign presence that influences everything the vampire thinks and perceives. Vampires each get a unique mental disorder/quirk based on the nature of the memory. Ichi ‘s memory is standing in the rain – the sensation of water falling on him. As a result, Ichi constantly pours water on himself, stands in the shower whenever possible and otherwise tries to realize this memory. Humans can be infected through a ritual performed by Sheng, through drinking the blood of a vampire, or by telepathic contact. Sheng is not aware of the secondary methods of infection. LiaoThe drug is produced by the conspiracy and circulated in two forms - a party/hallucinogen named “Reverb” that induces visions of the future and is popular with the club kids and a study/adderall type named “Oxford” used by ronin students that induces greater focus and mental clarity (vivid dreams are a side effect) both kickstart potential psychics and are used by the conspiracy to find more psychics for the long vault. However, they've recently lost exclusive control over the recipe but aren't aware of it - its creation requires a mild radioactive agent and a ritualized formula to create it. A Yakuza informant inside the conspiracy has leaked the recipe to a mid level gangster, who's just figured out how manufacture it on his own. Once he starts selling it, the PCs will pick up on him first since he's sloppy so they'll get the recipe and a lead on the conspiracy. Using either type of the drug has the potential of activating latent psychic powers and mental time travel to the future - both SAN eroding events. For vampires, the drug causes a massive feedback loop that's extremely damaging. Vampires are sensitive to the presence of the drug and handle it with care. Feeding on a drugged person is poisonous to a vampire but vampires can detect the presence of the drug in a person - it resonates with them so they can't be tricked into doing that under normal circumstances. Of course, since they won't feed (or touch) a drugged person, it does help defend against a vampire - the drug is like garlic to a normal vampire. I have an idea for an adventure where the PCs all take the drug and travel to the far future to see the year 5,000 as they involuntarily possess recently slain corpses.