Just finished my first ever short chronicle as a ST having never played before. Here's a short summary.
The players were all first time players but we're all pretty knowledgeable about the general lore from playing bloodlines. I ran it in London but created my own lore and history about why vampires were back, see my previous post about London at Night. London wasn't ruled by a prince anymore but lots of factions, both Camarilla and Anarchs, and mid generation vampires were vying for control. The eldest vampire in London was an 8th generation Ventru, Duke Erasmus and the players worked for him. They were all playing 12th generation and had only recently come back to the city.
There were a spree of murders happening every night for the last 3 nights, the victims drained and left with only bruising but no visible marks or other notable cause of death. All the deaths had happened in Hyde park but the Malkavian Talia, who's hunting ground it was was no where to be found. The players were tasked with figuring out what was happening and putting a stop to this potential masquerade violation. The Duke was sure it was Anarchs.
The players decided to follow the bodies and went to the morgue. With the help of a ghoul pathologist, they figured out that the victims were attacked from behind and above from the bruising patterns.
From there they travelled to the scene of the crime and found more police cordoning off the area. Another murder had happened and quite recently. Two of the players made their way to investigate using obfuscate and found that the police could see no tracks leading to or from the body except the victims. As they were heading back to the rest of the group, one of them noticed a scrap of paper had been slipped into their pocket. "Leave me alone" it read.
The players were sufficiently spooked that whatever this was had not only seen them while obfuscated but had gotten close enough to plant the note.
They decided to see the Malkavian vampire, Elaina, in Regents park to see if they knew anything about Talia. They discovered that not only was Elaina Talia's sister but also her sire. She spoke in riddles and metaphors about a lost and forgotten one and asked them to find her sister. She gave them the key to Talia's haven.
In the haven they found her journals that spoke about every person she'd ever fed from, she believed that she helped the suffering of those that she fed on. Hundred upon hundreds of journals. The most recent one spoke if a man, a soldier of the special air service who had been forgotten by his government and left alone and lost. She had gone to feed but had instead fallen in love with soldier. Brought him back and cared for him. She had decided to embrace him without permission. Afterwards he had ran away, confused and scared. The last line had an address that she knew he would hold up sometimes and that she had gone to find him.
The players followed the lead to the abandoned terrace house, scaffolding ran up the side of the house and the windows at the top were just coved up plastic tarp. They climbed the scaffolding and the Gangrel in the group decided to leap through the window into the room. As he pushed past he didn't see the trip wire trap with the shotgun, he took a full blast to the chest, the beast flared within him and he grew hungry. He pushed back outside and despite the others trying to stop him he jumped a pedestrian, dragged him into the shadows and fed. Regaining some composure, didn't finish the kine off but disposed of the unconscious body in an alley way.
The rest saw that the room was empty, using auspex to look for any hidden supernatural. What they did find was a letter, some of Talia's journals and ancient dry bones, they presumed Talia had found final death. They gathered up any possible masquerade violations and decided to meet up back at the park.
It was there they finally saw him, in the trees, watching them. They managed to convince him that they were friendly. The man seemed to think he was still in a warzone and that he had been taking down insurgents each night. One of the players was actually a military intelligence captain back in world war 2 so decided to play along with the delusions. They said that they were an extraction team for him and that he should follow them. This seemed to appease the soldier and he followed them. Deciding that the Malkavian Elaina would know how to deal with the delusions.
When Elaina saw him she saw the diablerie aura around him and realised what he had done. She said that he deserves to see one more dawn. The Nosferatu player heavily intervened as he believed that he was sick and not his fault. He didn't understand. With some well placed crits from him and beastial failures from Elaina, she decided to obfuscate and leave.
With only an hour or so before dawn they returned to the Duke and presented the Soldier. He was also of mind to introduce him to final death, the illegal embrace, diablerie and the masquerade violations. The players put forth a compelling argument that not only was he special forces trained, but a powerful kindred. He could make a very useful tool for the Duke to continue to make a push for Prince of London. The Duke accepted and the players retired to their Haven just before sunrise.
If you made it this far thank you for reading. I'm not sure if this went like a typical VtM game as none of us had ever played before but we all certainly had fun. If you have any comments or questions I'd love to share.