Page 185 - Chronicles of Darkness

God-Machine are world changing and the hidden system spans
continents. Wars begin at the behest of angels, the Illuminati
Best of Both Worlds pushes its agenda for the New World Order, and the resulting
body count enters the realm of mind-numbing statistics. Any
The common themes in the Tales of the God- victories won are fleeting or, conversely, are so complete that
Machine are time travel, causality, and sweep-
ing, cosmic change. One of the advantages to the victors become the new mechanics for the God-Machine.
including elements like these in your chronicle is Television shows and movies are replete with stories that
that it allows your troupe to change everything, could be set in the global tier. The Walking Dead is one ex-
but still go home to the reality they know and love ample, as is a disaster movie such as 2012. Either one could
afterwards. Pulling this off so that it doesn’t feel be the result of the God-Machine breaking down, or just
cheap or forced is difficult, but not impossible. It’s deciding humans have gotten out of line one time to many.
just a matter of making sure that the characters The Call of Cthulhu is a global tier story, as are many of the
have something to accomplish — maybe putting James Bond movies. If the stakes leave your troupe wonder-
the world back the way it was is their goal, and ing if humanity will (or should) survive, you’re hitting the
when it’s all over, the hard choice they must make right tone. If a conspiracy seems so vast that only the most
is whether or not to keep their memories of what paranoid of conspiracy theorists would give it credence, you’re
almost happened.
on the right track.
At this tier the possible consequences of a problem cease
to be background and ride right up in your face. Let’s say
vampires decide to end the age-old practice of keeping their
The ex-captain was content to wait for the island’s appear-
ance, assuming that mankind would fabricate enough death existence secret. Maybe they’ve had one too many media
on its own to collapse the time bubble (as he’d begun to think slipups or maybe staying in the coffin has become just too
of it). He was still waiting while on his death bed in 1912. damn hard with all the modern technology and CCTV about.
The Black Tide reformed after his death and, less patient, The question that must be answered for this scenario,
began to pursue means of forcing the bubble to break. These from the point of view of a God-Machine chronicle, is what
studies eventually wandered into the arcane and it was here do the hidden system and the God-Machine itself think about
the first member heard whispers about the God-Machine. this situation? Perhaps the God-Machine decides the best
The Black Tide theorizes that the people of Atlantis solution is to thin the vampiric herd. Remember that the
found a way to communicate with the God-Machine, and it God-Machine prefers to be subtle. Instead of just rearranging
banished them for their hubris. Not even the God-Machine the Earth so that every vampire gets a serious case of sunburn,
is all-powerful, however, which accounts for mass deaths basi- try to envision a more subtle solution. One possibility is to
cally overloading the circuits that keep the island suspended in engineer a virus that is moderately harmful to humans and
time. Uncovering even a single truth about the God-Machine highly contagious, but is fatal to every vampire who contracts
would be a treasure beyond anything ever dreamt of by Vaselko. it. The human immune system will eventually adapt, leaving
While the Black Tide isn’t nearly magically potent enough to humans as carriers and suddenly making it much more dif-
whip up storms of its own, it can add momentum to them. They ficult for vampires to feed.
push tropical storms to become hurricanes, and hurricanes to Many Storytellers have an aversion to world-changing
become catastrophes. The organization proved Vaselko’s theory events when it comes to running games in the Chronicles of
to be true in 2005. The island itself actually reappeared for an Darkness. One of the appealing things about the Chronicles
entire minute after Katrina rolled through the region. of Darkness is how closely they resemble our world, and so
Other attempts have been made (such as the Gulf oil spill) adding out-in-the-open supernatural elements, apocalyptic
with lesser amounts of success, but the Black Tide is nowhere events, or hard sci-fi changes the setting a great deal. In a
near to giving up the fight. Members of the organization have global-tier story, it can be tempting to go all out, change
begun to whisper about a cataclysmic event — orchestrated the world, and revel in the chaos of altering everything. Of
by the Black Tide — that will devastate the entire Caribbean. course, not every world-changing event needs to be quite that
Members of the Black Tide come from every strata of spectacular. Ideas can change the world just as readily as a
society and include powerful politicians, military leaders, tentacled horror the size of the Eiffel Tower. Anyone that
wealthy businessmen, and, in the tradition of its founder, remembers 9/11 should be able to testify to the efficacy of a
ship captains. Information about the organization is scarce single event changing how people think. In the years following
and its members obey an omertà-like code of silence. Anyone the attacks, security was beefed up to almost paranoid levels
attempting to oppose the Black Tide not only faces well-armed at airports. Not everyone is on board with the new measures,
goons, but a legion of lawyers and political influence. but enough people are on board to let what would have pre-
viously been loudly denounced as a grotesque violation of
Global civil liberties become something to merely grumble about.
An important thing to keep in mind when running
Chronicles set in the global tier shift focus to include chronicles set at the global tier is to make whatever is going
the entire world as the stage. At this level, the designs of the on personally important to the characters. If World War III
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Shards of the Divine-Building the God Machine Chronicle