What’s Out There? (Part 2)
Monsters
The world is full of monsters. There are other types of werewolves than those mentioned above (four or five in total), and at least four types of vampire (White Court, Red Court, Black Court, and Jade Court), all with different powers, hungers, and weaknesses. Then there are ghouls, the hard-to-dispatch killer thugs of the supernatural set.
Add to this the inhabitants of the Nevernever who can by various means cross from there into the mortal realm; these include a multitude of faerie species, spirits, ghosts, and demons.
A couple dragons and gods are still kicking around, but we don’t know much about them other than they usually don’t seem to get involved in stuff and are extremely powerful.
The Order of the Blackened Denarius is composed of Fallen angels bound to thirty silver coins, permitting them to possess mortal hosts; they are extremely bad news. Apparently, angels support the people of faith who wage war against the Denarians.
Then there are Outsiders and Old Ones. They want to consume reality. We don’t have much information on them because knowing anything about them is against the White Council’s Laws of Magic.
Current Situation
The White Council and its allies (the Fellowship of St. Giles, the Venatori Umbrorum, and some mystical monasteries in the Far East) are fighting the Vampire War against the Red Court. For its part, the Red Court is using ghouls (and Outsiders in the Nevernever) against the White Council. It is also trying to bring the White and Black—and possibly the Jade—Courts in to help fight. The White Court is neutral (due to infighting and a recent major setback), the Black Court is very small, and the Jade Court is very mysterious, so they haven’t joined the Reds quite yet.
The Summer Court and the Winter Court of Faerie are locked in their traditional enmity, though the violence has ramped up due to the Vampire War. The Summer Court has offered mild assistance to the White Council in the course of the Vampire War, but both are only indirectly involved.
A bunch of necromancers made a play for godlike power a few years ago. Luckily, some of the White Council’s Wardens stopped it.
The Denarians continue their millennia-long rampage of evil and destruction, checked by the Knights of the Cross. While the Denarians aren’t directly participating in the Vampire War, they are taking advantage of it. The Knights have aided the White Council on more than a few occasions.
The first “pure vanilla” mortal has signed onto the Unseelie Accords, becoming the first non-supernatural Freeholding Lord. It is likely he will assist the White Council versus the Red Court.
Then, there’s a mysterious faction out there—alternately called the Black Council or the Circle—that is apparently stirring up trouble behind the scenes.
Most recently, a huge dust-up happened in Chicago between the Knights of the Cross, the Archive, representatives of the White Council, and the Denarians. (There’s also evidence that the Summer Court and Winter Court of Faerie were involved.) Suffice to say, it wasn’t pretty.
And that’s what’s going on at the moment.
That’s it for Harry’s World. In two weeks we begin with paranormal politics: the Old World Order.
So, it sounds like the game will be current up through Small Favor, right?
And, like that, anyone who has trouble finding good antagonists or points of conflict on which to frame play had their worries go “poof”.
@Simon, That’s the plan.
I love all of this
Can’t wait to see the final result!! Keep up the wonderful work 
How far back are some of the details going to go? I’m planning on running a 1920s and 1930s game, in part to avoid crossing up the novel continuity.
Playing in the past is a great idea, but we essentially start our perspective on the world with the short story “Restoration of Faith”, since that’s the earliest fiction in Harry’s chronology that we have access to.
This gets better and better
I demand a finished book now.. er.. ASAP anyway
So how exactly is the White Council going to react to all this? After all, a primer on how to kill the nasties is almost certainly going to contain unfortunate nuggets on how to kill the wizards too
@Dan from Chicago, well, there’s a reason it’s taken us so long to get this thing published…
Looking forward to it even more! When the source material itself springs from the pen of someone who’s already a respected gamer, we in the salivating audience KNOW that the game is gonna be good.
) But seriously: this is one example of anticipation for a product-release shared by the creators as well as the audience. I’ve already got space on my RPG shelf reserved for it.
(No pressure.