Animalism allows empathy with and power over the animal world, as well as the animal within, and embodies the Beast which lurks within the soul of every Cainite. Those with Animalism can understand and soothe the passions of animals and control the actions of such creatures by touching the heart of the beast within them all.

Fleshing out a world, creating and playing a host of secondary character, arbitrating rules and crafting scenarios can be difficult tasks. Nonetheless, the chance to make a dream come alive is well worth the trouble. When the other characters carve their niches in the world, you give them the world itself.

Storytelling games are active entertainment, interactive and original, as opposed to passive.

Let every player have an equal chance to take an action or interact with one of your characters. Though you may naturally give more time to the more creative and inventive roleplayers in your group, never ignore the others.

Changelings inhabit a world filled perilous adventure, nightmarish monsters, and legendary treasures.

Evoking the full power of your players’ imagination must be your primary goal when in this environment. We could tell you what everything looks like, but that would leave you no room to work whenever the players entered the Umbra (looking things up always slows the story down). Besides, no one truly knows what the Umbra is, for it is different from every perspective-there is no right or wrong.

Circles are tightly knit groups of wraiths that have banded together for mutual defense against slavers and Spectres. The cirlce is a fundamental unit of Shadowlands wraith society. In many ways, a wraith’s circle takes the place of family.

Alone, even in a crowd. Dead, but able to touch and sense the living. Real, but intangible.

The afterlife can be an adventure if one can supersede the gloom and sidestep the pitfalls.

Wraiths see death in everything. They do not see things in the physical world as they appear, but as they someday will be. A person about to die might appear cadaverous, with hollow eyes and jaundiced skin; a car destined to crash will appear dented in advance. Much of the world seems decayed, a near collapse. Billboards are tattered, roads are potholed, pain is peeling, metal is rusting, buildings are crumpling. To the Restless, much of the world is already dead.