White Wolf

White Wolf Game Studio is a gaming company that created the "Masquerade" vampire roleplaying game out of a live action role playing[?] game that the founders helped anarchically coordinate among the goth music denizens of Atlanta, Georgia. They went on to become a pretty standard role playing game company from these rather funky roots.

White Wolf publishes a line of 9 different but overlapping horror games set in the "World of Darkness", a world that seems much like our own only much more sinister, where vampires, werewolves, mages and other creatures of the night do exist and fight each other while remaining hidden from normal humans. The company has now also begun publishing some (D20[?] material under the Sword and Sorcery label and revived the Ravenloft Gothic horror world owned by WOTC.

In Vampire: The Masquerade, players play (surprise, surprise) vampires who have to struggle with their thirst for blood trying to maintain what's left of their humanity. Players can choose between several clans.

The World of Darkness[?]:

• Vampire: The Masquerade - "Oh my god, I'm a monster!"
• Werewolf: The Apocalypse[?] - "Oh my god, I'm a monster, and the world is coming to an end!"
• Mage: The Ascension - "Don't let the other guy immanentize the eschaton!"
• Wraith: The Oblivion[?] - "Oh my god, I'm dead."
• Changeling: The Dreaming[?] - "Oh my god, I'm ...something!"
• Hunter: The Reckoning[?] - "Oh my god, the world's full of monsters!"
• Vampire: Kindred of the East[?] - "Ah kami-sama, watashi wa no Wamupiru desu!"
• Mummy: The Resurrection[?] - "Oh my god, I cannot die!"
• Demon: The Fallen[?] - "Oh my god, you betrayed me."

Sort-of World of Darkness:

• Exalted[?], high fantasy

Mind's Eye[?] theatre live action roleplaying(LARP)

Other games:

• Trinity, also known as Aeon, science fiction and psionics[?]
• Aberrant, near-future superheroes
• Adventure![?], 1930's pulp heroes

Unfortunately, the World of Darkness series spawned an entire subculture WITHIN a subculture: People who seem to be unable to distinguish between the World of Darkness and the real world. Agreed, the World of Darkness is a darker, more brutal version of our planet Earth and our society, and the story of the WoD has been subtly woven into real life. But still, young people who want to be different term themselves Vampires (Malcavians, Tremere or whatever clan they fancy), Werebeasts (including dinosaurs - Mokole), Changelings, Demons, Mages (of a special tradition, of course) and so on.