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What is the Camarilla?
The Camarilla is an international roleplaying organization and fan club dedicated to the enjoyment of White Wolf's World of Darkness®. It supports global chronicles set in the World of Darkness - in both live-action (using the Mind's Eye Theatre™ system) and tabletop roleplaying (using the Storytelling System™).
The Camarilla is one of the world's largest roleplaying groups, with thousands of members across six continents. Members create characters using White Wolf's game books and play those characters in games organized by their local chapters. Many members also travel to games and events hosted by the hundreds of other domains and chapters, use some of the numerous "in character" e-mail lists and attend larger regional, national and international events. All the while, members get to develop their characters and get to know thousands of other World of Darkness fans.
The Camarilla Is a Global Roleplaying Group
At its most basic, roleplaying in the Camarilla is no different than playing in any other Storytelling game. Members make their characters according to the guidelines in the appropriate game book and then portray that character in a chronicle. The difference comes in scale, however. Whereas individual Storytellers can and do develop epic chronicles, the Camarilla's Storyteller teams have developed a global chronicle that includes thousands of characters, each portrayed by a member. Members can portray their characters in games when visiting another city or country and can interact with other players across the street, the state or the world. All the actions of these thousands of individual characters impact all the others in a flesh-and-blood "massive roleplaying" that puts its online counterparts to shame.
The Camarilla Is a Social Club
The Camarilla is about more than just roleplaying, however. As a social club, it brings together thousands of people with a common interest in the World of Darkness, and has a long history of forging friendships. Many Camarilla gatherings and events feature healthy amounts of "out of character" time for members to get to know one another and simply have a good time. Local groups may have friendly get-togethers to watch gothic movies or play tabletop games, while regions may hold fundraisers for charity or blood drives.
The Camarilla has a special commitment to the arts, education, and service. All members are encouraged to learn more about the arts, especially the theatrical arts of acting, costuming, prop-making, storytelling and scene setting through set decoration, lighting and sound. The Camarilla sponsors and encourages its members' artistic interests in writing, sketching, painting, illustration, photography, computer graphics, graphic design and other artistic pursuits. The club publishes a great deal of the members' work in Epitaph, its quarterly international newsletter, on its hundreds of websites, and in its regional, city, and chapter newsletters (where available).
The Camarilla sponsors many charity events to benefit good causes across the globe. Many chapters support a local charity such as a food bank or shelter, thus strengthening the community where they live. Large Camarilla events often feature charity auctions and have raised tens of thousands of dollars for such recognized charities as Shriners Hospitals, the American Red Cross, the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation, the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation and the Linda Blair WorldHeart Foundation.
Live-Action Roleplay (LARP)
The Camarilla built its reputation on a global live-action chronicle. In live-action roleplay (sometimes called LARP), elements of acting and costuming add on to traditional roleplaying. You dress and act as your character in games that use no dice and take place in real time. Live-action games can involve as few or as many players as you like, with each character having their own agendas, alliances and rivalries.
The Camarilla's live-action chronicle consists of one story that spans the globe and includes every member of the Camarilla around the world who wishes to participate. The first global LARP chronicle lasted for over six years, and with the launch of White Wolf's new World of Darkness, a whole new chronicle has begun! Members mostly participate in their local game run by their local Camarilla Storyteller. However, larger participation exists on several levels. The easiest is to subscribe to one of almost 200 roleplay-related email lists. Some lists allow roleplay while others consist of out-of-character discussion about a particular character type. There are also about twenty internet relay chat (IRC) channels available for real-time online interaction.
Even more rewarding is actually visiting other Camarilla games. From a local game in the next town to a game in another country, your character gets to meet and interact with another whole cast of characters. The various levels of the Camarilla also organize larger roleplaying events to which players will come from across a region, a country or even the World!
Tabletop Roleplay
The tabletop venue brings the concept of a global game (that has been so successful in live-action) to traditional tabletop roleplaying. Members are able to bring their sanctioned tabletop characters to a variety of games, including local chapter games, sanctioned games at conventions, and online games using the Camarilla's chat rooms. Regional, national and international Camarilla events all include tabletop roleplaying sessions, and tabletop players can travel to other chapters and bring their characters with them.
The Camarilla Hosts the International Camarilla Conclave (ICC)
The crowning event of the Camarilla year is the International Camarilla Conclave. This annual international convention open only to Camarilla members takes place at the end of October. At this four day event, members can enjoy nearly uninterrupted roleplay across almost every venue of the World of Darkness (tabletop and live-action), shop among dealers of costuming and gothic merchandise, meet developers and others from White Wolf Publishing, attend panels about a range of issues of interest to the members, get to purchase advance copies of upcoming White Wolf products, and attend gatherings and parties of all sizes!
Getting Started
Step One: Join Your Local Chapter
The Camarilla is a global club, but it lives and breathes on the local level. Your first step should be to contact the club chapter in your area. First and foremost, this allows you meet other members nearby and to hear about local club games and events. It also allows you to set up your character in the global chronicle with local roots, giving you contacts and an "in" to the ongoing stories.
To make contact with your chapter, just go to our list of US chapters on the Camarilla website and look up the one nearest to you. Then, just email the chapter or domain coordinator and introduce yourself. He or she will provide you with all of the information you need.
If you don't have a nearby chapter or domain, you can join online groups or start a new chapter.
Step Two: Get Into the Game
Our global tabletop and live-action chronicles extend throughout the world. Once you create a character, you can portray it at local games, online, at any appropriate game hosted in the United States, or in any city in the world that offers a sanctioned venue. Players and Storytellers from around the world weave a common story that links individual games together into a massively multiplayer game environment with thousands of players. The events at your local game can cause ripples across the nation and around the world. There's a world waiting for you, so just step in!
You can create a character for as many of the venues (a.k.a. game lines) supported in our chronicles as you like. And you can create a tabletop and a live-action character for each of these venues if you want.
Venues
The live-action chronicle currently supports the Mortals, Vampire: The Requiem, Mage: The Awakening and Werewolf: The Forsaken venues.
There is also a Changeling: The Dreaming venue that exists separately from the rest of the live-action chronicle. It uses somewhat different rules and a different setting.
Your First Character: The best way to make your first character is to work directly with the Storyteller at your chapter or domain. She'll be able to walk you through the process and help you refine your concept. She can help make sure your character fits into the chronicle's established history and introduce you to other players (and their characters) so you can forge some links before your first game. The Storyteller can also help you if your concept requires some special approvals - such as playing a vampire form a rare bloodline or who is especially old. It's usually best to start with a basic character that doesn't require any approvals.
That being said, there's no reason you can't get a head start. Characters in the Camarilla are designed using the World of Darkness Rulebook (for tabletop play) or the Mind's Eye Theatre rulebook (for live-action) plus the appropriate supplements for each venue.
· Your First Game: Your first Camarilla game could be a local game put on by your chapter or a huge national convention with hundreds of members in attendance. In either case, the key is to remember that roleplaying is a social activity. Make sure to introduce yourself to other members; they'll be happy to have you aboard. Especially in large live-action games (where lots of people are playing all at once), it's a good idea to get a sense of who's who in character before doing anything rash. There are years of play ahead of you in this chronicle-take the time to see the story in action before trying to upset the applecart.
Your local coordinator or Storyteller will let you know when the next local game is, but you can also consult the events calendar to find a game. Another great way to get playing is to join one of the many mailing lists and discussion forums. The out-of-character lists are great for meeting other members and looking for ways to connect your character to others. If you want to play a Blood Talon werewolf who spent time as a trucker in the Midwest, go on the lists and you're bound to find other Blood Talon players and players who have some connections to the intestates through the heartland. Could your characters be old friends? Or bitter rivals?
Your local venues Storyteller can also send you a copy of the venue style sheet. This document includes a quick rundown of the style and special rules that might apply in the game.
Step Three: Keep Playing
With a chapter to meet with and a character to portray, you're pretty much all set. But the whole point of the Camarilla isn't attending a single game, but to participate in a sprawling chronicle and develop your character over years of play. You can also get involved in the club's organization, its charity events and much more.
The Membership Handbook has many more details on the ins and outs of the Camarilla. Here are few items that may come up, and how to get more information on them:
· Code of Conduct: The Camarilla is a fun and cooperative roleplaying group. For us all to have fun, a climate of respect and good nature needs to reign (although our characters may be backstabbing fiends, of course...). With that in mind, the Camarilla has a clear Code of Conduct that is always in force at official events. You should make sure you are familiar with it. The code is available on the Camarilla website and in the Membership Handbook.
Chronicles & Venues: Camarilla game play is divided and organized into two chronicles and a series of venues. The Chronicles are either tabletop (using the Storytelling System) or live-action (using Mind's Eye Theatre). You can participate in both chronicles, but must maintain separate characters in each. A venue is the stories and characters within a chronicle that concern a particular character-type. The venues correspond to the core games that make up the World of Darkness: Vampire: The Requiem, Werewolf: The Forsaken and Mage: The Awakening. There are also Mortals and Changeling: The Dreaming venues.
· Experience: Characters in our chronicles develop over time and earn experience points. You spend those on bettering your characters' traits, whether that means their Skills or their supernatural Disciplines. The basics of spending experience are the same as in the published game books, with a few tweaks as outlined in the venue and chronicle pages.
· Approvals: There are many things in the World of Darkness that are meant to be rare - obscure bloodlines of Kindred, secret lodges of Uratha, and so forth. To keep these things rare and special, the Camarilla uses a system of approvals. Whenever you want your character to gain (or start as) something rare, it requires a Storyteller to sign off on it. The rarer (or more disruptive) the item in question, the further up the Storyteller chain the request has to go. The five levels of approval are Low (your chapter Storyteller), Mid (the domain Storyteller), High (the regional Storyteller), Top (the National Storyteller) and Master (the Master Storyteller). There's nothing wrong about requesting an approval item - but you will need to justify having the item and show that you have thought about it and will be responsible in its use.
· Prestige and Member Class: The Camarilla thrives on the participation and efforts of its members, and to reward members who show up to every game, who serve as coordinators and Storytellers and do so much more, the Camarilla awards prestige. As you gain prestige, you will eventually rise in member class (everyone starts at member class 1). Higher member class gets more experience points for your primary characters. You can track your prestige and member class on the My Prestige page and learn more about all this in our Introduction to Prestige and Member Class.
· Organization: The Camarilla is divided into a variety of organizational units. Local groups are called chapters, which either groups together all the players in an area or groups together those with a particular interest. Slightly larger are domains, which cover major cities or other contiguous areas. Some domains include multiple chapters. The United States is further divided into eight regions which oversee the domains and chapters within them. Every country has its own national officers as well - managed directly by White Wolf in the United States and by affiliates in other countries. Finally, the club has a global office that oversees issues affecting the entire membership. Each of these levels has a coordinator (who manages out-of-character matters) and a Storyteller (who oversees the chronicle).
Now the fun really begins. Once your character is approved you can get right to playing. Play with other locals in your Camarilla chapter, join one of dozens of in-character mailing lists, play tabletop games in online chat rooms and go to special events.
You’re one of us now!
*All of this information was found off of the Camarilla website: http://camarilla.white-wolf.com
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