San Francisco (WOD)

San Francisco is a city which is the cultural, commercial, and financial center of Northern California and second-most densely populated major city in the United States.

Overview
San Francisco appears in numerous game supplements and works of fiction in the pre-Revised Edition-era of the Classic World of Darkness. It was the titular city in the short story anthology City of Darkness: Unseen and the reprint anthology World of Darkness: Strange City. In the Revised era, its main appearance was in the Kindred of the East/Vampire: The Masquerade sourcebook San Francisco by Night.

Vampire: The Masquerade
San Francisco was first detailed in A World of Darkness, a supplement for Vampire: The Masquerade First Edition. The city itself receives only minimal detail, however; most of the coverage is given over to the Vampire Club, a nightclub for Kindred built in the hull of a beached yacht. This book also introduces several characters that would have recurring roles in early Vampire novels and short stories: Sebastian Melmoth, proprietor of the Vampire Club, better known as Oscar Wilde in life; Tex R. Cainen, his bodyguard and the club's bouncer; and Vannevar Thomas, Prince of San Francisco. Vannevar Thomas and San Francisco were heavily featured in the novels Dark Prince and its sequel/prequel, Prince of the City; Thomas was actually the protagonist in the latter novel, which spans the city's history from the Gold Rush into the present day.

The Beast Within, the first Vampire short story anthology, featured numerous stories set at least partially in San Francisco. These stories introduced an error in continuity, however, as some stories referenced Prince Vannevar Thomas while others named the city's prince as Jochen Van Nuys. Several of these stories were reprinted in World of Darkness: Strange City, which attempted to reconcile this error by changing references to Jochen Van Nuys into references to Vannevar Thomas. However, in the Revised era, a different solution was found in San Francisco by Night, in which Van Nuys was revealed to have replaced Thomas as prince in 1996, and he himself was in turn later replaced by Sara Anne Winder. The Beast Within Revised Edition retained the references to Van Nuys as prince that were found in the original versions of the stories, implying that those stories happened after Van Nuys' coup.

The city is also depicted in a TV series called "Kindred: The Embraced", where a Ventrue named Julian Luna holds the princedom of San Francisco, guided by his sire, archon Raine.

Werewolf: The Apocalypse
The Children of Gaia caern introduced in Caerns: Places of Power is featured prominently in the novel Wyrm Wolf.

Mage: The Ascension
The appendix to Mage: The Ascension First Edition covered the Awakened of the San Francisco area, similar to how Vampire: The Masquerade First and Second Editions covered Gary, Indiana, and how Werewolf: The Apocalypse First Edition covered New York City. Additionally, the introductory story in the Mage core rulebook served as the lead-in to the adventure Loom of Fate. The short stories in the anthology Truth Until Paradox feature San Francisco.

Wraith: The Oblivion
Aside from short stories in the antholgies Death and Damnation and City of Darkness: Unseen, San Francisco is barely touched on in Wraith.

Changeling: The Dreaming
As with Mage's first edition, Changeling: The Dreaming First Edition feaured San Francisco's changelings in an appendix, as well as a mini-story that led into a larger story: in this case, the short story led into The Toybox, the first volume in the Immortal Eyes Trilogy. Additionally, several of the stories in the Changeling anthology The Splendour Falls featured the city, as did a portion of the Changeling/Vampire crossover novel Pomegranates Full and Fine.

Kindred of the East
San Francisco is the spearhead of the Kuei-jin's offensive against the "Kin-jin" on the West Coast, and is the center of the New Promise Mandarinate.