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In the World of Darkness, Australia is the home to many isolated supernatural cultures, who have retained their own unique powers and traditions due to their isolated nature and now find their traditional ways under assault by the incursion of foreigners.

In the World of Darkness, the violent repression of the aboriginal people never ended and is a powder keg in the relation between them and the white settlers.

Vampire: The Masquerade[]

Originally, no Kindred inhabited Australia, although Caitiff have rumors of a bloodline called the vujunka, who may have originated in tales over the wyrm-allied Vhujunka. The Kindred arrived alongside the first white settlers in the 1700s, most of them fugitives who sought to escape the Jyhad that raged in England. The first Fleet brought six Kindred with it, who swore to never spill each other's blood. The arrival of Sarrasine, who was rumored to be a Caitiff and whose ascension to princedom resulted in various doomsayers announcing the quick advent of Gehenna, destabilized the hold of the original six. Using the growing population to their advantage, more and more Kindred arrived in Australia, carrying with them their petty struggles and the seeds of the Jyhad that soon engulfed even the Kindred who attempted to hide.

The Camarilla control only two of Australia's capital cities: Melbourne and Adelaide. The latter has been targeted by the Sabbat and was under constant attack by that sect's nomadic packs, until it fell to Kuei-jin influence in 1999. Sydney, the nation's oldest and largest city, is ruled by an independent prince, Sarrasine, and has become a haven for fugitive vampires from around the world. Brisbane was once a Camarilla enclave but is today a Sabbat stronghold, while Perth, capital of Western Australia, was recently "liberated" by anarchs. Judas, Silence, and Soul are Bishops in Brisbane.[1]

Individuals[]

Werewolf: The Apocalypse[]

Originally, Australia had a very small population of mammalian Fera, due to the comparative lack of appropriate breeding populations, and as such the other Changing Breeds predominated here. The Mokolé of the Gumagan Stream primarily inhabit the deserts and coastlines, while both Ananasi and Nagah treasure their Australian Kinfolk for their potent poison and the Rokea guard natural treasures like the Great Barrier Reef against despoilers. The Nagah have a crown called the Jurlungur to watch over Australia and the South Pacific. The warders of the land were the Bunyip, an estranged tribe of Garou who had adopted the thylacine as Kinfolk. The last surviving Camazotz lived in Australia before their totem Bat fell to the Wyrm, condemning them to extinction. Relations between the Fera never escalated into the terrors of the War of Rage or the War of Shame, although they were not always smooth.

Along with the white settlers, the first Corax and Ratkin arrived, as did the first European Garou tribes, seeking to take the undespoiled lands for themselves. Machinations of the Black Spiral Dancers resulted in the War of Tears, a genocidal campaign against the Bunyip, which resulted in a much more hostile Umbrascape than elsewhere. The Garou have a multi-tribal council called the Jindabyne Council, which coordinates Garou affairs in Australia.[2]

As of 1994, there are approximately 350 Garou in Australia.[3] This includes 25 Black Furies[4], 40 Bone Gnawers[5], 20 Children of Gaia[6], 35 Fianna[7], 20 Get of Fenris[8], 40 Glass Walkers [9], 35 Red Talons[10], 20 Shadow Lords[11], 15 Silent Striders[12], 35 Silver Fangs[13], 6 Stargazers[14], 20 Uktena[15], 1 Wendigo[16], and 40 Black Spiral Dancers.[17] Black Fury Janet Shirek is originally from Australia, but is now in the United States.

Individuals[]

Note that this list is incomplete

Black Furies[]

Bone Gnawers[]

Children of Gaia[]

  • Cernonous
  • Innana
  • Diem
  • Stewart Sweet-Is-the-Morning
  • Kirsten Songs-of-Harmony
  • Love-Is-a-Bloody-Claw
  • Michelle Moonrise
  • Gift-of-Death
  • Felicia Quest-for-the-Moon

Fianna[]

Get of Fenris[]

Glass Walkers[]

Red Talons[]

  • Mamu
  • Rage-in-the-Streets
  • Kirijunu
  • Wantibirri
  • Marindi
  • Nose-to-the-Wind
  • Snarls-at-Thunder
  • Teeth-Scrape-Bone
  • Many Howls
  • Rears-and-Rends
  • Blood-in-the-Snow

Shadow Lords[]

Silent Striders[]

Silver Fangs[]

  • Darius Winchester
  • Michelle Leaps-beyond-the-Reach-of-the-Wyrm
  • Phillip Battenburg
  • Chases Cars
  • Tames-Spirits-with-her-Snarl
  • Duke Anthony Pierce
  • M'lady Kathryn Hope
  • Nick Meads
  • Sir Rodney Snipe

Stargazers[]

Uktena[]

Wendigo[]

Black Spiral Dancers[]

Mokolé[]

Rokea[]

Mage: The Ascension[]

The different Umbral landscape of Australia results in strange shifting in the local Consensus, making it much harder for the Technocracy to consolidate their hold over the land. The Shallow Realm known as the "Dreamtime" covers Australia (and nearby land masses where the Aboriginal people have emigrated), created by shamans back in the Mythic Age as a refuge when magic slowly spilled out of the world. The Aborigines have their own magical Craft, refusing to ally themselves with the foreigners, although friendly relations to the Dreamspeakers and Verbena exist.

Outside of the Aboriginal mages, the Aboriginal Uktena (who call themselves the Uktena Koori) also know the secret of the Dreamtime, and have shared the knowledge with a bare few European Garou; however, a Garou must be initiated in a full ceremony before they can step sideways into the Dreamtime.[18]

The Traditions and the Technocracy have had only a small presence in Australia, although the Avatar Storm has triggered interest in the unique spiritual structures of the Outback.[19] In one of the scenarios detailed in Ascension, the Outback becomes a central point of both parties against the incursion of legions of Marauders.

The BR-356654 Development Location (Multinational Military Development Site aka MMDS) is an Iteration X military research site located in the Northern Territory of Darwin.[20]

Individuals[]

  • Murulami - Dreamspeaker
  • James Stirling - Order of Hermes
  • Jemina Christianson - Technocratic Mage

Changeling: The Dreaming[]

The Mythic Age never truly ended in Australia, the Dreaming and Autumn world existing side by side with no barriers between them. The European Kithain who arrived with the First Fleet, accustomed as they were to the post-Shattering Dreaming, found in Australia a land they could not understand, a land that both awed and terrified them in its seeming wildness, where the Escheat did not hold sway, only the Dreamtime's Law.

The Kithain followed where European colonisation went, driving out the native Spirit Beings who already lived in those lands, imposing the Tuathan Dreaming over the local Dreamtime, and establishing four major duchies based around four of Australia's major cities. The Dreamtime still holds sway in the Outback, however, and few Kithain are equipped to maintain their sanity or their fae souls when confronted with the Dreaming in its oldest, most primeval form; only the Spirit Beings and the rare few Kithain they successfully mentor can be said to truly understand its ways.

Relations between the Kithain and the Spirit Beings in the present day can be generalised as uneasy and fractious, spanning the range from seeking reconciliation and mending the wrongs done by the Kithain's past behavior through to treating the Spirit Beings as Gallain and ignoring their rights.[21]

See also Land of the Wandering Dream

Wraith: The Oblivion[]

Main article: Karta

Kindred of the East[]

The Kuei-jin of Japan have made an attempt to take Australia concurrent with the Great Leap Outward. While the Cathayans managed to take Adelaide, they were defeated by an unlikely alliance between the Independent city of Sydney, the Camarilla-controlled city of Melbourne and the Sabbat diocese of Brisbane. The defeat of the Gaki forces lured emissaries of the Green Courts who proposed an alliance with Prince Taylor of Melbourne, who accepted the deal. While House Genji still holds Adelaide, the Green Courts work to strengthen their position and wrest control over Melbourne and Brisbane away from the Kin-jin.

Timeline[]

  • 1770: Captain James Cook and the crew of the Endeavour sail up the eastern coast of Australia, round Cape York, and land at Botany Bay.[23]
  • January 1788: England's First Fleet arrives first in Botany Bay[23], and then discovers Sydney's Cove, at which they found Sydney town on January 26th. Some Garou (secretly, of course) accompany the voyage (mostly Silver Fangs and Bone Gnawers, possibly Fianna as well), and so this is the first known presence of non-Bunyip Garou in Australia. When it is established that the Bunyip exist in Australia, much to the surprise of the rest of the Garou, King Earl Blaze declares them agents of the Wyrm due to their refusal of all attempts at contact. Raymond Hawkins is exiled when he objects to this. [24] See the article Earl Blaze for more detailed information.
  • 1800s: Aboriginal Australian rock paintings depict the Prince of Nightmares.[28]
  • 1834: Doctor Lhotsky, a Shadow Lord, leads an expedition into Wadbilliga. He attempts to contact the Bunyip using aboriginal translators, but the attempt fails. Lhotsky kills the translators in anger, blaming them for the failure, and he is in turn killed by Bunyip.[31]
  • 1851: By this time, the number of immigrant Garou in Australia is about 50.[34]
  • 1900: Yahwie, a creature that begins hunting and slaying Ananasi in Australia, appears roughly this year.[35]
  • 1943: Wungala Rose's mother is killed by her own brother in drunken rage. Shortly afterward, Rose is taken away by the Black Furies. [43]
  • 1950s: Glass Walkers begin making an effort to be present in Australia; prior to this, the country was considered too rural for the tribe to make themselves known in significant numbers.[46]
  • Late 1970s-1980s: Wungala Rose is instrumental in setting up women's health centers in Australia.[43]
  • 1992: The Mabo decision of the High Court of Australia recognizes the prior claim of Aboriginal Australians, allowing them to reclaim some of their native lands.[47]
  • 1999: Red Talon Mamu is stopped by a manifestation of the Progenitor Wolf as he was preparing to slay several Mokolé and Peter Ward, the Glass Walker accompanying them. This causes Mamu to flee in shame and Rage, and he has not definitively been seen since; sightings and rumors persist, though, suggesting he roams Australia's wilderness, wreaking havoc.[48]
  • December 1, 2003: WTOJ broadcasts an intercept from an unknown individual over the Panopticon intranet. The communiqué advises that Tradition-aligned deviants have successfully freed recently Awakened detainees from a penitentiary in Woomera, Australia. Initial reports suggest the prison guards surrendered rather than follow through with orders to execute the prisoners. Panopticon ops have attempted to retake Woomera only to be repelled by lightning strikes that damaged equipment but left agents unharmed. Communications suggest that 52% of captured operatives chose suicide over surrender to the deviants.[50]

References[]

  1. WOD: A World of Darkness Second Edition, p. 147-157
  2. 2.0 2.1 WTA: Rage Across Australia, p. 88
  3. WTA: Rage Across Australia, p. 58
  4. WTA: Rage Across Australia, p. 59
  5. WTA: Rage Across Australia, p. 61
  6. WTA: Rage Across Australia, p. 64
  7. WTA: Rage Across Australia, p. 67
  8. WTA: Rage Across Australia, p. 71
  9. WTA: Rage Across Australia, p. 72
  10. WTA: Rage Across Australia, p. 76
  11. WTA: Rage Across Australia, p. 78
  12. WTA: Rage Across Australia, p. 80
  13. WTA: Rage Across Australia, p. 80
  14. WTA: Rage Across Australia, p. 83
  15. WTA: Rage Across Australia, p. 85
  16. WTA: Rage Across Australia, p. 87
  17. WTA: Rage Across Australia, p. 92
  18. MTA: Dead Magic II: Secrets and Survivors, p. 41-73
  19. MTA: Dead Magic II: Secrets and Survivors, p. 53
  20. MTAs: Convention Book: Iteration X, p. 31-32
  21. C20: Changeling: The Dreaming 20th Anniversary Player's Guide, p. 102-109
  22. WTA: Tribebook: Children of Gaia, p. 92
  23. 23.0 23.1 MTAs: Dead Magic II: Secrets and Survivors, p. 51
  24. 24.0 24.1 WTA: Rage Across Australia, p. 17-18
  25. WTA: Rage Across Australia, p. 83
  26. WTA: Rage Across Australia, p. 18
  27. WTA: Rage Across Australia, p. 70, 80
  28. MTAs: The Book of Madness Revised, p. 90
  29. WTA: Rage Across Australia, p. 58
  30. WTA: Rage Across Australia, p. 78
  31. 31.0 31.1 WTA: Rage Across Australia, p. 120
  32. WTA: Tribebook: Uktena, p. 30
  33. WTA: Rage Across Australia, p. 70
  34. WTA: Rage Across Australia, p. 21
  35. WTA: Ananasi, p. 61
  36. WTA: Rage Across Australia, p. 69
  37. WTA: Werewolf Storytellers Companion Revised Edition, p. 59
  38. WTA: Past Lives, p. 68
  39. WTA: Tribebook: Fianna, p. 35
  40. WTA: Tribebook: Uktena, p. 30
  41. WTA: Nagah, p. 34
  42. VTM: Encyclopaedia Vampirica, p. 12
  43. 43.0 43.1 43.2 43.3 WTA: Rage Across Australia, p. 59-60
  44. WTA: Rage Across Australia, p. 68
  45. WTA: Rage Across Australia, p. 62
  46. WTA: Tribebook: Glass Walkers, p. 69
  47. MTAs: Dead Magic II: Secrets and Survivors, p. 53
  48. WTA: A World of Rage, p. 152 Buy it from DriveThruRPG!
  49. MTAs: Ascension, p. 76
  50. MTAs: WTOJ
  51. MTAs: Tradition Book: Sons of Ether, p. 13
  52. MTAs: Tradition Book: Sons of Ether, p. 14
  53. MTAs: Tradition Book: Sons of Ether, p. 24
  54. MTAs: Tradition Book: Sons of Ether, p. 99
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