Australia (WOD)

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, in Australia's north, 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.

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.

As of 1994, there are approximately 350 Garou in Australia. This includes 25 Black Furies, 40 Bone Gnawers, 20 Children of Gaia, 35 Fianna, 20 Get of Fenris, 40 Glass Walkers , 35 Red Talons, 20 Shadow Lords, 15 Silent Striders, 35 Silver Fangs, 6 Stargazers, 20 Uktena, 1 Wendigo, and 40 Black Spiral Dancers. Black Fury Janet Shirek is originally from Australia, but is now in the United States.

Individuals

Note that this list is incomplete

Black Furies

• Ball-biter
• Circe Chisholm
• Aphrodite Delphius
• Voula Kostikidas
• Wungala Rose

Bone Gnawers

• Mother Pasta
• Scratches-at-Fleas

Children of Gaia

• Cernonous
• Innana

Fianna

• Fingal Flashing-Claws
• Bartholomew Wise-in-the-Ways-of-the-Wyrm

Get of Fenris

• Carla Grimsson

Glass Walkers

• Don Mephisto
• Teeth-of-Titanium

Red Talons

• Mamu

Shadow Lords

• Vlad Volaschky

Silent Striders

• Grek Twice-Tongue

Silver Fangs

• Darius Winchester

Stargazers

• Monash End-To-The-Darkness

Uktena

• Tjinderi Knowing-Smile

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 landmasses where 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.

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. In one of the scenarios detailed in Ascension, the Outback becomes a central point of both parties against the incursion of legions of Marauders.

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 fractitious, 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.

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: Raymond Hawkins is born in Woolegrave, England. He eventually becomes the first Child of Gaia to arrive in Australia.

• 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.

• May 1787: England's First Fleet sets sail from Portsmouth for Australia; some Garou sneak aboard, including Silver Fangs, Bone Gnawers, and possibly some Fianna.

• January 1788: England's First Fleet arrives first in Botany Bay, 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. See the article Earl Blaze for more detailed information.

• 1790: Luther Gazes-Inward becomes the first Stargazer to arrive in Australia, landing in Sydney Town.

• 1798: During the Castle Hill uprising (which involved some Fianna Kinfolk), a pack of Fianna, led by Bridget of the Flashing-Eyes, go to King Earl Blaze of the Silver Fangs to air their grievances; they are attacked by members of King Blaze's court, but manage to kill the king himself before they die. Greymane Sleekfur succeeds Blaze as king of the Silver Fangs in Australia.

• Early 1800s: Individual Get of Fenris begin to arrive in Australia, as well as the first Silent Striders.

• 1800s: Aboriginal Australian rock paintings depict the Prince of Nightmares.

• 1800: Athena Mother's-Child arrives in Australia at around this year. She is apparently the first Black Fury to do so.

• 1826: Boris Ivanovich Kuschena arrives in Australia in the summer of this year, making him the first Shadow Lord to do so.

• 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.

• 1840s: The first Uktena arrive in Australia.

• 1850s: Get of Fenris finally begin to arrive in Australia in significant numbers.

• 1851: By this time, the number of immigrant Garou in Australia is about 50.

• 1860s: Silver Fangs begin moving into Wadbilliga, Australia in force.

• 1900: Yahwie, a creature that begins hunting and slaying Ananasi in Australia, appears roughly this year.

• 1901: Glass Walkers, led by Kanakis and his daughter Cynen, call for the establishment of a multi-tribal council to coordinate the activities of Garou in Australia. This is the start of the Jindabyne Council.

• 1910: Fingal Flashing-Claws is born this year in Australia.

• 1930s: The non-indigenous Garou of Australia, led by Wyrmbaiter, a Red Talon, are tricked by the Black Spiral Dancer Mara the Scream into exterminating the Bunyip in the War of Tears. Mara is in turn killed by the Kaliya.

• 1927: Abram, a Sixth Generation Ventrue, becomes the Prince of Canberra, a position he clings on to until at least 2002, though he has no real influence on Kindred politics in Australia.

• 1931: Wungala Rose is born in the Northern Territory of Australia, near Uluru.

• 1934: Bartholomew Wise-in-the-Ways-of-the-Wyrm emigrates from Northern Scotland to Australia.

• 1943: Wungala Rose's mother is killed by her own brother in drunken rage. Shortly afterward, Rose is taken away by the Black Furies.

• Late 1940s: Mother Pasta, homid Ragabash of the Bone Gnawers, moves to Australia from Calabria, Italy with her parents.

• 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.

• 1970s: Wungala Rose joins the Jindabyne Council.

• Late 1970s-1980s: Wungala Rose is instrumental in setting up women's health centers in Australia.

• 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.

• 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.

• 2003: Transmissions from the Rogue Council summon Emissaries to the Australian Outback. The Emissaries locate Nodes never catalogued by Void Engineer surveyors.

• 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.

• 2003, alternate timeline: Ernesto C. Amanguale calls Yves Mercure, asking him to save his younger self from crash-landing in Florida. Mercure and the younger Amanguale later visit Australia. After the younger Amanguale departs, Mercure and the older Amanguale discuss whether or not they managed to avert the end of the world.