TEXT: The InfInite Macabre
  ™
  Space Opera in the World of Darkness
  
  Beyond the ring lurks a moon whose very shape—whose very essence—is formed of 
  squirming thorns, tangled hedgerows, and alien trees.
  Inside a defunct planetary outpost, a throng of self-made monsters fuses cable and hull 
  scrap to one another’s reanimated flesh, each powered by elements never seen by man.
  Layered beneath this plane of existence is another: a place of dead stars and skull-ships, a 
  wretched Otherspace, a haunted Underworld.
  This is the Infinite Macabre.
  This book includes:
  • Suggestions and rules shifts on how to incorporate the World of Darkness into a space 
  opera game
  • Rules for starships and starship combat
  • Guidance on making your own alien species
  Credits
  Written by: Chuck Wendig
  Inspired by Material from: Stephen Herron
  World of Darkness created by Mark Rein•Hagen
  Developer: Eddy Webb
  Editor: Genevieve Podleski
  Art Director: Richard Thomas
  Book Design: Ron Thompson
  Interior Art: Brian LeBlanc
  Cover Art: Mathias Kollros
  © 2010 CCP hf. All rights reserved. Reproduction without the written permission of the publisher is expressly forbid-
  den, except for the purposes of reviews, and for blank character sheets, which may be reproduced for personal use only. 
  White Wolf and Vampire the Requiem are registered trademarks of CCP hf. All rights reserved. The World of Darkness, 
  Vampire the Requiem, Werewolf the Forsaken, Mage the Awakening, Promethean the Created, Changeling the Lost, 
  Hunter the Vigil and Geist the Sin-Eaters are trademarks of CCP hf.
  All rights reserved. All characters, names, places and text herein are copyrighted by CCP hf.
  CCP North America Inc. is a wholly owned subsidiary of CCP hf.
  This book uses the supernatural for settings, characters and themes. All mystical and supernatural elements are fiction 
  and intended for entertainment purposes only. This book contains mature content. Reader discretion is advised.
  Check out White Wolf online at http://www.white-wolf.com
  
  The InfInite Macabre
  ™
  Space Opera in the World of Darkness
  
  4 
  INFINITE MACABRE-SPACE OPERA IN THE WORLD OF DARKNESS
  Chapter Three 
  of World of Dark-
  ness: Mirrors kicked 
  the World of Dark-
  ness in the center mass, 
  cracking it into three 
  different shards, 
  three new Worlds of 
  Darkness. Originally 
  we planned on a science 
  fiction section at the 
  time we were develop-
  ing it, but the concept 
  of sci-fi ended up 
  being too broad, too 
  all-encompassing to 
  cram in 15,000 words. 
  But after the book 
  launched, fans clam-
  o r e d  f o r  s c i - f i 
  worlds for their 
  monsters to explore 
  and terrorize. 
  So here’s one of 
  those Worlds of 
  Future Darkness.
  Think of this 
  as a missing section 
  of Mirrors, a slice 
  of extra meat that 
  we’ve written from 
  the ground up in the 
  spirit of that book. 
  You don’t need Mir-
  rors to use this, but 
  if you’re familiar 
  with it, these pages 
  will feel like home.
  Beyond the ring lurks a moon whose very shape—whose very essence—is 
  formed of squirming thorns, tangled hedgerows, and alien trees.
  Floating amidst the asteroids are the slaver ships, Byzantine chassis 
  playing home to the grotesque feudalities of blood-hungry vampires.
  Inside a defunct planetary outpost, a throng of self-made monsters fuses 
  cable and hull scrap to one another’s reanimated flesh, each powered by 
  elements never seen by man.
  Five Watchtowers sit hidden on distant planets, each ninety-nine parsecs 
  from the next, each plotted on a map to form a perfect flat-planed pentagon 
  in three-dimensional space—or an upside-down star. Each Watchtower has 
  its pilgrims and proselytes, all with unparalleled power.
  Spirits—some invisible, some so alien in their corporeality—flit from 
  moon to moon, star to star, hunted in turn by men and women whose hearts 
  are those of hungry wolves.
  Layered beneath this plane of existence is another: a place of dead stars 
  and skull-ships, a wretched Otherspace, a haunted Underworld.
  This is the Infinite Macabre.
  This is the World of Darkness cast forward in time—or so far backward 
  it ceases to matter—and thrown deep into the bleakest, strangest recesses 
  of unknown space.
  The Nature of Space Opera
  This product endeavors to show you how you might transform the World 
  of Darkness by thrusting it into the screaming maw of a whole separate 
  genre: space opera.
  Is it a strange fit? Hardly. Consider these characteristics which are 
  sometimes considered the core elements of space opera:
  • It’s often a combination of fantasy and science-fiction. (The World of 
  Darkness is very much a “dark fantasy and horror” roleplaying game.)
  • It tends not to be hard sci-fi. (The World of Darkness relies more on 
  magical realism than hard scientific principle.)
  • It often features magical elements to go with the science-fiction. (The 
  World of Darkness has magical elements in spades.)
  • Adjectives that might be used to describe space operate include: 
  Romantic, romantic (big R, small r, both), operatic, epic, political or astro-
  political. (The World of Darkness plays well with all these adjectives: think 
  of the florid and terrible politics of the vampire covenants, the grim romance 
  seen in Changeling, the epic nature of the Forsaken versus the Pure or the 
  fallen world nature found in Mage.)
  Chapter Three of World 
  of Darkness: Mirrors kicked 
  the World of Darkness in the 
  center mass, cracking it into 
  three different shards, three 
  new Worlds of Darkness. 
  Originally we planned on a 
  science fiction section at the 
  time we were developing it, 
  but the concept of sci-fi end-
  ed up being too broad, too 
  all-encompassing to cram 
  in 15,000 words. But after 
  the book launched, fans 
  clamored for sci-fi worlds 
  for their monsters to explore 
  and terrorize. 
  So here’s one of those 
  Worlds of Future Darkness.
  Think of this as a miss-
  ing section of Mirrors, a 
  slice of extra meat that we’ve 
  written from the ground up 
  in the spirit of that book. 
  You don’t need Mirrors to 
  use this, but if you’re famil-
  iar with it, these pages will 
  feel like home.
  The Infinite Macabre: 
  Space Opera in the 
  World of Darkness
  The Infinite Macabre: 
  Space Opera in the 
  World of Darkness
  
  5 
  THIS WRETCHED UNIVERSE
  as much as they are the humans—it allows for, say, a 
  fringe empire of sorcerers or an armada of vampire cruisers 
  stalking the space lanes. While this doesn’t do away with 
  horror, this model leans toward dark fantasy.
  This product is written with the second assumption 
  in mind. We want the monsters out in the open because 
  it creates more fantastical conditions. Instead of having 
  to worry about bizarre-faced aliens wandering the market 
  bazaar or space-dock, we get to have pale bloodsuckers, 
  porcelain Prometheans, and the truly bizarre Lost rubbing 
  elbows with humanity. In this mode, the monsters become 
  the aliens so frequently seen in the various iterations 
  of space opera. It is, in its own weird way, a mutation 
  hybridizing Star Wars and Lovecraft (or, Heinlein plus 
  Doom, or Firefly plus Dead Space). Sound fun? 
  The Goal
  Despite the title of this product, we do not have 
  an infinite number of pages in which to grant you 
  a fully-stocked space opera setting. As such, we’re 
  trying to walk the balance beam between “giv-
  ing you cool original material to drop into your 
  game” and “encouraging you to answer the ques-
  tions with your own awesome material.” The end 
  result of this product is that you, as Storyteller or 
  player, should be able to put together your own 
  unique vision of what “World of Darkness space 
  opera” means at your game table.
  This Wretched 
  Universe
  It’s a mad universe, a black tapestry held together by 
  a million pinpricks of light, by bands of chromatic light, 
  by solar storms and space lanes and rings of comet dust. 
  People are out there, spread out across the stars—but 
  so are the monsters. They once hid in the shadows, but 
  to them, space is one big endless shadow—an infinite 
  nighttime in which to wander. 
  So, you want to know how the universe out there 
  could work for your space opera game? 
  The Star Chart
  Every good pilot worth his salt has a galactic star 
  chart—shining bright on a monitor, or hanging on a 
  wall, dusty and torn at the edges. 
  Yes, your game will still be subject to certain funda-
  mental alterations—for example, the World of Darkness 
  tends to first be expressed on a local level (i.e. “What’s 
  going on in your city?”), and here the scope of the game 
  (and the canvas upon which it is painted) grows infi-
  nitely more epic. While a game like Hunter: The Vigil 
  posits—with the conspiracy tier—a global horror, space 
  opera blows even that out of the water and demands a 
  galactic playing field. In fact, think of this as a “fourth 
  tier” grafted onto the World of Darkness setting: the 
  galactic tier.
  But despite those changes, the base components 
  remain the same. Instead of telling a story about the be-
  trayal of the vampire Prince, you’re instead talking about 
  the betrayal of a vampire Imperatrix. Instead of were-
  wolves protecting their territory from spirit invasions, 
  they’re chasing spirits across distant nebula. Mages can 
  appear anywhere, and the witch hunters of the Malleus 
  Maleficarum come hunting after them with ships that 
  look like industrial cathedrals ripped out of the earth’s 
  mooring and thrown into space.
  The Big Question
  The one big question you really want to ask yourself 
  before you dive into The Infinite Macabre at your game 
  table is: has the veil of secrecy shielding the monsters 
  been dropped? You have at your disposal two very dif-
  ferent modes of play that branch off from the answer to 
  this question. 
  On the one hand, if the answer is that the secrecy 
  remains, then you are accepting that the conditions 
  governing the societies of these nocturnal denizens re-
  main firmly in place. In other words, the Masquerade is 
  still in play, werewolves are still protected by Lunacy, a 
  changeling’s Mask is ultimately lost to the mad beauty 
  of the Mien, and so forth. Mankind is out there among 
  the stars, and he still doesn’t realize that the parasites 
  and goblins and immortal terrors are out there with him. 
  This model leans toward horror.
  On the other hand, your answer might be that the 
  secrecy has been removed (or, depending on how you play 
  it, it may never have been in place to begin with). More 
  succinctly, mankind knows what monsters have come 
  with him into space. He knows that the vampires could 
  come to enslave him for his blood and drag him off to 
  the farthest flung corners of known space. He knows that 
  certain necromantic cults hide on distant moons hoping to 
  reanimate dead tissue by fusing it with energy stolen from 
  stars. Mankind is sure to fear the horrible long-limbed “as-
  tronauts” that come from within open vents and through 
  rivet holes to steal them away to the place of thorns and 
  bramble. Further, it demonstrates that some of your epic 
  romance and planetary politics are driven by the monsters 
  
  6 
  INFINITE MACABRE-SPACE OPERA IN THE WORLD OF DARKNESS
  The way the universe probably works in your space 
  opera game is just like you’ve seen in a number of films 
  or video games: the universe features a number of charted 
  galaxies separated by parsecs (one parsec = 3.3 light years). 
  These galaxies are either star systems (a galaxy compris-
  ing only stars orbiting one another) or planetary systems 
  (a galaxy where planets orbit one or several stars). These 
  galaxies may have names that coincide with what we call 
  them now (Procyon, Polaris, Sirius, etc), but since this is 
  the World of Darkness, don’t feel like you can’t go with 
  something more apropos to the mood (Black Mariah, 
  Wolf Sun, Red Nebula, Blood Run). They also may be 
  named after those who discovered them.
  What’s charted is only “known space.” The universe 
  is far bigger than what man and monster have yet dis-
  covered, thus giving the expanse of space an uncharted 
  Wild West (or western expansion, or colonization) feel. 
  Usually, the star chart is bordered by some kind of “Here 
  There Be Dragons” line—past that border lies, well, who 
  knows what? Space horrors? Distant aliens? Mad gods 
  exiled from this universe? Ancient vampires who have 
  gone beyond the fringe? The first Promethean? The True 
  Oracles capable of galaxy-shifting sorcery? 
  For the record, we recommend giving that border a 
  name—we happen to like the “Rubicon,” but any name 
  (the Line, the Edge, the Brink, the Bloodline) that 
  evokes a point of no return. Characters should know that 
  when they cross it, it’s time to worry.
  A star chart may also chart the Empires of Man, as 
  noted below (p. 10). 
  Each galaxy is likely separated by between 100,000 
  and 3,000,000 parsecs—conventional spacecraft cannot 
  make the journey between galaxies in a timely fashion 
  (i.e. before everybody on board perishes from old age or 
  from madness born in the rigors of space). Thus, travel-
  ing between systems requires use of the Stygian Gates 
  found below (p. 8).
  Massive Space Objects
  Within the galaxies—and, in some cases, between 
  them—are the massive space objects found commonly 
  in space opera properties. 
  Planets
  In space opera, planets are rarely so realistically 
  defined as having different climates, temperate zones or 
  biomes; in fact, they’re pretty simplistic in definition. 
  Desert planet. Ice planet. Forest, jungle, tundra, and so 
  forth. Again, not realistic, but that’s the nature of space 
  opera: hard sci-fi, this is not. 
  Curiously, every galaxy has a few planets that feature 
  breathable air. Further, those that don’t have breathable 
  air still have habitable temperatures (meaning, tempera-
  tures that don’t automatically sear humans to a crisp or 
  blast-freeze them into bloodsicles). 
  Some planets likely have a “biome” that is explicitly 
  human—in other words, instead of tundra or grassland, 
  the whole planet is one giant metropolis. (And those 
  that are so-called “city planets” might make use of The 
  Infinite Macabre’s sister product, Bleeding Edge.)
  As above, planetary names in this mode are those 
  best suited when they’re grim, moody, and bound up 
  in the feel of the World of Darkness. (The planets in 
  Firefly/Serenity are not a bad example: Whitefall, Osiris, 
  Persephone, Shadow.) 
  Moons
  Moons, like planets, are often defined by a single 
  biome: “Oh, this is an ocean moon,” or, “We are cleared 
  for a landing on the Veldt.” 
  Moons tend to be wilder, less colonized, often home 
  only to outposts, farms, or industrial faculties (strip 
  mines, weapons manufacturers, work camps). 
  Stardocks
  In those systems without planets, one is likely to find 
  a stardock and space stations. They can look like any-
  thing: turning wheels, cathedral-like structures, cubes, 
  shimmering solar fans hundreds of miles wide, spheres, 
  cylinders and so forth. 
  Stardocks are often home to a permanent popula-
  tion—low as a thousand, high as a hundred thousand—
  but see far greater numbers coming through the station 
  as traffic. 
  The purpose of each stardock is driven by those who 
  created it: as a refueling station, marketplace, military 
  base, research and development lab, ore refinery, space-
  craft construction depot or ammo dump. Many are a mix 
  of these elements: most stardocks, for instance, have 
  some kind of trading bazaar and refueling capabilities. 
  The feel, form and function of an individual station 
  is determined by its keepers and creators. If a militaristic 
  empire serves as shepherd, expect Spartan design, an 
  autocratic feel and function that is clearly driven toward 
  war and conquest (fighter bays, martial training facilities, 
  heavily defensible). 
  Spacecraft
  For us, the key word in space opera is “space.” Char-
  acters are going to spend a lot of time in the deep recesses 
  of outer space, flitting between the stars, traveling from 
  planet to moon, from stardock to Stygian Gate. This 
  necessitates one of the most awesome parts of space 
  opera: the spaceships.
  
  7 
  The section below will help you determine the 
  stats on a spaceship and, more specifically, how players 
  might buy them for their characters. However, note that 
  the dots do not fully comprise all aspects of the ship in 
  question. Does the ship have a name? What does it look 
  like? Do you find any value in considering how the crafts 
  of different monster types might look? Is the ship of a 
  Ventrue vampire “family” a regal, almost stately affair, 
  decked in chrome, titanium or even brass? What does the 
  floating library of a number of Atlantean mages look like? 
  Or that of a series of dream-scourging changelings (or 
  worse, the True Fae)? Is a Promethean ship as cobbled-
  together as they are? Could the whole ship “go nuclear” 
  and turn into some kind of living Pandoran lurching its 
  way through the dark void?
  Merit: Spaceship (• to •••••)
  Effect: The character owns, or has part-ownership 
  of, a spaceship. This vessel may be a small, short-range, 
  single-person fighter or interplanetary transport. It could 
  be a large cargo vessel capable of faster-than-light travel. 
  It might even be an intended-for-decommission military 
  starship that the character has pulled some strings to 
  obtain.
  The usefulness of a ship depends upon how big it 
  is, how fast, how much cargo (or how many passengers) 
  it can support, and how well armed or defended it is. 
  In game terms, dots spent on the Spaceship Merit need 
  to be distributed among four categories: Size, Speed, 
  Weapons, and Armor. The nimble short range fighter 
  may thus have no dots in Size, four dots in Speed, and 
  two dots in both Weapons and Armor. The cargo ship 
  Tranquility may have three dots in Size, two dots in 
  Speed, no dots in Weapons and three dots in Armor. 
  The Task Force: Valkyrie destroyer Odin may have five 
  dots in Size, one dot in speed, five dots in Weapons, and 
  five dots in Armor
  Spaceship Size: The actual size of the ship, it deter-
  mines the number of points of Structure a given ship has 
  (for Starship Combat, below) and the amount of cargo it 
  can carry (either in a hold or as cargo containers attached 
  to or towed by the vessel).
  – Very tiny: either a one- or two-seat fighter or 
  personal shuttle. Not comfortable or useful for carrying 
  cargo. This ship has 20 points of Structure. 
  • A small ship that can hold four people comfort-
  ably, or a couple more with less comfort. Crew hot-rack 
  (squeeze in more than one member per bunk), as the ship 
  has only enough sleeping space for half the crew. There 
  might be a small room to eat meals, and cargo space for 
  a couple of tons of cargo (about 10 feet by 10 feet). This 
  ship has 40 points of Structure. 
  •• A small-to-mid-sized ship, with cabins for each 
  crew member (up to eight or ten) and cargo space for 
  up to fifty tons of cargo. This ship has 60 points of 
  Structure. 
  ••• A mid-size vessel, probably carrying a dozen 
  crew members and the same again as paying passengers. 
  The ship is capable of carrying a few hundred tons of 
  cargo. This ship has 80 points of Structure. 
  •••• A large vessel. It can carry a couple of thou-
  sand tons of cargo, dozens of passengers and might be 
  quite luxurious. It can contain a hundred plus crew 
  members. This ship has 100 points of Structure. 
  ••••• The largest capital ships and most lumber-
  ing cargo vessels, capable of carrying hundreds of thou-
  sands of tons of cargo, or thousands of crew and troops 
  (and even smaller vehicles). These are the largest ships 
  capable of traveling between stars. This ship has 120 
  points of Structure. 
  Spaceship Speed: An abstract representation of how 
  fast a ship can accelerate, decelerate and change heading. 
  It’s a mixture of agility and raw speed, handy to use to 
  compare with other ships, especially if using the optional 
  Starship Combat rules below. The Speed rating is equal 
  to the ship’s Handling rating (for combat purposes).
  – This ship is effectively a big space slug: low ac-
  celeration, poor maneuverability.
  • These vessels change speed slowly, but it’s enough 
  to get them from one place to another. Ships with 
  this Speed do not need to flit about nimbly. Passenger 
  shuttles and huge, lumbering ships may have only one 
  dot in Speed.
  •• These ships move around star systems at a slow 
  and steady rate, taking a few hours to move between a 
  planet and its moons and days or a week to get to the 
  outer worlds. They aren’t especially quick or nimble.
  ••• These ships are faster than average and more 
  agile. The vast majority of fighters and police/military 
  ships move with this level of swiftness. Cargo vessels 
  this fast are used for courier duties or to carry perishable 
  goods.
  •••• A ship this fast is almost certainly a military, 
  police or pirate vessel (cargo ships this fast are prob-
  ably smuggling illegal goods past blockades or security 
  perimeters).
  ••••• Only the fastest, most expensive fighters are 
  this agile and fast. Private vessels with this Speed rating 
  may be racers or corporate couriers and any cargo ship 
  this fast is going to attract attention immediately. 
  Spaceship Weapons: indicate the ship’s weapons 
  capabilities. Most ships are armed, though only cursorily, 
  enough to distract a pirate and get out of sight. Still, the 
  ships that characters possess might potentially be armed 
  to the teeth. Dots in this Merit determine how advanced 
  SPACECRAFT
  
  8 
  INFINITE MACABRE-SPACE OPERA IN THE WORLD OF DARKNESS
  a ship’s weapons systems can be. At each level comes a 
  Damage rating: this rating is added to all attack rolls in 
  starship combat. (How these weapons function is up to 
  you and your imagination: cannons, modified mining 
  lasers, missile batteries, EMPs, etc.)
  – The ship has no weapons system installed. 
  • A single dot of Weapons indicates a small laser 
  or mass driver used for short-range or point defense. 
  (+1 attack)
  •• Most military fighters have this Weapon rating, 
  as do most police and security vessels. (+2 attack)
  ••• The ship’s Weaponry systems are advanced, 
  and may include missiles and plasma cannons, for both 
  short and long range destructive power. The majority of 
  warships have this rating. (+4 attack)
  •••• Weaponry systems at this level are highly ad-
  vanced and quite devastating, capable of badly damaging 
  starships with a single burst, but also ravaging targets on 
  a planet’s surface. (+8 attack)
  ••••• At this level, weapons systems become truly 
  annihilating: orbital nukes, lasers that can bisect most 
  ships, swarm missiles. (+16 attack)
  Spaceship Armor: This indicates how well-defended 
  the ship is from attack, both in defensive systems (chaff, 
  misdirection, hacking opponent’s weapons systems) 
  and in terms of actual armor. Each dot adds up to one 
  point of Durability (one dot is Durability 1, three dots is 
  Durability 3, and so forth). While Durability technically 
  only measures physical resistance, here it also represents 
  the ship’s countermeasures. Any attack successes must 
  exceed a ship’s Durability to actually do damage: the 
  rest meet the hull, force fields, or are otherwise coun-
  termanded by defensive systems.
  Starship Combat
  In terms of starship combat, the vehicle rules in 
  the World of Darkness Rulebook (p. 141) still roughly 
  apply.
  A ship’s Structure is defined by Size, above.
  A ship’s Acceleration is five times the Speed rat-
  ing. This is measured in miles-per-turn (which, if you 
  care, means that a ship with Speed five moves at about 
  twenty-five miles per turn or eight miles per second, and 
  the speed of light is about fifty miles per second).
  Commanding a ship’s weapons systems necessitates a 
  Dexterity + Computers roll with a Specialty in Weapons 
  Systems. Without this Specialty, the roll is subject to a 
  -3 penalty. A character cannot pilot and use weapons 
  systems at the same time (which is why most starships 
  have multiple crew members). Only one character may 
  make attack rolls on behalf of the ship in a given turn of 
  combat. The ship’s Weapons rating allows the character 
  to add a number of dice to the attack. 
  Piloting the ship requires a Dexterity + Drive roll. 
  Add in the Handling as a modifier (Handling is equal 
  to dots in the Speed rating). 
  As with traditional vehicular combat, when accumu-
  lated Structure damage exceeds Durability, a -1 penalty 
  is imposed upon all Pilot rolls. Likewise a -1 penalty is 
  applied to all other ship’s system rolls (Weaponry, Engi-
  neering, etc). However, when the Structure is reduced to 
  the last three points available, this penalty increases to 
  -3 to any skill checks using ship systems. Moreover, the 
  ship’s Speed is reduced by half. When only one point of 
  Structure is left, this indicates that the ship is losing life 
  support: characters only have enough oxygen equal to 
  twice the ship’s Size rating in minutes. Unless the crew 
  has spacesuits, they are going to suffocate.
  Pilots can take evasive maneuvers during combat. 
  Such a maneuver costs one Willpower point on the 
  pilot’s behalf. No characters may make any ship attacks 
  during that turn. The evasive maneuvers roll is the same 
  as the Pilot roll (Dexterity + Drive + Handling). Suc-
  cesses on that roll subtract from any attack rolls made 
  subsequently in that turn. 
  Repairing damage necessitates a Craft roll. Each 
  check represents one hour’s worth of work and each suc-
  cess repairs one point of Structure damage. A character 
  can attempt to repair a ship in the middle of combat using 
  an emergency repair maneuver, but doing so necessitates 
  expending a Willpower point and accepting a -5 penalty 
  to the roll. However, this significantly moves up the time 
  frame: the down-and-dirty repairs take only one minute 
  to execute. Only five points of Structure damage can 
  be repaired in this way (such brutal repair only gets the 
  mechanic so far), but it might be the line between life 
  inside the ship and death in the unforgiving vacuum 
  of space. Repairs can be the result of a teamwork roll 
  (p. 134, World of Darkness Rulebook). In the case of 
  emergency repairs, only the primary actor must spend the 
  Willpower point, but all actors suffer the -5 penalty.
  Stygian Gates:  
  The Dread Doors
  Space is not without its scars. It has a history that 
  goes back millennia, to before mankind ever ventured 
  into the great beyond. What man found in the deepest 
  recesses of space are tremendous gates, each a different 
  shape—this one a ragged womb, that one a jagged star, 
  a third another a gently-turning halo, and so on. All 
  are made of stone, as if shaped by an artist: sigils have 
  been carved into the stone which have significance to 
  few humans but to many monsters—the mages believe 
  it to be some proto-Atlantean script while the Forsaken 
  
  9 
  believe it to be a language penned by star-faring spirits. 
  Vampires believe them to be the words uttered by their 
  most nightmarish forbears, while changelings believe 
  that they’ve seen these symbols before: tattooed on the 
  flesh of the True Fae that took them. 
  Not every system has one, but most do. The surfeit 
  of black holes out there in the void leads many to believe 
  that these gates were once black holes, harnessed and 
  made to serve the needs of some ancient—and possibly 
  alien—antecedent.
  Since no Faster-Than-Light (FTL) travel is yet 
  possible (outside of mages can manage), these gates are 
  the only way to travel between galaxies. Accessing the 
  gate is simple, but piloting a ship through the gate is 
  not enough. Someone on board must give up a point 
  of Willpower (and in doing so, can feel the point being 
  psychically leeched from them, as if the gate is suddenly 
  very aware of them) or, alternately, accept one point of 
  lethal damage (which manifests as a wound in the shape 
  of the gate itself).
  It would be most desirable for a ship to enter at one 
  gate and exit immediately at another—but, sadly, that 
  is not the case. The gates don’t work like that; they are 
  not “jump stations.” Rather, the gates (or as they’re 
  sometimes called, Dread Doors) transport ships into an 
  alternate dimension, one where time is slowed and space 
  is contracted (further lending credence to the notion that 
  the Stygian Gates are, or were once, black holes). 
  The 10% Rule
  Upon entering a Stygian Gate, the Storyteller 
  should roll one die out in the open for all to see.
  If the die shows up 2 through 10, the standard effects 
  apply (see Between Space, below).
  If the die comes up as a 1, well, things don’t nec-
  essarily go as expected. In most cases, the ship is still 
  teleported into Between Space, but something goes 
  awry along the way (Storyteller’s choice). Consult the 
  list below, or make up your own:
  • Characters all suffer a minor derangement for one 
  week (though like with all derangements, the effects can 
  be subdued or resisted).
  • All characters lose a point of Vitae (incurring a 
  point of lethal damage in all non-vampire characters).
  • Shapeshifting characters are forced to shape-
  shift.
  • Characters begin to suffer horrible nightmares.
  • Characters begin to suffer horrible hallucina-
  tions.
  • Ship doesn’t enter Between Space, but rather, 
  appears in the atmosphere of a Thornworld (see the 
  section on Changelings, p. 19).
  STGIAN GATES-THE DREAD DOORS
  
  10 
  INFINITE MACABRE-SPACE OPERA IN THE WORLD OF DARKNESS
  Between Space:  
  The Dismal Void, The Underworld
  They call it “Between Space,” but anybody who 
  knows shit about shit recognizes that this is the Land 
  of the Dead, except out here in the awful vacuum of 
  space. 
  Out here, space isn’t black so much as… gray. Or, at 
  times, jaundiced (the color of a sickened bile duct). Ship 
  systems suffer havoc: they fritz out, they show inconsis-
  tent readings, they capture strange transmissions and 
  frequencies from ships gone missing (or ships that never 
  existed in the first place). Most worrisome are the ghosts 
  and doppelgangers: Out a porthole window, characters 
  might see ghost ships or even lone individuals floating 
  out there in the void, sometimes fully-fleshed, other 
  times spectral and diaphanous. If it’s not ghosts, it’s the 
  doppelgangers, or duplicates: ships and characters made 
  to mirror their own. (Sometimes these apparitions even 
  try to hail the characters and communicate with them. 
  Most recognize that this is an unwise course of action 
  and simply ignore such communications.)
  So, why do this at all? Why traverse this dead 
  void, this place beyond the galactic curtain? Because 
  this is the only way to travel between galaxies without 
  cryogenically freezing a ship’s inhabitants (or, instead, 
  allowing whole generations of pilots to rise and fall, to 
  live and die). 
  Time is telescoped while space is contracted. Every 
  100,000 parsecs traveled only requires a reasonably short 
  travel time (assume that it takes five hours minus the 
  ship’s Speed rating to travel 100,000 parsecs, to a mini-
  mum of one hour). A ship with a Speed of 5 traveling 
  to the farthest-flung galaxy some 3,000,000 parsecs away 
  will only necessitate a 30-hour journey.
  Problem is, out here, every hour is a troubling one. 
  After the ninth hour, characters begin to lose Willpower 
  points at a rate of one per hour. Once they reach zero 
  Willpower, they feel truly listless—at the Storyteller’s 
  discretion, the characters may even have a hard time 
  deciding to leave Between Space, or they may be more 
  likely to answer communications from sinister specters 
  or mad doppelgangers. (And some say that once you 
  answer those calls, you’ve earned their attention and 
  cannot escape them until you give them what they want 
  or destroy them.) Further, characters cannot regain 
  Willpower points while in Between Space.
  However, once they exit via another Stygian Gate, 
  they return to “normal” space and time.
  Denizens of the 
  Deep Dark  
  Nowhere
  Of course, what really sets The Infinite Macabre 
  apart from any other iteration of the space opera subgenre 
  are the denizens of the World of Darkness: monsters 
  dragged from their terrestrial shadows and thrown into 
  the yawning abyss of outer space.
  This section takes a look at the various supernatural 
  character types found in the World of Darkness setting 
  and how you might use them (or play them) in The 
  Infinite Macabre setting shard. Each character-type is 
  broken out into three sub-sections: System Shifts, which 
  explains any notable rule changes you might want to 
  consider in terms of using these creatures in The Infi-
  nite Macabre; Story Considerations, which endeavors to 
  provide cool story hooks and narrative ideas in order 
  to provide inspiration for your Infinite Macabre game; 
  and New Toy, where each new character-type gets a 
  new “toy” to play with (meaning, some kind of power 
  or fresh mechanic) in the playground of The Infinite 
  Macabre.
  Humans and Hunters
  System Shifts
  • Even the most stalwart human mind cannot always 
  handle the rigors of deep space travel. Assume that any 
  human who spends more days in space (without landing 
  and setting foot on some surface, be it planet or stardock) 
  than the dots possessed in his Willpower score will be 
  subject to possible mental illness. That illness plays out 
  similar to how a mild/severe derangement might: Isola-
  tion (mild) and Alienation (severe). Every day that the 
  character spends in space beyond his Willpower score, 
  the player must roll that character’s Resolve + Compo-
  sure pool. Success means that no ill mental effects are 
  felt. Exceptional success indicates that the character may 
  go another three days without making the roll. Failure 
  invokes a mild mental breakdown: the character begins 
  to suffer from the effects of Isolation, meaning any Social 
  rolls are penalized by -3 dice for the remaining 24 hours 
  (at which point the character may once more attempt 
  to resist the effects of this “space madness”). Dramatic 
  failure means the character suffers the severe version, 
  Alienation, for the remaining 24 hours; Alienation ups 
  the Social penalty to -5 dice, and the character may also 
  not regain Willpower during this time.
  
  11 
  • Another new derangement: Sleepless (mild) / 
  Insomniac (severe). This plays out like a regular derange-
  ment (as in, a character possesses it until it is cured). 
  Ever move to the city, then take a night and sleep in the 
  country? All that screaming silence? All that impenetrable 
  darkness? This is like that, but a thousand times worse. 
  Space is quiet. Cold. Distant. No day and night cycles, 
  either, which means busted-up Circadian rhythms. Some 
  characters find it very hard to sleep, and so they suffer 
  from this derangement. Whenever a character tries to 
  get eight hours of sleep, roll Resolve + Composure. Suc-
  cess means sleep (and the proper regaining of Willpower 
  in the morning). Failure, if Sleepless (mild), means a 
  restless and uncertain sleep, and no Willpower in the 
  morning. Failure, if Insomniac (severe), indicates that 
  the character literally does not sleep at all—he awakens 
  without regaining Willpower and he suffers a -3 penalty 
  to all dice pools during the subsequent “day.” This pen-
  alty lasts until the character sleeps eight hours straight. 
  For further ramifications, see “Fatigue” in the World of 
  Darkness Rulebook, pp. 179-180. (Note that this is 
  built for characters who aren’t used to space travel. For 
  characters who are acclimated to traversing the stars you 
  might reverse this to a degree – they suffer madness when 
  forced to rest their heads while on a terrestrial body.)
  • If you’re looking for a quick solution in terms 
  of arms and armor, you don’t need to look beyond the 
  weapons already provided in the World of Darkness 
  Rulebook. Use the same stats and effects except instead 
  of saying “.44 Magnum,” it’s now a “Phaser.” Or a “Pho-
  ton Repeater.” Or an “Ion Cannon.” 
  However, you might also want to create new weap-
  ons that are sci-fi appropriate and evoke different system 
  reactions. This following chart offers a handful of new 
  weapons, but you are as always encouraged to make up 
  your own (and once more we advise you not to be too 
  married to actual science given the fantastical nature of 
  space opera):
  Humans and Hunters
  /
  Type 
   
  Name  
  Damage Size  Strength 
  Ranges Clip 
  Cost  
  Special
  Melee Weapon 
  Vibro-Knife 
  1(L) 
  1       n/a 
  n/a 
   
  •• 
  Vibrates through  
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
  particles; ignores  
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
  Durability
  Melee Weapon 
  Hydraul  
  1(B) 
  2       n/a 
  n/a 
   
  •• 
  Grants the wielder  
   
   
   
  Maul-Gloves 
   
   
   
   
   
   
  a +2 Strength when  
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
  worn
  Ranged Weapon 
  Cheiron Systems 3(L) 
  3 
   
  20/40/80   5 
  •••• 
  In addition to  
   
   
   
   
  Bio-Rifle  
   
   
   
   
   
   
  damage also causes   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
  bacterial infection  
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
  (one lethal point  
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
  per hour, 
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
  Sta + Resolve only  
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
  allowed with  
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
  antibiotic injection
  Ranged Weapon 
  Enervating Null 4(L) 
  2 
   
  30/60/120  3 
  ••• 
  Fires energy pulse;  
   
   
   
  Gun (3-Shot Pistol)  
   
   
   
   
   
  any time it does   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
  damage, it also   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
  siphons one  
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
  Willpower point
  Explosive 
   
  Ion Grenade 
  0 
  1 
  1 
  n/a 
      n/a 
  •• 
  BlastArea 2/   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
  Throwing Mod +1,   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
  does no damage   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
  but shorts-out  
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
  electrical systems  
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
  and weapons for   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
               a number of turns  
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
  equal to five +   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
  successes on roll
  
  12 
  INFINITE MACABRE-SPACE OPERA IN THE WORLD OF DARKNESS
  • Just as the universe is home to awesome new weap-
  ons, it is home to incredible new drugs, too—though, 
  in the spirit of the World of Darkness, none should be 
  without consequence. Consider the following new drugs 
  in play:
  Nebula: Hallucinogen. One tends to see “through 
  walls,” and often hallucinates cosmic or celestial images 
  (nebula, supernovas or borealis effects, even in the com-
  fort of one’s own sleeping pod). Amps up Mental ability, 
  offering +3 to any Mental rolls, but also does a number 
  on one’s ability to communicate, incurring a -5 penalty 
  to all Social rolls. Lasts for eight hours unless one takes 
  a Vitamin B shot to end its effects prematurely.
  Red Tar: Red Tar doesn’t just make everybody look 
  more desirable (the “Tar Goggles” effect), but it also 
  increases the character’s own attractiveness by causing 
  him to both emit a pheromone and to gain a flush to his 
  cheeks. The character gains +2 to all Presence rolls un-
  less that character has the Lust Vice, in which case the 
  bonus increases to +4. However, once the “high” wears 
  off (two to three hours later), the character cannot regain 
  Willpower for the next 24 hours.
  Crater Dust: Anybody who inhales a puff-pod of 
  crater dust will feel immortal. And it’s partially true: a 
  character gains three dots to his Stamina Attribute for 
  one hour. During this time, he also suffers from the ef-
  fects of the Megalomania derangement (severe, p. 97, 
  World of Darkness Rulebook). After the hour is up, the 
  character must sleep for eight hours immediately or gain 
  a headache that incurs a -3 Physical penalty.
  Story Considerations
  • Definitely consider the survival (and “survival 
  horror”) nature of space: sure, some ships might have 
  incredible greenhouses or even livestock pens, but alter-
  nately, what if you’re a rag-tag cargo ship? Or a pirate ship 
  that needs to fly under radar? Not a lot of room for food 
  or clean water (though one hopes that the ship properly 
  processes the urine of those on board and recycles it). 
  What happens when characters get stuck in deep space 
  with no food? No water? 
  • In space opera, mankind is often fragmented into 
  various empires, civilizations and races. Each group 
  is defined by certain traits, as if they are complete 
  monocultures—the Halcyon Empire is militaristic; the 
  People’s Republic of Ariadne suffer under a matrilineal 
  police state; the Tiresians are a race of psychic berserkers 
  who claw their eyes out at puberty, and so on. 
  • Consider, too, the governmental nature of the 
  universe. In space opera, one often finds that there is 
  an oppressive majority and a rebellious (even anarchic) 
  minority like those found in Star Wars or Firefly. On 
  which side do the characters find themselves? Alter-
  nately, the universe might be cast into a Civil War (once 
  on the same side, now fighting amongst themselves) or 
  a full-bore Galactic War (every empire against every 
  empire). Once more, the question: do the characters 
  choose a side? Are they forced to one side? Can they 
  play all sides against the middle?
  • Did you know that, if you take a normal strain 
  of Salmonella and expose it to the rigors of space it 
  becomes more deadly? If you think the Cheiron Group 
  is not excited by this, you’re nuts; space to them is an 
  exciting new playground. Every planet has new flora and 
  fauna to examine (read: exploit). Plus, more diseases 
  to cure (which sometimes necessitates manufacturing 
  the diseases, first.) The monsters are different, too, out 
  there—the properties of vampire blood may work differ-
  ently in Zero-G, the bile ducts of a werewolf grow black 
  and puckered when exposed to atmospheric re-entry, 
  and so on. Hell, rumor says that Cheiron is out there 
  taking over whole moons for their experimentation, all 
  without accountability.
  • Consider reimagining a number of the hunter 
  compacts and conspiracies:
  Aegis Kai Doru: The galaxy is home to countless 
  ancient and/or alien artifacts—not just the Stygian 
  Gates, either. What about the Black Dais found on the 
  northernmost archipelago of the Hephaestus moon? Or 
  those jagged crystal-studded “teeth” found on planets 
  thousands of parsecs apart? Or the eerie Watchtowers, 
  the ones that aliens purportedly built, the ones which 
  those mages seem so goddamn interested in?
  Ascending Ones: Religious ascetics who eschew 
  high technology whenever possible. They’ll travel on 
  ships but won’t pilot them. They use old technology: 
  knives, swords, pistols. They search space for mythic 
  creatures and reagents for their bizarre Elixirs.
  Ashwood Abbey: A secret club traversing the 
  planetary systems—a hellfire group whose membership 
  consists only of the richest and most eccentric ladies and 
  gentlemen. The galaxy is home to countless pains and 
  pleasures, and they seek them all out. Capture an alien 
  and snort the ashes of its burned flesh? Sure. 
  Cheiron Group: Potent pharmaceutical and 
  medical conglomerate found in most major systems—as 
  powerful as any empire, rumors exist of the Field Project 
  Division, a small army of Cheiron-paid mercenaries, 
  soldiers and scientists who range far and wide to confirm 
  Cheiron’s agenda. So many monsters, so many aliens, 
  so little time.
  Long Night: Zealous fundamentalists who believe 
  that the universe must be “made clean” by God’s in-
  tervention. They predict universal cataclysm: a series 
  of supernovas and black holes that render the universe 
  inert and create a kind of “reverse genesis.” They seek 
  to destroy the Stygian Gates, believing them to be the 
  product of ancient devils. 
  
  13 
  Loyalists of Thule: So many dark corners of the 
  universe demand a light—the Loyalists see themselves 
  as that light. They have to. Long ago, the founders ig-
  nored the rise of a terrible galactic empire and were even 
  complicit in its ascent. Now they have a debt to pay: find 
  the places where the worst among us have gone and rout 
  them. Along the way, they seek to learn the troubling 
  secrets the universe hides.
  Lucifuge: These bounty hunters with the Devil’s 
  blood travel alone or as part of mixed-conspiracy cells. 
  When a Lucifuge shows up on your stardock, you know 
  there’s going to be trouble: administrators either give 
  them full clemency or work to make life as hard for 
  them as possible.
  Malleus Maleficarum: The Church is out there 
  amongst the stars, building cathedrals on the spots of 
  ancient worship and sending missionaries to the farthest, 
  weirdest corners of space. These hunters know that the 
  monsters have come to the stars with mankind, and 
  recognize that the devils and demons will oppose man’s 
  devotion to God and encourage sin. They destroy such 
  monstrous influence with fire… and photon rounds. 
  Network Zero: Signal-pirates extraordinaire. Hi-
  jack every subspace frequency known to man to transmit 
  their anti-monster propaganda and to spy on anybody 
  who might be harboring some wretched creature out 
  there in The Infinite Macabre.
  Null Mysteriis: Monsters do not exist; they are just 
  people who have been changed by their experiences out 
  there among the stars. Could it be a xenobacterium that 
  has caused the vampire plague? A rogue DNA infecting 
  the shapechangers? They seek the truth—the scientific 
  truth—in labs and through expeditions from system to 
  system.
  Task Force VALKYRIE: Once an off-shoot of the 
  World Government, VALKYRIE is now a rogue agent 
  out there in the universe, broken away from the squab-
  bling empires and oppressive regimes, funded by various 
  mysterious sources in order to hunt down and capture the 
  galaxy’s most notorious supernatural criminals.
  The Union: They’re everywhere. You just don’t re-
  alize it. That nameless mechanic who fixes your moisture 
  vaporator? That smuggler who brings in illicit goods to 
  the families that need them? The janitor on board the 
  space frigate? They’re all hunters. A union of secret hunt-
  ers found in every corner of the world—half “neighbor-
  hood watch,” half “mafia,” all “monster killer.”
  New Toy: Stygian Bezoar (• to •••••)
  This pebble-sized hunk of strange smooth stone—
  etched faintly with the whorling sigils found on the 
  Stygian Gates and made of the same unidentifiable 
  material—are highly sought after by the planet-hopping 
  Relic hunters of the Aegis Kai Doru. 
  Cost: one lethal damage as the character swallows 
  the stone and 1-5 Willpower any time the character 
  activates the Relic
  Benefit: A character with the bezoar sitting in his 
  stomach can teleport himself great distances depending 
  on how potent the stone happens to be (i.e. according 
  to dots purchased):
  Dots 
  Range
  • 
   
  100 ft.
  ••  
  500 ft.
  ••• 
  One mile
  •••• 
  One hundred miles
  ••••• 
  One parsec
  The character must expend Willpower with every 
  use—a number of Willpower per dot/distance used (so, 
  if the character wants to travel under 100 feet, only one 
  point is necessary, while between 200-500 feet would 
  necessitate two points, and so on). 
  The character expels the bezoar after a number of 
  hours equal to his Resolve + Stamina dice pool. And by 
  “expel,” we mean uncomfortably.
  Vampires
  System Shifts
  • Vampires have incredible power out in the abys-
  sal maw of space. Consider: no sunlight (vampires are 
  burned by the sun that shines on Earth). No day-night 
  cycle. Not a lot of wood from which to make stakes. 
  And, finally, vampires don’t need to breathe. They can 
  set foot outside a spaceship to do repairs without concern 
  and can wander happily onto the surface of a gaseous 
  planet (provided the temperature wouldn’t sear them to 
  a crisp or freeze them to the ground). This doesn’t mean 
  you can’t (re)institute some weaknesses for space-faring 
  blood-suckers…
  • A vampire’s vulnerability to sunlight is a super-
  natural one, not a biological one. So it’s up to you to 
  determine the nature of a vampire’s aversion to sun or 
  starlight. Is the vampire harmed only by the light of those 
  stars orbited by habitable planets (tying it to the vibrancy 
  of human life and how the sun sustains those naturally 
  living and burns those who are unnaturally undead)? 
  Is the vampire vulnerable to all starlight? Or, again, is it 
  only the light of our own sun that burns the vampire? If a 
  vampire is Embraced on a different planet—or moon, or 
  stardock—is he burned by the sun in that system only? 
  • Consider too the nature of what happens when a 
  vampire enters the vacuum of space. Now, technically, 
  all the dramatic things you see in movies (exploding bod-
  ies, frozen flesh, eyes popping out of head, implosions) 
  wouldn’t happen. But, hey, this is space opera, so have 
  fun with it. A vampire’s Vitae might freeze (meaning 
  VAMPIRES
  
  14 
  INFINITE MACABRE-SPACE OPERA IN THE WORLD OF DARKNESS
  it cannot be spent for one hour per minute of space 
  exposure). The vampire herself might start to seize up, 
  suffering a -1 Physical penalty per minute of exposure. 
  Or the vampire might simply start to accrue damage: her 
  undead flesh cannot suffer the rigors of the ever-hungry 
  vacuum and its icy teeth. 
  Story Considerations
  • Blood, like food and water, is hard to find out there 
  in the vacuum of space. It’s for this reason that most vam-
  pires must remain close to the “human herd” to survive. 
  Some go wild and feral, hiding in the ducts and passages 
  of a darkened ship (think of the xenomorph from Alien, 
  except a slavering bloodsucker). Others have to up their 
  game in terms of aping human life and pretending to be 
  “part of the herd” instead of one of the wolves. Some 
  are pirates and slavers: they make raids on human ships, 
  plaguing distant space-lanes, thieving cargo and stealing 
  warm bodies to sustain them in the long trips between 
  planets and galaxies. Rumors even exist of vampires who 
  have whole “farms” of humans out there: distant outposts 
  where the humans are ensconced in tubes, made fat by 
  protein slurry and drained of their blood slowly enough 
  so that they always make more.
  • What happens if vampires become viable political 
  forces in the universe? As in, they’re no longer bound to 
  the Danse Macabre, and now engage in political battles 
  with human empires on potentially equal footing? 
  Daeva: Narcissistic spiders in the center of a cosmic 
  web, the Daeva are everywhere. Pleasure seekers. Pimps. 
  Dilettantes. Artistes. They rarely work with other Daeva 
  (the ego battles often end in clumps of blood and hair 
  stuck to the walls), but they cannot operate alone, either 
  (for who would appreciate their genius when designing a 
  new spacecraft or selecting the perfect harem brood for 
  a wealthy banker?). 
  Gangrel: When they show up on your space station, 
  everybody scatters. They are the wild-men. They are the 
  blood-beasts. They travel in packs. Sometimes they show 
  up to drink a couple blood-shots down at the vampire bar. 
  Sometimes they want information. But a lot of the time? They 
  want to hunt. They want to feed. And feed, they shall.
  Mekhet: You don’t find a Mekhet. The Mekhet find 
  you. Maybe they want information. Maybe they want to 
  
  15 
  give you information. Or worse, maybe they think you’re a 
  fit for one of their myriad cults cast across the stars. When 
  they grab you from the light and drag you into shadow, 
  will you scream? Or, like many, will you acquiesce?
  Nosferatu: They build nests and warrens in the 
  bleakest, blackest parts of the universe. They lash 
  together garbage scows, derelict spacecrafts, satellite 
  arrays—anything that will form their labyrinthine star-
  docks (or, as they call them, “scumdocks”) where they 
  trap and hunt prey for both food and amusement. Some 
  go to them unbidden, seeking enlightenment from the 
  blind worm-oracles floating out in the void.
  Ventrue: They have consolidated powers and are 
  themselves a powerful political empire—the “Vampire 
  Nation,” the humans call them. They attempt to show 
  a less monstrous face, but everyone knows what goes on 
  in their blood-soaked moonbases…
  New Toy: Blood Propulsion (Devotion)
  (Celerity •, Resilience •, Vigor •)
  Imagine it: a vampire is ejected into the cold maw of 
  space and just… floats there. Nowhere to go but nowhere, 
  it seems. Unless, of course, the vampire could let fly with 
  a propulsive jet of blood to provide momentum…
  Cost: 1 Vitae
  Dice Pool: This power involves no roll to invoke.
  Action: Instant
  The character hisses and vomits a jet of Vitae from 
  her mouth, which offers her propulsion in the dark void 
  of space at Speed 1. The vampire can do this in normal 
  gravity and at normal oxygen levels as well, and can 
  even aim it with a Dexterity + Athletics + Celerity roll. 
  Alternately, the vampire can add in Crúac if it is possessed 
  (replacing the Celerity in the roll), and by spending an 
  additional Vitae, turn the sprayed blood into hot, acidic 
  Vitae jet that does a number of points of lethal damage 
  equal to successes rolled. The spitting blood has a range 
  equal to the vampire’s Blood Potency in yards.
  Werewolves
  System Shifts
  • A werewolf’s relationship to Luna is a critical 
  one—and in the far-flung reaches of space, an almost 
  non-existent one. Luna—the spirit presiding over the 
  moon that orbits Earth alone—can no longer gaze upon 
  her wild-hearted children from such a distant vantage, 
  and to many Forsaken that is a terrifying consideration. 
  What does this mean in terms of rules changes? First, 
  it means that Lunacy is less effective: all humans are 
  considered to have +2 Willpower when determining 
  Lunacy effects (p. 176, Werewolf: The Forsaken). 
  Second, determining an Auspice becomes… well, 
  tricky. Assume that all Forsaken experience their First 
  Changes on Earth. Those who are destined to become 
  werewolves but do not change on Earth become—you 
  guessed it—Pure. And yes, this only confirms the “Pure 
  greatly outnumber the Forsaken” mode of the game, but 
  given space opera’s general parameters (oppressive major-
  ity versus rebellious minority), that’s totally in-theme. 
  (Alternately, consider the possibility that werewolves 
  can bond with other lunar spirits—i.e. the patron or 
  matron spirits bound to other orbital moons. However, 
  you might want to reserve this for alternate shapeshifters, 
  like those found in War Against The Pure). 
  • Prey’s Blood (p. 179, Werewolf: The Forsaken) 
  allows a werewolf to taste the blood of a foe and track 
  it with almost supernatural clarity—yet that should still 
  necessitate a smell of the blood. So what happens to 
  this ability when a werewolf tracks prey across the gulf 
  of space? Normal tracking rolls do not apply, however, 
  by the tenets of Prey’s Blood, a werewolf may still at-
  tempt a Wits + Survival roll with a -5 dice pool. Seems 
  like an extreme penalty—until you realize that the 
  werewolf shouldn’t even be able to make that roll in the 
  first place. However, their tracking skills are genuinely 
  supernatural—why not catch a whiff of blood on the 
  solar winds, a coppery tang despite the thickness of the 
  hull, despite the vastness of the void?
  • What, then, is the Shadow? If you’re comfort-
  able with multiple cosmologies playing together, it can 
  remain separate from Between Space and still be exactly 
  as it is on Earth, except, well, in outer space and on 
  other planets. Forsaken still step sideways the same way 
  (Werewolf: The Forsaken, pp. 250-251), and yes, it still 
  requires one to be at a locus. Loci are still foci of spiritual 
  energy, and can be anything out in space: an asteroid 
  where a pleasure cruise crashed (killing all aboard), a 
  blood-soaked bunk on a derelict military battleship, 
  a gnarled and twisted tree at the heart of some forest 
  moon. If it’s actually out there in space, the Gauntlet is 
  truly low, granting werewolves +3 dice to the stepping 
  sideways roll. One modification: consider the possibil-
  ity of allowing a werewolf pack’s spaceship to enter the 
  Shadow if the werewolves have a totem bound to the 
  ship (see below). 
  • Alternately, if you care to combine cosmologies 
  for ease of use and memory, feel free to make Between 
  Space a cosmological combo-pack of the Underworld, 
  the Astral Realms, the Shadow, and any other “inter-
  stitial plane” you care to layer upon it.
  • Finally, a totem can be bound to a pack’s spacecraft 
  at a Totem point cost of one per dot spent in Spaceship 
  Size (p. 7). The totem can add its Attributes to the ship. 
  Its Power gets added to any attack rolls. Its Finesse gets 
  added to any piloting rolls. And finally, its Resistance is 
  VAMPIRES AND WEREWOLVES
  /
  
  16 
  INFINITE MACABRE-SPACE OPERA IN THE WORLD OF DARKNESS
  added to the ship’s Durability (at a 1:1 basis). The only 
  restriction is that the totem’s Ban should be in some way 
  related to the ship itself (a certain ritual performed on 
  board; the ship cannot enter atmosphere; the ship must 
  power down once a week and float inert in the blackness 
  of space; etc). More information on spacecraft in The 
  Infinite Macabre can be found on p. 6 of this product. 
  Story Considerations
  • At its core, the essential mode of Werewolf is that 
  the characters—the werewolves—are the guardians of a 
  broken world, a world under assault by alien spirits. This 
  can remain largely the same in terms of The Infinite 
  Macabre, except replace “world” with “universe.” To 
  create a more “cosmic” feel, don’t hesitate to increase the 
  size of a pack’s territory: no longer talking about just a 
  few square miles of farmland, we’re asking what if a pack 
  guards a planetary ocean, an entire moon, a whole tract 
  of known space? Could they chase spirits across a parsec 
  littered with space debris and broken craft refuse? What 
  if they’re the lone shepherds of a moon under assault by 
  a tidal force of wretched hybridized spirits, as alien as 
  one could imagine? 
  • We said it above, but it bears repeating: The Pure 
  can serve the role of The Empire. The Forsaken can fit 
  the mold of the Rebel Alliance. Just sayin’.
  • Also consider a Forsaken pack as the crew of a 
  starship. Look to the crew of Firefly and see how, despite 
  their dysfunction, they work together, and then model 
  a werewolf pack after that same dynamic. A pack works 
  together—it must, or it will die. The crew of a star-faring 
  craft is much the same: everyone must be attuned to 
  the task at hand, to the ship around them, and to one 
  another. It can create an awesome—if claustrophobic 
  (in a good way) story experience. Then again, we also 
  think it’d be cool to have a starship crew comprising one 
  each of the various types of supernatural denizen (For-
  saken mechanic, changeling pilot, vampire diplomat, 
  Promethean weapons officer, etc.). 
  • What happens to the Forsaken tribes when you 
  thrust them into The Infinite Macabre shard?
  Blood Talons: Berserkers and warrior-monks, the 
  Blood Talons rove far and wide following the scent of 
  battle: the universe is no stranger to war, and in every 
  corner of every rot-fuck planet or distant moon waits a 
  battle to be had. The Blood Talons find the battlefields, 
  be they terrestrial or cast across open space, and there 
  they move in on the side they choose as the Choosers 
  of the Slain—and, when it’s all done, they find those 
  grotesque spirits born of the carnage and end their aspi-
  rations for greater terror.
  Bone Shadows: The galaxies are home to myriad 
  new spirits, all as alien as the worlds they call home. The 
  Bone Shadows go to these spirits to learn, to be submis-
  sive, and ultimately (and ironically) to master such 
  spiritual strangeness. Those who know of the Hirfathra 
  Hissu also know that they are powerful prognosticators 
  and, further, know where the most potent loci await.
  Hunters In Darkness: The name is literal: these 
  wolves are the greatest trackers space has ever known, 
  and they will hound their prey across the blackest void. 
  And yet, they remain technologically unrefined: they are 
  simple, almost ascetic, requiring little more than their 
  fangs and claws to find those enemies (spirits, Pure, Azlu) 
  that have wronged the Uratha.
  Iron Masters: If anybody is attuned with their space-
  ships (and, even moreso, has a totem bound to the craft), 
  it’s the Iron Masters. Sure, some run bars on city-planets 
  and others set up garages on those waystation moons that 
  get a lot of passing traffic, but really? Most of them love 
  the gearhead nature of owning, piloting and repairing 
  their own spacecraft.
  Storm Lords: Storm Lords are political entities. 
  They have to be; the universe is increasingly diced up 
  into troubling empires, and those empires spawn wars and 
  terror and crass diplomacy, and all of those things further 
  stir the spirits. And so the Storm Lords must involve 
  themselves. At least, that’s what they tell themselves. It 
  surely can’t because of the addictive nature of politics, 
  right? Or the taste of power it provides?
  New Toy: The Lodge of The Strangers’ 
  Exodus (All Tribes)
  The Forsaken do not belong. Not in space. Not on 
  ground. They are grotesque mutations of man and wolf, 
  with souls that lie somewhere in-between.
  This lodge purports to put together those of the Ura-
  tha who feel truly like outcasts and freaks—“strangers” 
  to man and beast and spirit—and exhorts all lodge 
  members to travel together into the harshest, strangest 
  regions of space. 
  The purpose of this exodus is twofold: first, to escape 
  the known universe and plague it no more; when a wolf 
  is too sick to live he goes elsewhere to die, and this is 
  like that to a degree. The Uratha do not belong to any 
  moon or planet and so they go seeking a place where 
  they do belong. Second, it is to speak to the most bizarre, 
  alien-like spirits out in deep space. By communing with 
  such entities, the Strangers hope to find some kind of 
  understanding of their origins and condition—after all, 
  finding a place where they do belong is more than just 
  mere physicality and geography. They seek a spiritual 
  place, as well.
  
  17 
  supply and clean fresh water). Mages might be able to 
  fix that, or at least help the process. Consider that ter-
  raforming potentially takes between ten and a hundred 
  years to make a moon or planet habitable by human 
  beings. (Now, in your space opera, it might instead be 
  something that can happen in the course of seven days if 
  you want it—some super-fast “God Seed” that dramati-
  cally transforms the planet’s surface.) Mages, though, 
  can accelerate the process. In fact, a relatively small 
  number of powerful sorcerers with capabilities across all 
  the Arcanum could literally create their own world—
  spawn oxygen, accelerate (and even direct) evolution, 
  create ecological diversity amongst plants, birth different 
  biomes, and so on and so forth. That’s scary powerful. 
  Worse, what happens when that group of mages decide 
  that they don’t want to relinquish this place that they 
  built? What if they decide that they are the planet’s new 
  keepers? And overlords?
  • Mages are easily obsessed with the past and with 
  anything that registers as “Atlantean.” So it is that many 
  mages are deeply fascinated by the presence and origin of 
  the Stygian Gates, all of which seem to be marked with 
  Atlantean runes (both tiny and massive). What does 
  it mean? Many have posited that the so-called Dread 
  Doors were built by early oracles, perhaps indicated that 
  Atlantis was never on Earth and was always out here… 
  somewhere. Some further suggest that if the gates could 
  be linked magically, they might create one big gate. And 
  that gate would either lead mages to Atlantis… or lead 
  Atlantis back to this reality.
  • What about the Abyss? Sure, technically the Abyss 
  is the yawning gulf between the Supernal and the Fallen, 
  but outer space itself sure has an abyssal quality, does it 
  not? Is there a magical sympathy between the void of space 
  and the oblivion of the Abyss? Do Abyssal entities lurk 
  out there in the deepest darkest channels and forgotten 
  tableaus of space? What do mages think of what happens 
  when they go through a Stygian Gate? Is Between Space 
  even closer to the true Abyss? Do the deepest, maddest 
  Abyssal gods lurk in that interstitial void? 
  • And what about the mage orders? How do they 
  fare in the space opera revamp?
  The Adamantine Arrow: These mystic warrior-
  monks are advisers to the many empires of man. They 
  advise them on matters of war and diplomacy, and 
  further, they train the princes and soldiers in whatever 
  martial way suits the students. And, when necessary, 
  the Arrow mages step onto the fields of war and wage a 
  campaign of battle magic against the enemies of their 
  empire—even if that means bringing magic to bear 
  against others in their order.
  The Free Council: The universe is a swiftly-chang-
  ing thing. How could it not be? If one mind is strong, 
  WEREWOLVES AND MAGES
  Prerequisites: Wisdom ••, Crafts ••, Science ••
  Membership: The lodge is open to any member of 
  any tribe, but they don’t recruit—they won’t come after 
  you. You have to go after them. And, since they’re rarely 
  easily accessible, finding and joining the lodge often re-
  quires quite a pilgrim’s journey across the known universe 
  in an effort to dig up the trail to follow. 
  Benefits: The Strangers of this lodge know that they 
  do best in strange places and when confronting truly 
  alien beings: any time a member of this lodge meets a 
  spirit type she has never before encountered, she may 
  add her dots in Wisdom to any Social dice pools used in 
  dealing with that spirit. Further, members of this lodge 
  feel quite at home with the Occult Skill (as that Skill 
  deals with the margins and fringes of knowledge)—
  when rolling a dice pool that uses the Occult Skill, the 
  werewolf can reroll all failed dice (once) by spending a 
  Willpower point.
  Mages
  System Shifts
  • In theory, mages—like vampires—find that their 
  supernatural abilities are opened up quite a bit by a 
  journey into outer space. In the setting of space opera, 
  the laws of reality are a little… looser than you’ll find in 
  the standard World of Darkness setting (or in a harder 
  sci-fi shard). Not only is science running rampant, thus 
  allowing a much wider variety of acceptable results, but 
  humanity is aware of magic to some degree, too (in much 
  the way that the denizens of the Star Wars universe knew 
  about the Force). Humans are far more willing to accept 
  the strange things they see because they know magic is 
  real and that true monsters travel the stars. So, what 
  does that mean for Paradox and vulgar magic? Consider 
  these three options:
  No Change: Same rules apply. In the setting, of 
  course, mages are likelier to act outside the view of 
  Sleepers.
  Paradox, Castrated: In the base Paradox dice pool 
  (p. 123, Mage: The Awakening), remove one die (to a 
  minimum of one).
  Paradox, Eradicated: Paradox, begone. Get rid of 
  it entirely. In effect, because the belief in magic is so 
  widespread, the leash (or rather, safety valve) on magic 
  and those who use it is gone, thus giving them unparal-
  leled powers in this age of space opera.
  Story Considerations
  • One of the great issues with traversing and coloniz-
  ing outer space is the lack of breathable air (which often 
  goes hand-in-hand with a lack of flora and fauna, food 
  
  18 
  INFINITE MACABRE-SPACE OPERA IN THE WORLD OF DARKNESS
  what about a billion? Ten billion? A hundred billion, 
  across the stars? How wonderful if all those means were 
  bent toward enlightenment, toward the Awakening 
  of magic? But they’re not. It’s the same as it’s always 
  been: war, petty squabbles, entrenched beliefs, extrem-
  ism. The Free Council wants to change all that. They 
  don’t like that the other mage orders contribute to the 
  oppression of magic and enlightenment (“keeping it all 
  for themselves,” the old Council heads say). And so, 
  they represent magical anarchists out on the galactic 
  fringes, freeing people’s minds (even if the people don’t 
  want them freed). 
  Guardians of the Veil: If the Free Council consists 
  of magical anarchists, the Guardians comprise those 
  mages who think magic should be kept secret, practiced 
  only by an elite few. Frankly, they’re trying to put the 
  snakes back in the can because magic is already out 
  there, no longer secret. That doesn’t stop them from 
  trying, though—think of them as a well-intentioned 
  secret police, tracking down those exploiting magic and, 
  well, punishing them.
  The Mysterium: Those mages in the Mysterium are 
  equal part “cosmic mystagogue” and “alien archaeolo-
  gist.” They believe that before mankind came out here to 
  colonize the stars, the stars had other inhabitants, maybe 
  as long as a million years ago. And, in fact, the Mysterium 
  accepts that those previous “tenants” may have been 
  the original Atlanteans. That means planet-hopping to 
  find any artifacts or writings that lend credence to this 
  theory and shine light on the original Atlantis. It also 
  makes the Mysterium the self-proclaimed expert on the 
  Stygian Gates. (And yes, if you’re thinking, “Gosh, this 
  puts them into serious competition or coordination with 
  the Loyalists of Thule, the Bone Shadows and maybe 
  even the Mekhet,” you wouldn’t be wrong.)
  The Silver Ladder: The Free Council likes to claim 
  that the universe is “home to magic,” but that’s bullshit. 
  The Silver Ladder knows the truth: mages are the ones 
  who keep the magic, and that puts mages in a particu-
  larly powerful position. And they’re happy to ascend to 
  their predestined rank as Rulers of Everything They See, 
  thank you very much. Mages of the Silver Ladder aren’t 
  content to serve as diplomats or strategists to the various 
  empires. No, they’d rather be the emperors. They deserve 
  to rule, and they can claim that rule easy—as a result, 
  more than one empire, civilization, army or mega-corp 
  has a Silver Ladder sorcerer at its head.
  New Toy:  
  Attuned Weapon (Merit; • to •••••)
  Effect: Whether true or not, mages are considered 
  to be mannered and elegant—champions of old ways 
  and ancient methods. (The Free Council balk at this 
  suggestion, but it doesn’t make it any less assumed.) As 
  such, many mages build their own Attuned Weapons: 
  melee-style hand-held weapons that reflect their magic 
  and speak to a time before photon repeaters and laser-
  lancers. 
  Choose a melee weapon that best suits the charac-
  ter’s persona (sword, knife, axe, spear, staff, etc.). The 
  character must have built this weapon herself (cut the 
  staff from an alien tree, hammered the meteor-forged 
  sword, chipping away volcanic moonstone to form a 
  glass-sharp knife). 
  The weapon must be attuned to one of the mage’s 
  Ruling Arcana (determined by Path, see p. 68, Mage: 
  The Awakening). 
  The weapon gains Damage (as attack bonus) equal 
  to the dots purchased in the Merit. Damage on these is 
  considered lethal regardless of the weapon (e.g., staves 
  do bashing normally, but an Attuned Staff does lethal) 
  unless a special effect below notes otherwise.
  Further, the weapon also gains a special ability based 
  on the Ruling Arcanum:
  Death: This weapon can be used to attack ghosts 
  (manifest or otherwise) directly. In addition, it gains +1 
  dice against vampire targets.
  Fate: On a successful attack, roll a single die. If that 
  die comes up a 10, then double the damage done. If that 
  die comes up a 1, then the attack was successful, but only 
  does bashing damage. If it comes up 2-9, no effect takes 
  place beyond normal attack and damage resolution.
  Forces: The mage can, once per scene, turn the 
  weapon into the embodiment of a particular “force” 
  (fire, lightning, light, etc.)—this lasts for a number of 
  turns equal to the character’s Gnosis score, and each 
  turn it does one bashing damage to the character while 
  it remains in her grip (this cannot be prevented with 
  protective gloves or other gear). However, during this 
  time the weapon does aggravated damage to targets.
  Life: Once per game session, the mage can use this 
  weapon in a way opposite of its intent: to heal instead 
  of damage. Make an attack as normal, and successes 
  gained instead heal that number of points of lethal (or 
  bashing) damage. The weapon does not heal aggravated 
  damage.
  Matter: The weapon ignores Durability as a factor 
  when making attacks on any material and inorganic 
  object. In addition, it gains +1 dice against Promethean 
  targets.
  Mind: If the weapon makes a successful attack 
  on a sentient creature and does at least five points of 
  lethal damage, then the weapon also robs the victim 
  of one Willpower point and the point is transferred to 
  the mage.
  Prime: If the weapon makes a successful attack on 
  a creature possessing Essence or Mana and does at least 
  
  19 
  three points of lethal damage, then the weapon also robs 
  the victim of one Essence or Mana point and the point is 
  transferred to the mage (Essence is transferred as Mana). 
  In addition, it gains +1 dice against Awakened targets.
  Spirit: This weapon can be used to attack spirits 
  (manifest or otherwise) directly. In addition, it gains +1 
  dice against werewolf targets.
  Space: If the mage makes a successful attack on 
  the target and draws blood, the mage may scrye into the 
  weapon at any point over the subsequent 24 hour period 
  and see the victim and her location (though the only 
  sense experienced is sight).
  Time: The mage always goes first in Initiative. In 
  addition, it gains +1 dice against changeling targets.
  Changelings
  System Shifts
  • For the most part, the rules that govern change-
  lings on Earth don’t need to change much in terms of 
  putting the Lost into the space opera shard. However, 
  the Hedge merits serious consideration. The Hedge can 
  be opened as normal by any changeling going through 
  a portal or reflective surface—and yes, that means a 
  supply closet on board a frigate, through a reflective 
  surface on a solar array, or in the trapdoor at the bottom 
  of a lunar ore harvester. The question becomes: where 
  does the changeling go when she enters? The Hedge, 
  yes, but what and where is the Hedge? If we reimagine 
  the Hedge as something that is less linear (i.e. walking 
  down a Hedge trod) and far more three-dimensional (a 
  spheroid maze where changelings can travel up, down, 
  or sideways through the labyrinth), we can then imag-
  ine that changelings in turn can take more than just 
  themselves in: they can take whole spacecraft inside to 
  navigate the tangle. ( This leads to images of faceless 
  hobgoblins leaping onto the wings of the ship, chew-
  ing through cables, throwing themselves bodily into 
  the engines.) This means that changelings can use the 
  Hedge to bypass Stygian Gates if they so desire: either 
  using the gates or even docking bay doors as pathways 
  into the Hedge. To determine how long the journey takes 
  in the Hedge, assume that the Navigation system on p. 
  MAGES AND CHANGELINGS
  
  20 
  INFINITE MACABRE-SPACE OPERA IN THE WORLD OF DARKNESS
  219 of Changeling: The Lost still applies, except now 
  the journey takes (in hours) 20 minus the Wyrd rating 
  rather than 10 minus Wyrd.
  • It might seem that Contracts require special 
  consideration, but for the most part, they should work 
  as designed—it’s just that, some changelings are going 
  to be more comfortable on a planet’s surface rather than 
  floating out in the middle of space since the Contracts 
  of the Lost are so often attuned to natural features (ele-
  ments, animals, sunlight). That’s not to say, however, 
  that a changeling couldn’t have a dog or two on board a 
  spacecraft, or that it’s not valuable to be able to control 
  fire and temperature and grow plants on board a ship—
  in fact, in this way, changelings can become incredibly 
  useful on a long spacefaring journey. One question is: 
  do Contracts of Fang and Talon work if geared toward 
  alien fauna (or Contracts of Spring on xenomorphic 
  flora)? Well, why not? Even if they’re not terrestrial, why 
  put in place unnecessary limits? You might also want to 
  expand the Elemental Contracts to, say, Ether—or even 
  the empty Void of space. 
  Story Considerations
  • A changeling’s imprisonment by the True Fae 
  can be a whole different experience, now: what if the 
  Hedge is a ring of thorns surrounding an Arcadia planet, 
  a ring navigable by spacecraft? What if, when humans 
  are stolen away, they are dragged through rifts in time 
  and space (or Stygian Gates) and taken to this Arcadian 
  homeworld? Are the True Fae then not only figuratively 
  alien, but truly extraterrestrial? Could a character’s story 
  involve a measure of planetary romance by falling in 
  forbidden love with her Keeper—a relationship denied 
  by the gulf of space after the character is unwittingly 
  freed? Hell, consider rethinking the entire “majority 
  oppression, minority rebellion” aspect of a lot of space 
  opera: what if the True Fae are the oppressors, and the 
  changelings represent an active rebellion looking to 
  rout and destroy their oneiric overlords (which further 
  complicates that “planetary romance” angle noted above, 
  giving it a Romeo & Juliet in-wartime feel).
  • Freeholds, the fundamental unit of larger Lost 
  society, can get a pretty serious space opera makeover: 
  a rebel lunar outpost, a fabricated village found on a 
  comet and held fast by a Contract with the comet itself, 
  an old cargo freighter thieved from its pilots. Freeholds 
  might communicate with one another via a Subspace 
  Frequency, a parsec-traversing signal (delayed by minutes 
  or hours depending on how far apart the freeholds hap-
  pen to be) that allows changelings to warn one another 
  about the True Fae or coordinate attacks on the Keepers 
  or on enemy Courts.
  • Goblin Markets, too, are a new consideration. 
  Do they only exist in whatever version of the Hedge 
  you prefer (a Hedge planet, a ring of thorns surround-
  ing the Arcadian homeworld, or the Hedge as it stands 
  in Changeling: The Lost)? Could you envision a solar 
  flotilla out at the edges of space or found somewhere in 
  Between Space?
  • Finally, consider revamping the nature of the 
  Courts. The Courts as they stand are seasonal, and space? 
  Space has no seasons. On the one hand, you’re obviously 
  free to keep the Courts as seasonal, as some planets will 
  either still have seasons or will have one persistent season. 
  Example: a tropical jungle moon might make a great 
  Summer Court kingdom, whereas a Hoth-like Arctic 
  rock would make an ideal place for the gloomy palaces 
  of the Winter Court. However, don’t hesitate to get all 
  space opera on its ass, either: what about Courts based off 
  of celestial objects? The Court of the Comet, the Aurora 
  Court, the Court of the Dead Star, the Court of the Void. 
  This can work with the various noble entitlements, too: 
  Knights of the Supernova, the Bishops of Occultation, 
  the Royal Guardians of the Ring of Dust. 
  • And what of the seasonal Courts (if you’re keeping 
  them), cast in the dim light of The Infinite Macabre:
  The Spring Court: Think of them as hedonistic 
  galaxy-crossing Johnny Appleseeds—tromping across 
  the planets and moons, looking for places to plant their 
  seeds both figuratively and literally. They’re terraform-
  ing freaks, drug-addled tricksters, and sex-addict space 
  hipsters. They don’t care what you want. They care about 
  what they want, and that’s it.
  The Summer Court: The Summer Court cares little 
  about the ways of man—they are warriors and soldiers, 
  yes, but they don’t involve themselves in mortal disputes 
  or territorial pissing matches. Their armies march for the 
  Lost, and the Lost alone. As such, the Summer Court 
  carves out its own domains across the galaxy—forest 
  moons, sun-baked space stations, distant islands on dis-
  tant planets—to call their own. They offer protection 
  to any who join with them: joining merely means a stint 
  in the Summer Court’s military service. 
  The Autumn Court: The universe knows no fear, 
  it seems—it continues to expand ever-outward, mankind 
  moving with the aggressiveness of an untreated disease. 
  It’s as if man is ignorant to the dangers—not just the 
  dangers the stars offer, such as solar flares or superno-
  vas, but the monsters that lurk out there in the velvet 
  blackness. What of the True Fae and their homeworld, a 
  planet that never shows up on any star-charts or surveys, 
  a planet yet with its own kind of mad gravity—gravity 
  that reaches out with invisible hands to clutch at those 
  whom the Fae want to bring to heel. The Autumn Court 
  serves to remind the universe that monsters exist by 
  being monsters themselves: they are but a taste of the 
  terror, a vaccine for mankind’s unchecked spread. That is 
  not to say they form an oppressive empire: no, even the 
  
  21 
  worst civilizations have a lot to fear from the Autumn 
  Court. They are equal opportunity nightmares.
  The Winter Court: The Winter Court, like their 
  Autumnal counterparts, recognizes that the universe 
  is filled to the brim with horrors—but their response is 
  entirely different. Instead of acting as bellwether and 
  warning system, the Winter Court escapes—and this 
  universe is home to many hidden, forbidden and for-
  gotten places. The Winter Courtiers flee to the farthest 
  corners and there play out their mad games and courtly 
  intrigue, becoming insular and inbred (metaphorically 
  and literally) until some clash or crisis kicks over the log 
  and drags them back out into the light. For while many 
  places remain hidden in the universe, all of them can 
  still be found by the most resolute True Fae (or humans, 
  or Autumn Court, or whomever). 
  New Toy:  
  Doll’s Heart Driveshaft (Token; •••••)
  Peel back the metal door encasing the engine of a 
  changeling crew’s starship, and what might you find? 
  You might find a creepy marionette or plastic doll wired 
  up to the drive, that’s what. And what does this doll do, 
  exactly? Well, it takes the spaceship and literally, in 
  the span of an instant, drops it out of space and into the 
  Hedge—where it promptly becomes a Hollow. (The dots 
  in the Spaceship Merit must be respent as Hollow dots 
  while the ship remains in that form.)
  Action: Instant
  Mien: The doll wired to the heart of the ship is alive: 
  squirming, writhing, babbling, screaming.
  Drawback: First, the ship—once it becomes a Hol-
  low—cannot re-engage and emerge as a ship again for a 
  full 24 hour period. And when it does, it doesn’t teleport 
  anywhere; it must literally fly free of the Hedge through 
  some gateway or door big enough to accommodate a 
  ship. Second, the shift from “outer space” to “Hedge” 
  is one that sends up all manner of signals—signals that 
  may summon strange hobgoblins, demented changelings 
  or mad Keepers.
  Catch: The changeling must have burned her hand 
  (for one or more lethal damage) somewhere on the ship 
  during the previous eight hours.
  Prometheans
  System Shifts
  • Prometheans have a sympathy with Between 
  Space. While in the Dismal Void, the Promethean gains 
  +3 dice to resist Torment, and can reduce the cost of 
  activating any Bestowment by one point of Pyros (mini-
  mum of zero cost). 
  • You might consider upping the milestone Vitriol 
  awards for Promethean characters walking the Pilgrim-
  age: after all, tracking one’s “humanness” is all the 
  more difficult across the deep channels of space (where 
  humans sometimes fear to tread). Adjustment needn’t be 
  dramatic: minor milestones are 1-5 Vitriol, major 5-10, 
  superlative 10-15.
  Story Considerations
  • Consider the possibility that the alchemy once put 
  forth by various Demiurges to bring life to dead flesh (i.e. 
  creating a Promethean) is actually “alien alchemy,” as 
  in, the inspiration for such creation on Earth came from 
  the alien astronauts that once landed in Ancient Egypt. 
  This also means that new methods of such extraterrestrial 
  alchemy could lurk out there for those mortals or Pro-
  metheans who are intrepid enough to find them.
  • File this under “Idea That Totally Won’t Go Hor-
  ribly Awry,” but what would happen if the Prometheans 
  actually had their own moon or planet to call their own? 
  (Hell, call it Prometheus—apropos given how often 
  the names of planets are cast after mythic figures.) No 
  humans around, so no Disquiet. Branded throngs, ahoy. 
  What could possibly go wrong? (What’s that? You say 
  it’s a planet full of rage-filled monsters who long to be 
  human?) Is it too abstract to suggest that so many Pro-
  metheans could somehow imbue the moon or planet 
  itself with a kind of sentience and life? A “reanimated” 
  Promethean planet broadcasting its mad signal into 
  space? A signal that draws Disquiet from hundreds of 
  parsecs away and captures passing ships in a tractor beam 
  of pure disdain and simmering suspicions? 
  • Clones, a relative rarity in the World of Darkness, 
  could be a lot more common in The Infinite Macabre. 
  Clones are capable of manning spacecraft or acting as 
  redundant failsafes—or, as we’ve seen already, they might 
  be used to populate a moon-based mining operation or 
  even act as a whole army of soldiers for an oppressive 
  galactic regime. This could thrust clones into the light 
  as either a major enemy for Promethean characters or it 
  could put them front and center as playable characters.
  • If you want a little survival horror mixed in with 
  your space opera, look no further than the Centimani or 
  Pandorans. Play a game like Dead Space and tell me that 
  the pink, gibbering mutants in that game couldn’t easily 
  be something ripped out of the pages of Promethean: 
  The Created.
  New Toy: Capacitor (New Electrification 
  Transmutation; •••••)
  The Created with this Transmutation can control 
  and sense all aspects of a spaceship from within merely 
  by touching some part of it.
  PROMETHEANS
  
  22 
  INFINITE MACABRE-SPACE OPERA IN THE WORLD OF DARKNESS
  Cost: 2 Pyros
  Dice Pool: None
  Action: Instant
  Activating the Transmutation requires the Pro-
  methean to touch the spacecraft (from within or out-
  side). The spacecraft gains power if it had none before. 
  Further, the Promethean can pilot the ship, make attacks 
  or even make repairs (see the Spaceship Merit, p. 7 of this 
  product) without being near to the controls of those sys-
  tems. Finally, the Promethean can take a turn and sense 
  the goings-on within the ship, attaining all five senses as 
  if the character is the craft. (This requires no roll.)
  Sin-Eaters
  System Shifts
  • Gaining plasm might be a little bit harder in The 
  Infinite Macabre given a Sin-Eater’s propensity to spend 
  time in space in transit from world to world, so consider 
  using Dead Spots: out there in the deep nowhere are 
  spaces that are not only physical voids but spiritual voids, 
  too. These are places where stars burned out or where 
  ships died in the emptiness and the crew withered away 
  to nothing. These places are home to ghosts both human 
  and alien, and wise Sin-Eaters can use these out-in-the-
  void “haunts” to collect plasm from these low places.
  • The Infinite Macabre demands a potential re-
  wiring of the Underworld as it’s written in Geist: The 
  Sin-Eaters (Appendix starting on p. 258). First, assume 
  the Underworld is no longer entirely autochthonic—
  meaning, it has a surface, and above it, a sky (“The 
  Allochthonous Skies”). And above that sky is the 
  wide open nothing of Between Space (aka the Dismal 
  Void). Second, assume that every physical body that is 
  or has been home to human beings has a representa-
  tion in Between Space: moons, space stations, planets, 
  asteroid outposts, etc. Third, if it has a representation 
  in Between Space, it also has its own Underworld. Just as 
  the Underworld on Earth represents the shades of that 
  place, so does every netherworld of every planet, moon 
  
  23 
  and stardock. (And it bears considering exactly what the 
  Underworld of these places look like: the Underworld of 
  a stardock might very well look like the claustrophobic 
  halls of any Doom video game, where the netherworlds of 
  other planets would represent the dead cultures of those 
  civilizations that dwelled there.) Finally, it should be 
  possible for a character to leave one Underworld by go-
  ing “deep enough” (meaning, into the Lower Mysteries) 
  and emerging into another Underworld—which means, 
  yes, a character could enter the Underworld on Earth 
  and reemerge onto, say, the planet Corvus (through its 
  Underworld) some 10,000 light years away without ever 
  venturing into outer space. Sin-Eaters can use Avernian 
  Gates (per normal) on any body or structure that has its 
  own Underworld. 
  Story Considerations
  • The geists themselves should be thought of in 
  those “space operatic” terms while still retaining that 
  archetypal sensibility: the Suffocated Cosmonaut, the 
  Dead Knight of the Black Comet, the Impaled Pilot, 
  the Lunar Miner.
  • What to do about ghosts? Consider that the 
  universe is probably full of them. In space opera, massive 
  battles unlike any seen on Earth can unfold. Sometimes, 
  entire civilizations and planets are wiped out with single-
  stroke mega-weapons (think the way the Death Star 
  obliterates Alderaan—in fact, just as the Force hears 
  all those “voices” crying out, so too might Sin-Eaters 
  feel such a deathly disturbance across space). You have 
  plenty of excuse to populate the stars and planets and 
  dead dreadnaughts with as many ghosts as you so choose. 
  In fact, being so far “out there” probably makes it a lot 
  easier for specters to manifest and affect human beings: 
  faces at the portholes, engines dying suddenly, wraiths 
  traveling alongside the ship like pale worms instead of 
  porpoises. However, if you feel like you want to open up 
  the Sin-Eater purview a little, feel free to add “spirits” to 
  their resume, alongside “ghosts.” It isn’t entirely without 
  sense given that geists are so archetypal that they aren’t 
  ghosts so much as the spirits of ghosts. Why not assume 
  that Sin-Eaters straddle two worlds, making them an 
  easy ally for the Forsaken?
  New Toy: The Meteor Mask (Deathmask)
  Deathmask, the Forgotten (Death by Chance)
  Key: Industrial
  Skill: Drive (Pilot)
  This mask—a porous mask forged of volcanic rock, 
  peppered with glittering gems where the eyes and teeth 
  should be—is the face of the Last Colonist, a geist whose 
  entire moon colony was destroyed by a rogue asteroid. 
  The Last Colonist did not die with the others, as he was 
  underground in the mines at the time. When he emerged, 
  he found that his family and friends were all gone. He 
  was trapped, because the meteor had also destroyed 
  any chance of getting off the colony, and over time he 
  perished. When he was left as a lingering ghost, he ab-
  sorbed all the roaming specters of those who had died, 
  and together as one they wandered the rock, gathering 
  glittering gems and stones with compulsive fervor.
  When the Sin-Eater dons this mask, the machines 
  around him run silently and effectively—no machine 
  within 50 yards will break completely (unless destroyed 
  actively by the changeling).
  Possessed Starships
  If cars and airplanes have spirits, you can be damn 
  sure that starships do, too. They aren’t content 
  to sit and wait in dry-dock. They long to be out 
  there. It’s what they are, what they do. Regular 
  maintenance keeps them docile and content, 
  while a crew that develops an affection for their 
  ship may find that sometimes the craft… helps 
  them out. The engines may kick in just at the right 
  moment, or a short-circuit flickers brightly to 
  illuminate something terrible in the dark cargo 
  hold. Crews (or krewes, if you’re playing with Sin-
  Eater characters) treating such a vessel with a lack 
  of respect may find increased injury rates or that 
  their navigation system is always pointing them 
  just off course.
  In game terms, benign spirits get to add their 
  Power score to any Skill checks made using ship 
  systems, while malevolent entities apply Power 
  as a penalty to Skill checks. Of course, really 
  pissed-off spirits can do a lot worse. Any spirit 
  that unpleasant might just switch off gravity and 
  life support and flush the flesh contagion out into 
  space. Exorcising a starship computer may not 
  the ship’s chaplain’s normal duty, but it’s perhaps 
  the best time to have a priest on board.
  Other things can take control of ships, too. 
  Ghosts of dead crewmates or living individuals 
  with particularly powerful supernatural abilities 
  can cause hair-raising horror in space. It only takes 
  a few adjusted systems to turn a starship to into a 
  coffin—if you’re in the piracy game, this can make 
  it easy to acquire new vessels.
  SIN-EATERS
  
  24 
  INFINITE MACABRE-SPACE OPERA IN THE WORLD OF DARKNESS
  The Other:  
  Playing an Alien 
  in the World of 
  Darkness
  Your flesh shimmers. It’s iridescent, like the 
  mirrored flesh of a lizard. Your hands? Each 
  finger tapers to a whipping tendril (like the 
  tongue of a hummingbird). Your eyes don’t exist;  
  you “see” by cobbling together an unholy host 
  of stimuli—sound, light, heat, smells. And 
  that’s a good thing, too, because you can hear 
  blood pulsing through human hearts. You can 
  smell the sweat of their fear. Feel the warmth 
  of flesh even at 50 yards. It makes you hungry. 
  You want to crack open that poor dumb meatbag 
  and savor the juices. But you don’t. Not now. 
  That would be rude. And your people are very 
  polite. At least, they are until nobody’s look�
  ing…
  From Darkest Space,  
  You Appear
  You have always played The Other.
  As a vampire, you are held fast to the darkness, and 
  kept to the fringes by your cold hands and the hot blood 
  in your mouth.
  As a mage, you know things others do not, can 
  perform tricks that could crumple someone’s mind like 
  a soda can under a heavy boot.
  As a werewolf, you are a creature straddling worlds, 
  equal parts spirit, animal, and man.
  That’s not even talking about Sin-Eaters, hunters, 
  Prometheans or fae creatures.
  You haven’t seen anything yet.
  This portion of The Infinite Macabre is devoted 
  toward letting you roleplay an alien being. Technically, 
  this is meant to be kept with the setting and themes 
  of The Infinite Macabre—space opera as a concept is 
  comfortable with the pulpier elements and motifs that 
  best suit an alien character. That said, if you are inclined 
  to take characters built from this section and put them 
  in your modern-era World of Darkness game, go for 
  it. The only person who can stop you is the Storyteller. 
  (Alternately, the rules in here could easily be used to 
  create Nightbreed-style monster types, too, provided you 
  extract out any of the space opera trappings.)
  To be clear, most of this section is geared toward the 
  rules and character creation necessary to play an alien 
  creature in The Infinite Macabre. We’re getting down 
  and dirty: here are the rules and as many examples as we 
  can cram into the gaps. Everything else is up to you.
  Step One: Choose Concept
  Determining the direction you’ll take in creating 
  an alien character is almost as difficult as being asked, 
  “What do you want to do when you grow up?” The 
  answers are, of course, limitless—but hopefully with 
  a little thought you’ll be able to zero in on the type of 
  alien you might want to play within the boundaries of 
  The Infinite Macabre. Haughty power-mad diplomat? 
  Flesh-hungry moon-born berserker? Disgruntled robot? 
  Emotionless jellyfish-like bladder of toxic gas and tele-
  pathic communication? You have no end to the choices 
  you may make. 
  Step Two: Select Attributes
  Choose Attributes in much the same way you would 
  choose them for a starting human character.
  Step Three: Select Skills
  Same with Skills: while it’s possible that aliens might 
  not technically possess the same Skill sets as human be-
  ings, in the mode of The Infinite Macabre space opera, 
  aliens still have humanoid qualities. An alien can hack 
  a computer, canvass a party, or stab you with a pointy 
  implement.
  Step Four:  
  Select Skill Specialties
  Choose three Skill Specialties for any Skills your 
  alien character possesses.
  Step Five:  
  Add Alien Template
  The alien template is a simple one: it is composed of 
  Qualities, which are the elements that define your alien 
  species. It is up to you whether or not these Qualities 
  are meant to be singular to your alien character or rep-
  resentative of his entire alien species. 
  As with Skills and Attributes, you must prioritize 
  the categories for your alien character’s Qualities. Except 
  here, you gain an additional category: Physical, Mental, 
  Social, and Cultural. 
  You do not need to put these in the same order that 
  you applied to either Skills or Attributes.
  
  25 
  In each category, depending on the order you give it, 
  you gain a number of dots to spend across various alien 
  Qualities apropos to that category.
  Primary earns you five dots.
  Secondary earns you three dots.
  Tertiary earns you two dots.
  Quaternary earns you one dot.
  Note that purchasing Imperfections (below) can earn 
  you up to an additional five dots to spend in Qualities, 
  and these dots are not bound to any one category.
  Your Awesomeness Trumps  
  Our Awesomeness
  True fact: anything you come up with is probably 
  going to be cooler than anything we come up 
  with, especially in how well it flies at your game 
  table. The Qualities found in this chapter do not 
  need to be the end-all be-all list; they are not 
  meant to be exhaustive. Make up your own. Note 
  that dot costs are higher when the Quality offers 
  a larger benefit. You should work with the Story-
  teller and the other players not only to come up 
  with interesting abilities, but also to determine the 
  appropriate dot levels.
  Physical Qualities
  Bodiless (•••••)
  The character has no body. How you interpret that 
  is up to you: is he a cloud of vapor? A purely telepathic 
  entity? A spirit of sorts, kept only to the Shadow of the 
  galaxy? Does his gaseous form lie trapped in some kind 
  of tank? However you determine it, the character has no 
  body to speak of and thus is given over to no Physical 
  existence. 
  What does this mean? First, it means no Physical 
  Attributes or Skills. Cross them off the sheet. It also 
  means: no Physical advantages. The character has no 
  Size. It has a Speed equal to Resolve + Composure. Initia-
  tive is equal to Intelligence + Wits. This may not seem 
  like a Quality (meaning, a benefit) until you recognize 
  that the character is virtually indestructible: while it 
  may make no Physical attacks, it also suffers no Physical 
  attacks. Swing a vibrating blade through the character 
  and—what? Nothing. No damage done. 
  The character has no Health score and instead tracks 
  damage through Willpower. Choose one weakness from 
  this list (or make up your own with Storyteller approval): 
  fire, cold, radiation, steam, or electricity. This is the only 
  source of pain the character may suffer: it does damage, 
  but instead of causing wounds, it subtracts Willpower. 
  If the character is reduced to zero Willpower, then the 
  character suffers a -5 penalty on all rolls until at least 
  one point of Willpower can be restored. 
  Chameleon (•••)
  The character’s flesh is capable of shifting colors and 
  manifesting iridescence: as such, the skin can blend in 
  with most backgrounds provided the character can wait 
  for a single turn to manifest the skin-shift. The simpler 
  the background, the more effective the camouflage hap-
  pens to be: if the background is uncomplicated (a forest, 
  a brick wall, a rock face) then any attempts to actively 
  search for the character suffer a -5 penalty. If the back-
  ground features unusual complexities (a poster on the 
  wall, other characters, bundles of wires or other manmade 
  intricacies) then that penalty drops to -3. Further, the 
  character may not move during this time: the skin does 
  not change to keep up. Finally, if the character is wearing 
  clothes or objects then the penalty to find the character 
  drops by one more (to -4 or -2, respectively). 
  Other characters must be actively hunting for the 
  character in order to see the chameleon: passive wit-
  nesses will fail to see anything strange at all regardless of 
  the circumstances. Finally, darkness helps the chameleon 
  skin adapt: darkness keeps the penalty at -5 regardless 
  of the background complexity and whether or not the 
  character is wearing clothes.
  Covered in Cilia (•)
  The character’s flesh is covered in small (or large, 
  if you’re so inclined) cilia—or, to be more descriptive, 
  “whipping tendrils.” The character may choose a +1 
  bonus at the time of character creation to either Initia-
  tive, Defense, or Speed due to the tiny energy generated 
  by the constant movement of her cilia. 
  Does Not Breathe (••)
  Oxygen? Who needs oxygen? Certainly not you. 
  You gain life-giving sustenance from other sources: 
  perhaps you are driven merely by the kinetic energy of 
  your bodily processes. Whatever the case, you can walk 
  on the exterior of a ship, you can wander underwater for 
  hours on end, or you can waltz into a cloud of toxic gas 
  because you do not breathe.
  Gazing Across the Spectrum (•••)
  The character’s vision offers him a myriad of per-
  ception tweaks via gazing across multiple spectrums. He 
  is able to gain visual input across infrared, ultraviolet, 
  and thermal sight, compositing it with his normal mode 
  of vision. This offers him a +3 on all Perception-based 
  rolls. 
  PLAYING AN ALIEN
  
  26 
  INFINITE MACABRE-SPACE OPERA IN THE WORLD OF DARKNESS
  Human-Seeming (•)
  Perhaps the character is a synthetic humanoid or, 
  rather, just a really weird distant offshoot of humankind 
  (with some frighteningly close genetic parity to human-
  ity, perhaps within one percent). Either way, the char-
  acter can pass as human more easily. Any rolls made to 
  pretend to be human gain a +3 bonus. Genetic testing 
  will reveal the truth.
  Mucusflesh (•)
  The alien flesh exudes a greasy, sticky, or mucus-
  like discharge at all times. It is therefore very difficult 
  to grapple the character: any grapple attempts against 
  this alien character suffer a -5 penalty.
  Natural Armor (• to •••••)
  Hard reptilian scale? Chitinous exoskeleton, like 
  that of a tremendous mantis or beetle? Dense-woven 
  nano-fiber made to replace one’s existing skin? Whatever 
  the case, the character’s skin is hard enough to provide 
  the benefits of armor. The character gains one dot of 
  armor (both against bashing and lethal sources) per dot 
  purchased in this Physical Quality.
  Vicious Body Parts (• to •••••)
  The character has a body part which does lethal 
  damage equal to one die per dot purchased. Could be 
  that this is some kind of violent mouthpart (a piercing 
  proboscis), ichorous claws, or razor-sharp serrated fins 
  along one’s forearm. 
  Mental Qualities
  Empath (•)
  The character is able to, by expending a Willpower 
  point, gaze upon the swirling aura of another character 
  (alien or human), and determine the target’s current 
  dominant emotional state. The character may receive a 
  single aura color or a hypnotic mix of colors (indicating 
  greater emotional complexity). Consult the sidebar on 
  this page to see a sample of aura colors and their ac-
  cordant emotional states. Note that aliens that possess 
  no emotions fail to register any kind of aura signifier. 
  If the character wishes to view the aura of a different 
  target, an additional Willpower point is required per 
  aura examined.
  Non-Linear Thought Patterns (•••)
  Human beings tend to think logically and linearly: 
  man is a problem solver that moves from Point A to 
  Point B and so on. Alien minds and brains needn’t be 
  so forthright and may solve problems and puzzles more 
  comprehensively, or even backwards. The character 
  gains the 8-Again quality on the following Skills: Aca-
  demics, Computer, Investigation, Occult, and Science. 
  Aura Signifiers
  Condition 
   
  Color
  Afraid 
   
  Orange
  Aggressive 
   
  Purple
  Angry 
   
  Bright Red
  Bitter 
   
  Brown
  Calm 
   
  Light Blue
  Compassionate 
  Pink
  Conservative  
  Lavender
  Depressed 
   
  Gray
  Desirous/Lustful 
  Deep Red
  Distrustful 
   
  Light Green
  Envious 
   
  Dark Green
  Excited 
   
  Violet
  Generous 
   
  Rose
  Happy 
   
  Vermilion
  Hateful 
   
  Black
  Idealistic 
   
  Yellow
  Innocent 
   
  White
  Lovestruck 
   
  Bright Blue
  Obsessed 
   
  Bright Green
  Sad  
   
  Silver
  Spiritual 
   
  Gold
  Suspicious 
   
  Dark Blue
  Confused 
   
  Mottled, shifting colors
  Daydreaming  
  Sharp, flickering colors
  Supernaturally Controlled Weak, muted aura
  Psychotic 
   
  Hypnotic, swirling colors
  Supernatural Being 
  A vague, indescribable  
   
   
   
  “wrongness” to the aura
  Further, the Unskilled penalty is reduced from -3 dice 
  to -1 die.
  Skill Focus (• to •••••)
  The species focuses a great deal of mental energy on 
  a single Skill. This Skill needn’t be bound to the Mental 
  
  27 
  category (rather, the Mental nature of this Quality is 
  born of the intense mental discipline necessary to train 
  such a Skill so completely). For each dot purchased in 
  this Quality, you may choose another Skill Specialty for 
  the chosen Skill at the time of character creation. This 
  Quality may not be taken twice.
  Tech Brain (• to •••••)
  Choose either the Computer Skill or the Crafts 
  Skill. The character gains a series of bonus dice at the 
  beginning of each game session equal to twice the dots 
  purchased in this Quality. The character may expend 
  these dice over the course of the game session on the 
  Skill for which they were chosen. She can, if she pos-
  sesses them, add more than five dice to a single roll. The 
  character may be a robot, possess hard-wired synapses, or 
  may just be an alien with a keen technical mind. 
  Telepathic (•• or ••••)
  Vocalized speech is not absolutely necessary for 
  every alien species: many are capable telepaths, able to 
  communicate directly with the minds of others (two-dot) 
  and read the surface thoughts of targets (four-dot). 
  The two-dot version offers the character a one-way 
  avenue of communication: she can, with no roll, talk to 
  another character’s mind. She cannot, however, hear 
  their communication that comes back—again, it’s a 
  one-way street. To gain two-way communication, the 
  character must upgrade to the four-dot version. This 
  Quality allows the character both modes of telepathy. 
  She can hear the surface thoughts of others if they 
  will it to be so. If they, however, are not actively willing 
  their thoughts to be heard by the character, then such 
  telepathy constitutes a kind of mental theft and requires 
  a roll of Wits + Larceny (many have compared to, quite 
  literally, picking a lock) versus the opponent’s Resolve 
  + Composure. If the alien character succeeds, she can 
  hear any and all surface thoughts from the target for the 
  remainder of the scene. She cannot, however, go deeper 
  than surface; think of it like a radio. One can tune in 
  only to active frequencies, but one cannot use tune in 
  transmissions from the past.
  Thought Into Action (••)
  The alien is an eminently fast thinker, and this 
  translates into a fast actor. The character calculates 
  Initiative differently than human beings: instead of 
  Dexterity + Composure, the equation is now [Highest 
  of Wits or Intelligence] + Composure.
  Social Qualities
  Beast Whisperer (•• or •••)
  The character can implicitly understand the lan-
  guage of animals: a creature that barks, meows, caws, 
  or makes any vocal noise at all, is saying something. The 
  alien can understand whatever that may be without any 
  roll. It is in part a matter of inflection, but it’s also an 
  issue of body language. For an additional dot (•••), the 
  character can carry this over to her dealings with humans 
  and aliens who do not speak her tongue: she may make a 
  Wits + Empathy roll in order to understand the general 
  meaning of what another character is saying, even if she 
  doesn’t understand their exact tongue.
  Lyrical Voice (•••)
  The alien’s tongue and vocal chords (or vocal spira-
  cles or spore-voice or whatever it is that allows the crea-
  ture to speak) provides a beautiful, melodic sound. The 
  cost to purchase dots in the Presence and Manipulation 
  Attributes as well as the Expression, Persuasion, Socialize 
  and Subterfuge Skills are all halved (round up). 
  Pheromones (• to •••••)
  The character’s body exudes hard-to-detect phero-
  mones that can affect the emotions of others. For each 
  dot in this Quality the character may choose one over-
  arching emotion (anger, love, hate, fear, compassion, 
  lust, sadness, etc.) and, with a Presence + Persuasion 
  roll (which is also granted a +3 bonus) affect all those 
  around her (within a 10 feet radius) with that emotion. 
  Characters may actively attempt to resist feeling this 
  emotion with a Resolve + Empathy roll, but can only 
  do so if they believe themselves actively manipulated. 
  If they feel that the emotion is a natural response, they 
  are not granted the option to resist until they gain some 
  clue about the pheromonal manipulation.
  Seductive (•• or ••••)
  Sex is a critical part of this alien’s habits, a casual 
  component that is as fundamental as breathing, sleeping, 
  or eating. The two-dot version of this grants the character 
  a bonus to all Seduction rolls by allowing her to add both 
  Presence and Manipulation to the roll to seduce (Seduction 
  as an action is described on p. 84 of the World of Darkness 
  Rulebook). The four-dot version allows the character to 
  bear fruit from her seductiveness: if she successfully has sex 
  with another character, she gains a measure of authority 
  over that individual. She gains a +3 bonus on all Social 
  rolls made to sway that character’s actions or emotions. 
  This bonus fades at a rate of one die per week but may be 
  re-established with further sexual contact.
  Soothe the Beast (•)
  No animal (or animalistic, non-sentient alien) will 
  attack the character. It could be something physiological 
  (a sweet-smelling sap exuded by the flesh) or something 
  altogether ethereal (a calming aura). Either way, no 
  animal will attack the character unless the character 
  attacks first.
  ALIEN QUALITIES
  
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  INFINITE MACABRE-SPACE OPERA IN THE WORLD OF DARKNESS
  Without Emotion (••)
  The alien’s physiology and brain chemistry does not 
  allow for pesky “emotions” to get in the way of social 
  interactions. As such, it’s very difficult to affect the 
  character in a social, emotional way. Social rolls against 
  the character (such as an Intimidation roll to scare her 
  or a Persuasion roll to appeal to her compassion) suffer a 
  -3 penalty, and Empathy rolls suffer a -5 penalty if trying 
  to read her current state of mind. Note, however, that 
  some rolls may still work on logic: an Intimidation or 
  Persuasion roll can be based on logic rather than emotion 
  (appealing to, say, data or knowledge). The Storyteller 
  can rule that such rolls do not suffer the penalty.
  Cultural Qualities
  Child of the Stars (••)
  The character’s culture was born amongst the stars: 
  not on a planet but quite literally in space. They are 
  a star-faring race whose civilization remains bound to 
  the infinite emptiness, perhaps traveling in a massive 
  fleet of starships, as a part of a stardock’s culture, or pos-
  sibly belonging to a cobbled together empire of floating 
  space junk. Characters born of this culture find a deep 
  sympathy with any kind of space-faring vehicle. Crafts 
  rolls made on starcraft (or any tech related to starcraft) 
  do not gain any bonuses directly—but the character 
  gets, once per game session, the chance to re-roll any 
  failed dice on those Crafts rolls. Further, the character 
  may buy more such chances at a cost of one Willpower 
  point per re-rolled failures. Note that this doesn’t mean 
  the character discards successes and re-rolls the entire 
  dice pool. The character keeps successes and may re-roll 
  those dice that rolled as failures.
  Competitive Species (••)
  The character’s culture thrives on Darwinian com-
  petition: survival of the fittest determines anything from 
  breeding rights to royalty. As such, the character is a 
  keen competitor, and gains a +3 bonus to any contested 
  (non-reflexive) action.
  Diplomatic Species (•)
  It’d be easy to dismiss these aliens as weak and ac-
  quiescing, what with their almost religious devotion to 
  diplomacy and compromise, but some might wisely see 
  that being the arbiter of such compromise actually grants 
  one a small but not insignificant measure of power. This 
  alien’s culture gains power from solutions: anytime the 
  character successfully negotiates a compromise of sorts 
  (perhaps but not necessarily resulting from a contested 
  Social roll), the alien gains a point of Willpower.
  Hive Mind (•••••)
  The character’s species or culture is built off of a 
  hive mind—all members of the race are connected. This 
  Quality confers a number of benefits. First, all characters 
  within the same species may communicate telepathically 
  if they choose to. Second, the character may spend a 
  Willpower point to gain a Skill she does not normally 
  possess from another of her species provided that the 
  other character a) is within sight and b) possesses the 
  Skill. (The character gains the Skill at the same number 
  of dots as the target.) Finally, the character may share 
  wounds with her species mates by touching them: she can 
  give away a single point of damage (bashing or lethal) to 
  another of her kind (provided the other accepts it; she 
  may not force it upon them). 
  Logical Species (••••)
  The culture from which the character comes eschews 
  religion and may even look down on art, literature, and 
  other forms of non-logical expression. Logic and science 
  are kings to the members of this culture or species, and 
  this confers a specific benefit: upon character creation 
  the character may take one additional Attribute dot in 
  the Mental category and three additional Skill dots in 
  the Mental Skill category. 
  Pilgrim Culture (• to •••••)
  The character’s culture is driven by the journey, 
  not by the destination. They may not even have a 
  centrally located civilization and instead may be cast 
  across the stars. For each dot purchased in this Quality 
  the player may create a goal for the character that serves 
  as a waypoint of sorts along the character’s pilgrimage. 
  Any time the character fulfills this goal, the character 
  gains 10 experience points (and then removes one dot 
  from this Quality until it goes to zero). Note that the 
  goals should not be easy to accomplish (“I’d like to sing 
  a song!”) but should be monumental (“I’d like to visit 
  the most distant planet in the universe and find out if 
  life ever existed there”). However, the goals should not 
  be impossible, either. The Storyteller should have input 
  as to the character’s goals and should approve or deny 
  them as necessary.
  Warlike Species (••••)
  The alien’s civilization is one steeped in the art of 
  war: they are in a constant stage of violent agitation, 
  either internally (civil war) or externally (against other 
  alien species or empires). This Quality earns the alien 
  a number of benefits. First, the alien may take a fourth 
  Skill Specialty at character creation that must be applied 
  to one of the following Skills: Athletics, Brawl, Firearms, 
  Weaponry, or Intimidation. Second, the character may 
  
  29 
  choose one weapon at which she is proficient. Attacks 
  made using this chosen weapon type (for example: pho-
  ton blasters, rip-swords) gain no direct bonus but instead 
  possess an amped-up bonus based on Willpower expendi-
  ture: instead of gaining +3 for a Willpower point spent, 
  the attack roll gains +5 dice instead. The character may 
  never change this association with the type of weapon 
  chosen at character creation: her culture breeds it into 
  her species at a very young age. 
  War-torn (•• or ••••)
  The character’s civilization has been torn apart 
  by war and strife. While this is not itself a Quality, the 
  result of it certainly is: it makes the character part of a 
  tougher, heartier breed. The two-dot version grants the 
  character the 8-Again quality on any Survival rolls. The 
  four-dot version includes that benefit and also grants the 
  character an additional dot of Health. 
  Choose Imperfections
  Any imperfections you choose from the list below 
  grant you an additional dot of Qualities that may be 
  spent in any Quality category. As always, this list is not 
  exhaustive and you should feel comfortable creating your 
  own if this list doesn’t have what you’re looking for.
  Frail Body
  The character’s physical body is weak. Perhaps her 
  bones are hollow or her flesh is translucent and easily 
  torn. Some aliens are simply not physically robust, as 
  evolution has taken them down a different path from 
  humankind. As such, the character’s Health score is 
  figured only by that character’s Size. Stamina does not 
  figure into the equation.
  Spatial Discomfort
  The character is comfortable either on the ground 
  (planetside) or in the stars (out on a spacecraft or walking 
  on a stardock). Maybe it’s because that’s where the alien 
  was raised, or maybe because the character experienced 
  some manner of trauma on the ground or in the stars. 
  Choose ground or stars. If the character is comfortable on 
  the ground, then whenever he walks among the stars he 
  suffers a -3 penalty to all Mental rolls and a -1 penalty to 
  all Social rolls. If the character is comfortable among the 
  stars, then the reverse is true: the penalties are applicable 
  when he walks on terrestrial ground.
  Small In Stature
  The character is from a species that is smaller than 
  most other creatures: Size 3 instead of the normal Size 
  5. This translates to a reduced Health track, but it also 
  lowers the species factor in terms of determining Speed 
  (species factor of 3 instead of 5). 
  Strange Requirements
  Sure, humans like air to breathe, water to drink, and 
  a sandwich to eat. Aliens don’t necessarily have the same 
  simple requirements. That alien over there? He breathes 
  nitrogen. The one next to him? Has to sleep every night 
  in red Martian dirt or he wakes up restless and haunted 
  by nightmares (gaining no Willpower upon waking). 
  The shadowy, trembling thing in the corner? It’s like a 
  vampire, except, you know, not dead: it needs blood to 
  live. This Imperfection will require a little “design” on 
  the part of player and Storyteller—what happens if the 
  requirement isn’t met? Damage? Dice penalty? Reduced 
  Willpower? Derangement? It shouldn’t be so serious that 
  the character cannot exist in the game without serious 
  repercussions, but it shouldn’t be a stress-free problem, 
  either.
  Vulnerability
  Choose a substance. This substance now hurts the 
  Hell out of your character by doing aggravated damage. 
  The substance should be something that isn’t incredibly 
  common (oxygen) but isn’t so super-rare that it will fail 
  to ever come into play (dust from a supernova star). 
  Think of how werewolves are harmed by silver or how 
  vampires are vulnerable to fire. Other options might 
  include radiation, below-zero temperatures, electricity, 
  iron, lead, water.
  Step Six: Choose Merits
  Given that aliens in this game mode can be as “hu-
  manoid” as you so choose, feel free to purchase any Merits 
  that make sense (provided the Storyteller agrees).
  You have one exception: you may purchase Size with 
  Merit dots. You can go up one point of Size by spending 
  two Merit dots. (This allows for alien races that are not 
  of humanoid stature.)
  Step Seven:  
  Determine Advantages
  Now it’s time to determine the final Advantages for 
  your alien character. The standard Advantages are calcu-
  lated as normal unless otherwise noted by the Qualities 
  purchased for your character.
  It is up to the Storyteller to determine whether or 
  not Virtues and Vices are apropos to character creation. 
  Virtues and Vices are explicitly bound to human culture, 
  and thus may only apply to human (or once-human) 
  characters. It is reasonable to suggest, however, that aliens 
  that come from rich cultures likely have traits that are 
  virtually analogous to Virtue and Vice. A good metric is: 
  if your alien character has Cultural Qualities at primary or 
  ALIEN IMPERFECTIONS
  
  30 
  INFINITE MACABRE-SPACE OPERA IN THE WORLD OF DARKNESS
  secondary, then applying Virtue or Vice is likely appropri-
  ate. If Cultural Qualities fall to tertiary or quaternary status 
  at the time of creation, then it’s likely that the character 
  does not possess rigorous cultural norms.
  Willpower
  Willpower remains as an exhaustible personal resource 
  for both human and alien characters. An alien character 
  still has that conviction and drive to perform tasks critical 
  to her nature, and so all the rules for Willpower still apply 
  (unless otherwise modified by the alien Qualities above).
  Morality
  You have three options in terms of dealing with Morality.
  First: scrap it. This is recommended, because the 
  ethnical mores of an alien species are, perhaps obvi-
  ously, totally alien. Do coyotes, jellyfish and falcons care 
  about Morality? No. It’s an explicitly human thing, so, 
  ditch it.
  Second: use it as written. If you’re assuming that the 
  alien creatures in The Infinite Macabre are humanoid, 
  then why shouldn’t they be beholden to Morality?
  Third: build-your-own. If you have Hunter: The Vigil, 
  then you can turn to the Appendix (“The Code”, p. 325) 
  for guidelines on modifying the pre-existing Morality Ad-
  vantage in order to make it more alien and monstrous.
  Alternately, feel free to check out World of Dark-
  ness: Mirrors for additional ways to fold, spindle and 
  mutilate the Morality system.
  No, Seriously,  
  Please Make Up Your Own Stuff
  We cannot stress enough how much we want 
  you to contribute your own ideas to this by com-
  ing up with your own Qualities and Imperfections 
  for alien species. 
  You want a handful of starting points?
  What about…
  Aliens that spit acid? That bleed fuel? That can fly? 
  That can gain sustenance from eating rocks and 
  other inorganic material? That have tentacles, or 
  multiple limbs, or really long legs for jumping? 
  What if you get really weird: heads separate from 
  bodies, dopplegangers, living computers, flocks 
  of sentient insects, manifested shadows, organic 
  starships, aliens no bigger than a human fist, or 
  hyper-intelligent moon-spiders?
  Pre-Built  
  Alien Races
  Grays
  Qualities: Cultural (Diplomatic •, Logical ••••); 
  Mental (Telepathic ••, Tech Brain •); Social (Lyrical 
  Voice •••); Physical (Vicious Body Parts • -- needle-
  tipped fingers) 
  Imperfection: Small in Stature
  The Grays are the classic “alien” in occult lore, just like 
  the ones that kidnapped Betty and Barney Hill in the 1960s: 
  they have small bodies, large heads, black almond-shaped 
  eyes, and wrinkly gray flesh. They are, as a culture, fascinated 
  by other species: they are obsessed with finding out what 
  makes other creatures “tick,” happy to probe or dissect when-
  ever they can do so without contravening galactic law. 
  Nordics
  Qualities: Social (Lyrical Voice •••, Seductive ••); 
  Mental (Non-Linear Thought Patterns •••); Cultural 
  (Pilgrim Culture ••); Physical (Human-Seeming •)
  Nobody knows exactly where the Nordics come from, 
  and frankly, they don’t understand it, either. They only 
  know that they are born, naked but as fully-formed adults, 
  out amongst the stars. They literally just appear, stepping out 
  of stardock closets or waking up in the cargo holds of cruis-
  ing starliners. They’re fairly strange, as they look alarmingly 
  human, and in fact earn their name from their pale skin, 
  tall builds and blond hair. They seem hell-bent on traveling 
  the universe (they have been seen on Earth for thousands 
  of years) and learn as much as they can, driven as they are 
  by this almost obsessive pilgrimage, a pilgrimage that they 
  seem unable to put in too many words. They adore human 
  beings and seem to enjoy sex with them, too. Procreation 
  with them is, thankfully, not possible. Their ultimate origins 
  and purpose remain mysterious even to them.
  Reptoids
  Qualities: Physical (Vicious Body Parts ••: Talons; 
  Chameleon ••; Natural Armor •: Scaled Flesh); Cul-
  tural (Warlike Species ••••); Social (Beast Whisperer 
  ••); Mental (Skill Focus •: Intimidation)
  Imperfection: Vulnerability (Ice)
  Nobody really likes the Reptoids—these brutish reptilian 
  thugs don’t make friends easily because they just don’t care. 
  They enjoy violence. They enjoy pain. It’s how their culture 
  survives and thrives. But just because nobody likes them doesn’t 
  mean they’re not wanted. Reptoids serve as powerful berserker 
  warriors, body guards, mercenaries and assassins. 
  
SOURCE: textdata/thevault/Storyteller [multi]/World of Darkness (WoD) [multi]/CofD/Chronicles of Darkness/World of Darkness - Mirrors - Infinite Macabre.pdf