WOD: Château Village (Flickr) – click any image for full size
Note: this vision of Pandora Box of Dreams has closed.
Miza Cupcake Verlack, partner to Lokhe Angel Verlack (Jackson Verlack) of Pandora’s Box of Dreams fame, recently contacted me about a new role-play environment she and Lokhe are developing. Given I’m very much an admirer of Lokhe’s region designs, I was keen to accept her invitation for a personal tour of their new realm.
World of Darkness: Château Village, as perhaps the name suggests, draws its inspiration from the World of Darkness universe. The intention is to provide an immersive story-based environment with its own flavour of background, events, races and characters. Formal role-play won’t actually commence until after the Grand Opening, but there is currently an open invitation to those who are curious to visit the region and its accompanying website and find out more about the environment, races, factions and various back stories already created, and perhaps enrol as a player and formulate a character of their own.
To get a flavour of the setting and intent, it is easiest to quote from the introductory notes:
The World of Darkness: Château Village, resembles the contemporary world, but it is darker, more devious and more conspiratorial. The dichotomy between rich and poor, influential and weak, powerful and powerless, is much more pronounced than in the real world. Decadence, cynicism and corruption are common. Humans are unwitting victims or pawns of vast secret organizations of supernatural creatures. Vampires, werewolves and wraiths – among others – struggle with internal factionalism and against other species in secret wars of intrigue for control of reality.
Thus it is that Château Village is a place cast forever in the twilight times, where the sun never rises and day never quite comes. A contemporary 20th / 21st century island town located just off the coast of France, it is at first seemingly an ordinary place. Houses are lit from within, warmth and light spilling from windows, and the streets are illuminated by lamps which cast aside shadow and increase the feeling of normality. However, all this is just the surface calm which barely conceals the maelstrom of intrigue, rivalry, the supernatural and magic, the foundations and structure of which are carefully defined through the Château Village website.
In terms of the physical environment itself, this has been beautifully crafted by Lokhe and makes superb use of the available space within the region. So much so that in exploring, it is hard to escape the feeling that it is a place occupying more than a single region.
Architecture and environment are important here, serving to define the various factions occupying them. The Camarilla clan of vampires, for example, occupy a mansion of quite contemporary design located overlooking the main town. The Sabbat, a clan of vampires with a very different philosophy, occupy an older part of town, one perhaps reflective of their more archaic approach, and their desire to stand aside from (and rule over) others. Meanwhile, the Garou (lycans) live in a more rural area suggestive of the edge of town, and close to the woodlands and wilds.
Given this is a world very much of secrets, magic, and hidden powers, there are also hidden places accessible only to those who know the way (or those fool enough to ignore warning signs), and which lay up in the sky or are hidden underground, again making further adding to the expansive feel to the various locations in which RP might take place.
Touring the region, the level of love and attention which has been poured into it is evident; as is the desire of Lokhe and Miza and their team to make this a community-driven RP environment.It’s also highly photogenic – and I did spot Loverdag exploring while I was there!
I understand the Grand Opening is to take place – appropriately enough! – on October 31st, although details are still TBA at the time of writing. Therefore, and as mention, of you are into supernatural / dark powers RP and are looking for something new, why not drop into Château Village and have a look around and peruse the website. Should you be interested in signing-up, you can find the application form on the website.
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 
Reblogged this on Windlight Magazine and commented:
Inara has found another great scenic location, this time Chateau Village.
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