The year is 2006 A.D., and the world is spiraling into decay. Crime is rampant, wars erupt across the globe, and the morality of humanity degrades a bit more with each passing day. Slowly despair settles into the back of the mind of every man as he gradually comes to the realization that mankind is tearing itself apart.
Behind the scenes, unknown to man, lurk darker, malevolent beings that both intentionally and unintentionally further the madness. Across the globe, throngs of vampires, the Kindred, move unnoticed through man's world, killing whom they wish and enslaving others. They are opposed by the Lycans, wolves that wear the skin of man and can shift between forms at will. The Lycans care no more for the plight of man than the Kindred but their eternal war with the vampires keeps both sides from becoming dominant.
This campaign takes place before the events laid out in the Underworld and Underworld Evolution films. The eldest vampires still slumber, Lucian is believed dead, and Selene is still a loyal death-dealer.
The Masquerade
Mankind, as a whole, is unaware of the existence of vampires. This is not due to any supernatural protection preventing man from realizing the truth, rather a grand and vigorous effort by the Kindred to hide themselves. Vampires use bribery, brutal force, and blackmail to control aspects of the media, law enforcement and politics to maintain their secrecy. It is true vampires as a whole are incredibly wealthy, but the taxing efforts of the Masquerade means most coteries are poorly funded.
Vampires take the Masquerade very seriously. If it was broken and man discovers their existence, they would be hunted down during the day and destroyed. Thus vampires take great pains to hide their activities and proof of existence. This becomes harder and harder each passing night; vampires, except Clan Lasombra, can be photographed or filmed. With everyone possessing camera phones, video PDAs and other recording devices, maintaining the Masquerade only gets harder.
The Delirium
Unlike the Kinded, the Lycans have a supernatural veil that prevents their detection. The human mind is unable to cope with the existence of werewolves. No one knows exactly why, but a human who sees a werewolf in crinos (man-wolf) form goes into Delirium. The human rationalizes what he saw to be anything else, from a large dog, to Bigfoot, to a hairy homeless person. Extremely strong-willed humans can sometimes pierce the Delirium, but the majority of humans cannot. This extends to videos and photographs as well, making "proof" of werewolf existence almost impossible. Unfortunately for the Lycans, vampires are completely immune to Delirium.
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