Bite Marks: The Beasts of Bodmin

INTRO

Overview

Bite Marks is a game of werewolf pack dynamics.

The world is raked with teeth and streaked with blood. Living as a werewolf is a precarious balancing act. Emotions are heightened, love tastes sweeter, anger feels sharper and everyday you walk barefoot through streets of broken glass. You are raw and alive. You are Pack.

But if the Pack cannot hold together then all will come to ruin.

The Enforcer knows better than anyone that violence has consequences; the Cub wants a family to love them and the Prodigal just wants to come home and rest their bruised heart.

Packs can be aggressive and toxic and they can be places of joy, love and safety. They can be all these things and more. What will your pack be?

Bite Marks is a role-playing game for 3–5 players about life in a werewolf pack.

SETTING

The Miller family have owned a farm in the heart of Bodmin Moor for generations. Bodmin is a wild and untamed granite moorland, dotted with dangerous marsh and prone to sudden and impenetrable fogs. The Miller farm has been the most isolated homestead in that part of Cornwall for over a hundred and fifty years. This isolation has served the family and its closest allies well, allowing them to change, run, and hunt with no-one for miles in any direction. But the modern world is moving fast; and by now, in the searing heatwave of 2018 the Millers have fracking companies and environmentalists camped on their doorstep. Some wanting to take their land, some wanting to ‘help’, and all of them interfering.

The Pack are in danger of losing their territory: and that would mean dissolution of the Pack, as there are no other unclaimed, wild lands left in the UK. The leadership of the Alpha, Old Ma Reeney, has never been more tested. She has taken extreme measures: engaged a human lawyer; called Doc, the Prodigal home; and laid down a new Pack tradition banning hunting! There are simply too many people coming and going to maintain their secrecy for much longer. The Pack are stressed by the heat, the confinement, and the sense of their territory being invaded.

Today is the day of the Pack Moot. Alphas from across the United Kingdom are coming to Bodmin to discuss Pack business; there are old rivalries and alliances and new enemies among them. The farm will be filled with werewolves, temperatures are at boiling point, and the human world is far too close for comfort…

Last night Old Ma Reeney went missing.

SCENARIO QUESTION

Who will be the new Alpha?

SKINS IN PLAY

• The Prodigal: Doc

• The Cub: Yelp

• The Enforcer: Mia

• The Greypelt: Nini

• The Fixer: Jax

REVIEW

• SCHEDULE: Take 10-min break every hour; agenda: select and modify characters (if possible beforehand using a character keeper, otherwise 20-30 min), character intros (10 min), review situation in media res (10 min), gameplay (1.5 hrs+), cliffhanger/epilogues (10-min), stars & wishes (10 min); debrief (remaining 30 min)

• SAFETY: This game will be held under the Open Hearth Community Code of Conduct. Safety tools available are [List the safety tools you are using: OH players usually default to X-card, Open Door policy, and Lines and Veils - if you need more resources, check out the TTRPG Safety Toolkit here https://i.4pcdn.org/tg/1583202183294.pdf]

• XP: No experience necessary, rules will be taught in game. A character keeper will be provided, and an online dice roller will be available [or whatever you will provide ahead of time for info, like reference sheets]

• PLATFORM/RECORDING: We will most likely use StreamYard, and I will be recording sessions for facilitator improvement and as a memory tool, with consent to be requested for posting on YouTube. The link will be shared by Discord beforehand.

• CHARACTER KEEPER: The link will be shared by Discord beforehand.

CATS

• Content: It's a game of heightened emotions and violence among family and outsiders.

• Aim: To run through the game as far as we get with a cliffhanger and/or epilogues as needed. Priorities of Focus for the GM: 1 Fun, 2 characters, 3 sharing narration and GMing, 4 mechanics.

• Tone: The tone can range from more serious to semi-serious; avoiding slapstick. Romance is possible.

• Subject Matter: Community, politics, tradition, forgiveness, sex moves.