Paris - A Perspective

Paris

So as a storyteller and a player, I want to offer a point of view on what Paris is and what is happening within the city. This is by no means what is actually happening, or what should happen, just a perspective on the many possibilities taking place at any time in Paris. -- "The Magister 04:47, 23 September 2016 (MDT)"

Theme: Paris has been called the City of Lights and by one perceptive player, the "City of Lies", I believe both of these points of view are essentially correct. The theme then of Paris is "deception," all forms of deception, including that of self deception. The French psyche, and more so that of the Parisian people is based upon a simple self-deception, that the French are culturally superior and that Paris is the center of the world. Most understand that this is a simple self-deception meant to make living in a nation that has out lived its glory days as a world power and has settled into a comfortable complacence as an aging European state bearable, even acceptable by degrees.

Mood: The twin moods of nocturnal Paris are the euphoria of distraction and the willing suspension of disbelief. Like the courtiers of Louis XIV who were compelled to present themselves and conduct their business at Versailles, the undead of Paris are being kept distracted by the pageantry of a illusionary court, a culturally popular fiction willingly accepted to insulate the vampires of Paris from the truth hidden behind their preferred reality, that their unlives are sliding from decadence into outright corruption and decay. That their Belle Epoch is over and that the other clans, all the other clans are slowly moving to supplant the Toreador as the prime mover of the Parisian night society.

Paris is one of several center-points of the Jyhad and the larger world of supernatural affairs. Numerous supplements mention in passing and a large number detail characters, conspiracies, and cults over a sixteen-hundred year period from the Fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 A.D. to the turn of the twenty-first century. While White Wolf published a France by Night through a French company called Ludis, it failed in its promise to follow up its creation with a supplement detailing Paris by Night. The point is this, Paris isn't one specific thing as seen by one particular supernatural group, rather its a kaleidoscope of different awakened personal accounts, diary entries, rumors and stories. No particular sources is canonical, rather the best Paris is one assembled carefully and not to0 specifically, for at all times Paris should remain a constantly evolving mystery to its mundane and supernatural denizens. The city is a legend, like that of the Grail or the lost Templar treasures. While some of Paris' citizens, mortal and immortal alike know quite a bit about the mysteries of Paris, none of them knows everything. Nor can any one individual or group ever know all that is happening in the City of Lights because it is constantly evolving into something else which appears to be the Paris they think they know, but isn't quite what they expect.

Of course, the brunt of my interest and thus this article is the nocturnal Paris of the Kindred and its dubious history. While a vampiric historical account could be assembled that would be too organized and would hinder my personal point of view. So, rather I will try to approximately describe in a general way the situation as it currently stands with respect to each clan and its most influential members while specifically avoiding detailed plot lines. Remember, this is just what I think is happening in Paris, not necessarily what is actually happening, like my character Simon le Gris and the other Kindred of Paris, I cannot know everything...nor would I want to.

Clan Toreador: The Toreador of Paris are...