Most Sleepers know nothing about the supernatural, and the few who do know much about magick usually work for, or with, the Awakened. Certain Sleepers, however, learn about magick the hard way. A careless, or callous, mage harms or kills someone they love, and the newly “informed” person knows that mages exist… and he hates them. Gearing up for a bitter last stand, this person joins the ranks of hunters: those brave and crazy mortals who decide to go down fighting — preferably while taking a lot of monsters with them.

In a fair fight, a single witch-hunter is no match for a mage; thus, witch-hunters rarely bother to fight fair. Sniper rifles, improvised explosive devices, vicious traps, teams of fellow hunters who prepare careful ambushes: Such tools allow the best witch-hunters to survive and succeed. Many hunters consider all mages to be monsters, possessed by horrific and powerful spirits. And like any other brand of fanatic, these folks don’t consider their foes to be human. Consequently, few witch-hunters consider ideas like “mercy” or “compassion” when they’re dealing with mages. A few even take grisly trophies from the “sorcerers” they kill.

Suggested Attributes: Strength 3, Dexterity 3, Stamina 3, Charisma 2, Manipulation 2, Appearance 2, Perception 3, Intelligence 2, Wits 3

Suggested Abilities: Alertness 3, Athletics 2, Brawl 2, Computer 2, Crafts (Weaponsmith, Mechanic, Traps) 4, Drive 2, Firearms 3, Hunting 2, Investigation 3, Melee 3, Occult 3, Science (Chemistry) Stealth 3, Streetwise 3, Subterfuge 2, Technology 3

Willpower: 8

Health Levels: OK, ‒1, ‒1, ‒2, ‒2, ‒5, Incapacitated

Equipment: Electronic surveillance devices, two heavy pistols plus ammo, homemade bombs, Kevlar vest, several large knives.

Image: Wary, haunted, and more than a bit crazy, the witch-hunter’s always looking over his shoulder. That fanatical look comes through in his eyes, posture, and the things he says… which seem extremely reasonable to him (and may well be true) but sound demented to almost everyone else.

Roleplaying Notes: Nothing matters anymore except the fight, revenge, and the safety of the innocent people left behind. Your own innocence ran screaming out the door a long time ago…

Marcus Washington

Don’t move to Des Moines, his mother said. Marcus probably should have listened. For some reason, though, agricultural chemistry caught his attention in school and Iowa was where the jobs were. His mother regretted buying him the book on George Washington Carver that started the entire thing. In 8th grade, Marcus built a car that ran completely on peanut fuel. By the time he graduated high school he was focused on finding a way to create a biodiesel that was carbon negative. He failed, but his research earned him a scholarship. Marcus could have burned through and got his PhD, but the partying cut into his study time enough to push him off the early doctoral path. The job at Agri-Chem Industries (a Progenitor training facility) made the most sense to him at the time. Plus, his girlfriend, Alicia, was originally from the city and her father was offering him some networking opportunities if they moved there.

When they moved to Des Moines, Marcus carefully plotted out the neighborhood to live in. He didn’t want to end up getting shot for Existing While Black. In the end, the couple moved into a pleasant two-bedroom duplex with a basement. Marcus converted that basement into a mini-lab for his personal projects and the couple settled into a nice life. Making things even better, the owners were dog lovers, and Marcus was allowed to bring his dog, Carver. That should have been the start of the “happily ever after” story of his life. Instead, nine months into living there, the entire world came crashing down around Marcus’ ears.

Carver started barking. The clock read 2:11 a.m. Marcus and Alice leapt out of bed as a car slammed into the house next door. There were people screaming in the parking lot,

and then a large police-style van pulled up. The rest of Marcus’ memory is a little fuzzy, but he remembers the look on the intruder’s face. He remembers the blood, and the sigil that covered his door. He remembers the look on Alicia’s face when the bullets ripped through her. He remembers the soft yelp, and the mournful last whimper as Carver got hit by the explosion. The sigil burns in his mind. He can see it clearly, he could draw it, even as complex as it was, from memory. It was that explosion that ultimately saved Marcus’ life, as it created a shelter around him, a shelter from the fireballs, the lightning, and the impossible machine men.

The insurance company declared the damage an act of god, which cleared them from having to pay any claims.

Since that night, Marcus has searched for details of the sigil he saw. He’s used it as a breadcrumb to find the bastards that killed his loved ones. So far, he’s tracked them to a few obscure internet groups, and he’s slowly building up his trust in those communities, enough so that he can find out where these “wizards” live. He’s discovered that mages clump together, and so he works tirelessly on the bomb he’s been building. His plan is to deliver it to their doorstep, but if that doesn’t work quite as planned he has a few backups. Worst case, he straps a bomb on himself and rushes them while they plan their next attack on innocent people.

Marcus has lost a lot of weight since the attack, only eating when he realizes it’s been two or three days since he last did so. For now, he’s got enough money to sustain him for another few months, but he knows he’s going to run out before too long. He’s pretty sure he’s zeroed in on this Order of Hermes that’s destroyed his life, so it doesn’t matter much anyway. Marcus is a dead man walking, but he’s not going to his grave alone.

Mages aren’t the only supernatural inhabitants of the World of Darkness. And although many mages know very little about these creatures (and the Technocracy insists upon classifying them all as Reality Deviants), such ignorance can prove rather fatal.

Speaking of ignorance: readers familiar with the World of Darkness as a whole might notice that the following templates and characters are presented in Mage terms, not in the usual Traits and trademarks associated with their respective game lines. Why? Because mages don’t know a damn thing about clans, Masquerades, and the like. Even the Lore Knowledge confers an incomplete, often flawed understanding from an outsider’s perspective, filled with misconceptions, disinformation, and outright lies. Mages can spend decades or centuries studying the habits of those strange werecreatures,

can even call a few of them allies or friends, and yet never truly understand such beings as they understand themselves. And so, the following characters feature impressions of the Night-Folk as seen through the eyes of Awakened observers, not through the omniscient viewpoint of game statistics.

On that subject, we could also burn thousands of words on the appropriate Traits for the following critters, and yet fumble over changes between editions, updates, and forth. Thus, we invite players and Storytellers who wish to include these characters in World of Darkness crossover games to add the appropriate Traits from the character entries below, assuming the proper rule systems based on the descriptions featured below.