Hunter: The Reckoning
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- For other uses of the name Hunter: The Reckoning, see Hunter: The Reckoning (disambiguation).
| Hunter: The Reckoning | |
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 Hunter: The Reckoning cover |
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| Designer(s) | Mark Rein·Hagen, Andrew Bates, Phil Brucato, Ken Cliffe, Greg Fountain, Ed Hall, Jess Heinig, Michael Lee, Richard Thomas, Mike Tinney, Stewart Wieck |
| Publisher(s) | White Wolf |
| Publication date | November 1, 1999 |
| Genre(s) | unknown |
| System | Storyteller System |
Hunter: The Reckoning is a role-playing game based in White Wolf Game Studio's World of Darkness. A Hunter is a normal human who witnesses a traumatic supernatural event and receives an otherworldly "message" to act against it. This message is received from enigmatic beings knows as the Messengers, Heralds or Patrons, who are agents of the universe's creative force, analogous to angels. Those who act become the "Imbued," otherwise ordinary men and women who can see the supernatural creatures and are gifted with powers ("Edges") to fight them. Those who choose not to act become "Bystanders", people who have knowledge of the supernatural, but no power to act against it.
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[edit] Setting
A Hunter's life is fraught with danger. The "bliss of ignorance" has been taken from them and the existence of supernatural manipulation of humanity cannot be ignored. However, the Hunter cannot simply reveal this knowledge to mundane authorities since they will be branded as unstable and insane. Supernatural forces control many human media, law enforcement, and government agencies; any attempt to reveal the existence of these forces would result in the supernatural manipulators using those connections to paint the Imbued as crazy and dangerous, and to dispose of Imbued who snoop in their affairs and try to impede their control.
Hunters wage a desperate, clandestine war against the inhuman, ageless forces that manipulate mankind. They see their task as taking back the night from bloodsuckers, ravaging beasts, vengeful spirits and manipulative sorcerers. The Imbued must face mankind's worst fears made real in the most deadly game of the Hunt in order to fulfill the task they have set before them to "Inherit the Earth".
The Hunter: The Reckoning storyline, along with those of Demon: the Fallen, Changeling: The Dreaming, Kindred of the East and Mummy: The Resurrection, was ended in the World of Darkness: Time of Judgment supplement as White Wolf stopped its whole World of Darkness line. As a minor product line, it received comparatively little attention in the whole Time of Judgment setting, which left many of the series' fans unsatisfied.
[edit] Hunters
The Imbued are relatively new to the World of Darkness and, unlike Kindred or Garou, have little in the way of a coherent society of Hunters. The closest thing to a social organization for Hunters is "Hunter-Net," described later. Although Hunters are generally unaware of the labels, a Hunter is defined by their Creed. Additionally, Creeds are grouped by a primary Virtue that engenders the Creeds.
[edit] Virtues & Creeds
The ways of hunters differ radically according to the personality and the type of imbued. They develop a strong tendency of how to deal with monsters and how to protect humanity. This leads to three main virtues a hunter may follow in an active, an assessing and a passive way.
[edit] Mercy
Those hunters that tend to show compassion towards and attempt to reconcile with the supernatural forces of the world follow one of the Mercy Creeds. The Mercy Creeds are:
- Martyrs: Those who sacrifice their all for their cause.
- Redeemers: Those who wish to bring the monsters back into the light.
- Innocents: Those who refuse to prejudge the supernatural.
[edit] Zeal
Those hunters that are unforgiving and dogmatic in their belief that humanity is meant to "Inherit the Earth" and that supernatural forces are arrayed against this manifest destiny of mankind, tend to be one of the Zeal Creeds. The tendency of these hunters to be warriors/soldiers among a group of hunters gives these Creeds the stereotype as brute "zombie-killers." These hunters do the dirty work out of a passion few humans may understand.
- Avengers: Those who seek revenge for the harm done by creatures of the night.
- Judges: Those who mete out punishment based on how monstrous the creatures have acted.
- Defenders: Those who protect the victims.
[edit] Vision
Understanding and information gathering are the primary gifts of these creeds. Originally charged to lead the Imbued in their war against the unnatural powers of the world, the Visionary Creeds consist of one viable Creed and two "Lost Creeds." In theory, these "Lost Creeds" consist of people who were granted too much insight for the mortal mind to handle and have ended up deranged due to this Calling. However, there is some implication throughout the different source books that these "Lost Creeds", specifically Waywards, ended up precisely how the Messengers wanted them.
- Visionaries: Those who seek to understand the greater meaning behind the imbuing and the existence of the supernatural.
- Waywards: Lost Creed. "Failed" Imbued who have gone violently psychotic. They should have been the strategists and tacticians of the Imbued. Because of their violent psychosis, they often see only the need to destroy the enemy, and are known to cause large amounts of collateral damage in the completion of their mission.
- Hermits: Lost Creed. "Failed" Imbued who receive psychic static near other Hunters and supernaturals. They should have been the intelligence gatherers for the Imbued, receiving information directly from the Messengers.
[edit] The Hunter-Net
Hunters communicate via a mystically-protected network called "Hunter-net" which only the Imbued can access (although at least one instance of another supernatural infiltrating Hunter-net has been recorded). It was maintained by an Imbued called Witness1, and other Imbued who used it included Bookworm55, Doctor119, and the infamous God45. It should also be mentioned here that when taking a screen name on Hunter-net one takes a word to describe oneself and then a number signifying what order they joined in - by this Doctor119 is a hunter who has decided to describe himself as a doctor and is the 119th person to sign in. Throughout the path of what is now known as the "Old World of Darkness," (as opposed to the New World of Darkness, the current incarnation which does not include Hunter) the original Hunter-Net was dismantled and broken. Witness1, the proprietor of the site, deleted a number of accounts on the original H-Net, but claimed that someone or something else had hacked his account. A new Hunter-Net was built, but it hardly had the following of the original.
[edit] Creative link to Exalted?
One of the later books, Fall From Grace, has a Visionary Hunter make allusions to the ancient past where the powers that be created great heroes to defend humans. But now the powers that be are trying a different approach by creating less powerful heroes, but in larger numbers. In the Exalted game line there are similar heroes of the past mentioned; the Solar Exalted.
The Demon: The Fallen book Days of Fire also hinted at ties between Hunters and the world of Exalted, with possible allusions to The Ebon Dragon and the Red Lady, analogous to major powerful characters in the world of Exalted, as playing a role in the creation of newly-Imbued Hunters.
One of the Kindred of the East books also makes reference to an ancient legend amongst the Kue Jin. Powerful heroes of old who were corrupted by their own power. This heavily hints at the Solar Exalted. The Kue Jin believe these ancient heroes have been reborn as the Imbued, stripped of their former power by the gods, so that they might learn humility.
[edit] Inspired media
[edit] Novels
The following novels were released by White Wolf:
- Predator & Prey #1 - Vampire (WW11700)
- Predator & Prey #2 - Judge (WW11701)
- Predator & Prey #3 - Werewolf (WW11702)
- Predator & Prey #4 - Jury (WW11703)
- Predator & Prey #5 - Mage (WW11704)
- Predator & Prey #6 - Executioner (WW11705)
[edit] Video games
Three Gauntlet-style video games have been produced with the Hunter license:
- Hunter: The Reckoning on the Xbox and GameCube
- Hunter: The Reckoning: Wayward for Sony PlayStation 2
- Hunter: The Reckoning: Redeemer for Microsoft Xbox
[edit] Movies
A film adaptation based on the above video games was announced for release in 2007. The movie was originally planned as a simple videogame-to-movie adaptation, but writer Drew Daywalt confirmed that the writers worked with White Wolf in order to create a new, darker story, more in the spirit of the RPG. Uwe Boll was, for a time, attached to direct the film, a fact that further displeased fans of the game, given the negative opinions and reviews of his previous game-to-movie films. As of October 2006, it is unknown who the director of this film will be, and thus it sits in the pre-production phase.
