Leylines | Texas - Tamaulipas Sandbox | Occult Guerrilla Warfare
Armed by their former enemies, Sabbat sicarios strike back to take Texas and Tamaulipas from La Nueva Alianza in a brutal, dirty war for survival
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$29.99
/ Session
Details
2 players following this game
Weekly / Thursday - 12:00 AM UTC
Jul 16 / Session 24
Session Duration / 3–4 hours
3 / 7 Seats Filled
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Schedule
About the adventure
CDNL itself is young by cartel standards, formed roughly two decades ago when a larger, older organization fractured. Some of the groups that split off that night now sit inside La Nueva Alianza, the coalition currently dismantling what CDNL built. Anchored by Clan Hecata and reinforced by Lasombra defectors who once called CDNL allies, the Alianza has spent recent years absorbing territory, financial infrastructure, and loyalty that used to belong to the Sword. CDNL is what's left: fractured, distrustful of its own packs, and running out of room. La Espada is the last Path of Caine armed faction with real power left in the region, and the other Sabbat take that seriously. Where most modern packs have drifted from doctrine into something closer to street gangs with fangs, La Espada hasn't, and that's earned them a reputation: feared, respected, and given a wide berth by Sabbat who know better than to test them. They're regarded as some of the most capable fleshcrafters and blood sorcerers operating in the Sabbat today, and that mastery is built into the way they fight, recruit, and punish. Internal discipline is real but brittle. Betrayal between packs is not a possibility players should plan around, it's a near-certainty built into the setting. CDNL's leadership has its own factions, its own grudges, and its own ideas about what winning looks like. What's changed the calculus is an alliance no one expected. The Camarilla, alarmed by how fast La Nueva Alianza has grown, has started quietly funding and arming La Espada, looking the other way on methods the Camarilla would never tolerate from one of its own. It's not loyalty. It's the Camarilla deciding that a weakened Sabbat is a more acceptable problem than an unchecked Hecata coalition. That arrangement holds only as long as it's useful to both sides, and players should expect the ground to shift under them. Player characters are shovelheads: freshly Embraced and pressed straight into a guerrilla cell with no time to learn the rules before they're expected to follow them. Survival means staying mobile between northeastern Mexico and Texas, conducting sabotage and direct action against rival cartel factions and La Nueva Alianza's assets, while staying ahead of the Mexican Army, Mexican Navy, National Guard, state police, and the Second Inquisition operating on the US side. There is no safe territory in this campaign. There is only territory you haven't been caught in yet. Playable clans: Tzimisce, Lasombra, Malkavian, and Toreador (Volgirre bloodline). Tzimisce make up the bulk of CDNL and La Espada's membership, and Fleshcrafting and Blood Sorcery are central to the campaign's identity. Characters from the other three clans begin with access to Protean, Dominate, and Blood Sorcery, and are capable of fleshcrafting as well, so every character has a hand in the body-horror and ritual elements the setting is built around.
Game style
Roleplay Heavy
Combat Heavy
Theater of the Mind
Sandbox / Open World
Realm Building
Game themes
Meet the Game Master
About me
Storyteller specializing in grounded, character-driven narratives set in hostile, morally complex worlds. My campaigns draw from organized crime dramas and psychological thrillers, set against the Western states and Northern Mexico, regions I know firsthand and build with real geographic and cultural accuracy. I primarily run Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition. The system rewards moral ambiguity and factional tension, and that's exactly where I like to live as a GM: long campaigns where political maneuvering matters, every choice carries weight, and the cities, families, and factions you interact with keep evolving whether you're paying attention or not. I also score my own games. Original music, in-world songs, atmospheric audio, built specifically for each table, to make the setting feel less like a backdrop and more like something with a pulse. My chronicles center on cartel politics and mafia rule across the borderlands, spanning California, Baja, Nevada, Arizona, Sonora, Texas, and Tamaulipas, with every city and rural stretch in between treated as real, lived-in territory rather than a backdrop. I've also taken the Ashirra into the spiritual battlegrounds of the Sahara and Sahel, and run Tremere-focused chronicles of esoteric mage-mafia intrigue stretching across Southern Europe and the North African Mediterranean. For players who want something faster and louder, my Cyberpunk Red campaigns pull from classic sci-fi and underground rock and roll, scored with analog modular synths and distorted guitars driving every session. Whatever the setting, I run the kind of table where your decisions actually move the story. Sessions are immersive and character-first, built for players who want a world that pushes back.
View Profile →Character creation
Creating your character
Players can either pick a pre-made character or build an original one using standard VTM 5E rules, whichever fits how they want to start the campaign. Character sheets are built directly in Alchemy, so everything's ready to go in the VTT from session one. You don't need to buy the Core Rulebook or Player's Guide. A clear, detailed character creation guide is posted in the Discord, covering everything you need to build a character from scratch. Beyond that, I'm there to help, whether you need a hand shaping the initial concept or just want a few finishing touches to make sure your character fits the campaign's themes.
What to expect
Preparing for the session
Players will need an Alchemy VTT account and a Discord account. Both are free, no purchases required on either platform. You also don't need to buy the Core Rulebook or Player's Guide, every rule relevant to this campaign is already built into Alchemy and accessible for free once you've joined. Session zero covers everything else you need before play begins: campaign tone, house rules, and expectations for the table. I'll walk through anything that isn't immediately clear once we're underway.
What D'Antonio brings to the table
I run grounded, mature crime stories built around characters players don't forget, the kind of people whose motives, families, and loyalties stay with you long after the session ends. As an audio engineer, I score every game personally: original music, field recordings, and sound design built specifically for each scene rather than pulled from a generic playlist. Every location is supported by custom photography and artwork, so the world isn't just something you're told about, there plenty of visual and audio aids to make the atmosphere easy to imagine and see! Factions have real internal politics. Characters have real stakes. I put significant work into cultural accuracy and representation across every setting I run, because the world only feels tangible if it's built with care rather than shorthand. My goal is a table where the line between the fiction and the experience starts to blur, and where every session leaves you with something to think about after it's over.
Homebrew rules
Combat runs on modified damage and weapon rules, including an overhauled autofire system, built to make firefights feel weightier and more dangerous than the standard ruleset allows. Conflict resolution is also adjusted in places. Where the standard rules default to a clean defender wins outcome, I'll sometimes rule that both participants take damage instead, reflecting how messy real violence actually is. Diablerie and Hunger also run on homebrew rules, designed to make the cost of losing control feel real at the table. As Hunger climbs, your character's grip on ego and emotion erodes with it, and social scenes carry the same stakes as combat: every decision your character makes while hungry has consequences that follow them. Full details on all homebrew systems are provided before play begins.
Equipment needed to play
Computer
Internet
Microphone
Platforms used
Safety
How D'Antonio creates a safe table
Session 0 is where all of this gets handled. I walk through the setting, the system, and the mature themes the campaign is going to lean on, and players bring their character concepts and any boundaries they want the table to know about going in. We also cover scheduling, play style, and general table etiquette, so everyone's working from the same expectations before the first real session starts.
Content warnings
Safety tools used
