Monsters Who Need Each Other: Q&A With Immortal Universe Designer Rachel Wilkinson

Today I’m beyond excited to say I got to talk to Renegade Game Studios producer Rachel Wilkinson, who is the lead producer for Immortal Universe, the new TTRPG series based on AMC’s adaptation of Anne Rice’s iconic urban fantasy series. Announced back in August, the game seemed like a surprise, given that Renegade also made Vampire: The Masquerade, arguably one of the biggest vampire TTRPGs on the market. Now with White Wolf and Renegade parting ways, Renegade gets to build its own take with Immortal Universe.

TTRPG Insider spoke with Wilkinson about what made the game different than VTM, how it feels to play, and how identity, history, and drama play a big role in the game’s mechanics.

Editor’s note: This interview occurred prior to the two companies' split; hence, no mention is made.

Renegade Game Studios hopes to adopt a more ‘personal’ approach to the drama and horror of existing as a vampire through Immortal Universe, its take on Anne Rice’s iconic universe of witches, psychics and vampires. The company is funding its first series of books to explore other parts of the fandom in the coming years.

Renegade decided to make a game based on Immortal Universe because they “saw an opportunity to build a world where all of the different supernatural creatures exist in one line,” producer Rachel Wilkinson explained to TTRPG Insider. While that may sound eerily similar to World of Darkness and its many splatbooks and settings, Wilkinson emphasized that it’s a game more about “character-driven narrative story” than what one might call the politics of World of Darkness.

Most notably, it’s a game about “monsters who need each other,” said Wilkinson. While games like Vampire: the Masquerade are often about the personal horrors of existence as a monster, it’s also defined by the politics of the setting. A vampire might have to manage their relations to the institutionalist Camarilla, the chaotic Anarches or the passionate Sabbat. They will also have commitments to their clans and other groups in the city.

Immortal Universe focuses instead on the individual characters at the table. “This is not action-packed plot chasing, but it’s about my coven. It’s about who I am a vampire with. It’s about the relationships between us,” says Wilkinson.

Those elements play out in character creation, where players are more interested in who their character is, socially and emotionally. Vampires in this game won’t have the distinct powersets that VTM characters might, and gathering power isn’t central to the story. Rather, it’s about how players interact when they coexist together for decades.

Wilkinson gave the example of a player who may have had a boyfriend 40 years ago and was scorned for some reason. Now the player wants to make their life miserable for the next 40 years.

It’s a game that focuses more on local drama than on city drama.

One way the game communicates this is through three distinct condition tracks:

• Wounds: Physical damage

• Despair: Emotions and grief

• Torment: Mental Decay

Players can repair these traits through various means. Physical wounds are closed up through traditional means, while the social and mental ones are fixed through Fascinations; the personal callings and points of fascination for the character. In other words, “Roleplaying your character heals your character,” claims Wilkinson. It allows players to remain in the story without spending excessive time isolated from others to recover.

The other element that offers a somewhat different take on exploring that emotional weight is “rewrites,” which are short mechanics that let a player roleplay interactions from decades and even centuries ago. It allows players to engage as older vampires while defining past relationships through gameplay rather than through elaborate backstories. Rewrites can be a single scene, or even entire sessions or arcs.

That may lead to situations where player characters are entirely different from what was planned.

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Exploring the Different Supernaturals of the Immortal Universe

Anne Rice, for those unfamiliar, penned The Vampire Chronicles, one of the more popular modern takes on life as a vampire, published in the 1970s and focused on Lestat de Lioncourt and his journey from an 18th-century vampire to living in the modern day. The books did notably well, earning two film adaptations in the 1990s and 2000s. However, it returned to popularity in 2022 when AMC (Breaking Bad, Walking Dead) decided to adapt Interview With a Vampire into a TV show. Since then, Anne Rice’s stories have been adapted into several AMC television shows, including three seasons of Interview, two seasons of Mayfair Witches, and a single season of Talamasca: The Secret Order.  

Renegade hopes to produce books and supplements for all three of the character types (vampires, witches, psychics), although the first releases will primarily focus on vampires and New Orleans (where Interview is based).

The game seems to want to avoid the confrontational nature of World of Darkness, however. WoD games often place the various splatbooks in contest. Werewolves, aka Garou, hate vampires because they are entities of death and corruption. Vampires don’t get along because of that deep hatred.

Immortal Universe appears to want to avoid this, explained Wilkinson, setting the terms in which witches, vampires, and psychics are not inherently opposed to one another. A certain community of witches may not like your vampire PC, but another group may be a long-time ally.

The first two releases (The First Bite starter set and Interview With a Vampire New Orleans rulebook) will focus primarily on humans and vampires in their storytelling. The starter set will place the characters in the New Orleans of the 1940s, where they will be abandoned fledglings connected to Lestat, while the rulebook will also add character options for older vampires.

Mystics and witches are expected to be added at a later date, depending on the game’s crowdfunding success.

You can back Immortal Universe on Backerkit here.

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