Nightmare Fuel / Siren: The Drowning

• Let's start with the Deluge, which is the focus of the game. The End of the World as We Know It is coming, and will cause all of humanity to die, unless Sirens are somehow able to prevent it. The problem is, they don't know exactly how to do that, because they have no idea what form it will have; it could be anything, from natural disasters to more supernatural causes. And considering we are talking about the New World of Darkness, the number of horrible things that could potentially cause it is absolutely spectacular, making it even harder to figure out what it will be and how to stop it. Especially since, even if they manage to remove the original cause, a new one might still eventually cause it in a different form.
• The Celestial Ocean is an Alternate Timeline representing the world as it will be after the Deluge. To put it plainly, it's an aquatic, post-apocalyptic wasteland containing a representation of all the potential apocalyptic events that could lead to the Deluge at the same time... and it will continue to exist as long as there is even 1% of chance the Deluge might happen. And it's not an empty wasteland, by the way; it's inhabited by Survivors and Therons, humans and animals (respectively) that have been heavily mutated for survival in their new environment and sometimes by something tied to a specific cataclysm (see below)... and it's also home to the Vodianoi, malevolent creatures that are aligned with Echidna (again, see below).
• The Crossover section reveals parts of the Celestial Ocean reflecting variants of the Deluge connected to the protagonists of the various gamelines. Here are some of them:
  • Vampire: The Requiem has The Frozen Night, a world when the sun has been blotted out, leaving the whole planet frozen in an eternal night where vampires and Strix rule over humanity, to the point the oceans are red with the blood of their victims.
  • Werewolf: The Forsaken gives us The Ravaged Earth, a world where the Pure won, resulting in the spirits taking over, a horrific union of reality and the Shadow where nature and unnature are one and the same, humans and animals are so twisted they're barely passable for what they used to be, and everything returning to a neolithic state of violence.
  • Promethean: The Created has Burnout, a world where the Divine Fire has surged into an all-encompassing conflagration that has left naught but dry rocky wastelands and oversalted seas whose bottoms are ridden with exposed volcanic vents. The surviving "humans" are universally hateful of all that comes across their path... and many, as well as any other creature that is encountered in this world, are "scarred", their forms appearing to be patchworks of different people's bodies.
  • Changeling: The Lost gives us The Mad World, where the boundary between Arcadia and reality has simply ceased to exist, leaving a world overrun by the Hedge where the laws of nature are less stable than air, its Survivors being all wretches wallowing in absolute insanity. But the icing on the cake? The True Fae are dead. All of them. Apparently they all starved due to sucking the world dry of all that could feed them, leaving nothing but vast fields littered with their inhuman corpses.
  • Hunter: The Vigil has The Unmasqued War Upon Humanity, a world where Hunters managed to all join forces, break the Masquerade and go on a crusade against everything supernatural... which, because of the sheer mass of supernatural creatures or people touched by the supernatural all over the globe, has degenerated into a war so big World War III doesn't even begin to describe it. Cities are in ruin, blood is everywhere, and people are completely unable to trust each other.
  • Demon: The Descent has The Sound Of Silence, which gives the lovely image if the God-Machine managed to achieve total dominance over the world. It's created a World of Silence where everything is in static and locked into clockwork perfection of movement and action, but without any passion or life. Even the water in the area doesn't flow in natural patterns, and Angels are everywhere looking out for anything that doesn't fit in with the perfection, including any Sirens trying to find a way to avert this deluge!
  • Beast: The Primordial has Primordial Darkness, which sees the world brought back to pre-civilized times where Humanity was little more than another animal on the food chain and desperately trying to survive, where it was implied to have been caused by the Begotten abusing people too much that they broke not only humanity, but also society as we know it. Is it any wonder most Sirens have Fantastic Racism towards the Beasts?
  • Leviathan: The Tempest actually appears either the least bad or the most horrific. In The Primordial World, the world has been fully flooded to the point that the mountains have been submerged, and the ocean is filled with hybrids and Leviathans whose cultures are constantly changing or being replaced in bloody conflicts. Some of these Leviathans are even as huge as nations! But that's not the worst part. The worst part is that most of the Leviathans present are fully aware that they're in a possible future, and see absolutely nothing wrong with making Sirens into servants to ensure it happens.
  • Princess: The Hopeful actually presents two possible futures under the umbrella heading of The Lost Struggle, owing to the very disparate natures of its antagonists:
    • In The Outer Darkness, the Darkness managed to destroy the Light and bring about a second Fall, purging hope from the world and leaving behind a dark and depraved place.
    • In The Scorched Earth, on the other hand, the Queen of Storms managed to comprehensively annihilate the the Darkness — and the entire world in the process. The incomprehensibly severe nature of this second Deluge is hauntingly embodied by its Celestial Ocean: whereas in all other Deluge variants it is flooded over with corrupted water, this scenario has it completely bone-dry. That being said, this may arguably be an improvement over the older cataclysm scenario that it replaced, because at least the whole thing can be blamed on the Court of Storms, leaving the other Courts largely if not entirely innocent. Speaking of which...
    • The Searing Light is the metafictional predecessor of the above cataclysm scenario. In it, the Light not only managed to destroy the Darkness, but has now gone full Knight Templar and illuminates the entire world, destroying anything remotely dark or evil, to the point people constantly try their best to act friendly and pleasant because they are utterly terrorized at the idea they might be judged and obliterated. The Sirens are further confounded over how this came about: Is this really what happens when the Darkness is completely defeated? Or is it the result of the Queen of Mirrors fulfilling her mysterious agenda? Or, perhaps even worse, could it be that the Radiant Queens have actually fallen from grace in a manner similar to yet different from the Twilight Queens?
• Echidna, one of the major antagonists of the game, is a Siren who has undergone an unknown transformation known as Descension, which locked her in Diluvian form and granted her Mutagenic powers. She is now trying to use these abilities to force evolution upon humanity, hoping to turn them into a race capable of surviving the Deluge. A pretty noble goal in itself... except she has no clear idea how to do that, and she isn't the sanest person around. The unfortunate humans she gets her hands on end up warped and mixed with fish DNA, turning them into monstrous, non-sapient Fish Men known as Vodianoi. Worse, one of her main jobs for her Sirens are to kidnap new human subjects to test her insane experiments on.
• The Flensers are people who keep themselves immortal by cannibalizing Siren flesh, and are ready to anything to ensure they will always have fresh supplies of this. They build several cybernetics and genetic enhancements to improve themselves, which they typically get their resources for by polluting the hell out of every place they go, completely uncaring of the Sirens' plight or the fact they might be contributing to the Deluge (Even though they claim to have created these to help humanity in the first place). But the worst part in all of this is that, unlike many other antagonists in New World of Darkness, they aren't some unholy supernatural creature with a natural inclination to be malevolent. They are humans.
• On the other side of the Flensers are the Quagmires and Furies. Normally, when a human causes pollution or disrespects nature within an area nature still has a hold over, that causes nature itself to begin accumulating some spitefulness against that act. With enough time and pollution, that spite and hatred can grow enough to the point where it becomes a Quagmire. A Quagmire is basically an area that hates all of humanity for the damages done to nature and it warps the nature and animals around to to be as murderous and hateful as it is towards humanity. And it may form a sapience known as a Fury, which can willingly guide the Quagmire's actions and form itself a body from any materials present. Including human flesh.
• The Abyssal Currents are just as horrible, being created as the main antagonists for Siren.
  • Acheron - The Abyssal Current of the Void no longer cares about Humanity, Nature, and Civilization. They view the world as hopeless and worthless, and seek to cause the Deluge to end existence. There's a tiny glimmer of sympathy that some within the Current desire to simply use the Deluge like a restart button and that their complaints aren't entirely invalid, but it's noted that the Current is divided on this and they're quite extreme in their methods.
  • Cocytus - The Abyssal Current of Dark Secrets actually embody three themes of the "Abyss": The wonder of discovery, the want to use the knowledge in some form, and making one's home in it. This leads them to become inclined to gathering information or living in secrecy, which doesn't sound too bad...but they're enamoured with forbidden knowledge, the kind that man wasn't meant to know. Getting too close to this has somewhat corrupted them, becomign researchers who throw away their ethics to achieve results, manipulators who cause pain and suffering if it means they'd get something from it, to becoming a monster to fight the Deluge. The opening story starts with a Cocytus Siren allowing a Serial Killer to do his work while distracting the police from finding his footsteps until he's outlived his usefulness, all just to gain a Treasure with a Verse she wanted!
  • Lethe - The Abyssal Current of Mankind's Victory are made up of Sirens who, tired of balancing between Nature and Civilization have chosen to embrace the extreme of Civilization, which means they'll at best be apathetic to nature and at worst actively trying to destroy it. Doesn't that sound familiar at all....oh right, that's pretty much what the Flensers do...what's that? They're ALLIED with the Flensers!? At least they don't eat Siren Flesh as well....oh wait...they do THAT too!
  • Oceanus - The Abyssal Current of the Monster Queen. Remember Echidna above? This is the Current of Sirens who willingly follow her, help her in her experiments and guard over the remains of the human, or as Echidna knows them as, her beloved children. They believe that the Deluge is imminent so it's only natural to protect those that they love....except that they're turning them into non-sapient fish monsters robbed of all humanity.
  • Phlegethon - The Abyssal Current of Dark Passions have long since given up their humanity since they Surfaced, and now that they're supernatural, they simply desire to abuse not only their powers, but also the people around them so long as it satisfies them. Even worse though is that they willingly abuse their Relationships, which is pretty low on Siren standards, even until they've eaten their souls...to which they then just dump them and begin the cycle somewhere else.
  • Styx - The Abyssal Current of Primordial Darkness (Not that kind of primordial) are the opposite end of Lethe, in which they chose Nature over Civilization. They hear nature's cries, how the impact of nature dying hurts the world and yet nobody cares, especially the humans who're the reason it's dying in the first place. Because of this, these are the Sirens who believe, wholly and honestly, that Civilization and Humanity must die so nature can live. Like Lethe above they're allied with the Flenser's natural opposite, the Furies and Quagmires. It doesn't help that they specialize in the Conclusion made for hurting ANYTHING at all.
• Even if Sirens are trying (for the most part) to do good and supposed to prevent the end of the world, they still are scary of their own when you realize their primary method to fuel their power is to drain your soul through a Kiss of Death. Sure, it's technically possible for them to not inflict durable damages to you when doing so, but when they don't show restraint, the results can be pretty devastating, from leaving you catatonic and unable to live on your own to flat-out killing you and devouring your soul entirely until nothing remains.
• There's also the factor of how well Sirens get along with their Relationships. Normally, Relationships grant a Siren a good amount of support and love that helps replenish her Pneuma and keep up her Stability...and yet at the same time a Siren is naturally inclined to be Yandere for them and can do some pretty horrible things for their sake. There's also the factor that, should they lose the Relationship, the Siren can react in one of three ways.
  • The first is to get a new one, which is the least horrible.
  • The second is to heal the wound in her heart by cauterizing it and her old relationship with deathly measures.
  • The third is simply trying to win their relationship back, which sounds all well and good...save that a Siren can also force their Relationship to go back to them with the Social Manuevering System's Hard Leverage and Forcing Doors. For those not versed in the Chronicles of Darkness, what this means is a Siren can intimidate, threaten or harm the Relationship until they agree to take her back.
• Sort of combining with the above, there's also the factor of Trace. While it can be used to look into events and problems that may cause the Deluge, it can also be easily used to spy on people. Just imagine it. Your private life could be known to a Siren who is interested enough. Combined with the Yandere tendencies above, it's not hard to picture a Siren using this to virtually deprive a Relationship of any privacy. Worse, Sirens can manifest Verses through the Trace, meaning that a Siren can use her magic to attack, mind-control, or otherwise influence someone without ever having to come near them, and without their target having any way to strike back.
• On another note, the sidebar beneath Relationships that talks about Abuse. While being just a game, it notes how some of the things that can help a Siren when it comes to a Relationship and keeping her Stability are morally or lawfully wrong and using abuse is both wrong and a crime. It also takes the time to give a link to said notes on Abuse in this paragraph, urging people who are suffering it to go there. Despite the Gameline taking place in a darker version of reality, it gives a feeling of O.O.C. Is Serious Business to remind that not only is abuse wrong, but it's real too.