Clan

A clan is a group of people united by actual or perceived kinship and descent. Even if lineage details are unknown, clan members may be organized around a founding member or apical ancestor. The kinship-based bonds may be symbolical, whereby the clan shares a "stipulated" common ancestor that is a symbol of the clan's unity. When this "ancestor" is non-human, it is referred to as a totem, which is frequently an animal. The word clan is derived from clann meaning children or progeny but not family in the Irish language and Scottish Gaelic languages. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word was introduced into English around the year 1425 as a label for the nature of the Scottish Highlands society. Clans in indigenous societies are likely to be exogamous, meaning that their members cannot marry one another. Clans preceded more centralized forms of community organization and government; they are located in every country. Members may identify with a coat of arms or other symbol to show they are an independent clan.

Clan (video games)

In computer and video gaming, a clan, guild or faction is an organized group of players that regularly play together in one or more multiplayer games. These games range from groups of a few friends to 4000-person organizations, with a broad range of structures, goals and members. The lifespan of a clan also varies considerably, from a few weeks to over a decade. Numerous clans exist for nearly every online game available today, notably in first-person shooters, massively multiplayer games, role-playing video games, and strategy games. There are also meta-groups that span a wide variety of games.

It is commonly argued that a "clan" or "guild" becomes like a family, and that all opinions and decisions represent each single member in the "clan" or "guild". Clans also tend to have a "try outs" initiation system established to weed out those who might not share common interest. A variety of methodical initiations are user-generated challenges ranging from jump courses, in-game achievement hunting.

World of Darkness

World of Darkness is the name given to three related but distinct fictional universes created as settings for supernatural horror themed role-playing games. It is also the name of role-playing games in the second and third settings. The first was conceived by Mark Rein-Hagen, while the second was designed by several people at White Wolf Gaming Studio, which Rein-Hagen helped to found. The first two World of Darkness settings have been used for several horror–themed role-playing games that make use of White Wolf's storyteller/storytelling system, as well as Mind's Eye Theatre, a live action roleplaying game based on the core games. The third, Monte Cook's World of Darkness, created by Monte Cook based on the first two World of Darkness settings, includes only a single product.

Terminology and themes

In order to avoid confusing the two product lines, players refer to the most recent version of the World of Darkness line, released on August 21, 2004, as "New World of Darkness", and the previous version as "Classic World of Darkness". Prior to the re-release of cWoD it was often referred to as "oWoD" for "Original" or "Old" World of Darkness.