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Keep in mind that the metaphor card is available to be played, and indeed must be played early, hard, and often if you're going to try to make the different games play nice together. Right off the bat there's no way to make the Deluge (Biblical great flood, caused by Caine in VtM lore) work as a literal worldwide flood without completely disregarding the Werewolf version of history, and werecritter biology for that matter, both of which are outright incompatible with a Noah's Ark extinction event.citybeatnik posted:This is only a thing because White Wolf has no sense of scale and has multiple 6th Generation or lower Vampires sitting on the Board of Directors for Pentex. Wasn't that just first edition? I think 2nd ed reshuffled the Board, and there's just a Malkavian antitribu and his childe left. I'll have to dig all the splatbooks out of storage again.
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Nov 23, 2013 08:47
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Feinne posted:does someone have that image, because it's pretty hilarious Oh hell to the yes.  Also the more you ignore nWoD the better (because VtM:B doesn't happen in it, therefore it is not the best). I think Zack Parsons or someone else on the frontpage said the biggest sign of the new WoD's failure is that it didn't become a bestseller ever since Twilight came out.
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Nov 23, 2013 09:31
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This poster loves police brutality, but only when its against minorities!
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DeusExMachinima posted:Also the more you ignore nWoD the better (because VtM:B doesn't happen in it, therefore it is not the best). I think Zack Parsons or someone else on the frontpage said the biggest sign of the new WoD's failure is that it didn't become a bestseller ever since Twilight came out. Vampire: the Requiem eschews the religious stuff in terms of the origin of vampirism, doesn't it? DeusExMachinima posted:The music in this game is really, really good at setting the tone. It's up there with Thief and Hitman's soundtracks. This got me thinking: which other games have great soundtracks? Mass effect DreamWeb Kane & Lynch 1 (gently caress you, jesper kyd is awesome) Phantom Dust Final Fantasy 7 Indigo Prophecy There are probably other favorites of mine that I can't think of right now gatz fucked around with this message at 10:20 on Nov 23, 2013 |
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Nov 23, 2013 09:51
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DeusExMachinima posted:Oh hell to the yes. Weakness: Horrible parenting skills? You just know some player tried specifically engineering a character that would somehow be able to take advantage of that weakness, just so they could be able to say they somehow "won" against Caine, at least as far as the rules will allow.
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Nov 23, 2013 12:20
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EphemeralToast posted:If this is set in 2004, why does our computer look like something Strong Bad would use? As for our computer, Mercurio may have set it up this way because he honestly thinks it's cutting edge - he's over 60 years old, after all. It's like you told your grandpa to buy you a cutting-edge machine. Besides, I'm pretty sure LaCroix didn't want to spend too much money on a random neonate he doesn't like anyway. Other computers in game look similarly, though - but a lot of establishment use hilariously outdated stuff. I remember installing stuff for a warehouse in 2005 where they still had DOS-based machines.
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Nov 23, 2013 13:11
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gatz posted:Vampire: the Requiem eschews the religious stuff in terms of the origin of vampirism, doesn't it? Well, it gets rid of most of the Christian stuff in the origin of vampirism. The origin of vampires comes up in only one splatbook, Mythologies, and each of the 5 clans (only 5 clans in NWoD, with all variations being bloodlines of those clans) has an entirely different divine origin.
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Nov 23, 2013 13:53
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gatz posted:
 Speaking of Jesper Kyd, the soundtrack for Assassin's Creed 2 is really great. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0i6YFrSs6c Really enjoying the lp so far, by the way. I followed your Redemption lp as well but never played the game, but I have played this so I'm looking forward to understanding the setting better, all I know is from this thread and Vics (and others) great posts in the Redemption thread. Barf Wight fucked around with this message at 15:12 on Nov 23, 2013 |
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Nov 23, 2013 15:10
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@unofficial patch: the plus version is pretty much 50% restored content, 50% added content, most of the latter silly and/or superfluous. It does have somewhat altered Disciplines, though, which makes things a bit more interesting than vanilla. @dated computers: Really, computers in this game are nothing more than glorified switches. You have 1-4 command lines per computer, each conveniently relevant to whatever it is you're doing. That's probably a more relevant explanation than any in-verse justification you could think up.
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Nov 23, 2013 15:27
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TheMcD posted:Weakness: Horrible parenting skills? You just know some player tried specifically engineering a character that would somehow be able to take advantage of that weakness, just so they could be able to say they somehow "won" against Caine, at least as far as the rules will allow. Probably the only reasonable way given that everything you do to him is rebounded sevenfold against you.
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Nov 23, 2013 15:57
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It IS the World of Darkness - everything sucks, so why shouldn't most computers be hilariously out of date?
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Nov 23, 2013 16:22
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Instead of searching for an explanation for the old computers just blame it on the Technocracy and move on, people.
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Nov 23, 2013 16:35
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Kanthulhu posted:Instead of searching for an explanation for the old computers just blame it on the Technocracy and move on, people. Or blame it on the immortality of vampires and attendant old age problems. "Here, I got you a state of the art computer! It has DOS, the most sophisticated user interface yet!"
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Nov 23, 2013 16:37
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Barf Wight posted:Seeing as he mentioned Hitman, he probably agrees I do agree! You could put this in VTMB and you'd never know the difference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEDpqbvvi2U TheMcD posted:Weakness: Horrible parenting skills? You just know some player tried specifically engineering a character that would somehow be able to take advantage of that weakness, just so they could be able to say they somehow "won" against Caine, at least as far as the rules will allow. I never DMed a White Wolf game, but now I wish I had because it'd be killing time for mopey vamps and players who think they are just too clever. I ran a Star Wars game with the new Fantasy Flight book a few months back. I almost party wiped my players with Stormtroopers after they joked about their aiming skills. Next time they got attacked by bandits looking for easy money they freaked out and went all out tactical on their asses. They thought I was trying to kill them again. So my approach has comedic merit at least! DeusExMachinima fucked around with this message at 16:51 on Nov 23, 2013 |
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Nov 23, 2013 16:48
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OAquinas posted:Getting into the Demon line here, but basically God created the world and the Angels administered it. Perfect concentric spheres, celestial clockwork, bountiful earth, etc etc... Not quite. The Angels were never jealous of humans. They were ordered to watch after Adam and Eve, also their tribe (they were the first, not the only humans in Eden). But God also commanded them the angels to fulfill all the humans needs, but to remain hidden from them. The angels, led by Lucifer, saw humanity in their ignorance and were too saddened by what they saw to let it continue. The revealed themselves to the humans and gave them knowledge. God sent Michael to punish Lucifer, but the Morningstar fought him off (using a simple wooden scythe against Michael's SWORD OF FIRE). The loyal angels withdrew and then God spoke. Sort of. The earth was smote with a great power. God had introduced entropy into Creation. Nothing would last forever anymore, and all things would eventually crumble. That was God's last confirmed interaction with his Creation. The war went on for decades, if not centuries, and eventually the fallen angels were cast into Hell. Hell was not the pit of fire and brimstone portrayed by popular media. It was a place entirely cut off from the presence of God, but where the angels bound within could still feel the birth pangs of human civilization with all its ups and downs. That torment drove most of the angels to become demons, but the biggest pain of all was not a presence, but an absence. Lucifer was not in hell with the rest of his loyal followers.
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Nov 23, 2013 17:01
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Ah right. I knew the jealousy thing didn't feel right completely; they chafed under wanting to help more. In fact, they used the power of their human allies' faith to turbocharge their abilities in the subsequent Angel war. Of course the loyalists had a conduit to God...
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Nov 23, 2013 17:52
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EphemeralToast posted:If this is set in 2004, why does our computer look like something Strong Bad would use? I'm pretty sure it's set in 1999. The WoD games generally had the books set in the year they were published, and thus Gehenna came in 2001. Furthermore, the news about freak weather in India matches up with the 1999 time, because that's when the Technocracy nuked the poo poo out of Ravnos and pretended it was 'mysterious weather'. DeusExMachinima posted:Oh hell to the yes. I'm sorry, in oWoD demon I can play a fallen angel that's all angry about being imprisoned by God. In nWoD demon I can play a transforming killer robot wearing the skin of men which wants to, and may well be able to, murder God. Also, God is a cold inhuman machine. Both settings have their high and low points, honestly. MJ12 fucked around with this message at 00:05 on Nov 24, 2013 |
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Nov 24, 2013 00:02
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MJ12 posted:I'm pretty sure it's set in 1999. I thought I read that it was set in 2004, but I just tried finding it again and I couldn't. I don't know why you think it's 1999, and I don't know where you get this "freak weather in India" story from.
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Nov 24, 2013 00:31
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There are some journal entries that set it in (IIRC) June of 2004. They come up in a side quest in Santa Monica. Edit: Apparently it's October  it's still set 2004 though so it has nothing to do with the week of nightmares.
Sundance Shot fucked around with this message at 01:30 on Nov 24, 2013 |
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Nov 24, 2013 00:36
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gatz posted:I thought I read that it was set in 2004, but I just tried finding it again and I couldn't. I don't know why you think it's 1999, and I don't know where you get this "freak weather in India" story from. I swear one of the TVs in Bloodlines had something on India. I haven't played it for several years so it might just be bad memory. Anyways, I think it's 1999 because it's supposed to be on the eve of Gehenna/etc happening, which is "canonically" somewhere around the 2000s. It could be just moving the timeline up several years without any real intervening changes though.
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Nov 24, 2013 00:51
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MJ12 posted:I swear one of the TVs in Bloodlines had something on India. I haven't played it for several years so it might just be bad memory. I saw a video on Youtube of the Malkavian TV easter egg, and it also had a bit of a regular news cast in there, which mentioned all sorts of weird stuff going on in Delhi (UFOs, monsters, that kind of stuff), which was however revealed to be hoaxes and that kind of stuff. That might be what you're thinking of. I also recall hearing something about India back when I played it, and even the phrase "freak weather" rung a bell, but I might be seeing things where there are none.
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Nov 24, 2013 01:02
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I think there is a news story about an helicopter crashing in a "freak sandstorm"?
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Nov 24, 2013 01:09
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The tv news anchor is a great worldbuilding tool. He's got some newsitems related to future quests (not telling), he will retroactively tell about your exploits (if you get in a shootout at the beach house he'll mention it), but there is also a lot of general fluff about the goings-on in the world. When you start the game it's relatively benign "a massive gelatinous creature washed up on the shores of Santa Monica this morning. Scientists believe it is related to the seplapod (?) family of sea creatures[...]", but as the game goes on it becomes more freakish, with reports of strange sandstorms causing planes to crash in the middle east, and stone idols at a pilgrim site starting to bleed from the eyes. All delivered in that almost cartoonishly neutral tone of voice.
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Nov 24, 2013 01:09
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gatz posted:Vampire: the Requiem eschews the religious stuff in terms of the origin of vampirism, doesn't it? I bought the CD of the soundtrack years ago because it is that awesome.
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Nov 24, 2013 01:22
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Vicissitude posted:Not quite. The Angels were never jealous of humans. They were ordered to watch after Adam and Eve, also their tribe (they were the first, not the only humans in Eden). But God also commanded them the angels to fulfill all the humans needs, but to remain hidden from them. The angels, led by Lucifer, saw humanity in their ignorance and were too saddened by what they saw to let it continue. The revealed themselves to the humans and gave them knowledge. It's hard not to feel bad for WoD Lucifer because he is arguably totally benevolent to the bitter end.
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Nov 24, 2013 01:47
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Captain Oblivious posted:It's hard not to feel bad for WoD Lucifer because he is arguably totally benevolent to the bitter end. He's basically singlehandedly responsible for True Faith being nearly nonexistent which sounds like a bad thing if you look at it from a Vampire perspective, but then you realize that he did it to cut the rug out from under his former lieutenants turned Lovecraftian nightmare gods who are trying to kill him and destroy reality because they a) have decided Lucifer betrayed them because he was never in Hell and b) hate everything. And yes Earthbound can get an ability that does full stop reality breaking down summoning things from outside creation poo poo. The stronger Earthbound would be even worse than the Antediluvians if they could manage enough Faith to properly manifest, since they still have access to the very tools of Creation itself. Feinne fucked around with this message at 02:11 on Nov 24, 2013 |
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Nov 24, 2013 02:07
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Feinne posted:And yes Earthbound can get an ability that does full stop reality breaking down summoning things from outside creation poo poo. The stronger Earthbound would be even worse than the Antediluvians if they could manage enough Faith to properly manifest, since they still have access to the very tools of Creation itself. On the other hand, World of Darkness in late 90s holds mostly with duct tape and prayer and nearly every Big Bad has the potential to destroy it somehow. It also falling apart on its own volition.
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Nov 24, 2013 02:48
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One of my favorite bits of oWoD fluff is the existence of Grandmother/The Grand Maw. What is it? Why does it want to eat everything? How the gently caress is it kept in check anyway? 
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Nov 24, 2013 02:49
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All this backstory/metaplot chat, most to all of which looks like the kind of stuff that will rarely if ever come up in an actual game, makes me happy my only experience with World of Darkness is running a Hunter game in the nWoD. All that matters about the supernatural is how to recognize it and how to kill it. 
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Nov 24, 2013 03:00
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DeusExMachinima posted:Also the more you ignore nWoD the better (because VtM:B doesn't happen in it, therefore it is not the best). I think Zack Parsons or someone else on the frontpage said the biggest sign of the new WoD's failure is that it didn't become a bestseller ever since Twilight came out. Hey now. nWoD is kind of off-topic for this thread, but its still a pretty great setting in its own right. A lot of the things that make VtM fun to read about (the massive, sometimes cartoonish metaplot; all the mary-sue canon npcs, etc.) can kind of make it unweildy to run as a PnPRPG. So I quickly grew to appreciate VtR's getting back to basics. And I'd attribute its inability to ride on twilight's coattails to be a failure of marketing, not of the game. Back on topic, let's talk about that awesome radioshow that plays in certain areas of the game (including our first haven). I freely admit to having this playing while I read for class: http://debofnight.andcuriouser.com/ insanityv2 fucked around with this message at 04:47 on Nov 24, 2013 |
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Nov 24, 2013 04:29
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I'm gonna show off the radio show eventually. It just doesn't have very many variations (5 in total, I think).
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Nov 24, 2013 04:47
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Bastion has an amazing soundtrack. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLA0vB9LCTM The Santa Monica apartment has a poster for Lacuna Coil, who does at least one song on the soundtrack (sadly, we won't hear it until the end of the game). I believe the other bands that have songs in the soundtrack are also featured on posters throughout the game. oWoD's Vampire with Caine, and Demon: the Fallen with Lucifer, do not sit easy with Werewolf's cosmology, nor Mage's (which depends on who is control of the world's paradigm). The games really shouldn't have serious crossovers if you're going to look at the cosmology, because they're not compatible. That, and you have massive ridiculous nerd arguments over who's more powerful, vampire vs. werewolf vs mage. White Wolf fixed this with nWoD, such that no core player type cosmology disproves/clashes horribly with another one - or so I believe. Someone check me on this? (You can still have the same ridiculous arguments over who's most powerful, though!) Mostly this is good, but it lacks some of the punch from the old WoD cosmology; it's pretty drat cool to have Caine and Lilith finally have it out (although it sounds like the aftermath is lame).
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Nov 24, 2013 06:36
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I think Demon was set up in a way to reconcile the various things, because it explains that for most of the existence of Creation it was not only possible but necessary for several mutually exclusive explanations for things to be simultaneously true. If it's possible for life to have originated both by entirely natural scientific causes AND by angels literally making animals out of clay and breathing life into them at the same time it's possible for all sorts of poo poo to have been both true and not true all at once. In theory things don't work like this now because God broke Creation but that doesn't mean that all the actually mutually exclusive stuff wasn't done by that point (since it wasn't really that long ago in absolute terms). Also Caine and Lilith having it out is pretty much a giant epic battle where Lilith sends a loving army of monsters at Caine, who is defended by several Antediluvians all there for their own ends (and because if Caine dies his curse ends and every vampire will cease to be within moments).
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Nov 24, 2013 06:53
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Kacie posted:White Wolf fixed this with nWoD, such that no core player type cosmology disproves/clashes horribly with another one - or so I believe. Someone check me on this? (You can still have the same ridiculous arguments over who's most powerful, though!) Yeah, WW went through some great pains to make sure that all the character types can exist in the same world without much in the way of horrible clashing. A lot of things were standardized and that makes interaction rules easier - no more turning elder vampires into lawn chairs with a starting mage character.
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Nov 24, 2013 07:02
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Kacie posted:Bastion has an amazing soundtrack. Every band that did a song or has a song in the game has a poster somewhere. They're all pretty cool.
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Nov 24, 2013 07:36
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 There's the poster in the apartment. E: I realized that I did include this image in the last update, but I didn't call attention to the poster. gatz fucked around with this message at 07:46 on Nov 24, 2013 |
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Nov 24, 2013 07:42
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Feinne posted:Also Caine and Lilith having it out is pretty much a giant epic battle where Lilith sends a loving army of monsters at Caine, who is defended by several Antediluvians all there for their own ends (and because if Caine dies his curse ends and every vampire will cease to be within moments). Lilith is defended by seven Antediluvians in that scenario, none of which (except one) are willing to deal the deathblow to Caine for fear of the curse/blessing God laid upon him. You know, 'whosoever shall harm him shall receive seven times harm in return' or something like that. And since we're on the topic, here's the Antediluvians who showed up in that scenario: Lucian: Perfect and beautiful. He's got a hefty dose of Obfuscate and Animalism, with a bit of Potence on the side. The implication is that he is somehow related to the Nosferatu Clan, though it's up to the Storyteller to determine how. Could be he and Absimiliard were brothers in the blood, or even mortal brothers embraced by the 2nd generation. Maybe he IS the true Nosferatu Antediluvian. If he is, he certainly doesn't share the same drawbacks as the clan he's tied to. He is so strikingly handsome that anyone who sees him without the protection of magic or Merits suffers from the effects of the Presence power of Entrancement (warp the target's emotions to the point they become your willing slaves). Erinye: More fearsome than beautiful, but in the way a hunting predator is beautiful. Skilled in Celerity, Potence and Necromancy, though no actual clan ties are listed. She is NOT Troile, the usurper of the Brujah Clan. As her name suggests, she may be the inspiration for the Greek Erinyes, the Furies. Mekhet: Picture what a Tremere with a few hundred years under their belt can accomplish with blood magic. Now imagine that you had several THOUSAND years to practice and study and research. That's Mekhet, in a nutshell. Tremere himself might have access to level 10 Thaumaturgy, but this guy learned that long ago and has refined it to an art over the millenia. Mekhet is proficient at all forms of Blood Magic, including the clan-specific ones like Assamite and Setite Sorcery. Lilith treats him like an adviser in such matters. Physically, Mekhet is brittle. The curse of Caine has made him a walking cadaver, even worse than the Samedi bloodline (would you like to know more? Then ask, you dumb gently caress! :p ). He is little more than a skeleton kept together with a bit of flesh and bandages. Honestly, one stout blow could probably knock him to pieces like a skeleton in one of those old Disney Halloween cartoons. Ikopabe: If any being could be said to personify the Beast, it's this guy. Even more than Erinye he's a primal animal, to the point where he barely even speaks a recognizable language anymore. Ikopabe is a master of the shapeshifting Disciplines, Protean and Abombwe (African kindred spin-off of Protean). He's also topped out in Fortitude and Animalism. While not simple, he's pretty straightforward. Lilith uses him as a tracker or scout. Despite the obvious similarities, he will not speak of any siring he's done. Clearly there are ties to both the Gangrel and the Laibon of Africa, but Ikopabe is silent on the matter. Ilyes: The REAL Brujah Antediluvian. When Troile attacked him, he used Temporis to hurl himself forward to save himself. The problem is, time is a very fickle thing and does not like to be toyed with. Ilyes screwed up the subjective time. While he may have dropped out of the time warp after several thousand years, something like a HUNDRED thousand years had passed for him personally. So despite the True Brujah loss of emotion over time, Ilyes had plenty of time to stew over the betrayal of his favored childe and joined Lilith. Malakai: The twin sister of Malkav, the famed founder of the Malkavian clan. Sadly, she was not as strong as her brother and when he suffered the clan curse at the hands of Caine, she bore the lion's share of the madness due to her close blood ties with her brother (by birth and by Embrace, a double-whammy). With him gone to who knows where, Malakai has fallen into the depths of paranoia, despair and occasional violence. On the flipside of the coin, she is incredibly powerful when the madness waxes her way. Unfortunately, that's only when she is beset with distress. Malakai's madness is so potent that she can not only warp minds, but physical bodies and objects. (Malakai is the only Apostate willing to take Caine out since it would end her suffering.) Eikos: loving Eikos... Lilith wasn't the only being that Caine met in his travels in Nod. He also came across an old crone, who taught him the ways of the blood bond when she tricked him into tasting her blood three times. After that, she ordered him to Embrace her. If Eikos is, in fact, the Crone, she's more powerful than the other Antediluvians. She would be a fourth member of the 2nd generation begat from Caine himself. But Caine eventually slipped free of the blood bond and drove a wooden stake through the heart of the Crone. He left her for the sun and she was destroyed. ...Right?
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Nov 24, 2013 07:47
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Bloodlines introduced me to Chiasm, Darling Violetta and Genitorturers, all of which I still listen to today. I also listened to Lacuna Coil for quite a while, even though I don't really any more. This game was great for the baby Goth I was back when I first played it, with great bands I hadn't heard of, which in turn introduced me to others like them. So yes, great soundtrack. (Darling Violettas 'A Smaller God' is on the radio on the beach, I think it is the first location that has a track playing that isn't background music) Thesaya fucked around with this message at 12:58 on Nov 24, 2013 |
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Nov 24, 2013 12:56
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Thesaya posted:(Darling Violettas 'A Smaller God' is on the radio on the beach, I think it is the first location that has a track playing that isn't background music) You're right. I didn't even notice that.  You have to be pretty close to hear it. I'll edit it into the last update.
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Nov 25, 2013 07:32
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gatz posted:I know, but that's really the only interaction we're allowed to have with him. Also, this thread inspired me to do a complete game run through with firearms (my first ever run in the plus patch, but my fourth with guns). Even the thirty-eight was useful and effective early game assuming you buy the skills for it and use it right.
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Nov 25, 2013 11:27
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Pickled Tink posted:You can tell him there is no cure, but it makes him very sad. That said, I always take him for every penny he has and send him off to Kill the President. If you really pump perception-firearms and you have auspex, it can kinda work. But in general, until you get at least the Glock, you should just melee your way through. It gets much easier at Hollywood and you get the Anaconda.And latest tier of weapons, Steyr Aug and SPAS are almost overpowered . Although I haven't really theory-crafted that much for VtMB, Toreador or Malkavan seems to be the best clan for guns, maybe Tremere too
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Nov 25, 2013 16:29
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