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Mors Rattus posted:The Cranial Cortex Augmentation (4 dots) involves taking thin tissue slices fro mthe extrastriate visual area of a changeling cortex and then layering them into an agent's brain. That gives the temporary ability to see, enter and manipulate dreams. This involves brain surgery, usually leaves scars and needs the changeling to possess those powers at a relatively high level of skill. A single donor could give enough tissue for a dozen agents, as only a thin slice of neural material is needed, but the removal of the brain matter is always a fatal process. The augmentation also only lasts for a few weeks before the brain absorbs the new material entirely, and subsequent augmentations have a cumulative 10% chance of outright failure. Once an operation fails, no further augmentation operations will ever succeed for you. I think this is a callback to something from the Changeling core book. There's a guide to designing a campaign, and if I remember right the example involves a rival changeling being abducted and brain-surgeried by Cheiron which causes them to lose their powers. Halloween Jack posted:I never actually tried to play UA, so I can't grasp how a "typical" campaign works. Presumably UA isn't played like D&D, where it's more or less assumed the players can pick whatever character class they want. A party of four Adepts from four different schools seems like they would spend so much time wrangling charges, taboos, and the mundane fallout of being a magician that they would be hard-pressed to work together toward shared goals. My secondary impression of what a UA campaign is like is that it would involve the PCs making contact with just one small corner of UA's universe, like say a group of relatively ordinary people tracking down a criminal who is an Avatar/Adept. Your secondary impression isn't too far off in my experience. There are some scenario books for UA that explicitly say in the introduction "a lot of people have asked us what exactly you do in this game, here are some ideas." Broadly speaking, a lot of the more interesting ones are "there is a unique magical phenomenon in this town/neighborhood that the PCs will probably want to discover or control, but there are some other factions of occult underground weirdos orbiting around with their own ideas and the PCs will have to deal with them." Kind of sandbox-y, "show the group something interesting and let them get themselves into trouble" for the most part. Kellsterik fucked around with this message at 20:58 on Jun 15, 2015 |
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Jun 15, 2015 20:49
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 I was so excited about getting a good job interview call this morning that I edited Afterthought 8 - The DM Section and stuck it up a day early just to do something with all the energy! It's, like every Afterthought so far, a weird one.
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Jun 15, 2015 21:35
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Pope Guilty posted:The Dead Kennedys' "Buzzbomb" just started playing in my head. I was thinking more https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQl0RhEPBJw
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Jun 15, 2015 22:48
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gradenko_2000 posted:
Waaaay back when 4e was being announced and these preview posts hitting the Wizards site, I read this and thought it was the best idea. 1-10 you advance your racial abilities alongside your class abilities. Then 11-20 Class + PrC, then you hit Epic. Ahhh, what could have been.
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Jun 16, 2015 03:54
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Robindaybird posted:And then I'm thinking of the Bean Bandit from Gunsmith Cats I'm going with The Driver from Drive, or maybe Christine. But we all know that this came from Fury Road. Why does UA have detailed car chase rules but no car adept? quote:Task Force: VALKYRIE has had contact with the fae, but mostly positive contact. They don't see the Lost, as a collective, as a threat to humanity. TWILIGHT has operatives in contact with freeholds across the globe, often providing them with false IDs or resources that they can't get normally. It's easy to make contacts and allies by doing that for a freehold. FORT generally focuses more on fae magic than changelings, and it's rumored that entire cells have been assigned to the Hedge and Arcadia, though no official files exist on Arcadia at all. FORt is also responsible for trapping and containing hedgebeasts that escape the Hedge, but that's not usually easy, since they can go back so easily. ADAMSKI agents often work alongside Radio Free Fae, though neither group usually realizes the others are more than crackpots. Often, however, one group will provide tips to the other to 'prove' evidence is a hoax, while the other ensures the 'proof' is well publicized. This was the plot to the best episode of Torchwood. Count Chocula fucked around with this message at 04:11 on Jun 16, 2015 |
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Jun 16, 2015 04:06
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Rumors: Paul Walker was the world's most powerful Motor-Shaman, and his death was a hit job by the Sleepers to ensure he never attained the Major Charge.
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Jun 16, 2015 04:37
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Simian_Prime posted:Rumors: Too Fast Too Soonious. 
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Jun 16, 2015 05:08
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Major Charge Spell: Living Life Every Quarter Mile. A blast spell that siphons some of your enemies life to be be fuel for your car. Nothing happens until you drive, burning off their life energy and leaving them older. Some speak of a Motor Shaman who waits until he's on the last mile of a tank to cast it on an enemy, killing them utterly and leaving behind bones soaked in a puddle of crude oil shaped like a man. Requires a little bit of the victim's body to be put in the tank somehow; a clump of hair, a finger, a cup of their sweat.
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Jun 16, 2015 05:38
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LEVIATHAN: THE TEMPEST PSYCHIC MIND-FUCKERY, BEING OLD AND HAVING WEAKNESSES: THE JOSEPH JOESTAR EXPERIENCE Banes of the Tribe:  If you see this, run. They're near and they're looking for you, or someone equally powerful is nearby. That's the Sigil of Marduk and it's very, very bad news for a Leviathan. I mean, that's one of the actual symbols for Marduk. In Leviathan, the Sigil that the Marduk Society uses looks like Marduk riding in a chariot wielding a lightning bolt. But I kinda like that one more! It's kinda innocuous unless you know what it means. The Sigil is one of the major weaknesses of the Tribe. So what does the Sigil of Marduk do? It wards places. A Dexterity+Craft roll following instructions will let you paint a Sigil. This is followed by a Resolve+Occult roll to place a point of Willpower into the Sigil. Without the Willpower, it's a forboding omen but it doesn't actually do anything. That Willpower can't be recovered until you turn off the Sigil by touching it. To protect an area, it has to have clear boundaries and you can protect various sizes of Temples by inputting more and more Willpower. Or you can have your friends make their own Sigils and they will stack. So protecting a Size 2 Temple needs 4 Willpower in a Sigil or 4 1 Willpower Sigils. However, you can perform something according to your Virtue in front of the Sigil and unlock that Willpower, fueling it with the goodness of the act rather than your strength. Alternately, you can try to not put in Willpower at a -3 to the roll after you've successfully made a Sigil. Succeed and there's nothing stopping you from photocopying Sigils and taping them to walls or using side-walk chalk or using another symbol with personal meaning to you instead. The latter gives you +2 to crafting them, but is also easier for a Leviathan to pass. The Sigil is pretty much used exclusively by the hunters of the Marduk Society or by an enterprising, experimenting academic. Why does the Sigil work? The Tribe doesn't know. Maybe it's because it represents Marduk directly. Maybe it's because it's been used to unite the warriors who carry on Marduk's work. Maybe it's just psychosomatic, their collective memories making them susceptible. What is known is that a Leviathan needs to make successes equal to your Sheol on a Resolve+Composure roll to leave or enter an area warded with a Sigil. If you fail, you can't try to pass that threshold for Sheol days. An Ophion, up against a bunch of Sigils, is well and truly hosed. Hybrids only need one success and can try again in a hour. But for Hybrids and Leviathans alike, the Sigil raises the hairs on the back of your neck and instills fear. What's the other weakness? Electricity. Symbolic of man's ability to invent and learn and harness nature, lightning deals aggro damage to you and bypasses any Armor or Durability enhanced by your powers. Electric bashing damage only converts half of the damage to aggro, but lethal is one-to-one. And the Marduk Society has lightning guns, and a taser or a car battery dropped into water can work just as well. Hybrids don't have any Armor against electricity, but besides that there's no problem for them. What aren't Leviathans weak to? Aging. Your human body will slowly age and top out around the mid-60s while your transformed self remains as young as you feel/think you are. Your hybrid forms, however, end up as a mish-mash between old human flesh and young beast flesh. So let's talk about something a little more important than being old and being electrocuted. As previously mentioned, The Wake is the thing that wrecks social lives and interacting with normal people. What the Wake does is subtly nudge people into doing what you want like a threat you can't see. People look up to you, submit to you, fear you or will do anything you say. What counts as a ding against Tranquility? Whenever you use the Wake to get people to do something they would not normally do. If you feel like Subway and your co-worker wants to get Chinese, and you use the Wake to nudge him towards wanting sandwiches, that's kind of dickish. If you make him load his sandwich with hot pepper and olives, and he's allergic to olives, then that's definitely abuse. It's a fine line, use your head about whether it's appropriate or not. But this is the modern era. The future is now! You can Skype with people, call them over the phone, e-mail them. It's great! But it's not a substitute for actual human interaction. Neither is your cult. If you want to keep yourself stable, you have to at least go grocery shopping and wave at people, but even then they're gonna be affected by your Wake. So how does the Wake really work? Your diameter of influence is determined by your Sheol. Beings are directly influenced by you if they're in the diameter. People on the fringes just feel like something dangerous is around. Who does the Wake affect?
Passively making a Beloved is the Leviathan's Presence+Sheol vs. the subject's Resolve+Composure in a contested series of rolls once per day per person. Exceptional/normal success for a Leviathan adds 1 Beloved Point to the subject. A tie/human success means nothing happens. Exceptional success for the human removes 1 Beloved point. When Beloved points are more than half of a subject's Willpower (rounded up), the subject gains a minor derangement. The derangement goes into submission when they become a Beloved, or they lose the derangement if they lose all Beloved points. Beloved lose 2 points a week after being outside of a Leviathan's Wake for two weeks. Eventually, a Beloved will turn back to normal. Intentionally making a Beloved is a Tranquility ding. It uses the same contested rolls but if their Willpower is less than the Leviathan's Sheol, subtract their Sheol from the resistance dice pool. Each round also costs 1 Ichor to focus the Wake. Each round is around three minutes of conversation. To win, the Leviathan must accumulate successes equal to the victim's Willpower. The victim must get successes equal to the Leviathan's Presence+Sheol.
So what exactly is a Beloved? A Beloved is a Leviathan's devoted, loving Cultist. They love you, they can't live without you and they will do anything you ask of them. It's a lot like adopting a religious dog because now you have another mouth to feed and worship you. Abusing Beloved is good way to lose Tranquility and get the rest of the Tribe mad at you. Having too many Beloved is a good way to lose control of your life and be forced to focus on your cult. And sometimes, abusing your Beloved or just normal exposure to your Wake creates an enemy dedicated to taking you down, an Ahab. But at least your Beloved can do things for you and go out into the world for you or watch TV with you. NEXT TIME: Merits, Psychotherapy and Size. SIZE. SIIIIIIIIIIIIIIZE! e: cut out a minor spoiler regarding a scene for a pretty rad movie. Vox Valentine fucked around with this message at 09:17 on Jun 16, 2015 |
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Jun 16, 2015 07:25
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Thanks for kinda spoiling the ending of It Follows. I saw a really cheesy Creature from the Black Lagoon ripoff with jellyfish. The lair at the end was cool. Did a group of rival Automancers drive Mel Gibson mad? Spell: The Only Redemption I Can Offer Is Beneath This Dirty Hood: When you drive someone in your car for an hour, they can reroll their last failed Madness check. Spell: Trade In These Wings On Some Wheels Your car can jump double the normal length when going over a ramp or something. Count Chocula fucked around with this message at 08:49 on Jun 16, 2015 |
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Jun 16, 2015 08:39
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See there are so many good spells that you can come up with for a car adept that it's hard to narrow them down! Is there like a normal limit for Adepts in UA?
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Jun 16, 2015 13:07
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Strange Matter posted:See there are so many good spells that you can come up with for a car adept that it's hard to narrow them down! Is there like a normal limit for Adepts in UA? Not really. You can make as many formula spells as you like, but the penalty is that having too many formula spells weakens your ability to do off-the-cuff random magick. I don't remember if I'm right but the impression I got was that not every adept knew every single formula spell from their section.
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Jun 16, 2015 13:31
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Been thinking about the possibilities of a Major Charge for a Motor-Shaman; what about becoming such a legend that your name is imprinted upon some aspect of the global driving culture? I.e. you get a car named after you or a race track or someone makes a movie about your exploits. In that way a lot of people in the past could have had the potential for getting a Major Charge if they knew what they were doing, but even if they did they would have lost it almost immediately thanks to the limits of the taboo. Eval Kineval certain snagged one at some point in his career as a proto-Motor-Shaman but would have forfeited it pretty quickly. This would make it awfully difficult for the average street racing Motor-Shaman to get a Major Charge, but that's okay considering the possibilities of what a Major Charge can do.
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Jun 16, 2015 14:10
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I don't get the feeling that the Motor Shaman is really about fame or even performing great feats, it seems like more of a personal thing between you and the road. How about something like... being the first person to drive from one end of a major roadway to the other? Being the first to form a unique bond with that road, sort of thing. It's virtually impossible to do today since every major road (in the US, at least) has been traversed from end to end many times, unless you can find something newly constructed. There should be restrictions on what kind of road counts, in terms of length, construction etc. A dirt road that no one ever heard of probably doesn't count, but something like Route 66 definitely would (if it wasn't already charged out, that is). vvv You don't drive crazy for the sake of driving crazy, though. You do it because driving safely means putting an artificial, human-created barrier between yourself and the road, i.e. the laws of traffic. It is only when you ignore all restraints and make it all about the road, your vehicle, and yourself that you can attain a significant charge. Hyper Crab Tank fucked around with this message at 15:30 on Jun 16, 2015 |
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Jun 16, 2015 15:19
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Strange Matter posted:Been thinking about the possibilities of a Major Charge for a Motor-Shaman; what about becoming such a legend that your name is imprinted upon some aspect of the global driving culture? I.e. you get a car named after you or a race track or someone makes a movie about your exploits. In that way a lot of people in the past could have had the potential for getting a Major Charge if they knew what they were doing, but even if they did they would have lost it almost immediately thanks to the limits of the taboo. Eval Kineval certain snagged one at some point in his career as a proto-Motor-Shaman but would have forfeited it pretty quickly. I'm willing to say maybe this would work, but only if its built entirely on your driving since that's the core of the motor shaman. There's a certain method to the minor->significant->major charge progression going on with other schools. How do other schools get charges? Bibliomancers get it from increasingly rare and valuable books, Cliomancers get it from increasingly more significant bits of history, Personamancers get it by fooling greater numbers of people, Epideromancers from injuring themselves with increasing severity, and so forth. There's a progression even in schools that aren't a straight "this, more of this, most of this", an Urbanomancer gets a minor charge from watching a city, a significant charge by affecting a city, and a major charge from drastically changing a city. Motor Shamans have "Drive" for a minor charge and "Drive crazy" for a significant charge so as the write-up suggests presumably a major charge would be something along the lines of "Drive Superlatively Crazy". A feat of driving that makes you famous and renowned across the entire world for its madness might qualify for a major charge, but unless it is above and beyond the pale it might not. On the other hand maybe not. Maybe you have to drive somewhere on a road no one has ever driven before, or break some record of crazy driving to race ahead of any other crazy driver, or drive in mad dash through a place you can't drive, or something else entirely.
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Jun 16, 2015 15:20
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Omnicrom posted:I'm willing to say maybe this would work, but only if its built entirely on your driving since that's the core of the motor shaman. There's a certain method to the minor->significant->major charge progression going on with other schools. How do other schools get charges? Bibliomancers get it from increasingly rare and valuable books, Cliomancers get it from increasingly more significant bits of history, Personamancers get it by fooling greater numbers of people, Epideromancers from injuring themselves with increasing severity, and so forth. There's a progression even in schools that aren't a straight "this, more of this, most of this", an Urbanomancer gets a minor charge from watching a city, a significant charge by affecting a city, and a major charge from drastically changing a city. Motor Shamans have "Drive" for a minor charge and "Drive crazy" for a significant charge so as the write-up suggests presumably a major charge would be something along the lines of "Drive Superlatively Crazy". A feat of driving that makes you famous and renowned across the entire world for its madness might qualify for a major charge, but unless it is above and beyond the pale it might not. I'm guess then that them becoming famous for their feat is a natural side effect, rather than the desired end result.
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Jun 16, 2015 15:33
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Halloween Jack posted:There are probably a lot of valid concepts for Adepts that would be mostly unplayable by the PCs. I bet you could base a great campaign around fighting a cult of Adepts who get off on online harassment, but it would be too uncomfortable for most people. It can depend a lot on the game level. Street level play tends to revolve around a group of normal people brought together to handle some kind of bizarre situation or mystery. Maybe you're all people whose loved ones were victims of a supernatural murderer, maybe you're all the targets of a supernatural murderer. Maybe some duke has hit you with a Proxy ritual that means you're all being hunted by his enemies, now you've got to find him and kill him to break the proxy. Street Level games tend to have a single driving goal that pushes you forward and once you're done you've probably learned enough to qualify as Global level or the game ends and you try and get back to your normal lives. Cosmic level play is almost always driven by one of the big secrets behind the setting and you have some kind of stake in the major power struggles. It lends itself best to long-term gaming. Global level games are probably the most popular (because that's when you get adepts and avatars and cool things) but also the hardest to wrap your head around. They tend to be either sand-box style (you're a bunch of adepts and/or avatars who work together to deal with all the other bastards in City X) or involve you belonging to one of the major cabals with a "built in" agenda (like being a team of Sleepers who're assigned to police the magickal community in your area). quote:See there are so many good spells that you can come up with for a car adept that it's hard to narrow them down! Is there like a normal limit for Adepts in UA? Each official Adept has 13 Formula spells included in their write-up. That's not a hard limit or anything, but once an individual character has more than 14 formula spells known they suffer a penalty to using Random Magick as their concept of their magick becomes more concrete and stiff.
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Jun 16, 2015 15:38
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oriongates posted:Each official Adept has 13 Formula spells included in their write-up. That's not a hard limit or anything, but once an individual character has more than 14 formula spells known they suffer a penalty to using Random Magick as their concept of their magick becomes more concrete and stiff. quote:Getaway (minor)
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Jun 16, 2015 16:00
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Mortal Remains Ghosts have been around forever. They need things and want things, and we can understand that. Ghosts are easy to grasp, though. But there are people who, while not ghosts themselves, walk among them. They have been called the haunted, the Fog Men, revenants - but the term most hunters use is ghostwalker. They straddle the line between life and death. They are mediums, psychopomps and horrors. To the dead, they can be a best friend or worst foe. To a hunter, they can be a great ally or a nightmare. Despite what you might believe after seeing their powers, they are alive - living humans who have stepped into death. It's not entirely clear what you should do about them. Where they go, ghosts follow. They complicate hauntings, but they can also help solve them. Ghostwalkers have little in the way of mythic history. I mean, yeah, you could identify them with Isiris or Dionysus or Inanna. But it doesn't quite fit, no matter what you do. They could Heracles or Orpheus, but that doesn't really fit, either. There is evidence of their existence within the past 200 years, but older information is harder to track and verify. The oldest accounts seem to trace back to Egypt, and some believe that the ghostwalkers there were so prominent that a civil war between them divided the northern and southern kingdoms. However, most believe that vastly overstates their involvement in ancient Egypt. There's all kinds of theories. Maybe the ghosts that haunt the ghostwalkers aren't ghosts at all, but the remnant of the ancient Egyptian ghostwalkers. Or maybe they're Egyptian deities, speaking to modern ghostwalkers. Or maybe that's all bullshit. It's kind of hard to tell. There seem to have been less ghostwalkers between now and Egypt, or at least less reports of them - they might have been misidentified as other stuff. Accounts of them become more frequent and more active since the 19th century. Mediums, spiritualists and spectral photography became popular then, and some believe ghostwalkers used that interest to claim connection to ghosts and gain some fame. Some believe Jack the Ripper was a ghostwalker, urged un by a 'demon' over his shoulder. Still, the ghostwalkers seem to have been mostly civil, and more among the poor than the wealthy. There's all kinds of theories about why - the poor are more likely to die violently, suddenly or young, and the rich can afford coverups. The Wordl Wars seem to have increased the number of ghostwalkers or at least the news about them. There are reports in World War I of the Sleepers, a sort of ghostwalker that wandered the battlefields to put the ghosts to rest. Some British hunters worked closely with them until war casualties split the group up. Poland, in WW2, was supposedly infested with ghostwalkers. Hunters who believe ghostwalkers are themselves a type of ghost point to this period and the mounting evidence of ghostly sentience, as an increasing number of ghost sightings claimed to see undead soldiers return to battle after death. The Loyalists of Thule, after WW2, began to monitor these reports, and found them active in the Soviet Union, occasionally rumored to rule entire towns, though that was probably exaggerated. North American ghostwalker activity has traditionally been more subdued than in Europe, though, especially after the decline of mediumship. Still, there have been reports throughout the older parts of the US. For some reason, ghostwalkers seem to also congregate and celebrate holidays like Mardi Gras. Since the late 70s, Louisiana has had a spike in ghostwalkers, particularly during Dia de los Muertos, All Hallows' Eve and All Saint's Day. No one is entirely sure why. Often, ghostwalker culture seems to have an element of celebration, of living life to the fullest. It is confusing, but perhaps the ghostwalkers have no choice - either celebrate what they are, or despair because they are surrounded by death. Accounts on how active they are vary, but numbers seem to have stabilized. The spike after WW2 ended decades ago and the fall of the Iron Curtain revealed no grand ghostwalker conspiracies. They seem to be rare. Apparently, the ghostwalkers are in flux, their culture and attitudes shifting more than other supernaturals. They're hard to track and catalog. Much of what hunters know about them is unproven and most don't know much. To most hunters, they are an enigma, living ghosts that walk the lands of the living and the dead. They are flesh and blood, but with powers and mindsets like the dead. Sometimes, they are helpful. Sometimes their mere presence is dangerous. Some ghostwalkers show up at hauntings, trying to help spirits move on or contain dangerous ones. This can be helpful...but sometimes, ghostwalkers seem to want to make a situation worse. They might free a vengeful ghost trapped in a building or kill someone the ghost is angry at. They may try to kill you for trying to get rid of the ghost. They often do whatever it takes to stop people that interefere with them. Ghostwalkers know a lot about death, but no two groups are exactly alike. Some of them claim to have visited an Underworld full of ancient dead. Certainly, they understand ghosts better than hunters do. They are better at dealing with ghosts than they are at literally anything else, able to see and talk to them effortlessly, even touch them. Some of them have immense powers, too, able to even make ghosts solid or draw on their abilities. Ghostwalkers often pop up hunting slashers, too, in revenge for the dead. Your big challenge is figuring out what a ghostwalker is doing and why. They can shrug off terrible injury by releasing ectoplasm from their wounds, which closes them. This is why some ghostwlakers are considered to be a similar type of monster known as the Fog Men. Worse, a ghostwalker that dies can come back to life. It is practically certain that you're going to have to kill a ghostwalker several times. They are powerful mediums, but can have other powers - some can haunt areas or attack people invisibly. Some can curse people or twist themselves into monsters. But not all ghostwalkers can do any of that. You need information to deal with ghostwalkers, because they're very diverse. Sometimes, if you're careful, you might spot another figure when they use their powers - just for a second. When ghostwalkers are shown proof that something supernatural is walking with them, they tend to clam up, maybe mentioning some kind of bragain or binding but not discussing any details. Hunters who have studied ghostwalkers often believe that they are possessed by a ghost, and that relationship is key to understanding them. They are often more silent on those ghosts than anything else about them. Others believe that the ability to rise fro mthe dead is proof that the haunted are a kind of mummy, who can also resurrect themselves. Most hunters don't realize many ghostwalkers only get one get-out-of-death-free card - it's not something ghostwalkers share freely. They have no obvious weaknesses, either. Unfortunately, talking to a ghostwalker's personal ghost seems impossible, which has led some to believe they are demons, not ghosts. The more scientific hunters note that ghostwalker behavior often seems to be religiously motivated, or perhaps caused by a supernatural obsession. They note that ghostwalkers with such fixations often follow them rigidly and without exception.  Ghostwalkers are extremely resistant to drugs and poisons, and they cannot be knocked unconscious by any means whatsoever. They can return from death, generally at dawn or dusk. When they do, they are grievously wounded, and someone else will die - someone non-supernatural and human and nearby. Some coincidence or accident will cause the death, its nature determined by the ghostwalker's animating force. No ghostwalker can do this more than five times, but they retain all memories on resurrection. Ghostwalkers can resist damage by filling their wounds with ectoplasm, removing any wound penalties. Ghostwalkers can draw ectoplasm from haunted places or by consuming ghosts. They can bleed ectoplasm onto ghosts to restore them to full awareness of their situation and surroundings, and my use ectoplasm to open Avernian Gates. They can see and hear ghosts at all times, and with an act of will, they may interact with them physically. They can also sense when ghosts use ghost magic, and can see Avernian Gates. They may tell if someone is dying or going to die soon by looking at them and sense their health easily. They can detect the undead at a glance. Their powers are often enhanced by the use of objects linked to sites where death is present - a murder weapon, say, often helps them use their powers to kill. They are often incredibly powerful and dangerous. Next time: Compacts.
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Jun 16, 2015 16:14
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What are Fog Men? I don't know Geist that well.
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Jun 16, 2015 16:34
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Pope Guilty posted:What are Fog Men? I don't know Geist that well.
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Jun 16, 2015 16:44
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pkfan2004 posted:It's just another name for the Sin Eaters. They're called Fog Men because when they're hurt, the wounds "leak Fog" before healing. I completely forgot about the plasm effect. Thought they were referring to some separate thing.
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Jun 16, 2015 16:48
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Speleothing posted:Waaaay back when 4e was being announced and these preview posts hitting the Wizards site, I read this and thought it was the best idea. 1-10 you advance your racial abilities alongside your class abilities. Then 11-20 Class + PrC, then you hit Epic. Advancing stuff in parallel?! Madness!
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Jun 16, 2015 20:06
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Mortal Remains Ashwood Abbey finds ghostwalkers a fascinating dilemma. On the one hand, they know how to party. They can take drugs that'd kill a normal person, and they have a fun approach to the world. They talk about everything that no one expects a death-oriented creature to do. But they're also really, really interesting to hunt. They return from the dead to be hunted again. They take a lot of punishment, so the hunt goes on longer, and the ectoplasm-bleeding makes for one hell of a shoiw. If you know where they are and can isolate them from ghosts, they're about as hard to fight as, say, a werewolf. But the Abbey doesn't really grasp how dangerous ghostwalkers really are. Killing one to hunt them again when they rise sounds like a good plan, but every time they do it, a nearby member or maybe a servant meets a sudden, accidental death. It may seem random, but they're starting to grasp the pattern. It's happened enough that it seems unavoidable. Worse, the haunted seem to be pretty good at warning each other. It used to be only a minor problem, but now it's a real pain. Kill one, none of the others will talk to you. Some of them even start attacking on sight. They seem to just know who killed who, and it's not entirely clear how. It's a tense situation, building up to some greater conflict. Most interactions now are hostile. The ghostwalkers know little about the Abbey, but enough to know, vaguely, what they represent. They're getting pissed off. The Abbey, on the other hand, knows what draws in ghostwalkers: a haunting. They've also learned that once the ghostwalkers show up they are exceptionally good at seeing if it's a real haunting or not, so sometimes the Abbey just adopts a real haunted house instead of trying to fake one. Once they have a haunt, they tend to try to conceal their identities. More than one interaction has gone south only after the ghostwalker got invited to a party. The Abbey has understood that superior firepower is very vaulable, and have no idea what weakens ghostwalkers. They're sure something does, but they haven't found it yet. For a while, they thought it was sea salt, but that turned out to be wrong. For now, they party when they can, hunt when they can and do both with as much gusto as possible. The Long Night have discovered ghostwalkers and that they sometimes call themselves other names. They originally thought they were dealing with witches until seizing materials from a group in Phoenix who referred to themselves as 'chosen' and aligned themselves with the colors of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. This has led the Long Night to conclude that ghostwalkers are the created servants of the Horsemen to battle the righteous. Now, they are deeply interested in this army of the Horsemen. Many believe they must serve the Antichrist, and that the Pale Rider may in fact be the Antichrist. Thus, ghostwalkers may be demons trying to end the world. Still, there is debate over their nature - are they created monsters, or former dead humans now enslaved to the will of the Horsemen? Recent evidence suggests that they have no free will, but it's hardly settled. Some believe it is their duty to determine how they regenerate and replenish their number, then kill them as quickly as they can to prevent them spreading. It's a dire situation. For the most part, the Long Night deals with ghostwalkers singly and works to find ways to keep them dead. Those that believe they are possessed, however, have tried to capture and exorcise them. A pastor in Arkansas by the name of Joshua Waverly has set up a prison for ghostwalkers where he carries out his own exorcism - as yet, entirely unsuccessfully. This has convinced some that redeeming them is a waste of time, that they are willing agents and must be shown no mercy. However, the Merciful faction have not yet given up. Some believe that the existence of ghostwalkers is proof of the Tribulation and so their arrival is a cause for celebration, though they themselves are to be fought. The Loyalists of Thule know well about the Fog Men, ever since the second World War. They were there when the angry dead swarmed Nazi territories for vengeance. They recorded how the creatures stood after any wounds, bleeding fog but unstopped. Many of their victims were guilty, but others were just targets of convenience with no part in the Nazi government. They believed the Fog Men had the secret to eternal life, which they sought until 1945. After WWII, they continued to study the Fog Men, but learned little new. They know they were connected to angry ghosts. Now, they believe that the number of Fog Men in the West has dwindled to a fraction of what existed during the World War. This has led to the theory that violent deaths produce more Fog Men, and those deaths also cause a specialized type of ghost that rights wrongs. They have studied how the Fog Men tend to protect people from ghosts, which is interesting to them, but not scary. They know Fog Men are able to commit terrible destruction when angered, and they believe Fog Men swell in numbers after mass killing, so the real problem won't be solved by killing any one Fog Man. Better to keep them from being generated. Their source is open to debate, however. Some believe they bargained for new life with gods of the Underworld, but the truth is am ystery. Whatever their origins, the Loyalists do have proof that they aren't human: they can travel via the lands of the dead to cross great distances. The Loyalists as a whole agree that they need to study the threat of any given Fog Man and decide how to deal with them individually. Usually via traps, not murder, if they have to do something. If not, they just watch. They've stopped doing interviews - they haven't learned anything new from them in years. However, they do spend a lot of time locating doors to the Underworld, which they have studied extensively and, until recently, were never able to open. What they found, however, when they got a door under Berlin to open, was a strangel and of ghosts, some sentient and some barely animal, a land where all of the dead were slowly drawn deeper in, beyond strange rivers. To date, only one cell has gone through and returned alive. It was a very traumatic experience they don't intend to repeat, so the Loyalists have been trying to find other volunteers - including Fog Men. They may not trust htem, but they know that the secrets of the Underworld will not be found without guides. Network Zero finds the haunted interesting - they don't frown on talking about what they do. Not that they're very forthcoming, mind, but that's usually for personal reasons. Unfortunately, most of the things that the haunted and ghosts can do are easily manufactured special effects - levitation, ectoplasm, bleeding walls...it's all so easily faked, so most people don't believe the videos. Still, ghostwalkers can be pretty forthcoming. Unfortunately, Network Zero have yet to learn that ghostwalkers are often themselves very ignorant on anything except ghosts, the Underworld and hauntings. There's also the problem of some of them being willing to kill and destroy cameras to keep people from 'interfering' with the dead. They're a minority, but they're very difficult to ignore. In fact, encounters with them have forced Network Zero to rethink its friendly approach. Most haunted are good contacts, but they can't be trusted. Some progress has been made, however. Some ghostwalkers have used the Network to help send final messages to loved ones, which is fine by the NetZo folks. That proves the ghosts are real, after all. Some have suggested, though, that more aggression is needed. They just have to find the right agenda and do something really big to shake people up with evidence that can't be ignored. Ghostwalkers are ideal targets for this, since so many don't care about being on camera. Hunters have begun actively tracking down ghostwalkers and trying to recruit them for this scheme, but others think this is a terrible idea. Null Mysteriis believe that ghostwalkers are humans infected by something that is causing them to demonstrate traits normally associated with ghosts, thus attracting ghosts. The reason others fear them, they believe, is for religious implications of the ghostwalkers. The Rationalists tend to believe the infection originates from ectoplasm, a natural byproduct of ghostly energies. For reasons unknown, ectoplasm is thought to sometimes infect humans and make them ill, manifesting as a terrible fever with hallucinations of long-dead gods making deals with you. Once the ectoplasm gets in the blood, their bodies begin to generate it in microscopic amounts. This allows the subject to cause ghostly phenomena. But, because it's such a small amount, they believe the infected replenish their ectoplasm out of a misguided need by frequenting hauntings to get more of it. They do not need to seek these sources to survive, as previously believed, and it's unknown if keeping them away from ectoplasm would let them recover from their infection. This is not helped by the ghosts being drawn to htem, ensuring ectoplasm continues to enter their systems. The Open Minds, on the other hand, believe ghosts are extradimensional energy beings, and the infection is caused not by ectoplasm - a byproduct of ghost and ghostwalker alike - but by extradimensional ghost energies in the human body. The specifics of how ghost energy behaves are uncertain, but they believe it causes the body to operate on a similar 'wavelength' to ghosts, which sometimes manifests as half-seen images in mirrors or so on. This is not a second being, though other infected might mistake it for one, but just a proof of the ghostwalker's extradimensional nature. Regardless of which theory you buy into, it's clear that not everyone is vulnerable to infection. Some are naturally immune, and in fact most people are unaffected. Only a few can suffer the infection; anyone else could bathe in ectoplasm for days and be fine. To date, there is no clear means of determining what causes vulnerability, but they have found ways to detect ectoplasm via their instruments. Null Mysteriis is most focused on figuring out how the infection works, and would love to experiment on ghostwalkers. Some believe blood tests will be the key, believing that ectoplasm acts as a coagulating agent, giving the infected resilience to damage as well as resistance to poison and drugs. Blood samples would be very valuable. Generally they look for volunteers for that, or for analysis of other body parts, particularly the eyes and brain. Open Minds often believe psychology is key to the infection and may relate to altered perception and consciousness. The fact that the infected can regenerate organs after falling into a deathlike state means some Null hunters have very few ethical concerns. After all, you can remove their brain and they'll be fine the next day! Some believe it's possible to do that twicec, even, to compare scans of the current brain to the removed one! They prefer volunteers, but also ignore people bringing up the ethical concerns. They want to know why so many believe ghostwalkers are supernatural - it's clear that this whole resurrection-from-death thing and the Underworld are pure nonsense - fascinating, perhaps, from an anthropology perspective, but not scientifically. The Union tend to assume ghostwalkers are witches, and they act accordingly. The only real difference is the whole fog-bleeding thing. The Union honestly doesn't really care to analyze threats all that much, they just handle them. Some, however, believe that, in fact, ghostwalkers are the natural step after becoming a witch. Only a few think the two things are entirely unrelated. They tend to beleive ghostwalkers are a kind of zombie animated by a sentient ghost. That explains their power and why they're drawn to hauntings. The main reason these theories arei mportant is that if they're already dead, they're often harder to kill. They do know ghostwalkers lack most of the limitations of undead like vampires. They do know that ghostwalkers often fixate on ghosts and ignore humans, and so they'll happily point a ghostwalker to a haunting if they seem likely to deal with it better than the Union can. The problem is when ghostwalkers cause even more trouble. When that happens, the Union treats 'em like any other morally questionable monster. They're either trouble now or trouble later. The community remains their greatest weapon - everyone knows where the places and people to avoid are, and dealing with ghostwalkers properly can be dangerous to the community - especially when thy come back to life and someone else has to die for them. This makes them a general menace, but also something to fight only when you have to - and that leads to friction between Home First and the General Strike. Some General Strikers think Home First is too easy on them, giving them more chances to gather power and attack than they should. Still, both know that fighting one is a major thing. It's also a dilemma when the ghostwalkers are someone you know. Do the dead of your community deserve your protection? If they're messing with a house haunted by ghosts of loved ones, how do you deal with that? What if they're breaking their connections and trying to redeem themselves? It's a tricky subject that won't be settled any time soon. (In fact, the idea that people can handle ghosts better than the Union can lead to hurt feelings and confusion.) Next time: Conspiracy theories.
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Jun 16, 2015 20:27
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Rifts Dimension Book 2: Phase World Part 15: So many goddamn plasma weapons  It’s not a Rifts™ book if it doesn’t have a list of guns or robots in it somewhere. Given the material, I’m expecting a bit of both, and then some more when I do the sourcebook. There’s a big block of text here that talks about how most technology in the Three Galaxies is at least a century ahead of most Earth culture, except the amazing gun stuff Earth has come up with that flummoxes the super-advanced Naruni. Still, Rifts Earth can’t make spaceships at all and aren’t as advanced in medicine, force fields, artificial gravity, etc. Even listing ‘medicine’ as a technology is more than most areas of Rifts even acknowledges before getting to the guns. It suggests Mutants in Orbit for more primitive/not space-ready civs. The reason the weaponry in Phase World is not just amazingly advanced beyond Rifts Earth is waved away as “the cultures of Rifts Earth have to fight for their very survival constantly against terrifying enemies.” But the Splugorth are also in space. I really just would have ignored that as a problem not worth ‘solving.’ There’s a lot of  about how weapon things from Earth compare with Three Galaxies stuff. Hint: pretty favorably. Aliens Unlimited is recommended as a source of additional weaponry. You can just turn the SDC values into MDC! It’s so easy! But only for this one time, do not make that a rule!   gun, generic model B High Intensity or HI laser guns are very common. They fire laser beams on a “higher wavelength” (  ) than normal lasers for “greater penetration.” This results in them costing about the same and doing slightly (about 1d6ish more) better damage than basic Rifts guns. They range from 2d6 to 4d6+6; serviceable weapons, available all over.  despite the shotgun grip, a rifle Next we get to Energy Pulse (EP) weapons. These weapons seem to spit balls of white fire at enemies that explode on contact--hey, at least they’re differentiating their space visuals. These weapons are both slightly better than the lasers just mentioned and also almost exclusively used by the repressive Transgalactic Empire. The pistol is 3d6, the rifle is 5d6.  a rifle The Power Halberd is next--there’s a picture of it, but it’s awkwardly-sized, and really what this is is statting a thing that showed up in pictures in Wormwood but wasn’t statted, so that is being corrected here. It requires PS 24 or higher, or power armor or something. 1d6x10 MD for 2 hours of continual use on one E-clip. Bring a glaive to a gunfight kids.  also a rifle Next we start getting into the Naruni weapons. The Plasma Cartridge pistol is a little snub-looking toy that does 1d4x10, or as much as some railguns. It is noted that characters with a PS of less than 17 are -2 to hit even on aimed shots which is--why would a huge profit-driven arms dealer sell something most of their consumers can’t lift or handle properly as their primary personal armament?  The rifle also does 1d4x10 but without the -2 to hit. It’s baffling. Oh, and “The gun’s bore is two inches wide -- having it pointed your way is very intimidating.”  The ammo for both must be bought exclusively from Naruni Enterprises or authorized resellers. Each round for one of these costs 40 credits, giving the guns a distinctive pew-ching noise. There’s also an even more expensive tripod-mounted machine gun that does 1d4x10 single shot or 2d6x10 for a burst of 10 shots. The cost of the ammo is less than recharging an E-clip (2000 credits flat) but still way, way more than comparable railgun models which have no listed ammo cost. Though, if one were doing a Phase World game ammo scarcity might be an issue for those. Lastly, there is a Particle Beam Rifle that has been modified to use Earth-style E-clips; 1d4x10 again. The ‘unmodified’ version is noted at the bottom of the ‘modified’ version which is an odd choice: Apparently Naruni and Earth E-clips are different and this is the only time in this book where this is mentioned. It appears to likewise be sort of casually passed off in Mercenaries as well, from which this rifle is reprinted. Oh, so that’s why it lists the Earth stats first instead of the ones for the game world the gun is actually from. It’s extra-good editing since it specifically mentions that this gun has not been offered to Earth markets yet. The ‘standard’ version has a longer range and better clip size. All the other laser or energy pulse or whatever guns up there make no bones about different ammo.  it’s nerf...or nothin’ That thing there is a “repeating rocket launcher” that uses the standard missile types from Rifts Main, which IIRC means ‘use HE and nothing else, forever’. The missiles do between 1d4 to 1d6x10 (again, IIRC) and cost about 400 per. We also don’t get a standard gun for CAF troopers (the good guys, the not-Federation) which probably means the wimpier lasers above. That’s it for the immediate gun section and hoo boy, aside from the expense the Naruni weapons just destroy the competition. I suppose that’s the point but it’s sort of  anyway. It’s shorter than I expected, but that might be why we have a Source Book waiting in the wings. Now we get body armor and spacesuits. Body armor described here is assumed to be vacuum-proof and have reasonable protection against immediate dangers of space like radiation, come with limited air supply or an ‘air purification system (25,000 credits)’ if you want to add substantially to the cost of your paper-thin armor. Speaking of said armor:  are they just re-using long art with some redrawing? yes Light Combat Armor has 80 MDC which is respectable for a humanoid non-power suit but lovely for facing any kind of actual danger and still weighs 18 lbs. If are noticing any similarities to the Plastic Man suit from Rifts Earth, stop! This one is from space! See? It has little fins.  c’mon, it’s even got the Triax thing on it still CAF Jumpsuit. It can go into space, it weighs 12 lbs, it costs 20,000 credits and has 25 MDC. The Not-Plastic-Man up there costs 30K. Military-industrial acquisitions at work. These suits are modular and can even fit Wolfen (though they complain often about the ‘tail pockets’) and if I were a GM I’d let the helmetless version fit inside the standard battle armor which has 100 MDC. The heavy armor has 120 MDC.  fins! therefore from space! Ordinary “spacer suits” are 20K credits which is...actually pretty freaking expensive for a basic necessity of space life. I suppose indentured space servitude is pretty common until one can pay off the space clothes. The ‘hard suit’ version intended for more hazardous conditions (like in FTL when you fly into an asteroid belt or an electrical storm) with 50 MDC a full week of rations, two weeks of air. The “increased radiation shielding” is not documented in game terms, nor do we have rules for radiation exposure generally. Mutants in Orbit might but who bought a Rifts supplement expecting to need that? Kreeghor Battle Armor is next, and it has 110 MDC just in case those squishy humans with non-natural MDC bodies thought they might have an advantage in fighting the forces of evil. Legionnaire Armor has only 90 MDC and is cheaper, also issued to non-Kreeghor members of the Empire’s military. Naruni Enterprises is has a lock on personal force fields, which are the new hotness in personal defense. Attacks that move very slowly (at -6 to hit) are able to penetrate these and the fields offer no protection from environmental hazards. The fields have an MDC value that, when overloaded, must cool off for 12 hours. That’s still superior to the ‘shredded your 50K investment’ problem of armor, assuming the owner is still alive. Force fields are powered by E-clips (the Naruni kind I assume, these actually haven’t been mentioned until that particle beam gun) and last between 12 and two hours depending on field power. And of course, you can be any size of humanoid (apparently) but you cannot wear armor under a forcefield unless you pay extra for the “integrated” version that “taps directly into the nuclear power unit of the suit” of “any armor”, even the kinds that don’t actually have those. 45 MDC for the light version, 75 for the medium, 110 the heavy, and 160 for the super-heavy. The “robot” versions of these fields cost a...lot more. Like twenty times as much because  I guess. Unbalancing to let robots have armor that can heal? Seriously the super-heavy model is 170K which is a lot, 280,000 to have it work with ONE suit of armor, and five million credits if we’re talking robots. I’ll stop there. Next is  Phase Technology which is the unique specialty of the setting so it’ll be super-rare and somehow evil I bet.
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Jun 16, 2015 20:28
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occamsnailfile posted:Rifts Dimension Book 2: Phase World Part 15: So many goddamn plasma weapons The thing that gets me about this is that it's never stated how big those magazines are. If the gun's bore is two inches wide, then wouldn't an individual plasma cartridge also be about 2 inches in diameter? If these things are magazine-fed, then Shoulder Cannon's and Assault Rifle's magazines would at least be over a yard-long single-stacked and 2 feet double-stacked. And you're looking at a footlong magazine if those cartridges are double-stacked in the pistol form. occamsnailfile posted:
I can't stop seeing that helmet as a Hardsuit helmet from Bubblegum Crisis. occamsnailfile posted:Naruni Enterprises is has a lock on personal force fields, which are the new hotness in personal defense. Attacks that move very slowly (at -6 to hit) are able to penetrate these and the fields offer no protection from environmental hazards. No word on if using a las(er)gun on it causes a randomized atomic disturbance at any point and at any energy level?
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Jun 16, 2015 21:31
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occamsnailfile posted:
What.. how is this not drawn in full profile? I hope someone's head rolled for this outrage. I demand dozens of pages of chunky-looking toy guns drawn in full profile with no deviation out of my Rifts books. Unrelated, I'm thrilled people are actually answering our dumbass listener poll, and confirming my staunch belief that Artax's death is sadder than the Rockbiter's lament.
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Jun 16, 2015 22:10
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I misclicked on the poll, but don't worry, in my heart Donatello is forever the objectively best turtle. Who cares about a dumb horse though seriously
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Jun 16, 2015 22:27
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 If it weren't for your work, you'd have died a long time ago. - the Wizened We finish this section of the book with the Wizened Seeming, from pg 120-123. The chapter has the typical tight text, and the symbol for Wizened is a kobby cane and a smith's hammer. This all just makes the Darkling chapter look less by comparison. The opening fiction is one of the first of the alien-abduction references. These are always sprinkled throughout the book, but never really escape the confines of the fiction margins in this edition. Changeling 1e is more than happy to make reference to modern myths but still retreat into the romantic fantasy1. My one personal gripe is that the stereotypical Changeling game has more to do with Gilliam's the Fisher King than with X-Files, despite the existences of Fetches being really good gristle for a body-snatchers plot. The Wizened are more unique than the typical cliche White Wolf anti-hero protagonist- especially as they have been crafted to never be a protagonist at all! Their Durance was not matching wits against a Keeper, but of figuring out how to both do their service to their Keeper yet also find an escape. As a metaphor for abuse- parental or economic- the Wizened are much more aligned with the common man than the rage-o-matic Ogre Seeming. The background for a typical taking of a Wizened is that they were simply in "the wrong place at the wrong time", which always invites the question if any Changeling should ever be blamed for their own Durance.2 Yet the idea of the "mean" in a Victorian sense comes back with a vengeance here. Where it originally meant "average", mean is also spiteful and cruel to their 'betters', and a typical Wizened is not above that. A Wizened is more likely to drive a hard bargain than be free-handed with their work. And never cross a Wizened.3 This "mean-ness" also comes through in that it means you're smaller, too. Sometimes this means weight, or height, but always in social impact. You always avoid notice, and you're never the person that gets the credit in a crowd. Most Wizened, however, convince themselves that they like it that way. All said and done, the Seeming blessing of the Wizened is super kitschy. You spend glamour for 9-agains on Dexterity rolls or adding Wyrd to your dodge for a scene. This is one of the weakest blessings, however their curse is also just as impotent; you don't roll 10-agains with Presence, and are additionally punished on UNTRAINED skills. Other than the differences brought by Kiths, a typical Wizened is largely a regular human with Changeling talents. But lets not ignore the Kiths! Wizened have more Kiths to chose from than most seemings. They are largely very retrograde occupations that don't fit within modern society, and often have older spellings or interpretations. There are no Wizened Computer Programmers4.
Now, here is my soapbox moment. You'll notice that there is definitely more room to grow with Kiths (and even Seemings). And in a game about self-expression, you'll find that most of the time, a player will try to include as many different "colors of crayola" as possible inside their character. Now in Winter Masques you'll find many more ways to expand the box, including cross-kith and dual kith options. But in all honesty, I would encourage you to emphasize as a storyteller and player the purity of a concept first, and a grab-bag of distinct numberwang superpowers second. There is more than enough room for everyone in the swimming pool without having to attach a +1 bonus to the butterfly stroke to it. Next time: The crazy-nuts magic list that is Contracts! 1 - Steampunk Changeling isn't even an ironic parody, its part of the text! 2 - A short answer is no. A longer answer is fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck no. 3 - This comes up in a general 'don't invite cruelty' of the Changeling setting, but Wizened-affinity contracts typically have catches that punish people that have welched on a deal. 4 - Or actors or newscasters or professors or tour-guides. Its common to see people backwards-engineer Fairests, but without the Clarity curse, into Wizened. 5 - Just... decide ahead of time if this means that Chatelaines can cast contracts with the bonus. It'll be easier to make the houserule than wait for the eventual argument when someone tries to contest someone else's emotionally-affecting contract.
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Jun 16, 2015 22:57
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Princess: the Hopeful It's been a bit and frankly I'm slowly being disillusioned on the whole thing. I'm doing my best to tough it out though, but I may skip over to the antagonists just to add some variety. Feh  Connect Charms Powers that allow the user to reach out and touch someone. To tie and untie the red strings of fate that bind people. These are the Charms for the Grace Calling who're all about socialization. Most of the charms that require a roll use a Social skill and of those, Socialize seems to be the most frequent with Expressions seemingly in second. I haven't done a count on this because One Dot Fair Welcome - Gain a condition that adds a dot to a Contacts merit for a day because the user's become magically better at talking. Illuminatus - Permanently gain 9-Again for a specific Politics specialty The Stare - Same, but for Intimidation  The most kawaii of intimidation techniques Laying Down the Line - Pick a preexisting division like a river or a road or a fence and designate a target individual or group. The user will know when the target(s) have crossed the line chosen. It's basically the Alarm spell with a duration of a day for a prexisting boundary (the book says natural divide, but refers to a doorway or a bridge which does not immediately occur to me as "natural"), and a scene otherwise. The line or divide must remain intact for the charm to continue working unless an upgrade is taken First Impressions - Anyone the user makes a first impression with has an impression increased by one (it's a social maneuver thing). Open Heart - Can apply Invocations to mundane Empathy rolls. Not all that spectacular on its own, but the upgrades add a few interesting tricks. One allows the substitution of Empathy for interrogation instead of Intimidate taking Good Cop to a whole new level. Another allows the user to figure out a person's behavior while out of sight. A third lets them get a read of a room and if a fight breaks out by one of the people there, the user gets an initiative bonus. Finally, after using an Empathy roll to understand a person, they can use the successes on that roll as bonus die on Persuasion rolls with that person. The Naked City - 9-again on a Streetwise specialty. I guess it's okay on its own, at least relative to the other 9-again Charms. The Upgrades make it a little more useful. One allows them to substitute Aria (an Invocation) for Streetwise when measured against Availability in looking for certain "things" like rare goods or social lubricants. Another reduces the number of successes needed to suss out a particular rumor or bit of info by Aria. Razzle Dazzle - 9-again on a Persuasion specialty. There are a total of six upgrades for this one. Besides the requisite upgrade that allows for two other applicable specialties, one adds a penalty to any attempts to confuse the Princess, one can make a target Confused on a regular success with Subterfuge (thematically, it fits even it uses a completely different skill) by being confusing, one can give multiple targets the Inspired condition, one makes the user open extra doors when cutting a deal and the last one is the same but with flirting, but requires the Striking Looks merit. Animal Magnetism - Same, but for Animal Ken. Includes an upgrade for reducing penalties on Animal Ken rolls. Mercury's Blessing - Gain the Multilingual merit based on a language a target knows Two dot Better Together - Two people (possibly including the user) gets a condition that lets the pair each gain a Beat one when fulfills an Aspiration or equivalent. Basically a route for powerlevelling characters or the party. Shared Interests - Requires five people with two dots in the same skill to be present. One of those five temporarily gains the Hobbyist Clique merit as long as the group is together. The merit is in the GMC book and gives 9-again on that skill and +2 to extended rolls also using that skill. Seems very narrow The Right Word - Learn a target's Aspiration as part of the user's first action in a social maneuver. Beast Speaker - Gain a dot in Language for a target animal. You Didn't Earn My Love - Requires Razzle Dazzle and the Seduction upgrade. Pick a target and give them the Suitor condition which gives them Beats for trying to prove themself to the user and a Willpower if a pre-selected token of affection is performed like a kiss or agreeing to a date. The charm lasts a few days. You're Only in Trouble if You Get Caught - From the name of it, it sounds like some sort of larceny Charm. Nope. It's about reducing intimacies. An upgrade can let you use it on others, helping them get over someone or something. Another upgrade can let you do it to groups so an application of this could make a group of tight knit One Direction die hards suddenly a group of strangers with one less artist on their playlist. Three dot Cherish - Increase the Intimacy value between the user and another target until a Charm is used using that connection. Leading the Way - Make a Dream or Aspiration special, such that fulfilling it gives everyone who helped Beats. An Introduction - Learn how to find someone with a particular set of skills that's desired and will initially like the user. They don't magically appear. Rather, the ST tells the user how to find that person. Whispers from Afar - Telepathic communication. Person on the receiving end first has to roll Resolve+Composure to actually converse in the other direction and not assume that they're going crazy. An upgrade even allows temporary remote perception through the connection. Ivory Gate - Share dreams, enter each others' Crawlspaces into the Dreamlands, engage in lucid dreaming. An upgrade lets the user enter other people's dreams without permission. Up in Smoke - Teleport objects! Affectedby the user's intimacy to the destination or the original location of the object. Also can only be of objects the user can lift. Hymn to Orpheus - Sing a song to draw the attention of a certain species of animals to the singer's location. Ferryman's Shroud - Use shadows to teleport to Alhambra. Upgrades allow the use of vehicles to be transported in or for a return trip. Mirror Walk - Be like Mirror Master and walk through mirrors. It only works for mirrors large enough for the user to fit through and only the user can go through without an upgrade. other upgrades allow the user to come out of a mirror closest to a specific person rather than in a location and another allows travel between worlds. Four Dot Charms of Entwined Destiny - There are five flavors of charm that makes an Entwined Destiny for the user and another. Each flavor is based on a Radiant Queen and have names such as Great Expectations and rewards the user for improving the target's social standing or Manic Pixie Dust which rewards the user for basically being a manic pixie dream girl for a target. There's also Red String of Fate which is about love. The whole thing lasts a month and is all one directional though there's an upgrade to make one bidirectional. Also another upgrade allows tying two people together rather than the user. The Old Allegiance - The version specific to the Queen of Tears is another Entwined Destiny one, but ties the target to an organization, usually Alhambra, but possibly others. Unlike the other previous one, this can be done on an unwilling target (and obviously triggers a Compromise). Ultimate Fidelity - The user devotes themselves to a cause and gains willpower when they advance it and doubles their resistance stat when others try to prevent them from pursuing it. Opting not to further their cause requires a Resolve+Composure roll and whenever their cause becomes impossible to fulfill, the user suffers aggravated damage because their soul seeks redemption in failing an oath. Standing on a Pedestal - The version of the Entwined Destiny Charm for the Queen of Mirrors. Binds another to seeks the User's approval and favor. Five Dot Only one charm here. Becoming the Fulcrum - The Avatar charm for Spades. It allows the user to make a mundane Finesse roll and store the successes for later to apply as a bonus or penalty to another roll. Basically set up stuff so as to pay off when most convenient. Fire a random bullet up into the air and then have it come down just as a foe makes their escape as an example. Fairly useful if the player is creative enough. Next:
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Jun 17, 2015 02:43
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The Ghostwalkers in Hunter sound awesome. Are they from nWoD Geist?
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Jun 17, 2015 07:02
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Count Chocula posted:The Ghostwalkers in Hunter sound awesome. Are they from nWoD Geist? Yeah, they're the titular Sin-Eaters, who are the people brought back to life by the Geists if you don't know how the splat works. Also, if you don't know how the splat works, you know how the compacts' idea of what they are sound interesting because nobody knows much about them? Yeah, the book doesn't really build on that interestingly-vague base very well.
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Jun 17, 2015 07:21
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Lurks With Wolves posted:Yeah, they're the titular Sin-Eaters, who are the people brought back to life by the Geists if you don't know how the splat works. Also, if you don't know how the splat works, you know how the compacts' idea of what they are sound interesting because nobody knows much about them? Yeah, the book doesn't really build on that interestingly-vague base very well. Aren't Geists literally just straight up Ghost-Superheroes? And incredibly broken?
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Jun 17, 2015 07:23
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Wapole Languray posted:Aren't Geists literally just straight up Ghost-Superheroes? And incredibly broken? Pretty much. There's nothing that sucks about being a Sin-Eater to drive the plot- nothing's pursuing you, your Geist has no mechanical control over you, there's nothing stopping you from going back to your old life. I blame the recession for a lack of playtesting.
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Jun 17, 2015 07:37
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Sin-Eaters also don't have a big antagonist- ghosts don't make a very credible threat because just about any Sin-Eater can gently caress up ghosts pretty easily. There's some big bad things down in the Autocthonous Depths, but you mostly won't encounter them unless you go down there (which is a sin against your Morality equivalent) and only piss them off if you break the wrong laws in the wrong cavern. The corebook suggests that some Sin-Eaters go to war with each other, but not really why.
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Jun 17, 2015 08:17
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Xelkelvos posted:Illuminatus - Permanently gain 9-Again for a specific Politics specialty 9-again increases the number of expected successes by about 4%. Adding a single dice will usually add 33.3%. 9-agains also don't affect the probability of failing at all. These Charms are basically worthless.
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Jun 17, 2015 08:21
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Unknown Armies, part 12: Adept wrap-up, Avatar Introduction quote:All of the world’s remaining Templar Knights report directly to seven Japanese women who share an apartment in Tel Aviv. Formula Spells Each adept school comes with a list of 13 Formula spells and your adept may or may not know all of them. If you learned on your own you've got only the 5 formula spells (plus Blast if available). If you had a mentor you know as many formulas as they were willing to teach you. Either way you can be taught formula spells from other adepts (either one of the 13 "common" formula spells or a custom formula spell of their own creation). Adepts can also turn their random Magick spells into formula spells through repeated use. To do this you have to successfully cast the spell five times and spend 1 XP each time (you can still cast the spell without spending XP, it just doesn't count towards turning the spell into a formula). Once you've accumulated the five xp-loaded casting you can perform a ritual to turn the spell into a formula. There's no set rules for the ritual, the adept comes up with his own and so long as the player can explain the logic behind it to the GM its fine. Next you and the GM come up with the final effects of the formula. It'll usually cost less charges, last longer or be more effective (possibly even all three)...or it may not if the GM thinks it needs to remain costly. Either way, once this has been decided the effects are set and are no longer subject to change at the whims of the GM. The adept then has to perform the ritual which costs charges equal to its standard cost + 1 Significant charge for minor formula, or +2 for significant formula. You also have to make a Unnatural stress check (5 for minor formula, 10 for significant) as your mind gets further soaked in spook-juice. Then roll your X-mancy skill...and hope it succeeds because if you fail you don't get back the XP, the charges or the stress effect. making formulas is not for noobie adepts. However, there is a downside to learning too many formula spells...it "solidifies" your viewpoint on magic making it harder and harder to change. One effect is that it becomes harder to learn new formula (an extra significant charge for every formula learned past 14, or two extra for significant formula) and another is that random magick becomes harder and harder. Once you hit 15 spells you take a -10% shift to your skill when casting random magick spells for each spell over 14. You can counter-attack this with brute force (an additional charge added to the cost decreases the penalty by 10%) but its possible to eventually become so set that you effectively can cast nothing but formula spells. Creating new schools There's a bit of discussion on how you might create or alter existing schools of magic. For instance, it posits a version of dipsomancy that is based more on the social aspect of drinking rather than the mind-altering effects. Instead of getting a charge whenever they take a drink, they get a charge whenever they take a drink someone has just given them. This still allows fairly easy charging in places like bars or parties but prevents easy charging on your own. Significant charges could be earned by being given a drink by a stranger without prompting or provocation. In exchange you can keep charges indefinitely (the taboo would be ever refusing a drink offered by someone else) and the ability to ignore the need for a special drinking vessel. Another interesting alternate ideas for adepts are epideromancers who, instead of hurting themselves, focus on being hyper-conscientious of their bodies...charging up by doing things like exercising or performing tests of endurance and tabooing when allowing their body to be "polluted" (i.e. unhealthy foods, alcohol, etc). Other variants might include masochistic behavior (having others hurt you instead of injuring yourself) or anorexic behaviors instead of cutting behavior. Finally they point out that, yes, they are aware that "-mancy" refers to a type of divination and that the proper term would by "-magy". It's just that the authors (and the adepts themselves) care more about the common parlance than etymological accuracy. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- quote:The reason why no Iconomancer has been able to channel Jim Morrison, the Lizard King, is due to the fact that Jim Morrison made history as the first Iconomancer. Jim Lives. And he’s channeling himself and living in L.A. Chapter 11: Avatars If magick were religion, the Adepts would be the crazed cult leaders: they spew utter nonsense and often don't wash properly but still manage to accumulate power and attention through sheer, crazed charisma. Well, if adepts are self-made prophets the Avatars are the smooth talking evangelical preachers and spiritualists. They may believe in what they're saying, they may not. Either way they get their power by "fitting in" with the status quo and using it to elevate themselves. In the case of Avatars, "fitting in" means living lives that emulate one of the Archetypes of human consciousness. You can play along just for the sake of power (like an Avatar of the Annoying Hippy subsisting entirely on bean sprouts and tofu when he would love nothing more than a bloody steak) or you can honestly believe in the way of life you're leading. In fact, some Avatars channel their archetype entirely unconsciously simply by naturally living their lives in tune with their cosmic "mentor", although this is only common at lower levels of Avatar power. The Archetypes Archetypes are...sort of...gods. Or at least they're the closest thing to gods that anyone can say definitely exists. Most in the Occult Underground believe that most mythological gods and goddesses are simply different names for the Archetypes. The comparison is hardly perfect as many Archetypes could fit multiple deities within the same mythology or a single deity might represent different Archetypes to different cultures but sharing the same name. Ultimately, names don't matter...each Archetype represents some aspect of human personality or culture (think Carl Jung) that is so ingrained in human thought that they've begun to resonate with the collective unconsciousness, elevating them beyond the mortal world. Some are as old as humanity (like the Mother) while others are much newer (like the Masterless Man) No one knows for sure how many Archetypes there currently are (although some Global characters know how many there can be) and not everyone is entirely sure what the current Archetypes are...some are known for certain (like the Mother, the Warrior and the Pilgrim) and others are more questionable (like the Guy With Pencils Stuck In His Eyes). There are also cases where its known that an Archetype certainly exists but no one quite knows the form it takes (as is the case with the Naked Goddess). What is known is that Archetypes do not act directly in the world. You won't find the Warrior coming down and blowing up tanks on the battlefield or the True King trying to take over the White House. Generally speaking the Archetypes don't act, they simply are. By existing the Archetype of the Warrior subtly influences the very nature of war and conflict. They can plot or scheme from time to time but only through mortal intermediaries (often Avatars). Of course, the true nature of Archetypes becomes more clear once you reach the Global power level... Avatar Magick Avatar powers are often much more toned down and subtle compared to the crazed reality-warping Adepts can get up to. There's no such thing as an Avatar "blast" and very few Avatar powers allow you to directly change people or objects....certainly none as dramatically as an Adept. But Avatars are not bound by their powers the same way adepts are either...they don't have weird rituals they have to perform in order to "charge up" their powers and they don't have insane restrictions they must abide by to avoid losing everything. Avatars do have Taboos but they are much milder and the consequences are more long-term than short-term. An adept who violates taboo has no charges and is utterly without their magick. An Avatar is unlikely to lose a significant amount of power...but it does put them a few steps "back" on the path of their Archetype. To be an Avatar you must have an appropriate Avatar skill. This is a Soul-based skill and notably it does not have to be your Obsession skill (unlike Adepts). Although of course many Avatars will make it their obsession. If you don't start with the skill during character creation all you have to to is spend 1 month behaving in a manner appropriate to the chosen Archetype. At the end of the month, assuming you perform appropriately, you gain the Avatar skill at 1%. After that every week you spend following the archetype nets you an extra 1% and any week where you violate your taboo subtracts 2%. This continues until the skill hits 11%, at which point you improve with experience as normal. However, if you violate taboo your skill drops...usually by 1% but possibly by as much as 3% for severe violations. Avatar Channels Instead of spells, Avatars have Channels. These are specific ways you can use your Avatar skill to screw with reality. There is no equivalent for "random magick" for Avatars...you can either do something or you can't. Each Avatar skill grants only one Channel until you hit 50%, so most Avatars are one-trick ponies, magically speaking but new channels come faster and faster after that: a second one at 51%, a third at 71% and a fourth at 91%. Channels don't cost charges, they're either always active or simply require a skill roll. Avatars and Adepts It's worth noting that you can be both an Avatar and an Adept. In doing so you become bound by the taboos of both and you'll obviously advance much slower as you have to divide your XP among both skills. Some combinations are not as powerful as they may initially seem (the Entropomancer/Fool combo is largely redundant for example) while others are much more potent than you might think (the Freak, an Epideromancer/Mystic Hermaphrodite, is one of the settings most powerful mortal characters). quote:You like the Little Rascals? Smitty, a buddy of mine in ’Nam, had an aunt who collected Our Gang stuff. She gave him a lock of Carl “Alfalfa” Switzer’s hair as a good luck charm. Switzer would cut off his trademark cowlick every so often when he was a teen and sell it for dope money. And man, Smitty would do some crazy stuff when we were in the poo poo, and always came up without a scratch. After this we'll move on to individual Avatars, starting of course with the Demagogue and the Executioner.
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Jun 17, 2015 12:00
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quote:The reason why no Iconomancer has been able to channel Jim Morrison, the Lizard King, is due to the fact that Jim Morrison made history as the first Iconomancer. Jim Lives. And he’s channeling himself and living in L.A. My ancient plan of designing an adventure or campaign based off the lyrics of Celebration of the Lizard no longer seems so crazy. Mr. Mojo Risin 
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Jun 17, 2015 12:08
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Kavak posted:My ancient plan of designing an adventure or campaign based off the lyrics of Celebration of the Lizard no longer seems so crazy. Mr. Mojo Risin Personally I find They Might Be Giants a terrific source of inspiration for surreal horror games.
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Jun 17, 2015 12:20
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oriongates posted:Personally I find They Might Be Giants a terrific source of inspiration for surreal horror games. Cartoon Network had them write a song for Courage the Cowardly Dog for a reason.
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Jun 17, 2015 12:27
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